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O'Brien at sea by the Algerines (Cal. State Papers, Dom.) The English council wrote on his behalf to the pasha, and by 23 Aug. he was in England, but his son remained in Africa as a hostage. The House of Commons specially recommended the case of both father and son to the king, and on 10 Nov. a warrant was granted to export 7,500 dollars for ransom (ib.;, Register, p. 179). Lady Inchiquin petitioned for her husband's release in August, but during the same month Sir Donough O'Brien wrote that she had no mind to see any of his relations 'for his being a papist' (Dromoland MS.) Inchiquin went to Paris soon after, and returned with Henrietta Maria, of whose household he became high steward (ib.) During 1661 he signed the declaration of allegiance to Charles II by Irish catholic nobility and gentry, notwithstanding any papal sentence or dispensation (Somers Tracts, vii. 544). He was generally in attendance on the queen-mother, either in London or Paris, and on 23 June 1662 it is noted that 'this famous soldier in Ireland' sailed as general-in-chief of the expeditionary force sent by Charles to help the Portuguese; that he landed at Lisbon on 31 July with two thousand foot and some troops of horse, and that he made a short speech to his men (, p. 719). The Spaniards avoided a battle, and allowed the strangers to waste themselves by long marches and by indulgence in fruit. Inchiquin returned to England in 1663, and seems soon to have gone to Ireland.

Inchiquin's military career was now closed, and the presidency of Munster, which he had so much coveted, was denied to him on account of his religion, and given to the astute Broghill, now Earl of Orrery. But when the latter went to England in June 1664 he made his old rival vice-president, and they remained friends afterwards. Inchiquin seems to have lived quietly in Ireland during the greaterpart of his remaining years. In 1666 he was made a magistrate for Clare; but Rostellan, on Cork harbour, became the favourite residence of his family. Henrietta Maria finally departed into France in 1665, and when she was gone he had little to draw him to London. When Orrery was impeached in 1668, the third article against him was that he had unjustly used his presidential power to secure Rostellan for Inchiquin, whose eldest son had married his daughter Margaret. As the impeachment was dropped, it is hard to say how far Orrery's defence was good. Part of it was that Fitzgerald of Cloyne, the other claimant, was a 'known notorious papist, and the house a stronghold near the sea'.

The Capuchin Père Gamache, who wrote during Inchiquin's life, says his banishment, imprisonment, and other troubles were a judgment for his offences against the church; 'and now he continues his penitence with a Dutch wife, who is furious against the catholic religion, and keeps her husband in a state of continual penance.' Her mother was a native of Dort. By a will made in 1673 Inchiquin left a legacy to the Franciscans and for other pious uses, and he died on 9 Sept. 1674. By his own desire he was buried in Limerick Cathedral, probably in the O'Brien tomb still extant there. The commandant gave full military honours, and salutes were fired at his funeral, but there is no inscription or other record. To judge from his portraits, of which there are two at Dromoland, Inchiquin must have been a handsome man. His widow (Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William St. Leger [q. v.]) survived him till 1685, leaving directions for her burial in the church which her father had built at Doneraile. Inchiquin's eldest son William, the second earl, is separately noticed. He left two other sons and four daughters.

In the Cromwellian Act of Settlement, 12 Aug. 1652, Inchiquin was excepted by name from pardon for life or estate. A private act was passed in September 1660 which restored him to all his honours and lands in Ireland (, p. 255), and this was confirmed by the Act of Settlement in 1662. An estate of about sixty thousand acres in Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, and Cork was thus secured; 8,000l. was given him out of the treasury, in consideration of his losses and sufferings. He was compensated at the rate of 10l. a day for his arrears as general in Munster before 5 June 1649, and received several other more or less lucrative grants.

