Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/85

 to Ballyhaise in co. Cavan, much to the dissatisfaction of the northern Irish, who charged him with cowardice (Contemp. Affairs, i. 84–8; Journal of Owen O'Neill in Desid. Cur. Hib. ii. 500–2). Having seen his army into winter quarters, and coming to Kilkenny, he found the supreme council in a state of consternation owing to the defection of Lord Inchiquin and the surrender of Duncannon fort by Sir Laurence (afterwards Lord) Esmonde [q. v.] He served as a volunteer under Preston at the siege of Duncannon, and was present at its rendition on 18 March 1645. But the truce with Inchiquin drawing near its expiration, he was sent with five thousand foot and one thousand horse into Munster, and speedily reduced all the castles in the baronies of Imokilly and Barrimore, and, having wasted the country up to the walls of Cork, he sat down before Youghal, ‘thinking to distress the place’ into a surrender; but the town being relieved he marched off, and, having ‘trifled out the remains of the campaign in destroying the harvest,’ put his army into winter quarters and returned to Kilkenny towards the latter end of November. He was one of the signatories to the contract with Giovanni Battista Rinuccini [q. v.] on 19 Feb. 1646 not to conclude a peace till provision had been made for the full exercise of the catholic religion (, Confederation, vi. 419); but, after the publication of the peace between the confederates and Ormonde on 30 July, he was deputed by the latter to proceed to Waterford for the purpose of persuading the nuncio's acceptance of it. Failing in this, he threw himself unreservedly on Ormonde's side, and when the latter, in consequence of O'Neill's determination to support the nuncio with his army, was compelled to fall back on Dublin, he accompanied him thither, bearing the sword of state before him on his entrance into the city on 13 Sept. Afterwards, when the question arose whether terms should be made with the parliament or with the supreme council, he gave his opinion in favour of the former—‘For giving up to the parliament, when the king should have England he would have Ireland with it; but to the nuncio and his party it might prove far other ways, and the two kingdoms remain separate.’

He quitted Ireland apparently before the parliamentary commissioners arrived, and, repairing to France, was present at the battle of Landrecies, fighting in Prince Rupert's troop, commanded by Captain Somerset Fox. Afterwards going to St. Germain, he remained there in attendance on the queen and Prince of Wales till the latter end of September 1648, when he returned with the Marquis of Ormonde to Ireland. A peace having been concluded with the confederates in January 1649, he was appointed general of the horse, and, with five thousand foot and one thousand horse, employed in reducing the fortresses holding out for O'Neill in Queen's County. But his half-starved soldiers deserted in shoals, and after the capture of Athy on 21 May he complained that the fifteen hundred foot that remained with him were only kept alive by stealing cows. Worn out with fatigue and dissatisfied at the preference shown by some of the general assembly for Lord Taaffe, his competitor for the generalship of the horse, he obtained permission to retire to Kilkenny, where he was instrumental in suppressing a revolt of the friars. But the difficulties connected with his command being shortly afterwards removed, he joined the army under Ormonde at Rathmines, and shared his defeat by Jones on 2 Aug. He signed the order for the defence of Drogheda, and, having been entrusted by Ormonde with a special command over the forces destined for the relief of the southern towns, he succeeded on 6 Oct. in throwing fifteen hundred men into Wexford, thereby enabling Synnot to break off his correspondence with Cromwell. A few days later he forced Ireton to raise the siege of Duncannon; but, being appointed governor of Waterford, with one thousand men to reinforce the garrison, he was refused admittance by the citizens, and ‘after several days' dispute marched away.’ During the winter he amused himself in his favourite pastime, fox-hunting. He was appointed commander-in-chief of the Leinster forces by Ormonde, whom the exigencies of the situation drove to Limerick early in the following year for the purpose of raising reinforcements ‘to attend Cromwell's motions,’ and in March 1650 Castlehaven took the field with some four thousand men. Finding himself too weak to assume the offensive, he contented himself with watching Hewson's movements, and indeed managed to wrest Athy out of his hands. But after the surrender of Kilkenny to Cromwell on 28 March 1650, he withdrew to the borders of King's County, and in June made an unsuccessful attempt to relieve Tecroghan, which ‘was by the confession of all parties, even of the enemy, allowed to be the gallantest action that had been performed since the beginning of the war’ (, Ormonde, ii. 117). Afterwards finding it impossible to keep an army together, he granted commissions for horse and foot to all that applied