Lord Inchiquin succeeded to his title during his minority, and 19th July, 1628, was granted in ward to Patrick Fitzmaurice, Esq. By indenture dated 5th February, 1632, the King demised, during Lord Inchiquin's minority, his estate, which was very large in the Counties of Limerick and Clare, to Sir William St. Leger, whose daughter Lord Inchiquin subsequently married. To study war he went into Italy, and served in the Spanish army until 1639, when he returned to Ireland. On the 2d April, 1640, he was constituted Vice-President of Munster under Sir William St. Leger, whom he accompanied on the 4th of December, 1641, against the Irish insurgents in the County of Waterford. In the early part of the following year he performed various services in the field against the Irish; and on the death of Sir William St. Leger, the Lords Justices conferred on him the entire military command of Munster, joining the Earl of Barrymore in commission with him for the civil government, upon whose death in a few months after, he became solely vested with the civil command.
On the 2nd September, 1642, Lord Inchiquin, with a very inferior force, defeated the Irish army under Lord Mountgarret, at Liscarrol, in the County of Cork, with considerable slaughter.
After the cessation with the confederate Irish of the 15th September, 1643, Lord Inchiquin sent to the King before the middle of October, two regiments to Bristol, and two more in November, which were followed by a fifth in December. Waiting on the King at Oxford, his Lordship did not question but that his merits and services would have procured him a grant of the Presidency of Munster, for which he was also recommended by Lord Ormond, who represented that the investing of him therewith would be much for the advantage of the King's service in those parts. But by an intrigue of the Earl of Portland, who was desirous of obtaining the office, Lord Inchiquin was unsuccessful. Feeling that suspicions were entertained of his fidelity, and hearing that Lord Portland was coming to take possession of his command, Lord Inchiquin resolved not to serve under his rival, nor indeed under any man but the Marquis of Ormond; and unwilling at so critical a period, and from a distinguished station to be reduced to a private and inconsiderable condition, he determined to maintain his power; to break the cessation, and to carry on the war under the direction of the English Parliament.
This is the account given by Lord Clarendon; but Lord Inchiquin assigned another reason for this his defection, which was the manifest partiality of the King's party to the Irish, particularly at the treaty with their commissioners at Oxford, concerning a peace, the ruinous measures they evidently strove to take for their own exaltation, and the destruction of the Protestant party.
Lord Inchiquin now became devoted to the English Parliament, and openly declared his resolution on the 17th July, 1644; strongly remonstrating against the cessation. Being joined by Lord Broghill, they had under their command a considerable
On the 13th of November, in the same year [1647], Inchiquin obtained an important and decisive victory over the Irish army, commanded by Lord Taaffe, at Knocknenoss, to the west of Mallow, in which more than one-third of the Irish engaged are reported to have been left dead on the field. In this battle fell Sir Alexander M'Donnell (Kolkitto), or Mac Allisdrum as he is popularly called in Ireland, who, it is said with ‘most of his men, were put to the sword in cold blood; an action which in a great measure tarnished the glory of so complete a victory.’ For this service the Parliament voted 10,000 l. to be sent to Munster, and a letter of thanks to Lord Inchiquin with a present of 1,000 l. to his Lordship.
Immediately after this battle, and the delivery of Dublin to the commissioners of the Parliament by the Marquis of Ormond, Lord Inchiquin perceiving that the monarchy and constitution of England were about to be overturned, regretted his having attached himself to the destructive party, and commenced a correspondence with Ormond whilst he continued in England. In January, 1647–8, Lord Inchiquin sent a remonstrance to Parliament, and in the following month made a successful expedition into the Counties of Waterford and Kilkenny.
‘But his design of promoting the King's service being suspected
‘The Marquis being disabled to comply with his request, and soon after flying into France, his lordship held a close correspondence with him, and frankly promised to receive him into Munster as the King's Lord Lieutenant; that the province and the army should pay him all obedience; and in order to his reception, he would make a cessation with the Irish to bring about a firm conjunction of the whole kingdom to the King. But before the Marquis could arrive to embrace this generous proposal (being detained by the specious promises of Cardinal Mazarin), Cromwell had got Philip, Lord Lisle, son of Robert, Earl of Leicester, to be sent into Ireland Lord Lieutenant, with a commission for a limited time; who landed in Munster with an intent to destroy the Lord Inchiquin's reputation and command there; but his commission terminating 13th April, 1648, before he could effect it, he left his lordship in the command of the whole English army there, which was a better body of men than the Parliament
‘At last the Marquis arrived, and landing at Cork, 29th September, 1648, his lordship received him as the King's Lieutenant (having as proposed concluded, May 22, a cessation with the Irish), whereby he became possessed of the whole province of Munster. For which signal service, Lord Inchiquin (14th April, 1649) was voted a traitor by the Parliament; but by the King's letter from the Hague, was appointed President of Munster.’
In the June following Lord Inchiquin, after a short skirmish with Colonel Chidley Coote, in which his lordship exhibited considerable military skill, took Drogheda; nearly the whole of the garrison of which town joined Lord Inchiquin, and took service in the royal army. He then invested Dundalk, which in two days Colonel Monk (afterwards Duke of Albemarle) was forced by his soldiers to deliver up; ‘and most of the officers and soldiers engaging in the King's service, he soon took in the garrison of Newry, Narrow-water, Greencastle, Carlingford, and Trim; and having thus reduced the northern garrisons, returned to the royal camp at Finglas with more men than he carried out.’
‘But in the latter end of the year, his forces, seduced by Cromwell's spies, revolted; whereby, finding himself exposed to his enemies, and his life in danger, he embarked 6th December, 1650, with Lord Ormond, landed at Perose, in
‘After this he served in Spain and the Netherlands, and being ordered to command the troops sent to assist the Portuguese, on their revolt from Spain, he, with his eldest son and all his family, were taken by an Algerine corsair, which occasioned the sending of Count Schomberg on that service, who extricated his Portuguese Majesty from many troubles. Having ransomed himself and family, he retired into France, and surviving his own private troubles and the confusion of the public, lived to see the restoration of the King, with whom he returned to England, was restored to his estate by a British act of parliament, which was confirmed by the act of settlement; and in the act of explanation the sum of 8,000 l. was ordered to be paid him out of the Treasury, as a mark of his Majesty's favourable and gracious consideration for his losses and sufferings.’
Lord Inchiquin had also a discharge of the quit rents imposed by the acts of settlement, and his arrears as a commissioned officer before 5th June, 1649, stated after the rate of
Lord Inchiquin died on the 9th September, 1674, and was buried in the Cathedral Church of Limerick. It is to be regretted that a complete account of the life of a nobleman so intimately connected with the historical and political events of a most important period of English history has not been written.
‘On whatever side Inchiquin commanded,’ says O'Driscol in his History of Ireland, ‘he was the scourge of his country. Of one of the noblest and most ancient Irish families, he seemed actuated by a thirst for the blood of his countrymen, hardly to be satiated; wherever he marched, the burnt crops, the ruined cottages of the peasants, the dead and mangled bodies of age and infancy strown upon the way, pointed out the route of the Lord Inchiquin.’
‘On taking Cashel, he massacred the priests at their altars, and put to death several hundred of the inhabitants; he committed similar deeds of barbarity in other towns. The memory of his murders is still engraven upon the heart of the country, and his name will remain for ever united with that of Grey and Coote and Cromwell, a curse and an anathema in Ireland. The peasants of Clare and Limerick still scare their children with the name of the bloody Morrough O'Brien, and tell of the judgment that has descended upon his posterity, that no male child should ever be born to the name of Inchiquin.’
Now, my poor friend John O'Driscol, ought not to have repeated this absurd story, (although current among the peasantry