Membership is completely free, giving members unlimited access to all available resources, services, features, and benefits without any restrictions or fees.
Welcome back. Sign in to continue enjoying unlimited access to all available resources, services, features, and member benefits at no cost.
In 1690 Ireland became the principal battlefield in the contest between the deposed James II and William III, the Dutch prince who, with his wife Mary, had been recognised as monarch in England, Scotland and Ireland after the Revolution of 1688–89. The conflict was never merely a private dynastic quarrel. James’s restoration depended on the military and financial support of Louis XIV of France; William’s success was essential to the wider European coalition resisting French power in the Nine Years’ War. Ireland’s ports, rivers and cities therefore mattered to decision-makers in London, Versailles, The Hague and Copenhagen as well as to people living beside the Boyne, Shannon and Lee.
Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell, governed Ireland for James II as lord deputy. A Catholic royalist and an energetic political operator, Tyrconnell had spent the previous years remodelling the Irish administration. Catholics were increasingly appointed to offices in the army, law, local government and county administration from which they had long been excluded. In the army, the change was especially conspicuous: Protestant officers and soldiers had been removed or marginalised, while Catholic recruitment and promotion accelerated.
Tyrconnell’s appointment as lord deputy was recorded on 8 January 1687, replacing the Protestant lord lieutenant, Henry Hyde, second earl of Clarendon. He was sworn into office in February. The distinction mattered: Tyrconnell held the practical powers of chief governor but the deliberately lesser title of lord deputy signalled James II’s caution. The king wanted Catholic advancement, but did not wish to provoke Protestant subjects unnecessarily or to commit himself immediately to a wholesale revision of the land settlement.
On 9 January, Henry Hyde, second earl of Clarendon, was sworn in at Dublin as lord lieutenant. Clarendon was the king’s brother-in-law and a committed Anglican. His appointment initially suggested that James might pursue Catholic relief while retaining an experienced Protestant magnate at the summit of Irish government. Yet the arrangement was unstable from the outset. Clarendon’s authority was constrained by the separate military influence of Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell, a Catholic courtier, soldier and close confidant of the king.
The succession did not itself repeal any Irish law, redistribute an acre, or overturn the established church. Nor should the year be read backwards from the Williamite war which began in 1689. In 1685 James’s authority was recognised across the island, and the administrative machinery built under his brother remained functioning. The duke of Ormond’s long influence over Irish government still framed the political world in which landlords, bishops, judges, merchants and county gentry operated. But confidence in continuity was weakened by the identity of the new monarch and by the men closest to him.
Irish government was closely tied to political shocks across the Irish Sea. In June 1683 the Rye House Plot, an alleged plan to kill Charles II and his brother James, duke of York, was uncovered in England. Its discovery unleashed a royalist reaction against political opponents and Protestant dissenters. There is no responsible basis for treating Ireland as a principal theatre of the plot, but its consequences were felt there. The Dublin administration was expected to identify potentially disaffected people, especially those linked by religion, family or correspondence to English nonconformist networks.
On 18 January, Sir Richard Talbot petitioned Charles II on behalf of Catholic nobles and gentry. The issue was land. The Restoration settlement of the 1660s had confirmed the enormous transfer of property produced by the wars, Cromwellian conquest and transplantation. Some Catholic proprietors had recovered land through the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, but many believed the settlement had been unfairly administered or had left legitimate claims unheard. Talbot’s petition did not undo the existing order. It was, however, an organised attempt to bring the grievances of the dispossessed back before the king.
