BOYLE, Sir Richard, Visct. Dungarvan [I] (1612-98), of Lismore Castle, co. Waterford.

Richard Boyle’s father, the 1st earl of Cork, was the most successful New English planter of Elizabethan and Jacobean Ireland; and with a reputed income of over £18,000 a year by the 1630s was reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in the three Stuart kingdoms.32Ohlmeyer, Making Ireland English, 113. Money brought social promotion. In 1620 he was elevated to the earldom of Cork, and in the same year secured the viscountcy of Dungarvan for his son Richard, who had been the earl’s heir since the death of his elder brother in 1615.33Lismore Pprs. ser. 1, i. 269; Add. 19832, f. 29. During the 1620s and early 1630s, Dungarvan was a pawn in his father’s political games. This is particularly apparent in the marriage market. In the mid-1620s Cork was eager to cement his links with the 1st duke of Buckingham through Dungarvan’s marriage to the daughter of Sir Edward Villiers, the lord president of Munster, but negotiations collapsed in 1626. This was followed by an unsuccessful attempt to secure a match with the daughter and heir of the 1st earl of Somerset which fell through in 1629, and tentative arrangements for a marriage with the daughter of the 4th earl of Bedford in 1631, which also failed.34N. P. Canny, The Upstart Earl (Cambridge, 1982), 54-5. The year 1632 saw a complex situation, in which Cork tried to negotiate two marriages at the same time: with Lady Anne Feilding, the daughter of the 1st earl of Denbigh, who was close to the queen; and Lady Elizabeth Clifford, the niece of Viscount Wentworth (Sir Thomas Wentworth†), the newly appointed lord deputy of Ireland.35Canny, Upstart Earl, 55-6. After much negotiation, and mounting bad feeling between the parties, the Clifford match was confirmed at the end of 1633, and solemnized on 3 July 1634.36HMC Salisbury, xxii. 272; Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 3 July 1654.

Dungarvan’s marriage into the ancient Clifford dynasty confirmed his place in the political elite. He had already enjoyed the up-bringing of a member of the peerage: he stayed at Oxford (though did not matriculate) in 1632, and during the autumn travelled in Europe, visiting Paris and Lyons and briefly attending the Huguenot academy at Saumur and the university of Basel.37BL, Althorp B4, bundle ‘Burlington as Dungarvan to Elizabeth Clifford, 1632-4’, unfol.: Dungarvan to Clifford, 17 Aug. 1632, 12 Jan. 1633, June 1633; Chatsworth, CM/17, nos. 146, 154; Die Matrikel der Universität Basel iii. (Basel, 1962), 357; Little, ‘New English in Europe’, 160. He joined the royal court on his return to England in October 1633, danced in a royal masque in February 1634, and was his father’s intermediary in his dispute with Wentworth over the demolition of the Boyle tomb in St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin during the following spring.38Lismore Pprs. ser. 1, iii. 163; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. ii. 241-2; Strafforde Letters, i. 216. In the process, Dungarvan acquired a more sensitive approach to courtly life than his father had often displayed. Lord Clifford was delighted with his son-in-law:

The young lord is a sweet natured and handsome youth, full of noble parts, and of a rare understanding for his years. To tell you the truth, I am in love with him so much, as I would wish him my son before any of his age and rank.39HMC Var. vii. 430.

The Clifford connection also brought Dungarvan into contact with an influential group of courtiers, which included his new wife’s uncle, the 2nd earl of Salisbury, and the 4th earl of Pembroke, who had married another Clifford in 1630. This powerful family grouping had probably been one of the factors in Cork’s pursuit of the Clifford marriage in the first place.40Chatsworth MS 78, pp. 728-9. As the pressures from Wentworth grew – over such issues as the impropriated college of Youghal in 1635-6 – the earl involved Salisbury, Pembroke and Clifford in the dispute, and used Dungarvan as an intermediary.

Ironically, Cork’s efforts to establish Dungarvan at the English court distanced father and son in sympathy as well as geography. The first sign of this can be seen in the Youghal settlement between Cork and Wentworth, brokered by the Cliffords in 1636. The £15,000 fine imposed on Cork by the lord deputy was roundly rejected by the earl, who wanted to pay a lower sum, but ‘my son Dungarvan kneeled down to me, and with tears in his eyes, did desire me to stop all proceedings, with his own demand, and make it up to £15,000’.41Lismore Pprs. ser. 2, iii. 253. Dungarvan’s sensible attitude over the Youghal case endeared him to his wife’s relatives, and he spent much of 1637 visiting aristocratic friends in England: in January he was at Skipton with the Cliffords, in July with the Cecils at Hatfield, and he had returned to Skipton for Christmas.42Lismore Pprs. ser. 1, iv. 218; Strafforde Letters, ii. 86; Chatsworth, Cork Letterbk. ii. pp. 248-50. Despite the favourable social implications of all this for the parvenu Boyles, Cork was furious at Dungarvan’s financial profligacy, and even displayed a hint of jealousy at the young lord’s closeness to the Cliffords, complaining that ‘you love England too much and Ireland too little’.43Chatsworth, Cork Letterbk. ii. pp. 248-50: Cork to Dungarvan, 4 Dec. 1637. Dungarvan shrewdly turned to Pembroke and Salisbury for support against his father’s anger. The two earls wrote to Cork on 20 March 1638, reassuring him of Dungarvan’s progress at court: ‘he will be able to give you good assistance in your occasions, by himself, and his friends and allies, whom he hath made firm unto him by his noble and discreet carriage’.44Chatsworth, Cork Letterbk. ii. p. 275. The truth behind this assertion can be seen in the following November, when John Finet, the king’s master of ceremonies, chose Dungarvan to meet the new Venetian ambassador at the Tower of London.45A.J. Loomie, Ceremonies of Charles I: the note books of John Finet, 1628-41 (Fordham, New York, 1987), 255; CSP Ven. 1636-8, p. 472. A month later, Sir Thomas Stafford reassured Cork of the favour shown to Dungarvan by the king and queen.46Add. 19832, f. 46.

Dungarvan’s readiness to spend money to cut a dash at court was a considerable source of tension with his father. Preparations for the first bishops’ war had caused much interest among the younger courtiers, and Dungarvan offered to raise a troop of 100 horse to fight the Scots. Cork noted in his diary that he was expected to pay £3,000 for his son’s troop: ‘which’, he added, ‘he rashly without my privity undertook to the king to do’.47Lismore Pprs. ser. 1, v. 78-9. The earl’s objections were moderated by his son-in-law, the 1st earl of Barrymore, who assured him that Dungarvan’s ‘noble and free offer has done you more honour than if you had given ten thousand pounds ready money’.48Chatsworth, CM/19, no. 111. Dungarvan’s troop resembled a feudal host, as it seems to have consisted of Irish Protestants – ‘gentlemen from the west’ – drawn from the Boyle estates.49Chatsworth, CM/19, no. 132. In his letter to Wentworth of 6 March 1639, Dungarvan asked the lord deputy to aid his recruiting operations in Ireland, the task being hampered by the late issuing of his commission.50SCL, Strafford MS 18(179). Wentworth’s secretary, Philip Mainwaring, described Dungarvan’s troop as ‘that he brings out of Ireland’.51Strafforde Letters, ii. 350. Dungarvan took his men across the Irish Sea in early May, mustering them at his father’s Dorset seat of Stalbridge, and marched north on 9 May, arriving too later to take part in the hostilities.52Lismore Pprs. ser. 1, v. 88-9. He remained in the borders for much of the summer of 1639, where his men formed part of regiment of the 1st earl of Holland, whose troops commanders also included Dungarvan’s father-in-law, Henry Lord Clifford, and his brother-in-law, George Goring*.53E351/292.

Dungarvan’s election to the borough of Appleby in Westmorland for the Short Parliament was almost certainly on the Clifford interest. It is also probable that Clifford was liaising with his brother-in-law, Viscount Wentworth (now 1st earl of Strafford) in these elections, as Dungarvan’s fellow MP for Appleby was Richard Lowther, who was related to Sir Gerard Lowther, lord chief justice of Ireland and stalwart supporter of Strafford’s regime. Furthermore, Dungarvan’s father was busy striking deals with Strafford in the spring of 1640, in which parliamentary influence in Dublin was exchanged for land security in Munster.54P. Little, ‘The earl of Cork and the fall of the earl of Strafford, 1638-41’, HJ xxxix. 622-4. The Appleby election was possibly another instance of co-operation between Strafford’s allies in the north of England and the lord lieutenant’s friends in Ireland, which had been a characteristic of the 1630s. Dungarvan played only a minor part in the Short Parliament. He was named to four committees, two of which concerned conferences with the House of Lords, while a third was to choose the committee for privileges.55CJ ii. 4a, 9a. Each committee contained men who had personal links with the Boyles, including George Lord Digby, son of Cork’s friend, the 1st earl of Bristol, and Viscount Cranborne (Charles Cecil*), who was Lady Dungarvan’s cousin.56CJ ii. 4a, 9a, 18b. The overall impression is that in the Short Parliament Dungarvan was operating within a tightly-knit family circle.

The period between the Short and Long Parliaments saw the failure of the second bishops’ war against the Scots, and the rise of a more coherent opposition to the Caroline regime. It also witnessed the reluctant shift of self-interested neutrals, such as the earl of Cork, into closer association with the government’s critics. Dungarvan was again returned for Appleby on the Clifford interest: Lord Clifford told Lady Dungarvan on 2 October 1640 that ‘I have sent into Westmorland about your lord’s burgess-ship, wherof I make no doubts’.57BL, Althorp B4, unfol. On this occasion Dungarvan was returned with another courtier-soldier, Sir John Brooke. Dungarvan’s activities in the first few weeks of the Long Parliament suggest an association with the more radical elements at Westminster, including John Pym and the earl of Bedford, which parallels his father’s stance during the preparations for Strafford’s trial. At the start of the session Dungarvan was named to the standing committee for privileges (6 Nov.) and the committee of both Houses concerning the examination of peers in Strafford’s trial (30 Nov.).58CJ ii. 21a, 39b. He was also named to the committee to consider the fate of the high commission and Star Chamber courts on 3 December, and after a six-week absence, was appointed on 23 January 1641 to the committee against superstition and idolatry.59CJ ii. 44b, 72a. In the latter he joined his brother-in-law, Arthur Jones, and Jones’s own brother-in-law, Sir John Clotworthy. On 27 January, Dungarvan’s brother, Roger Boyle*, Lord Broghill, married a daughter of the late (2nd) earl of Suffolk; an alliance brokered by the earl of Bedford.60Lismore Pprs. ser. 1, v. 168-9. This further extended the Boyle range of connections with the English nobility to include the 3rd earl of Suffolk and Lord Howard of Escrick (Edward Howard*), who were also critics of the Caroline regime.

Despite his impressive connections, between the end of January and the beginning of May 1641 Dungarvan apparently took no part in parliamentary activities, and he did not follow his father into the witness box against Strafford. Dungarvan seems to have renewed his contacts with the king’s army in the north of England in this period. Twice, on 9 and 23 February 1641, Sir William Uvedale wrote to Matthew Bradley concerning arrears due to the young lord.61CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 456, 470. The pursuit of his arrears may have led him into a closer association with his former boon-companions from the English court – men such as his brother-in-law George Goring, Sir John Suckling* and Sir William Davenant; and through them he became involved on the fringes of a conspiracy which would become the first army plot of April and May 1641. Dungarvan’s precise role in the plot is unclear. When Goring confessed to his own involvement, he said that ‘he gave some touch of it to my Lord Dungarvan’ before the second meeting of the conspirators in London; this implies that Dungarvan was willing to keep silent, despite the threat to Parliament implicit in the plot, which also included a plan to release Strafford from the Tower.62Add. 11038, f. 84v. This evidence was repeated later in the summer of 1641, but Dungarvan’s reputation did not seem to suffer as a result, probably because of his many friends and relatives in the opposition ranks.63Procs. LP, v. 186, 196. On 3 May, the day Pym revealed the conspiracy to Parliament, Dungarvan was again in Westminster, and readily took the Protestation.64CJ ii. 133a. On 11 May he was appointed messenger to the Lords to tell them of £80,000 to be paid to the English army.65CJ ii. 143a. The Commons continued to use him as an emissary to Goring in June 1641, after the latter’s version of the plot had become known.66Procs. LP, v. 95-6.

Dungarvan’s immunity from investigation may have owed something to his father’s latest attempt to marry his offspring into the English peerage. On 21 July 1641, Cork’s youngest daughter, Mary, married Charles Rich, the second son of the prominent opposition peer, the 2nd earl of Warwick. Although initially opposed to a match with a younger son, Cork was evidently swayed by the promise of a political alliance with the influential Rich family.67Lismore Pprs., ser. 1, i. 182-3; Add 27357, ff. 13-16. Dungarvan seems to have attended Parliament regularly in July and August 1641. He was named to only one committee during this period (on 12 July), but he acted as messenger between the Houses three times: for conferences to borrow £40,000 from the City (23 July), to disband the army (23 and 29 July), and to discuss the printing of the Protestation (3 Aug.).68CJ ii. 208a, 222b, 233b; LJ iv. 327a, 338b. On 29 July 1641 Dungarvan managed a conference with Lords for the disbandment of the armies in the north.69CJ ii. 229b. His fellow managers in this matter were Sir John Culpeper* and Sir John Hotham*.70CJ ii. 229b; Procs. LP, vi. 143. Dungarvan’s prominence in disbanding the English army reflected his previous military standing, and may have been influenced by the involvement of his father in funding the disbandment of the Irish army earlier in the summer.71Lismore Pprs. ser. 1, v. 174.

On 25 August 1641 Dungarvan was given leave to return to Ireland after Parliament’s recess.72CJ ii. 271a. He did not depart immediately, instead spending time visiting his friends and relatives in England. On 6 September, Lady Dungarvan was delivered of her second son at the earl of Warwick’s house near London, and Dungarvan, Cork and Warwick acted as godfathers.73Lismore Pprs. ser. 1, v. 189. On 11 September Dungarvan accompanied his father to visit the earl of Salisbury, at Hatfield.74Lismore Pprs. 1st ser. 1, v. 190. Such visits no doubt had a political dimension, and it may have been at this time that Dungarvan became involved in another conspiracy, revealed to the Lords by the king several months later. According to the king’s sources, there had been a meeting ‘last summer’, attended by the 3rd earl of Essex, the 1st earl of Newport, Viscount Saye, Lords Mandeville, Wharton and Dungarvan, with John Pym, Nathaniel Fiennes I* and Sir John Clotworthy.75D’Ewes (C), 353. At this gathering, Newport is reported to have said that they need not worry about the king’s activities while in Scotland, and added ominously, ‘if there be such a plot, yet here are his wife and children’.76LJ iv. 490b. Parliament strenuously denied such a meeting had taken place, and demanded that the king reveal his sources.77CJ ii. 359a. Even if this rumour was baseless, Dungarvan’s inclusion in the list of suspects suggests that he was widely perceived as a friend of the king’s opponents by the late summer of 1641.

Dungarvan’s already ambiguous position was further complicated by news of the Irish rebellion, which reached London on 1 November 1641. On 2 November Dungarvan was named to the Committee of both Houses for Irish Affairs, and on 9 November he was named to the committee to consider whether to allow the transport of Spanish coins to Ireland.78CJ ii. 302a, 308b. Clotworthy and Pym were instrumental in securing a military post for Dungarvan over the next few weeks, and urged that he should have the custody of the town of Youghal and receive arms from the Tower of London to equip a troop of horse.79D’Ewes (C), 165, 181. On 23 November 1641, Dungarvan was granted a licence to go into Ireland.80CJ ii. 323b; D’Ewes (C), 353. He was named to a committee to examine suspected Irish agents on the following day.81CJ ii. 324b. On 17 December the Commons issued an order for the payment of his troop, and told the 2nd earl of Leicester, the new lord lieutenant, to send him a regular commission.82CJ ii. 347b. Dungarvan had travelled to Munster by the end of the year.83Add. 1008, f. 41.

On arrival in Ireland, Dungarvan immediately joined his father and brothers in their desperate defence of the Protestant enclave of southern Munster. His troop of horse, based at Youghal, took part in a number of raids and skirmishes in the new year of 1642, including combined actions with Broghill and Barrymore under the overall command of Sir William St Leger as lord president of Munster.84Add. 1008, f. 41r-v. He also accompanied Sir Charles Vavasour on his march north to the relief of the countess of Ormond at Carrick-on-Suir in co. Tipperary.85Lismore Pprs. ser. 1, v. 207. Although Parliament ordered on 20 January 1642 that Dungarvan should be paid for recruiting horses for his own troop, the provision for Munster as a whole were woefully inadequate, and on 21 February the Commons received a letter from St Leger and Dungarvan, warning of the miserable state of the province.86CJ ii. 389b, 446a. With his contacts in Parliament, and his status as Cork’s son and heir, Dungarvan was an obvious choice as envoy to England on behalf of the beleaguered Munster Protestants. In this he received the full backing of St Leger, who told Cork: ‘I am right glad of the pregnant hopes there are of my Lord Dungarvan’s prosperous passage, and I shall heartily pray he may have as safe and speedy a return’.87Chatsworth, CM/22, no. 168.

Dungarvan embarked for England on 10 March 1642, resuming his seat at Westminster by 22 March, when he was ordered to present to the king at York Parliament’s reply to his orders concerning Hull.88Lismore Pprs. ser. 1, v. 208; CJ ii. 491b; CSP Ven. 1642-3, p. 30; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, ii. 392. Dungarvan returned on 31 March, when he delivered another message from the king, and when a further letter ‘of dangerous consequence’ was received by the Commons on 16 April Dungarvan was chosen as one of the reporters for the conference.89CJ ii. 505b, 530b. In the meantime, on 13 April Dungarvan had been appointed, alongside Pym, Denzil Holles* and other leading figures, to a committee of both Houses to consider moves to continue the earl of Essex as general south of the Trent.90CJ ii. 525b. On 8 June he was sent to the Lords concerning a conference for the safety of the kingdom, in the light of events at Hull.91LJ v. 119a. Although the exchange with the king was of the utmost importance, in the spring of 1642 Dungarvan was increasingly distracted by events in Ireland. On 4 April he delivered letters from Munster to the Commons, and was sent to encourage the earl of Leicester to speed the enlistment of 2,000 men for Ireland.92CJ ii. 511a. On 12 April he joined Pym in telling Leicester that, as the money was available for the six regiments, delays in recruiting soldiers could not be tolerated.93CJ ii. 524b. These moves were reported to the earl of Cork on the same day.94Chatsworth, CM/23, no. 9. Three days later, Dungarvan and Speaker Lenthall received letters from St Leger, requesting urgent support, and orders were issued referring the matter to the Commissioners for Irish Affairs.95CJ ii. 529a.

The initial results of such lobbying were favourable. On 2 May Nicholas Loftus wrote to the earl of Cork from London with news of a shipment of £6,000 to Youghal, with the promise of more than 8,000 troops and a fleet to follow.96Chatsworth, CM/23, no. 25. A few days later, St Leger wrote to Cork that he was greatly encouraged by Dungarvan’s reports ‘which have put me once more on horseback, and this easterly wind makes me hopeful we shall see shortly part of what those letters promise’.97Chatsworth, CM/23, no. 30. At Westminster, Dungarvan supported the Irish adventurers, whose investments were intended to fund the re-conquest of Ireland. On 7 June, he was messenger, with Sir Gilbert Gerard and Oliver Cromwell, to the adventurers’ committee to request a £10,000 loan for the relief of Munster, to be repaid from the £100,000 loan already secured from the City of London.98CJ ii. 610b. Dungarvan managed the subsequent exchanges between the Houses on this order.99LJ v. 119a; CJ ii. 613b. On 9 June, his mission for the relief of Munster ostensibly complete, Dungarvan was given leave to return to Ireland, while remaining a member of the Commons.100CJ ii. 614b. As a further gesture, on 31 May the Commons had ordered that £100 be paid to him for the relief of distressed Protestants in his home town of Youghal.101CJ ii. 596b; LJ v. 187a.

On his return to Munster at the end of July 1642, Dungarvan found the province in crisis: ravaged by the Catholic forces, and short of money and supplies. ‘Any further delay’, the earl of Cork complained on 25 August, ‘will be our ruin’.102Chatsworth, CM/23, no. 119. Even by the end of July, however, the resources of the adventurers were being diverted to support Parliament against the king in England.103CJ ii. 698a. Munster was now on its own. Additional problems were home-grown. The death of Lord President St Leger in July 1642 was followed by serious divisions among the Protestants of Munster, as Cork attempted to secure for Dungarvan the presidential office coveted by St Leger’s son-in-law, Lord Inchiquin.104Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 102. Dungarvan, who had enjoyed a good relationship with St Leger, found Inchiquin intractable. In September Inchiquin criticised him for exporting cattle from the countryside surrounding Youghal, and passed a warrant prohibiting this practice, despite the desperate need for supplies.105Chatsworth, CM/23, nos. 128, 129. The urgency of the military situation could occasionally bring the factions together: Dungarvan served under Inchiquin in the defeat of the Catholic army at Liscarroll in September, and soon afterwards he and Inchiquin signed a letter to Parliament, pleading ‘that they might not be left to the slaughter and carnage of their enemies’.106Harl. 164, f. 111; Add. 31116, p. 21. In October, however, relations were still further strained when Inchiquin received ‘intercepted letters which were written to the Parliament in England by the earl of Cork... full of slander against his lordship’, and Cork retaliated by accusing Inchiquin of collusion with the Catholic commander, Lord Muskerry.107Lismore Pprs. ser. 1, v. 214; Chatsworth, CM/23, no. 137. It was in this atmosphere of poisonous resentment that Dungarvan once again set sail for England on 16 November, accompanied by Lord and Lady Broghill.108Lismore Pprs. ser. 1, v. 216.

On his return, Dungarvan found the situation in England had deteriorated into full-scale civil war. Parliament, faced with the continued royalist offensive, was unwilling to spare resources for the relief of Ireland, and the troops raised by the adventurers for the Irish service had been subsumed into the English army. Dungarvan had resumed his seat at Westminster by the beginning of December 1642, but, despite the urgency of the situation in Munster, when it came to Irish affairs his activities were lacklustre. He was named to only one relevant committee - that formed on 10 December to consider a petition from a group of anxious Irish colonels; and this petition, which called for peace, was rejected out of hand.109CJ ii. 883b; Add. 31116, p. 26. Parliament’s monetary response to the Irish problem remained pitifully small. On 3 January 1643 the Commons ordered that a total of £38 of adventurers’ money should be paid for supplying wheat to Youghal; and although on 28 January Dungarvan was involved in an extra-parliamentary committee for collections to relieve the distress of Ireland, this too came to little.110CJ ii. 912b; Add. 18777, f. 136a. Dungarvan’s hopes of being awarded the presidency of Munster were frustrated by Inchiquin’s lobbying.111Eg. 80, ff. 9-10. By February, stalemate over the presidency, combined with a lack of material support, had crushed even the earl of Cork’s optimism. As he told Dungarvan: ‘in all which your letters I find very little comfort, for that the distractions of these times have not permitted you to do either yourself or your country good’.112Eg. 80, ff. 15-16v.

Dungarvan’s efforts now depended on the outcome of peace talks between the king and Parliament. On 27 January Dungarvan was chosen as one of the committee to attend the king with the propositions for peace, and he was granted a pass by the king to travel to Oxford on 30 January.113CJ ii. 945a; LJ v. 575a, 577b. The other delegates included such old associates of the Boyles as the earls of Salisbury, Pembroke, and Northumberland, and Warwick’s brother, the 1st earl of Holland.114CJ ii. 945a; Add. 31116, pp. 43-4; Add. 18777, f. 135a. For Dungarvan, only peace in England could allow Parliament and the king to release men and money for the suppression of rebellion in Ireland, and the earl of Cork eagerly awaited news of a settlement in February and March.115Eg. 80, ff. 7-8v, 15-16v. In the meantime, Dungarvan attended meetings of the adventurers’ committee, as they made desultory attempts to arrange for the transport of supplies to Ireland.116Add. 4782, ff. 87, 89, 119v, 128; SP16/539/127, p. 9. It was no coincidence that he left Westminster at the breakdown of peace negotiations at the beginning of April. On 10 April the Commons gave him leave to go to Ireland, and on 24 April it was resolved that he should be granted the Speaker’s warrant to revisit Oxford first.117CJ iii. 36b, 57b. This was probably to allow Dungarvan, accompanied by Broghill, to meet a number of other Irish Protestants, including an official delegation led by Sir Robert King* and William Jephson*, who hoped to persuade the king to abandon his negotiations with the Catholic Confederates and instead give his backing to a new expedition against the rebels.118P. Little, Lord Broghill and the Cromwellian Union with Ire. and Scotland (Woodbridge, 2004), 29-30.

Dungarvan and Broghill did not return to Ireland until 28 July 1643.119Lismore Pprs. ser. 1, v. 230. By this time events in Ireland had taken another turn, as the marquess of Ormond completed his negotiations with the Catholic Confederacy to effect a cessation of the war which would allow military aid to be sent to the king in England.120Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 86. The cessation was signed on 15 September 1643, the date of the 1st earl of Cork’s death.121CP. Dungarvan, who now succeeded his father as 2nd earl of Cork, supported the cessation, signing the official approbation.122T. Carte, Life of James, Duke of Ormond (6 vols., 1851), v. 469. That his support was active rather than passive is suggested by a letter from the royalist 5th earl of Clanricarde to the new earl of Cork on 21 October 1643, telling him of his fears that the military aid promised to the king in England (as a result of the cessation) would be delayed.123Chatsworth, CM/28, no. 1. This communication indicates that Cork was almost certainly party to the royalist agenda which underlay the negotiations, and raises the possibility that his own presence at Oxford in the summer of 1643 may have facilitated the cessation, signed immediately after his return. Cork’s acceptance of the cessation was naturally treated in Westminster as a declaration of hostility towards Parliament, and on 10 November 1643 the Commons responded by ordering that he should be disabled as an MP and his estate in England sequestered. The same day, all supplies destined for officers in Ireland who had consented to the cessation were ordered to be withheld.124Add. 18778, f. 86; CJ iii. 307a. A writ for a new election at Appleby was issued on 25 September 1645.125CJ iv. 287a.

Cork’s standing at Oxford rose as his credit at Westminster diminished, and the impact of this reversal on Irish politics was significant. His relationship with his great rival in Ireland, Lord Inchiquin, deteriorated further in early 1644, again because of their dispute over the Munster presidency, which was eventually granted to the earl of Portland.126Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 90n. Cork, who had returned to Oxford by February 1644, and took his seat in the royalist Parliament there, was more successful than Inchiquin in gaining favours from the king, thanks in part to his friendship with the marquess of Ormond and George Lord Digby.127Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 575; Carte, Ormond, vi. 37, 77. Sir George Radcliffe told Ormond that Cork was likely to be made lord treasurer of Ireland - a post previously held by his father - and that he planned to purchase the presidency of Munster from Portland. By July, Inchiquin had abandoned the king and joined Parliament, taking the Munster forces with him. In this he was enthusiastically supported by Lord Broghill, who went to Lismore to strip the remaining cash held there by the steward of his royalist brother.128NLI, MS 6900, unfol. In the short term Cork’s presence at Oxford seemed to have paid off, as in November 1644 he was duly rewarded by the king, who issued letters patent creating him Baron Clifford of Londesborough in the English peerage, a title procured by Lord Digby.129SO3/12, f. 275.

Cork remained a loyal supporter of the crown throughout the mid-1640s, and took refuge in Oxford in the summer of 1646. In September he signed the Oxford articles, begging to compound in England.130CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 487. He did not stay in England for long, however. He was said to be travelling ‘beyond sea’ by January 1647, and by the end of 1649 he had joined Ormond at Caen, where he went under the assumed name of Richard Richardson.131Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 102; BL Althorp B6, unfol.: William Thornton to ‘Richard Richardson’, 27 Dec. 1649, 14 Jan. 1650. Thanks to the influence of Lord Broghill with Oliver Cromwell and the commonwealth regime, Cork was able to return to Yorkshire in 1650 and to Ireland in May 1651, and in January 1652 he was allowed custody of his Irish estates under the Dublin articles of 1647.132Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 28 May 1651, 23 Dec. 1651, 5 Jan. 1652. The establishment of the protectorate in 1653, and the rule of Henry Cromwell* from 1655, saw a further improvement in Cork’s position.133T.C. Barnard, ‘Land and the limits of loyalty: the second earl of Cork and first earl of Burlington (1612-98)’ in Lord Burlington: Architecture, Art and Life ed. T.C. Barnard and J. Clark (1995), 182-3. He was able to return to politics, helping his brother to manage the elections to the first protectorate Parliament in July 1654. He met William Fenton at Fermoy to discuss the elections on 12 July, and two weeks later, the corporation at the former Boyle borough of Bandon ‘desired me to advise them in the election of a burgess, which I did the day after, and nominated Mr Vincent Gookin*, whom they afterwards upon my desire did choose’.134Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 12, 25 July 1654. He repeated this in 1656, and in 1659 he backed Major Thomas Stanley* as MP for Tipperary and Waterford, and supported Broghill in his dispute with Gookin over the Cork seats.135T.C. Barnard, ‘Lord Broghill, Vincent Gookin, and the Cork elections of 1659’, EHR lxxxviii, 352-65; Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 6 Jan., 15 Jan. 1659.

During the protectorate Parliaments Cork had effectively acted as Broghill’s agent in Dublin, and their roles were reversed after December 1659, when Cork crossed to England, where he advised Broghill and other Irish politicians on developments preceding the restoration of the monarchy.136Chatsworth, Burlington’s Diary, unfol.: 2 Dec. 1659. On 1 May 1660 he recorded the vote of Convention to restore the monarchy with enthusiasm, and ‘did give my brother Broghill notice of this excellent news’.137Chatsworth, Burlington’s Diary, unfol.: 12 Apr., 1 May 1660. Urging Broghill to come to England, Cork travelled with George Monck* to meet Charles II at Dover.138Chatsworth, Burlington’s Diary, unfol.: 19, 23, 25 May 1660. After the Restoration, Cork was appointed lord high treasurer of Ireland on 27 June 1660 (a post which had been promised to him in 1644).139Eg. 2551, f. 36. He was made an Irish privy councillor in June 1660, and on 20 March 1665 was created earl of Burlington in the English peerage.140CP. He died on 15 January 1698, at the age of 85, and was succeeded by his grandson, Lord Clifford†, who became 2nd earl of Burlington and 3rd earl of Cork.141Chatsworth, Journal of Lady Burlington, unfol.; PROB11/448/1.