JONES, Sir Theophilus (d. 1685), of Osbertstown, co. Meath, and Lucan, co. Dublin.

Sir Theophilus Jones’s father, Dr Lewis Jones, was one of three sons of John Wynn ap John of Merioneth who settled in Ireland in the late sixteenth century. Lewis married the sister of James Ussher, archbishop of Armagh, and in 1633 was appointed bishop of Killaloe.27Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales (Cardiff, 1971), 84-5. His five sons were all to attain high positions in Ireland in the following decades: Henry was appointed bishop of Clogher in 1645 and bishop of Meath in 1660 (and served as Cromwell’s scoutmaster-general in between); Michael, governor of Dublin and lieutenant-general of the Protestant army from the summer of 1647, was the victor of the battles of Dungan’s Hill (1647) and Rathmines (1649); Oliver was a lieutenant-colonel and governor of Leighlin in the 1650s; and Ambrose became bishop of Kildare at the Restoration. Theophilus was the second of the Jones brothers. Little is known of him before 1641, although he may have been attached to the household of the lord lieutenant, Robert Sidney, 2nd earl of Leicester. After the outbreak of the Irish rebellion in October 1641 he became an officer in the Protestant army.28DIB. During 1642 he served in the regiment raised by Viscount Conway in Ulster, and in 1643 he defended Dungannon against a siege lasting five weeks.29Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. ii. 600; Warr in Ire. ed. Hogan, 27, 31. Jones’s activities in Ulster in this period attracted the attention of the king’s lord lieutenant, the marquess of Ormond, who knighted him in May 1644.30Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 217.

By this time Jones had assumed command of the royalist garrison at Lisnegarvy (Lisburn) in co. Down. It was a difficult posting. As an officer loyal to Ormond, Jones had accepted the cessation of arms agreed with the Confederate Catholics in September 1643, and this led to hostility from his former allies, the Ulster Scots, who controlled the surrounding area. Jones, aware of the humiliation suffered by the ‘British’ regiments who had ceded Belfast to the Scots, refused to allow the Scottish troops to garrison Lisnegarvy in May 1644.31TCD, MS 838, ff. 5-6; Oxford DNB. But it was already obvious that he could not maintain his position without assistance from the Scots, and in return he was obliged to join in their operations against the Irish Catholics, even if this breached the terms of the cessation. In a letter to Ormond of 15 June, he put a brave face on it: although he had sent troops to help the Scots, he insisted he had not allowed his men to take the Solemn League and Covenant.32Bodl. Carte 11, f. 192. As Ormond was powerless to help, Jones was soon forced to make further compromises. By the end of June he had joined Arthur Hill* and other ‘British’ commanders in sending a request to the Westminster Parliament for aid, telling Ormond that he acted ‘in regard our stay here... was inconsistent to our refusal’, but protesting that he wouldn’t do anything ‘when his majesty’s commands shall contradict’.33Bodl. Carte 11, f. 254; LJ iv. 623a. In July Jones begged Ormond for urgent relief: ‘if our stay here be intended by your excellency, of necessity we must be maintained from thence, without having any relation to the Scots, and then their commands cannot be compulsive in any way’.34Bodl. Carte 11, f. 512. In response, Ormond promised to borrow £300 for the garrison from an unlikely source: the Confederate commander, the earl of Castlehaven.35Bodl. Carte 11, ff. 591-2. This was not a happy arrangement. By early August Castlehaven’s army had marched into Ulster, where it was confronted by the Scottish army, and Jones became caught between the two, ‘having armies at each hand of us, and not knowing which of them are our friends’.36Bodl. Carte 12, f. 72. The Scots reacted to the latest developments with understandable suspicion, sending troops to watch Jones’s movements closely, while Jones had no time for Castlehaven, whose men ‘provoke us (contrary to his promise made unto us)’, by stealing cattle and supplies from the royalists at Lisnegarvy.37Bodl. Carte 12, ff. 72, 226.

The two armies eventually withdrew without a confrontation, and Jones was still holding Lisnegarvy for the king in the summer of 1645.38Bodl. Carte 15, ff. 309. Soon afterwards there were other pressures on his loyalty. During the winter of 1645-6 Jones sent detailed reports to Ormond about the activities of Parliament’s Ulster commissioners (Arthur Annesley*, Sir Robert King* and Colonel William Beale), who had taken control of the war effort in the north. In December 1645 the commissioners made a concerted effort to oust Jones, securing a commission for Lord Blayney to command Conway’s regiment, and conniving with the Scots ‘that the Covenant may be again afoot, particularly aiming at this garrison, and hither they intend to ride on Sunday next... to tender it’.39Bodl. Carte 16, ff. 280, 366. At some point in the new year of 1646 Ormond decided to withdraw Jones from Lisnegarvy, sending him instead to Dundalk, where, in March, he was drawn into the secret negotiations between Ormond and the Ulster commissioners, and acted as conduit between the lord lieutenant and Arthur Annesley.40Bodl. Carte 16, ff. 577, 623. In April and May Jones also maintained contacts on Ormond’s behalf with British officers in eastern Ulster, including George Rawdon* and Arthur Hill, and in this period he was commissioned as a colonel of foot.41Bodl. Carte 17, ff. 247, 288; Carte 164, f. 129.

With the breakdown of the peace deal between the royalists and the Confederates in the late summer Ormond’s sphere of influence shrank still further, and Jones was ordered to redeploy to Drogheda in October, and by December he and his men had returned to Dublin.42Bodl. Carte 19, ff. 226, 695. In the same month, Jones was sent with a mixed force into co. Westmeath to defend the approaches to Dublin from the Confederate advance.43HMC Ormonde, n.s. i. 109-12; HMC Ormonde, o.s. i. 193, 197. The mission was risky: the local inhabitants were hostile, and there were warnings of enemy troops mustering on the Cavan border. On 19 January 1647 Jones wrote to Ormond from Kells, reporting that his cavalry had been defeated in a skirmish, and ‘tis probable that the late unfortunate success had against the horse may very much add to their courage for a second like attempt’.44Bodl. Carte 19, ff. 695, 697, 742; Carte 20, ff. 82, 162, 196. A few days later, Jones was captured by Henry Roe O’Neill in a surprise attack. Most of his men were killed, but Jones himself ‘got good quarter though taken without conditions - being worthy of it for a gallant soldier on foot and on horse’.45Warr in Ire. ed. Hogan, 64; DIB. He was incarcerated at Ballysonan, where he was treated with ‘civil respects’.46TCD, MS 844, f. 33v. Jones’s capture brought to an end his period of service under Ormond, in which he had shown himself to be loyal to the king and his lord lieutenant in the most difficult circumstances, when many other Irish Protestant commanders had joined Parliament or fled to England.

Jones remained in prison throughout the summer of 1647, as Ormond completed his negotiations to surrender Dublin to Parliament. He nearly escaped from custody in September, but gained his freedom only in August 1648, after lengthy negotiations by his brother, the governor of Dublin, Michael Jones.47DIB; HMC Egmont, i. 466; Clanricarde Letterbook ed. J. Lowe (Dublin, 1983), 477; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 763. During 1648 and early 1649 he supported his brother’s efforts to keep the Protestant forces together under renewed attacks by the Confederates, aided by the royalist forces under Ormond, who had returned to Ireland and declared against Parliament in the autumn of 1648. In September 1648 Jones, supported by a strong force from Dublin, took Ballysonan by storm, and was wounded in the neck while leading the assault.48TCD, MS 844, ff. 33v-34. In December Jones wrote to Oliver Cromwell* asking him to send aid to the beleaguered forces in Dublin, and in the winter of 1648-9 he was granted money by the Westminster government and given permission to recruit troops.49Bodl. Carte 118, f. 46; TCD, MS 844, f. 31; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 314; 1649-50, pp. 118, 572, 581, 585. He was commissioned as colonel of a new regiment of horse by Cromwell in or around June 1649.50Wanklyn, New Model Army, ii. 195.

During the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, Jones continued to play an active role. In August 1649, when the main army marched north against Drogheda, Cromwell left Jones in charge of Dublin.51Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 116. In October 1649, as Cromwell turned south towards Wexford, Jones went north, defeating a Scottish force outside Lisnegarvy and assisting in taking Belfast.52HMC 8th Rep. 599-600; DIB. By December he was fighting alongside Sir Charles Coote’s* forces against the Ulster Scots commanded by Monro.53Tanner Lttrs. 324. The death of Michael Jones shortly afterwards did not dim Theophilus’ enthusiasm for the war. In the next few months he ranged across the southern half of Ireland: in February 1650 he raided co. Wicklow; in April he was operating in co. Carlow; in the summer of 1651 he assisted Henry Ireton’s* siege of Limerick; and in October he prevented an Irish attack on Mullingar, co. Westmeath, before returning to Wicklow to monitor enemy activity there.54Tanner Lttrs. 325, 342; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 230; Ire. under the Commonwealth, i. 12, 71; Ludlow, Mems. i. 491. In early 1652 he was based in Westmeath (where he took the surrender of Colonel Fitzpatrick), before taking command of an expedition against the rebels north of Belturbet, including a skirmish in which he and his major, William Meredith*, were praised in the London press for bravery: ‘both engaged in the middle of the enemy, but both are come off safe’.55Ire. under the Commonwealth, i. 144, 153; Mercurius Politicus no. 109 (1-8 July 1652), 1710, 1714-15. He also attracted the approval of his fellow officers, one of whom described him as ‘a gallant man, not blood-thirsty’, after an incident where he spared the life of the future (3rd) earl of Antrim.56Warr in Ireland, ed. Hogan, 143. In April 1653 Jones was again in Ulster, where he agreed articles for the surrender of the last garrison that held out against the invader, Cloughoughter in co. Cavan.57Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 336-7n; DIB. Despite his reputation as a soldier, in August 1653 Jones’s regiment was disbanded, although he retained a position of influence in the army as major of horse in the regiment of Edmund Ludlowe II*.58SP28/94, ff. 411r, 423r, 574r; SP28/97, f. 3r; Bodl. Rawl. A.208, pp. 405, 410, 430; TSP iii. 710; Ludlow, Mems. i. 360-1. In compensation for the loss of his regiment, in August 1654 Jones received (apparently on the recommendation of Charles Fleetwood*) a grant of the estate of Lucan, co. Dublin, which had formerly belonged to the Sarsfield family.5914th Rep. of the Dep. Kpr. of Public Recs. of Ire. appx. 43; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 232; TSP ii. 390. Other lands followed, including estates in the baronies of Newcastle, co. Dublin, and Naas and Salt, co. Kildare.60CSP Dom. 1677-8, p. 615.

In the same month as he received title to Lucan, Jones was returned as Member for Westmeath, Longford and King’s counties in the first protectorate Parliament.61Merc. Politicus, no. 219 (17-24 Aug. 1654), 3710 (E.809.5). The reasons for his election seem to have been regional and factional. During the early 1650s, Jones had become heavily involved in local administration, serving as revenue commissioner for Trim Precinct, justice of the peace for Leinster from 1651, and commissioner for the high court of justice at Dublin from Dec. 1652.62Eg. 1779, f. 3v; TCD, MS 844, ff. 110, 136. He went on to serve on the assessment commissions for the city and county of Dublin and co. Kildare.63An Assessment for Ire. Jones had also been careful to renew his contacts with the Irish Protestant community: from 1653 he was on good terms with such important figures as the 2nd earl of Cork (Sir Richard Boyle*) and his brother, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*); and he remained in touch with his relatives in Leinster, including John Percivalle (who reported that his ‘Uncle Jones’ had been elected) and Sir Paul Davies* (who hoped that ‘my brother Jones’ would forward his private petition at Westminster).64Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 2 Apr. 1653, 3 May 1654, 11 Aug. 1655; HMC Egmont, i. 556-7. In August 1654 Jones attended the election for cos. Kildare and Wicklow, where he lent his support to his former major, William Meredith, despite opposition from within the army and the Dublin corporation.65C219/44, unfol.; HMC Egmont, i. 533. Jones’s activity in the parliamentary session was slight, but his committee appointments suggest that he was working closely with the Old Protestant interest in an attempt to broaden the Irish franchise to include reformed royalists - many of whom, like Jones himself, had been loyal to Ormond in the 1640s.66CJ vii. 373b, 390b. After the dissolution of Parliament, Jones became one of the most prominent supporters of Henry Cromwell*. In December 1655 he was involved in the petition against the absentee lord deputy, Charles Fleetwood, which also received the support of Sir Hardress Waller* and Sir John Reynolds*, and circulated widely in Munster and Ulster.67TSP iv. 327. In recognition of his loyalty, in November 1656 he was given a fresh military command, as captain of Henry Cromwell’s lifeguard, and appointed as a commissioner for the security of the lord protector.68Wanklyn, New Model Army, ii. 246; A. and O. A few months later he joined Anthony Morgan* as Henry Cromwell’s agent in negotiating the purchase of Archbishop Ussher’s library from his son-in-law, Sir Timothy Tyrrell.69Henry Cromwell Corresp. 249, 263.

It was as a representative of the Old Protestant interest and as a supporter of the Cromwell dynasty that Jones was once again returned to Parliament for Westmeath, Longford and King’s counties in August 1656. His willingness to intervene in by-elections on behalf of his relative, William Dobbins, suggests that he was working in conjunction with the Old Protestant community in Ireland throughout this Parliament, and further evidence of involvement in that interest can be gauged by his activity in the Commons.70HMC Egmont, i. 581, 593. On 23 September Jones was named to the committee of Irish affairs.71CJ vii. 427a. Thereafter he was appointed to committees concerning the Irish land claims of Henry Whalley* and Erasmus Smith (3 Dec.), John Blackwell (31 Dec.) and Viscount Loftus of Ely (21 Feb. 1657), serving alongside Sir John Reynolds, Henry Markham, John Bysse, Richard Tighe, William Aston and Lord Broghill.72CJ vii. 463b, 477a, 494b. The question of land settlement was integral to the bill for attainting the Irish rebels, and it was appropriate that Jones was named to the committee stage.73CJ vii. 515a. On 29 April Jones was also appointed to the committee for the bill on Irish donative lands – a measure that affected the grants made to his brothers, Michael and Henry.74CJ vii. 526b. He may have been the ‘Colonel Jones’ who introduced the bill for the settlement of Charles Lloyd’s* Irish lands on 1 May: he was certainly named to the subsequent committee.75Burton’s Diary, ii. 95; CJ vii. 529a. Among the plethora of cases considered by the Commons was one of particular concern to Jones. On 5 January 1657 a bill was introduced ‘establishing, confirming and settling’ his own lands in Ireland, granted in satisfaction of his military arrears.76CJ vii. 478b; Burton’s Diary, i. 299. This bill received a second reading on 16 February and was considered by a committee which included Broghill, Reynolds and Anthony Morgan.77CJ vii. 491b. It was passed and sent for the protector’s assent on 24 March, becoming an act on 9 June.78CJ vii. 499a, 510b, 553a; C204/37.

Jones’s own land claims not only coloured his attitude towards the Irish land settlement, but also gave him a stake in the continuing stability of the protectorate as envisaged in the Humble Petition and Advice. In the spring of 1657 he joined the majority of the Irish MPs in supporting the new constitution. On 25 March he was among those who voted for the first article, which offered the crown to Cromwell.79Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 23 (E.935.5). On 27 March he was named to the committee which attended the protector to set a time to present the monarchical version of the Humble Petition, and on 9 April he was appointed to another committee to address the protector’s doubts and scruples over the document. Other members of these committees included Broghill, Reynolds, Morgan, Aston and William Jephson.80CJ vii. 514a, 521b. On 24 April he was named to the committee which considered one of the protector’s answers to the original Humble Petition, and on 27 May he was appointed to the committee to peruse and methodize what became the Additional Petition and Advice.81CJ vii. 524a, 540b. Jones’s public support for the new constitution may have come at a price. At the close of the sitting, in June 1657, he tried and failed to persuade Fleetwood to grant him the lucrative post of commissary-general of the musters, which had been vacant since the death of Sir Robert King.82Henry Cromwell Corresp. 295.

Jones returned to Ireland in July 1657, a few days after the first sitting of the Parliament had come to an end, and rejoined his social circle among the Leinster gentry, for example acting as trustee (with Sir Paul Davies and Sir William Ussher) for his debt-ridden sister-in-law, Lady Percivalle.83CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 394; HMC Egmont, i. 591, 599. He returned to London briefly for the second sitting in January 1658, when he acted as messenger between Henry Jones, Secretary John Thurloe* and Lord Broghill, on matters of Irish intelligence.84CJ vii. 589a; TCD, MS 844, f. 180v. Jones was still attached to Henry Cromwell, and was one of the new lord deputy’s entourage when he went on a ‘progress’ through Munster in the summer of 1658.85Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 2 Aug. 1658. In the elections for Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament the following year, Jones was returned for co. Dublin, no doubt on his own interest as a landowner (and resident) in Lucan.86Irish Census, 1659, 379. His former seat for Westmeath, Longford and King’s counties was transferred to Henry Jones’s son-in-law, Sir Henry Peirce*. Theophilus Jones’s involvement in this Parliament was slight. He was named to the committee for elections on 28 January 1659 and to the committee for Irish affairs on 1 April, but otherwise played no recorded part in proceedings.87CJ vii. 595a, 623a.

The collapse of the protectorate threatened the position of Jones and his fellow Old Protestants in Ireland. At first, Jones greeted the restored commonwealth cautiously, and was one of the officers who formally welcomed his former colonel, Edmund Ludlowe II, when he arrived in Dublin to take command of the army in July 1659.88Ludlow, Mems. ii. 105. The welcome was not reciprocated: in August the Irish lifeguard was disbanded, partly to save money and partly to remove Jones from a position of influence.89Wanklyn, New Model Army, ii. 250; Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 69. In November 1659 Jones joined Sir Charles Coote* and other Irish officers in sending a message of support (and promises of assistance) to George Monck* in Scotland.90Clarke Pprs. iv. 96n. On 13 December he played a key role in the seizure of Dublin Castle, and refused Ludlowe permission to land.91Ludlow, Mems. ii. 185; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 695; Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 1, 109-10. Jones also joined the Irish officers’ denunciation of Ludlowe as no friend to Parliament, and, as a person of ‘good affection to the Parliament’s service’ was appointed commander of six troops of horse assigned to cross into Scotland in support of Monck, who prepared to march south in support of Parliament.92CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 695; CJ vii. 804a; Clarke Pprs. iv. 226n, 241. The capitulation of John Lambert’s* army made this gesture unnecessary, and Jones instead returned to Dublin, where he, Coote and Sir Hardress Waller sent a letter to Parliament accusing Ludlowe and his allies of treason.93Whitelocke, Diary, 562. In early February Jones wrote personally to Monck, warning him of the growing unrest in Ireland, and the need to strengthen Coote’s authority to keep the army in order.94HMC Leyborne-Popham, 141-2. Waller’s attempted coup proved Jones’s fears correct. Jones took a leading part in the suppression of this insurrection, patrolling the streets of Dublin with his henchmen, and inciting the citizens to arm by ‘declaring for a free Parliament’.95Ludlow, Mems. ii. 229-30. By the end of the month order had been restored and Jones was more optimistic, telling Monck that ‘your excellency cannot but expect a blessing from heaven and an universal concurrence throughout the three nations, we being here ready to attend your excellency’s commands in this cause with five thousand men or more if necessary’.96HMC Leyborne-Popham, 155-6.

In the early spring of 1660 the Old Protestants backed their offers of military assistance with political reforms, including the assembling of the General Convention in Dublin at the beginning of March. Jones was duly elected to represent co. Dublin.97Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 199. In the same month a royalist agent told Sir Edward Hyde* that Jones, with Coote, Broghill and Clotworthy, was one of the ‘chief actors’ in the Convention.98CCSP iv. 602, 617. As yet the Old Protestants were content to liaise with the Rump Parliament, and to establish a degree of political and economic stability in Ireland. But other matters soon came to a head. There had been suspicions that Jones was in direct contact with the royalist exiles as early as January 1660, and this was also suggested by Lord Montgomery of the Ards, who claimed to have learned from Jones ‘what was designed for the king’s restoration’, as well as details of letters which passed from Coote to the continent, in the early spring.99Ludlow, Mems. ii. 190-1; Montgomery MSS ed. G. Hill, 223-4. By mid-April the royalists were certainly confident that Jones, with his fellow officers, could bring the Irish army over to the king, and their reliance on Jones’s friends, including Coote, Broghill and Montgomery, is also telling.100CCSP iv. 664. As the restoration drew nearer, such schemes came into the open. By May Jones had enlisted the support of Lady Ormond, who wrote to her husband on his behalf, and was insistent that he was loyal to the crown.101Bodl. Carte 214, f. 208. With the ground well prepared, Jones crossed from Ireland and arrived in London on 28 May, ‘soon enough to see the most magnificent royal entry’ celebrated on the following day.102HMC Egmont, i. 612.

After the Restoration, Jones reaped the benefits of his recent political calculations. With the support of Broghill and Coote (soon to be created earls of Orrery and Mountrath, respectively), his family connections with the clerk of the council, Sir Paul Davies, and his renewed links with Ormond, Jones soon received plum jobs in the Irish administration.103Add. 38694, f. 6. In July 1660 he was made clerk of the pells and in February 1661 scoutmaster-general for life; by 1666 these offices and a state pension gave him a salary of over £300 per annum.104CSP Ire. 1660-2, pp. 18, 237; Stowe 152, f. 98v. Jones was an Irish privy councillor from December 1660, and in March 1661 he was appointed trustee for the arrears of the 1649 officers, a position he retained when the commission was renewed in 1662, 1672 and 1675.105CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 141; NAI, Lodge’s MSS 1.A.53.55, f. 130; HMC Ormonde, o.s. i. 240; CSP Dom. 1675-6, p. 364. He was also elected MP for co. Meath in the Irish Parliament of 1661.106CJI i. 592. In 1663 he was given further opportunity to recommend himself to the regime by preventing a plot by discontented former Cromwellians to capture Dublin Castle and assassinate Ormond.107Tanner Lttrs. 404; HMC 8th Rep. 623-4. In addition to these appointments, Jones was included with Mountrath in a royal order (promised before the Restoration, and confirmed in 1661) allowing him to retain land gained ‘by any gift, grant or order of any power or usurped power’.108CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 189. This would cause enormous complications, as Jones’s lands in Lucan were reclaimed in 1660 by their original owners, the Sarsfield family.109CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 81. In theory, Jones was obliged to give up the estate in return for ‘reprizal’ elsewhere in Ireland, but there were doubts about validity of the Sarsfield claim, and Jones was able to hang on to Lucan until 1683, when the king intervened on behalf of the duke of Grafton, who had acquired an interest in the case through his marriage into the Sarsfield family.110CSP Ire. 1663-5, pp. 229-30; HMC 8th Rep. 541; HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 146-7; vi. 535-6; vii. 26, 42, 79; CSP Dom. 1673-5, pp. 366, 450; 1675-6, p. 63; 1676-7, p. 276; 1679-80, pp. 379, 574. It was in the midst of the struggle over Lucan, in January 1685, that news arrived in London of Jones’s death.111HMC Ormonde, n.s. vii. 313.

The last years of Jones’s life may have been overshadowed by the Lucan row, but he also found time for more congenial pursuits. In 1682 he helped Archbishop William Sancroft to arrange the loan of an Irish Old Testament from Narcissus Marsh at Trinity College Dublin, and the correspondence between the two ecclesiastics suggests that Theophilus, like his brother Henry, shared the antiquarian interests of their uncle, Archbishop Ussher.112Tanner Lttrs. 463. Jones was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir Arthur Jones, from whom the Joneses of Ardnaree, co. Mayo, are descended. His eldest daughter, who married Francis Butler of Belturbet, was the mother of the 1st Viscount Landesborough.113Lodge, Peerage, iii. 337-8; Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland (1904), 294.