The Tuchet family held extensive estates in both England and Ireland. The 3rd earl of Castlehaven’s father, a Protestant, inherited property in Wiltshire from his maternal grandfather, Sir James Mervyn and chose to base himself entirely in England. Castlehaven was baptized at Abbotsbury, Dorset and unlike his father became a Catholic. In or about 1626, he married his step-sister, but in 1631 his father was convicted and sentenced to death for assisting in the rape of his wife and step-daughter and committing sodomy with his servants. Following his father’s execution on 14 May 1631, the English peerage of Audley and lands were forfeited to the crown. He succeeded to the family’s Irish titles, and was generally known as Castlehaven. In 1633 he was restored to his English title and most of the family’s English estates, but not all of them as the crown had granted Fonthill Gifford to Sir Francis Cottington†, Baron Cottington. Further sales took place and by 1640 Castlehaven had sold the majority of his English properties.
In somewhat straitened circumstances, Castlehaven dedicated himself to a life of military service for the English crown and its European allies. He fought in the Bishops’ Wars and after active service in Ireland in the cause of Charles I, he served under the Prince of Condé in the Fronde, being taken prisoner by Turenne at Comercy and released after intervention by James, duke of York. He was then commissioned to lead an Irish regiment in the French service fighting against the Spanish.
The Restoration brought little change to Castlehaven’s political and financial situation. Together with his brother Mervyn, he set about using his influence with the king to rebuild his finances. Taking note that their estates had been ‘sold at Drury House during the late distractions’, and that they were ‘left unable to support the honours conferred on them by his majesty’s ancestors’ they petitioned for a grant of all wasted and encroached lands in five counties. A similar petition was presented in April 1662 and possibly again in November 1664.
Castlehaven used all his influence with James Butler, duke of Ormond, and the king to alleviate the situation. He subscribed to the Irish Catholic remonstrance, December 1661, which pledged temporal loyalty to the king despite any orders to the contrary from the Pope or the Catholic church. He even signed a circular letter in March 1663 urging his fellow Catholic peers and gentry to subscribe to the remonstrance.
Meanwhile, Castlehaven took his place in the House, sitting there under his English title of Baron Audley. On 31 July 1660 he was excused attendance on the House and he sat in the Convention on only two days, 6 and 17 November. However, he was present on the opening day of the 1661 Parliament, 8 May, and on the last day before the adjournment on 30 July. In between he attended on 48 days of that part of the session, 74 per cent of the total. He was present when the Lords resumed the adjourned session on 20 Nov. 1661, sitting on 56 days of the session, including the last, 19 May 1662. On that day he entered his protest against the resolution to agree with the Commons and so drop two provisos suggested by the Lords from the highways bill, the issue at stake being the right of the Lords to amend a money bill. In all he attended on 44 percent of that part of the session.
Given his financial predicament Castlehaven was now determined to seek employment abroad. In April 1662 he offered his services, together with five regiments of infantry to be raised in Ireland, to the Venetian Republic.
In July 1662 Castlehaven was reported to have gone to Ireland to be with Ormond. He probably remained there until well into the following year. He was there in November, and he was still there when his absence from the beginning of the 1663 session was excused on 23 Feb. 1663. On 9 May he wrote from Dublin to the king soliciting the command of the king’s troops in Portugal, claiming ‘I can speak Spanish though I have never served the Spaniard’.
Castlehaven was present when the next session opened on 16 Mar. 1664, attending on 29 days of the session, including the last, 17 May, 81 per cent of the total. He attended the prorogation on 20 Aug. and was present when the next session began on 24 Nov. 1664. However, he only sat on five days of the session, a mere 9 per cent of the total, being absent from a call of the House on 7 Dec. and last sitting on 20 Dec. 1664.
On 4 Apr. 1665 the navy commissioners were informed that Castlehaven had arrived at Dover from Ostend.
In November 1665, it was reported to Louis XIV that there had been talk of raising troops to send to the assistance of the bishop of Münster; these were to be raised in Ireland rather than England to avoid the risk of spreading plague. Furthermore, Charles II had chosen Castlehaven ‘to go as resident to this bishop’, a choice which showed the ‘shortage there is here of good subjects’ as he was ‘a man of courage but of very little judgment, and is not capable of discerning what England may expect of this prince’s diversion’.
Castlehaven attended the prorogations on 20 Feb. and 23 Apr. 1666. He was present when the next session began on 18 September. On 14 Jan. 1667, he entered his protest against agreeing with the Commons that the importing of Irish cattle should be classed as a public and common nuisance. On 23 Jan. he entered his dissent against the resolution not to add a clause granting a right of appeal to the king and the House of Lords to the bill for resolving disputes concerning houses destroyed by the Fire of London. On 5 Feb. he entered his dissent to the resolution to refuse the Commons’ request for a conference concerning the impeachment of John Mordaunt, Viscount Mordaunt. He attended the last day of the session, 8 Feb. 1667, having been present on 85 days, 93 per cent of the total.
By the end of May 1667, Castlehaven’s project of serving the Spanish cause in Flanders had been realized.
In mid January 1668 Castlehaven returned to England.
Castlehaven was present on all 36 days of the 1669 session. During the session, on 4 Nov., Arlington pressed the English ambassador in Spain to obtain the title of sergeant major de battalia for Castlehaven, because of his seniority and quality, a request he renewed in July 1670.
Castlehaven attended the first day of the new session on 14 Feb. 1670. At this time Castlehaven had taken lodgings in two houses in King Street, Westminster, one for himself and the other for his servants, papers and parliamentary robes ‘whilst he remains in England’. On 12 Mar. he raised another complaint of breach of privilege concerning an incident on 25 Feb. when Samuel Nurse and Erasmus Dreydon, pretending to be constables, had threatened to break into his lodgings and invaded his rooms. They were ordered into custody.
Castlehaven attended on 24 Oct. 1670, the first day of the resumed session and last attended on 20 Dec., 37 days in all. He was excused attendance on 10 Feb. 1671, being en route for Ireland, where he had the drums beaten for volunteers to serve in Flanders.
Castlehaven attended the prorogation of 30 Oct. 1672, but he missed the opening of the 1673 session, first attending on 13 February. During the committee deliberations on the test bill in March, there was some debate as to whether he should be exempted from its provisions, but in the end his name was not among those included in the amendment.
In the summer of 1673 Castlehaven was in Brussels, from whence he wrote to Ormond that he had never been much in the favour of the duke of York ‘nor ever understood his ways; but I suspected no good issue, knowing some of his councillors’, and that as for the duke ‘quitting’ over the test it would not be to his advantage. As for the declaration of indulgence, ‘the wiser sort of my religion in England never liked the declaration nor the carrying it on, and so I believe may as little approve this action of the duke and my lord treasurer,’ Thomas Clifford, Baron Clifford of Chudleigh. He ended by noting he was an ‘unlucky man’ having for years been ‘persecuted for having been of your party’ and now ‘I am as bad here for justifying the king in many things untruly said of him’. Despite his treatment at the hands of the governor, he still felt that a good understanding was necessary between England and Spain to counteract the French.
Castlehaven sat on three of the four days of the short session of October-November 1673. He then sat for all 38 days of the 1674 session. On 14 Jan. he was one of the Catholic lords who took the oath of allegiance. On 1 Apr. 1674 the king reminded Ormond of the failure to pay Castlehaven £5,000 as a reward for his past services, and indicated that his pension should be raised to £500 on the Irish establishment, until the £5,000 had been paid.
Following the conclusion of peace with the Dutch early in 1674 Castlehaven served the Spanish in alliance with the Dutch. On 8 Feb. 1675 Sir Richard Bulstrode informed Sir Robert Southwell‡ that Castlehaven, intended to escort Don Pedro Ronquillos, the Spanish ambassador to Charles II, into England.
In April 1675 Castlehaven returned from Flanders, missing the opening of the 1675 session, first sitting on the 21st. Shortly after his return it was reported that he,
inveighs publicly about the danger of France occupying the whole of the Spanish Netherlands, unless England prevents it by vigorous opposition. The report affects the court the more as it has impressed Parliament and some members insist on the great necessity for the king to declare himself in favour of Spain.
CSP Venetian, 1673-5, p. 399.
It was also noted that he spoke against the bill to prevent danger to the government from disaffected persons, and on 29 Apr. he joined such luminaries of the country opposition as Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury in entering his protest against the resolution that the protest of 26 Apr. (which he had not signed) reflected on the honour of the House.
In Shaftesbury’s analysis of lay peers in 1677-8 he was classed as both ‘worthy’ and a ‘papist’. On 14 Jan. 1677 Castlehaven wrote to Essex of his arrival in Madrid, just prior to the beginning of the year, whereupon he reported his opinion that ‘the entire conquest of Flanders’ lay open to Louis XIV, which might then be followed by Holland, and posed the question ‘how far England may be concerned in the overgrowth of the French Empire?’
Castlehaven was present when the session resumed again on 15 Jan. 1678. On 19 Jan. Southwell recorded that ‘Castlehaven is here amongst us’ reporting on the apprehension of war felt in Flanders.
By late March 1678 he was in Bruges and consequently did not attend the session of May-July. In March 1678 the king asked the lord lieutenant of Ireland to remove the stop of Castlehaven’s £500 p.a. On 31 Aug. 1678 he was able to take a personal recommendation from the king to Ormond when he went for Ireland about ‘his pension and his quit rents’. By December 1678 Castlehaven was asking for his pension to be paid out of the quit-rents of Ireland.
Castlehaven was present on the opening day of the following session, 21 Oct. 1678, sitting on 34 days of the session, 58 per cent of the total. On 15 Nov., he voted against the motion in the committee of the whole House on the bill disabling papists from sitting in Parliament that the declaration against transubstantiation should be under the same penalty as the oaths, and 20 Nov. he entered his dissent to the passage of the bill. He last sat on 30 Nov., when the Test Act took effect, ‘making such a valedictory oration to the Lords that they have recommended him to his majesty’s bounty. And all men agree that never man spoke in any case with more eloquence or more art against this bill than he did when it was first in debate’.
Following the passage of the Test Act Castlehaven was unable to sit in Parliament, although on 10 May 1679 an order was drafted for the attendance of Castlehaven and his brother on behalf of those Lords arrested over the Popish Plot.
In 1680 Castlehaven published his Memoirs of the wars in Ireland that was critical of the Dublin administration in the early 1640s and subsequent developments in Ireland and England. His aim was to exonerate himself and to emphasize the point that Catholicism and loyalty were not incompatible and that mistakes had been made in the 1640s by Protestants as well as Catholics. Ormond, who was always sensitive to any criticism of authority and Dublin administrations in particular, dismissed Castlehaven’s work as ‘foolish and unreasonable’.
On 22 Nov. 1681 Castlehaven wrote that ‘I have been in great disorder for some months, since I lost my command in Flanders and am now to seek a new fortune’, yet he remained an intimate of the king. Thus, in February 1682 Francis Aungier‡, earl of Longford [I], reported ‘being in the bedchamber’, where ‘Castlehaven entertained the king after his usual way of talking’.
On 6 Aug. 1683 Castlehaven won the important point that he was not a pensioner of £500 p.a., but the holder of a patent for £500 p.a. until £5,000 had been paid him and so should be removed from the list of pensioners.
