PUREFOY, William II (1622-bef. 1699), of Rossroe, co. Clare.

William Purefoy II came from a cadet branch of the Purefoys of Caldecote: the Warwickshire regicide, William Purefoy I*, was his first cousin. The Wolvershill Purefoys seem to have followed the political line of their Caldecote relatives during the 1640s, with William’s father, Gamaliel, serving on the parliamentarian committee at Coventry; and it is likely that William himself gained his first military experience in the local forces under his cousin’s command in Warwickshire.15HMC 8th Rep. 7. When Colonel James Castle recruited his regiment from the Warwickshire area in the autumn of 1646, Purefoy was commissioned as major, with his younger brother, Peter, being appointed his lieutenant.16CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 527-8. The regiment was transported to Ireland in April 1647, where it joined the Dublin forces under Colonel Michael Jones, and took part in the victory at Dungan’s Hill in the following August.17HMC Ormonde, o.s. i. 199; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. ii. 632-3. During 1648 the regiment garrisoned Dublin, and in June 1649 Purefoy distinguished himself in the defence of the isolated outpost of Ballisonan against the advancing Ormondists.18TCD, MS 844, f. 44v. With the arrival of Oliver Cromwell*, the regiment was incorporated into the field army, and served at the siege of Drogheda in September, where Colonel Castle was killed in the assault. Castle was succeeded by his lieutenant-colonel, Henry Slade, who died soon afterwards, and the command eventually fell to William Leigh; Purefoy was promoted as lieutenant-colonel before February 1651, when he returned to England to recruit new soldiers to fill the ranks.19Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. ii. 632-3; CSP Dom. 1651, p. 34. With the fall of Limerick and the pacification of the south of Ireland, Leigh was appointed governor of Waterford, and his regiment was quartered in Munster, before being disbanded in August 1653.20SP28/85, ff. 378, 381; SP28/95, f. 48.

Purefoy’s connection with south-west Munster, although very recent, was to prove an important factor in his career after 1653. It was probably in the period before the disbandment of his regiment (and certainly before January 1655) that Purefoy was appointed captain of Clare Castle.21Bodl. Rawl. A.208, p. 453. This office necessarily brought him into contact with the governor of Limerick City, Henry Ingoldsby*, who was the son-in-law of the important Limerick landowner, soldier and politician, Sir Hardress Waller*. It seems likely that Puefoy’s election as MP for the boroughs of Limerick and Kilmallock was on the interest of Ingoldsby and Waller, who were returned for cos. Limerick, Kerry and Clare at the same time, and he dutifully signed their election indenture.22Mercurius Politicus no. 219 (17-24 Aug. 1654), 3709 (E.809.5); C219/44, unfol. He did not attend the session, however, being one of the six officers (including Waller) who were kept in Ireland by Lord Deputy Charles Fleetwood* to guard against insurrection.23TSP ii. 558. In the mid-1650s Purefoy became more strongly attached to his locality. From October 1654 he was appointed to the assessment commissions for cos. Limerick and Clare.24An Assessment for Ire. In 1655 he acquired estates in co. Clare, centred on the barony of Tullogh, on the border of co. Limerick, and he was one of the agents who went to Dublin to represent the army’s grievances about the allocation of land for military arrears in the summer of 1656.25History of the Down Survey, ed. T.A. Larcom (Dublin, 1851), 92, 101. By this time, Purefoy had joined Ingoldsby’s foot regiment as lieutenant-colonel, and in 1656-7 the two men worked together in preserving cos. Limerick and Clare against the threat of insurrection and invasion.26HMC Ormonde, n.s. iii. 424; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 208. Purefoy’s relations with Henry Cromwell’s* government in Dublin were generally good. In March 1658 he was one of the officers who debated (and apparently supported) the army’s address calling for a speedy settlement of Ireland; and in September 1658 he joined a number of confirmed Cromwellians in signing the document proclaiming Richard Cromwell* as protector.27TSP vii. 21, 383.

The failure of the protectorate in the spring of 1659 brought a purge of the Irish army, and in July Henry Ingoldsby was removed from his command, to be replaced by the radical, Robert Barrow. Purefoy was allowed to continue as lieutenant-colonel, and in October he signed the Engagement and was granted a new commission.28CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 12; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 692; Ire. under the Commonwealth, i. 715. Purefoy survived the Restoration untouched, despite his connections with two regicides – William Purefoy I and Sir Hardress Waller. In February 1661 he was confident enough to open negotiations with the Percivalle family for the purchase of the manor of Castle Warning in co. Kildare.29HMC Egmont, i. 617; HMC 6th Rep. 748. In April 1661 he was included in a general pardon solicited by another co. Limerick landowner, the earl of Orrery (Roger Boyle*); this was passed by the crown in July 1662, and in 1666 he was confirmed in his estates in King’s County, where he resided in later years.30NAI, Lodge’s MSS 1.A.53.55, f. 63; CSP Ire. 1666-9, pp. 233-4; Eustace. ‘Abstract of Wills’, 313. Although Purefoy continued to have connections with his wife’s family in England during the later 1670s and early 1680s, by this time he had been accepted as a member of the Irish Protestant community.31Herts. RO, DE/HL/14951, 12478. On his death in or before 1699 he enjoyed estates in at least three counties; three of his sons attended Trinity College, Dublin, in the 1670s and 1680s; and his second son, William, would serve as MP for King’s County in the Irish Parliaments of 1703 and 1715.32Al. Dubl.; Vis. Warws. 1682-3, 110; Eustace, ‘Abstract of Wills’, 313.