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Wadding, Luke, Rev., an historian, and a prominent Franciscan monk, was born in Waterford, 16th October 1588. After receiving his early education, he was placed at the Irish College in Lisbon, received the Franciscan habit in September 1605, and completed his studies at Liria and Coimbra. In 1618 he went to Rome in the train of the Spanish Ambassador, and there passed the remainder of his life. Ware says: "He grew unto such authority, and the world had conceived such an opinion of his wisdom, dexterity, and industry, and his good fortune in transacting business, that every person was fond of courting his advice and aid in the most difficult matters." In June 1625 he founded and endowed, out of money he had collected for the purpose, the great College of St. Isidore, which for many after generations afforded a refuge to Irish ecclesiastics of his order. In January 1628 he founded another college, for Irish youths, and shortly afterwards a seminary for Irish novices at Capranica, twenty-eight miles from Rome. He was Procurator of the Franciscans at Rome from 1630 to 1634; and Vice-Commissary of the order from 1645 to 1648. Wadding warmly seconded the cause of the Irish Catholics in the struggle of 1641-'52. He engaged officers, and raised supplies of money, arms, and munitions in France and Flanders. In 1642 he was appointed agent of the Irish Catholics, and it was at his instance that Urban VIII. sent Father Scarampi to Ireland with his benediction and large supplies of money. Through his influence, also, Leo X. sent Rinuccini as his apostolic Nuncio to Ireland. Several pages of Harris's Ware are devoted to a consideration of Luke Wadding's writings. The most important of these is Annales Minorum Ordinum Franciscanorum, published in 8 vols. between 1625 and 1654. He was an ardent admirer of Duns Scotus, an edition of whose works in twelve folio volumes he prepared for the press in 1639. He died in Rome, 18th November 1657, aged 69, and was buried at St. Isidore's, where a monument was erected to his memory. Mr. Anderson, in his Historical Sketches of the Ancient Native Irish, thus sums up Wadding's labours: "We may form some idea of the prodigious activity of this man when it is stated that during his lifetime he wrote and published ten volumes in folio, two in quarto, and four in octavo; besides preparing, with great labour, sixteen volumes in folio for the press, and superintending four others of the same size. Of these, fourteen he got printed at Rome, twenty-one at Lyons, and one at Antwerp, or thirty-six in all! "Many of the greatest treasures in Irish manuscripts, which during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries were secretly conveyed away from Ireland and placed for safety in the library of St. Isidore's, have been within the last few years brought back again to Ireland, and are now in the library of the Franciscans in Dublin. There also may be seen, among other interesting relics, a contemporary portrait of the great Franciscan himself. [He must not be confused with Luke Wadding, Bishop of Ferns, who in Charles II.'s reign published A Small Garland of Pious and Godly Songs for the Solace of his Friends and Neighbours in their Afflictions.']

Wadding, Peter, Rev., a Jesuit writer, was born in Waterford in 1580. He taught poetry, rhetoric, philosophy, and divinity for many years at Prague and Louvain; and was Chancellor successively of the Universities of Prague and Gratz. He wrote Tractatus de Incarnatione Domini, a refutation of calumnies against the Jesuits, and other works. He died at Gratz, 13th September 1644, aged about 64.

Wakefield, Edward, an Englishman (born in 1768; died at Knightsbridge, 18th May 1854, aged 86), is worthy of note as the author of a valuable work relating to Ireland - Ireland, Statistical and Political, 2 vols., 4to, London, 1812. McCullagh styles it "the best and most complete work that has appeared on Ireland since the publication of Young's Tour; whilst Sir James Mackintosh says: "His manner is that of the Tours of Arthur Young - lively, dogmatical, and disorderly."

Walker, George, Bishop designate of Derry, Governor of Londonderry during the siege, was born in the County of Tyrone in 1618. [His father, George Walker, D.D., was Chancellor of Armagh Cathedral and, as such, rector of Kilmore.] The single fact known of his early life is that he was educated at the University of Glasgow. On 16th July 1669 he made the requisite subscription to the Act of Uniformity at Armagh, on his appointment as rector of the parishes of Lissan and Desertlyn. Before this he had married Isabella Maxwell of Finnebrogue. In 1674 he received the additional cure of the parish of Donaghmore. Pending the rebuilding of the church and glebe-house of this parish, he resided at Dungannon. Local tradition assigns to Walker the erection of a cornmill in Donaghmore, over the door of which the initials of himself and wife - " G. W. I. 1684" - are inscribed. In the autumn and winter of 1688 the Protestants of the north took up arms in the interest of William of Orange, as opposed to James II. and his Viceroy Tirconnell. On 18th (o.s.) December 1688 the apprentices of Londonderry shut the city gates in the face of Tirconnell's army. Walker, although in his seventy-first year, raised a regiment at his own charge, and applied "what interest he could make towards the preservation" of Dungannon; besides immediately opening communications with Londonderry. The garrison of Dungannon made more than one successful sally against the bodies of Jacobites that occupied the surrounding country, and the place would probably have been able to hold out, but that on the 14th March, Lundy, governor of Londonderry, directed that it should be evacuated. The order was obeyed with reluctance, and the garrison, with many of the inhabitants, retired towards Londonderry and Coleraine, allowing a large supply of provisions to fall into the enemy's hands. Five companies under the command of Walker were quartered at Rash, near Omagh, whence, a fortnight after, they were removed to St. Johnstown, five miles from Londonderry. On 13th April, Walker hastened into town with the news of the approach of a large force under James II. in person. Governor Lundy advanced against the enemy and retreated, then entered into private negotiations with them, and also, it is said, persuaded the officers in command of a relieving fleet in Lough Foyle, to return to England. He then declared the defence hopeless, and the inhabitants, disgusted at his pusillanimity, deposed him from the governorship, and permitted him to leave the town secretly. On the 19th April, Walker and Major Baker were appointed joint governors, a messenger was sent to London for assistance, and the memorable siege may be said to have regularly commenced. The fortifications were in a miserable condition; the place was badly provisioned, and ill supplied with artillery and munitions of war. The garrison consisted of 7,369 men, encumbered, besides the inhabitants of the place, with numerous fugitives from the surrounding districts. Everything was wanting but brave hearts and heroic self-devotion. The besieging army, at first commanded by King James, and afterwards by his most experienced generals, outnumbered the garrison by some three to one. "It was certainly," says Harris in his life of William III., "a very bold undertaking in these two gentlemen to maintain against a formidable army, commanded by a king in person, an ill-fortified town, with a garrison composed of poor people frightened from their habitations, and without a proportionable number of horse to sally out, or engineers to instruct them in the necessary work. Nor had they above twenty cannons, of which not one was well mounted, and, in the opinion of the former governor, not above ten days' provisions." The defence, which lasted above a hundred days, was one of the most heroic in history; and when the siege was raised, the garrison was reduced by deaths in sallies and on the walls, and by disease, to 4,300, "of whom at least a fourth part were rendered unserviceable." Of garrison and inhabitants 9,000 are calculated to have died within the walls during the siege. To increase their difficulties, De Rosen, James's general, upon one occasion drove some thousands of Protestants from the surrounding country under the walls, and kept them there for three days, in the hope that the garrison would take them in and thereby be further weakened. By the time they were permitted to depart Walker had cleverly managed to draw in from amongst them the strong and hardy, and to send away in their place some of his old and useless mouths. On 30th June Major Baker died, and Colonel Mitchelburne was made Walker's assistant. Without declining the post of danger and honour at the head of the garrison, Walker always appeared willing to concede to others, where practicable, the military functions so little suited to his cloth. He took part in the daily service in the cathedral, as well as in the other duties of his office, and his dress always indicated that in becoming a soldier he had not ceased to be a priest. Towards the end of the siege, "such a scarcity of the vilest eatables was in the city, that horse-flesh was sold for 1s. 8d. a pound; a quarter of a dog fattened by the dead bodies of the slain Irish, 5s. 6d.; a dog's head, 2s. 6d.; a cat, 4s. 6d.; a rat, 1s.; a mouse, 6d.; greaves by the pound, 1s.; tallow. 4s.; salted hides, 1s.; and other things in proportion. Their drink was water mixed with ginger and anise-seeds; and their necessity of eating a composition of tallow and starch not only nourished and supported them, but proved an infallible cure for the flux." The women shared in the labours of the men, carrying ammunition to the soldiers, attending to the sick and wounded, and at times giving assistance in repelling the assaults of the besiegers. Eighteen Church clergymen and eight dissenting ministers took part in the toils of the siege, and their turn in leading daily services in the cathedral and other places of worship. In June an English fleet arrived in Lough Foyle; but the banks of the lough being in the occupation of the enemy, it was unable to throw any relief into the town, and could not even have communicated with the inhabitants, but for the bravery of Colonel Roche. [See page 456.] At length, on the 30th of July, the Mountjoy broke the boom that the besiegers had placed across the river, and, running the gauntlet of a furious cannonade, sailed up to the quay, followed by two other vessels carrying supplies and provisions. All the eatables in the place at the time are said to have been nine lean horses, and a pint of meal to each man. A few days afterwards De Rosen broke up camp and raised the siege, having lost, it is stated, 8,000 to 9,000 men. Walker presented the keys of the city to Major-General Kirk, who had come with the fleet. Kirk declined to receive them, but next day permitted Walker, who was anxious that "he might return to his own profession," to resign the governorship to Captain White, "a gentleman of experienced valour and known merit." Walker, when praised for the part he had taken, with great humility declared that the "whole conduct of this matter must be ascribed to Providence alone... God was pleased to make us the happy instruments of preserving this place, and to Him we give the glory... With his own right hand and his holy arm getting Himself the victory." At a meeting of the heroic inhabitants of Londonderry, Walker was deputed to go to England to present an address to King William and Queen Mary, expressive of their gratitude for the relief they had received, and to assure their Majesties of their devoted allegiance. He went by way of Scotland, and was received with great distinction in Glasgow, where the freedom of the city was conferred upon him. A similar honour was accorded him at Edinburgh. On the journey he was met by a letter from King William: lie was escorted into London with great respect, and was graciously received at court. With much good taste, Walker refused to accede to the desire of many that he should appear before his Majesty in the semi-military apparel he had worn during the siege. Sir Godfrey Kneller painted his portrait for the King; a grant of £5,000 (never paid, apparently) was made by Parliament, in consideration of his heavy expenses and losses; he was designated to the bishopric of Derry, was entertained by the Irish Society, and received the thanks of the House of Commons. In September he published his famous True Account of the Siege of Londonderry, the statements in which were afterwards re-asserted in the publication of his Vindication of the True Account There appears to have been consideable bitterness amongst the defenders regarding the statements given to the world of the events of the siege. Quite a number of True Accounts and Answers appeared, and in the end both inhabitants and leaders in the defence considered themselves very negligentLY treated by Government. [See CAIRNES, DAVID, p. 67.] Walker returned to Ireland in the beginning of 1690, receiving at Oxford, on his way, the degree of Doctor in Divinity. When William III. landed at Belfast in June, Walker presented him with a congratulatory address in the name of the Ulster clergy. He accompanied William in his march southward, on the way being confirmed in the bishopric of Derry. On 12th July, in the early part of the battle of the Boyne, he crossed the river with one of the Enniskillen regiments, fell mortally wounded, and was interred on the battle-field. After several years, and at his widow's desire, his body was exhumed by a faithful servant who had accompanied him into the fight, and deposited within the church at Castlecaulfield, where a tasteful monument marks his resting-place. In 1838 his remains and those of his wife were placed in new coffins. It was not until 1703 that his son received a pension of £200 per annum from the Irish Parliament, terminated in 1717 by the grant of 2,000. In 1828 the monument to his memory on the walls of Londonderry was completed. Macaulay says: "On the summit is the statue of Walker, such as when, in the last and most terrible emergency, his eloquence raised the fainting courage of his brethren. In one hand he grasps a Bible; the other pointing down the river, seems to direct the eyes of his famished audience to the English topmasts in the distant bay." The likeness appended to a memoir in the Ulster Journal of ArchAeology, vol. ii., represents Walker as a noble­looking man.

Walker, John, Rev., was born about 1767. He entered Trinity College, Dublin; was a scholar in 1788; B.A. in 1790; a fellow in 1791; M.A. in 1793; and B.D. in 1800. On the 8th of October 1804 he informed the Provost that his religious opinions had undergone a change and that it was impossible for him any longer to exercise his functions as a minister of the Establishment. He proposed to resign his preferments in the College; but the Provost thought it his duty to expel him. He was followed by a number of disciples, who met in a chapel in Stafford-street, Dublin, where he preached the strongest Calvinistic doctrines. He ultimately removed to a wider field of labour in London. His followers-styled "Walkerites," "Separatists," and by themselves "The Church of God" - possessed sufficient influence to procure the passage of an Act of Parliament exempting them from the taking of oaths. The Rev. John Walker wrote, in a pamphlet enunciating his opinions: "It is contrary to the nature and laws of Christ's kingdom, that his disciples should acknowledge the state religion as theirs, or hold any connexion with the religious establishment of the country." The Walkerites appear to have rigidly forbidden any common worship, or even conversation on religious topics, with, those not in their communion; yet at one time they invited controversy with opponents at the conclusion of their services. At another it was the custom of the congregation to "salute one another with a holy kiss." John Walker was an excellent classical scholar, and edited Livy (1797), Euclid (1808), Lucian (1822), Geometry, Trigonometry (1844), and other works. Shortly before his death the Board of Trinity College, to make up for the illiberality of their predecessors, granted him an allowance of £600 a year. He died in Dublin, 25th October 1833, aged 66. In Blunts' Dictionary of Sects, his followers are described as "an Irish sect of Sandemanians." Walker's Essays and Correspondence, in 2 vols., 8vo, were published in London in 1838.

Walker, Joseph Cooper, author of The Historical Memoirs of the Bards and Music of Ireland, and of the Historical Essay on the Dress, Armour, and Weapons of the Irish, was born in the County of Dublin about 1762, and was educated by Dr. Ball. Ill health obliged him to visit Italy, where he devoted himself to the study of Italian literature, and his valuable works above mentioned are disfigured by a superabundance of Italian quotations. He died at St. Valerie, near Bray, 12th April, 1810, aged 48.

Wall, Richard, Spanish minister, diplomatist, and general, is reputed to have been born in Ireland about the year 1693. He was of a County of Waterford family. He entered the Spanish naval service at an early age, served as a volunteer in the fleet sent against Sicily in 1718, and distinguished himself in the naval engagement with Admiral Byng. He afterwards entered the army, and served in the expedition under Montemar, in 1736, which placed Don Carlos on the throne of the Two Sicilies. In the same year he was sent to America, where he devised a plan for the invasion of Jamaica. In the ensuing war between Great Britain and Spain he does not seem to have taken a foremost part; but when peace negotiations were begun, his knowledge of English led to his being sent as private agent, first to Aix-la-Chapelle and Holland, and afterwards (June 1747) to England, where for some years after the conclusion of peace he remained as ambassador. In 1752 he was made a major-general. In 1754 he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, and he continued to occupy a prominent place in the government of Spain during the remainder of the reign of Ferdinand VI. and part of that of his brother and successor, Charles III. Though his adopted country was more than once at war with Great Britain, Wall appears to have always been disposed to favour British interests. It is stated that for some time before his retirement into private life he was most anxious to withdraw, but that the King was unwilling to lose his services. In order to obtain leave to retire, Wall affected to be suffering from giddiness, and weakness of the eyes, and when about to enter the royal presence made use of an ointment to produce the appearance of inflammation. He also wore a shade over his eyes when in public. Soon after the peace in 1763 Charles III. reluctantly assented to the loss of his services, and Wall retired into private life, loaded with honours and the rewards of long and faithful service. He passed the remainder of his days in the neighbourhood of Granada, residing sometimes on the estate of Soto de Roma (afterwards granted by the Spanish government to the Duke of Wellington) and sometimes at the villa of Mirador, near the city. He continued to pay periodical visits to the court at Aranjuez. It is said that "in retirement his reserved and independent conduct acquired the esteem even of those who had caballed against him when he was in authority." His name is honourably mentioned in connexion with efforts to preserve and restore the Moorish palace of the Alhambra, which for long before and after his time suffered much from neglect and spoliation. He died, probably at or near Granada, in 1778, aged about 85.

Wallace, William Vincent, musical composer, was born in Waterford, 1st June 1814. He early evinced musical talents, and before he was eighteen had held the situations of organist of Thurles Cathedral and violinist in the Theatre Royal, Dublin, and conducted concerts in the same city. Advised to take a sea voyage on account of weak eyes, he left Dublin about 1833, went to Australia, and for a lengthened period laid music aside, and led an adventurous and chequered life in the bush. Accident at last brought him to Sydney and within reach of good music. The dormant taste re-asserted itself, and he resumed the bow, and gave concerts-first in Australia, and afterwards in India, South America, Mexico, and the United States. At New York, about 1844, he married Miss Helen Stepel, a pianist. "His own performance was only a little less excellent on the pianoforte than on the violin, and as a concert giver and music director he was in much repute." In 1845 he went to London, but could not hold his own against the great instrumentalists always to be heard there, and turned his attention to composition. His opera of Maritana proved a brilliant success. He again gave concerts in America, lost his savings in a pianoforte factory, returned to England in 1853, and for the rest of his life devoted his talents to composition. Lurline, produced in 1859, soon became popular. The Amber Witch followed in 1861, and the Desert Flower in 1863. He contributed numerous pieces to Chappel's Musical Magazine, and other publications. In 1864, being attacked by an incurable malady, he removed to France, and died at the Chateau de Bagen, Haute Garonne, 12th October 1865, aged 51. His remains were interred in Kensal-green Cemetery, London. Wallace was a pleasing and facile composer, but by no means one of the first ability, though many of his airs have held their place in public estimation.

Walsh, Edward, editor of the Jacobite Relics of Ireland, and author of poems, was born in Londonderry in 1805. The son of a Cork militiaman, he received a tolerable education, taught school at Mill-street, County of Cork, and removed in 1837 to Toureen, where he first began to write for the magazines. He was afterwards schoolmaster to the convict station at Spike Island, and ended his days as teacher in the Cork workhouse. He was proficient in the fairy and legendary lore of the country, and published two volumes of poetical translations from the Irish, with the original text. Hayes says in his Ballads of Ireland: "There is a singular beauty and fascinating melody in his verse, which cheers and charms the ear and heart. His translations preserve all the peculiarities of the old tongue, which he knew and spoke with graceful fluency. His ballads are the most literal and characteristic which we possess." Edward Walsh died in Cork, 6th August 1850, aged 44.

Walsh, Nicholas, Bishop of Ossory, an Irishman, was educated at Cambridge, and was consecrated Bishop of Ossory in January 1576-'7. He was the first to introduce Irish types into Ireland, and to cause the Church Service to be printed in them, "which proved an instrument of conversion to many of the ignorant sort of Papists in those days." He also forwarded the translation of the New Testament into Irish. He was murdered by a fanatic on 14th December 1585, and was buried in St. Canice's, Kilkenny.

Walsh, Peter, D.D., Professor of Divinity at Louvain, was born at Moortown, County of Kilkenny, early in the 17th century, and was educated in the College of St. Anthony, Louvain. He returned to Ireland in 1646, joined the Ormond party, and wrote a treatise against Rinuccini. In 1661 he was made procurator or representative in London of some of the Catholic hierarchy. He was the ally of Ormond in the political complications of the period - especially in the matter of the "Remonstrance," the discussion regarding which raged fiercely for three years. The document was condemned by a synod of Catholic clergymen that met in June 1666, some of whom were imprisoned through his instrumentality. For this he was suspended and excommunicated by his own Church. The Duke of Ormond obtained for him a situation of £100 a year in London. The Earl of Orrery entered into a pamphlet war with him in Irish Colours Displayed, to which Walsh replied by his Irish Colours Folded. In 1672 he published his valuable History of the Remonstrance. D'Arcy McGee says: "It has great candour, abounds in bond fide documents, letters, decrees, and state papers. Without it, the great Catholic confederacy could not be well understood by our times, or rescued from misrepresentation by the lovers of true history." Walsh endeavoured upon one occasion to convert his friend and patron, Ormond, to Catholicism. Dr. Walsh died in 1687, and was buried in St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, London. His character is thus sketched by the Bishop of Salisbury: "He was the honestest and learnedest man I ever knew among them [the Catholics], and was indeed in all points of controversy almost wholly a Protestant, but he had senses of his own, by which he excused his adhering to the Church of Rome, and maintained that with these he could continue in the communion of that Church without sin: and he thought no man ought to forsake that religion in which he was born and bred, unless he was clearly convinced that he must certainly be damned if he continued in it. He was an honest and able man, much practised in intrigues."

Walsh, Robert, Rev., LL.D., M.D., was born in Waterford, about the middle of the 18th century. Having passed through Trinity College (scholar, 1794; B.A., 1796), he took orders as curate to Dean Kirwan. He assisted the Rev. J. Whitelaw in the preparation of his History of Dublin, and completed the work after Whitelaw's death. He was much interested in Irish antiquities. In 1820 he went out as chaplain to the British consulate at Constantinople, and wrote A Journey from Constantinople to England, and other works connected with the East, besides An Essay on Ancient Coins, Medals, and Gems, as Illustrating the Progress of Christianity in the Early Ages (8vo, London, 1830), and Notices of Brazil, 2 vols., 8vo. The latter part of his life he was Vicar of Finglas, near Dublin. He died about 1852. [His son, John Edward Walsh, was Master of the Rolls in Ireland, 1866 to 1869. His younger brother Edward, a physician (born in Waterford in 1756; died in Dublin, 7th February 1832) was the author of a Narrative of the Expedition to Holland in 1779, and other works.]

Walsh, William, Bishop of Meath, was born at Dunboyne early in the 16th century, and was appointed, by the Pope, Bishop of Meath in 1554. He enjoyed more than one office under Elizabeth, but refusing in 1560 to conform in matters of religion, was first imprisoned and afterwards deprived of his bishopric. He was subsequently enlarged, but was again cast into prison in 1565. On 16th July, Adam Loftus. the Archbishop of Armagh, wrote to Cecil: "He refused the oath,.. and openly showed himself to be a misliker of all the Queen's Majesty's proceedings. He openly protested before all the people, the same day he was before us, that he would never communicate or be present, by his will, where the service should be ministered, for it was against his conscience, and, as he thought, against God's Word... It were fit he should be sent to England, and peradventure by conferring with the learned bishops there he might be brought to some conformity. He is one of great credit amongst his countrymen, and upon whom, as touching causes of religion, they wholly depend." After enduring seven years' imprisonment, he escaped to France about 1572. He appears to have returned to Ireland and resumed his episcopal functions in 1575, as in April of that year he had a brief from Rome empowering him to act for the dioceses of Armagh and Dublin, as well as Meath. Bishop Walsh subsequently retired to Spain, where he held the position of suffragan to the Archbishop of Toledo. He died at Alcala, 4th January 1577.

Warbuton, Eliot Bartholomew George, an author, was born near Tullamore in 1810. He matriculated at Cambridge, and was called to the Irish Bar, but soon abandoned the law for the oversight of his Irish estates and the pleasures of society, foreign travel, and literature. During an extended tour in the Mediterranean, about 1842, he contributed to the Dublin University Magazine some "Episodes of Eastern Travel." By the advice of Mr. Lever, these were collected, amplified, and published under the title of The Crescent and the Cross. The work was most successful, and within fifteen years went through as many editions. "A changeful truth, a versatile propriety of feeling, initiates the author, as it were, into the heart of each successive subject; and we find him as profoundly impressed with the genius of the Holy Land, as he is steeped, in the proper place, in the slumberous influences of the dreamy Nile, upon whose bosom he rocks his readers into a trance, to be awakened only by the gladsome originality of those melodies which come mirthfully on their ears from either bank." Besides minor works, he wrote Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers, 3 vols., 1849; and two novels - Reginald Hastings (1850) and Darien (1851). In this last book he gives a vivid account of the destruction of a vessel by fire. He sailed for the West Indies in the mail steamer Amazon, on 2nd January 1852. When but 120 miles from the Lizard, the ship took fire, and 102 out of the 161 souls on board perished. Mr. Warburton was last seen standing beside the captain on the deck of the burning vessel.

Ward, Hugh, D.D., Rector of the College of Louvain, was born in the County of Donegal, towards the close of the 16th century. He was educated at Salamanca and at Paris, and was among the first members of the theological faculty of the Irish College founded at Louvain in 1616. He was first Professor of Divinity, and afterwards Guardian or Rector of the College. He was soon joined by Father John Colgan and Father Michael O'Clery. "These three noble Franciscans," says O'Curry, "soon began to devise means to rescue from the chances of threatened oblivion the perishing records and evidences of, at least, the ecclesiastical history of their native country. They established an Irish press in St. Anthony's College. Michael O'Clery was sent back into Ireland to collect, purchase, or transcribe manuscripts; the expenses of his mission being provided for by Father Ward." Dr. Reeves characterizes Ward as "a great and good man;" and Harris says: "He was a man well skilled in the antiquities of his country, and undertook to write a general history of the lives of the Saints of Ireland... While our author waited with impatience many years for the benefit of O'Clery's collections, he employed himself writing several pieces as preliminary to his larger work." (None of those noted in Harris's Ware appear to have been published except his Acta Sancti Rumoldi Martyris Inclyti, which appeared in 1662.) Dr. Ward died 8th November 1635, before he could make use of the materials collected in Ireland; but in the hands of O'Clery and his brothers [see O'CLERY, MICHAEL, p. 373], they formed the basis of the Annals of the Four Masters, and enabled Colgan to commence his Acta Sanctorum. Dr. Ward, or Mac an Bhaird, as he is known in Irish, was buried at Louvain.

Warden, David Bailie, M.D., was born in Ireland in 1778. He became a citizen of the United States, and was distinguished for his scientific attainments and varied learning. He was for some time Secretary of the United States Legation to France, and for forty years was Consul in Paris, where he became a member of the French Academy. He was the author of numerous works, both in French and English; amongst the rest: Moral Faculties and Literature of the Negroes, 1810; Account of the United States, 1819; Bibliotheca Americana, 1831; History of the Silk Bill, 1837; Recherches sur les Antiquites de l'Amerique Septentrionale. Mr. Warden died in Paris, 9th October 1845, aged 67.

Ware, Sir James, an eminent Irish antiquary, the writer on the antiquities, history, and biography of Ireland whose works have been most largely drawn upon by subsequent authors, was born in Castle-street, Dublin, 26th November 1594. [His father, Sir James Ware, came to Ireland in 1588, in the train of Sir William FitzWilliam, Lord-Deputy. Amongst other appointments, he secured a patent for the lucrative post of Auditor-General of Ireland, which, with the interval of a few years during the Commonwealth, continued in his family for three generations. He was knighted by James I., and in the Parliament of 1613 sat as member for Mallow. "Having lived a very strict and truly religious life, he died suddenly (which was his constant wish for many years before) as he was walking home through Fishamble-street to his house in Castle-street, in 1632." The family mansion of the Wares stood in Castle-street, on the ground now occupied by Hoey's-court and the Castle steps.] Young James Ware was carefully educated by his father, entered Trinity College in 1610, remained there six years, took out his M.A. degree, and then resumed his home studies. His literary and antiquarian tastes were fostered by friendships with Dr. Ussher, then Bishop of Meath, and Daniel Molyneux, "a very curious antiquary, between whom the similitude of their studies had cemented a strict friendship." "At an early age," says Harris, "his father, thinking it convenient he should marry, procured him a match to both their satisfactions. It was Mary, the daughter of Jacob Newman of the City of Dublin, Esq. But this alteration in his condition did not in the least take him off from his beloved studies. He had begun to gather manuscripts, and make collections from the libraries of Irish antiquaries and genealogists, and from the registries and cartularies of cathedrals and monasteries, in which he spared no expense... When he had gleaned all he could for his purpose at home, he resolved to take a journey to England, not doubting but he should reap a plentiful harvest by consulting the libraries both publick and private there." This tour, made in 1626, was the first of his many visits to England. It would be a mistake to suppose that Ware's life was devoted entirely to literature. He was knighted in 1629 by the Lords-Justices. His father was still living; so that there were two knights of the same name and surname residing together in one house at the same time, "they always living together." On his father's death, three years afterwards, he succeeded to the office of Auditor-General, which necessarily occupied a good deal of his time. At this period he was writing some of his most valuable works. We are told by Harris of his attachment to the Earl of Strafford during his government of Ireland. He was returned member for Dublin University to the Irish Parliament of March 1639. He closely attended to the business of the Council upon the breaking out of the Irish war in October 1641, and became one of the sureties for the loans advanced by private individuals to the Government. He advocated the cessation of arms with the Irish in 1643, and was one of the council of seventeen appointed to assist the Marquis of Ormond in negotiating the treaty with them. He was also one of the deputation sent over by Ormond to Charles I.;at Oxford, "to inform his Majesty of the posture of affairs in Ireland." Sir James spent all his spare time in the libraries at Oxford, where "he was complimented with the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law, and highly caressed by most of the considerable men at Oxford." The vessel in which he and his brother commissioners, Lord Edward Brabazon and Sir Henry Tichborne, were returning to Ireland, was captured by the Parliamentarians, and he suffered imprisonment for ten months in the Tower of London. On an exchange of prisoners of importance, he was permitted to return to Dublin, where he lived undisturbed until June 1647, when, on the surrender of the place to the Parliament, he consented to be sent to England as one of the hostages for the due performance of the engagements entered into by Ormond. The agreement being fully executed, he was licensed to return to Dublin, where he lived some time in a private condition, having been deprived of his employment of Auditor-General. Subsequently, Michael Jones, Governor of Dublin, objected to the presence of such a leading loyalist, and in April 1649,with his eldest son and one servant, Ware retired to France, where he resided two years, between St. Malo, Caen, and Paris. "The frequent conversations he had with the famous Bochart [in Paris] delighted him extremely; in whose company he could have been contented to have spent the residue of his life." In 1651 he was permitted to pass over to England, and ultimately to return home, where he resumed his antiquarian studies. After the Restoration he was re-instated in all his offices, and was again unanimously elected member for the University of Dublin. He was appointed on more than one commission in connexion with the settlement of the kingdom after the war; yet he is said to have refused both a baronetcy and viscountcy. His latter days were principally occupied with the literary pursuits in which he so much delighted. Of a charitable disposition, he devoted a good deal of time and money to relieving those in distress, especially the families of decayed cavaliers, and always forgave the fees of his office to widows, clergymen, and clergymen's children. Sir James Ware's works were all written in Latin. His first was: Archiepiscoporum Casseliensium et Tuamensium Vitae, quibus adjicitur Historia Caenobiorum Cisterciensium Hiberniae (Dublin, 1626). The following are those by which he is principally known: De Scriptoribus Hiberniae (Dublin, 1639); De Hibernia et Antiquitatibus ejus Disquisitiones (London, 1654); ib. Ed. Secunda Emendatior et Quarta Parte Auctior, ac Rerum Hibernicarum Regnante Henrico VII. Annales (London, 1658); Rerum Hibernicarum Annales, ab 1485 ad 1558 (Dublin, 1664); De Praesulibus Hiberniae Commentarius (Dublin, 1665). The second was printed in London, the art of printing being in a low condition in Ireland at that time, on account of the recent war. In 1656 he published his Opuscula Sancti Patricii; in 1644, Venerabilis Bedae Epistolae. He caused to be printed in 1633, for the first time, Spenser's View of the State of Ireland, and also editions of Hanmer's Chronicle and Campian's History of Ireland. O'Flaherty says that Sir James Ware "could make a shift to read and understand" Irish, but "was utterly ignorant in speaking of it." He was accustomed to employ an Irish amanuensis to interpret and transcribe documents, and at the time of his death had in that capacity the learned Duald MacFirbis, who in Sir James's house translated the Registry of Clonmacnoise, and other works. Sir James Ware died at his residence in Castle-street, 1st December 1666, aged 72, and was buried in the vaults of St. Werburgh's, "without either stone or monumental inscription; but he had taken care in his lifetime to erect a monument for himself by his labours, more lasting than any mouldering materials... He had a great love for his native country, and could not bear to see it aspersed by some authors, which put him upon doing it all the justice he could in his writings, by setting matters in the fairest light, yet stiil with the strictest regard to truth." [His eldest son, James, succeeded him in the office of Auditor-General, and died in 1689. His second son, Robert, was the author of numerous treatises, principally aimed against Catholics and their tenets. He made himself so unpopular with the largebody of his countrymen that he saw fit to retire to England during the War of 1689-'91. He died in March in 1696. His granddaughter was the wife of Walter Harris.] Lord Clarendon took Sir James Ware's papers to England in James II.'s reign, and sold them to the Duke of Chandos, who was vainly solicited by Swift to restore them to Ireland. Some of them are now in the British Museum, a portion of the "Clarendon manuscripts;" and a still more valuable portion is in the Rawlinson collection of the BodleianLibrary, Oxford. The first collected edition of Sir James Ware's works was published in Dublin in 1705: The Antiquities and History of Ireland, by Sir James Ware, now first published in one volume, in English, and the Life of Sir James Ware prefixed. It was translated chiefly by Sir William Domvile and Robert Ware, and contains the Antiquities, Annals, Writers, and Bishops, also Sir John Davis's Discovery, and several lists and historical documents relating to Ireland, added by the editors. Each division of the book has a separate title-page and is separately paged. [For Harris's expansion of Ware's Antiquities, Writers, and Bishops, see HARRIS, WALTER, p. 244.]

Warner, Ferdinando, Rev., LL.D., an English author, was born in 1703. He is styled by Chalmers "a judicious and useful writer, as well as a popular preacher." He was rector of Ronde, in Wiltshire; St. Michael, Queenhithe, in London; and Barnes, in Surrey. His History of Ireland, vol. i., (London, 1763), and History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in Ireland (1767) are often referred to. The former, a quarto of 532 pp., brings down the history of the country to 1171; the latter (614pp.) deals exclusively with the years between 1641 and 1660. Both works have tolerably good indexes. He died 3rd October 1768, aged 65.

Warren, Sir Peter, Admiral, a distinguished British naval officer, was born in Ireland in 1703. He received his first command when but twenty-four. In 1745, with a small armament, he took Louisburg, the capital of Cape Breton, and was created Rear-Admiral of the Blue, and subsequently Rear-Admiral of the White. At the beginning of 1747, under Anson, he fell in with and completely disabled a French squadron intended for the recovery of Louisburg, for which exploit he was advanced to be Vice-Admiral of the Red. In 1747 he was returned to Parliament for Westminster. He died 29th July 1752, and was interred in Westminster Abbey, where a monument by Roubiliac was erected to his memory.

Wellesley, Garrett, Viscount Wellesley, of Dangan Castle, and Earl of Mornington, was born 19th July 1735 [He was the son of Richard Colley, whose aunt married Garrett Wesley of Dangan, in the County of Meath, descended from a family reputed to have been settled in Ireland since Henry II.'s reign. Her son Garrett Wesley died childless in 1728, and bequeathed to Colley all his real estate, upon condition that "he and his sons, and the heirs male of his body, assumed and took upon him and them the surname and coat-of-arms of Wesley." Richard Colley changed his name accordingly, and was created Baron Mornington in 1746. He died 31st January 1758. His descendants, about the year 1796, reverted to what was considered the more correct form of the name - Wellesley. The Colleys (otherwise spelled Cowley or Cooley) came to Ireland in the reign of Henry VIII. and were granted estates in the neighbourhood of Carbery. Henry Colley of Castle-Carbery, a captain in Queen Elizabeth's Irish army, an ancestor of Richard, was knighted by Sir Henry Sidney, who recommended him to his successor as one who was "valiant, fortunate, and a good servant; and, having by my appointment the charge of the King's County, kept the country well ordered and in good obedience. He is as good a borderer as ever I found any there. I left him at my coming thence a councellor, and tried him for his experience and judgment, very sufficient for the room he was called into. He was a sound and fast friend to me, and so I doubt not but your Lordship shall find, when you have occasion to employ him."] Garrett Wellesley entered Trinity College, and took his B.A. degree in 1754, and M.A. in 1757. He succeeded his father as Baron Mornington in 1758, and was created Viscount Wesley (or Wellesley) and Earl of Mornington in 1761. " Perhaps he was in some degree indebted to the musical ear of George III. for the advancement, inasmuch as the Earl was a composer of no ordinary merit, and excelled in the species of composition which was most pleasing to the King. In no other way does he appear to have benefited by the royal favour, as his means were scarcely adequate to maintain the large family which grew up around him in the style suited to their position." From his earliest years he displayed a wonderful taste for music. At nine years of age he learned to play catches on the violin, and was soon able to take the second part in difficult sonatas. His first original composition was a minuet. At fourteen he played the harpsicord and organ, and within a short time was able to extemporize fugues on the latter. The degree of Doctor of Music was conferred upon him by Trinity College in 1764. Amongst his other compositions were the beautiful glees, "Here in cool grot," and "Come, fairest nymph." He died 22nd May 1781,52 aged 45. By his wife, Anne, daughter of Arthur Hill, Viscount Dungannon (whose family had been settled in Ireland for more than one hundred years), he had six sons and two daughters: (1) Richard-became Marquis of Wellesley. (2) Arthur Gerald -(born in 1761; died young). (3) William (born in 1763; died 1845)-assumed the name and arms of Pole, and became Baron Maryborough. (4) Francis Seymour - died young. (5) Anne (born 1768; died 1844) - married (a) Hon. Henry Fitzroy, and (b) Charles C. Smith. (6) Arthur - became Duke of Wellington. (7) Gerald Valerian (born 1770; died 1848) - entered the Church, and became Prebendary of Durham. (8) Mary Elizabeth (born 1772) - appears to have died young. (9) Henry (born 1773; died 1847). Lady Mornington, a somewhat cold and severe woman, who had a difficult struggle to bring up her family on a small property heavily encumbered, lived to witness the eminence to which her sons attained, and died 10th September 1831.

Wellesley, Richard Colley, Earl of Mornington, Marquis Wellesley, son of the preceding, was born in Grafton-street, Dublin, 20th June 1760. He was educated at Eton, and afterwards passed on to Oxford, where he stood high in classical attainments, especially on account of his facility in Latin verse composition. His first act on succeeding to the earldom of Mornington in 1781 was to assume the heavy pecuniary engagements of his father. Encouraged by the reputation he had acquired at college, he determined to bllow up politics as the most likely means of re-establishing the shattered fortunes of the family, and he soon took a prominent part in the proceedings of the Irish House of Lords. He was one of the first Knights of the order of St. Patrick, which was established in 1783. Ambitious of wider field for the exercise of his talents, he, in 1784, entered the British House of Commons for the pocket borough of Beeralston, in Devonshire. He was in the British Cabinet in 1786. He devoted himself especially to Indian affairs. The turning point in his life was his support of the Government in the Regency debates of 1789 in the Irish House of Lords. He was Soon after returned by royal influence for the borough of Windsor, and was sworn in both on the British and the Irish Privy-Councils. He supported Wilberforce in his efforts to abolish the slave-trade, but opposed all propositions for Parliamentary reform. He further recommended himself to Pitt and the King in 1794, by his speech in favour of war with France, was appointed one of the Commissioners of the Board of Indian Control, and in October 1797 was made Governor-General of India, and at the same time created Baron Wellesley in the peerage of Great Britain. A minute account of his eight years' Indian administration does not properly come within the limits of this notice. In military affairs he was seconded by the opening talents of his brother Arthur, and the administrative capacity of his brother Henry. His policy resulted in the extinction of French influence in Hindostan, the defeat and death of Tippoo Sultaun, and the addition of vast regions to the territories already under the Company's rule. Lord Macaulay has characterized his policy as "eminently able, energetic, and successful;" whilst Mill, in his History of British India, takes a different view of it, and says, when writing of the arrival of his successor: "Lord Wellesley was regarded as a very expensive and ambitious ruler; the greater part of his administration had been a scene of war and conquest; war and conquest in India had been successfully held forth to the British nation as at once hostile to the British interests and cruel to the people of India; with a ruler possessing the disposition of Lord Wellesley, it was supposed that the chances of war would always outnumber the chances of peace,.. and to those who longed for peace and an overflowing exchequer in India, it appeared that the return of this nobleman [the Marquis Cornwallis] would afford a remedy for every disorder." His situation in India was at times peculiarly embarrassing, on account of the difficulty of communication with the United Kingdom: he was often six months without any instructions. He was created Marquis of Wellesley in 1799. In August 1805 he left India, reaching England in time to attend the death-bed of his friend Pitt. Articles of impeachment were moved against him, without result, in the House of Commons by Mr. Paull, for alleged oppression of the native princes, especially the Nabob of Oude. Regarding home politics, his views appear to have been now somewhat liberalized. But in 1807 he withstood the King's desire that he should accept the position of Secretary of State in the Duke of Portland's cabinet. In February 1808, he rendered the Government efficient service by palliating the descent on Denmark. He was appointed Ambassador to Spain, 29th April 1809, at the same time that his brother Arthur, as General-in-chief in the Peninsula, was beginning to distinguish himself. On the death of the Duke of Portland in the same year, he was recalled (his brother Henry being appointed in his place), and he accepted the Foreign Secretaryship, which he held from December 1809, to January 1812, when he resigned on account of differences with his colleagues in regard to the Catholic claims and the conduct of the war in Spain. In July 1812 he brought forward a motion favourable to the Catholics; and he continued for the next ten years to offer a modified opposition to the Government. From December 1821 to March 1828, and again from September 1833 to April 1834, he was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. During his first tenure of the office he was unpopular with a large party as the representative of a government disposed to concede the Catholic claims. In 1822, supported by the Lord-Mayor, but in opposition to resolutions of the Town Council, he endeavoured to prevent the annual celebration round the statue of William III. in Dublin, and during a state visit to Hawkins-street Theatre, on the night of 14th December, an earthen jar was thrown at him in his box. This "Bottle riot," as it was called, created great excitement; but the bills against those who participated in it were ignored by the grand jury, and the prosecution fell to the ground. Henry Grattan, jun., thus characterized Lord Wellesley's Irish adminstration: "When viceroy in Ireland he showed himself a friend of liberty; but he was thwarted by subordinates, assailed by violence, overwhelmed with abuse, and impeded in the praiseworthy efforts he made to extend equal rights and equal protection to all classes of the population of Ireland. But Lord Wellesley proceeded firmly in his course; and to him in a great degree is Ireland indebted for the successful opposition to religious bigotry and intolerance." The warmest friendship always subsisted between the Marquis and the Duke of Wellington, although they often differed widely and openly on political questions, especially in regard to Catholic Emancipation. In April 1835, on the formation of the second Melbourne administration, the Marquis accepted the office of Lord-Chamberlain, but resigned in the same year, and never afterwards filled any public employment. His latter years were spent in retirement, in the cultivation of those literary and classical tastes to which he had been devoted in his youth. The Marquis was twice married. His first union, with Mdlle. Roland, a French lady, was unhappy, and they lived separate for many years. In 1825, nine years after her death, he married an American Catholic lady, Mrs. Patterson, sister-in-law of Jerome Napoleon, and grand-daughter of Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. The Marquis of Wellesley died in London, 26th September 1842, aged 82. He was not wealthy - considering his position and opportunities, which would have enabled a less scrupulous man to amass a large fortune. He sold the family estates and crippled himself for many years to pay his father's debts. In India he voluntarily resigned large sums of prize money for division amongst subordinates. In 1837, when it was known he was involved in pecuniary difficulties, the East India Company made him an allowance of £5,000 per annum, ultimately changed into a grant of £20,000. The Marquis gave to the world some Latin poems, and papers connected with India and Spain. The Company published his despatches in five volumes. Blackwood says they "offer a striking contrast in point of style to those of his more gifted brother. They are verbose, elaborate, and full of ornament." The Marquis left no legitimate children. His son Henry Wellesley, D.D. (born 1792; died 1866), Principal of New Inn Hall, Oxford, the author of several works, was a man of the most cultivated tastes; his knowledge of Spanish and Italian art and literature "was supreme." The Dowager Marchioness died in Hampton Court Palace, 17th December 1853.

Wellesley, Arthur, Duke of Wellington, younger brother of preceding, was born at 24 Upper Merrion-street, Dublin, 29th April 1769. [For ancestry, see notice of his father, p. 550.] When but twelve years of age he lost his father, and little care appears to have been bestowed upon him by his mother, a somewhat harsh woman, who believed the "slender, blue-eyed, hawk-nosed, and rather sheep-faced boy" to be hopelessly deficient in mental ability. He spent a short time at Eton, and was then sent to the Military College at Angers, in France, where for several years he studied under Pignerol, the great engineer. In March 1787 he was appointed an ensign in the 73rd Regiment. His promotion was rapid, in consequence of the growing political influence of his brother; he was appointed aide-de-camp to the Marquis of Camden, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and by September 1793 he had attained the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 33rd Regiment. He was elected member for Trim in the Irish Parliament, in the session commencing 20th January 1791; and held the seat until that Parliament was dissolved on 5th June 1795. Reference to the Irish Debates shows that he addressed the House on five occasions. On 10th January 1792 he seconded the address on the speech from the Lord-Lieutenant - supporting Government in its warlike policy towards France and its discouragement of the Volunteers, or "National Guards," and thus expressed himself on the Catholic question: "I have no doubt of the loyalty of the Catholics of this country, and I trust when the question shall be brought forward we shall lay aside animosities, and act with moderation and dignity, and not with the fury and violence of partisans." On 28th January 1793 he spoke in favour of the House vindicating its privileges in the matter of the printer and proprietor of the Hibernian Journal, accused of publishing a libel on their body. On the 25th of February he supported a Catholic Relief Bill, but deprecated the admission of Catholics into Parliament. On 24th January 1794 he expressed himself with reference to a return regarding enlistment. On 13th March 1795 he defended the conduct of the Lord-Lieutenant in permitting a large number of regular troops to be sent out of Ireland for the defence of the Empire, assuring the mover of a resolution, that, "however he may treat the new levies with contempt, they were not objects of contempt to the enemies of their country." Arthur Wellesley and Lord Edward FitzGerald sat in Parliament at the same time, and served together on committees. Sir Jonah Barrington thus describes the former in 1793: "He was then ruddy-faced and juvenile in appearance, and popular enough among the young men of his age and station; his address was unpolished; he occasionally spoke in Parliament, but not successfully, and never on important subjects; and evinced no promise of that unparalleled celebrity and splendour which he has since reached, and whereunto intrepidity, decision, good luck, and great military science, have justly combined to elevate him... I became rather intimate with Captain Wellesley and Mr. Stewart [afterwards Lord Castlereagh], and perceived certain amiable qualities in both, which a change of times, or the intoxication of prosperity, certainly in some degree tended to diminish." Lord Plunket often told how upon one occasion, when sitting with Arthur Wellesley on a committee of the Irish House of Commons, he never for a moment ceased playing the then fashionable game with a "quiz." FitzPatrick, in his Sham Squire, says: "The early life of the 'Iron Duke,' if honestly told, would exhibit him deficient in ballast. Having had some warm words with a Frenchman in Dublin, he wrested from his hand a cane, which was not returned. The Frenchman brought an action for the robbery of the cane, and Wellesley was absolutely tried in the Sessions House, Dublin, for the offence. He was acquitted of the robbery, but found guilty of the assault." In June 1794, Arthur Wellesley embarked at Cork with some Irish regiments on an expedition to Flanders, where he distinguished himself upon several occasions. The British troops were obliged to return home ignominiously next spring, having been unable to effect anything against the French, and Wellesley appears to have been disgusted with the war, with the incapacity of the generals, and the blunders and mismanagement of the home authorities. On 25th June 1795, he wrote from Trim to Lord Camden, asking for some civil employment in Ireland - "It certainly is a departure from the line I prefer; but I see the manner in which the military offices are filled." After embarking in an expedition destined for the West Indies, that had to put back from stress of weather, he was ordered on service in India, and landed at Calcutta in February 1797. During his eight years' residence in Hindostan (until March 1805) he earned a high military reputation. His elder brother, Lord Wellesley, was Governor-General, and Arthur carried out in the field plans of which he was the part adviser in the cabinet. A striking monument of his ability, industry, and statesmanship remains in the four volumes of supplementary Despatches written in India between 1797 and 1805. It is said that the first occasion upon which he adopted his brother's change of name from Wesley to Wellesley was in one of those despatches, dated 19th May 1798. As Colonel Wellesley, he carried Seringapatam by assault on 2nd May 1799. As Major-General, he reduced Ahmednuggar on 9th August 1803, and defeated Scindia, at Assaye on 23rd September, and again at Argaum on 29th November. In 1804 General Wellesley was gazetted a K.C.B. Dr. W. H. Russell has said of his Indian services: "With more than Clive's success, although the results were not so great when judged by the comparative status of the British power at the two epochs, Wellesley had acquired a reputation to which no stain of duplicity or foul play could be attached." Soon after his return home in September 1805, Sir Arthur Wellesley went abroad again as Brigadier-General in Lord Cathcart's unsuccessful expedition to Holland. On the 12th April 1806 he was elected to Parliament for Rye, and for the borough of Mitchell on 20th January 1807. He was re-elected for Mitchell on his appointment as Secretary for Ireland in the following April; and at the general election in June, was elected both for Newport, Isle of Wight, and Tralee - accepting the seat for Newport. His Civil Correspondence and Memoranda during his Irish administration, from 30th March 1807 to 12th April 1809, were published by his son, the present Duke, in 1860. They contain his opinions upon the most minute points of Irish administration during those years - delivered in his usual terse and vigorous style. The following remarkable passage occurs in a letter on the "Defences of Ireland," written to Lord Hawkesbury, from Dublin Castle, 7th May 1807. "I am positively convinced that no political measure which you could adopt would alter the temper of the people of this country. They are disaffected to the British Government; they don't feel the benefits of their situation; attempts to render it better either do not reach their minds, or they are represented to them as additional injuries; and in fact we have no strength here but our army. Surely it is incumbent upon us to adopt every means which can. secure the position and add to the strength of our army." In a letter of advice to General Lee, in command at Limerick, dated from Cork, 7th July 1808 (published in Lenehan's History of Limerick), Sir Arthur makes the following remarks on the condition of the public peace in Ireland: "The situation of a general officer commanding in a district in Ireland is very much of the nature of a deputy-governor of a county or a province... It frequently happens that disturbances exist only in a very small degree, or probably only partially, and that the civil power is fully adequate to get the better of them. At the same time, the desire to let a building to the Government for a barrack - the desire to have troops in the county, either on account of the increased consumption of the necessaries of life, or because of the increased, security which they would give to that particular part of the country - would occasion a general rise in the value or rent of land, which probably at that moment might be out of lease, or in some instances the desire to have the yeomen called out on permanent duty - occasions a representation that the disturbances are much more serious than the facts would warrant. Upon these occasions letter after letter is written to the commanding officer and to the Government; the same fact is repeated through many different channels; and the result of an enquiry is generally, that the outrage complained of is by no means of the nature or of the extent which has been stated... It frequently happens that the people who do commit outrages and disturbances have reason to complain; but in my opinion that is not a subject for the consideration of a general officer." Sir Arthur added considerably to his military reputation in the descent on Denmark in 1807, where he held a command. It has been said that his predilection in the Peninsular sieges for assaults rather than bombardments arose from his experiences of the horrors of the bombardment of Copenhagen, and the subsequent excesses of the victorious British troops. In July 1808, mainly through the influence of Lord Castlereagh, Sir Arthur was despatched from Cork in command of a small expeditionary force, to challenge the French occupation of the Peninsula. It is unnecessary to recount by what series of events this small armament, at first almost unnoticed and probably despised by France, was by Wellesley's genius increased and welded into a force against which the resources and prestige of Napoleon were shattered within a few short years. It is unnecessary to recount how, overcoming a thousand difficulties, and at first badly supported from home, he defeated Napoleon's greatest generals at Talavera, Torres Vedras, Albuera, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajos, Salamanca, the Pyrenees, and in a hundred minor engagements, and how Sir Arthur Wellesley, who left Cork in 1808, on 14th February 1814 had beaten the French entirely out of Spain, and entered Paris on 4th May as Duke of Wellington, acknowledged to be the second captain in Europe, the recipient of rich estates in both England and the Peninsula, and of almost every honour that it was in the power of two nations to bestow. On 24th June he took his seat in the House of Lords by the titles of Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquis, and Duke, and received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament. In August he went to Paris in the capacity of ambassador from the United Kingdom, and proceeded thence to take part in the Congress of Vienna. On the 8th March 1815 the news of Napoleon's escape from Elba reached the representatives of the great powers at Vienna, and on the 5th April Wellington was at Brussels, actively engaged in forwarding the military preparations to oppose him. The Duke's correspondence shows that by the 10th June, whilst ignorant of Napoleon's plans, he was fully informed of the real force at his disposal. Judging of the Emperor's dispositions by those which he would have made in his place, he inclined to believe that he would act on the defensive, but that if he did attack it would be on the allies' right. On the night of the 15th Wellington was at a ball given by the Duchess of Richmond in Brussels, when the news reached him of Napoleon's having attacked the Prussians at Charleroi. Before the ball was ended the troops at Brussels were on their march to the front, and early in the morning they were over­taken by the Duke at Quatre Bras, where they successfully sustained an attack from Marshal Ney with a large French division. In another part of the field the French were successful in an attack upon the Prussians. On the 17th there was some heavy fighting; but to maintain communications with the Prussians Wellington fell back on a position already chosen in front of the village of Waterloo. This movement was conducted in such a masterly manner that all Napoleon's efforts to bring the British to an engagement during the 17th were unsuccessful, and the following wet and stormy night found Wellington in a strong position, where he proposed to await the arrival of the Prussians. It is unnecessary to enter into the particulars of the battle of Waterloo, fought on the 18th of June 1815. The allied force, of which 25,000 were British, under Wellington, numbered 72,000 men, with 186 pieces of artillery. From eleven to four o'clock, they sustained the assaults of Napoleon's army, numbering 80,000, with 252 pieces of artillery. Foiled in his efforts to force the British positions, Napoleon's defeat was accomplished by the arrival, at half-past four o'clock, of 36,000 Prussians under Blucher, with 100 guns. The loss of the allies under Wellington has been computed at 15,000, that of the Prussians at 7,000, and that of the French, in the battle and pursuit, at 40,000. The Duke wrote to a friend soon after the engagement: "You will have heard of our battle of the 18th. Never did I see such a pounding match. Both were called what the boxers call gluttons. Napoleon did not manoeuvre at all. He just moved forward in the old style, in columns, and was driven off in the old style. The only difference was that he mixed cavalry and infantry, and supported both with an enormous quantity of artillery. I had the infantry for some time in squares, and we had the French cavalry walking about us as if they were our own. I never saw the British infantry behave so well." Colonel Chesney, one of the first military critics of our day, has thus written of Waterloo; "Yet not on this battle - as I hope presently to show - however heroically fought or dexterously won, should the glory of the allied generals rest; but on the noble devotion of each to the common object in view, and the perfection of mutual confidence which enabled each so to act separately as to produce with their united armies at the right moment the greatest possible result. Never in the whole of military history was the tactical value of the troops more entirely subordinated to the strategical operations... Waterloo was, in fact, viewed in its proper aspect, but the crown and finish of a splendid piece of strategy... If Wellington in this battle had shown some over-confidence in the needless detachment which weakened his line, the energy of his ally, the firmness of his chosen troops, his own masterly adroitness in tactics had redeemed the error, if they did not wholly justify it... Had it been any other general [than Napoleon] that acted thus on that eventful day, it would long ago have been said that his tactics in the battle were as defective as the strategy which placed him in it at such fearful odds." From Waterloo the allies pushed on to Paris - Blucher entering France by Charleroi, and Wellington moving by Nivelles to Bavay. The French fortresses offered but little opposition; Paris capitulated on 3rd July, and Louis XVIII. made his public entry next day. Blucher wished to revenge on Napoleon and the French nation the injuries inflicted on Prussia; but Wellington would listen to no measure not dictated by the necessities of public justice; and opposed Blucher's desire for the destruction of public buildings in Paris. Wellington has, however, been severely blamed for not interfering to prevent the execution of Marshal Ney. The Duke continued to reside in the palace of the Elysee until 29th June 1816, when he returned to England. After a short sojourn at Cheltenham, he resumed his duties in Paris, where, with the exception of short visits to England, he resided in command of the army of occupation until the evacuation of France. His judgment was generally deferred to by the allied sovereigns, and his policy towards France was aimed rather to encourage and to raise than further to weaken that country. On the division of the Waterloo prize-money in 1819, Wellington's share came to £60,000, and, in addition, Parliament purchased for him, at a cost of £263,000, the estate of Strathfieldsaye, free from all rent or service, except the presentation, by him and his successors, to the Sovereign, of a small flag on each recurring anniversary of Waterloo. In 1818 the Duke of Wellington was appointed Master-General of the Ordnance, and in 1822 was named as Plenipotentiary at the Congress of Verona. In 1827, on the death of the Duke of York, he was appointed Commander-in-chief of the army; but he resigned all his offices rather than serve under Canning. Wellington was Prime-Minister from January 1828 to November 1830. His administration was formed chiefly to oppose Catholic Emancipation; and on the 28th April 1828 he thus strongly pronounced against it in the House of Lords: "There is no person in this House whose feelings and seutiments, after long consideration, are more decided than mine are with respect to the subject of the Roman Catholic claims; and I may say, that until I see a very great change in that question, I certainly shall continue to oppose it." But the march of opinion was so rapid, and O'Connell, backed by an overwhelming majority of the Irish people, and by a strong public feeling in Great Britain, raised such a storm, that on the 5th of the following February the Duke was obliged from his place to declare: "No man who has looked at the state of things for the last two years can proceed longer upon the old system, in the existing condition of Ireland, and of men's opinions on the subject, both in that country and in this. My opinion is that it is the wish of the majority of the people that this question should be settled one way or other. It is upon that principle, and in conformity to that wish, that I and my colleagues have undertaken to bring the adjustment of it under the consideration of Parliament." A few days afterwards he added: "From all he had seen and read relative to Ireland, during the last two years, he was forced to arrive at this conclusion, namely, that he did not believe there was on the face of the globe any country claiming the denomination of a civilized country situated as that country now was under the government of his Majesty and the Imperial Parliament." The Catholic Association was "dangerous." No compact with Rome would add to the security of the Church of Ireland. On the 2nd of April, referring to a clause of the Emancipation Bill, he said: "There is no man more convinced than I am of the absolute necessity of carrying into execution that part of the present measure which has for its object the extinction of monastic orders in this country." He declared that "the Union was proposed principally for the purpose of ensuring Catholic Emancipation, and that there was no remedy for the unhappy state of things then existing in Ireland but Emancipation. The words with which he urged his reluctant colleagues in the House of Lords finally to pass the Bill, though often quoted, must not here be omitted: "I am one of those who have probably passed a longer period of my life engaged in war than most men, and principally in civil war; and, I must say this, that if I could avoid, by any sacrifice whatever, even one month of civil war in the country to which I was attached, I would sacrifice my life in order to do it... Yet, my lords, this is the resource to which we must have looked - these are the measures which we must have applied, in order to have put an end to this state of things, if we had not made the option of bringing forward the measures, for which, I say, I am responsible... It is mainly to the Irish Catholics that we all owe our proud pre-eminence in our military career, and that I personally am indebted for the laurels with which you have been pleased to decorate my brow, for the honours which you have so bountifully lavished on me, and for the fair fame (I prize it above all other rewards) which my country, in its generous kindness, has bestowed upon me." He also said: "It is impossible, therefore, that any mischief can occur to the Church of Ireland, without a breach in the union of the two countries... We propose regulations which will have the effect of destroying the influence of the Catholic priesthood in the election of members of Parliament." [For particulars of the Catholic Emancipation Act (10 Geo. IV. cap. 7), which received the royal assent 13th April 1829, see O'CONNELL, DANIEL, P. 377] Some further views of Wellington regarding Irish affairs may be given. (4th May 1822.) "If you glance at the history of Ireland during the last ten years, you will find that agitation really means something just short of rebellion." (2nd November 1830.) " We do not now stand on worse ground on the question of the repeal of the Union than we should have done had not the Catholic question been carried... I gave way because I conceived the interests of the country would be best answered by doing so; I gave way on the ground of policy and expediency, and upon those grounds I am at this moment ready to justify what I did." The Duke's opinion of O'Connell is thus summarily expressed in a letter to the Right Hon. Maurice FitzGerald, of the 21st of May, 1831: "The truth is that O'Connell has become too powerful for a subject! It will be very difficult to bring him to the state in which his existence in Ireland will be consistent with that of the Government - that is to say, if the British government should continue to exist there or anywhere else, which I confess is, in my opinion, very doubtful." On the 30th of May, he wrote to Lord Melville: "I don't in general take a gloomy view of things; but I confess that, knowing all that I do, I cannot see what is to save Church, or property, or colonies, or union with Ireland, or eventually monarchy, if the Reform Bill passes. It will be what Mr. Hume calls 'a bloodless revolution.' There will be, there can be, no resistance. But we shall be destroyed, one after the other, very much in the order that I have mentioned, by due course of law... Nothing that resistance (I mean in Parliament) can occasion will be worse than what must be the consequence of the Bill,.. The ruin will be general. I am, therefore, for resistance in earnest, with as much strength as possible." (27th February 1832.) Tithes were the most sacred kind of property. (28th February.) If the system of Irish education were to be abrogated, "I consider that it would be better, perhaps, to have separate schools for the Protestants and Roman Catholics... I really cannot see the difference between public and private education." (3rd July 1833.) The state of Ireland was a conspiracy against law and government. (10th July.) He objected to the reduction in the number of Irish Bishops. On 28th April 1837 he made a speech principally on the necessity of conciliating the Protestants of Ireland. Upon this ground he objected to the " rish Corporations Bill." Agrarian disturbance in Ireland was caused by political agitation. (9th May 1843.) The Union should at all costs and under all circumstances be maintained inviolate. Remedial measures were of no avail whilst agitation continued in Ireland. (8th August.) The military were in a state of perfect efficiency "to meet all misfortunes and consequences which may result from the violence of the passions of those men who unfortunately guide the multitude in Ireland." (18th March 1844.) The compact entered into for the maintenance of the Church Establishment in Ireland should be held sacred. (17th May.) He supported the new Irish Poor-law. On account of his opposition to liberal measures he became very unpopular during his tenure of office, and was even pelted with stones in the streets of London, and had the windows of his mansion, Apsley House, broken. He guarded against a recurrence of such an event by fixing permanent iron shutters outside the windows - taking a grim pleasure in the disgrace which the appearance of his house brought on the people of London. His measures for the introduction of a new police-force in England, and the precautions he took to garrison London against any possible emeute on the part of the Reformers, brought his Ministry to a disastrous termination, and the seals of office were confided to Lord Grey. He was again Prime Minister for a short time in 1834: and in 1843, on the death of Lord Hill, he resumed the post of Commander-in-chief. If no man ever contributed more to the military greatness of the United Kingdom, no man was ever more richly repaid, whether in material wealth, or in public consideration. The emoluments of his different offices, added to the interests of his several Parliamentary grants, brought up his income to about £43,000 per annum in money, besides his permanent estates in land. Amongst the many foreign honours and presents conferred on him was a service of plate from Portugal, valued at £100,000. Brialmont, his biographer, says: "The greatest leading principle of his moral being was duty. In private life he was truth itself. As a public man he had but one object in view, viz., to benefit, to the utmost of his ability and skill, the state whose servant he was. Of personal ambition, in the vulgar acceptation of that term, the Duke knew nothing. The desire of winning applause, or of advancing himself to places of honour and power, seems never, from first to last, to have moved him... Justice requires that we should say unreservedly, that, with less of boldness and genius, Wellington possessed a greater amount of moral consideration as to the selection of his means, that he was a more scrupulous observer of his engagements, in short, a more honest man, than the unmatched victor of Austerlitz. He was gifted, moreover, with a larger share of patience and tenacity, his judgment was more calm, and sometimes clearer. Throughout the Peninsular war he gave proof, in a remarkable degree, of an amount of sagacity and foresight such as occurs only here and there in the letters of the Emperor." His coolness under all circumstances was one of his most striking characteristics: whether in defeat and humiliation or in his moments of highest exaltation, he was much the same outwardly - when informed of the failure of his first attack on Badajos, as when witnessing the flight of Napoleon at Waterloo; when the stones of a London mob were rattling about his head and smashing the windows of his mansion, as when on so many occasions he received the thanks of Parliament. It may be that a certain scorn of human nature and human weakness underlay all - a conception of events, not alone in their present aspect, but in all their bearings. He had little sympathy with the masses - with their aspirations and weaknesses, and perhaps little belief in the possibility of their elevation and enlightenment. There could be no accord between him and a people fully alive to their rights and responsibilities. Essentially an aristocrat and a conservative, all the changes he was instrumental in forwarding, he accepted rather as disagreeable necessities to the sustainment of the state, than as concessions demanded by truth and justice. He opposed Catholic Emancipation as long as it was possible; he opposed a free press; he discountenanced, if he did not oppose, regimental schools; he avoided railways so long as post horses were to be had on the roads he ordinarily travelled. For his native island he had no sympathy; and he is said to have more than once declared himself an Englishman who had had the misfortune to be born in Ireland. If cold in his manners, he was more careful of the lives of his men and more solicitous for their comfort than many leaders who were able to attach their troops to them by feelings of deep personal devotion such as he could never inspire, and which perhaps he did not covet. According to conventional standards, he was a religious man. The Bible, the Prayer-Book, and Taylor's Holy Living and Dying were always within reach of his iron camp bedstead. The Duke of Wellington's talents as a general and military administrator were of the highest order; but he was deficient in those prescient statesmanlike qualities and that moral intuition which combine to make a really great man. He had no sympathy with any philanthropic aim that looked beyond the ordinarily recognized limits assigned by respectability and conventionality. He despised the press; he despised free thought; he disbelieved in popular government; he opposed all concessions to Catholics as long as possible; he opposed the abolition of the corn laws; he "felt proud of such a sovereign as George IV.; "he opposed reform in Parliament; he predicted the downfall of the constitution as the consequence of the passage of the Reform Bill; he opposed free-trade; West India property was not to be sacrificed to the fancies of abolitionists; he denied the Jews' right to citizenship or to civil equality. Yet on some questions he was almost unexpectedly liberal - he declared against the game-laws, and supported penny postage. The thirty-three bulky volumes of his published Despatches, written in terse and nervous English, attest the methodical, concentrative power of his mind. A volume might be filled with his aphorisms. His curt answers to letters were peculiarly characteristic of his business-like and unimaginative disposition. Although to the last his mind was as bright and keen as ever, his constitution had been somewhat undermined by repeated attacks of catalepsy from 1837. He died somewhat suddenly at Walmer Castle, early on the 14th of September, 1852, aged 83, and his remains were accorded a public funeral in St. Paul's. Seventy titles were proclaimed over his grave, and eight field-marshal batons, conferred by as many countries, were broken. A magnificent monument, only now (1878) completed, marks his resting-place. Wellington was five feet nine inches high when in his prime. His shoulders were broad, his chest well developed, his arms long, and his hands and feet in excellent proportion. His eyes were of a dark violet-blue or grey, and his sight was so penetrating that even to the last he could distinguish objects at an immense distance. A forehead not very high, but broad and square, eyebrows straight and prominent, a long face, a Roman nose, a broad under-jaw, with a chin strongly marked, gave him somewhat a resemblance to more than one hero of antiquity, especially to Julius Caesar. His hair, originally coal black, became as white as silver before he died; but to the last there was no sign of baldness. He was scrupulously neat in his costume, latterly spending two hours and a half in dressing. In battle he wore a short white cloak, so that he could be recognised afar by his officers. The Duke was but an indifferent judge of horse-flesh, and he became so attached to the animals he rode that he could not bear to part with them when worn out; consequently he was somewhat noted for the disreputable appearance of his horses. Bulwer's sketch of his appearance on Rotten Row will give some idea of the estimation in which he was held by the English people during his lifetime: "Next, with loose rein and careless canter, view Our man of men-the Prince of Waterloo; O'er the firm brow the hat as firmly pressed, The firm shape rigid in the button'd vest; Within-the iron which the fire has proved, And the close Sparta of a mind unmoved! Not his the wealth to some large natures lent, Divinely lavish, even where mis-spent, That liberal sunshine of exuberant soul, Thought, sense, affection, warming up the whole; The heat and affluence of a genial power, Rank in the weed, as vivid in the flower; Hush'd at command his veriest passions halt, Drill'd is each virtue, disciplined each fault; Warm if his blood-he reasons while he glows, Admits the pleasure-ne'er the folly knows; If Vulcan for our Mars a snare had set, He had won the Venus, but escaped the net; His eye ne'er wrong, if circumscribed the sight, Widen the prospect, and it ne'er is right, Seen through the telescope of habit still, States seem a camp, and all the world-a drill! Yet oh! how few his faults, how pure his mind, Beside his fellow-conquerors of mankind; How knightly seems the iron image, shown By Marlborough's tomb, or lost Napoleon's throne! Cold if his lips, no smile of fraud they wear, Stern if his heart, still `man' is graven there; No guile - no crime, his step to greatness made, No freedom trampled, and no trust betrayed; The eternal `I' was not his law - he rose Without one art that honour might oppose, And leaves a human, if a hero's name, To curb ambition while it lights to fame." The Duke of Wellington, then Sir Arthur Wellesley, married, 10th April 1806, Lady Catherine Pakenham, daughter of Lord Longford, descended from a family settled in Ireland since 1576. She died in April 1831. They had two children - Arthur Richard, the present Duke, who has had no issue; and Charles, a major-general in the army, who died in October, 1858, five of whose children survive.

Wentworth, Thomas, Viscount Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, was born in Chancery-lane, London, 13th April 1593. He was the eldest son of a wealthy Yorkshire baronet and landowner, whom he succeeded in 1614. In that year and 1621 he was elected to Parliament for Yorkshire. Early in the reign of Charles I. he took part in the opposition to his arbitrary measures, but in 1628 went over to the side of the King, and continued his most devoted adherent during the remainder of his life. He was created a Baron, 26th July 1628, Lord-President of the North in September, and Viscount Wentworth in December of the same year; a Privy-Councillor in 1629, and Lord-Deputy of Ireland in January, 1631-2. He did not arrive in Dublin until July 1633, when he took up his residence at the Castle, with his family, and began to order the affairs of the country with vigour. His commercial policy is thus indicated in a letter to the Lord-Treasurer, written six months after his arrival: "I am of opinion that all wisdom advises to keep this kingdom as much subordinate and dependent upon England as is possible, and holding them from the manufacture of wool (which, unless otherwise directed, I shall by all means discourage),and then enforcing them to fetch their clothing from thence [England] and to take their salt from the King (being that which preserves and gives value to all their native staple commodities). How can they depart from us without nakedness and beggary? Which in itself is so weighty a consideration, as a small profit should not bear it down." Soon after his arrival in Dublin, Wentworth proposed to call a parliament. To this the King at first objected, but the Deputy overcame his scruples by promising to use diligence to secure the return of men who would prove pliant instruments in his hands. Parliament was opened in Dublin, with unusual pomp, in July 1634, and Wentworth made a speech in which he informed the assembly that it was determined to hold two sessions - one for the voting of subsidies, and a second for the redress of grievances. Six subsidies of £50,000 each were immediately voted; but when the time came for the consideration of "the graces," as the desired concessions from the King to the people of Ireland were called, Wentworth, by skilful manoeuvring, and playing off the Protestants against the Catholics, managed to avoid granting them. Among the concessions sought were, that Catholics should be excused from taking the oath of supremacy, that an undisturbed possession of land for sixty years should give a good title as against the Crown, and that the inhabitants of Connaught should be permitted to make a new enrolment of their estates. Parliament was dissolved in April 1635, without "the graces" being conceded, and the Deputy gleefully boasted: "The King is as absolute here as any prince in the whole world can be, and may be still, if it be not spoiled on that side" - namely in England. A commission was then issued with the distinct object of confiscating the whole of Connaught by fictitious forms of law. By threatening and coercing juries, and granting to the judges a commission of four shillings in the pound on the first year's rent of all forfeitures, the confiscation of the greater part of the counties of Mayo, Leitrim, Sligo, and Roscommon was accomplished. In Galway, owing partly to the influence of the Earl of Clanricard, the juries at first refused to find verdicts for the Crown. Heavy fines were inflicted, however, and the Earl had to compound for his estate by the payment of a large sum. Flaws were found in patents granted as lately as the previous reign, and many of the large landowners throughout the country were compelled to sue out new grants of their estates at a heavy expense. Even the London companies which held large estates in Ulster had to pay £70,000 to make good their titles. The Catholics were alternately favoured and persecuted. At times the severity of the laws against them was relaxed, and at others they were carried out to the letter: Catholic schools were suppressed, rites of burial denied, and fines inflicted for non-attendance at Protestant service. At the same time, in all matters not supposed to affect the King's revenue or prerogative, the cause of religion, or the interests of England, the government of Ireland was conducted with vigour and judgment. Algerine piracy was suppressed, the annual revenue from customs was increased from £12,000 to £40,000, and mining and the general development of the resources of the country were encouraged. In particular, the establishment of the flax manufacture as a flourishing industry, dates from this time. In 1636 Wentworth visited England and received the King's approval of his acts. In the latter part of 1639 he was again sent for by Charles, and in January 1639-'40 was created Earl of Stratford, and Baron of Raby. At the same time he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, an office which had remained vacant since it was held by the Earl of Essex in Queen Elizabeth's reign. In March he paid a visit of two weeks to Dublin, to meet Parliament. He "had four subsidies given then, and gave orders to levy 8,000 foot in Ireland, which, together with 2,000 foot and 1,000 horse, which was the standing army in Ireland, and 500 horse to be joined with them," were to be sent into Scotland under his lordship's command. On the 3rd of April he embarked for England. He was delayed for some time by illness on the road, and in London. On his recovery he was made Lieutenant-General of the English forces; but the army was defeated at Newborne before his arrival. When the Long Parliament met in London in November 1640, one of its first acts was the impeachment of Stratford before the House of Lords. The indictment for high treason embraced twenty-eight counts, twenty of them being for acts more or less connected with his Irish administration. He was accused of various acts of an illegal and oppressive nature; of having ruled Ireland as a conquered country; of counselling the King to arbitrary acts; of showing undue favour to Roman Catholics; of trying to kindle war between England and Scotland; and, in particular, of raising an army in Ireland, nominally to fight the Scots, but really to crush the English, and enable the King to rule without Parliament and without the law. In the following March, according to Clarendon, "a committee was come from the Parliament in Ireland to solicit matters concerning that kingdom. This committee (most of them being Papists, and the principal actors since in the rebellion) was received with great kindness, and upon the matter added to the committee for the prosecution of the Earl of Strafford." The impeachment trial began on the 22nd of March and continued until the 14th April, the prosecution being urged with implacable hostility by Pym and other popular leaders of the House of Commons, while Strafford defended himself on every point with great ability. Ultimately it was resolved to abandon the impeachment trial and to proceed by Bill of Attainder. The Bill passed finally in the Commons on the 21st of April, by a vote of 204 to 59, and in the House of Lords, on the 8th of May, by 26 votes to 19. Popular feeling ran very high against the Earl, and the King, though he had assured Strafford that his life should be spared, abandoned him when it came to the point, and on the 10th signed the commission for giving the royal assent to the Bill. The Earl was beheaded on Tower Hill, 12th May 1641, and met his death with dignity and composure. He was 48 years of age. In private life the Earl of Strafford was a devoted husband and father, a true friend and a man of high cultivation and feeling. Many of his faults of temper arose from his shattered health, the result of agonizing accessions of inherited gout. His personal habits were naturally simple, but to sustain the honour of the King "before the eyes of a wild and rude people," he maintained almost regal magnificence, with a retinue of fifty servants and a body-guard of one hundred horse splendidly mounted and accoutred. The ruins of a princely mansion, begun by him, but never completed, may still be seen near Naas. He was long known in the traditions of the Irish peasantry as "Black Tom."

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