says he was among those who subsequently were in correspondence with the exiled king (Burnet, Own Time, addit. notes). In May 1689 Kirke was despatched with two regiments to relieve Derry. After much delay he forced the boom, in accordance with a peremptory order from Marshal Schomberg, preserved among the Nairne MSS. in the Bodleian Library. Kirke became governor of Londonderry, and served at the Boyne, the siege of Limerick, and elsewhere. He became a lieutenant-general 25 Dec. 1690, and in May 1691 returned from Ireland to London, whence he was sent to Flanders. He joined the army in camp at Gembloux, and made the campaign in Flanders of that summer. He died at Brussels (not Breda, as often stated) on 31 Oct. 1691. Bishop Wilson likens his end to that of Herod and other murderers, who died in the torments of loathsome disease (see Notes and Queries, 4th ser. i. 254). Some of Kirke's letters are preserved among the manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. v. 59–128).
Kirke married the Lady Mary Howard, daughter of George Howard, fourth earl of Suffolk, by his first wife, Catherine Allen, and granddaughter of Theophilus, second earl. There are references to her and her son Percy in the ‘Calendar of Treasury Papers’ from 1696 to 1701. She died in 1712.
His eldest surviving son, Percy Kirke (1684–1741), was also a lieutenant-general and colonel of the ‘Lambs’ from 1710 to 1741, during which time the regiment was successively known as the ‘Queen Dowager's,’ the ‘Princess of Wales's,’ and the ‘Queen's Royal’ (Home Office Mil. Entry Book, i. 489). At the age of three he appears as ensign in Trelawny's regiment (4th King's Own). He succeeded his father as keeper of the palace of Whitehall. At the age of twenty-four he was taken prisoner when lieutenant-colonel commanding the ‘Lambs’ at the battle of Almanza. He became colonel of the regiment on 19 Sept. 1710, and was with it in the Canada expedition. He died in London, a lieutenant-general, on 1 Jan. 1741, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where in the north transept is a very elaborate monument to him, erected by his niece and heiress, Diana Dormer, daughter of John Dormer of Rousham, Oxfordshire, who married Diana Kirke. Diana Dormer (1710–1743) is buried in the same grave.
[Chester's Westminster Registers, footnotes under ‘Kirke,’ passim; Calendars of State Papers, Dom. 1658–9 p. 581, 1663–4 passim; Howard's Memorials of the Howard Family, p. 56; Calendars of Treasury Papers, 1696–1701, under ‘Kirke, Lady Mary;’ Burnet's Own Time, with the additional notes to 1st edit. p. 82; Luttrell's Relation, vols. i–ii.; Strickland's Queens of England, vii. 317; Toulmin's Hist. of Taunton, ed. Glover, 1822; Davis's Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment, 1888, vol. i.; Cannon's Hist. Records, Royal Horse Guards or Blues, 2nd or Queen's Foot, 4th or King's Own Foot (some of Cannon's statements respecting the elder Kirke in the second of these works are wrong); D'Auvergne's Campaigns in Flanders, 1736, vol. i. Kirke figures in Mr. Conan Doyle's romance, Micah Clarke.]
KIRKE, THOMAS (1650–1706), virtuoso, born on 22 Dec. 1650, was the son of Gilbert Kirke of Cookridge, near Leeds, Yorkshire, by Margaret, daughter of Francis Layton of Rawden in the same county. He was a distant relative and the intimate friend of Ralph Thoresby [q.v.], whom he often accompanied in his antiquarian rambles. In May 1677 he started on a three months' tour in Scotland, and kept a journal of his adventures, which Thoresby transcribed and placed in his museum (Diary, i. 320, 380, 403, 406). At Cookbridge he devised a 'most surprising' labyrinth, which attracted visitors from all parts (Thoresby, Ducatus Leodiensis, ed. Whitaker, p. 158). He was elected F.R.S on 30 Nov. 1693 (Thomson, Hist. Roy. Soc., Appendix, iv. p. xxix). He died on 24 April 1706. By his marriage, on 11 July 1678, to Rosamund, daughter and coheiress of Robert Abbot, he had a son, Thomas, who died in January 1709. He helped his father in the formation of a fine library and museum, which were sold by auction in 1710.
Kirke published anonymously a coarse satire entitled 'A Modern Account of Scotland... Written from thence by an English Gentleman' 4to, 1679, reprinted in 'Harleian Miscellany', ed. Park (vi. 135-42). The 'Journal' already mentioned was printed as an appendix to 'Letters addressed to R. Thoresby' (ii. 403). 'Journeying through Northumberland and Durham in 1677' appeared in 1845 in vol. vii of M. A. Richardson's 'Historical Tracts.' The original was preserved among the Thoresby MSS. To the 'Philosophical Transactions' he contributed two letters giving an 'Account of a Lamb suckled by a Wether Sheep for several months after the Death of the Ewe' (xviii, 263-4). Some of his correspondence is printed in Nichols's 'Illustrations of Literature' (i. 478, iv. 72-6). In the British Museum there is a letter from him to Sir Hans Sloane (Addit. MS. 4050, No. 924); also a humorous poetical 'Dialogue betwixt the Ghost of Thomas Kirke de Cookridge, Esq. and Milo Gale, rectro
