James II
20 Clarendon, in a letter to Rochester, June 8, 1686, says that Tyrconnell could not even review his regiment without making some blunder. But Clarendon was the bitter personal enemy of Tyrconnell, so this criticism is probably not quite just. Lauzun, in a letter to Seignelay (26 July, 1690) speaks highly of Tyrconnell's conduct at the Boyne under very depressing circumstances. [This despatch, with many other letters of Lauzun, is printed in the Appendix to Ranke's Englische Geschichte vornehmlich im siebzehnten Jahrhundert.]
21 "La plupart de ces régiments sont levez par des gentils hommes qui n'ont jamais esté à l'armée. Ce sont des tailleurs, des bouchers, des cordonniers qui ont formé les compagnies et qui en sont les capitaines." Avaux to Louis. "Several are now made officers who never served anywhere." Clarendon to Rochester, June 22, 1686.
22 By far the best account of these "tories" with which I am acquainted is to be found in Prendergast's Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution, a work based mainly on unpublished MSS. from the Carte collection in the Bodleian Library. Clarendon writing to Rochester, November 2, 1686, encloses an amusing charge by an Irish magistrate: "I shall not need to say much concerning rogues and vagabonds, the country being pretty well cleared of them, by reason his Majesty has entertained them all in his service, clothed them with red coats and provided well for them."
23 "If that [the admission of Catholics to the army] be the matter, good God! why should not the Chief Governor be trusted with it, and why should it not be orderly done!" Clarendon to Rochester, September 4, 1686
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