in the terrible fight of Landen, fought on the nineteenth of July, 1693, betwixt the armies of France and of the allies, whence he was borne stretched on a pallet, desperately wounded, from which he never rose again. Some time after his departure from Ireland, he was married to a daughter of the earl of Clanricarde, by whom he left a son, who died unmarried in Flanders. His widow remarried with the duke of Berwick. He was of stately height, overtopping all his companions by a head.

His elder brother was married to a natural daughter of James II., and left a daughter his sole heiress, through whom the Sarsfield property in Lucan has descended to the Vesey family.

With this memoir the distinctive and more important political biographies of the transition period properly terminate; but there are still a few names that merit notice in a work of the character of the present one, from the connection of those who bore them with the historical transactions of the period; although, from lack of fitting materials, our notices must needs be slight. Indeed, the authentic personal traditions of the time are but scanty, and it is only as they pass before us in the field or siege, that many persons, eminent in their day,

can be seen.

COLONEL RICHARD GRACE, killed A. D. 1691, was descended of a race we had occasion to notice in our memoir of Raymond Le Gros.* He was a younger son of Robert Grace, baron of Courtstown in the county of Kilkenny. He had been a distinguished soldier in the great rebellion, in which, both in England and Ireland, he had fought with honour for the kings of the Stuart race. During the commonwealth he served with distinction in Spain; and, after the Restoration, was chamberlain to the Duke of York. When he left that service of the household to proceed to Ireland, to serve there in a military capacity, it may be inferred he was far advanced in life. The amount of confidence reposed in him, however, may be inferred from the fact, of his being entrusted with the government of Athlone, the most important strategic post, according to military authorities of that day, in central Ireland. Eight days after the battle of the Boyne, King William despatched a force consisting of ten regiments of foot and five of horse, under James Douglas, a Scotch officer, who had distinguished himself in fight, to reduce Athlone. The garrison was composed of three regiments of foot, with nine troops of dragoons and two of light cavalry. There was, however, a larger body encamped at a small distance. Notwithstanding the proclamation issued by William, and the stern example made by him of hanging a soldier, who, after the victory of Boyne, had slain three defenceless natives asking for quarter, the troops of Douglas, intoxicated by their successes, and not held enough in discipline by their commander, were guilty of gross outrages on the peasantry of the district who, on the march, had, on the faith of the royal proclamation, flocked round the tent of their commander, and had re

* Vol. i. p. 213.

ceived from him promises of such protection as he could afford. The robbery and murder thus committed excited the hate and execration of the district, and more than neutralized the feeling of despondency, produced on the minds of their countrymen by the results of that fight. It was perhaps owing to this circumstance, that the summons of Douglas to surrender Athlone was received by Colonel Grace with a species of defiance not quite reconcilable to the usage of civilized war. "These are my terms," replied the aged veteran, firing his pistol at the

messenger.

The siege was protracted until sickness, more than the enemy, had carried off four hundred men, without the assailants having made any sensible impression on the defences; when, forage having failed for the horse, and Sarsfield, after the retreat of William's army from Limerick, finding himself free, had approached with fifteen thousand men to raise it, a speedy retreat became necessary. For this result we may claim due honour to Colonel Grace, whose firmness, and the skilfulness of his dispositions, maintained the town for another year to the Jacobite Of him we have it not in our power to record further than that he remained at his post of command until the commencement of the second siege of Athlone, on 19th June, 1691. On the second day of the siege he was slain, in defending a breach in a bastion he had caused to be erected during the winter, with a view of defending that portion of the town called "the English side," which had been abandoned on the former attack. He was buried in the town he so ably defended.

cause.

TEAGUE O'REGAN, a general of native descent,-the O'Regans were a sept of Leinster, (see notice of Maurice O'Regan the historian, and ambassador of Macniurragh to Earl Strongbow, in our previous volume)had distinguished himself on the continent, and was so esteemed by the viceroy of James, as to be entrusted with the defence of the fort of Charlemont, which our readers will recollect was a place of early importance, built by Lord Mountjoy, in the wars of Tyrone, and commanding the entrance into that part of Ulster. Under its shelter there had grown up a town of great importance at the time before us. Strong by nature, it had been made nearly impregnable by art. A strong garrison held it. Two French regiments were sent by Marshal Schomberg to reduce it in the autumn of 1689; but they could only invest it, and convert the siege into a blockade, for which its position afforded great facilities. Accordingly, when supplies were sent from Dublin under an escort of several hundred men, Schomberg gave instructions to allow the whole party to enter after a show of resistance, but to take care that none were permitted to return. The supplies they brought being small, the situation of the garrison soon became worse than before. Various sallies were made with the view of the escort returning whence they came, but they were always driven back with loss. So obstinately was the place held, that when at last honourable terms of surrender were obtained, the nearly famished garrison were observed to be eating raw hides when they marched out on 16th May 1690; and, like the Turks at Kars, were generously supplied with food by the entering com

mander.

After the surrender of Charlemont fort, O'Regan was sent by James as governor of Sligo, and to take the chief command in the immediately surrounding counties. By the Jacobite party Sligo was considered a post important for maintaining the communications betwixt Connaught and Ulster. It had changed hands several times during the war of the Revolution in Ireland. Soon after O'Regan entered on the command, an army of observation under Lieut.-colonel Ramsay approached its vicinity, and was attacked by him with great energy; but, on a strong reinforcement arriving, his soldiers fled, and he himself narrowly escaped being taken in the flight. Α strong and masterly line of posts was then established against him around, under the command of Colonel Mitchelbourne, whose headquarters were at Ballyshannon, by which all relief by land was shut out, and the place became, to use the expression of Harris, "invested at a distance." By his exertions indeed the fortifications of the town were so greatly strengthened during the succeeding winter that the only mode of reducing them was by starving, as at Charlemont the year previous; and although the inhabitants were reduced to the greatest distress from the interruption of all supplies; and although this was perfectly well known to the besieging general, yet owing to the iron temper of O'Regan, who, it was said, "could fast as well as fight," weeks on weeks elapsed in unrelenting and vigilant league on the one side, and unrelaxed obstinacy on the other, before negotiations were opened with a view to surrender. On this occasion the craft of Sir Teague proved more than a match for the vigilant sagacity of Mitchelbourne. By deftly allowing the latter to believe him open to the offer of a bribe, to be paid indirectly to some of his relations, and which was not easily forthcoming, Sir Teague succeeded in protracting negotiations, and so to improve some misunderstanding betwixt Mitchelbourne and the investing militia regiments under his command, as to lay in a plentiful stock of provisions in corn and cattle, when the negotiations were ended by him somewhat abruptly. It was considered by the government of William in Ireland to be of the utmost importance to obtain possession of Sligo, and so to prevent the possibility of the town affording winter quarters to the Jacobites. This was the more imperatively necessary, as the arrival of relief by sea from France was daily expected by both parties, which, if allowed to be landed, would make its reduction that year next to impossible.

A force of five thousand men was therefore organized under Lord Granard. A part of this force, consisting of a regiment of dragoons under Sir Albert Coninghame posted at Coloony, and intended to unite themselves next day with a large body of infantry under an Irish chieftain named Baldearg O'Chonell, were surprised during a fog at daybreak by a party of five hundred chosen men from the garrison, and dispersed with great loss of men and all their baggage, and their commander, after being received as a prisoner, was slain. Meantime Colonel Mitchelbourne had attacked the outworks and compelled the garrison to retire from the town to a strong fort, called O'Regan's fort, which commanded the town and river. This fort was of sod-work, situate north-east of the town upon a high hill guarded by bastions with platforms at either end, and the whole inclosed by a deep and

wide fosse from which the hill fell abruptly. It contained a deep drawwell which supplied the garrison with water; and large stores of food and ammunition were laid up for an anticipated siege. More important still, it commanded the only pass from the north of Connaught into Donegal. While this fort therefore remained in the possession of the Jacobites, the town, river, and pass were wholly in their power; and with the means hitherto at the command of the besiegers, to reduce it by force was impossible. Lord Granard, however, was prepared for this -having with considerable difficulty, arising from the want of horses of sufficient strength, brought from Athlone a heavy park of artillery over the Corlin mountains-when he ordered a battery to be raised and a fire to be opened upon the fort. The garrison not having the patience to wait the effects of its fire, which they would have found, as was the case with Totleben's earth forts at Sebastopol, comparatively harmless, became intimidated, and constrained their commander to beat a parley, which terminated in their surrender on terms on the 15th September. The garrison were permitted to march to Limerick with their arms and baggage, and all the little garrisons around were included in the con

vention.

Of Sir Teague O'Regan nothing farther is known. He was no doubt included in the capitulation of Limerick which took place some weeks afterwards, and accompanied the Irish army to France, there to engage in a series of fights, such as that of Marsiglia in Piedmont in 1693, of which Macaulay remarks, "This battle is memorable as the first of a long series of battles in which the Irish troops retrieved the honour lost by misfortunes and misconduct in domestic war. Some of the exiles of Limerick," he adds, "showed, on that day, under the standard of France, a valour which distinguished them among many thousands of brave men."

BALDEARG O'DONELL. In our memoir of Hugh Roe O'Donell,* the last chief of Tyrconnel, who lived in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, it was stated that Sir Hugh O'Donell, his father, had four sons; and that of these Hugh Roe was the eldest and Rory O'Donell was the second. It was farther stated of the singularly gifted and energetic noble Hugh Roe, that after the failure of the Spanish expedition, which settled in Kinsale, he retired to Spain in January, 1600, with its commander, where he died on the 10th of September following. In the life of Hugh, Earl of Tyrone,† it was further stated of this second son, Rory O'Donell, who took an active part in the wars in which Hugh Roe was engaged, that when the latter, finding no further efforts were likely to be made by Spain in Ireland, made his submission to Elizabeth's government and was received into allegiance by James, he was joined in this act by Rory now chief of the Donells, and that on the occasion he not only received back all the lands of the family forfeited by treason, but was created by that monarch earl of Tyrconnel. It was further mentioned, that both earls soon afterwards began to suspect the government of plotting against them, and, in

revenge, or in self-defence, plotted against the government; that their schemes failed; that they fled to the continent; and that their titles and large estates were of new forfeited in absence. Tyrone went to Rome; Rory, late earl of Tyrconnel, took refuge at the court of Spain. The exiled chieftain was welcomed at Madrid as a good Catholic flying from heretical persecutors. His illustrious descent and princely dignity secured him the respect of the Castilian grandees. His honours were inherited by a succession of banished men who lived and died far from the land where the memory of their family was fondly cherished by a rude peasantry and was kept fresh by the songs of minstrels and the tales of begging friars. At length, in the eightythird year of the exile of this ancient dynasty, it was known over all Europe that the Irish were again in arms for their independence. Baldearg O'Donell-who called himself the O'Donell-the lineal representative of this unfortunate Rory, had been bred in Spain and was in the service of the Spanish government. He requested the permission of that government to proceed to Ireland. But the house of Austria was then in league with England, and the permission was refused. The O'Donell made his escape; and, by a circuitous route in the course of which he visited Turkey, arrived at Kinsale shortly after the battle of the Boyne and a few days after James had sailed thence for France. The effect produced on the native population by the arrival of this solitary wanderer was marvellous. Since Ulster had been colonized afresh by the English great multitudes of the Irish inhabitants of that province had migrated southward and were now leading a vagrant life in Connaught and Munster. These men, accustomed from their infancy to hear of the good old times when the chiefs of the O'Donells governed the mountains of Donegal in defiance of the lords of the pale, flocked to the standard of the exiled stranger. He was soon at the head of seven or eight thousand partizans, or, to use the name peculiar to Ulster, Creaghts; a name derived from the appellation Cruithne, given by the early Irish annalists to the strangers who had conquered Ireland from the north where they had settled shortly after the Christian era; a name which Irish antiquarians have sought to identify with that of the Picts both in Scotland and Ireland; one which, with greater probability, we find to apply in its first usage to the unconverted Scots and Picts (alike) in both countries; and which continued to be applied to both even after their conversion to Christianity. Between these Creaghts and the original Irish of the southern provinces there was little sympathy, or, to speak more accurately, there was a marked aversion; arising not only from difference of race but from the accustomed resentment of the conquered against their conquerors even after so many centuries had elapsed. These followers adhered to O'Donell with a loyalty very different from the languid sentiment which the feeble James had been able to inspire. Priests and even bishops swelled the train of the adventurer. Baldearg was so much elated by his reception that he sent agents to France, who assured the ministers of Louis, that, if furnished with arms and ammunition, he would bring into the field thirty thousand Creaghts from Ulster; and that the Creaghts from Ulster would be found far superior in every military quality to the Irish natives of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught.