The Commonwealth and the Restoration.

CHAPTER VII.

The Commonwealth and the Revolution.

Nothing is more remarkable in the history of Howth than the serenity with which its owners regarded he great events of he last half of the 17th century, anti the serenity with which throughout that changeful period they held their estate and did not stiffer diminution of it even to the extent of a single acre. The Commonwealth authorities could find no fault in the Lord Howth of their time, and the Parliament of James the Second and that of William the Third were in agreement as to the conduct of his son being irreproachable.

During the Commonwealth many envious glances must have been cast upon the peninsula by the high officials. They were not slow to appropriate to their own use any eligible residence in the neighbourhood of Dublin; and although the mountain of Howth was “high and barren,” the Commissioners of the Commonwealth Surveys reported that there was much fertile land at its foot and a singularly attractive mansion.

The peninsula was divided by the Commissioners under two denominations: the island of Howth, and Sutton. According to the return made by them the island of Howth was owned by Lord Howth, who was found to be a Protestant and to hold his property by inheritance under letters patent granted to his ancestors by Henry the Second.

It contained 600 acres. Three hundred acres were said to be arable, 200 pasture, 20 meadow, and 80 rock, and their value was estimated by a jury at £200, but by the Commissioners at £300. The sea was reported to he the boundary on all sides except the west, where the white bridge of Kilbarrack” and Baldoyle marked the limit.

“There is upon the premises,” said the Commissioners, one fair mansion-house, two castles, [i.e., the keep and the gateway tower]] one stable, one barn, one dove-house, and several other office-houses of stone slated, valued by the jury at £600, together with an orchard, two gardens, and a grove of ash trees set for ornament, also the walls of a decayed chapel. [There are the walls of a chapel in the demesne, but probably that chapel was erected at a later time, and the reference is to the remains of St. Fintan’s Church] There is also in the said island a township or village, where standeth the parish church, one slate house, one water-mill, with several thatched houses, all, the church excepted, valued at £80, together with an old castle and one thatched house called Corstown.”

In addition the Commissioners reported that there was a “harbour for small bark,” frequented by “several fishing-boats that take such fish as is usual on that coast, whereof, the Lord of Howth hath of every boat the choice fish which is called the Lord’s fish,” and that there were on the lands a large rabbit-warren and a quarry. The owner kept, they said, court-leet and court-baron, and had the right to “waifs and strays and felons’ goods” found upon the premises, while the tithes belonged to the prebendary of Howth in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, as rector of the parish.

Sutton was returned by the Commissioners as the property of William Gough, who was found to be an Irish Papist” and to hold the lands as his inheritance subject to a rent of 10s. a year to the Lord of Howth, and “suit and service to the court leet and baron at Howth.”

The lands were estimated to contain a 140 acres, sixty being arable, three meadow, 60 pasture and heath, and 17 rock, and were valued by a jury at £30, but by the Commissioners at twice that amount. The boundaries were given as being on the east a parcel of the Lord of Howth’s called Saneer,” [Presumably a corruption of Censure] on the south the sea, on the west “Corkin’s bank” and a ditch heading to a chapel,” and on the north the hill called Shelmartin. Upon the lands the Commissioners reported there were one stone-house slated, an office-house tiled, a barn of Stone, and six thatched cottages,” which were valued by a jury at £300.

Besides the island of Howth and Sutton three holdings on the former denomination are separately mentioned. The first was a holding in the town of Howth which had been formerly owned by Nicholas Brian, who was found to be an “Irish Papist” and to have held in fee from Lord Howth. By him the holding had been sold in 1648 to Edward Stokes, who was also an “Irish Papist,” and was then in the possession of Joan Stokes, who was his widow and a Protestant. [She married subsequently Christopher St. Lawrence, and died before 1668.]

It contained “one house thatched with several houses of houses valued by the jury at 20s.,” and was bounded on the east by the east street of Howth, on the south and north by Lord Howth’s land, and on the west by Bealing’s land.

The second holding was called White’s freehold, and was owned by Dominick White of Dublin, who was found to be an “Irish Papist ” and to hold in fee-farm from Lord Howth. It contained a thatched house and garden, and stood in the town of Howth, bounded on the east by the east street, on the south** by Bealing’s land, on the west by Lord Howth’s land, and on the north by the church-hill of **Howth.

The third holding was known as Bealing’s freehold, and was owned by Lawrence Bealing of Bealingstown, who was** **found to be an “Irish Papist” and to hold under Lord Howth, “paying some duties.” It was said to be divided into four separate parts, each of them enclosed by Lord Howth’s land, and to contain some small cottages valued by a jury at £2.

Shortly before the Restoration, in the early months** **of the year 1660, the General Convention of Ireland decided that a subsidy should be raised, and that it should be levied on every person over fifteen years of age, the amount rising in proportion to the rank of the individual. For that purpose a census was compiled, and persons of rank were mentioned by name under the description of tituladoes.

In the case of Howth this census shows that the inhabitants over 15 numbered 174 persons, of whom 45 were of English, and 129 of Irish origin. In “house of Howth ” there were 27 residents, 14 English and 13 Irish, the tituladoes, besides Lord Howth, being Peter Wynne and William Fitzwilliam, who were described as gentlemen.

In the town of Howth there were 111 inhabitants, 25 of English and 86 of Irish origin, the tituladoes being Thomas Lea [At the time of his death he was ”the keeper of his Majesty’s Council Chamber in Ireland.” As appears from his will, which is dated December 15, 1672, he was a friend of the learned Dr. Dudley Loftus, and left all his property to his friend Jane Lyndon, who lost no time in obtaining probate, which was granted the day after the will was made. He left a tankard to Trinity College as a mark of respect and good wishes. (In the Prerogative Collection.)] and Richard St. Lawrence, [Probably a son of Robert St. Lawrence] who were also described as gentlemen.

In the walls [It was afterwards known as the Studwalls; possibly it was the site of a half-timbered house.] there were two English, and two Irish, residents, the titulado being Thomas Dongan, gentleman; [Possibly a member of the Irisil Judiciary, who was appointed itt 1644 to a seat in the Chief Place, and after the Restoration to a seat in the Excheqner. See ” Notes on the Irish Judiciary during the reign of Charles II.”] and of the remaining inhabitants there were found in Sancer nine Irish; in Corstown, one English and three Irish ; and in Sutton, three English and 16 lrish. After the Restoration, in connexion with the levying of the Hearth-Money Tax, lists of the householders, with the number of hearths for which they were liable, were made out; and the two rolls that are available for the county of Dublin. show that the Castle of Howth was rated for 12 hearths, and that, in 1664, Richard St. Lawrence was rated for three and John Burniston for five and, in 1667, Thomas Lightfoot was rated for two, Abraham Ellis for four, Colonel Newcomen for six, and the College for two.

Into the possession of John Burniston and Colonel Newcomen the lands of Sutton had successively passed. Before the establishment of he Commonwealth they were in the possession of William Gough, whose wife was a kinswoman of Lord Howth, one of the Berfords of Kiltow ; and although the ownership was forfeited by him on account of his religion, they continued in his occupation until his death.

In his will, which was dated April 26, 1658, he describes himself as of Sutton, as does also his widow, who made her will two years later on May 1, 1660. It appears from his widow’s will that she had married again, her second husband being Captain Henry Ussher, a cousin of the great Primate; and she mentions in it a number of persons who were probably then well known in Howth and its neighbourhood:

Mr. John Walker, who was to dispose of money for pious uses, and distribute three barrels of corn amongst the poor; Mary Fitzwilliam, who was left her gorget; Mary Barret, who was left her serge gown and petticoat; and Mrs. Geoghegan, who was to have her holland smock and bedclothes. Besides, she leaves to her mother her long riding-scarf and saddle-cloth, to her sister Gernon her silk gown and petticoat, to her sister Cecilia her curled hood and small scarf, to her sister Bridget a lawn handkerchief, to her maid her red waistcoat, and to her nurse her enamelled ring.

After her death, John Burniston, who was sword-bearer in Ireland under the Commonwealth, entered into possession of Sutton, and expended £300 on the premises, which were leased to him by order of the King, who was sensible of services which he had rendered in “the worst of times” to the Duke of Gloucester and the Princess Elizabeth.

Not long after the grant to Burniston, the premises passed, as appears from the Hearth-Money Boll, to Colonel Newcomen, who was afterwards knighted and known as Sir Thomas Newcomen, and whose residence at Sutton is marked by a tablet bearing his arms, which is preserved at Sutton House. He served in the army, but as another Sir Thomas Newcomen was also an officer at the same time, his career is not easily disentangled.

In his will, which bears the dates February 16 and May 9, l695, he mentions that he had been twice married, his first wife being a sister of the famous Earl of Tyrconnel, and his second, who survived him, a connexion of the Earl of Carlingford, and refers to five daughters, who were married, and to an only son, who he desires should be sent abroad with a tutor, and bred up under great strictness of discipline “wholly to his books, and by all means to be kept from ever having thought of turning soldier.”

His bequests include two coaches and coach-horses, a roan pad with a red saddle and pistols, and a breeding stud, which he leaves to his soil in curious opposition to his directions in regard to the youth’s education. He desired that he should he buried in Clonsilla churchyard, where there is a tombstone to his first wife, and that his body should be carried thither privately.

In the early Restoration years the prebend of Howth was given to the father of the Grattans, whose connexion with Swift has secured for them immortality:-

My time, O ye Grattans, was happily spent,

When Bacchus went with me, wherever I went;

For then I did nothing but sing, laugh, and jest,

Was ever a trooper so merrily blest?

As his seat, Belcamp, was adjacent to Howth, Patrick Grattan discharged the duties of the cure himself, and was possibly without a church, as 30 years before the parish church was in a decaying state, and St. Fintan’s Church was doubtless roofless.

Patrick Grattan, who had been chaplain to the first Duke of Ormond, is said to have been “a worthy considerable divine,” and was the most hospitable man iii the neighbourhood of Howth. Of the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, little is then known; but even during the Commonwealth period one was in charge of Howth. He was a member of the Capuchin Order, Father Anselm, and, as the Bishop of Canea tells us, he took up his abode at Sutton.

It was only by hiding in the caverns and assuming various disguises that he was able to escape those who sought his life; and it was sometimes only through the help of those who differed from him in faith, like the Lord Howth of the time, that lie was saved from starvation.

Soon after the Restoration an attempt was made to lessen the danger of the peninsula to navigation, by the erection of two lighthouses upon it. At that period the light was afforded by a fire of coal or wood, and the house consisted generally of a tower surmounted by a brazier in which the fire was made; but at Howth the arrangements were even more simple, and comprised a slightly raised platform with a great iron pan,” from which a coal fire blazed at night.

Like all works of public utility, the establishment of the lighthouses at Howth was due to private enterprise, and their maintenance led to abuses. Their projector was a certain Sir Robert Reading, an ancestor of the Duke of Abercorn. He had married the widow of Sir Charles Coote, who was created Earl of Mountrath for his services at the tune of the Restoration ; and he used the influence which he possessed through her to obtain from the King in the year 1667 a patent granting to him and her the right to levy dues on shipping for the maintenance of the lighthouses on Howth, and of others which lie had constructed elsewhere in Treland.

But for years later the shipowners of Chester and Liverpool represented that, owing to the frequent voyages their ships made to Dublin, these dues were a grievance and a burden ; and the King was pleased to substitute an annual grant of £500 for such dues as were imposed on home trade.

At the beginning of the 18th century, when the patent had become vested in Sir Robert Reading’s son-in-law, the sixth Earl of Abercorn, complaint was made that of the lighthouses specified in it only two, namely, one** **at Howth and one near Waterford, remained in working order, and that these were not sufficiently maintained; and the commissioners of the revenue were obliged to secure surrender of the patent from the Earl of Abercorn, which was probably not accomplished without adequate compensation, and to take into their own hands the maintenance of the lighthouses.

Notwithstanding the lighthouses, the sea continued to exact a terrible toll of shipwrecks at Howth. In 1674, during a great tempest, a vessel was blown from Ringsend on the rocks of Howth; in 1677 another ship is recorded to have teen wrecked there; and in 1696 the “William” packet-boat was cast away near Sutton when coming from Holyhead, and all the passengers, including Brigadier-General Edward FitzPatrick, an ancestor of the Earls of Upper-Ossory, were drowned.’

In private life as well as in public the liberality of the Lords of Howth is conspicuous at that period, and their connexion with families which differed from them in regard to affairs of state and religion was of assistance to them in preserving an even course during those difficult tunes. They appear no longer prominent in martial enterprises, but they show an ever-increasing interest in the chase. Amongst the younger members of the house of Howth a mighty huntsmen was then found in the person of Michael St. Lawrence, a brother of Robert St. Lawrence, who died at Howth in 1637, and a brother-in-law of the Lord Howth of his time, and he is the principal figure in an Irish bunting-song, one of the oldest in existence, which is preserved amongst the Sloane Manuscripts in the British Museum.

Ye merry boys all that live in Fingal,

I will tell you a tale, how a hare catch’d a fall;

There was Michael St. Lawrence and Patrick Aspoor,

Robin Hodgier and Jackey Radmoor,

With Robin Hilliard with his gay little grey,

And Stephen Ashpole, a gay merry boy.

They met on a day in St. Lawrence’s Hall,

Where he gave ‘em hot waters, good meat, and strong ale,

And one thing more may be said for his farce,

For his sport he ventured his eye and his arm.

There was St. Lawrence’s Scotty and her daughter Betty,

Short-cropt curried Iron, and merry-hunting Dow,

Hodgier’s Hector, a gay greyhound,

He’ll take three yards at every bound,

And tho’ he had a blemish upon one eye,

It was hard for all that to give him the go-by.

They went over the ditches with their dogs and bitches,

‘they spar’d not to beat bear, barley and wheat.

Last out of some briars, they got their desires,

There started a hare that runned most rare,

Which set ‘em a-barking with all their train,

Till the merry light hare was very nigh slain,

But in a fine mend, she being almost spent,

She made her last will, ay and testament;

“Cropt cur, with thee,” says she, “I will not stay,

”Nor with true-running Scutty, that showed such fair play,

“But to thee, brave Hector, I yield up my life, ”

And so Hector bore her and ended the strife.

But Patrick Ashpoor he spoke a bold word,

He would go to Baldoyle to see what the town could afford:

And when the boys came to the gay town,

They got salt and yellow bacon,

Which they then just cut down iron the smoke,

And Patrick Ashpoor play’d a very good cook,

He slash’d it, and wash’d it, and I know not what,

Meat not one bit he left on’t but ‘twas all he eat,

The drink it was good and so was the bread,

They took of their liquor till they were all red,

And when they had done they sang the hare’s knell,

And if I had more, faith more I would tell.

[In his will, which is dated March 5, 1687-8, John Radmore describes himself as of Dublin, and mentions as cherished possessions a saddle and a fowling-piece. (Dublin Collection.). In his will, which is dated July 13,1677, Robert Hilliard, who describes himself as a distiller, now of the city of Dublin, mentions a design of crossing the seas on a journey to London, and, in spite of his exploits on his grey horse, exhibits great terror at the hazard and dangers of the channel. (Dublin Collection.)]

Thomas Lord Howth, who succeeded to the title and estate as heir-presumptive, was living at the time of his brother’s death near the home of their mother’s family, at a place called Wiston, in Suffolk. He had joined, as a resident in the Pale in 625, in the voluntary contribution to James the First’s revenue; but at the time of his mother’s death he was evidently living in England, and married there a neighbour of his mother’s family, Elinor, daughter of William Lynne of Worthington and Little Horksley in** **Essex.

Owing to the disturbed state of Ireland, be appears to have been afraid to come over himself; but a few months after his brother’s death he sent over a representative. In a letter dated at London on St. Patrick’s Day, 1645, he asks the Duke of Ormond as Lord Lieutenant, to grant protection to his servant, whom he is sending to inquire about the estates to which he has succeeded “on the death of his dear brother” and tells him that ever since the troubles began he had lived a private, retired life in his house in Suffolk, where they enjoyed much quietness.

His arrival in Ireland appears to have been postponed for some years, and meantime Howth Castle was occupied by his brother’s widow and her daughters. It was a very trying experience for her with war on every side. From H.M.S. “Swan,” riding to the north of Howth, the captain writes on March 26, 1645, to Ormond asking the strength of a Parliament ship which he may find it necessary to attack, and requesting leave to impress men at Howth and Baldoyle;** **and on February 13, 1646, the captain of a Parliament ship reports to his masters that he has taken under Howth a small bark with letters to the Lords Ormond and Digby.

In the summer of 1646 the Royalists were reduced to the lowest ebb. The condition of Dublin and of the whole of Leinster was said by the council to be miserable; the coasts were infested with the ships of the Parliament, arid supplies for the army had to be procured by means “far below the dignity” of the King.

On sending troops to Howth in the autumn, Ormond, with characteristic gallantry, tried to spare so far as possible the Dowager Lady Howth, and directed that as she was “a widow and sole woman” they wore not to be quartered in Howth Castle, but were to be billeted in the town of Howth, where she had offered to find them accommodation.

Her husband had associated with her in the care of their daughters, his uncle, Captain Thomas St. Lawrence, a cousin of her uncle Willoughby, Benjamin Culme, who was then Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and her uncle’s brother, Nicholas Willoughby, who had been for many years resident in Ireland. But they wore not in a position to assist her. Captain Thomas St. Lawrence, who did not long survive his nephew, made, a few months after his nephew’s death, on May 6, 1645,* *“an addition to his will,” which shows the distracted state of the country in his closing years.

In it he ignores altogether his former testamentary dispositions, and deals only with moneys in his custody.” To the Dowager Lady Howth, to her daughters “Susan, Bess, and Frances,” to his brother Richard, and to his man Ned Sweetman, he leaves legacies of various amounts, and assigns £15 to be distributed amongst the poor by Mr. Shergoll, to whom he leaves the residue to defray the expenses of his funeral, and for other purposes as to which he had given verbal directions.

Dean Culme was fully occupied with the care of his cathedral and his own family, and Nicholas Willoughby was a broken and ruined man. Before the rebellion of 1641 he had been resident in the county of Fermanagh, whence he was obliged to flee, and he would have starved only for the kindness of Lord and Lady Howth, who received him, together with his wife and four children, into their house, and “bestowed help upon his son towards his training in Dublin College.”

After her husband’s death the Dowager Lady Howth continued to befriend him, but, writing to his brother in January, 1648, Nicholas tells him that “his noble friend, Lady Howth, grows behindhand and has left off housekeeping,” and without her assistance he could riot long sustain life, and on June 16 he closed his career.

About that time the Dowager’s brother-in-law, Thomas Lord Howth, summoned up courage to come to Ireland. He enjoyed his honours, however, only a short time, and died at Howth in the following year, his will being dated August 5, 1649, and proved on October 3 following. He desired that his body might be laid in the chancel of the church of Howth, and bequeated to his wife the farm of Killester, and to his second son his estate in Essex and Suffolk, “that is to say in Colchester and Wiston.” He left two sons, William and Thomas, and a daughter, Martha.

William Lord Howth, who succeeded to the title and estate as his father’s eldest son, has been educated in** **Colchester Gramnar School, which he had entered on January 11, 1639, at the age of 10, and had served in the army of Charles the First. Notwithstanding that fact, his liberty appears to have been in no way curtailed by the Commonwealth authorities, and soon after his father’s death he married his cousin, Elizabeth St. Lawrence, the second daughter of his uncle Nicholas Lord Howth. [She was previously married to the Honble. Richard Fitzwilliam, the eldest son of the first Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion (cf. Lodge’s Peerage, iii, 202; Hist. of Co. Dublin, ii, 14). As has been mentioned, in 1660 a William Fitzwilliam, was residing at Howth, and a John Fitzwilliam, was a witness of her father’s will.]

Her eldest sister, Susan, bad married her cousin Michael St. Lawrence, and her younger sister, Frances, yet another cousin, Sir James Montgomery. Their mother was residing at Raheny, in the house built by the blind lord, and there was evidently much intercourse with her relations. Her cousin, the third Viscount Montgomery, created after the Restoration Earl of Mount Alexander, stayed in 1653 at Howth, and Nicholas Willoughby’s son entertained in 1655 Lord Howth when on a visit to the county of Fermanagh.

At the time of the Restoration, William gave material help to the royal cause, and, in addition to benefits connected with his estate, he was granted lands in the county of Louth which had been forfeited by one of his kinsmen, and was given a company in the army.

Some years later the Duke of Ormond commended him to the king’s favour, on the ground of his being a gentleman of ancient family, who bad been very constant in the royal service, and suggested his appointment to the command of the King’s Horse. On two occasions it fell to his lot to receive the king’s representative at Howth, in 1662 when the Duke of Ormond landed there, and in 1669 when Lord Robartes did so. Ormond was received with no little state, and spent the night of his arrival at Howth Castle, as appears from the following minute made by he privy council on July 27, 1662.

“Sir Henry Tichbourne, Sir Paul Davys, and Sir Theophilus Jones of this Board are directed to repair to Howth, where the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of this Kingdom, is expected by the blessing of God to land to-day, and shall signify to him that they have been sent by the Justices and Council to attend him arid congratulate him on his arrival. They shall inform his Grace that the Earl of Orrery is prevented by an accession of the gout from going to meet his Grace. The Lord Chancellor, and body of the Council now about Dublin shall attend the Lord Lieutenant at Howth to-morrow to know his pleasure.”

Lord Robartes, who arrived on September 20, 1669, about one o’clock, was met by Lord Howth, and attended by him to Howth Castle, where a handsome entertainment was provided, and a committee of the privy council waited on the Viceroy.’

The position of custos rotulorum in the county of Dublin was, in 1661, conferred on William, who was active in the Irish Parliament of his tune, and he is mentioned in the summer of 1665 as presiding at the general sessions at Kilmainham with the King’s serjeant-at-law, Robert Griffith. From his will, which is dated May 14,1671, it is evident that he had a wide circle of friends, including his beloved Earl of Ossory, whom he appoints guardian of his children, and John Keatinge, afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Nicholas Henshaw, a leading Dublin physician, and John Byron, his lieutenant and neighbour at Baldoyle, whom he appoints his executors.

A month after the execution of his will, on June 17, 1671, he died, and according to an entry in Ulster’s Office was “interred with funeral rites on the 21st in the church of Howth.” In his will he desired to be buried under the monument of his ancestors, near his father, but directed that a new vault was to be subsequently made, “inasmuch as the old vault where his father and mother now lie is well-nigh full,” and that his parents’ bodies and his own wore to be laid in it. He left two soils, Thomas, to whom he bequeathed the great seal ring of his family, arid Charles, to whom he bequeathed his English estate; and three daughters: Mary, who married, in 1672, Henry, third Earl of Mount-Alexander, and who died on August 26, 1705; Sarah, who married Thomas Stepney, of the county of Meath; and Martha, who married Hugh O’Neill.

Thomas, who succeeded to the title and estate as the eldest son of William Lord Howth, was for nine years after his father’s death in a state of pupilage, and did not marry until 1687, when** **he took to wife a kinswoman of his own, Mary, eldest daughter of Henry Barnewall, second Viscount Barnewall, of Kingston, by his second wife Mary, daughter of Richard Nugent, Earl of Westmeath.

In the parliament of James the Second, and in that of William the Third, he took his seat, and he joined in 1697 in the declaration of an attachment to the person and government of William the Third.

According to a tradition existing 100 years ago, William the Third honoured him with a visit at Howth, where the actual room occupied by the King used to be pointed out, [The room is now used as a billiard-room] but there is ground for doubt as to the tradition being well founded.

Towards the close of Queen Anne’s reign, on the suggestion of the second Duke of Ormond, Thomas constructed a quay for landing coal for the lighthouse, and during the opening years of George the First’s reign, he had much difficulty in obtaining compensation for it, and for injury done to his property by carrying the coal to the lighthouse. At the time he succeeded to the title the port of Howth appears to have been used by persons landing surreptitiously, and in 1678 19 Irish officers, who had been in French service, wore reported to have come ashore there.

The Grattans ‘were amongst Thomas’s closest friends, and after the death of their father, Robert Grattan, Swift’s particular ally, who was Thomas’s chaplain, was appointed at Thomas’s request to the prebend and rectory of Howth. In his will, which is dated June 3, 1723 Thomas mentions not only Robert Grattan, but also two of his brothers, John, who held another prebend, and James, who was a physician. [In his last illness Thomas was attended by Dr. Grattan and by another of Swift’s friends, Dr. Helsham. Their visits and fees are set out in a contemporary account hook. The fees varied its amount, the highest being £2 19s. 8d*., *and the lowest £1 9s. 8d. On only two days out of 11 do they seem to have come together to see the patient.]

Thomas was survived by four sons, William, Henry, Nicholas, and Oliver, and a daughter, Elizabeth, who married first, in 1716, Edward Rice, the eldest son of James the Second’s Chief Baron, and secondly, in 1721*, *Dominick Quin. His death took place on May 30, 1727, and was made the subject of an elegy which, though lacking in literary merits, is testimony to the high esteem in which he was held:-

Thus us sets the shining planet of the day,

Whose beams great Nature’s inmost parts survey,

But when departed to his oozy urn,

All nature does his gloomy absence mourn;

So, great Fitzwilliam, is thy death deplored,

And widowed Howth laments her breathless Lord.

O! that the wise Pythagoras could maintain

That souls might he enshrined in men again,

Then would thy friends exempt from sorrow be,

And thou mightest live to vast eternity.

But see, in solemn woe, a moving throng

Augustly silent, bears the corpse along;

Now the loved frame in mouldering dust is laid,

To hug the grave’s uncomfortable shade;

For as from dust arose the well-tuned frame,

So must it basely mingle with the same

But thy free spirit from its partner flown,

Now hovers loosely in an air unknown,

Nor wanders in imagined shades alone,

But fluttering straight to its bright source retires,

To live in bliss, amidst the heavenly choirs.

Behold this stone whose vault contains

More precious dust than India’s veins,

For honour’s sake then shed a tear,

Since honour’s self lies buried here.

[An Elegy on the much lamented death of the Right Honourable Thomas, Lord of Howth, who departed this life this present Tuesday, May the thirtieth, 1727.” Trinity College Library, Irish Pamphlets, vol. iv, no.142.]

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