22 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Acadeyny. 



carried out. Tlie process may be traced in the correspondence of Lord 

 Clarendon, who, though, unquestionably loyal to his Sovereign, was 

 , alarmed at the vehemence of the subordinate who was so shortly to 

 be his successor. Clarendon's letters, written during the period of his 

 Yiceroyalty, shed a flood of clear light on events in Ireland in the 

 years immediately preceding the Eevolution. Though of liberal 

 opinions on the Roman Catholic question, he was, despite his close 

 family connexion with King James, far fi'om endorsing every item in 

 the policy of his royal master, disliking the rapidity and violence 

 with which changes were introduced into the system of government 

 he was administering, and particularly resenting the interference of 

 Tyrconnel, who, as Lieutenant- General of the army in Ireland, 

 exercised plenary powers independently of the Viceroy. His letters, 

 descriptive of Tyrconnel's proceedings, contain several references to 

 the Guards. ^ In letter after letter he represented to James and to 

 his ministers his disapproval of proceedings which, apart from their 

 unfortunate effect in alienating a large section of the Irish population, 

 he considered injurious to the efficiency of the army in Ireland, and 

 especially to the Regiment of Guards. 



Pui'suant, however, to the commands of the king who, as he told 

 Clarendon, was "resolved to employ his subjects of the Roman 

 CathoKc religion," and " not to keep one man in his service who ever 

 served under the usui'pers,"- Tyi'connel proceeded to put out of the 

 regiment such of the officers as were unlikely to lend themselves 

 to the new order of things, and at the same time to make large 

 changes in the personnel of the rank and file. The true reasons 

 for these alterations were not of coxu'se publicly avowed, the ostensible 

 reason being that, in the language of Tyrconnel, " the Scotch battalion, 

 which is newly come into England, has undone us ; the King is so 

 pleased with it that he will have all his forces in the same posture. 

 We have here a great many old men, and of different statures : ^ they 

 must be all turned out, for the King would have all his men young 

 and of one size " ; this, however, was only a pretext, for, according to 

 Clarendon, the new men were "full as little" as those who were 

 turned out. 



On June 8th the Guards were reviewed in St. Stephen's Green by 

 Tyrconnel, who owned to Clarendon that "it was a much better regi- 

 ment than he could have imagined, and that the men did their exercises 



1 Clarendon State Papers, i. 433, et seq. ^ Ibid., i., p. 431. 



3 Ibid., i., p. 468. 



