Falkiner — The Fhrenix Park, its Origin and early History. 479 



suggested that a grant of the Phoenix Park would be a fruitful source of 

 enriclmient, and this was readily accorded by the easy sovereio'n. 

 Instructions to pass the patent were sent to Lord Esses, who had 

 shortly before entered on a Yiceroyalty still commemorated in Dublin 

 by Capel-street and till recently by Essex-bridge. His action on the 

 occasion was worthy of a statesman who has left a name amono- the 

 most honourable of his day. Like Chichester sixty-six years earlier 

 in the case of Sir Eichard Sutton, he suspended the patent till the 

 king could be brought to consider his objections; and he wrote 

 energetically to Arlington, Shaftesbury, Godolphin, and other ministers, 

 desiring them to exert their influence to procure a revocation of the 

 grant. The duchess, however, though past the zenith of her charms, 

 still retained much of her influence with Charles, and not many were 

 wining to peril their own positions by thwarting so powerful a per- 

 sonage. It took two months of incessant remonstrance to prevail with 

 the king to cancel his gift, and even then only upon a promise that 

 lands to the value of £1000 a year should be found for the disappointed 

 lady.^ Essex was much assisted in his representations by the Duke of 

 Ormond, who was keenly desirous of preserving the Park to the 

 Crown and the capital, and it was on this occasion that he met the 

 angiy and unmannerly reproaches of the Duchess of Cleveland with the 

 admirable example of the retort- coiu'teous recorded by Carte. ^ Meeting 

 the duke at coui-t her grace publicly upbraided Ormond with his 

 opposition to her interests, concluding an animated tirade with the 

 expression of her hope that she might live to see him hanged. To all 

 which Ormond, having heard the frail beauty out, only replied that 

 he was not in so much haste to put an end to her Grace's days, for all 

 he wished in regard to her was that he might live to see her old.^ 



"We .have already seen that the lands acquired from Sir- Maurice 

 Eustace included the mansion-house of Chapelizod, which had been occu- 

 pied for some time by the Chancellor as his residence. How Eustace had 

 become possessed of this property does not precisely appear, but in 1657 

 the house had been ia the occupation of Col. Theophilus Jones, a soldier 

 who, alike under protectorate and monarchy, succeeded in securing his 

 full share of the good things that were going in an era of confiscation. 

 Jones had, however, incurred the suspicion of the Parliamentary 

 leaders in 1659, and had quitted Dublin for a time, and it was 



^ Essex Letters from Ireland in 1675. 



-The date — 1664 — assigned by Carte to this iacident is manifestly incorrect. 



"Carte's " Life of Ormonde," vol. ii., p. 153. 



R.I. A. PKOC, SEE. III., VOL. VI. 2 N 



