seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Category Archives: Protestant Ascendancy (1691-1800)


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Birth of Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington

garret-wesley

Garret Colley Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington, Anglo-Irish politician and composer best known today for fathering several distinguished military commanders and politicians of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, is born on July 19, 1735, at the family estate of Dangan Castle, near Summerhill, County Meath.

Wesley is the son of Richard Wesley, 1st Baron Mornington, and Elizabeth Sale. He is educated at Trinity College Dublin and is elected its first Professor of Music in 1764. From early childhood he shows extraordinary talent on the violin and soon begins composing his own works. As a composer he is remembered chiefly for glees such as “Here in cool grot” and for a double Anglican chant. His son, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, is the only one of his children to inherit something of his musical talent.

Wesley represents Trim in the Irish House of Commons from 1757 until 1758, when he succeeds his father as 2nd Baron Mornington.

Wesley marries Anne Hill-Trevor, eldest daughter of banker Arthur Hill-Trevor, 1st Viscount Dungannon, and his wife Anne Stafford, on February 6, 1759. His godmother, the famous diarist Mary Delany, says the marriage is happy, despite his lack of financial sense and her “want of judgment.” They have nine children, most of whom are historically significant.

In 1759 Wesley is appointed Custos Rotulorum of Meath and in 1760, in recognition of his musical and philanthropic achievements, he is created Viscount Wellesley, of Dangan Castle in the County of Meath, and Earl of Mornington. He is elected Grandmaster of the Grand Lodge of Ireland in 1776, a post he holds until the following year.

Wesley dies at the age of 45 on May 22, 1781. Like his father, he is careless with money, and his early death leaves the family exposed to financial embarrassment, leading ultimately to the decision to sell all their Irish estates.

Four streets in Camden Town, which form part of the estate of Wesley’s son-in-law Henry FitzRoy, are named Mornington Crescent, Place, Street and Terrace after him. Of these, the first has since become famous as the name of a London Underground station.

Four of Wesley’s five sons are created peers in the Peerages of Great Britain and the United Kingdom. The Barony of Wellesley and the Barony of Maryborough are now extinct, while the Dukedom of Wellington and Barony of Cowley are extant. The Earldom of Mornington is held by the Dukes of Wellington, and the Barons Cowley has since been elevated to be Earls Cowley.


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Death of Lord Edward FitzGerald

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Lord Edward FitzGerald, Irish aristocrat and revolutionary, dies on June 4, 1798, of wounds received while resisting arrest on a charge of treason.

FitzGerald, the fifth son of James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster, and the Lady Emily Lennox the daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, is born at Carton House, near Dublin on October 15, 1763. He spends most of his childhood in Frescati House at Blackrock in Dublin where he is tutored in a manner chiefly directed to the acquisition of knowledge that would fit him for a military career.

FitzGerald joins the British Army in 1779 and in 1781 is aide-de-camp on the staff of Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings in the southern theatre of the American Revolutionary War. He is seriously wounded at the Battle of Eutaw Springs on September 8, 1781.

Fitzgerald is first elected to the Parliament of Ireland in 1783. His enthusiasm for the French Revolution leads to dismissal from the army in 1792. Four years later he joins the Society of United Irishmen, a nationalist organization that aspires to free Ireland from English control. This group appoints him to head the military committee formed to plan an uprising and obtain aid from the French revolutionary regime.

Although the French delay in supplying arms and troops, Fitzgerald’s committee proceeds with its plans for a general rebellion. The insurrection is set for May 23, 1798. In March his co-conspirators are seized by government agents, making him the most important United Irish leader still at liberty. On May 9 a reward of £1,000 is offered by Dublin Castle for his apprehension.

FitzGerald’s hiding place in a house in Thomas Street, Dublin is disclosed by a Catholic barrister and informant named Francis Magan. On May 18 Major Henry Sirr leads a military party to the house where FitzGerald is in bed suffering from a fever. Alerted by the commotion, he jumps out of bed and, ignoring the pleas of the arresting officers Captain William Bellingham Swan and Captain Daniel Frederick Ryan to surrender peacefully, FitzGerald stabs Swan and mortally wounds Ryan with a dagger in a desperate attempt to escape. He is secured only after Major Sirr shoots him in the shoulder.

FitzGerald is conveyed to New Prison, Dublin where he is denied proper medical treatment. After a brief detention in Dublin Castle he is taken to Newgate Prison, Dublin where his wound, which had now become infected, becomes mortally inflamed. His wife, whom the government probably has enough evidence to convict of treason, had fled the country, never to see her husband again, but his brother Henry and his aunt Lady Louisa Conolly are allowed to see him in his last moments.

FitzGerald dies at the age of 34 on June 4, 1798, as the rebellion rages outside. He is buried the next day in the cemetery of St. Werburgh’s Church, Dublin. An Act of Attainder confiscating his property is passed as 38 Geo. 3 c. 77 but is eventually repealed in 1819.

(Pictured: Portrait of Edward FitzGerald by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, 1796. National Portrait Gallery, London.)


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The Battle of Fontenoy

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The Irish Brigade of France, a brigade in the French Royal Army composed of Irish exiles most commonly identified in Irish history as The Wild Geese, achieve its most glorious victory at the Battle of Fontenoy on May 11, 1745, during the War of the Austrian Succession.

The battle takes place in the Belgian municipality of Antoing, near Tournai. A French army of 50,000 commanded by Marshal Maurice de Saxe defeats a slightly larger Pragmatic Army of 52,000 consisting of the Dutch Republic, Great Britain, Hanover and the Holy Roman Empire, led by Prince William, Duke of Cumberland. The Irish Brigade is led by Justin McCarthy, Viscount Mountcashel and is comprised of six regiments.

Despite setbacks elsewhere, at the end of 1744 the French hold the initiative in the Austrian Netherlands, and their leaders consider this theatre offers the best opportunity for a decisive victory. In late April, they besiege Tournai, which controls access to the upper Scheldt basin, which makes it a vital link in the North European trading network and the Allies march to its relief.

Leaving 22,000 men in front of Tournai, Saxe places his main force five miles away in the villages of St. Antoine, Vezin and Fontenoy, along a naturally strong feature which he strengthens with defensive works. After a series of unsuccessful flank assaults, the Allies attack the French centre with a column of 15,000 men.

Colonel Arthur Dillon‘s regiment, which had already been badly shot up earlier in the fight, along with the brigade’s other five, charge the British as they seem on the verge of breaking the French line. Fifty years of Irish frustration and British betrayal now come back to haunt the British. As the men of the Irish Brigade close through a hail of British bullets, their shouts are heard above the din: “Cuimhnígí ar Luimneach agus ar fheall na Sasanach!” (Remember Limerick and the Saxon Faith).

Nothing can withstand the wave of hatred and revenge that breaks on the hapless British line that day. The victory is won but the cost is high. Colonel Dillon is dead, and Lord Clare is wounded twice. The brigade suffers 656 casualties in all, the highest percentage of all the French units.

Although the Allies retreat in good order, Tournai falls shortly afterwards, followed by Ghent, Oudenaarde, Bruges and Dendermonde. The withdrawal of British forces in October to deal with the Jacobite Rising facilitates the capture of Ostend and Nieuwpoort. By the end of 1745, France controls much of the Austrian Netherlands, threatening British links with Europe.

However, by early 1746, France is struggling to finance the war and begins peace talks at the Congress of Breda in May. Despite victories at Rocoux in October 1746 and Lauffeld in July 1747, the war continues until the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.

It is a day never to be forgotten by the Irish worldwide. At Manassas, Virginia, 116 years later, Thomas Francis Meagher cries out to the 69th New York, another regiment of Irishmen, “Remember Fontenoy!”

(Pictured: The Irish Brigade, presenting a captured British colour to Louis XV and the Dauphin)


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The Battle of Culloden

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The Battle of Culloden, the final confrontation of the Jacobite rising of 1745 known in Scotland as simply “The ’45,” is fought on April 16, 1746. The Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart, also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, is decisively defeated by a British government force under William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, on Drummossie Moor near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. It is the last pitched battle fought on British soil.

Charles is the eldest son of James Francis Edward Stuart, the exiled Stuart claimant to the British throne. Believing there is support for a Stuart restoration in both Scotland and England, he lands in Scotland in July 1745. The Jacobite Army is often assumed to have been largely composed of Gaelic-speaking Catholic Highlanders. In reality nearly a quarter of the rank and file are recruited in Aberdeenshire, Forfarshire and Banffshire, with another 20% from Perthshire. Although the army is predominantly Scots it contains a few English recruits plus significant numbers of Irish, Scottish and French professionals in French service with the Irish Brigade and Garde Écossaise.

After amassing his army of Scots Jacobite supporters, Charles takes Edinburgh by September and defeats a British government force at Prestonpans. The government recalls 12,000 troops from the Continent to deal with the rising. A Jacobite invasion of England reaches as far as Derby before turning back, having attracted relatively few English recruits.

The Jacobites, with limited French military support, attempt to consolidate their control of Scotland, whereby early 1746 they are opposed by a substantial government army. A scrambled Jacobite victory at Falkirk fails to change the strategic situation. With supplies and pay running short and with the government troops resupplied and reorganised under the Duke of Cumberland, son of British monarch George II, the Jacobite leadership has few options left other than to stand and fight. The two armies eventually meet at Culloden, on terrain that gives Cumberland’s larger, well-rested force the advantage.

The battle lasts only an hour, with the Jacobites suffering a bloody defeat with between 1,500 and 2,000 killed or wounded. Approximately 300 government soldiers are killed or wounded. While perhaps as many as 6,000 Jacobites remain in arms in Scotland, the leadership takes the decision to disperse, effectively ending the rising. The men of the combined Irish regiments, under the command of Brigadier Walter Stapleton, are the last off the field, covering the retreat of Prince Charles and the remnants of his army. The Irish had given their blood to the cause of a Stuart King for the last time. Most of the surviving Irish surrender at Inverness. The prince himself eventually manages to make his escape to France.

Culloden and its aftermath continue to arouse strong feelings. The University of Glasgow awards the Duke of Cumberland an honorary doctorate, but many modern commentators allege that the aftermath of the battle and subsequent crackdown on Jacobite sympathisers were brutal, earning Cumberland the sobriquet “Butcher.” Efforts are subsequently made to further integrate the comparatively undeveloped Scottish Highlands into the Kingdom of Great Britain. Civil penalties are introduced to undermine the Scottish clan system, which had provided the Jacobites with the means to rapidly mobilise an army.

Today, a visitor centre is located near the site of the battle. This centre is first opened in December 2007, with the intention of preserving the battlefield in a condition similar to how it was on April 16, 1746. One difference is that it currently is covered in shrubs and heather. During the 18th century, however, the area was used as common grazing ground, mainly for tenants of the Culloden estate. Those visiting can walk the site by way of footpaths on the ground and can also enjoy a view from above on a raised platform. Possibly the most recognisable feature of the battlefield today is the 20-foot-tall memorial cairn, erected by Duncan Forbes in 1881. In the same year Forbes also erects headstones to mark the mass graves of the clans.


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Birth of Samuel Lover, Songwriter, Novelist & Painter

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Samuel Lover, Irish songwriter, composer, novelist, and a painter of portraits, chiefly miniatures, is born at 60 Grafton Street in Dublin on February 24, 1797. He is also known as “Ben Trovato” (“well invented”) and is the grandfather of Victor Herbert. He is noted as saying, “When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.”

Lover goes to school at Samuel Whyte’s at 79 Grafton Street, now home to Bewley’s café. By 1830 he is secretary of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) and lives at 9 D’Olier Street. In 1835 he moves to London and begins composing music for a series of comic stage works. To some of them, like the operetta Il Paddy Whack in Italia (1841), he contributes both words and music, for others he merely contributes a few songs.

Lover produces a number of Irish songs, of which several – including The Angel’s Whisper, Molly Bawn, and The Four-leaved Shamrock – attain great popularity. He also writes novels, of which Rory O’Moore and Handy Andy are the best known, and short Irish sketches which, with his songs, he combines into a popular entertainment called Irish Nights or Irish Evenings. With the latter, he tours North America between 1846 and 1848. He joins with Charles Dickens in founding Bentley’s Magazine.

Lover’s grandson is composer Victor Herbert whose mother is Lover’s daughter Fanny. Herbert is best remembered for his many successful musicals and operettas that premier on Broadway. As a small child he lives with the Lovers in a musical environment following the divorce of his mother.

Samuel Lover dies on July 6, 1868, in Saint Helier on the island of Jersey. A memorial in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin summarises his achievements:

“Poet, painter, novelist and composer, who, in the exercise of a genius as distinguished in its versatility as in its power, by his pen and pencil illustrated so happily the characteristics of the peasantry of his country that his name will ever be honourably identified with Ireland.”


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Battle of Campo Santo

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During the War of Austrian Succession, the Irish Brigade of Spain fights at the Battle of Campo Santo in Camposanto, Italy on February 8, 1743. The regiments of Ultonia, Irlanda, and Hibernia form the Irish Brigade fighting in Italy in a Spanish army, led by Gen. Jean Bonaventure Thierry du Mont, comte de Gages. The Spaniards and their Neapolitan allies are fought to a standstill by the Austrians and their Sardinian allies under Field Marshal Otto Ferdinand Graf von Abensperg und Traun on the Panaro.

In January 1743, General De Gages’ 13,000 strong Spanish army lay at Bologna, south of the Panaro. Count Traun’s Austrian and Piedmont-Sardinian army of 11,000 lay to the north of the river, blocking De Gages’ attempts to cross the formidable barrier. Traun prefers a maneuvering defense to risking his army in a pitched battle with his opponent, but concerns in Madrid are more political than strategic. Needing a victory, Philip V of Spain and his Queen Elisabeth Farnese demand that De Gages launch an offensive or tender his resignation. Accordingly, leaving Bologna on the night of February 3, De Gages slips across the Panaro and enters the Duchy of Modena, seeking a decisive encounter with Traun.

Fortunately for De Gages, Marshal Traun is ready to oblige him. Aware of the criticism leveled at him in Vienna where his enemies are trying to relieve him of his command, and also that Spain’s recent seizure of Savoy might well induce the King of Sardinia to negotiate with the Spanish Crown, the Marshal decides that a victory will quell the uproar and induce Austria’s allies to think twice about negotiating. Gathering up his army, Traun moves to block De Gages’ path and prevent him from advancing further into Modena. The two armies meet at the village of Camposanto.

On the morning of the battle, De Gages draws up his army on the outskirts of the village in the traditional fashion with his infantry in the center and the cavalry on the wings. Traun also draws up his army in the same manner, but being slightly outnumbered, he chooses to gamble with an unorthodox strategy. Instead of aligning himself directly opposite the Spaniards, he shifts his troops to the northwest, which means that the center of Traun’s infantry is directly opposite the gap between Gages’ infantry and the right wing of cavalry. Although this means that Traun would have a greater superiority of numbers on this wing and that he could also deliver a flank attack on the Spanish right, his own right flank would, however, be vulnerable to a Spanish flank attack. Marshall is relying on the troops of that wing to delay the Spanish long enough for the action on his other wing to be decisive.

Matters are helped when De Gages chooses 4:00 in the afternoon to launch the attack, which leaves only a few hours of daylight for a battle. The Spanish are initially successful on both wings, where their cavalry drives off the Austro-Piedmontese cavalry, wounding Count Aspremont in the process and leaving the Austrian infantry vulnerable. However instead of reforming to attack the infantry, the Spanish chase them off the field. Traun stabilises his left flank, and leads his infantry into the attack against the Spanish. Meanwhile, Count Schulenberg regroups the Austrian cavalry on the Austrian right, and launches a counterattack against the Spanish cavalry. On the other flank Aspremont’s replacement, General Leutrum, leads his wing forward as well, smashing the Spanish right wing. Due to darkness it is necessary for both armies to withdraw the field. The Spanish back across the Panaro towards Bologna. Due to the smoke and darkness, many units lose their way. The 1st Guadalaxara marches in the direction of the advancing austro-sardian infantry columns, and it has to surrender after a short defence inside the walls of a farm.

Casualties in the battle are 1,755 dead, 1,307 wounded and 824 prisoners for the Spanish, while the Austro-Piedmontese lose 397 dead and 1,153 wounded or prisoners. Traun himself has two horses shot from under him during the battle.

De Gages retreats to Bologna but on March 26 he is also forced to retreat to Rimini. Despite this, the battle is widely considered a victory in Madrid, and de Gages is awarded a victory title, Count of Campo Santo. Following the battle, France promises support and co-operation with the Spanish, but for the moment Traun has saved North Italy for Maria Theresa.

Once again hundreds of Irishmen die many miles from home for “every cause but their own.”


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Archibald Hamilton Rowan Tried for Distribution of Seditious Paper

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Archibald Hamilton Rowan, a founding member of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen, is tried on a charge of distributing seditious paper on January 29, 1794.

Hamilton Rowan is born in the home of his grandfather, William Rowan, in London on May 1, 1751, and lives there with his mother and sister for much of his early life. He is admitted to Queens’ College, Cambridge in 1768, but is expelled from the college and rusticated for an attempt to throw a tutor into the River Cam. He is sent for a period in 1769 to Warrington Academy.

Hamilton Rowan travels throughout the 1770s and 1780s, visiting parts of Europe, the Americas, and North Africa. In 1781 he marries Sarah Dawson in Paris, France. The couple has ten children. He is the godfather of the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton.

Hamilton Rowan returns to Ireland in his thirties, in 1784, to live at Rathcoffey near Clane in County Kildare. He becomes a celebrity and, despite his wealth and privilege, a strong advocate for Irish liberty. That same year he joins the Killyleagh Volunteers, a militia group later associated with radical reform. He first gains public attention by championing the cause of fourteen-year-old Mary Neal in 1788. Neal had been lured into a Dublin brothel and then assaulted by Lord Carhampton. Hamilton Rowan publicly denounces Carhampton and publishes a pamphlet A Brief Investigation of the Sufferings of John, Anne, and Mary Neal in the same year. An imposing figure at more than six feet tall, his notoriety grows when he enters a Dublin dining club threatening several of Mary Neal’s detractors, with his massive Newfoundland at his side and a shillelagh in hand. The incident wins him public applause and celebrity as a champion of the poor.

In 1790 Hamilton Rowan joins the Northern Whig Club, and by October has become a founding member of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen, working alongside famous radicals such as William Drennan and Theobald Wolfe Tone. He is arrested in 1792 for seditious libel when caught handing out “An Address to the Volunteers of Ireland,” a piece of United Irish propaganda. Unknown to him, from 1791 Dublin Castle has a spy in the Dublin Society, Thomas Collins, whose activity is never discovered. From February 1793 Britain and Ireland join the War of the First Coalition against France, and the United Irish movement is outlawed in 1794.

Hamilton Rowan’s reputation for radicalism and bluster grow during this time when he leaves Ireland to confront the Lord Advocate of Scotland about negative comments made in respect to his character and that of members of the Society of United Irishmen. As a prominent member of the Irish gentry, he is an important figure in the United Irishmen and becomes the contact for the Scottish radical societies as a result of his visit. Upon his return to Dublin, he is charged and was found guilty of seditious libel, even though he is excellently defended by the famous John Philpot Curran. He is sentenced to two years imprisonment, receives a fine of £500, and is forced to pay two assurities for good behaviour of £1,000 each. In January 1794 he retires to his apartments in Dublin’s Newgate Prison.

In the years following, Hamilton Rowan spends time in exile in France, the United States and Germany. He is allowed to return to Ireland in 1806. He returns to the ancestral home of Killyleagh Castle, County Down, receiving a hero’s welcome. While he has agreed to be a model citizen under the conditions of his return to Ireland, he remains active in politics and retains his youthful radicalism. Following his last public appearance at a meeting in the Rotunda in Dublin on January 20, 1829, he is lifted up by a mob and paraded through the streets.

Hamilton Rowan dies at the age of 84 in his home on November 1, 1834. He is buried in the vaults of St. Mary’s Church, Dublin.


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Birth of Politician Henry Welbore Agar-Ellis

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Henry Welbore Agar-Ellis, 2nd Viscount Clifden, Irish politician styled The Honourable Henry Agar between 1776 and 1789, is born Henry Welbore Agar at Gowran Castle, Gowran, County Kilkenny on January 22, 1761. He is perhaps the only person to sit consecutively in four different Houses of Parliament – the two in Ireland and the two in England.

Agar is the eldest son of James Agar, 1st Viscount Clifden, son of Henry Agar and Anne, daughter of Welbore Ellis, Bishop of Meath, and sister of Welbore Ellis, 1st Baron Mendip. His mother is Lucia, daughter of Colonel John Martin, of Dublin. He is the nephew of Charles Agar, 1st Earl of Normanton.

Agar is returned to the Irish House of Commons for both Gowran and Kilkenny County in 1783, but chooses to sit for the latter, a seat he holds until 1789, when he succeeds his father in the Irish viscountcy and enters the Irish House of Lords. He is appointed Clerk of the Privy Council of Ireland in 1785, which he remains until 1817.

In 1793 Agar is elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as one of two representatives for Heytesbury. He succeeds his great-uncle Lord Mendip as second Baron Mendip in 1802 according to a special remainder in the letters patent. This is an English peerage and forces him to resign from the House of Commons and enter the House of Lords. Two years later he assumes by Royal licence the surname of Ellis in lieu of Agar.

Lord Clifden marries Lady Caroline , daughter of George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough, in 1792. His only son, George, becomes a successful politician and is created Baron Dover in his father’s lifetime, but predeceases his father. Lady Clifden dies at the age of 50 at Blenheim Palace in November 1813. Lord Clifden remains a widower until his death at the age of 75 at Hanover Square, Mayfair, London, on July 13, 1836. He is succeeded in his titles by his grandson Henry, the eldest son of Lord Dover.


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Birth of Richard “Humanity Dick” Martin

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Colonel Richard Martin, Irish politician and campaigner against cruelty to animals, is born in Ballynahinch, County Galway on January 15, 1754. He is known as “Humanity Dick,” a nickname bestowed on him by King George IV. He succeeds in getting the pioneering Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822, nicknamed ‘Martin’s Act,’ passed into British law.

Martin is brought up at Dangan House, situated on the River Corrib, four miles upriver from the town of Galway. The Martins are one of the Tribes of Galway. They own one of the biggest estates in all of Great Britain and Ireland as well as much of the land in Connemara. He studies at Harrow School in London and then gains admission to Trinity College, Cambridge on March 4, 1773. He does not graduate with a degree but studies for admission to the bar and is admitted to Lincoln’s Inn on February 1, 1776. He serves as a lawyer in Ireland and becomes High Sheriff of Galway Town in 1782.

Martin is elected to represent County Galway in Parliament in 1800. He is very popular with people in Galway and is well known as a duelist and as a witty speaker in the houses of Parliament. He campaigns for Catholic emancipation but is best remembered for his work to outlaw cruelty to animals. He earns the nickname “Humanity Dick” because of his compassion for the plight of animals at that time.

Through Martin’s work the Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act is enacted in 1822. This is the first piece of legislation which aims to protect animals from cruelty. Most people do not recognise animal rights in those days and people often make fun of him. Cartoons of him with donkey ears appears in the newspapers of the day.

After having the Bill passed by Parliament, Martin actively seeks out cases where cruelty has been inflicted on animals on the streets of London. He is responsible for bringing many people to court for cruelty against horses. He often pays half the fine of the accused in cases where the accused cannot afford it and seems genuinely sorry for his actions.

Due to Martin’s profile as a politician and as the drafter of the anti-cruelty legislation, a public perception develops that he is the initiator and creator of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). At the Society’s first anniversary meeting he sets the public record straight and gives credit to Rev. Arthur Broome, although he maintains an interest in the Society.

After the election of 1826, Martin, now a heavy gambler, loses his parliamentary seat because of a petition which accuses him of illegal intimidation during the election. He flees into hasty exile to Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, because he can no longer enjoy a parliamentary immunity to arrest for debt. He dies there peacefully in the presence of his second wife and their three daughters on January 6, 1834. A year after Martin’s death, the Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act is extended to cover cruelty to all domestic animals.

Martin’s work continues today. The RSPCA now has members all over the world. In Ireland it is known as the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ISPCA). Many other groups have been set up which protect animals from cruelty.


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The Battle of Brihuega

File source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vendome-and-PhilipV.jpg

The Irish “Hibernia” regiment and other Irish units of Spain fight at the Battle of Brihuega on December 8, 1710, in the War of the Spanish Succession, during the allied retreat from Madrid to Barcelona. The British rearguard under James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope, is cut off within the town of Brihuega and overwhelmed by a Franco-Spanish army under Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme. Brihuega with other events brings an end to the British participation in the war.

The Duke of Vendôme sets out from Talavera de la Reina with his troops and pursues the retreating British army with a speed perhaps never equalled in such a season and in such a country. The middle-aged Frenchman leads his Franco-Spanish army day and night. In typical Vendôme style, he swims, at the head of his cavalry, the flooded Henares and in a few days overtakes Stanhope, who is at Brihuega with the left wing of the Grand Alliance army.

“Nobody with me,” said the British general, “imagined that they had any foot within some days’ march of us and our misfortune is owing to the incredible diligence which their army made.” Stanhope has barely enough time to send off a messenger to the centre of the army, which is some leagues from Brihuega, before Vendôme is upon him on the evening of December 8. The next morning the town is invested on every side.

Blasting the walls of Brihuega with heavy cannon, a mine is sprung under one of the gates. The British keep up a terrible fire until their powder is spent. They then fight desperately against overwhelming odds as Vendôme’s men storm the city with bayonets fixed and begin to take the town by bloody close quarters fighting, street by street. The British set fire to the buildings which their assailants have taken but in vain. The British general sees that further resistance will produce only a useless carnage. He concludes a capitulation and his army becomes prisoners of war on honourable terms.

Scarcely had Vendôme signed the capitulation, when he learns that General Guido Starhemberg is marching to the relief of Stanhope. On December 10 the two meet in the bloody Battle of Villaviciosa, after which Starhemberg continues the allied retreat.

The British troops do not remain in captivity for very long before they are exchanged and sent home in October 1711.

The defeat helps justify the Harley ministry‘s plan to agree to a compromise peace with France at the Treaty of Utrecht. Opponents of the deal protest on the grounds of “No Peace Without Spain.” Nonetheless Allied forces are withdrawn, with the final action taking place at the Siege of Barcelona in 1714.