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John Armstrong, Sr. Appointed Brigadier General in the Continental Army

John Armstrong, Sr., an Irish American civil engineer and soldier, is appointed a brigadier general in the Continental Army on March 1, 1776. He also serves as a major general in the Pennsylvania Militia during the American Revolutionary War.

Armstrong is born on October 13, 1717, in Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, parents not determined, who married in 1704. He is one of approximately fifteen children born to his parents that included: Margaret Armstrong (1737–1817), who marries Rev. George Duffield (1732–90), and Rebecca Armstrong (1738–1828), who marries James Turner (1737–1803).

Armstrong is educated in Ireland and becomes a civil engineer before emigrating to Pennsylvania, with his brother-in-law, John Lyon, around 1740. He comes to Pennsylvania as a surveyor for the Penn family, the proprietary owners of the colony. In 1750, he lays out the first plat or plan for the town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and is one of its first settlers. He is later appointed surveyor for the newly established Cumberland County.

In 1756, during the Seven Years’ War, Armstrong leads the Kittanning Expedition. In 1758, he leads 2,700 Pennsylvania provincial troops on the Forbes Expedition, the approach of which compels the French to vacate and blow up Fort Duquesne. He becomes a good friend to the other militia commander in this expedition, Colonel George Washington.

James Smith writes that in the fall of 1763, “I went on the Susquehannah campaign, against the Indians, under the command of General Armstrong. In this route we burnt the Delaware and Monsey towns, on the West Branch of the Susquehannah, and destroyed all their corn.”

In the early stages of the American Revolutionary War (1775-83), Armstrong is a brigadier general in the Pennsylvania militia. On March 1, 1776, the Continental Congress appoints him to that same rank in the Continental Army. He is sent south to begin preparations for the defense of Charleston, South Carolina. He contributes his engineering talents to the construction of defenses that enable them to withstand the Battle of Sullivan’s Island later that year. When General Charles Lee arrives to take command, Armstrong returns to his duties with the main army and with the Pennsylvania militia. Pennsylvania names him major general in charge of the state militia. This ends his service in the Continental Army, but not the war or his cooperation with General George Washington.

At the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, Armstrong’s militia holds the far left of the American line. They also guard the army’s supplies. After a hard day’s fighting, the Americans are forced to withdraw, or face being surrounded. He brings the supplies and his militia out from Pyle’s Ford after dark.

In the Battle of Germantown on October 4, Armstrong leads the American right. His mission is to skirt the British left flank and attack there and in their rear. Despite delays and the troubles some units have in moving, the overall attack is going well, until the center is held up at the Benjamin Chew House. The attack then collapses after a friendly fire incident in the fog in which General Adam Stephen‘s men fire on Anthony Wayne‘s troops causing their withdrawal. Armstrong, whose men have advanced nearly to the center of Germantown but are not greatly involved in the fight later complains that it was “…. a glorious victory fought for, and eight tenths won, …. mysteriously lost, for to this moment no one man can …. give any good reason for the flight.”

After Germantown, Armstrong is granted permission to give up active command. At aged sixty, his health is declining, and old wounds are troubling him. He serves until April 4, 1778.

After his service in the War ends, Armstrong returns home to Carlisle, where he is elected to the Continental Congress by the Pennsylvania Assembly. As a delegate from 1779 to 1780, he is a strong supporter of Washington and the army. He is firm in his support for a new United States Constitution and is returned to the Congress of the Confederation during its final days in 1787 and 1788.

Throughout his life Armstrong serves in a number of local or civic offices. One of these, the Carlisle school board, leads him to originally oppose Dr. Benjamin Rush‘s proposal to start a college in the town. He later relents and becomes a member of the first Board of Trustees for Dickinson College from 1783 to 1794.

In 1747, Armstrong marries Rebecca Lyon Armstrong (1719–97), daughter of Archibald Lyon and Ann Lyon. Together, they are the parents of:

Armstrong dies at his home in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on March 9, 1795, and is buried in the Old Carlisle Cemetery. In 1800, when Pennsylvania creates a new county with its seat at Kittanning, it is named Armstrong County in his honor.


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Birth of Henry Lawes Luttrell, 2nd Earl of Carhampton

General Henry Lawes Luttrell, 2nd Earl of Carhampton PC, Anglo-Irish politician and soldier, who both in public and private life attracts scandal, is born on August 7, 1743. He is spurned by colleagues in the British House of Commons who believe that in the election of 1769 he played an underhand role in denying his seat to the popular choice, the reformer John Wilkes. In 1788 he is publicly accused in Dublin of raping a twelve-year-old girl. Ten years later, his command in the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 is criticised by fellow officers for its savagery, and not least against women. His last years in Parliament are marked by his opposition to Catholic Emancipation, and to parliamentary reform.

Luttrell is the scion of an Anglo-Irish landed family, descendants of Sir Geoffrey de Luterel, who established Luttrellstown Castle, County Dublin, in the early 13th century. His grandfather, Henry Luttrell, had been a pardoned Jacobite commander murdered on the street in Dublin in 1717 supposedly by his former comrades. His father, Simon Luttrell, is successively titled Baron Irnham, Viscount Carhampton and Earl Carhampton, all in the Peerage of Ireland. His mother, Maria, is the daughter of Sir Nicholas Lawes, Governor of Jamaica, and the eventual heir to a slave plantation on the West Indian island which, on her husband’s death in 1787, passes to her son.

Educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, Luttrell is commissioned into the 48th (Northamptonshire) Regiment of Foot in 1757. Two years later he becomes lieutenant of the 34th (Cumberland) Regiment of Foot.

Father and son, both accounted “notorious womanizers,” have a bitter relationship. His father once challenges him to a duel, but he declines, observing that his father is not a gentleman.

Luttrell, described as “strong in body, if not in mind,” achieves a reputation for bravery as a soldier during the Seven Years’ War, becoming Deputy Adjutant-General of the British Forces in Portugal. In 1768 he becomes a Tory Member of Parliament representing Bossiney.

With the support of the Grafton ministry and of the Court, in 1769 Luttrell stands in Middlesex against John Wilkes, the radical and popular figure who had already been the constituency’s three-time democratic choice. He loses the poll (1,143 votes to 269) but is seated in Parliament, Wilkes having once again been barred as an adjudged felon. As a result of the affair, for some months, Luttrell dares not appear in the street and is “the most unpopular man in the House of Commons.”

The government rewards Luttrell by appointing him Adjutant General for Ireland in 1770. He continues to sit in the Commons, where he describes the Whigs in their opposition to the conduct of the American War, as “the abetters of treason and rebellion combined purposely for the ruin of their country.”

Luttrell becomes active in Irish politics and between 1783 and 1787, he sits in the Irish House of Commons for Old Leighlin. On his father’s death in 1787, he succeeds to the earldom of Carhampton and other titles. He becomes Colonel of the 6th Dragoon Guards and Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance in Ireland.

In 1788, Luttrell is publicly accused in Dublin of the rape of a 12-year-old girl. Having been paid to deliver a message, Mary Neal claims she is bundled into a brothel and there assaulted throughout the night by Luttrell. The keeper of the house, Maria Llewellyn, is charged in a case marked by accusations of witness tampering, the death in prison of Mary’s mother and newborn baby sister and by the insinuation that Mary was already working as a prostitute. The affair becomes a cause célèbre with the public intervention of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, later a founding member of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen. To clear Mary’s name he brings her to Dublin Castle to see the Lord Lieutenant, John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland. Westmorland, unmoved, pardons Llewellyn and sets her at liberty. Luttrell is never asked to answer for raping Mary Neal. In 1790 he re-enters the British Parliament as Member for Plympton Erle.

In 1791 and 1792, Luttrell helps vote down bills to abolish the slave trade. Negroes, he proposes, only want “to murder their masters, ravish their women, and drink all their rum.” At the same time, he opposes lifting civil disabilities on Roman Catholics by abolishing the Test Act in Scotland, and speaks scathingly of parliamentary reform.

In October 1793, a younger brother, Temple Simon Luttrell, is arrested in Boulogne and, until February 1795, is held in Paris where, on the strength of their sister Anne Luttrell being married to Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland, he is publicly exhibited as the brother of the king of England.

In 1795, Luttrell is entrusted with the breakup and disarming of Defenders, the agrarian semi-insurgency, in Connacht. His proceedings and impressment of some 1,300 “rebels” into the British navy elicits criticism in otherwise loyal circles.

In 1796, with the leaders of the democratic party, the United Irishmen, preparing for a French-assisted insurrection, Luttrell is given overall command of the Crown forces in Ireland. He demonstrates still greater ruthlessness in attempting to “pacify” the country and suppress the eventual rising in the summer of 1798. His command has the unusual distinction of being upbraided by his successor as Commander in Chief, Sir Ralph Abercromby, for an army “in a state of licentiousness, which must render it formidable to every one but the enemy.”

Luttrell is seen by his critics as having “fanned the flame of disaffection into open rebellion” by “the picketings, the free quarters, half hangings, flogging and pitch-cappings” he directs.

In July 1799, Luttrell sells his Irish property and by his own later account, he takes no part in the Acts of Union. He claims to be “disgusted at the scene that was passing before me”, and to abandon Ireland because, under a “cowardly” government, he sees “the country likely to become Catholic.” When the Dublin Post of May 2, 1811 erroneously reports his death, he demands a retraction which they print under the headline Public Disappointment.

Luttrell purchases an estate at Painshill Park in Surrey and lives for several years in relative obscurity. From 1813 he harries the government of Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, with the claim that George III had promised him a secure seat in the Commons. In June 1817, five weeks short of his eightieth birthday, he finds his own way back to Parliament as Member for Ludgershall and revenges himself, in the four years remaining to him, by voting with the opposition. This, however, does not extend to joining in the attacks on the domestic spy system in 1818 nor to voting for parliamentary reform in 1819. Moreover, in the wake of the Peterloo Massacre, he supports the government, lauding the use of deadly force against “the Radicals and their system.”

Luttrell dies at his home at Bruton Street, London, on April 25, 1821.


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Birth of Count Daniel Charles O’Connell, French General & Uncle of “The Liberator”

Count Daniel Charles O’Connell, French general and count in the French nobility, is born on May 21, 1745, in Derrynane, County Kerry, twenty-first among twenty-two children of Donal Mor O’Connell, a Catholic landowner, and his wife Mary, daughter of Daniel O’Donoghue of Glenflesk, near Killarney.

O’Connell is tutored at home in Latin and Greek, and before he is sixteen, he leaves with his cousin, Murty O’Connell, to join the French army. On February 13, 1760, he becomes a cadet in the Régiment de Royal Suédois. He spends almost his entire career in France or serving abroad with French regiments, but remains in close contact with his family, being in constant correspondence with the head of the clan, his brother Maurice O’Connell, who is almost twenty years his senior, and later arranging army appointments for a host of young nephews and cousins.

O’Connell serves with the Royal Suédois in the last two campaigns of the Seven Years’ War and is made assistant adjutant (sous-aide-major) of the regiment. At the close of the war, he is recommended for the military academy of Strasbourg (1765–66). He has a talent for self-advancement and is well regarded by his seniors, being tall, strong, handsome, disciplined, industrious, and sober. He has an almost morbid horror of drink, and his great boast is that he has never wasted a moment of his time or a farthing of his money.

Appointed to Col. Meade’s regiment of Lord Clare’s Irish Brigade with the rank of captain in October 1769, he sets sail immediately for Mauritius. Two years later he is allowed a visit home to Kerry for the first time in eleven years. In 1775 the death of Lord Clare’s son and the extinction of the title results in the reduction of the Irish Brigade and destroys O’Connell’s chance of promotion. He devotes himself to the study of chemistry, literature, and the military. A published study, Discipline of the army, comes under the notice of the military authorities, who obtain for him a Cross of Saint Louis, a pension of 2,000 livres a year, and the rank of lieutenant-colonel with which he is posted to his old regiment, the Royal Suédois, in 1778. With them he serves at the taking of Menorca in 1781 and is severely wounded at the Great Siege of Gibraltar in 1782 but manages to save the life of Charles Philippe, Count of Artois, the future Charles X. For these services he is made a count, one of only twenty-two people outside the royal family to receive this honour, and is made colonel of the German regiment of Salm-Salm in French pay, which at a grand review of 30,000 French troops in Alsace in 1785 is pronounced the best regiment. He begins to move in court circles and in 1788 kisses the hand of Marie Antoinette and rides in the king’s coach.

In 1788 O’Connell recommends to his brother Maurice the college of Saint-Omer as a suitable school for his nephews, Maurice and Daniel O’Connell, but taking belated notice of the gathering revolutionary storm, tries unsuccessfully to dissuade them. During the French Revolution of 1789 he allegedly announces his readiness to move his regiment into the capital to disperse revolutionary mobs but is not able to obtain the king’s permission. In 1790 his men mutiny, leaving him in the anomalous position of a colonel without a regiment. A protégé of the Ancien Régime, he nevertheless remains in Paris in 1790–91, serving the nouveau régime as a member of a commission engaged in revising army regulations.

In 1792 O’Connell joins Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick‘s émigré army at Koblenz and takes part in the disastrous Battle of Valmy in Berchini’s regiment. Ever cautious, he serves as a private, refusing any command so that his name would not be mentioned in France. In November 1792 he is in London, almost penniless and bent on concealing that he had served against the republic. An alibi is procured and attested at Tralee to the effect that O’Connell had been in Ireland all the time and was forwarded to Paris to prevent the confiscation of property.

In London O’Connell petitions William Pitt the Younger to reconstruct the Irish Brigade in the service of George III. Six regiments are raised, with O’Connell appointed colonel of the 4th, but the scheme is only partially realised as three of the regiments are sent to the West Indies and Nova Scotia, where they succumb to pestilence. By 1798 the brigade has entirely ceased to exist, though he retains his full pay as a British colonel, which he draws to the end of his life. At this period his name is mooted by Gen. Henry Clarke and Theobald Wolfe Tone as a possible commander of their troops. Clarke gives his opinion that O’Connell is a good parade officer but has no genius in command, to which Wolfe Tone replies that he “was in favour of his being employed for I know he hates England.”

In 1796, O’Connell marries Martha, comtesse de Bellevue (née Drouillard de Lamarre; d. 1807), a young widow with three children, at the French chapel in Covent Garden. In 1802 he takes advantage of the peace of Amiens to return to France. On the renewal of war, the couple is detained by Napoleon as British subjects, and remain virtual prisoners in France until the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814. Back in favour, O’Connell receives the rank of lieutenant-general in the French army and commander of the Order of Saint Louis. His fortunes revive, he advances a large sum to his nephew Daniel to save him from bankruptcy in 1815 and comes to his rescue again in 1818, though by this date he has already settled the bulk of his fortune on his great-nephews. He follows his namesake’s career with keen interest, but his advice is invariably cautious and is not much heeded. After the French Revolution of 1830 he refuses to take the oath of allegiance to Louis Philippe I and is struck off the military list, though he becomes a naturalised French citizen in 1831.

O’Connell dies on July 9, 1833, at the Château de Bellevue at Meudon, near Blois, and is buried at the cemetery at Coudé. He has no children and his title, though not his fortune, descends to his godson, the Baron d’Eschegoyen’s second son, who takes the name O’Connell. A portrait by Paul Guérin hangs in Derrynane House.

(From: “O’Connell, Count Daniel Charles” by Bridget Hourican, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie)


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Birth of George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville

George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, a British soldier and politician who is Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord North‘s cabinet during the American Revolutionary War, is born on January 26, 1716. He is styled The Honourable George Sackville until 1720, Lord George Sackville from 1720 to 1770, and Lord George Germain from 1770 to 1782.

Sackville is the third son of Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Lieutenant-General Walter Philip Colyear. Between 1730 and 1737 and again from 1750 to 1755, his father holds the post of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He is educated at Westminster School in London and graduates from Trinity College Dublin in 1737. While in Dublin he befriends the celebrated writer Jonathan Swift. He also encounters John Ligonier, 1sr Earl Ligonier, who later assists his career in the military.

Sackville then enters the army. He is elected Grandmaster of the Grand Lodge of Ireland in 1751, serving in this post for two years. He marries Diana Sambrooke, daughter of John Sambrooke and Elizabeth Forester, on September 3, 1754. They have two sons and three daughters.

Sackville starts as a captain in the 7th Horse (later the 6th Dragoon Guards). In 1740, he transfers to the Gloucestershire Regiment as a lieutenant colonel. The regiment is sent to Germany to participate in the War of the Austrian Succession. In 1743 he is advanced to brevet colonel. He sees his first battle, leading the charge of the infantry of Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, in the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745. He is wounded, captured and taken to the tent of Louis XV. When he is released and returned home, it is to duty in Scotland as the Colonel of the 20th Foot Regiment.

In 1747 and 1748, Sackville again joins the Duke of Cumberland. He becomes colonel of the 7th Irish horse and serves in Holland. There is a break in his military career between wars (1750-1755) when he serves as first secretary to his father.

During the Seven Years’ War, Sackville returns to active military service. In 1755, he is promoted to major general and returns to active service to oversee ordnance. In 1758, he is given a fourth regiment and joins Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough, as a lieutenant general. He is sworn of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in January 1758.

In June 1758 Sackville is second in command of a British expedition led by Marlborough which attempts an amphibious Raid on St. Malo. While it fails to take the town as instructed, the raid is still considered to be largely successful as a diversion. Follow-up raids are considered against Le Havre, Caen and other targets in Normandy but no further landings are attempted and the force returns home. Later in 1758 they join the allied forces of Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick in Germany. When Marlborough dies, Sackville becomes Commander of the British contingent of the army, although still under the overall command of the Duke of Brunswick.

In the Battle of Minden on August 1, 1759, British and Hanoverian infantry of the centre make an advance on the French cavalry and artillery in that sector. As the disrupted French begin to fall back on Minden, Ferdinand calls for a British cavalry charge to complete the victory, but Sackville withholds permission for their advance repeatedly. For this action, he is cashiered and sent home. John Manners, Marquess of Granby, replaces him as commander of the British contingent for the remainder of the war.

Sackville refuses to accept responsibility for refusing to obey orders. Back in England, he demands a court-martial, and makes it a large enough issue that he obtains his demand in 1760. The court finds him guilty, and the verdict not only upholds his discharge, but rules that he is “…unfit to serve His Majesty in any military Capacity whatever.” The king has his name struck from the Privy Council rolls.

Sackville is a Member of Parliament at intervals from 1733. He serves terms in both the Dublin and the Westminster bodies, sometimes simultaneously, but does not take sides in political wrangles. Between 1750 and 1755 he serves as Chief Secretary for Ireland, during his father’s second term as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

On November 10, 1775, Sackville is appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies replacing William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth in the post. He becomes a target for the opposition, and is eventually persuaded to step down in exchange for a peerage, and in February 1782 he is made Baron Bolebrooke, in the County of Sussex, and Viscount Sackville, of Drayton in the County of Northamptonshire. His political career ends with the fall of the North government in March 1782.

The controversy over Sackville’s handling of the war continues. Some members are opposed to his taking a seat in the House of Lords, an almost unprecedented incident. In spite of this he is admitted to the Lords, where he is staunchly defended by Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow, and his declining health soon makes the issue irrelevant. He retires to his country home at Stoneland Lodge and dies there on August 26, 1785. He maintains to his dying day that he had not been a coward at Minden. Following his death, a defence of his reputation, The character of the late Viscount Sackville, is written by Richard Cumberland.

(Pictured: “George Germain,” 1766 painting by George Romney (1734-1802))


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Death of Richard Montgomery, General of the Continental Army

Richard Montgomery, Irish-born major general of the Continental Army, is killed at the Battle of Quebec on December 31, 1776 during the American Revolutionary War.

Montgomery is born into a wealthy family in Swords, Dublin, on December 2, 1738. He attends Trinity College Dublin before dropping out to become a Junior Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) in the British Army. He serves with distinction during the Seven Years’ War, more commonly known as the French and Indian War, and is promoted several times, finally attaining the rank of captain before the end of the war. He is released from duty due to his health and returns to Great Britain to recover. In Britain, he discusses politics and affiliates with the Whigs political party in Parliament, who later supports American independence. When his health finally recovers, he resigns his commission from the British Army and moves to New York, settling into the life of a farmer. On July 24, 1773, he marries Janet Livingston, who is from an anti-British patriot family. He continues to cement his beliefs and begins to identify as an “American” rather than a “Briton.”

Eventually, Montgomery’s political beliefs turn into political action. In May 1775, he is elected as one of the ten deputies to represent Dutchess County in the New York Provincial Congress and is chosen to organize the militias and defenses of New York. After George Washington is chosen to be the commander of the Continental Army in June of the same year, the New York Provincial Congress is asked to choose two people for the rank major general and brigadier general for service in the new army. Philip Schuyler is appointed to the rank of major general. Montgomery protests the promotion, arguing that Schuyler does not have enough combat experience to be an effective leader. Later, the New York Provincial Congress appoints Montgomery as brigadier general because of his military experience. General Washington personally appoints the reluctant Montgomery to be Schuyler’s second in command. This move is just in time as Schuyler falls ill during at the start of the invasion of Canada, thus giving Montgomery control of the campaign.

Once in command, Montgomery begins a successful campaign in Canada as General Benedict Arnold is marching through the wilderness of modern-day Maine to meet him in Quebec. He captures numerous strongpoints and eventually the city of Montreal falls to the Patriots. His numerous victories and kind treatment of British prisoners take a toll on the Patriot militias under his command, who demand rest and the same provisions given to the British prisoners. The commanding general is reluctant to lead his soldiers, who he has seen as undisciplined. It takes a personal letter from General Washington to reassure him that there is insubordination and lack of discipline all throughout the Continental Army and that resignation is not the answer. Nevertheless, he continues to Quebec to meet Arnold and his army.

When Montgomery and his men arrive outside Quebec, his force consists of some 300 men compared to Arnold’s 1,000 men. Now a major general, he establishes siege lines around the city of Quebec and demands the surrender of the defenders within. The terms of surrender are rejected numerous times, leaving him and Arnold with no other choice but to assault the city. He hopes that snow will hide the movement of his troops, thus, he plans on waiting for snowfall in order to attack. General Arnold, however, is worried about his men. A December 31 enlistment expiration is looming, that could drastically reduce the size of the assaulting force. Montgomery discovers waiting for the right time is not an option and coordinates an attack for the early hours of December 31, 1775. That morning, Montgomery leads a group of his men toward the interior of Quebec. With sword drawn and lantern out, the Patriots advance toward a blockhouse where the British and Canadian defenders notice this movement and let loose a volley of grapeshot and muskets, which instantly kills Montgomery and the men close to him.

Montgomery’s body is discovered after the failed attacks by the Continentals. The British defenders of Quebec bring his body to General Guy Carleton, who orders it be buried with respect and dignity. He is laid to rest in Quebec on January 4, 1776. News of his death causes widespread mourning, both in America and in the British Isles. Many Patriots elevate his status to a hero and martyr for independence and the American cause, while British members of parliament, especially the Whigs, use his death to mark the failures in the British response to the insurrection in their colonies. In July 1818 his remains are reinterred in New York.

(From: “Richard Montgemery,” American Battlefield Trust, http://www.battlefields.org)


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Death of Maximilian Ulysses Browne, Austrian Military Officer

Maximilian Ulysses, Reichsgraf von Browne, Baron de Camus and Mountany, an Irish refugee, scion of the Wild Geese and an Austrian military officer, dies in Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia on June 26, 1757. He is one of the highest ranking officers serving the Hapsburg Emperor during the middle of the 18th century and one of the most prominent Irish soldiers never to fight for Ireland.

Browne is born in Basel, Switzerland, the son of Count Ulysses von Browne (b. Limerick 1659) and his wife Annabella Fitzgerald, a daughter of the House of Desmond. Both families had been exiled from Ireland in the aftermath of the Nine Years’ War.

Browne’s early career is helped by family and marital connections. His father and his father’s brother, George (b. Limerick 1657), are created Counts of the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Charles VI in 1716 after serving with distinction in the service of the Holy Roman Emperors. The brothers enjoy a lengthy, close friendship with John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, who is primarily responsible for their establishment in the Imperial Service of Austria. On his father’s death he becomes third Earl of Browne in the Jacobite peerage. His wife, Countess Marie Philippine von Martinitz, has valuable connections at court and his sister, Barbara (b. Limerick 1700), is married to Freiherr Francis Patrick O’Neillan, a Major General in the Austrian Service. So, by the age of 29 Browne is already colonel of an Austrian infantry regiment.

Browne justifies his early promotion in the field, and in the Italian campaign of 1734 he greatly distinguishes himself. In the Tirolese fighting of 1735, and in the Turkish war, he wins further distinction as a general officer.

Browne is a lieutenant field marshal in command of the Silesian garrisons when in 1740 Frederick II and the Prussian army overruns the province. His careful employment of such resources as he possesses materially hinders the king in his conquest and allows time for Austria to collect a field army. He is present at Mollwitz, where he receives a severe wound. His vehement opposition to all half-hearted measures brings him frequently into conflict with his superiors, but contributes materially to the unusual energy displayed by the Austrian armies in 1742 and 1743.

In the following campaigns Browne exhibits the same qualities of generalship and the same impatience of control. In 1745 he serves under Count Traun, and is promoted to the rank of Feldzeugmeister. In 1746 he is present in the Italian campaign and the battles of Piacenza and Rottofreddo. He and an advanced guard force their way across the Apennine Mountains and enter Genoa. He is thereafter placed in command of the invasion of France mounted in winter 1746-47, leading to the Siege of Antibes, but he is obliged to break off the invasion and return to Italy in February 1747 after Genoa rises in rebellion against the Austrian garrison he had left behind. In early 1747 he is appointed commander of all imperial forces in Italy, replacing Antoniotto Botta Adorno. At the end of the war, he is engaged in the negotiations on troop withdrawals from Italy, which leads to the convention of Nice on January 21, 1749. He becomes commander-in-chief in Bohemia in 1751, and field marshal two years later.

Browne is still in Bohemia when the Seven Years’ War opens with Frederick’s invasion of Saxony in 1756. His army, advancing to the relief of Pirna, is met, and, after a hard struggle, defeated by the king at the Battle of Lobositz, but he draws off in excellent order, and soon makes another attempt with a picked force to reach Pirna, by wild mountain tracks. He never spares himself, bivouacking in the snow with his men, and Thomas Carlyle records that private soldiers made rough shelters over him as he slept.

Brown actually reaches the Elbe at Bad Schandau, but as the Saxons are unable to break out, he retires, having succeeded, however, in delaying the development of Frederick’s operations for a whole campaign. In the campaign of 1757, he voluntarily serves under Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine who is made commander-in-chief. On May 6 of that year, while leading a bayonet charge at the Battle of Prague, Browne, like Kurt Christoph, Graf von Schwerin, on the same day, meets his death. He is carried mortally wounded into Prague, and there dies on June 26, 1757.


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Birth of Lionel Cranfield Sackville, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland

lionel-cranfield-sackville

Lionel Cranfield Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, English political leader and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, is born in Dorset, United Kingdom on January 18, 1688.

Sackville is the son of Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset and 1st Earl of Middlesex, and the former Lady Mary Compton, younger daughter of James Compton, 3rd Earl of Northampton. Styled Lord Buckhurst from birth, he succeeds his father as 7th Earl of Dorset and 2nd Earl of Middlesex in 1706, and is created Duke of Dorset in 1720.

Perhaps because he had been on a previous diplomatic mission to Hanover, Sackville is chosen to inform George I of his accession to the Crown in August 1714. George I initially favours him and numerous offices and honours are given to him: Privy Councillor, Knight of the Garter, Groom of the Stool, Lord Steward, Governor of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. At George I’s coronation he carries the sceptre. At the coronation of George II he is Lord High Steward and carries St. Edward’s Crown. He quarrels with the King in 1717 and is told his services are no longer required, but he is made a Duke three years later.

Sackville serves twice as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, from 1731 to 1737 and again from 1751 to 1755. In 1739, at the foundation of the Foundling Hospital, he is one of that charity’s original governors. His first term as Lord Lieutenant is uneventful. His second takes place at a time of acute political tension between the two main factions in the Irish Government, one led by Henry Boyle, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, the other by George Stone, the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh. Sackville, now heavily influenced by his son George Sackville, makes the mistake of openly backing the Archbishop. He is unable to oust Boyle from power, and is accused of being the Archbishop’s tool. He becomes extremely unpopular, leading to his eventual recall.

Sackville’s last years are uneventful, apart from a riot in 1757 caused by the passage of the Militia Act to raise an army for the Seven Years’ War, in which he narrowly escapes injury. He dies at Knole, a country house in west Kent, on October 9, 1765 and is buried at Withyham in East Sussex.

(Pictured: Oil on canvas Portrait of Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset (1688-1765) by Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723), 1719, currently displayed at Commonwealth Secretariat, Marlborough House, London)


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The Battle of Wandiwash

fort-vandavasi

General Thomas Arthur, comte de Lally‘s French army, including his regiment of the Irish Brigade, is defeated on January 22, 1760, in the Battle of Wandiwash, a decisive battle in India during the Seven Years’ War, by Irish-born Sir Eyre Coote‘s British army. Wandiwash is the Anglicised pronunciation of Vandavasi.

When Lally is selected as commander-in-chief of the French expedition to India in 1756, he is one of the greatest living soldiers of France. Lally’s force is delayed and does not leave France until May 1757. Further delays occur en route and he finally lands at Pondicherry, India, on April 28, 1758. In less than two months, Lally clears the English forces from a huge area around Pondicherry and captures almost 300 pieces of artillery. Lally next lays siege to Madras, but his naval support abandons him, and, in January 1759, the English are reinforced, forcing Lally to retire toward Pondicherry. Forces away from India are conspiring against Lally now, as the merchant fleets of the French have been rendered useless by the English navy.

Lally’s army, burdened by a lack of naval support and funds resulting in his troops having not been paid in six months, attempts to regain the fort at Wandiwash, now in Tamil Nadu. He is attacked by Sir Eyre Coote’s forces and decisively defeated. The French general Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau and the French are then restricted to Pondicherry where, facing starvation, they surrender on January 16, 1761.

This is the Third Carnatic War fought between the French and the British. Having made substantial gains in Bengal and Hyderabad, the British, after collecting huge amount of revenue, are fully equipped to face the French in Wandiwash, whom they defeat.

According to the 19th century book Annals of the Wars of the Eighteenth Century by Author Eduard Cust, the French Army consists of 300 European Cavalry, 2,250 European infantry, 1,300 soldiers, 3,000 Marathas and 16 pieces of artillery while the English deploy about 80 European Horses, 250 Native horses, 1,900 European Infantry, 2,100 soldiers and 26 pieces of artillery. The Battle of Wandiwash involves the capture of Chettupattu, Thiruvannamalai, Tindivanam and Perumukkal.

(Pictured: The Vandavasi fort in Vandavasi, Tamil Nadu, India, where the decisive Battle of Wandiwash takes place.)


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The Octennial Act Receives Royal Assent

parliament-of-ireland

The Octennial Act, an act of the Parliament of Ireland which sets a maximum duration of eight years for the Irish House of Commons, receives royal assent on February 16, 1768. Before this, a dissolution of parliament is not required except on the demise of the Crown, and the previous three general elections were held in 1715, 1727, and 1761, on the respective deaths of Anne, George I, and George II. After the act, general elections are held in 1769, 1776, 1783, 1790, and 1798.

Limiting the duration of parliament is a prime objective of the Irish Patriot Party. Heads of bills are brought, by Charles Lucas in 1761 and 1763 and by Henry Flood in 1765, to limit parliament to seven years as the Septennial Act 1716 does for the Parliament of Great Britain. The heads are rejected by the Privy Council of Great Britain, which, under Poynings’ Law, has to pre-approve any bill before it is formally introduced in the Irish parliament.

Since the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, the British government has wished to increase the size of Irish regiments, the part of the British Army charged on the Irish exchequer rather than the British. In 1767, the Chatham Ministry appoints George Townshend, 4th Viscount Townshend, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and instructs him to secure the support of the Irish parliament for an Augmentation Bill to effect this increase. The British consider several possible concessions to win over the Irish Patriot Party, and at his speech from the throne, Townshend promises judicial tenure quamdiu se bene gesserint and hints at a Septennial Act.

Lucas again introduces heads of a Septennial Bill on October 20, 1767. Barry Maxwell introduces heads of a judicial tenure bill the same day. In November, the appointment of James Hewitt, 1st Baron Lifford, as Lord Chancellor of Ireland alienates the Undertakers who had hoped for the post. In addition, the British Privy Council adds a wrecking amendment to the judicial tenure bill, which causes the Irish parliament to reject the bill once returned to Dublin. The council also makes three amendments to Lucas’ bill – to the preamble, to extend the limit from seven to eight years, thus an Octennial Bill, and to bring forward the date of the next general election from 1774 to 1768. According to Francis Plowden, the Privy Council insists on the modification to eight years as a wrecking amendment, expecting that the Irish parliament will reject the bill on principle once any amendment has been made to it, and is disappointed when its amended bill is passed. William Edward Hartpole Lecky calls this “without foundation,” stating the actual reasons for eight years are that the Irish Parliament only meets every second year, and to reduce the chance of Irish and British general elections coinciding.

The Octennial Act reinvigorates the Commons, both with newly elected reformers and with MPs made more active by the prospect of imminent re-election. Changes include more assertiveness over supply bills and Poynings’ Law, easing the penal laws, and securing the Constitution of 1782. There are unsuccessful attempts to shorten the maximum duration, in 1773 by Sir William Parsons and in 1777 by Sir Edward Newenham.

The act is rendered moot when the Parliament of Ireland is abolished by the Acts of Union 1800. It is formally repealed by the Statute Law Revision (Ireland) Act 1879.


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Birth of Thomas Arthur, comte de Lally, baron de Tollendal

thomas-arthur-lallyThomas Arthur, comte de Lally, baron de Tollendal, French General of Irish Jacobite ancestry, is born on January 13, 1702. Lally commands French forces in India during the Seven Years’ War, including two battalions of his own red-coated Regiment of Lally of the Irish Brigade.

Lally is born at Romans-sur-Isère, Dauphiné, the son of Sir Gerald Lally, one of the original “Wild Geese” of 1691 and an Irish Jacobite from Tuam, County Galway, who married a French lady of noble family. His title is derived from the Lally’s ancestral home, Castel Tullendally in County Galway where the Lally’s, originally called O’Mullallys, are prominent members of the Gaelic Aristocracy who can trace their ancestry back to the second century High King of Ireland, Conn of the Hundred Battles.

Entering the French army in 1721 he serves in the war of 1734 against Austria. He is present at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743, and commands the regiment de Lally in the famous Irish brigade in the Battle of Fontenoy in May 1745. He is made a brigadier on the field by Louis XV of France.

Lally is a staunch Jacobite and in 1745 accompanies Charles Edward Stuart to Scotland, serving as aide-de-camp at the Battle of Falkirk Muir in January 1746. Escaping to France, he serves with Marshal Maurice de Saxe in the Low Countries. At the Siege of Maastricht in 1748 he is made a maréchal de camp.

When war breaks out with Britain in 1756 Lally is appointed governor-general of French India and commands a French expedition to India, made up of four battalions, two of whom are from his own Regiment of Lally of the Irish Brigade. He reaches Pondicherry in April 1758, and within six weeks has pushed the British back from the coast to Madras, the headquarters of the British East India Company.

He is a man of courage and a capable general, but his pride and ferocity make him unpopular with his officers and men. He is unsuccessful in an attack on Tanjore, and as he lacks French naval support he has to retire from the Siege of Madras in 1758, owing to the timely arrival of the British fleet. He is defeated by Sir Eyre Coote at the Battle of Wandiwash in 1760, and besieged in Pondicherry, where he is forced to capitulate in 1761.

Lally is sent to England as a prisoner of war. Public opinion in France is very hostile, blaming him for the defeat by the British, and there are widespread calls for Lally to be put on trial. While in London, he hears that he is accused of treason in France, and insists, against advice, on returning on parole to stand trial. He is kept prisoner for nearly two years before the trial begins in 1764. When the Advocate General of the Paris Parlement Joseph Omer Joly de Fleury begins the prosecution, Lally has not received any documentation of the charges and is not allowed a defence lawyer. Throughout the trial, which lasts for two years, Lally fights against Joly de Fleury’s charges but on May 6, 1766 he is convicted and sentenced to death.

Lally makes an unsuccessful attempt at suicide in prison after his sentencing. On May 9, 1766, three days after his conviction, he is gagged to prevent him from protesting his innocence further and is transported in a garbage cart to the Place de Grève to be beheaded. The executioner’s first blow only slices open his skull and it takes a second blow to kill him.