JAMES THE SECOND.

375

powers; and the rumour gathered strength daily. The Lord ™ AI> -Lieutenant, whom no insult could drive to resign the pomp I6S(i .and emoluments of his place, declared that he should submitcheerfully to the royal pleasure, and approve himself in allthings a faithful and obedient subject. He had never, hesaid, in his life, had any difference with Tyrconnel, and hetrusted that no difference would now arise.* Clarendon ap-pears not to have recollected that there had once been a plotto ruin the fame of his innocent sister, and that in that plotTyrconnel had borne a chief part. This is not exactly one ofthe injuries which high spirited men most readily pardon.

But, in the wicked court where the Hydes had long beenpushing their fortunes, such injuries were easily forgiven andforgotten, not from magnanimity or Christian charity, butfrom mere baseness and want of moral sensibility. In June xyrconnel1686, Tyrconnel came. His commission authorised him only g“^ lmto command the troops: but he brought with him royal in- neral -structions touching all parts of the administration, and at oncetook the real government of the island into his own hands.

On the day after his arrival he explicitly said that commissionsmust be largely given to Roman Catholic officers, and thatroom must be made for them by dismissing more Protestants.

He pushed on the remodelling of the army eagerly and inde-fatigably. It was indeed the only part of the functions of aCommander in Chief which he was competent to perform; for,though courageous in brawls and duels, he knew nothing ofmilitary duty. At the very first review which he held, it wasevident to all who were near to him that he did not know howto draw up a regiment.** To turn Englishmen out and to put yity a andIrishmen in was, in his view, the beginning and the end of violence,the administration of war. He had the insolence to cashierthe Captain of the Lord Lieutenant’s own Body Guard: nor

* Clarendon to Rochester, May U. 1886.

■* Ibid. Junc8,1686.