Ormond the Brave

DESCRIPTION: "I am Ormond the brave, did ye never hear of me, Who lately was driven from my own country" for being loyal to Queen Anne. He calls on Devon and Cornwall to rise "and follow me in chasing the Hanoverian rats." He is honest, unlike the Scots peers
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (Baring-Gould/Sheppard-SongsOfTheWest2ndEd)
KEYWORDS: soldier Jacobite | James Butler Duke of Ormond
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1714 - Death of Queen Anne, the last of the Stuarts, succeeded by George I
FOUND IN: Britain(England(West))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Baring-Gould/Sheppard-SongsOfTheWest2ndEd, #13, "Ormond the Brave" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #34490
NOTES [619 words]: According to OxfordCompanion p. 709, James Butler (1669-1745), second duke of Ormond(e), had an interesting political career. The grandson of the first duke (also James Butler; 1640-1688), a committed Protestant who had been a royalist during the Commonwealth era, the second duke fought for James II against the Duke of Monmouth in 1685 (for Monmouth, see the notes to "The Monmouth Rebel"), but then turned against James and supported William and Mary. He apparently supported George I, but the Whigs still threatened to impeach him, so he fled the country and became a Jacobite. "Jacobite failures to invade England deprived him of chances to display his military incompetence again, and he died exiled and insignificant."
He was part of the future Queen Anne's immediate circle, and had been since the revolution (Gregg, p. 36); his wife was one of the Queen's Ladies of the Bedchamber and was present in the Queen's final illness (Gregg, p. 392). Ormonde himself had earlier been one of those who held out for Anne's rights when Parliament had to decide the succession after the Glorious Revolution (Gregg, p. 69), so she had reason to be grateful to him. She found many uses for him -- e.g. when Lawrence Hyde, first Earl of Rochester (and Anne's uncle) was fired as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Ormonde took his place, a post he held until 1707 (Gregg, pp. 168, 263; it wasn't an unreasonable choice, since Ormonde was an Irish earldom). In that role, he appointed Jonathan Swift to be Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin (which is why we often call the author of Gulliver's Travels "Dean Swift") -- an interesting decision, because Queen Anne had explicitly refused to make the caustic Swift the Dean of Wells, a post he would have preferred (Gregg, p. 353).
He had certainly had his chance to show his military talents; a few years before the death of Queen Anne, when the Duke of Marlborough was dismissed as the head of the British army, Ormonde was given his place -- but with orders to not do much while the diplomats sought peace, which caused Parliament considered a motion to order him to pursue the War of the Spanish Succession more vigorously (Gregg, p. 357. It was probably fortunate for Ormonde that the war was winding toward its conclusion.) George I, as soon as he succeeded, fired Ormonde and put Marlborough back in his place (Hatton, p. 122).
His fear of impeachment didn't work out too well either: "Ormonde's flight in August 1715 was due to a loss of nerve and proved an unmixed blessing for the Whigs. Since March he had committed himself to support the Pretender's cause [i.e. the Old Pretender, 'James III'] and had planned risings in the south and west of England and in Wales, all areas where he had great influence. His precipitate departure (under fear of arrest) robbed the English Jacobites of a leader and made James III too dependent on a Scottish rising" (Hatton, pp. 175-176). Hatton thinks Ormonde wanted the Earl of Mar's rising in Scotland delayed, but it was too late; Mar raised his standard in September. "Ormonde's own efforts to rouse Devon (the first in October, the second in December) brought no response" (Hatton, p. 186). And Mar was no more competent than Ormonde; his campaign failed at Sheriffmuir (see "Will Ye Go to Sheriffmuir?"). One wonders what might have happened had the Old Pretender had a competent officer....
Ormonde kept his post in the Jacobite hierarchy; in the 1719 rebellion, he commanded a fleet that was supposed to invade Britain. A storm scattered the fleet; some ships were lost, many went back to Spain; a few Spaniards made it to the island of Lewis (Hatton, p. 239 note), but the 1719 was an even worse fizzle than the 1715 rebellion. - RBW
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