with the Duke of Berwick (Mémoires du Maréchal de Berwick, cited in Macknight's Life of Bolingbroke, 392). When Bolingbroke had at last succeeded in ousting Oxford from office and intended to form an essentially Jacobite administration of his own, Ormonde was to have been included in it (Stanhope). Instead of this, his name together with Bolingbroke's figured among the signatures under the proclamation notifying the death of Queen Anne and the accession of King George. It was noticed that at the proclamation of the king, when Oxford was hissed and Bolingbroke met with a dubious reception, Ormonde was lustily cheered by the crowd (Ford to Swift, 5 Aug. 1714, cited by Wyon, ii. 529–30).
On the arrival in England of the new king, it seemed at first as if Ormonde were to be received into the royal favour. But 18 Sept. he was deprived of the captain-generalship; and though 9 Oct. he was named of the privy council in Ireland, he was a few days afterwards dismissed, being however apprised through Lord Townshend that the king would be glad to see him at court. When parliament met in March 1715, Stanhope, who in the debate on the address hinted at the willingness of ministers to call their predecessors to account, spoke of ‘a certain English general who had acted in concert with, if not received orders from, Marshal Villars.’ But Ormonde continued to maintain an attitude of dignity and even of defiance, holding receptions at Richmond to which Jacobites were openly admitted, and enjoying the huzzas of the London mob. To what extent he was at this time involved with the Pretender, who, according to Bolingbroke, had conferred upon Ormonde a commission ‘with the most ample powers that could be given’ for the conduct of a rising in England, will probably never be known. There seems even now to have existed among the whigs a wish to avoid prosecuting him with the other late tory leaders, and to induce him to recant his errors instead (see the letter from Cardonnel to Marlborough cited by Stanhope, History, i. 122 note). But it was ultimately determined otherwise. On 21 June Stanhope moved his impeachment, and after a protracted debate, in which several known friends of the protestant succession spoke in his favour, the motion was carried by a majority of forty-nine. Yet it was still hoped that an audience with the king might set matters right, and many of his Jacobite friends urged him to take a conciliatory course, which still seemed open to him. Others wished him to co-operate in the scheme for an insurrection in the west, to which he was already privy. But he refused to accept either advice, and once more following Bolingbroke's lead fled to France on 8 Aug. (for the story of his parting interview with Oxford in the Tower see Stanhope, i. 127). He arrived, if Bolingbroke is to be believed, ‘almost literally alone,’ and for a time the two exiles lived together in the same house. On 20 Aug. he was attainted, his estates were declared forfeited, and his honours extinguished, and on 26 June 1716 an act vested his estates in the crown. Another act, however, passed in 1721, enabled his brother the Earl of Arran to purchase them, and this was done.
Ormonde, who had not yet lost heart, and was still, in Bolingbroke's phrase, ‘the bubble of his own popularity,’ took a prominent part in the unfortunate enterprise of 1715. Trusting in the promises of the Jacobites in England and in the pretences of the regent Orleans or his agents, he embarked in Normandy for the neighbourhood of Plymouth, where the country was to rise for King James. But on his arrival he was soon convinced of the futility of his expectations, and speedily sailed back to France. He never again returned to this country. In 1719, when Alberoni had resolved to assist the Pretender with a Spanish armada sailing from Cadiz, the conduct of it was offered to Ormonde, who was to join the fleet at Corunna, and there assume its command, with the title of captain-general of the King of Spain. In Ireland a reward of 10,000l. and in England one of 5,000l. were proclaimed for his apprehension on landing, and about the same time his house in St. James's Square was sold by auction by the crown. He was himself altogether distrustful of the success of the expedition, which numbered not more than 5,000 soldiers (partly Irish), and wrote from Corunna to Alberoni requesting that it might be postponed, which was tantamount to its being abandoned. But the fleet was dissipated off Cape Finisterre by a hurricane which lasted twelve days, and only two frigates reached the Scottish shore. In 1721, St. Simon found him resident at Madrid, and in favour with the queen and the court; and either there or later the Spanish government acknowledged his services, or his distinction, by a pension of 2,000 pistoles. Many years afterwards—in 1740—he was again in the Spanish capital, where he and Earl Marischal hoped to take advantage for the Jacobite cause of the breach between Spain and England. He was once more disappointed; nor could he well have now participated in any military enterprise.
