Life
1617-1684 [James Touchet; Baron Audley and 3rd Earl of Castlehaven]; Memoirs
for the Year 1642-1652; attacked by Arthur Annesley, Earl of Angelesey,
in A Letter from a Person of Honour in the Country (1681); at Charles
II’s request, Ormonde replied in A Letter ... in Answer to ...
Earl of Angelesy ... His Observations on Reflections upn the Earl of Castlehaven’s
Memoirs, 1681 [DNB]; Ormond sought a court examination of the ensuing
correspondence, resulting in Angelesey’s loss of Office as Privy
Councillor; charges against Castlehaven were renewed by Edmund Borlase
in Brief Reflections upon the Earl of Castlehaven’s Memoirs
(1681); Castlehaven revised his Memoirs in 1685; reprinted with
a preface by Charles O’Conor in Waterford (1753), later in Dublin
(1815). DNB DIW OCIL
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Works
[Charles O’Conor, ed.,] The Earl of Castlehaven’s Memoirs
(Waterford: J. Caldwell 1753); another edn., as The Earl of Castlehaven’s
Memoirs, or His review of his engagement and carriage in the Irish Wars
(Dublin: Espy 1815), 222pp.
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Notes
The Memoirs of James, Lord Audley, Earl of Castlehaven, his Management
and Carriage in the Wars of Ireland (1st edn. 1680) [Bradshaw 5569] A
Letter from a Person of Honour in the Countrey [sic], to the Earl of Castlehaven (1st edn. 1681) [Bradshaw 5403 [Hyland Catl. 244].
Memoirs, or his Review of the Civil Wars in Ireland; with his own engagement and conduct therein with historical notes on the Earl’s family and life (Dublin 1815) [Cathach Bks.]
Dictionary of National Biography; Touchet’s was brought up by a step-father who forced his sister to have sexual relations with his wife’s ‘paramour’; Touchet later got the step-father convicted by appealing to the King; present at O’Neill’s victory at Arras [France]; he served on the Royalist side in Ireland and led forces against Henry Munro and the ‘scotch forces [that] refused to be bound by the cessation of hostilities in 1643’ [DNB]; fought successful actions against Parliamentary Forces, shared commanded with Owen Roe O’Neill, and shared defeat with Ormond on Aug. 2, 1647, at Baggorath (Rathmines, Co. Dublin).
Earl of Castlehaven, Memoirs of the Irish Wars (Dublin 1815), bound and signed by George Mullen; see Maurice Craig, Irish Bookbindings (Dublin: Eason & Co. 1976), pl.17, showing also doublure (inside cover), p.18.
Roy Foster, Modern Ireland (1988), p.96, 1617-84; Baron Audley and 3rd Earl of Castlehaven, 1633; a Catholic peer, he escapes imprisonment in Dublin to join Confederates, 1642; service under Preston; fled to France on Cromwell’s arrival, served in continental campaigns, described along with Irish ones in his Memoirs (1680); restored to lands and dignities by Charles II. AND SEE also ibid. p. 64, George Touchet, c.1550-1617, sometime Gov. of Utrecht, wounded at Kinsale, 1601; Ulster plantation undertaker, 1610; Baron Au[d]ley of Orier, Armagh, 1614; 1st Earl of Castlehaven, Co. Cork, 1616.
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Notes
Norman Vance, Irish Literature, A Social History (Basil Blackwell
1990), for a different account of the relations with Anglesey, whose response
in Letter to the Earl of Castlehaven (1681) contains the assertion that
before the Rebellion of 1641 Ireland ‘never enjoyed a more profound,
and more like to be lasting Peace and Prosperity, Commerce and Trade ...
there never was more Unity, Friendship, and good Agreement, amongst all
sorts and degress.’ adding that he lent his silver plate to the Catholic
Bishop of Ferns and had it ‘honestly restored’.
Kilcash, Tipperary, under s. escarpment of Slievenamon, ruined church and remains of castle where Lord Castlehaven wrote his well-known Memoirs [ ill. shows large fortified house] (Shell Guide, 1966 edn.)
‘Not surprisingly accomodation with Ormond and the Royalists was their primary aim [i.e., the confederate grouping of Visc. Muskerry, Richard Bellings, and Dr Gerald Fennell] and they favoured using safe aristocratic generals, like Viscount Castlehaven, who could be guaranteed not to campaign too vigorously. Crucially, the Ormondists were prepared to postpone the question of religious concessions until the king have won the civil war in England.’ [see Micheál Ó Siochrú, ‘The Confedation of Kilkenny’, in History Ireland (Summer 1994), pp.51-56.
DIW alludes to Castlehaven as a critic of Borlase (under ‘Borlase’) but confuses his criticism with the title of Borlase’s earlier work; it is only in the revised edition, reprinted by O’Conor, that Borlase is challenged.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)