Note 174 — Chapter XLIX · GOVERNMENT OF TYRCONNEL, 1687-1688

Burnet’s Own Times, i. 95, and the Supplement, ed. Foxcroft, p. 60. The two characters should be compared, that in the published History, written in 1702, being kinder to Ormonde than the original draft written in 1683. Burnet tells us that he had associated more with Ormonde’s enemies than with his friends, and looking back at the Caroline court from a convenient distance, he was able to see the old cavalier’s superiority. I have read Nicholas French’s Unkind Deserter, 1676, which is not convincing, though the Bishop proves that Ormonde got larger grants of land than Scævola and Horatius Cocles. A defence of his hero in money matters is in Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 308 sqq., 430. Burnet notes that Ormonde ‘writes the best of any man that has no learning that I ever knew.’