Sir Patrick Sarsfield

The Irish General who found Love Almost Deadlier than Warfare

Nov 2, 2007 Marc McLoughlin

The tragic hero and illustrious Jacobite general was renowned even amongst his enemies as a master tactician and commander. They mustn't have known about his love life!

The tally of Irishmen who, through dint of their fervent patriotism and courage have impinged themselves on English minds as ogres and on Irish as hopeless romantics, could never be complete without the addition of the military commander Patrick Sarsfield, whose defeat at Aughrim in 1690 signaled the bitter end of the Jacobite and Catholic cause and outright victory for the new Protestant King William of Orange. Some years afterwards Sarsfield, fatally wounded in Flanders fighting in exile for the French, famously remarked “would that this blood had been shed for Ireland” and duly expired, thereby swelling the ranks of dead Irish “hopeless romantics” by one.

But a look at Sarsfield’s early career reveals that this epithet was one deserved long before his demise, and for a very different reason than his eulogisers have proposed!

Duels

Sarsfield, born near Dublin about 1650, had started his military training in France, returning to English service in 1678. The diarist Narcissus Luttrell remembered him in 1681 as a proud and impulsive man who, upon misinterpreting a remark made by Lord Grey at Bartholomew Fair in London as being anti-Irish, challenged Grey to a duel. Grey, a good swordsman by all accounts, did Patrick a favour and had him arrested instead. A mere three months later Luttrell recalled that Sarsfield, while acting as a ‘second’ in another duel over a woman, managed to get himself run through on the sword of the opponent’s second, one Mr Kirke. Somehow he managed to survive such a ghastly wound, but no sooner had he recovered than he was out at dawn again, this time it being a Mr Bridges who succeeded in running the hapless (and hopeless) young dueller through.

Kidnappings

Having recovered yet again, and with life as a pin cushion growing obviously tedious, he decided he might embark on abduction instead. A plot was hatched with a fellow Captain, Francis Clifford, the object of the escapade being a wealthy young widow, Anne Siderfin, with whom Sarsfield thought he might be in love, and with whose money young Clifford most definitely was. The kidnap took place on Houndslow Heath, and they managed to get their victim all the way to Calais before she escaped and alerted the French authorities. The bravadoes were lucky to get off with hefty fines, but apparently learnt their lesson.

Unfortunately for Patrick the lesson, it seemed, was that next time he should act alone. Merely a few weeks later he was out on the prowl again, this time after another widow, Lady Elizabeth Herbert. He spirited her to the house of a friend, Sir John Parsons, and proposed to her. She (quite naturally) declined his offer whereupon she was released by her besotted abductor. When later she issued a prosecution against Sarsfield he responded by reverting to pin-cushion mode, this time at his own hand (so the wounds were superficial). Then, upon recovery and finding that Parsons had hidden a letter from Mrs Herbert saying she would drop the prosecution, it was back to full duel mode again. This time both he and Parsons contrived to run themselves through the lungs and yet again, incredibly, both pugilists managed to survive.

Honora Sarsfield

After all that Sarsfield’s increasingly prestigious and dangerous commands during the Monmouth Rebellion, and later in the Irish War, must have seemed like child’s play. For the record, he managed to find time at the height of the latter campaign to marry (without the need for abduction), and by all accounts the few years left to him and his spouse were happy ones, at least matrimonially. One wonders though just what he answered when his wife Honora asked him about the scars!

Sources:

"Court Satires of the Restoration" Author: John Harold Wilson Publisher: Ohio State University Press 1975 ISBN: 0814202497

"A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs: From Sept. 1678 to Apr. 1714" Author: Narcissus Luttrell Published: 1857

The copyright of the article Sir Patrick Sarsfield in UK/Irish History is owned by Marc McLoughlin. Permission to republish Sir Patrick Sarsfield in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Patrick Sarsfield (scars well hidden!)

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