Name James 4th | ||
James Barry, 4th Earl of Barrymore (1667 - 5 January 1748) was an Irish soldier and Jacobite politician.
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Early life
The son of Richard Barry, 2nd Earl of Barrymore and his wife Dorothy (nee Ferrar), Barry succeeded his half-brother Laurence Barry, 3rd Earl of Barrymore to the Earldom of Barrymore on 17 April 1699.
Military career
Upon William of Orange's invasion of England, Barrymore came out for William against James II and was subsequently appointed lieutenant-colonel in William's army on 31 December 1688. After the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1702 he purchased for 1,400 guineas the 13th regiment of foot from Sir John Jacob, 3rd Baronet (his brother-in-law) and rose through the ranks, being appointed brigadier-general (c. 1707), major-general (1709) and lieutenant-general (1711). He served under Lord Galway and was captured after the Battle of Almansa in 1707. Upon the accession of the first Hanoverian monarch George I and his proscription of the Tories in 1715, Barrymore was forced to sell his regiment.
Political career
Barrymore took up his seat in the Irish House of Lords in 1704 and was elected Tory MP for Stockbridge for the British House of Commons in the Tory landslide of 1710. He lost his seat to the famous Whig writer Sir Richard Steele in 1713 but regained it upon appeal. In 1715 he was elected MP for Wigan, which he held until 1747 apart from a break during 1727-34. In 1714 he was appointed to the Irish Privy Council.
Jacobitism
Barrymore embraced the Pretender's cause late in life. In 1740 he conspired with English Tories for a Stuart restoration aided by a French invasion and visited Cardinal Fleury to persuade him to support it. In 1743 Louis XV of France's master of horse, James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde, travelled to London to meet Barrymore and other Tory peers to conspire to French invasion. Barrymore was to be part of Charles Edward Stuart's council of regency should he successfully oust the Hanoverians. In February 1744 the British government discovered from a spy in their service in France the English members of the conspiracy and Barrymore was arrested. After the collapse of the Jacobite rising of 1745 the government decided not to prosecute Barrymore.