Richard Boyle (soldier)

Lieutenant Colonel Richard Boyle (died 1649) was an Anglo-Irish Royalist officer who was murdered in Drogheda five days after the city fell to Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army.

Biography

Boyle was the son of Richard Boyle, Archbishop of Tuam, and his wife Martha, daughter of Rice Wight of Brabouef Manor at Artington in Surrey and his wife Elizabeth Needler.[1][2]

On 11 September 1649 Boyle was captured during the storming of Drogheda at the end of the siege. Five days later he was having dinner with Lady More (sister to the John Gordon, Earl of Sutherland) when an English Parliamentary soldier entered the room and whispered something to him. Boyle stood up to follow the soldier, his hostess inquired where he was going, he replied "Madam, to die".[3] He was shot on leaving the room.[3] In the opinion of Lady Antonia Fraser, this "was an answer in the great tradition of those Cavaliers who had died with honour and a jest on their lips in the Civil War".[4]

Notes
  1. Kimber 1784, p. 346.
  2. Henderson 1886, p. 116.
  3. Collins 1998, p. 79.
  4. Fraser 2011, p. 178.
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References
  • Collins, Sean (1998), Drogheda: Gateway to the Boyne (illustrated ed.), Dundurn, p. 79, ISBN 9781900935081
  • Fraser, Antonia (2011), Cromwell, Our Chief Of Men, Hachette UK, p. 179, ISBN 9781780220697
  • Henderson, Thomas Finlayson (1886), "Boyle, Richard (d.1645)" , in Stephen, Leslie (ed.), Dictionary of National Biography, 6, London: Smith, Elder & Co, p. 116CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Kimber, Isaac, ed. (1784) [February 1784], "Boyle, Earl of Cork and Orrery (part 2)", The Gentleman's and London Magazine: Or Monthly Chronologer, 1741-1794, J. Exshaw.: 346
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