Among James's advisers during his reign in Ireland Tyrconnel was by far the most important. As a thorough French partisan Avaux supported him, and Berwick, whose sympathies were also French, while noting that he was rich, says he was not accused of getting money unfairly. Anthony Hamilton, who knew him very well, says he did save some property for sufferers by the Cromwellian settlement, and was well paid for his services. His disregard for truth was shown in his dealings with the younger Clarendon and with Mountjoy. The elder Clarendon tells us that he was mixed up in a plot to assassinate Cromwell, and that he had threatened Ormonde with a like fate, since there was no chance of killing him in a duel. He was personally brave, but no soldier. He cursed and swore with a force and frequency remarkable even in that age. As a Gentleman of the Bedchamber he was in the secret of James's many amours, and was one of the 'men of honour' who tried to blast the character of Anne Hyde, notwithstanding which he remained her husband's trusted servant. James doubted his judgment, even when following his advice. Sheridan is a hostile witness, but his opinion of Tyrconnel has much support from other sources. 'He was a tall, proper man, publicly known as the most insolent in prosperity and most abject in adversity, a cunning dissembling courtier of mean judgment and small understanding, uncertain and unsteady in his resolutions, turning with every wind to bring about his ambitious ends and purposes, on which he was so intent that to compass them he would stick at nothing, and so false that a most impudent notorious lie was called at Whitehall and St. James' one of Dick Talbot's ordinary truths.'[204] [Sidenote: Justin MacCarthy.]