Lord Tyrconnel pretended to obey the viceroy, but scarcely a single act from Dublin Castle was not ignored by him. He was jealous of the king's preference for English noblemen, firmly believing that Ireland should be governed by an Irishman and a Catholic. The Duke of Ormonde he had regarded as an Englishman, and that viceroy's terms of office were always noted for quarrels with Tyrconnel. The old Irish families and the common people looked to Tyrconnel to save them from the evil consequences of the mad policy of Charles II. and his successor. James certainly gratified them by his return to the old religion, but he went about it the wrong way, and with the usual result. Clarendon did his best, but Fate was against him. He was too weak to stand the strain fidelity imposed in such troublous times, and James removed him from office because he suspected his loyalty. The suspicion was correct. Clarendon was one of the first of James's intimates to go over to the party that invited William and Mary to ascend the throne of England. Later he plotted against William, and only the influence of great friends and a remembrance of previous services saved his life. He was released {109} from prison, and permitted to live in semi-retirement until his death in 1709 at the age of seventy-one. [Sidenote: The Earl of Tyrconnel] When Clarendon's term of office ended there was only one man who could continue James's policy. This was Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel, the man who had done his utmost to kill the authority of half a dozen occupants of Dublin Castle. Fate retaliated by making his viceroyalty stormy and tragic. At the time of his appointment in 1687 Tyrconnel was fifty-seven years of age, and he had a long record behind him which, despite the tendency to idealize in the course of more than two centuries, seems to prove that he was nothing better than a bully and an adventurer. He was at the same time a brave soldier and a cowardly statesman, but his greatest defect lay in his utter inability to acquire the art of obeying. He wished to rule always, and when the critical time came, this contributed more than anything else to the complete defeat of the Jacobean cause in Ireland.