An Adventure of Hardress Fitzgerald, a Royalist Captain

"An Adventure of Hardress Fitzgerald, a Royalist Captain" is a historical novel by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, set during the tumultuous times of the English Civil War. The story follows Hardress Fitzgerald, a valiant Royalist captain, as he navigates a world filled with intrigue, loyalty, and betrayal. The novel explores themes of honor and duty while depicting the struggles between royalists and parliamentarians. Le Fanu weaves a tale rich in atmospheric detail and character development, highlighting the personal and political conflicts of an era defined by its fervent loyalty and passionate disputes.

• Fiction

								
     Being an Eleventh Extract from the Legacy of the late
     Francis Purcell, P.P. of Drumcoolagh.

The following brief narrative contains a faithful account of one of
the many strange incidents which chequered the life of Hardress
Fitzgerald--one of the now-forgotten heroes who flourished during the
most stirring and, though the most disastrous, by no means the least
glorious period of our eventful history.

He was a captain of horse in the army of James, and shared the fortunes
of his master, enduring privations, encountering dangers, and submitting
to vicissitudes the most galling and ruinous, with a fortitude and a
heroism which would, if coupled with his other virtues have rendered the
unhappy monarch whom he served, the most illustrious among unfortunate
princes.

I have always preferred, where I could do so with any approach to
accuracy, to give such relations as the one which I am about to submit
to you, in the first person, and in the words of the original narrator,
believing that such a form of recitation not only gives freshness to
the tale, but in this particular instance, by bringing before me and
steadily fixing in my mind's eye the veteran royalist who himself
related the occurrence which I am about to record, furnishes an
additional stimulant to my memory, and a proportionate check upon my
imagination.

As nearly as I can recollect then, his statement was as follows:

After the fatal battle of the Boyne, I came up in disguise to Dublin,
as did many in a like situation, regarding the capital as furnishing
at once a good central position of observation, and as secure a
lurking-place as I cared to find.

I would not suffer myself to believe that the cause of my royal master
was so desperate as it really was; and while I lay in my lodgings, which
consisted of the garret of a small dark house, standing in the lane
which runs close by Audoen's Arch, I busied myself with continual
projects for the raising of the country, and the re-collecting of the
fragments of the defeated army--plans, you will allow, sufficiently
magnificent for a poor devil who dared scarce show his face abroad in
the daylight.

I believe, however, that I had not much reason to fear for my personal
safety, for men's minds in the city were greatly occupied with public
events, and private amusements and debaucheries, which were, about
that time, carried to an excess which our country never knew before,
by reason of the raking together from all quarters of the empire, and
indeed from most parts of Holland, the most dissolute and desperate
adventurers who cared to play at hazard for their lives; and thus there
seemed to be but little scrutiny into the characters of those who sought
concealment.

I heard much at different times of the intentions of King James and his
party, but nothing with certainty.

Some said that the king still lay in Ireland; others, that he had
crossed over to Scotland, to encourage the Highlanders, who, with Dundee
at their head, had been stirring in his behoof; others, again, said
that he had taken ship for France, leaving his followers to shift for
themselves, and regarding his kingdom as wholly lost, which last was the
true version, as I afterwards learned.

Although I had been very active in the wars in Ireland, and had done
many deeds of necessary but dire severity, which have often since
troubled me much to think upon, yet I doubted not but that I might
easily obtain protection for my person and property from the Prince of
Orange, if I sought it by the ordinary submissions; but besides that my
conscience and my affections resisted such time-serving concessions, I
was resolved in my own mind that the cause of the royalist party was by
no means desperate, and I looked to keep myself unimpeded by any pledge
or promise given to the usurping Dutchman, that I might freely and
honourably take a share in any struggle which might yet remain to be
made for the right.

I therefore lay quiet, going forth from my lodgings but little, and that
chiefly under cover of the dusk, and conversing hardly at all, except
with those whom I well knew.

I had like once to have paid dearly for relaxing this caution; for going
into a tavern one evening near the Tholsel, I had the confidence to
throw off my hat, and sit there with my face quite exposed, when a
fellow coming in with some troopers, they fell a-boozing, and being
somewhat warmed, they began to drink 'Confusion to popery,' and the
like, and to compel the peaceable persons who happened to sit there, to
join them in so doing.

Though I was rather hot-blooded, I was resolved to say nothing to
attract notice; but, at the same time, if urged to pledge the toasts
which they were compelling others to drink, to resist doing so.

With the intent to withdraw myself quietly from the place, I paid my
reckoning, and putting on my hat, was going into the street, when the
countryman who had come in with the soldiers called out:

'Stop that popish tom-cat!'

And running across the room, he got to the door before me, and, shutting
it, placed his back against it, to prevent my going out.

Though with much difficulty, I kept an appearance of quietness, and
turning to the fellow, who, from his accent, I judged to be northern,
and whose face I knew--though, to this day, I cannot say where I had
seen him before--I observed very calmly:

'Sir, I came in here with no other design than to refresh myself,
without offending any man. I have paid my reckoning, and now desire to
go forth. If there is anything within reason that I can do to satisfy
you, and to prevent trouble and delay to myself, name your terms, and if
they be but fair, I will frankly comply with them.'

He quickly replied:

'You are Hardress Fitzgerald, the bloody popish captain, that hanged the
twelve men at Derry.'

I felt that I was in some danger, but being a strong man, and used to
perils of all kinds, it was not easy to disconcert me.

I looked then steadily at the fellow, and, in a voice of much
confidence, I said:

'I am neither a Papist, a Royalist, nor a Fitzgerald, but an honester
Protestant, mayhap, than many who make louder professions.'

'Then drink the honest man's toast,' said he. 'Damnation to the pope,
and confusion to skulking Jimmy and his runaway crew.'

'Yourself shall hear me,' said I, taking the largest pewter pot that
lay within my reach. 'Tapster, fill this with ale; I grieve to say I can
afford nothing better.'

I took the vessel of liquor in my hand, and walking up to him, I first
made a bow to the troopers who sat laughing at the sprightliness of
their facetious friend, and then another to himself, when saying, 'G----
damn yourself and your cause!' I flung the ale straight into his face;
and before he had time to recover himself, I struck him with my whole
force and weight with the pewter pot upon the head, so strong a blow,
that he fell, for aught I know, dead upon the floor, and nothing but the
handle of the vessel remained in my hand.

I opened the door, but one of the dragoons drew his sabre, and ran at

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