We wound up our drive to-day just beyond “the Duke’s seat,” a little rustic bench put up by the late Duke on a hill range which commands a magnificent view over the whole domain of hill and forest and lakes, and far away to the mountains of Munterlony.  There, in the bogs and woods James Hamilton, “lord baron of Strabane,” with “other rebels, unknown, in his company,” hid himself till, after the fall of Charlemont in August 1650, he was captured by a party of the Commonwealth’s men—­whereby, as the record here runs, “all and singular his manors, towns, lands, and so forth were forfeited to the Commonwealth of England.”  Under this pressure he sought “protection,” and got it a fortnight later from Cromwell’s General, Sir Charles Coote, whose descendants still nourish in Wicklow.  But on the 31st of December 1650 he “broke the said protection, and joined himself with Sir Phelim O’Neill, being then in rebellion.”

Troublous times those, and a “lord baron of Strabane” needed almost the alacrity in turning his coat of a harlequin or a modern politician!  It is a comfort to know that at last, on the 16th of June 1655, he found rest, dying at Ballyfathen, “a Roman Catholic and a papist recusant.”  As we came back into the gardens and grounds, Lord Ernest showed me, imbedded in the earth, a huge anchor presented to the present Duke by the Corporation of Waterford, as having belonged to the French 28-gun frigate, on which in 1689 James II. and Lord Abercorn sailed away from Ireland for Prance.  I believe that because of its weight the present First Lord of the Admiralty avers that it is no anchor at all, but a buoy fixture.  It might have been ten times as heavy, and yet not have availed to keep James from getting to sea at that particular time.

BARON’S COURT, Friday, Feb. 10.—­Here also, in County Tyrone, the Irish women show their skill in women’s work.  Mrs. Dixon, the English wife of the house-steward of Baron’s Court, has charge of a woollen industry founded here, after a discourse on thrift, delivered at a temperance meeting of the people by the then Marquis of Hamilton, had stirred the country up to consider whether the peasant women might not possibly find some better and more profitable way of passing their winter evenings than in sitting huddled around a peat fire with their elbows on their knees, gossiping about their neighbours.  Lord Hamilton cited the women of Gweedore as proofs that such a way might by searching be found.

The Duke and Duchess found the funds, the stewardess invested them in buying the necessary yarn and knitting-needles, and the Marchioness of Hamilton acted as corresponding clerk and business agent of the new industry.  The clothing department of the British army lent a listening ear to the business proposals made to it, and the work began.  From that time on it has been the main substantial resource against suffering and starvation of the families of some three hundred labourers in the hill country near Baron’s Court.