Carey or Cary Dillon, 5th Earl of Roscommon, PC was an Irish nobleman and professional soldier of the seventeenth century. He held several Court offices under King Charles II and his successor King James II. After the Glorious Revolution he joined the Williamite opposition to James and was in consequence attainted as a traitor by James II's Irish Parliament in that same year. In August 1689 he fought at the Siege of Carrickfergus shortly before his death in November. In his younger days he was a friend of Samuel Pepys, who in his celebrated Diary followed with interest Dillon's abortive courtship of their mutual friend, the noted beauty Frances Butler. The couple did not marry.
Background
Carey was born in 1627, a younger son of Robert Dillon by his third wife Anne Strode. His father was the 2nd Earl of Roscommon. His family was Old English and descended from Sir Henry Dillon who came to Ireland with Prince John in 1185. His family held substantial lands in Meath, Westmeath, Longford and Roscommon. Carey's mother was a daughter of Sir William Stroude of Somerset and Mary Southcote, and widow of Henry Folliott, 1st Baron Folliott. She died about 1650. As a younger son with his livelihood to earn, in the war-torn Ireland of the 1640s and 1650s, a military career was an obvious choice for him: he was made a captain by the age of seventeen. Although Samuel Pepys in the Great Diary always called him "Colonel Dillon" he was apparently only a lieutenant until 1684, when he became a major, and subsequently a colonel. His father in the 1630s had been a staunch supporter of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the formidable and virtually all-powerful Lord Deputy of Ireland, as was his half-brother James Dillon, 3rd Earl of Roscommon, and a family tie between the Dillons and the Wentworths was created when James married Strafford's sister Elizabeth. During the English Civil War, both Dillon brothers were staunch Royalists: James, who died in 1649, was posthumously listed in the Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652 as one of the leaders of the Royalist cause in Ireland who were excluded from pardon, and thus liable to forfeiture of their estates.
In Pepys's Diary
Pepys evidently liked "Colonel Dillon", whom he seems to have first met in 1660, and called him "a very merry and witty companion". In the early 1660s one of Pepys's closest friends was a young clergyman called Daniel Butler, who was probably, like Dillon, an Irishman. and shortly afterwards went to Ireland, apparently at Dillon's urging. Pepys admired both of Butler's sisters, especially Frances, whom he thought one of the greatest beauties in London. Dillon courted Frances, and matters proceeded as far as an engagement, but this was broken off in 1662, apparently after a violent quarrel between Dillon and Frances's brother "Monsieur l'Impertinent", who complained of Dillon's "knavery" to him. In the summer of 1668 Dillon apparently renewed his proposal of marriage – Pepys saw him and Frances riding in a carriage together – but it seems that Frances declined his offer. It is not known whether Frances ever married.
Duel
Following the Restoration of Charles II, Dillon entered politics, sitting in the Irish House of Commons as MP for Banagher in the Parliament of 1661–1666. His career was almost ruined in 1662 when he acted as second to Colonel Thomas Howard in his notorious duel with Henry Jermyn, 1st Baron Dover. Howard left Lord Dover for dead, and Dillon killed Dover's second, Giles Rawlings. Dillon and Howard fled from London, but later returned to stand trial. As was usual in affairs of honour, they were both acquitted, as killing a man in a duel, although counted as murder in law, was then generally regarded as being expected of a man who wished to preserve his honour.
Political career
This check to his career was temporary, and after 1670 his rise in Irish public life was rapid. He was sworn a member of the Privy Council of Ireland in 1673, and also became Master of the Irish Mint, Commissary-General of the Horse of Ireland, Surveyor-General for Customs and Excise in Ireland, and a Governor of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. In 1685, on the death of his nephew, the poetWentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon, he succeeded as the 5th Earl of Roscommon. The following year Lord Roscommon, as he was now, clashed bitterly with Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, the rising Roman CatholicRoyal favourite. Tyrconnell, as Lieutenant-General of the Irish Army, had removed all the Protestant officers of the regiment stationed at Kilkenny. Roscommon, with it seems considerable justification, challenged his legal right to do so, and when the matter came before the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Clarendon, Roscommon called Tyrconnell a liar to his face: this was a shrewd blow, since Tyrconnell had the unfortunate nickname "Lying Dick Talbot". The "Kilkenny affair" caused something of a furore in Ireland, but did not damage Tyrconnell's standing at the English Court.
Marriage and children
He married Katherine Werden, daughter of John Werden of Chester and Katherine Dutton, daughter of Edward Dutton, and sister of Lieutenant-General Robert Werden. The couple had a son:
Robert, who succeeded him as the 6th Earl of Roscommon, and is said still to have been a young child when his father died.
—and two daughters:
Anne, who married Sir Thomas Nugent in about 1675; and
The sisters were so many years older than their brother that it is possible they were children of an earlier marriage. If so, their mother must have died before 1660, since it is clear from the Diary of Samuel Pepys that Dillon was free to marry between 1660 and 1668.
The Williamite
Having served the Stuart dynasty with notable loyalty both during the Civil War and after the Restoration, Lord Roscommon, like many of the Irish Protestant ruling class, changed sides after the downfall and flight to France of James II in 1688. Roscommon and the majority of his fellow peers were opposed to James's pro-Catholic policy, and were appalled at the mishandling of the economy by Tyrconnel, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, with whom Roscommon had a bitter personal feud as well. When James in 1689 attempted to reconquer England by occupying Ireland, Roscommon offered his services to King William III of England. He was commissioned to raise troops on William's behalf. He was attainted for treason by the Patriot Parliament, held in Dublin from 7 May to 20 July 1689. He was present at the Siege of Carrickfergus in August 1689, the crucial first step in William's campaign to wrest control of Ireland from James II.
Death and timeline
He left Ireland and died on 25 November 1689 in Chester.
