IRSHCNDR [Doug Tucker requested I share his OCT 1996 letter to Mrs. Eliza- beth (Candler) Graham with the handful of people interested in the CANDLERs; I told him that was almost everyone. She is the granddaughter of Asa Griggs Candler of GA. I begin with the sec- ond paragraph; parts edited out are his asides about previous CANDLER books. As in all things, credit for the information goes to Doug; complaints about typos to me. LSS] The Irish CANDLERs During the Irish Rebellion of 1648-1652, (considered part of the third phase of the English Civil War which started in 1642) Will- iam Candler served as a Captain of infantry in the "Expeditionary Army" sent to Ireland to put down the rebellion. In the _Regimen- tal History of Cromwell's Army_ (by C. H. Firth and A. Davis, Ox- ford, 1940) William Candler is listed as one of seven captains of "Kentish Forces" under the command of Col. Phayre and Lt. Col. Christopher Elsyng in early 1647. This unit later was subse- quently split and part of it was integrated into a Regiment of Foot commanded by Sir Hardress Waller which landed at Kinsale in DEC 1649 and saw extensive action in County Cork from DEC through MAR 1650 before moving north to meet up with Cromwell's forces in County Kilkenny. John Prendergast in his 1865 book, _The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland_ ... reports William Candler as a "Captain" when the Waller Regiment was disbanded in March, 1655. The disbanded sol- dier and officers of the Waller Regiment were awarded land-in- lieu-of-back pay in County Wexford. However, in 1657/58 Dr. Will- iam Petty carried out an extensive mapping and census of Ireland (_The 1659 Census of Ireland_) which listed all English land- owners in Ireland... The Petty Census shows that during the 1657/58 period, William Candler, Esq., was an important property owner (a "titulado", or the principal person of standing in any particular area) in a place called Balliknockan (Ballyknockan) in the Barony of Conlisk in Kings County (now County Offaly). So, although his troops re- ceived land compensation in County Wexford, their commander, Capt William Candler, ended up with land in Kings County. I do not know the circumstances surrounding the switch in counties but it apparently was not that unusual as there was a lot of purchasing and swapping of Irish land among the English officer corps and many of the enlisted soldiers simply wanted to cash in their Irish property and return home to England. (The English Parlia- ment in post-Civil War England was understandably nervous about the return of a standing Army of some 30,000 seasoned troops and did what it could to force the troops to disband and remain in Ireland.) Betweeen disbandment in 1655 and the publishing of the Petty Cen- sus in early 1659, at least three important events had affected William Candler. He had retired from the Army, he had received a significant land grant (later records suggest that the grant in Kings County exceeded 1,050 English acres, or 660 Irish acres, and may have been as much as 1,500 acres) and he had been awarded the hereditary title of Esquire. Although I have not seen the documentary proof, Allan Candler apparently had access to documents in Ireland that showed that, before he retired from the Army, William Candler was jumped-in- rank from Capt. to Lt. Colonel which included a nice retirement annuity, and cited for heroism by a grateful Oliver Cromwell and Parliament. (Other facts support Allan Candler's account and I am quite certain it is reasonably accurate--I just haven't been able to come up with the citation of notice of rank advancement. I suspect it is located in Irish archives in Dublin.) As to William Candler's heroism in Ireland, I came across the following two letters which are contained in the personal letters and manuscripts of the Duke of Portland as compiled by the Camden Society. The letters were exchanged by opposing commanders in late January, 1650 at which time Capt. William Candler was ser- ving as military governor of Macroom Castle in County Cork. I have read a little about Sir Hardress Waller's campaign in County Cork. His regiment arrived at Kinsale, Co. Cork in DEC 1649 with a mission of securing the County and protecting Crom- well's southern flank. (Cromwell had landed near Dublin in August and was pushing southwest toward Kilkenny.) Macroom was about 25 miles west of the City of Cork and it was dominated by a 12th century castle that had been built by the Carew family and later became the property of the MacCarthy (Clan Carty) family. Waller marched his regiment west to Macroom (the rebels abandoned the castle before Waller arrived) before turning north toward Blarney and Youghal. Capt. Candler was named Governor of Macroom Castle and left with a small garrison force tasked with maintaining control of western Cork while Waller moved northward to meet up with Cromwell. We do not know the size of the force left at Macroom, but it seems likely that it was not larger than a single company of 100 sold- iers. (Waller's Regiment had only 1,000 troops.) His adversary was Donough MacCarthy, Viscount Muskerry and leader of Clan Carty who was commander of Irish Confederate (rebel) forces in southern Ireland. (Macroom Castle had been the home of Sir Cormac MacCar- thy, Muskerry's grandfather. Donogh MacCarthy's home was Blarney Castle.) Muskerry had several thousand troops under his command but probably arrived before Macroom Castle that January with a force of no more than 300 infantry and a troop or two of cavalry, some of whom reportedly were French and Spanish mercenaries. The letters exchanged by Lord Muskerry and Capt. Candler are self explanatory. Both reflect a rather chivalrous approach to ap- proaching deadly combat that was rarely seen during this particu- larly nasty campaign. As I will explain in greater detail below, I am reasonably confidant that these letters reflect the basis for William Candler's citation for bravery, his rank advancement to Lt. Colonel and probably the award of the hereditary "esquire" social rank, all of which transpired between 1655 and 1658. From Lord Muskerry, January 30, 1650: "The Castle being in opposition to my party, I thought fit according to my accustomed civilities to summon you to yield me the possession thereof by fair means and on honorable terms, which opportunity if you neglect I will endeavour to come other- wise by it, and acquit my own conscience of the inconvenience that may ensure..." Capt. William Candler's reply to Lord Muskerry, January 31, 1650: "You should do little to the reducing of this place if you did not attempt it with a piece of paper, in which I always ex- pect more lines of terror than in those of your approaches, only I observe you resolve upon this refusal to recover this place otherwise by fair & honourable terms. I believe I shall as early acquaint myself of danger as you of the inconveniency. Pursue the ways of honour and safety to yourself and you teach me my duty, which is to trust myself and the whole action to the mercy of Heaven and not yours." So far, I have been unable to uncover an account of the subsequent siege of battle of Macroom Castle, except for a brief note in an Irish history text that states that in March, 1650, "4,000 Irish Confederate troops overran the English garrison and burned the Castle. Could Capt. Candler's small garrison force hold out that long? In April, 1650 General Ireton of the Parlia- mentary Army of Ireland, returned to Macroom and retook the Castle. He, too, reportedly burned it. We know, of course, that Capt. William Candler survived the Macroom action, but exactly what transpired will have to wait un- til someone uncovers a better account of the Macroom Castle en- gagement. I read in an old Irish travel guide that, in the early 19th century, Macroom Castle was renovated and converted into an elegant manor home by Robert Hedges, esq. However, it was again gutted by fire in the 1930s and was torn down in the early 1950s. The Castle site is now a park. Also, some researchers seem to assume that William Candler was involved in the siege and fall of Callan, Ireland in March, 1650. As far as I can tell from mili- tary histories, William Candler and the Waller regiment were not involved in military operations at or near Callan. As mentioned above, the confiscated Irish land awarded William Candler at the time of his Army retirement was not in the Barony of Callan but rather on the western fringe of Kings County close to the River Shannon. As other Irish documentation shows, the property occupied by the Candler family at Balliknockan had been confiscated from the Carroll family (Thady and son, Teig Carroll) at the end of the Rebellion when the Carroll's were forced to relocate to adjacent Connaught Province, west of the River Shannon. In 1657/58, when the Petty Census was taken, the William Candler household in Balliknockan included four English persons. We do not know who was included in the household but I am quite certain that it did not include "the widow Ann Villiers" nor did it in- clude the two known sons (Thomas and John) of William and Ann Villiers Candler. As I will explain below, William Candler prob- ably did not marry Ann Villiers until after 1660 and their two sons were probably born about 1663 and 1665, respectively. The Petty Census, however, strongly suggests that William Candler already had a family before he married Ann Villiers, meaning he had an earlier wife. (My ancestor, Mary Candler who married Capt. Zachariah MOORMAN, seems likely to have been William Candler's daughter by his first wife. I think Mary Candler was born about 1636 (based on her marriage to Zack Moorman which had to have happened sometime after 1655 and the birth of their first son, Thomas MOORMAN about 1658). This, in turn, suggests that William Candler was born about 1610, plus or minus a few years, and was by 17th century standards a relatively old man when he married the widow Ann Villiers. The only clue we have as to when William Candler died is that his oldest son, Thomas, had already succeeded to the family's "esquire" title in 1684 when he reached his majority. Irish tax documents (Poll Money Ordinance of 1660-1661) show that William Candler still resided in Balliknockan, Kings County as late as 1661. However, in either 1662 or 1665 "William Candler, esq. and wife Ann" were among approximately 1,500 persons listed as recipients of a royal land grant in Ireland. The question about the year of the grant is due to the fact that the grants were reported in an appendix to the Acts of Settlement and Ex- planation (_Irish Statutes at Large_, vol. II, page 239-263) which were actually two associated Acts of Parliament, one passed in 1662 and the other in 1665. Which Act included the appendix is unclear, although I believe it was part of the earlier, 1662 Act. This list of grantees includes three different classes of gran- tees. One class included Anglo-Irish gentry who had been Royal- ists and had been dispossessed by Cromwell in 1653/4. They were being given back their confiscated lands by Charles II. Another class of grantee involved confirmations by Charles II of grants made by Cromwell and Parliament in 1654/65. A third class in- volved "replacement" grants being awarded to English soldiers and Adventurers who were being displaced by the return of family lands to the Anglo-Irish gentry. Though I have not seen the actual document which details these land grants, I believe William and Anne Candler was a "class three grantee", i.e., he was being given a new land grant because the Carroll family was to regain its family land in Kings County which had been granted to William Candler during the Cromwell reign. However, there remain many unanswered questions about this 1662 grant which probably can be cleared up only by examining the appendix in its original form, which I have not done. There is a notation in _Burke's Commoners_, vol. I, in a short section of the "Candler family of Callan" that suggests that the Callan grants to William Candler occurred on "28 NOV 20th year and 21 JUN 21st year of the reign of Charles II". Since Charles counted his reign as beginning on the death of his father in Jan- uary 1649 (even though he was not restored to the throne until 1660), the dates of the grants referred to in Burke's would be 1669 and 1670, respectively. I have not found the sources to sort it so I can report only that "sometime between 1662 and June, 1670", William and Ann Villiers Candler received royal grants of lands in the vicinity of Callan in County Kilkenny and possibly elsewhere. The Callan grant to William and Ann Candler by Charles II appears to have been located in the so-called Liberties of Callan in County Kilkenny. This is the property that contained Callan Cas- tle which would be home to Candlers for the next 100 years. The exact location of Callan Castle remains unclear. History books tell us there were three castles in the vicinity of the medieval town of Callan. One was a 13th century castle built by William the Marshall and which was in ruins long before the Candlers ar- rived in the area. Another was called Skerry Castle, a sort of fortified gate house located on the western edge of the main street (West Street) of the Town of Callan. The third was the Butler Castle, built in the 15th century by the Butler family at West Court Demesne which is outside the limits of the Town of Callan, in the Liberties of Callan on the north side of Kings River. I can only guess that William Candler built a manor house in the proximity of the ruins of the old 13th century Marshall Castle and called his property Callan Castle. William definitely did not live in the Town of Callan where Skerry Castle was located, and property records seem to indicate that the Butler Castle at West Court was back in the hands of the Butler family before 1700. Thus, the ruins of the Marshall Castle becomes the best candidate for Callan Castle name used by the 18th century Candler family. The account of the grant of Callan Castle to William Candler pre- sented by Allan Candler in his 1902 book stated that the grant was made by a grateful Cromwell and Parliament. My guess is that Allan Candler assumed the Callan grant was directly associated with William Candler's citation for bravery and his promotion to Lt. Colonel which occurred about 1655, during Cromwell's reign as Protector of the English Commonwealth. We now know that the Crom- well period land grant was in Kings County but this fact was un- clear when Allan Candler wrote his biography. The 1663 grant by Charles II names not only William Candler, esq. but also his wife, Ann. This is the first reference I have seen that links William Candler with Ann Villiers. ("Names of Persons in the Grants Under the Acts of Settlement and Explanation", from the Records of Ireland as reported by John O'Hart in his book, _The Irish and Anglo-Irish Landed Gentry_, Shannon, 1969.) How- ever, there must be more information in Irish records because the grant appendix did not use the name VILLIERS. Vol. 1, page 105, of _Burke's Commoners_, published in London in 1834 and cited by Allan Candler, does mention "Ann Villiers, widow of Major John Villiers". A critical question is "Why would Charles II make several royal land grants between 1662 and 1670 to a former high-ranking of- ficer and hero of Cromwell's hated army?" The answer, I suggest, has little to do with William Candler and everything to do with his new wife, Mrs. Ann Villiers, widow of Major John Villiers. In fact, I suggest that the deceased John Villiers was the person most responsible for the great good fortune that befell William Candler and his heir in Ireland after 1662. Ann Villier's maiden name is uncertain, but may have been Cath- erine Ann CLARKE, reportedly the daughter of John Clarke who may have come from the CLARKE family of Huntingdonshire. (John Vil- liers' great-grandmother was Coletta CLARKE, daughter of Richard Clarke, esq. of Huntingdonshire, who was the widow of Richard Beaumont, esq, when she married William Villiers of Brokesby.) Catherine Clarke is recorded in Burke's _Peerage and Baronetage_ as the wife of John Villiers. However, given the Rebellion and harsh economic and hygienic conditions in Ireland, it is possible that Catherine Ann Clark Villiers died prior to 1653 and that John Villiers took a second wife named Ann. It is one of those facts that will have to be sorted out in future research. In any case, Ann's identify is not essential to this particular story. We need only to consider that she was married to John Villiers at the time of his death and that she subsequently married William Candler of Ireland. We do know that Ann and William Candler had at least two children, sons born approxi- mately 1663 and 1665. We know nothing about daughters. The sons' birth dates, however, gives us a general idea as to Ann Villiers Candler's age--probably between 20 and 40 when she married Will- iam Candler, an event that I believe occurred after January 1660. This would place Ann Villiers Candler's birth date between 1620 and 1640. So, who was John VILLIERS? We know that he was a major in the Army--but what Army? I suggest that John Villiers was an Irish Protestant Royalist, a Major of Cavalry in the forces that James Butler, Lord Ormond, raised in Ireland to support Charles I in the English Civil War. When Charles I surrendered and fled to Scotland in 1647, Lord Ormond also threw in the towel and placed his military forces (the vast majority of his troops had been raised and stationed in Ireland) under the nominal control of Col. Michael Jones, the Parliamentary Army's senior officer in Ireland. Major Villiers' cavalry troop, raised in Limerick and garrisoned at Trym, County Meath, was among the Ormond forces nominally transferred to Col. Jones' command in 1647. (see Firth & Davis, _Regimental History of Cromwell's Army_.) My belief is that Major John Villiers remained a committed Royalist and was among the Anglo-Irish gentry who again "re- belled" against English authority in late 1648, joining the so- called Irish Confederates and beginning the so-called Irish Re- bellion. (The Major John Villiers listed as a cavalry officer in Col. Michael Clark's Regiment in 1647 was almost certainly from Ireland as was Jones and virtually all of his troops. The John Villiers who was listed as Lord Grandison and who commanded a horse troop garrisoned at Trym in a July 6, 1648 muster roll of Irish Confederate troops was clearly from Ireland. Were there two John Villiers who came from Ireland? No, there was only one Vil- liers family in Ireland, all of whom were descendants of Sir Edward Villiers who served as President of Munster province in the 1620s and Barbara St. John. In addition to being a cavalry officer, it is my studied opinion that Major John Villiers was also the 3rd Viscount Grandison of Limerick, a title he had inherited from his older brother, Will- iam, a Royalist Lt. Colonel who was wounded at the siege of Bris- tol and later died of his wounds at Oxford in late 1643. Why John Villiers was referred to in Burke as "Major John Villiers" rather than "Viscount John Villiers" or "Lord John Villiers" is not clear. However, there are many clues which tell us that Ann Vil- liers Candler's first husband was not simply an Army major. (_Burke's Commoners_, the original four-volume set that was pub- lished in 1834-1838, says she "was the widow of Major John Vil- liers". Firth & Davis in _Regimental History of Cromwell's Army_, states that "Major Villiers died in Ireland" citing as their source the _Commons Journals, Volume VII_, page 38.) (First, let me dispose of two other "John Villiers" candidates who came from the same extended Villiers family of Brokesby, Leicestershire, but neither qualifies for the position of the Major Villiers who was the first husband of Ann Villiers Candler. One was John Villiers (1590-1657), Viscount Purbeck, who was a full-brother to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. His life, his marriages (to Frances Coke and Elizabeth Slingsly) and his children are well-documented. He was too old, did not serve in the military, and his widow's name was Elizabeth. The other can- didate was John Villiers of Hoby, Leicestershire, son of Richard and Elizabeth Villiers and a first cousin to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. This John was born in 1618 and reportedly died in 1677. I have found no evidence that he served as an officer in the military or ever stepped foot in Ireland.) No, I am reasonably convinced that "our" Major John Villiers was the second son of Sir Edward Villiers (c1582-1629), older half- brother of George Villiers (1592-1628), Duke of Buckingham and court favorite of both James I and Charles I. In 1623, George Villiers used his political connections to arrange the appoint- ment of his "impoverished older brother" Edward to a good paying job as President of Munster Province in Ireland. Edward was mar- ried to Barbara St. John, niece and heir of Sir Oliver St. John who had been created 1st Viscount Grandison of Limerick in 1620. George Villiers also arranged for the Grandison title to be passed down to the male issue of Barbara St. John Villiers. Thus, her oldest son, William Villiers (1613-1643), became the 2nd Vis- count Grandison of Limerick. When William died in 1643 without a male heir, the Grandison title passed to William's younger bro- ther, John Villiers, who was then serving as a Captain in the Royalist forces of Lord Ormond and stationed in Ireland. (William Villiers, the 2nd Viscount Grandison, had a single daughter, Barbara, who later became mistress of Charles II. Barbara Villiers was married to Roger Palmer, Baron of Castle- maine, by whom she had a daughter. Though married, she became mistress to the bachelor, Charles II (who would soon marry and who had other mistresses both before and after Barbara Villiers Palmer) soon after the Restoration and between 1662 and 1672 bore him five illegitimate children (Charles, Henry, Charlotte, George and Barbara) who took the surname Fitzroy. Charles rewarded Barbara Villiers Palmer in 1670 with the title Duchess of Cleve- land. All of Barbara's children by the King also received titles. Her strong influence on Charles II is well-documented, but how much of a part it may have played in Candler land grant story is impossible to assess. However, Barbara Villiers Palmer received her Duchess title approximately the same date (1670) as William and Ann Villiers received royal land grants in Ireland. Coinci- dence? It probably is enough to know that Barbara Villiers was in a position to influence Charles II on behalf of Ann, the re- cently widowed wife of her Uncle John and new wife of William Candler.) Under his older brother Edward's influence, John Villiers joined the Royalist forces at the start of the Civil War, initially as a Captain of cavalry and later as a Major. John's younger brother, George, also served in the Royalist forces, initially as a Coro- net and later as a Captain. (George Villiers would later succeed brother John as the 4th Viscount Grandison.) Books on the Eng- lish and Irish peerage generally agree that John Villiers, 3rd Viscount Grandison, married Catherine Ann CLARKE, and that John Villiers died without issue. One "peerage" source reports that John Villiers died in 1662 but there is much documented evidence that proves that John Villiers died between April 1655 and April 1660. John Villiers, cavalry major, staunch Royalist, Irish rebel and Viscount Grandison of Limerick, was apparently enough of an Irish thorn in the English (Parliament's) side that after peace was made in 1653, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London from which he was not released until mid-1655, reportedly in declining health. While a prisoner in the Tower, Lord Grandison published, on Nov. 6, 1654, a tract translated from the original Latin entitled "Saint Chrysostome hi Paraenesis, an admonition wherein he recalls Theodorus the Fallen. Or generally, an exhortation for desperate sinners" (see the _Thomason Tracts_). Also, in the 1659 Petty Census of Ireland, Sir George Villiers, John's younger bro- ther, is identified as a Baronet in Leytrim County. I am certain that George would have appeared in the Census as Viscount if his brother were already dead. In sum, my guess is that John Villiers, third Viscount Grandison, died sometime in late 1659 or very early 1660. By April, 1660 John was dead because George Villiers used the Viscount Grandison of Limerick title, in a petition to King Charles II, for permis- sion to build and rent out several houses in the City of London. The 1659/60 date of John Villirs' death fits well with the limit- ed facts we know about the CANDLER family. According to Thomas Candler's will, which was probated in 1719, Thomas was 53 years old when he died in December, 1716. This places his birth about 1663 which is consistent with his father's marriage to the "widow of John Villiers" after a reasonable period of mourning. Also, the earliest mention of Ann Candler that I have come across is in the previously discussed appendix to the Acts of Settlement and Explanation dated 1662. [To be continued ...LSS] 9