This book throws fresh light on British and Irish politics at the start of the eighteenth century. It tells for the first time the story of a powerful and eccentric peer, Thomas Coningsby, who played a key role in Ireland as the king's "saviour" at the Battle of the Boyne and as one of the top administrators of the Protestant ascendancy. It describes his tumultuous career in local and national politics in England, along with his hectic familial...