RICHARD, one of the greatest statesmen of the seventeenth century, and generally styled the Great Earl of Cork, was the youngest son of Mr Roger Boyle, and born at Canterbury on the 3rd of October 1656. He studied at Bennet College, Cambridge, and afterwards became a student in the Middle Temple. Having lost his father and mother, and being unable to support himself in the prosecution of his studies, he became clerk to Sir Richard Manhood, one of the barons of exchequer; but finding that by his employment he could not improve his fortune, he went to Ireland in 1588 with fewer pounds in his pocket than he afterwards acquired thousands a year. He was then about twenty-two years of age, with a graceful person and many accomplishments, which enabled him to render himself useful to some of the principal persons employed in the government, by drawing up for them memorials, cases, and answers. In 1595 he married Jean, the daughter and co-heiress of William Anelay, who had fallen in love with him; and she, dying in 1599, left him an estate of L.500 a year in land. In consequence of various services, and the great ability he displayed, he gradually rose to the highest offices, and even to the dignity of the peerage of Ireland, to which he was raised by King James I. on the 29th of September 1616, by the style and title of Baron of Youghall, in the county of Cork; four years after he was created Viscount Dungarvan and Earl of Cork; and in 1631 he was appointed lord-treasurer of Ireland, an honour that was made hereditary to his family. He particularly distinguished himself by the noble stand he made when the fatal rebellion broke out in Ireland in the reign of Charles I.; and in his old age he acted with as much bravery and military skill as if he had been trained from his infancy to the profession of arms. Having turned the castle of Liamore, his principal seat, into a fortress capable of demanding respect from the Irish, he immediately armed and disciplined his servants and Protestant tenants; and, with their assistance, and a small army raised and maintained at his own expense, which he put under the command of his four sons, he defended the province of Munster, took several strong castles, and killed upwards of three thousand of the enemy. During this time he paid his forces regularly; and when all his money was exhausted, he, like a true patriot, converted his plate into coin. He died on the 15th of September 1634.

Richard, Earl of Burlington and Cork, son of the former, was a nobleman of unblemished loyalty in troubled times, and of untainted integrity in a period of the greatest corruption. He was born at Youghall in October 1612, while his father was in the beginning of his career, being then only Sir Richard Boyle; and he distinguished himself by his loyalty to King Charles I. He not only commanded troops, but raised, and, for a long time, paid them, continuing to wait upon the king as long as any place held out for him in England; and it was only in the last extremity he was forced to compound for his estate. He contributed all in his power to the Restoration; on which King Charles II. raised him to the dignity of Earl of Burlington or Bridlington, in the county of York, in the year 1663. He died in January 1697-8, in the eighty-sixth year of his age.