Patrick Lawless ( fl.1691 – 1719), known as Piatricio Laules in Spain, was an Irish Jacobite soldier who became a diplomat in the service of

Philip V of Spain Philip V ( es, Felipe; 19 December 1683 – 9 July 1746) was King of Spain from 1 November 1700 to 14 January 1724, and again from 6 September 1724 to his death in 1746. His total reign of 45 years is the longest in the history of the Spanish mon ...

. Lawless was the son of Walter Lawless of Kilkenny and Ann Bryan. By 1691, he was in the service of James II's Jacobite army in Ireland. He fought in the

Williamite War in Ireland The Williamite War in Ireland (1688–1691; ga, Cogadh an Dá Rí, "war of the two kings"), was a conflict between Jacobite supporters of deposed monarch James II and Williamite supporters of his successor, William III. It is also called th ...

, being taken prisoner after the

Battle of Aughrim The Battle of Aughrim ( ga, Cath Eachroma) was the decisive battle of the Williamite War in Ireland. It was fought between the largely Irish Jacobite army loyal to James II and the forces of William III on 12 July 1691 (old style, equivale ...

. Released following the

Treaty of Limerick }), signed on 3 October 1691, ended the 1689 to 1691 Williamite War in Ireland, a conflict related to the 1688 to 1697 Nine Years' War. It consisted of two separate agreements, one with military terms of surrender, signed by commanders of a Frenc ...

, he joined the

Flight of the Wild Geese The Flight of the Wild Geese was the departure of an Irish Jacobite army under the command of Patrick Sarsfield from Ireland to France, as agreed in the Treaty of Limerick on 3 October 1691, following the end of the Williamite War in Ireland. ...

to France where he was appointed a

gentleman of the bedchamber Gentleman of the Bedchamber was a title in the royal household of the Kingdom of England from the 11th century, later used also in the Kingdom of Great Britain. A Lord of the Bedchamber was a courtier in the Royal Household; the term being fir ...

to the exiled king and later to

James Francis Edward Stuart James Francis Edward Stuart (10 June 16881 January 1766), nicknamed the Old Pretender by Whigs, was the son of King James II and VII of England, Scotland and Ireland, and his second wife, Mary of Modena. He was Prince of Wales from ...

, the Old Pretender. The Pretender chose Lawless as his envoy to Philip V of Spain, who made Lawless the commander of the

Regiment of Hibernia The Regimiento ''Hibernia'' ("Regiment of Hibernia") was one of the Spanish army's foreign regiments (''Infantería de línea extranjera''). Known by many in Spain as "O'Neill's Regiment", it was formed in 1709 from Irishmen who fled their own cou ...

. After the

Peace of Utrecht The Peace of Utrecht was a series of peace treaties signed by the belligerents in the War of the Spanish Succession, in the Dutch city of Utrecht between April 1713 and February 1715. The war involved three contenders for the vacant throne o ...

, Philip V appointed Lawless to be the Spanish ambassador to

Anne, Queen of Great Britain Anne (6 February 1665 – 1 August 1714) was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland from 8 March 1702 until 1 May 1707. On 1 May 1707, under the Acts of Union, the kingdoms of England and Scotland united as a single sovereign state known as ...

. This caused concern among the Whig faction and was a complaint in the

impeachment of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford The Impeachment of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford was a legal process in the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1715 when the former First Minister Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford was impeached and sent to the Tower of London. Harley was accused of a numbe ...

, with Harley accused of "receiving Patrick Lawless, an Irish Papist, as a foreign minister, and causing several sums of money to be payed to him".Redmond, J. Raymond, 'Military and Political Memoirs of the Redmond Family'
''Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society''
(1921), Vol. 27, No. 126, p.34. Lawless nonetheless retained the ambassadorship to Great Britain after the death of Queen Anne in 1714, and he later served as Philip's ambassador to France and as lieutenant general and governor of

Majorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean. The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...

. He is last heard of in 1718 as an associate of Peter Redmond.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawless, Patrick Year of birth uncertain Year of death uncertain 18th-century Irish people Ambassadors of Spain to France Ambassadors of Spain to Great Britain Irish Jacobites Irish soldiers in the army of James II of England Irish soldiers in the Spanish Army Regiment of Hibernia Spanish people of Irish descent