Donough MacCarthy, 4th Earl of Clancarty (1668–1734) fought for James II in the Williamite War in Ireland at the Siege of Derry.
MacCarthy went into exile to the Netherlands, where he lived for some time on the tiny island of Rottumeroog, and in Germany near Hamburg where he died.
[3] However, neither his mother nor the bishop could match the influence of his uncle Justin McCarthy, Viscount Mountcashel, who was one of the closest advisers of the Duke of York, the future James II.
They convinced King Charles II to provide a royal letter, countersigned by Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland,[11] then the principal Secretary of State in England, inviting Clancarty to the Palace of Whitehall for the 1684 Christmas celebrations where, with Justin's connivance, Clancarty was married to Sunderland's daughter Elizabeth Spencer (1671–1704).
[18] Having been detained for three years, he escaped from the Tower of London in 1694 and fled to James II's court at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
[19] He returned to England in the new year 1698 and sought out his wife Elizabeth to finally begin their married life, only to be turned in to the authorities by his brother-in-law, Lord Spencer, who had been alerted by the family servants.
The case raised a public furore and William III, who did not take the matter seriously, said that he had never been bothered so much over anything so trivial as the affair of "that little spark Clancarty".
[20] Most of his estates were appropriated by the king's main adviser, the Dutchman Hans Willem Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland.
In 1729 the anti-Orangist statesman Evert Joost Lewe allowed him to live at Elmersma, a manor house in the village of Hoogkerk near Groningen, without paying rent.
Donough and Elizabeth had three children, two sons:[23] —and a daughter: MacCarthy was a typical adventurer, crossing the Wadden Sea on his yacht and making a living by plundering shipwrecks and gathering washed-up merchandise.