pointed, along with Lord Viscount Mayo, joint governor of county Mayo. On 13 Feb. 1641–2, he was chosen, along with Lord Taaffe, by the Irish parliament to present their grievances to the king (‘Apology of the Anglo-Irish for Rising in Arms’ in Gilbert, Contemporary History of the Irish Confederation, i. 246–53). Soon after landing in England they were imprisoned by the parliament there as ‘agents employed by the rebels of Ireland to the king,’ but gradually obtaining the liberty of London, they made their escape after four months, and came to York, whither a messenger from the House of Commons followed them and demanded them as prisoners. The king, however, took no notice of their escape, and having volunteered to serve with the troops, ‘they behaved themselves with good courage, and frankly engaged their persons in all dangerous enterprises’ (Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, Oxford edition, ii. 218). After his return home, Dillon was made a lieutenant-general, and, along with Viscount Wilmot, was appointed lord president of Connaught. Subsequently he joined the Marquis of Ormonde in command of the army of the confederates, and was left by him with two thousand foot and five hundred horse to block up the city of Dublin in the north. He maintained Athlone till 18 June 1651, when articles of agreement were arranged between him and Sir Charles Coote. At the time of the Commonwealth his estates were sequestrated. In consideration of a sum of money he resigned in 1662 the presidency of Connaught to Charles II, by whom he was appointed custos rotulorum. He died in 1672 or 1673. By his wife, Frances, daughter of Nicholas White of Leixlip, he had six sons.
[Borlace's Reduction of Ireland; Gilbert's History of the Confederation, vols. i. and ii.; Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland, 1641–52, ed. Gilbert; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion; Gardiner's Hist. of England, vol. x.; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland (Archdall), iv. 184–9.]
DILLON or DE LEON, THOMAS (1613–1676?), jesuit, was born in Ireland in 1613 and educated in Spain. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Seville in 1627 and afterwards became a professed father. He taught philosophy for six years and scholastic and moral theology for twenty-two years in the colleges of his order at Seville and Granada. In 1640 he was professor of humanities at Cadiz. He was residing in the college at Granada in 1676, being then in ill-health and afflicted with dimness in the eyes. Dillon was skilled in Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, and Athanasius Kircher (Œdipus Ægyptiacus, vol. ii. class. xi. sect. 4) pronounced him to be ‘linguarum orientalium et abstrusioris doctrinæ veterum explorator eximius.’ Probably he is the person whom Peter Talbot, archbishop of Dublin, calls Thomas Talbot, alias De Leon, ‘the oracle of all Spain, not only for his profoundness in divinity, but for his vast extent of knowledge in other sciences, and his great skill in the languages’ (The Frier Disciplined, p. 45).
He was the author of:
- ‘Leccion sacra en la fiesta celebre que hizo el collegio de la Compagnia de Jesus de la ciudad de Cadiz en hazimiento de gracias a Dios Nuestro Señor por el complimiento del primer siglo de su sagrada religion,’ Seville, 1640, 4to.
- ‘Commentary on the Books of Maccabees. MS.’
[Antonio's Bibl. Hispana Nova, ii. 307; Backer's Bibl. des Ecrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus (1869), i. 1599; Foley's Records, vii. 203; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 243; Southwell's Bibl. Scriptorum Soc. Jesu, p. 762; Ware's Writers (Harris), p. 164.]
DILLON, WENTWORTH, fourth Earl of Roscommon (1633?–1685), was born in Ireland about 1633. Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford, then lord deputy, was his uncle, his father, Sir James Dillon, the third earl of Roscommon, having married Elizabeth, third and youngest daughter of Sir William Wentworth of Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire, and sister to the Earl of Strafford. He was educated in the protestant faith, as his father had been ‘reclaimed from the superstitions of the Romish church’ by Ussher, primate of Ireland (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 389). When he was very young, Strafford sent him to study under a Dr. Hall at his own seat in Yorkshire. He learnt to write Latin with elegance, although, it is said, he was never able to retain the rules of grammar. Upon the impeachment of Strafford, he was by Archbishop Ussher's advice sent to the learned Samuel Bochart at Caen in Normandy, where the protestants had founded a university. During his residence there his father was killed at Limerick in October 1649, by a fall downstairs. Aubrey states that Dillon suddenly exclaimed, ‘My father is dead!’ and that the news of the death arrived from Ireland a fortnight later (Aubrey, Miscellanies, ed. 1784, p. 162).
After leaving Caen he made the tour of France and Germany, accompanied by Lord Cavendish, afterwards duke of Devonshire. They also made a considerable stay at Rome, and Roscommon learnt the language so well as to be taken for a native. He also acquired great skill as a numismatist.
