In 1639, the young Sir Richard undertook to raise, arm, and provide 100 horses to attend upon King Charles I of England in his expedition into the North of England against the Scots. For this and other occasions, his father, Lord Cork, supplied him with £5553 sterling. Sir Richard Boyle was returned as Member of Parliament for Appleby in the Long Parliament of 1640, and appointed a member of the Privy Council of England, but was subsequently excluded for his Royalist sympathies after the outbreak of the English Civil War.
He and Lord Inchiquin commanded the forces which defeated the Irish irregular army at the Battle of Liscarroll on 3 September 1642, thereby preserving the Protestant interest in southern Ireland for the remainder of the decade. A cessation of hostilities was concluded with the Irish a year later (15 September 1643). He then applied to the King, in December, for consent to bring his regiment to serve him in England, and landed his men near Chester the following February. He then marched to the King's aid in Dorset, supplying this monarch with large sums of money for his cause.
He fought throughout the Civil War until the final defeat of the Royalist forces. The Commonwealth fined him £1631 sterling and he then went abroad, returning to Ireland at the request of the government, dated 2 January 1651.
Upon the death of his brother, Lord Boyle of Kinalmeaky, on 2 September 1642, Richard Boyle succeeded as 2nd Viscount Boyle of Kinalmeaky. A year later, he succeeded as the 2nd Earl of Cork upon the death of his father on 15 September 1643. Further, King Charles I created him Baron Clifford of Londesborough in the County of York on 4 November 1644.
In 1667, Richard purchased Burlington House in an incomplete state and proceeded to complete its construction. The house was the largest structure on his Burlington Estate and its name was derived from him.
Lord Burlington (as he was usually known for short from 1664 onwards), along with several other noblemen and Bishops of the Church of Ireland, were opposed to the attempts of King James II of England in regard to the restoration of Roman Catholicism and petitioned the King on 17 November 1688 to call a parliament "regular and free in all its circumstances". This petition had a hostile reception from King James. Following the arrival of William of Orange in England, King James removed to Ireland where he called a parliament in 1689, which passed an act of attainder against certain Protestants deemed disloyal to the king,[2] and confiscated their estates, among whom was the Earl of Burlington (who was also Earl of Cork). This was overturned the following year by William of Orange when he ascended the throne.
On 3 March 1691, Richard was appointed to the newly incorporated Society of the Royal Fishery in Ireland.
Family and death
At the age of 22, Richard Boyle married the 21-year-old Lady Elizabeth Clifford, daughter of Henry Clifford, 5th Earl of Cumberland and Lady Frances Cecil, on 5 July 1635 at Skipton Castle. They had six children:
Lodge, John, Keeper of the Rolls, & Archdall, Mervyn, A.M., Rector of Slane, County Meath, and Member of the Royal Irish Academy, The Peerage of Ireland, Dublin, 1789, vol. 1, pp. 169–174.
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