num_pages: 291
description: Richard Kane was born in the village of Duneane, in the Ulster county of Antrim, in 1662. He grew up in the turbulent years of the Restoration, which culminated in the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. It was an age of many conflicting loyalties, and of these Kane chose the "English interest," the central pillar of which was the defense of the Protestant realm against the growing menace of the Catholic monarch Louis XIV. By the time William III landed in Carrickfergus in 1690 Kane had already joined a British regiment. It was incorporated into William's army and with it Kane marched south (thus becoming one of the first "Orangemen") to participate in the Battle of the Boyne. This and other battles in William's victorious campaign saw the end of Catholic political influence in Ireland at that time, and the imposition of the cruel Penal Laws. The next phase in the struggle against the hegemony of Louis XIV was the War of the Spanish Succession. Kane and his regiment fought with the Duke of Marlborough in all the land campaigns of this war. Later Kane participated in Viscount Bolingbroke's secret, ill-fated Canadian expedition in 1711, which returned to England without ever having set foot in Canada.A year later Queen Anne appointed Kane Lieutenant-governor of Minorca, a small but strategically placed Mediterranean island, which, with Gibraltar, was the key to the domination of the Mediterranean. Coveted by the great powers for a century, it was wrested from its Bourbon rulers by General Stanhope in 1708. "It is Our Resolution to render you a Rich and Flourishing People" was Queen Anne's first message to the (Catholic) Minorcan people as Kane took up his appointment. Was Kane, with his background, the right man for this job? Although his epistolary battles with the island's Catholic clergy give some confirmation to these doubts, he governed Minorca for almost twenty-five years, ending his life beloved by the people he had ruled so stormily. He introduced new breeds of livestock and horticulture to the island, transferred the capital city from Ciudadela to Mahon, drained marshes, and built a road across the island (the Cami d'en Kane) with the dual purpose of improving military communications between the forts of Ciudadela and St. Philip's and of providing farmers with easier access to markets.The good will he created has lived on. Monuments have been built in his honor, and in 1986, on the 250th anniversary of his death, the Cami d'en Kane was reinaugurated, accompanied by ceremonies of the greatest cordiality, jointly by the local authorities and the then British Ambassador in Madrid, Lord Nicholas Gordon Lennox. Far from a disaster, Kane's was the longest governorship (Roman, Carthegenian, British, French, or Spanish) in the history of a much-conquered island, and this remarkable man's impact on Minorca is still felt today.
language: English
title: The Life of Richard Kane: Britain's First Lieutenant-Governor of Minorca
titlecomplete: The Life of Richard Kane: Britain's First Lieutenant-Governor of Minorca
ratings_count: 2
publisher: UNKNO