"Thomas Wharton, who, in the last Parliament, had represented
Buckinghamshire, and who was already conspicuous both as a
libertine and as a Whig, had written [A. D. 1688, just prior
to the Revolution which drove James II. from the English
throne] a satirical ballad on the administration of Tyrconnel
[Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel, James' Lord Deputy in
Ireland.]
See IRELAND: A. D. 1685-1688.
In this little poem an Irishman congratulates a brother
Irishman, in a barbarous jargon, on the approaching triumph of
Popery and of the Milesian race. … These verses, which were
in no respect above the ordinary standard of street poetry,
had for burden some gibberish which was said to have been used
as a watchword by the insurgents of Ulster in 1641. The verses
and the tune caught the fancy of the nation. From one end of
England to the other all classes were constantly singing this
idle rhyme. It was especially the delight of the English army.
More than seventy years after the Revolution, a great writer
delineated, with exquisite skill, a veteran who had fought at
the Boyne and at Namur. One of the characteristics of the good
old soldier is his trick of whistling Lillibullero. Wharton
afterwards boasted that he had sung a King out of three
kingdoms. But in truth the success of Lillibullero was the
effect, and not the cause, of that excited state of public
feeling which produced the Revolution. … The song of
Lillibullero is among the State Poems. In Percy's Relics the
first part will be found, but not the second part, which was
added after William's landing."
_Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 9, with foot-note._
ALSO IN:
_W. W. Wilkins,
Political Ballads of the 17th and 18th Centuries,
volume 1, page 275._
LILY OF FLORENCE, The.
See FLORENCE: ORIGIN AND NAME.
----------LILYBÆUM: Start--------
LILYBÆUM: B. C. 368.
Siege by Dionisius.
"This town, close to the western cape of Sicily, appears to
have arisen as a substitute for the neighbouring town of Motye
(of which we hear little more since its capture by Dionysius
in 396 B. C.), and to have become the principal Carthaginian
station." Lilybæum was first besieged and then blockaded by
the Syracuse tyrant, Dionysius, B. C. 368; but he failed to
reduce it. It was made a powerful stronghold by the
Carthaginians.
_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 83._
LILYBÆUM: B. C. 277.
Siege by Pyrrhus.
See ROME: B. C. 282-275.
LILYBÆUM: B. C. 250-241.
Siege by the Romans.
See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.
----------LILYBÆUM: End--------
LIMA:
Founded by Pizarro (1535).
See PERU: A. D. 1533-1548.
LIMBURG:
Capture by the Dutch (1632).
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1621-1633.
----------LIMERICK: Start--------
LIMERICK: A. D. 1690-1691.
Sieges and surrender.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691.
LIMERICK: A. D. 1691.
The treaty of surrender and its violation.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1691.
----------LIMERICK: End--------
LIMES, The.
This term was applied to certain Roman frontier-roads. "Limes
is not every imperial frontier, but only that which is marked
out by human hands, and arranged at the same time for being
patrolled and having posts stationed for frontier-defence,
such as we find in Germany and in Africa. … The Limes is
thus the imperial frontier-road, destined for the regulation
of frontier-intercourse, inasmuch as the crossing of it was
allowed only at certain points corresponding to the bridges of
the river boundary, and elsewhere forbidden. This was
doubtless effected in the first instance by patrolling the
line, and, so long as this was done, the Limes remained a
boundary road. It remained so, too, when it was fortified on
both sides, as was done in Britain and at the mouth of the
Danube; the Britannic wall is also termed Limes."
_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 8, chapter 4, foot-note._
LIMIGANTES, The.
The Limigantes were a tribe occupying, in the fourth century,
a region of country between the Danube and the Theiss, who
were said to have been formerly the slaves of a Sarmatian
people in the same territory and to have overpowered and
expelled their masters. The latter, in exile, became
dependents of the warlike nation of the Quadi. At the end of a
war with the latter, A. D. 357-359, in which they were greatly
humbled, the Emperor Constantius commanded the Limigantes to
surrender their stolen territory to its former owners. They
resisted the mandate and were exterminated.
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 18-19._
The Limigantes were a branch of the Iazyges or Jazyges, a
nomadic Sarmatian or Sclavonic people who were settled in
earlier times on the Palus Mæotis.