“He died on the scaffold in front of those walls,

Where the blackness of ruin is seen from afar,

And the gloom of their desolate aspect recalls

The blackest of Broghill’s achievements in war.”

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CHAPTER VII

Ormond’s Treacherous Surrender of Dublin—Ireland’s Choice of Two Evils

ORMOND would seem to have been the evil genius of the Irish nation at

this period of its history. He was suspected by the Confederates and

distrusted by the Parliamentarians. The former, convinced that he meant

to betray Dublin, which was poorly fortified, to the latter, ordered

O’Neill and Preston to unite their forces and take it from Ormond.

Preston, who was, to all appearance, more of a royalist Palesman than an

Irishman, threw obstacles in the way of the intended assault, and

proposed to parley with Ormond before assuming the aggressive. Owing to

this dilatoriness, and because of a false alarm, the combined Irish

forces retired from before the city without accomplishing anything.

There was mutual distrust between the unwilling allies, and, as usual,

Ireland was the sufferer. Preston’s jealousy of O’Neill amounted to a

frenzy, and, before an accommodation could be arrived at, Ormond

surrendered the city to the Parliamentary forces, under General Jones,

and fled to France, where, unaccountably, considering his suspicious

conduct, he was favorably received. After a year’s absence, he returned

to Ireland, and, finding the royal cause desperate, concluded a peace

between the king’s supporters, the Confederates, and the National party,

headed by Owen O’Neill. This treaty was, virtually, a revival of that

submitted by Glamorgan, and fully recognized, when all too late, the

justice of the Catholic claims to liberty of conscience. Had the

original instrument been adopted, Charles could have held Ireland

against the Parliament. But his days were now numbered, and he died on

the scaffold, in front of his own palace of Whitehall, on January 30,

1649.

The Royalist party at once recognized his heir as Charles II. They were

reinforced by many Parliamentarian Protestants who were shocked and

horrified by the decapitation of the king; and so Old Irish and New

Irish, Confederates and Ormondists, made common cause against the

Parliament, which was defended in Dublin by the redoubtable General

Jones, and in Derry by the ferocious younger Coote. Even the sanguinary

Inchiquin again became a Royalist and captured several towns of strength

and importance from his recent allies. Ormond massed his army and, aided

by Major-General Purcell, made an attempt to storm Dublin. But Michael

Jones made a night sortie from the city and scattered Ormond and Purcell

and their followers to the winds of heaven. The Irish generals mutually

blamed each other and there was much bitter crimination and

recrimination, but all this could not remedy the disaster that

incapacity and over-confidence had brought about. Owen O’Neill kept his

army, which fronted Coote, near Derry, intact, but lost his best friend

when the impetuous Nuncio, who had spared neither denunciation nor

excommunication in dealing with the trimming Anglo-Catholic leaders,

disgusted with the whole wretched business, suddenly departed for the

port of Galway and sailed in his own ship for Rome. Had this good man

had to deal with leaders like Owen O’Neill, faithful, sensible, and

unselfish, Ireland would have been an independent nation ere he returned

to the Eternal City. His retirement placed O’Neill and the “Old Irish”

in great perplexity as regarded a military policy. Ormond, the

treacherous, was, nominally at least, commander-in-chief of the royal

army, and his trusted lieutenants, Preston and Inchiquin, were O’Neill’s

bitter foes.

Under such disadvantages, we are not surprised to learn that O’Neill

adopted a policy of his own, at once bold and original. He temporized

with the Parliamentarians, and actually entered into a three months’

truce with General George Monck, who had succeeded to the unlucky

Monroe’s command in the North. The distrust and hatred of Ormond, whose

military power waned immediately after his crushing defeat by General

Jones, already mentioned, were so great that both Galway and Limerick

refused to admit his garrisons. He and his wretched ally, Inchiquin,

became utterly discredited with the Old Irish party, and soon fled the

kingdom their infamies had cursed. Ormond returned to England after the

Restoration and was one of Charles II’s intimates. It can hardly be

wondered at, therefore, that, to use McGee’s language, “the singular

spectacle was exhibited of Monck forwarding supplies to O’Neill to be

used against Ormond and Inchiquin, and O’Neill coming to the rescue of

Coote and raising for him the siege of Derry.” It was unfortunate that

all of the Parliamentary generals were not possessed of the chivalric

qualities of Monck and that hard fortune again compelled Owen Roe to

draw the sword for the cause of the ingrate Stuarts. As for the

Anglo-Irish, whether of the Church of Rome or the Church of England,

they clung to the fortunes, or rather the misfortunes, of Charles II as

faithfully and vehemently as to those of his infatuated father. This was

all the more noteworthy, as the younger Charles had even less to

recommend him to public estimation than his sire. He lived to be a

disgrace to even the throne of England, which has been filled too often

by monarchs of degraded and dissolute character. The second Charles of

England was destitute of every virtue, except physical courage. He had,

in a high degree, that superficial good nature which distinguished his

race, but he was a libertine, an ingrate, and a despicable time-server.

But Ireland did not learn these truths about his character until long

after the period of his checkered career here dealt with. It must be

borne in mind, however, that in the middle of the seventeenth century

the divinity which is alleged to hedge a king was much more apparent to

the masses of the people than it is in our own generation, when the

microscopic eye of an educated public opinion is turned upon the throne

and detects the slightest flaw, in the “fierce light” which beats upon

it. The Old Irish party cared little for Charles, but when it came to a

choice between him and Cromwell, there was nothing left them but to

throw their swords into the scale for the youthful monarch, who was not

nearly as “merry” then as he became in after days, when he quite forgot

the friends of his adversity.

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CHAPTER VIII

“The Curse of Cromwell”—Massacres of Drogheda and Wexford—Death of Sir

Phelim O’Neill

THEIR adherence to the cause of the young Stuart brought upon the Irish

nation the blighting “curse of Cromwell,” so terribly remembered down to

the present hour in every nook of Ireland visited by his formidable and

remorseless legions. The English Parliament well knew that a general of

the first class was needed to crush the Irish army in field and fort,

and so Oliver Cromwell, commander of the famous “Ironsides,” or

Parliamentary cuirassiers, the greatest and most relentless soldier of

that age, was sent to Ireland, commissioned to work his will upon her.

He landed in Dublin with an army of 4,000 cavalry and 9,000 infantry,

augmented by the forces already in the island, on August 14, 1649.

Plentifully supplied with money and military stores, he at once made

ready for a vigorous campaign. His second in command was General Ireton,

a son-in-law and pupil, who is remembered in Ireland only a degree less

bitterly than the great regicide himself. The latter marched his

formidable army, after a very brief rest, from Dublin to Drogheda, which

was held for Charles II by a garrison of about 3,000 men, burdened with

many helpless non-combatants, under the orders of Sir Arthur Aston, a

brave and experienced officer, who had suffered the loss of a leg in the

Continental wars. He spurned Cromwell’s insolent summons to surrender,

and successfully repulsed two furious assaults, led by the English

general in person. A third attack, made September 10, 1649, was

successful. General Aston fell, and the Puritan soldiers quarreled over

his artificial leg, which was said to be made of gold. Examination

proved it to be of wood—a much less costly and tempting material. The

garrison, seeing their leader fall, laid down their arms, believing that

quarter would be extended. But Cromwell, by his own admission (see his

letters compiled by Thomas Carlyle), refused this accommodation, on the

flimsy pretext that Drogheda did not, at once, surrender on summons; and

the Puritan army was let loose upon the doomed city. For five dreadful

days and nights there ensued a carnival of rapine and slaughter. The

affrighted people fled to cellars, many sought refuge in churches, and

some climbed even to the belfries in the vain hope of escaping the

general massacre. But they were relentlessly pursued, sabred,

suffocated, or burned to death in the places in which they hoped to

obtain shelter. The few miserable survivors—less than one hundred—were

spared, only to be shipped as slaves to the Barbadoes. (See Cromwell’s

Letters, per Carlyle.)

Cromwell, in his despatch to the speaker of the English Parliament,

called this brutal achievement “an exceeding great mercy,” and,

blasphemously, gave all the praise of the universal slaughter to the

most High God! There is absolutely no excuse for the regicide’s

outrageous conduct at Drogheda, although Froude, Carlyle, and other

British historians have vainly sought to make apology for his inhuman

actions. Many of the garrison were English and Protestant, so that race

and creed did not entirely influence him, as the same considerations

undoubtedly did at other places in Ireland. His cold-blooded idea was to

“strike terror” into Ireland at the outset of the campaign; and in this

he certainly succeeded only too well. It made his subsequent task of

subjugation much easier than it would, otherwise, have been. Having

accomplished his work in the fated city, and left it a smoking ruin, he

counter-marched to Dublin, rested there for some days, and then marched

toward Wexford, capturing several small towns, which offered but feeble

resistance, on his way. His lieutenants had, meanwhile, added Dundalk,

Carlingford, and Newry to his conquests in the North. Wexford prepared

for a brave defence, but was basely betrayed by Captain James Stafford,

an officer of English ancestry, who surrendered the outer defences,

without the knowledge of his chief, Colonel David Sennott. Quarter was

refused, as at Drogheda, and three hundred maids and matrons, many of

the latter with infants in their arms, who fled to the market square,

and took refuge, as they thought, under the sacred shadow of the

gigantic cross which stood there, were butchered, notwithstanding their

pleadings for mercy. Nearly all of these people were Catholic in creed,

if not all of Celtic race, so that Cromwell manifested what may be

called an impartial spirit of cruelty on both bloody occasions. His

hatred for the English Protestant royalists was as hot, to all

appearance, as that which he entertained toward the Irish Catholics, who

had embraced the Stuart cause. But his remorseless policy of general

confiscation of the lands of the vanquished, and the sending into

banishment, as veritable slaves, of the unhappy survivors, have left a

deeper scar on the heart of Ireland than all the blood he so cruelly,

and needlessly, shed on her soil.

The tidings from Drogheda and Wexford soon spread throughout the

country, and the faint-hearted governors of many strong towns

surrendered without attempting to make an honorable defence. Kilkenny

proved an exception. There a brave stand was made, and garrison and

inhabitants received favorable terms of surrender. But Cromwell’s most

difficult task was in front of “rare Clonmel,” in Tipperary, which was

garrisoned by a few regiments of the aboriginal Ulster Irish—among the

bravest men that ever trod a battlefield or manned a breach—under the

command of Major-General Hugh Duff (Black) O’Neill, nephew and pupil of

the glorious Owen Roe. This brave and skilful officer repulsed, with

much carnage, several of Cromwell’s fiercest assaults, and the siege

would, undoubtedly, have been raised only for failure of ammunition in

the Irish army. O’Neill, having satisfied himself that this was the

unfortunate fact, evacuated the city on a dark midnight of May, 1649,

and retreated to Limerick. Cromwell, ignorant of this movement, demanded

the surrender of Clonmel next morning. Favorable terms were requested

and granted. There was no massacre, and Cromwell’s sardonic nature made

him rather enjoy the masterly trick played upon him by young O’Neill.

Some years afterward, when the latter, after a most noble defence of

Limerick, fell into the hands of Ireton and was condemned to death, we

are informed that Cromwell, then virtually Lord Protector, caused his

sentence to be commuted and allowed him to return to the Continent. Such

is the effect true courage produces on even the most brutal natures.

Owen Roe O’Neill, who, of all the Irish generals, was alone fitted, both

by nature and experience, to combat the able Cromwell, died soon after

that tyrant’s arrival in Ireland, as some say by poison. He was on the

march to attack the English army, when he surrendered to death at Clough

Oughter Castle, in Cavan, bitterly mourned by all who had dreamed of an

independent Ireland. How beautifully Thomas Davis laments him:

“We thought you would not die—we were sure you would not go,

And leave us in our utmost need to Cromwell’s cruel blow!

Sheep without a shepherd, when the snow shuts out the sky,

Oh, why did you leave us, Owen, why did you die?

“Soft as woman’s was your voice, O’Neill! bright was your eye,

O! why did you leave us, Owen? why did you die?

Your troubles are all over, you’re at rest with God on high;

But we’re slaves and we’re orphans, Owen! why did you die?”

Immediately after the capitulation of Clonmel, Cromwell, summoned by

Parliament to operate against the royalists of Scotland, set sail for

England, leaving behind him Ireton and Ludlow to continue his bloody

work. By Oliver’s direction, confiscation followed confiscation, and,

when he became Protector of the English Commonwealth, many thousands of

innocent boys and girls were shipped from Ireland to the West Indies and

other colonies of England, where most of them perished miserably. Ireton

died in Limerick, which yielded to his arms, after a desperate

resistance, in 1651. Tradition says that he rotted from the plague, and

that his last hours were horrible to himself and to all who surrounded

his repulsive deathbed. He had caused to be killed in the city a bishop,

many priests, and a multitude of other non-combatants; and these

atrocities appalled his craven soul at the moment of dissolution.

Ludlow, an equally ferocious soldier, concluded the work of conquest in

Ireland, and, in 1652, the whole island was again rendered “tranquil.”

“Order reigned in Warsaw,” but it was not the order that succeeds

dissolution. Ireland, as subsequent events proved, was not dead, but

sleeping. The close of “the great rebellion,” which had lasted eleven

years, was signalized by the ruthless executions of Bishop Heber

MacMahon—the warrior prelate who led Owen Roe’s army after that hero’s

death—and Sir Phelim O’Neill, who was offered his life on the steps of

the scaffold, if he consented to implicate the late King Charles I in

the promotion of the Irish revolt. This, the English historians inform

us, he “stoutly refused to do,” and died, in consequence, like a soldier

and a gentleman. He had his faults—this fierce Sir Phelim. He was by no

means a saint, or even an exemplary Christian—but he acted, “according

to his lights,” for the best interests of his native country, and lost

everything, including life, in striving to make her free. A gifted Irish

poet (T. D. McGee) sings of him as “In Felix Felix,” thus:

“He rose the first—he looms the morning star

Of that long, glorious unsuccessful war;

England abhors him! has she not abhorr’d

All who for Ireland ventured life or word?

What memory would she not have cast away

That Ireland keeps in her heart’s heart to-day?

“If even his hand and hilt were so distained,

If he was guilty as he has been blamed,

His death redeemed his life—he chose to die

Rather than get his freedom with a lie.

Plant o’er his gallant heart a laurel tree,

So may his head within the shadow be!

“I mourn for thee, O hero of the North—

God judge thee gentler than we do on earth!

I mourn for thee and for our land, because

She dare not own the martyrs in her cause;

But they, our poets, they who justify—

They will not let thy memory rot or die!”

CHAPTER IX

Sad Fate of the Vanquished—Cruel Executions and Wholesale Confiscations

THE subsequent fate of other chief actors in this great political and

military drama is summed up by a learned historian thus: “Mountgarret

and Bishop Rothe died before Galway (the last Irish stronghold of this

war) fell. Bishop MacMahon, of Clogher, surrendered to Sir Charles

Coote, and was executed like a felon by one he had saved from

destruction a year before at Derry. Coote, after the Restoration, became

Earl of Mountrath, and Broghill, Earl of Orrery. Clanricarde died

unnoticed on his English estate, under the Protectorate. Inchiquin,

after many adventures in foreign lands, turned Catholic in his old age;

and this burner of churches bequeathed an annual alms for masses for his

soul. A Roman patrician did the honors of sepulture for Father Luke

Wadding. Hugh Duff O’Neill, the heroic defender of Clonmel and Limerick,

and the gallant though vacillating Preston, were cordially received in

France, while the consistent (English) Republican, General Ludlow, took

refuge as a fugitive (after the Restoration) in Switzerland.”

The same accomplished authority (T. D. McGee) informs us that under

Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate, “A new survey of the whole island was

ordered, under the direction of Sir William Petty, the fortunate

economist who founded the House of Lansdowne. By him the surface of the

kingdom was estimated at ten and a half million plantation acres, three

millions of which were deducted for waste and water. Of the remainder,

above 5,000,000 acres were in Catholic hands in 1641; 300,000 acres were

college lands, and 2,000,000 acres were in possession of the Protestant

settlers of the reigns of James I and Elizabeth. Under the Cromwellian

Protectorate, 5,000,000 acres were confiscated. This enormous spoil,

two-thirds of the whole island (as then computed), went to the soldiers

and adventurers who had served against the Irish or had contributed to

the military chest since 1641—except 700,000 acres given in ‘exchange’

to the banished in Clare and Connaught, and 1,200,000 confirmed to

‘innocent Papists’ who had taken no part in the warfare for their

country’s liberty. And,” continues our authority already quoted,

“Cromwell anticipated the union of the kingdoms by a hundred and fifty

years, when he summoned, in 1653, that assembly over which ‘Praise-God

Bare-bones’ presided. Members for Ireland and Scotland sat on the same

benches with the Commons of England. Oliver’s first deputy in the

government of Ireland was his son-in-law, Fleetwood, who had married the

widow of Ireton, but his real representative was his fourth son, Henry

Cromwell, commander-in-chief of the army. In 1657, the title of Lord

Deputy was transferred from Fleetwood to Henry, who united the supreme

civil and military authority in his own person, until the eve of the

Restoration, of which he became an active partisan. We may thus embrace

the five years of the Protectorate as the period of Henry Cromwell’s

administration.” High Courts of Justice were appointed for dealing with

those who had been actively in arms, and many cruel executions resulted.

Commissions were also appointed for the expatriation of the people,

particularly the young. “Children under age, of both sexes, were

captured by the thousands, and sold as slaves to the tobacco planters of

Virginia and the West Indies. Secretary Thurloe informs Henry Cromwell

that ‘the Council have authorized 1,000 girls, and as many youths, to be

taken up for that purpose.’ Sir William Petty mentions 6,000 Irish boys

and girls shipped to the West Indies. Some contemporary accounts make

the total number of children and adults, so transported, 100,000 souls.

To this decimation we may add 34,000 men of fighting age, who had

permission to enter the armies of foreign powers at peace with the

Commonwealth.”

As there was no Irish Parliament called under Cromwell’s régime, the

“government” of Ireland consisted, during that period, of the deputy,

the commander-in-chief, and four commissioners—the Puritan leaders,

Ludlow, Corbett, Jones, and Weaver—all of whom looked upon the

Celtic-Catholic Irish, and, in fact, all classes of the Irish people,

with bigoted hatred and insolent disdain. And these men had, until the

Restoration, absolute dominion over the lives and liberty, the rights

and properties of the nation they hated!

The Act of Uniformity, which played such a terrible part in the reigns

of Elizabeth and James, was put into relentless force. The Catholics

were crushed, as it were, into the earth, and Ireland again became a

veritable counterpart of the infernal regions. Priests, of all ranks,

were hunted like wild beasts, and many fell victims to their heroic

devotion to their flocks. Catholic lawyers were rigidly disbarred and

Catholic school-teachers were subjected to deadly penalties. “Three

bishops and three hundred ecclesiastics” perished violently during the

Protectorate. “Under the superintendence of the commissioners,” says

McGee, “the distribution made of the soil among the Puritans ‘was nearly

as complete as that of Canaan by the Israelites.’ Such Irish gentlemen

as had obtained pardons were obliged to wear a distinctive mark on their

dress under pain of death. Those of inferior rank were obliged to wear a

round black spot on the right cheek, under pain of the branding iron and

the gallows. If a Puritan lost his life in any district inhabited by

Catholics, the whole population were held subject to military execution.

For the rest, whenever ‘Tory’ (nickname for an Irish royalist) or

recusant fell into the hands of these military colonists, or the

garrisons which knitted them together, they were assailed with the

war-cry of the Jews—‘That thy feet may be dipped in the blood of thy

enemies, and that the tongues of thy dogs may be red with the same.’

Thus, penned in (according to the Cromwellian penal regulation) between

‘the mile line’ of the Shannon and the ‘four-mile line’ of the sea, the

remnant of the Irish nation passed seven years of a bondage unequaled in

severity by anything which can be found in the annals of Christendom.”

When the news of Oliver Cromwell’s death, which occurred on September 3,

1658, reached Ireland, a sigh of intense relief was heaved by the

persecuted nation. Many a prayer of thankfulness went up to the throne

of God from outraged Irish fathers and mothers, whose children were

sweltering as slaves under tropical suns. Cromwell himself had passed

away, but the “curse of Cromwell” remained with Ireland for many a black

and bitter day thereafter.

What followed after his death until the Restoration belongs to English

history. Under his son Richard, and his associates, or advisers, the

Protectorate proved a failure. Then followed the negotiations with

General Monck, and the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, who

landed on English soil, at Dover, May 22, 1660, proceeded to London,

where he was cordially welcomed, and renewed his interrupted reign over

a country which, at heart, despised and distrusted him and all of his

fated house.

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CHAPTER X

Ireland Further Scourged Under Charles II—Murder of Archbishop

Plunket—Accession of James II

THE Irish Catholics had built high hopes on the restoration of Charles,

but were not very jubilant when they learned that he had appointed as

Lords Justices, in Dublin, their ancient foes and persecutors, Coote and

Broghill, the latter now called the Earl of Orrery. In the Irish

(provincial) Parliament, the “Undertaking” element was in the ascendant,

and the Protestants, barely one-fifth of the nation, had, in the House

of Lords, 72 peers of their faith to 21 Catholics. In the Commons the

same disparity existed, there being 198 Protestant to 64 Catholic

members. In England, the defenders of the crown, who had fought against

Cromwell, were, in most cases, treated with justice, and many had their

possessions restored to them. In Ireland, the Royalists, of all creeds

and classes, were treated by the king and his advisers with shameful

ingratitude. Most of the confiscations of the Cromwell period were

confirmed, but the Catholic religion was tolerated, to a certain extent,

and the lives of priests and schoolmasters were not placed in jeopardy

as much as formerly. The Catholics made a good fight for the restoration

of their property, and were faithfully aided by the Earl of Kildare in

Ireland and by Colonel Richard Talbot—afterward Earl of Tyrconnel—in

England. But the Cromwellian settlers maintained the advantage in

property they had gained. In 1775, they still held 4,500,000 acres

against 2,250,000 acres held by the original proprietors. The figures,

according to the most reliable authorities, were almost exactly the

reverse before the Cromwellian settlement. An attempt on the part of the

Catholics, to be allowed greater privileges than they possessed, was met

in a most unfriendly spirit in England. One of their delegates, Sir

Nicholas Plunkett, was mobbed by the Londoners and forbidden the royal

presence by the order of the Council, while Colonel Talbot, because of

his bold championship of the Catholic cause, was sent for a period to

the Tower. The Irish Catholics were, finally, forbidden to make any

further address in opposition to the Bill of Settlement—as the act

confirming the confiscations was called—and the perfidious Charles

signed it without compunction, although he well knew he was beggaring

his own and his father’s friends. An English tribunal, appointed to sit

in Dublin and hear the Irish claims, declared in favor of the plundered

native proprietors, but as it was met immediately by the intrigues of

the ruthless Ormond, who again became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the

duration of this honest English tribunal was limited to a certain day,

when only about 800 out of 3,000 cases had been heard. A measure called

“An Act of Explanation” was then passed (1665), by which it was decreed

that “no Papist who had not been adjudged innocent under the former act

could be so adjudged thereafter, or entitled to claim any lands or

settlements.” “Thus,” remarks a historian, “even the inheritance of

hope, and the reversion of expectation, were extinguished forever for

the sons and daughters of the ancient gentry of the kingdom.”

An attempt made by the titled Catholic laity and the prelates and

priests of that faith to establish their true position in regard to

their spiritual and secular allegiance was also met in a hostile manner

by Ormond, who so managed as to excite a bitter controversy in regard to

a document called “The Remonstrance,” which was supposed to embody the

Catholic idea of the period. The viceroy succeeded to the top of his

bent. Dissension prevailed at a meeting of the surviving prelates of the

Church, and the superiors of regular orders, held in Dublin, and Ormond

made the failure of the gathering an excuse for persecuting the prelates

and priests, whom he bitterly hated as a body he could not use, with

penal severities, which the selfish and sensual king, who was himself a

Catholic in secret, allowed to pass without interference.

In this same year (1666) the importation of Irish cattle into England

was declared, by Parliamentary enactment, “a nuisance,” for the reason

that when the Londoners were starving, at the time of the Great Fire,

Ireland contributed for their relief 15,000 fat steers. Instead of being

grateful for the generous gift, the English lawmakers pretended to

believe it a scheme to preserve the trade in cattle between the two

kingdoms. The Navigation Act—invented by Cromwell—which put fetters on

Irish commerce, was also enforced, and these two grievances united, for

a time, the Puritans and the Old Irish, as both suffered equally from

the restrictions placed upon industry. Ormond showed favor to the

discontented Puritans, and was recalled in consequence. His retirement

lasted nine years, and during that period he became a patron of Irish

manufactures, especially in the county of Kilkenny. A bogus “Popish

plot”—an offshoot of that manufactured in England, during this reign, by

that arch-impostor and perjurer, Titus Oates—was trumped up in Ireland

for purposes of religious and political terrorism. The attempt to fasten

it upon the masses of the people happily failed, but, without even the

shadow of proof, the aged and venerated archbishop of Armagh, Oliver

Plunkett, was accused of complicity in it, arrested and confined,

without form of trial, for ten months in an Irish prison. Finally he was

removed to London and placed on trial. One of his “judges” was the

notorious Jeffreys—the English Norbury—a man destitute of a heart. Even

one of the paid perjurers, called a crown agent, stung by remorse,

offered to testify in behalf of the unfortunate archbishop. All was in

vain, however. The judges charged the jury against the accused,

violating every legal form, and the hapless prelate was found guilty. He

was sentenced to be “hanged, drawn, and quartered” on July 1, 1681. This

sentence was carried out in all its brutal details. When the Earl of

Essex appealed to the king to save the illustrious martyr, Charles

replied: “I can not pardon him, because I dare not. His blood be upon

your conscience. You could have saved him if you pleased!” And this

craven king, a few years afterward, on his deathbed, called for the

ministrations of a priest of the Church outraged by the murder of an

innocent prelate! The slaughter of Oliver Plunkett was the most

atrocious political assassination in English history, which reeks with

such crimes. The shooting of Duc d’Enghien by Napoleon did not approach

it in cold-blooded infamy. The king, the minister, the court, the

jury—everybody—believed the archbishop innocent, and yet he was

sacrificed that his blood might satisfy the rampant bigotry of the

times.

The Catholics were ferociously pursued in Ireland after this shameful

tragedy. Proclamations were issued against them by Ormond, who had yet

again become Lord Lieutenant. They were forbidden to enter fortresses or

to hold fairs, markets, or gatherings within the walls of corporate

towns. They were also forbidden the use of arms—an old English expedient

in Ireland—and they were commanded to kill or capture any “Tory” or

“outlaw” relative within fourteen days from the date of proclamation,

under penalty of being arrested and banished from Ireland. This was the

setting of brother against brother with a vengeance. Few of the Irish

people were found base enough to comply with the unnatural order, but

Count Redmond O’Hanlon, one of the few Irish chiefs of ancient family

who still held out against English penal law in Ireland, was

assassinated in a cowardly manner by one of Ormond’s ruthless tools. The

blood stains from the heart of the brave O’Hanlon will sully forever the

escutcheon of the Irish Butlers.

Just as the spirit of persecution of Catholics began to subside both in

England and Ireland, Charles II, who had been much worried by the

political contentions in his English kingdom, which resulted in the

banishment of Monmouth and the execution of Lord William Russell and

Algernon Sidney, had a stroke of apoplexy, which resulted in his death

on February 6, 1685. In his last moments he was attended by the Rev.

Father Huddlestone, who received him into the Catholic Church, which he

had betrayed so foully. He was immediately succeeded by his Catholic

brother, the Duke of York, who ascended the throne under the title of

James II. James was a man of resolute purpose, good intentions, no

doubt, but had a narrow intellect and sadly lacked discretion—at least

in the moral sense. His physical courage has been questioned, although

the famous Marshal Turenne certified to it, when he, in his fiery youth,

served in the French armies. He was destined, as we shall see, to ruin

his friends, exalt his enemies, and wreck the ancient Stuart dynasty.

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CHAPTER XI

Well-Meant but Imprudent Policy of King James—England Invites William of

Orange to Assume the Throne

ALTHOUGH the final outcome of his policy was disastrous to Ireland, we

feel justified in saying that James II meant well by all his subjects.

He was a friend of religious equality—an idea hateful to the English and

a large portion of the Scottish nation at that period. In Ireland, too,

the Protestant minority resented it, because, to their minds, it meant

Catholic ascendency and the restoration of stolen estates. But James

went about his reforms so awkwardly, and imprudently, that he brought on

himself almost immediately the all but unanimous ill-will of his English

subjects. He dared to profess his Catholic faith openly—an unforgivable

offence in England at that time. He sought to equalize the holding of

office by the abolition of the Test Act, aimed against Catholics, so

that English, Scotch, and Irish Catholics should have the same rights

and privileges in that respect as their Protestant brethren. This, also,

was an idea hateful to the English mind of the period. The king

undertook to regulate the judiciary, the privy council, the army, the

civil list—every public appointment—according to his own notions. This

meant recognition of the Catholics and produced an uproar in England. He

recalled Ormond from the viceroyalty of Ireland and sent Lord Clarendon

to take his place. Finally, Clarendon resigned and Richard Talbot, who

had been created Duke of Tyrconnel, was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

This appointment alarmed the Irish Protestants, who, as usual, feared

that the Catholics would get back their lands under a friendly

executive, such as Tyrconnel—whose former exertions in regard to the

Catholic claims were not forgotten—was well known to be. He was

injudicious enough, at the outset, to dismiss many Protestant officers

from the Irish military establishment and place Catholics in their

positions. Although this was done by proportion, Protestant jealousy was

aroused and the seeds of revolt were deeply planted.

In England, popular feeling against the king was at fever heat. His

illegitimate Protestant nephew—putative son of Charles II—the Duke of

Monmouth, who had been exiled, returned to England and organized a

rebellion against him. This ill-starred movement culminated at

Sedgemoor, in Somersetshire, in the summer of 1685. A battle was fought

there between the unorganized English peasants, under “King Monmouth,”

as they called him, and the royal army, under the Earl of Feversham. The

rebels fought with commendable courage, but were badly commanded and

suffered an overwhelming defeat. Monmouth escaped from the field, but

was captured soon afterward, tried, found guilty, and beheaded on Tower

Hill, of bloody memory, July 15, 1685. He had appealed in vain to James

for mercy, and appealed in a manner so craven and undignified that he

aroused the disgust of his stern uncle. But the blood of the vanquished

did not cease to flow when Monmouth died. The “Bloody Assizes,”

conducted by Jeffreys, the “great crimson toad,” as Dickens describes

him, and four assistant judges, spread death and terror throughout the

English districts recently in revolt. This period of English history

bore a striking resemblance to the 1798 period in Ireland, when other

“great crimson toads” hanged the hapless peasantry, and some of higher

rank, by the hundred and thousand. All this butchery made James

unpopular with a vast majority of the English people, but, as he had no

male heir, the nation hesitated to rise against him, especially as

Monmouth himself had been the aggressor. But James, while Duke of York,

had married a young wife, the Princess Mary, sister of the Duke of

Modena, who bore him a son—afterward called by the Hanoverian faction

the Pretender—in June, 1688. This altered the whole aspect of affairs

and a revolution became imminent immediately. Mary of Modena, although

an intelligent and amiable woman, was of a haughty and somewhat

punctilious disposition at times. This made her almost as unpopular with

the English people as was her husband. Sir Walter Scott relates that,

while Duchess of York, she accompanied her husband to Scotland, whither

he went at the behest of his brother, King Charles. James got along very

well with the Scotch, particularly the Highlanders, who adored him, and

whose loyalty to his family remained unshaken until after Culloden. He

invited an old Continental veteran, Sir Thomas Dalzell, to dine with

him. The duchess had the bad taste to object to the company of a

commoner. “Make yourself easy on that head, madam,” remarked Sir Thomas;

“I have sat at a table where your father might have stood behind my

chair!” He alluded to a dinner given him and others by the Emperor of

Austria, who was the suzerain of the Duke of Modena. The latter, if

called upon by the emperor, would have had to act in the capacity of an

honorary waiter. All students of history are, doubtless, familiar with

the romantic chivalry displayed by Edward the Black Prince, when he

waited upon his captive, King John of France, whom he had vanquished at

Poitiers. Mary of Modena was, we may be sure, not formed by nature to

make friends for her husband, as the brave Margaret of Anjou did for the

physically and mentally degenerate Plantagenet, Henry VI. Had Mary been

a Margaret, William of Orange might never have occupied the throne of

“the Three Kingdoms.” The climax of King James’s political

imprudences—they can not, in the light of modern ideas of religious

equality, be called errors—was reached when he issued his famous

declaration against test oaths and penal laws, and decreed that it

should be read from the altars of the Protestant, as well as the

Catholic, churches throughout England. Six Protestant prelates, headed

by the Archbishop of Canterbury, made protest by petition and even

visited the king in his bedchamber to dissuade him from his purpose. But

he persisted, as was usual with him.

On the Sunday following the bishops’ call, out of 10,000 English

clergymen only 200 complied with the royal decree. Of course we,

Americans, who have equal laws for all creeds and classes, can not

consistently condemn King James for advocating what we ourselves

practice, but we can afford to lament the fatuity which led him to dare

Protestant resentment by seeking to make Protestant pulpits the mediums

of his radical policy. It was playing with fire. Had he stopped short at

this point, James might have still held his crown, but, with incurable

obstinacy, he insisted on prosecuting the recalcitrant bishops before

the Court of King’s Bench, and they were finally committed by the Privy

Council to the Tower of London. All England was now ablaze with fierce

resentment. At the Tower the right reverend prisoners were treated more

like royal personages than captives. The officers and soldiers of the

army—excepting the Irish regiments raised by Tyrconnel for James, and

sent to do garrison duty in England—openly drank to their speedy

release. When they came to trial in the King’s Bench, the jury, after

being out on the case all night, found the six prelates not guilty on

the charge of censuring the king’s government and defying the king’s

mandate, and they were immediately released amid popular acclamation.

The “loyal” Protestant majority had succeeded in placing the Catholic

minority, their own fellow-countrymen, in a position of political

nonentity, simply because they worshiped God according to their belief.

Who could, then, have imagined that the England which refused equality

in the holding of office to Catholic subjects would, about two hundred

years later, have a Catholic for Lord Chief Justice and an Irish

Catholic (Lord Russell of Killowen) at that? Five generations have done

much toward a change of sentiment in England. But King James, we are

told, on hearing the shouts of the people when the acquittal was

announced, asked of Lord Feversham, who happened to be with him: “What

do they shout for?” And Feversham replied, carelessly: “Oh, nothing—only

the acquittal of the bishops!” “And you call that nothing?” cried the

king. “So much the worse for them,” meaning the people. These latter

were excited by the Protestant lords and gentry, who much feared a

Catholic succession, now that the king had an heir-male to the throne.

Both of his daughters—Mary, married to William, Prince of Orange, the

king’s nephew, and Anne, who became the wife of the Prince of

Denmark—were Protestants, their mother having brought them up in that

belief. William, half a Stuart and half a Dutchman, brave, resolute, and

wise withal, seemed to the English malcontents to be the

“heaven-appointed” man to supplant his own uncle and father-in-law.

William was nothing loth, and Mary, who was to share the throne with

him, made no objection to this most unfilial proceeding. Neither did

Anne, who, like the unnatural creature she was, fled from her father’s

palace, guided and guarded by the Protestant Bishop of London, as soon

as she heard of William’s almost unobstructed march on the capital. That

personage had landed at Torbay, in Devonshire, on November 5—the

anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot of the days of James I—convoyed by an

immense fleet, which carried to the shores of England a picked veteran

army of 15,000 men. This army was commanded, under William, by the

Marshal Duke of Schomberg, Count Solmes, General De Ginkel, and other

officers of European renown. The principal plotters who invited William

to seize the crown of England were the Earls of Danby, Shrewsbury,

Devonshire, the Bishop of London, Lord Lumley, Admiral Russell, and

Colonel Sidney. Just a little while before the coming of William, James

took the alarm and attempted to make concessions to the Protestants. He

also decreed the strengthening of the army, and the enlistment of Irish

Catholics and Scotch Highlanders, most of whom had retained the old

faith, was encouraged.

At the news of William’s arrival in Exeter, whither he had marched from

Torbay, the English aristocracy became wildly excited and hastened to

join his standard. The faculty of the University of Oxford sent him word

that, if he needed money to carry out his enterprise, the plate of that

institution would be melted down to furnish him with a revenue. An

agreement of the nobility and gentry was drawn up and signed, and in it

they promised to stand by William of Orange and each other, “in defence

of the laws and liberties of the three kingdoms and the Protestant

religion.” Thus, it will be noticed, Protestant interests was the cry of

the majority in England, opposed to James, who, as we have said, aimed

at equality of all creeds before the law, while in Ireland, where the

old faith “prevailed mightily,” Catholic interests, or civil and

religious liberty, became, also, the war-cry of the majority. In England

the Catholic minority remained mostly supine during this period and

until long afterward. In Scotland the Catholics and many Episcopalians

rallied for James under the leadership of the implacable and brilliant

Claverhouse, afterward created Viscount Dundee. They took the field for

“James VII of Scotland,” as they called the exiled king, at the first

tap of the war drum. The Catholic majority in Ireland naturally

recognized in the unfortunate monarch a friend who offered them

religious and political liberty, and so they resolved to place their

“lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” at his disposal.

The Irish Catholics can not be justly blamed for their devotion to the

cause of James, who, whatever his motives, was the first King of England

who ever attempted to do them even ordinary justice. Tyrconnel, like

Strafford in a preceding reign, although with a very different

intention, began the organization of a formidable Irish army, which was

designed to be composed of twenty regiments of horse, fifty of foot, and

artillery in the usual proportion. There were men for the mere asking,

but arms, ammunition, and equipments were sadly lacking. The weakest arm

of the military branch of the public service was the artillery, and this

continued to be the fact throughout all of the subsequent war. As

William drew nearer to London, the bulk of the native English army,

following the example of the highest officers—including Colonel John

Churchill, afterward the great Duke of Marlborough—went over to him.

This determined James to abandon his capital, yet his friends induced

him to return for a period. But the still nearer approach of “the

Deliverer,” as the English called William of Orange, again induced him

to fly from London. He had previously provided for the safety of the

queen and the infant heir to the now forfeited crown, who had taken

refuge in France. The date of his final departure from Whitehall Palace

was December 11. After not a few perilous adventures, he reached the

court of his cousin, Louis XIV, at Versailles, on Christmas Day, 1688.

He was most honorably and hospitably received, and Louis placed at his

disposal the royal palace of St. Germain, in the neighborhood of Paris.

When James heard of the desertion of his youngest daughter, Anne, to his

enemies, the wretched parent, who has been called “the modern Lear,”

exclaimed in the anguish of his soul: “God help me! My very children

have deserted me!”

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CHAPTER XII

Irish Soldiers Ill-Treated in England—Policy of Tyrconnel—King James

Chosen by the Irish Nation

SUCH Irish soldiers as had remained in England after the flight of James

were mobbed, insulted, and even murdered by the unthinking multitude, so

easily excited to deeds of cruelty. These men had done the English

people no wrong—they had shed no English blood, and they even wore the

English uniform. Many fell in savage combats with the furious mobs, but

the majority fought their way to the seaports, where they, by some

means, obtained shipment to Ireland, carrying with them many a bitter

memory of England and her people. Many of these persecuted troops were

well-trained cavalry, who afterward manifested splendid prowess at the

Boyne and in other engagements. Their colonels were all members of the

ancient Irish nobility, Celtic or Norman, and they were quite incapable

of the crimes the credulous English mobs were taught to believe they

were ready to commit at the earliest opportunity. Although the English

people, in their normal condition, are a steady and courageous race,

they are, when unduly excited, capable of entertaining sentiments and

performing acts discreditable to them as a nation. A people so ready to

resent any imposition, real or fancied, on themselves, should be a

little less quick to punish others for following their example. It is

not too much to say that the English, as a majority, have been made the

victims of more religious and political hoaxes—imposed upon them by

evil-minded knaves—than any other civilized nation. It was of the

English, rather than ourselves, the great American showman, Barnum,

should have said: “These people love to be humbugged!”

From the French court, which entirely sympathized with him, James

entered into correspondence with his faithful subject and friend,

Tyrconnel, in Ireland. The viceroy sent him comforting intelligence, for

all the Catholics of fighting age were willing to bear arms in his

defence. James sent Tyrconnel about 10,000 good muskets, with the

requisite ammunition, to be used by the new levies. These were obtained

from the bounty of the King of France. As Tyrconnel was convinced that

Ireland, of herself, could hardly make headway against William of

Orange, backed as he was by most of Great Britain and half of Europe, he

conceived the idea of placing her, temporarily at least, under a French

protectorate, in the shape of an alliance defensive and offensive, if

necessary. He had the tact to keep King James in ignorance of this

agreement, because he did not wish him to jeopardize his chance of

regaining the British crown, which a consenting to the French

protectorate would have utterly forfeited. Tyrconnel’s policy, under the

circumstances in which Ireland was placed, may have been a wise one,

although, in general, any dependency of one country upon another is

fatal to the liberty of the dependent nation. Ireland, contrary to

general belief, is large enough to stand alone, if she had control of

her own resources. To illustrate briefly, she is within a few thousand

square miles of being as large as Portugal, and is much more fertile;

while she is almost a third greater in area than Holland and Belgium

combined. Her extensive coast line, numerous safe harbors, and exceeding

productiveness amply compensate for the comparative smallness of her

area.

In February, 1689, the national conventions of England and Scotland, by

vast majorities, declared that King James had abdicated and offered the

crown to William and Mary, who, as might have been expected, accepted it

with thanks. Ireland had nothing to say in the matter, except by the

voices of a few malcontents who had fled to Britain. Nevertheless, the

new sovereigns finally assumed the rather illogical title of “William

and Mary, ‘by the grace of God,’ King and Queen of England, Scotland,

France, and Ireland.” In France they held not a foot of ground; and in

Ireland four-fifths of the people acknowledged King James. James Graham,

of Claverhouse (Viscount Dundee), expressed his dissent from the

majority in the convention of Scotland. Sir Walter Scott has

immortalized the event in the stirring lyric which begins thus:

“To the Lords of Convention ‘twas Claverhouse spoke,

’Ere the king’s crown shall fall, there are crowns to be broke,

So let each cavalier, who loves honor and me,

Come follow the bonnet of Bonnie Dundee!”

James had some strong partisans in England also—mostly among the Roman

Catholic and Episcopalian High Church elements, but they were powerless

to stem the overwhelming tide of public opinion against him. Ireland was

with him vehemently, except the small Protestant minority, chiefly

resident in Ulster, which was enthusiastic for William and Mary.

Representatives of this active element had closed the gates of Derry in

the face of the Earl of Antrim, when he demanded the town’s surrender,

in the name of the deposed king, in December, 1688. This incident proved

that the Irish Protestants, with the usual rule-proving exceptions,

meant “war to the knife” against the Catholic Stuart dynasty. Thus civil

war, intensified by foreign intervention, became inevitable.

The towns of Inniskillen, Sligo, Coleraine, and the fort of Culmore, on

the Foyle, either followed the example of Derry, or were seized without

ceremony by the partisans of William and Mary in Ulster and Connaught.

These partisans, headed by Lord Blaney, Sir Arthur Rawdon, and other

Anglo-Irishmen, invited William to come into the country, “for the

maintenance of the Protestant religion and the dependency of Ireland

upon England.” Thus, again, was the Protestant religion made the pretext

of provincializing Ireland, and because of this identification of it

with British supremacy the new creed has remained undeniably unpopular

with the masses of the Irish people. The latter are very ardent

Catholics, as their long and bloody wars in defence of their faith have

amply proven, but while this statement is undeniable, it can not be

denied either that had the so-called Reformation not been identified

with English political supremacy, it might have made much greater

inroads among the Irish population than it has succeeded in doing.

Ireland was treated not a whit better under the Catholic rulers of

England, from 1169 to the period of Mary I—Henry VIII was a schismatic

rather than a Protestant—than under her Protestant rulers, until James

II appeared upon the scene, and his clemency toward the Irish was based

upon religious rather than national grounds. Even in our own day, the

English Catholics are among the strongest opponents of Irish legislative

independence, and in the category of such opponents may be classed the

late Cardinal Vaughan and the present Duke of Norfolk.

King James, at the call of the Irish majority, left his French retreat,

and sailed from Brest with a fleet provided by King Louis, which saw him

in safety to memorable Kinsale, where he landed on March 12, old style,

1689. He was accompanied by about 1,200 veteran troops, French and

Irish, with a sprinkling of royalists, Scotch and English, and several

officers of high rank, including Lieutenant-General De Rosen,

Lieutenant-General Maumont, Major-General De Lery, Major-General

Pusignan, Colonel Patrick Sarsfield, afterward the renowned Earl of

Lucan, and the king’s two natural sons, the Duke of Berwick and Grand

Prior Fitzjames. There came with him also fifteen Catholic chaplains,

most of whom could speak the Gaelic tongue, and these gentlemen were

very useful to him on a mission such as he had undertaken. The progress

of the ill-fated monarch through Ireland, from Kinsale to Dublin was, in

every sense, a royal one. The Irish masses, ever grateful to any one who

makes sacrifices, or who even appears to make them, in their behalf,

turned out in all their strength. A brilliant cavalcade, headed by the

dashing Duke of Tyrconnel, escorted the king from town to town. His

collateral descent from King Edward Bruce, freely chosen by Ireland

early in the fourteenth century, was remembered. James was, therefore,

really welcomed as King of Ireland. The Irish cared nothing for his

British title. If the choice of the majority of a nation makes regal

title binding, then James II was as truly elected King of Ireland, in

1689, as Edward Bruce was in 1315. And we make this statement thus

plainly, because it will enable non-Irish and non-Catholic readers to

understand why Catholic Ireland fought so fiercely and devotedly for an

English ruler who had lost his crown in the assertion of Catholic rights

and privileges. There was still another cause for this devotion of the

majority of the Irish people to King James. He had consented to the

summoning of a national Irish parliament, in which Protestants as well

as Catholics were to be represented in due proportion, and this decision

on his part made many of the Episcopalian Irish either neutral in the

civil conflict or active on his side. The number of such persons as were

comprised in the latter class was comparatively insignificant—just

enough to mitigate the curse of absolute sectarianism in the contest.

The Dissenting or non-conforming Irish were, almost to a unit, hostile

to the Jacobite cause.

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BOOK IV

CHRONICLING IMPORTANT EVENTS IN IRELAND FROM THE ARRIVAL OF JAMES II IN

THAT COUNTRY UNTIL THE DEPARTURE OF THE DUKE OF BERWICK TO FRANCE AFTER

THE FIRST SIEGE OF LIMERICK, IN 1690

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CHAPTER I

King James in Ireland—Enthusiastic Reception of Him by the Irish

People—Military Operations

NOTHING could exceed the enthusiasm with which the Irish people welcomed

King James. In the cities and towns, flowers were strewn in his path,

corporation officials turned out in their robes of state, and speeches

of welcome were delivered in English or read in Latin. The entry into

Dublin was a magnificent spectacle. The whole city was in gala dress,

and the different trades paraded before him. Harpers played at the

triumphal arches under which he passed. Beautiful young girls, costumed

in pure white, and coroneted with wreaths, danced the ancient Irish

national dance, known as the Rinka, in the progress of which flowers

were profusely scattered by the fair performers. The religious orders

were out in force, a great cross being borne at their head. The viceroy,

lord mayor, and members of the corporation, on horseback or in

carriages, made up an imposing part of the procession. When he reached

the Castle, the sword of state was presented to him by the Lord

Lieutenant, and the Recorder handed him, according to an old custom, the

keys of the city. “Te Deum” was sung in the Chapel Royal, one of the

architectural creations of the Duke of Tyrconnel. From the flagstaff on

the tower of the Castle itself, floated an Irish national flag, with a

golden harp upon its folds; and on this broad ensign were inscribed the

inspiring and sadly prophetic words, “Now or Never! Now and Forever!”

Wherever the king appeared in public, he was greeted with enthusiastic

shouts, in Gaelic, of “Righ Seamus!—Righ Seamus, Go Bragh”! (“King

James—King James, Forever!”)

The military situation of King James’s adherents in Ireland could not be

called encouraging when he took up his residence in Dublin. As usual,

arms and ammunition were scarce. Some 30,000 men had volunteered to

fight for Ireland, and there were not more than 20,000 stand of arms,

all told, to place in their hands. And of this small supply, fully

three-fourths were antiquated and worthless. While there were,

nominally, fifty regiments of infantry enrolled, the only serviceable

regiments of horse were those of Galmoy, Tyrconnel, and Russell. There

was one regiment of dragoons, and of cannon only eight field-pieces had

been collected. The two best-equipped bodies of Irish troops were the

command of General Richard Hamilton, in Ulster—about 3,000 men; and that

of General Justin McCarthy, Lord Mountcashel, in Munster—slightly more

numerous. Derry and Inniskillen held out for William of Orange, and

notwithstanding some successes of General Hamilton in the North, there

seemed no immediate prospect of reducing them. The stubborn attitude of

Inniskillen delayed the junction of Mountcashel’s and Hamilton’s forces,

which had been ordered by the Duke of Tyrconnel, commander-in-chief of

the Irish army, with General De Rosen as his second in command. The

smaller places occupied by the Williamite forces were abandoned as being

untenable, and the little garrisons fell back on Londonderry, which had

now become the main objective of the Jacobite army. The military

governor, Lundy, was suspected of being, at heart, a Stuart sympathizer,

but he was soon virtually superseded, first by Governor Baker and

afterward by the celebrated Rev. George Walker, rector of the living of

Donoughmore, to whom history awards the glory of the long, desperate,

brilliant, and successful defence of Derry against the armies of King

James. It is a pity that the ability and bravery displayed by Dr. Walker

have been made causes of political and religious irritation in the north

of Ireland for upward of two centuries. Lundy, when his authority was

defied, escaped from the city at night, in the disguise of a laborer,

and cut no further figure in Irish history. Before his flight, King

James’s flatterers in Dublin had persuaded him to advance against Derry

in person and demand its surrender. Tyrconnel opposed the idea in vain.

He well knew that Lundy was in correspondence with Hamilton and De Rosen

for the surrender of the city. It is quite probable that Derry would

have finally surrendered, on honorable terms, had James taken

Tyrconnel’s advice; but, with his usual fatuity, the obstinate king took

the advice of the shallow courtiers, and did actually present himself

before the walls of Derry and demand its unconditional surrender! The

reply was a cannon shot, which killed an officer at James’s side. The

king retired with precipitation, and the citizens sent after him the

“Prentice Boys’” shout of “No surrender!” Mortified by his rather

ignominious failure, James retired to Dublin, and summoned Parliament to

meet on the lines already indicated.

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CHAPTER II

Jacobites Foiled at Londonderry—Mountcashel Defeated at Newtown

Butler—King James’s Irish Parliament

THE siege of Derry was continued under the supervision of Maumont and

Hamilton, who had quite a large force at their disposal. It is

regrettable to have to state that the Protestant population of Ulster

was further inflamed against the Stuart cause by the needless excesses

of Galmoy and the barbaric severity of De Rosen, who placed a crowd of

helpless women and children between two fires under the ramparts of

Derry, in the hope of compelling the garrison to surrender. The

brilliant victories obtained over the Williamites at Coleraine and

Cladysford, by General Hamilton, in the earlier part of the campaign,

were more than offset by the overwhelming defeat inflicted by General

Wolseley, at Newtown Butler, on the Jacobite army under Mountcashel. It

was Irish against Irish, but the Inniskilleners, who made up the bulk of

Wolseley’s force, were seasoned soldiers, well armed and well directed.

Mountcashel’s men were chiefly green levies, and the battle was really

lost through their faulty manœuvring. One brigade mistook an order to

change front, so as to form a new line against a flank attack of the

enemy, for an order to retreat, and so spread a panic that proved fatal.

Mountcashel himself was dangerously wounded and made prisoner. He lost

2,000 men in killed and wounded, and 400 fugitives, completely

surrounded, surrendered at some distance from the field. This battle was

fought on July 31, 1689, and, on the same day, Derry was relieved by an

English fleet, which succeeded in breaking the boom that had been

constructed by the Jacobite engineers across the mouth of the harbor.

It will be remembered that the gates of the city were closed against

Lord Antrim on December 7, 1688. Hamilton’s bombardment of the place

began on the 17th of April, 1689, and lasted for three months. There was

a total blockade for three weeks, and provisions became so scarce that

the defenders actually devoured dogs, cats, rats, mice—anything, however

revolting, that might satisfy the cravings of absolute hunger. The

besiegers also suffered from bad weather and the shots from the hostile

batteries. A rough computation places the total loss of the defenders at

about 4,000 men, and that of the assailants at 6,000—the latter loss

chiefly by disease. The relief of Derry was a mortal blow to the cause

of King James, and soon afterward he lost every important post in

Ulster, except Carrickfergus and Charlemont. Yet, as an Irish writer has

well remarked, Ulster was bestowed by the king’s grandfather “upon the

ancestors of those who now unanimously rejected and resisted him.” His

cause also received a fatal stroke in Scotland by the death of the brave

Dundee, who fell, vainly victorious, over the Williamite general,

Mackay, at the battle of Killecrankie, fought July 26, 1689. Duke

Schomberg arrived in Belfast Lough with a large fleet and army on August

13th. Count Solmes was his second in command. He laid siege to

Carrickfergus, which capitulated on fair terms after eight days’

bombardment. Charlemont, defended by the brave and eccentric Colonel

Teague O’Regan, held out till the following May, when it surrendered

with the honors of war. It is said that King William, on his arrival in

Ireland, knighted O’Regan in recognition of the brilliancy of his

defence. The young Duke of Berwick made a gallant stand in the

neighborhood, but was finally compelled to yield ground to the superior

forces of Schomberg. Critics of the latter’s strategy hold that he

committed a grave military error in failing to march on the Irish

capital, which was not in a good posture of defence, immediately after

landing in Ulster. Had he done so, King James must have had to evacuate

Dublin and fall back on the defensive line of the Shannon, as Tyrconnel

and Sarsfield did at a later period. Then Schomberg, it is claimed,

would not have lost more than half of his army, by dysentery, at his

marshy camp near Dundalk, where King James, in the autumn, bearded and

defied him to risk battle with the stronger and healthier Jacobite

forces. There would have been no occasion for the Battle of the Boyne,

the memory of which has divided and distracted Irishmen for more than

two centuries, had the challenge been accepted.

The Parliament summoned by James met in the Inn’s Court, Dublin, in the

summer of 1689. It was composed of 46 peers and 228 commoners. Of the

former body, several were High Church Protestants, but, in the Lower

House, there were comparatively few members of the “reformed religion.”

This, however, was not the fault of the king or his advisers, as they

were sincere in their desire to have a full Protestant representation in

that Parliament. But, perhaps naturally, the Protestants were suspicious

of the king’s good intentions, and so the majority held aloof from the

Parliamentary proceedings. The most important acts passed by that

Parliament were one establishing liberty of conscience, which provided,

among other things, that Catholics should not be compelled to pay tithes

to Protestant clergymen, and _vice versa_; another act established the

judicial independence of Ireland, by abolishing writs of error and

appeal to England. The Act of Settlement was repealed, under protest by

the Protestant peers, who did not, for obvious reasons, wish the

question of land titles obtained by fraud and force opened up. An act of

attainder, directed against persons in arms against their sovereign in

Ireland, was added to the list of measures. Heedless of the advice of

his wisest friends, James vetoed the bill for the repeal of the infamous

Poynings’ Law, which made the Irish Parliament dependent upon that of

England; and also declined to approve a measure establishing Inns of

Court for the education of Irish law students. In the first-mentioned

case, James acted from a belief that his own prerogative of vetoing

Irish measures in council was attacked, but his hostility to the measure

for legal education has never been satisfactorily explained. Taken as a

whole, however, King James’s Irish Parliament was a legislative success;

and it enabled the Protestant patriot and orator, Henry Grattan, when

advocating Catholic claims in the Irish Parliament a hundred years

afterward, to say: “Although Papists, the Irish Catholics were not

slaves. They wrung a Constitution from King James before they

accompanied him to the field.”

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CHAPTER III

King James’s Imprudent Acts—Witty Retort of a Protestant

Peer—Architectural Features of Dublin

OUR last chapter showed that Ireland, although her population was

overwhelmingly Catholic, began her struggle for civil liberty by a

non-sectarian enactment, which left the exercise of religion free. Yet,

strange to say, this wise and liberal policy did not win her the

sympathy of Europe, Protestant or Catholic, outside of France, whose

king had personal reasons for his friendliness. Louis XIV was both hated

and feared by the sovereigns of continental, as well as insular, Europe.

A combination, called the League of Augsburg, was formed against him,

and of this League the Emperor of Germany was the head and William of

Orange an active member. Spain, Savoy, and other Catholic states were as

zealous against Louis as the Protestant states of Sweden and North

Germany. Even the Pope was on the side of the French king’s foes. In

fact, when Duke Schomberg landed, the war had resolved itself into a

conflict between the rest of Europe, except Muscovy and Turkey and their

dependencies, and France and Ireland. It was a most unequal struggle,

but most gallantly maintained, with varying fortune, on Irish soil

chiefly, for two long and bloody years.

King James made enemies among his warmest supporters by increasing the

subsidy voted him by Parliament to twice the original amount, payable

monthly. He also debased the currency, by issuing “brass money,” which

led to the demoralization of trade, and Tyrconnel, after James’s

departure from Ireland, was compelled to withdraw the whole fraudulent

issue in order to stop the popular clamor. Some Protestant writers,

notably Dr. Cooke Taylor, have warmly commended the king’s judicial

appointments in Ireland, with few exceptions. In short, to sum up this

portion of his career, James II acted in Ireland the part of despot

benevolently inclined, who thought he was doing a wise thing in giving

the people a paternal form of government. But the Irish people can not

long endure one-man rule, unless convinced that the one man is much

wiser than the whole mass of the nation, which is not often the case. It

certainly was not in the case of King James. His establishment of a bank

by proclamation and his decree of a bank restriction act annoyed and

angered the commercial classes, whose prices for goods he also sought to

regulate. But his crowning act of unwisdom was interference with the

government of that time-honored educational institution, Trinity

College, Dublin, on which, notwithstanding its statutes, he sought to

force officers of his own choosing. He also wished to make fellowships

and scholarships open to Catholics—a just principle, indeed, but a rash

policy, considering that every act of the kind only multiplied his

enemies among the Protestants of Ireland, who were already sufficiently

hostile. Had King James proceeded slowly in his chosen course, he might

have come down to posterity as a successful royal reformer.

Unfortunately for his fame, posterity in general regards him as a

conspicuous political as well as military failure.

Among King James’s chosen intimates and advisers during his residence in

Dublin, the most distinguished were the Duke of Tyrconnel, the Earl of

Melfort, Secretary of State; Count D’Avaux, the French Ambassador; Lord

Mountcashel, Colonel Sarsfield, afterward so famous; Most Rev. Dr.

McGuire, Primate of Ireland, and Chief Justice Lord Nugent. He generally

attended Mass every morning in the Chapel Royal, and, on Sundays,

assisted at solemn High Mass. One Sunday, he was attended to the

entrance of the chapel by a loyal Protestant lord, whose father had been

a Catholic, as James’s had been a Protestant. As he was taking his

leave, the king remarked, rather dryly: “My lord, your father would have

gone farther.” “Very true, sire,” responded the witty nobleman, “but

your Majesty’s father would not have gone so far!”

The Dublin of that time was not, in any sense, the attractive city it is

to-day. Beyond the great cathedrals and the ancient Castle, there was

little to attract the eye, except the beauty of the surroundings, which

are still the admiration of all visitors. A century after the reign of

King James, Dublin, from an architectural standpoint, became one of the

most classical of European capitals; and the Houses of Parliament, the

Four Courts, the Custom House, and other public buildings, became the

pride of the populace. These monuments of Irish genius still exist,

although shorn of their former glory; but they serve, at least, to

attest what Ireland could accomplish under native rule. There is not a

penny of English money in any of these magnificent structures. All the

credit of their construction belongs to the Irish Parliaments of the

eighteenth century.

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CHAPTER IV

Composition of the Hostile Armies—King William Arrives in

Ireland—Narrowly Escapes Death on Eve of Battle

DURING the spring and early summer of 1690, the war clouds began to mass

themselves heavily in the northeastern portion of the island, where Duke

Schomberg, his depleted army somewhat recruited, still held his ground

at Dundalk, with small garrisons posted throughout Ulster. But it was

soon known that William of Orange, in person, was to command in chief in

this fateful campaign. Several engagements, with varying fortune, had

occurred between the rival armies in different parts of the north

country, where the Duke of Berwick waged a vigorous campaign against the

Williamites. James, dissatisfied with the French Ambassador, D’Avaux,

and Lieutenant-General De Rosen, demanded, and obtained, their recall by

King Louis. By an arrangement between the two monarchs, Mountcashel’s

command of 6,000 men was exchanged for 6,000 French troops, under

Lieutenant-General De Lauzun, who eventually proved to be even a greater

marplot and blunderer than the odious De Rosen. Mountcashel’s force

formed the Old Irish Brigade, of immortal memory, in the French service,

and almost immediately after its arrival in France was sent to operate

under the famous Lieutenant-General St. Ruth in Savoy. It also served in

several campaigns under the great Marshal Catinat, “Father Thoughtful,”

as he was fondly called by the French army. The exchange proved a bad

bargain for Ireland, as will be seen in the course of this narration.

James hoped much from the skill and daring of the French contingent, but

was doomed to bitter disappointment. “His troops,” says McGee, “were

chiefly Celtic and Catholic. There were four regiments commanded by

O’Neills, two by O’Briens, one each by McCarthy More, Maguire, O’More,

O’Donnell, McMahon, and Magennis, chiefly recruited among their own

clansmen. There were also the regiments of Sarsfield, Nugent, De Courcy,

Fitzgerald, Grace, and Burke, chiefly Celts in the rank and file. On the

other hand, Schomberg led into the field the famous Blue and White Dutch

regiments; the Huguenot regiments of Schomberg (the Younger), La

Millinier, Du Cambon, and La Caillemotte; the English regiments of Lords

Devonshire, Delamere, Lovelace, Sir John Lanier, Colonels Langston,

Villiers, and others; the Anglo-Irish regiments of Lords Meath,

Roscommon, Kingston, and Drogheda, with the Ulstermen under Brigadier

Wolseley and Colonels Gustavus Hamilton, Mitchellburn, Lloyd, White, St.

John, and Tiffany.”

The absence of a fleet, the entire navy having gone over to William,

placed James at a great disadvantage, and explains why there were no sea

fights of importance in British and Irish waters during this war.

Isolated French squadrons could not be expected to make headway against

the united navies of Britain and Holland. William, on the contrary, had

the seas wide open to him, and, on June 14, 1690, he landed at

Carrickfergus with reinforcements and supplies for his army in Ireland,

and accompanied by the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, Prince George of

Denmark, the Duke of Ormond, the Earls of Portland, Manchester, Oxford,

and Scarborough; General Mackay, General Douglas, and many other

warriors well known to British and Continental fame. He established

headquarters at Belfast and caused a muster of all his forces, which

showed him to be at the head of about 40,000 men, mostly veterans, and

made up of contingents from Scandinavia, Holland, Switzerland,

Brandenburg, England, Scotland, Ulster, together with the exiled

Huguenot regiments of France and the Anglo-Irish battalions of the Pale.

Allowing for detachments, William had under him an army of, at least,

36,000 effective men, officered by the best military talent of the

period.

James, according to all Irish and some British authorities, commanded a

force of 17,000 Irish, of whom alone the cavalry, numbering, probably,

from five to six thousand men, were considered thoroughly trained. In

addition, he had 6,000 well-appointed French infantry, under De Lauzun,

which brought his total up to some 23,000 men, with only twelve pieces

of cannon. William, on the other hand, possessed a powerful and

well-appointed artillery. Once again, James was advised not to oppose

his comparatively weak and ill-disciplined army to an encounter with the

veteran host of William, and again the advantages of the defensive line

of the Shannon were pointed out to him. But he would not listen to the

voice of prudence, and marched northward to meet his rival, almost

immediately after learning of his debarkation at Carrickfergus. The

Stuart army reached Dundalk about June 22, when William was reported to

be at Newry. His scouts were soon seen on the neighboring heights, and

the Franco-Irish forces fell back on the river Boyne, and took post on

the southern bank, within a few miles of Drogheda. The Irish camp was

pitched immediately below the hill of Donore and near the small village

of Oldbridge, in the obtuse salient, pointing northwestward, formed by

the second bend in the river in its course from Slane—about six miles

from Oldbridge—to the sea. In the chart of the battle, published by the

Rev. George Story, King William’s chaplain, in 1693, three strong

batteries are shown in front of the right of the Irish army, on the

south bank of the Boyne, and one protecting its left opposite to the

point where the Mattock rivulet falls into the main river. But no Irish

account mentions these batteries. Some critics have thought it strange

that the Williamites, instead of making a long and tedious movement by

Slane, did not endeavor to attack both sides of the river salient at

once, and thus place the Irish army between two fires. The water,

apparently, was no deeper above than below the rivulet, but even were it

deeper, William had with him a well-appointed bridge train, and the

feeble battery, if any existed at all, would be insufficient to check

the ardor of his chosen veterans. On the summit of Donore Hill, which

slopes backward for more than a mile from the river, stood a little

church, with a graveyard and some huts beside it. Even in 1690, it was

an insignificant ruin, but it is noted in Anglo-Irish history as marking

the headquarters of King James during the operations on the Boyne.

The right wing of the Irish army extended itself toward that smaller

part of Drogheda which is situated on the south bank of the river, in

the County Meath. The centre faced the fords in front of Oldbridge,

where several small shoals, or islands, as marked in Story’s map,

rendered the passage of an attacking force comparatively easy of

accomplishment. The left wing stretched in the direction of Slane, where

there was a bridge, and, nearer to the Irish army, a ford practicable

for cavalry. James was urged to strengthen this wing of his army, sure

to be attacked, the day before the battle, but he could only be induced

to send out some cavalry patrols to observe the ground. When the tide,

which backs the water up from below Drogheda, is out, many points on the

river in front of the Irish position are easily fordable, and there has

been little or no change in the volume of the current during the last

two centuries. Therefore, the Boyne presented no such formidable

obstacle to a successful crossing as some imaginative historians have

sought to make out. Neither did nature, in other respects, particularly

favor the Irish in the choice of their ground. Their army occupied a

fairly good defensive position, if its advantages had been properly

utilized. King James interfered with the plans of his generals, as it

was his habit to interfere in every department of his government, not at

all to the advantage of the public service. An able general, such as

William or Schomberg was, might have made the Irish ground secure; that

is, with sufficient cannon to answer the formidable park brought into

action by the enemy. The Irish army was in position on June 29, and on

the following day, King William, accompanied by his staff and escort,

appeared on the opposite heights. His main army was concealed behind the

hills in the depression now known as King William’s Glen. With his

customary daring activity, the astute Hollander immediately proceeded to

reconnoitre the Jacobite position, of which he obtained a good view,

though some of the regiments were screened by the irregularities of the

ground. Although within easy range of the Irish lines, he was not

molested for some time. Having concluded his observations, William, with

his officers, dismounted. Lunch was spread on the grass by the

attendants, and the party proceeded to regale themselves. They were

allowed to finish in peace, but when they remounted and turned toward

their camp, the report of a field-piece came from the Irish side. A

round shot ricochetted and killed a member of the escort. A second ball

caught the king upon the shoulder, tore his coat and broke the skin

beneath it. He fell forward on his horse, but immediately recovered

himself, and the entire party rode rapidly out of range. The Irish

officers, who had observed the confusion caused by the second shot,

imagined that William had been killed. The news was circulated in the

camp, speedily traveled to Dublin, and soon found its way to Great

Britain and the Continent. But William was not dead. After the surgeons

had dressed his wound, he insisted on again mounting his horse, and,

like Napoleon when he was wounded in front of Ratisbon, in 1809, showed

himself to the army, whose shouts of joy speedily informed the Irish

troops that their able enemy was still in the saddle. A brisk cannonade,

which did but little damage, was then exchanged between the two armies.

It was the noisy prelude of a much more eventful drama. On the morrow

was to be decided the fate not alone of the ancient Stuart dynasty, but

also of Ireland, with all Europe for witnesses. Night put an end to the

artillery duel, and the hostile hosts, except the sentinels, disposed

themselves to sleep. History fails to record the watchword of King

James’s army, but Chaplain Story is authority for the statement that the

word in William’s camp was “Westminster.” The soldiers on both sides, to

use the military phrase, “slept upon their arms.”

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CHAPTER V

Battle of the Boyne—Death of Marshal Schomberg—Valor of Irish

Cavalry—Inexcusable Flight of King James

TUESDAY morning, July 1, old style, dawned beautifully on the river

Boyne. Both of the royal hosts were drawn out in all their bravery, and

the early sun glittered on their burnished arms. We have no good account

of their uniforms, but, judging by prints of the period, the British, in

general, wore scarlet and the Continental allies blue. Some of the

French regiments allied to the Irish army wore white and others blue

coats, which were the favorite colors of the Bourbon kings. The Irish

army must surely have worn scarlet—the livery of the House of

Stuart—because, we are informed by George Story and other historians,

they bore white badges in their hats, to distinguish themselves from the

Williamites, who wore green boughs in theirs. The white cockade, or

rosette, was the emblem of the Dukes of York—a title borne by James, as

will be remembered, before his accession. The irony of fate, surely, was

made manifest by the circumstance of William’s soldiers wearing

Ireland’s national color, as now generally recognized, on the occasion

of her most fateful, although not bloodiest, defeat.

At 6 o’clock A.M., William took the initiative by ordering above 10,000

horse and foot, under General Douglas, Schomberg, Jr., and Lords

Portland and Overkirk, to march along the river bank toward Slane, cross

at, or near, that point, and so turn the left flank of the Irish army.

This manœuvre was plainly seen and understood by James and his

lieutenants. Sir Neal O’Neill, at the head of his dragoons, was detached

to check the movement. The brave leader was in time to charge the

enemy’s cavalry, which had crossed nearer to Oldbridge than was

originally designed, as they had found a practicable ford. The main body

crossed higher up, at Slane. O’Neill, according to all accounts of the

engagement on this flank of the Jacobite army, must have made a most

gallant fight, because it was well on toward 9 o’clock before the enemy

was able to secure a footing on the Irish bank of the Boyne, and then

only after the brave O’Neill had been mortally wounded, and his

surviving soldiers discouraged by his fall. Notwithstanding, the Irish

dragoons drew off the field in excellent order, bearing their dying

general along with them. With his latest breath, O’Neill sent word to

King James of how matters stood on his left wing, to which Douglas’s

whole imposing force had now formed itself perpendicularly, that is, at

right angles, threatening not alone the left of the Irish line of

battle, but also the rear, or line of retreat, on the pass of Duleek,

which was the gateway to Dublin. James, observing this, became

demoralized. Instead of using the French veterans at Oldbridge ford,

where he must have seen the main attack was to be delivered, he placed

in the hedges, and other defences which covered it, untried Irish

levies, badly weaponed, brave enough, it is true, but at absolute

disadvantage when placed in opposition to the splendid armament and

perfect discipline of William’s veterans, many of whom had been in a

score of pitched battles. Lauzun and his French were sent toward the

Irish left, accompanied by Sarsfield, with a weak squadron of horse. But

Douglas had formed his troops in such strong array that Lauzun, in spite

of the direct orders of King James, declined to attack him, or receive

his attack. Instead, he manœuvred so as to place a morass between his

troops and the enemy, and then began falling back on the pass of Duleek,

fearing to be outflanked and cut off by young Schomberg’s powerful

cavalry. Sarsfield, according to his custom, charged the hostile horse

boldly, but his men were too few, and he was reluctantly compelled to

follow the retrograde movement of the French. In this operation he lost

one cannon, which got stuck in the mud of a bog that intervened between

the river and Donore. At the latter point he rejoined the king. James

seemed to think only of his line of retreat. Had he thought of his line

of advance, everything might still have been rectified. His army

remained unshaken, except by his own wretched fears. The dread of being

made a prisoner was his bane. He had sent most of the baggage and half

the cannon toward Dublin at the first news of the reverse at Slane—a

remarkable way by which to raise the spirits of an army already sadly

conscious of the incompetency of its royal commander, and its own

inferiority to the Williamite host in everything but ardent zeal and

knightly courage.

William, on learning of the success of his right wing, immediately

ordered Marshal Schomberg, at the head of the formidable Dutch guards,

two regiments of Huguenots, two of Inniskilleners, Sir John Hammer’s

regiment, and several others on that front, including the Danes, to ford

the Boyne in hot haste. They plunged in bravely, opposite to Oldbridge,

and so dense were their columns, according to Chaplain Story, that the

water rose perceptibly. Still it could not have risen much above the

knees of the shortest soldier, for the historian, Haverty—a scrupulous

writer—says, in his admirable work, that the water did not reach to the

drums of the bands that accompanied the attack. The unseasoned Irish

dragoons and infantry, armed with old fusils and half-pikes, received

the enemy with a hasty and ill-directed fire, which did little damage.

William’s troops replied with overpowering volleys, and his batteries

threw balls into the defences. It would seem that little was done at

this point to rally the defenders, for they soon broke and abandoned the

hedges, but formed again in the lanes of Oldbridge and the fields in its

vicinity. The shout of triumph from Schomberg’s men was answered by a

roar of anger that seemed to come from the battle-clouds above the

river. There was a sound as of many waters, a terrific crashing of

hoofs, a flashing of sabres, dying groans—Richard Hamilton, at the head

of the superb Irish cavalry, was among the Williamite regiments, dealing

death-strokes right and left. Even the Dutch Blues reeled before the

shock—the Danes and Huguenots were broken and driven back across the

stream. Old Duke Schomberg, in trying to restore order, was killed near

the Irish side of the river, and there, too, fell Caillemotte, the

Huguenot hero, and Bishop Walker, the defender of Derry. It was a

splendid charge, and, had it been sustained by the whole Irish army,

might have saved the day. But King James’s eyes were not turned toward

Oldbridge ford, but to the pass of Duleek. Fresh bodies of hostile

infantry continued to cross the stream, and were charged and driven back

several times by the Irish horse. This part of the battle began about

10.15 o’clock and continued until nearly noon.

King William now took a hand in the fight, and crossed with most of his

cavalry nearer to Drogheda. It is said that the tide had risen so high,

he was obliged to swim his horse, which, also, got “bogged” on the Irish

bank, and was extricated with difficulty. When the animal was freed,

William remounted, and, although his shoulder was still stiff and sore

from contact with the cannon-ball on the previous day, he drew his sword

and placed himself at the head of such of his horse as had crossed with

him. He also rallied some foot-soldiers who had been scattered by

Hamilton’s furious charges. Nor were these yet over. Hardly had William

placed his men in order, when Hamilton came down again, with a whirlwind

rush, and Chaplain Story says, with great simplicity: “Our horse were

forced to give ground, although the king was with them!” William, on

recovering his breath, observed the Inniskillen regiment of cavalry at a

short distance, rode up in front of them and said, in his blunt fashion:

“What will _you_ do for me?” They answered with a cheer, and rode to

meet the Irish cavalry, who were again coming on at a fierce gallop,

urged by Hamilton. The shock was terrible, but again the presence and

the leadership of the warlike William proved unavailing, and the

Inniskilleners, sadly cut up, followed the routed Williamite ruck down

the hill toward the river. Cool in the moment of danger, William of

Orange retired slowly and managed to rally some foot and horse to his

assistance. By this time more of his cavalry had crossed, under Ruvigny

and Ginkel. The former captured some colors, according to Story, but

Ginkel’s force was routed and he, himself, did not conceal his vexation

at their want of firmness. He kept in their rear, in order to prevent

them from bolting at sight of the Irish horse.

King James was urged by all of those about him who had regard for his

honor, including the brave General Sheldon and the ever gallant

Sarsfield, to place himself at the head of his reserve of cavalry and

charge full upon William as he ascended toward Donore. The unfortunate

man, more of a moral than a physical coward, seemed unable to collect

his faculties; and, instead of doing what became him, yielded to the

advice of the timid, and, even while the battle raged hotly below him,

turned his horse, and, accompanied by his disgusted officers and

astonished troopers, rode toward the pass of Duleek, held by the French

and some of the Irish, who repulsed every effort of General Douglas to

force it. Hamilton’s cavalry still continued to charge the Williamite

advance, and thus enabled the Irish infantry to retire slowly on Donore,

where the bold Duke of Berwick rallied them and presented an unbroken

front to King William. Then, in turn, they retired toward Duleek.

Hamilton made a final furious charge, in which his horse was killed and

fell upon him. He was also wounded in the head and made prisoner. He was

taken before William, who said: “Well, sir, is this business over with,

or will your horse show more fight?” Hamilton responded: “Upon my honor,

sir, I think they will.” The king, who was incensed against the general

for having sided with James and Tyrconnel against himself, looked

askance at the gallant prisoner and muttered: “Your honor! Your honor!”

And this was all that passed between them.

Chaplain Story, from whose book we have taken many of our facts, was a

most graphic and interesting writer, but a sad hater of the Irish,

against whom he seems to have borne a grudge, perhaps because they

killed his brother, an English officer, in action. He never said a good

word for them if he could avoid doing so. Yet, in spite of this failing,

the truth would escape him occasionally. Many English writers leave the

impression that the Irish army was defeated at the Boyne within an hour

or so after the engagement began. We have seen that the first movement

was made about daylight, and that the battle near Slane opened about 8

o’clock. In front of Oldbridge the attack was made at 10:15, and

continued hotly until nearly noon, when King William himself took

command, crossed the river with his left wing and was bravely checked by

Hamilton. Duleek is not more than three miles from the fords of

Oldbridge. Therefore, the Irish must have fought very obstinately when

Chaplain Story makes the following admission on page 23 of his

“Continuation of the Wars of Ireland”: “Our army then pressed hard upon

them, but meeting with a great many difficulties in the ground, and

being obliged to pursue in order, our horse had only the opportunity of

cutting down some of their foot, and most of the rest got over the pass

at Duleek; then night coming on[3] prevented us from making so entire a

victory of it as could have been wished for.” Thus, on the testimony of

this Williamite partisan and eye-witness, the battle of the Boyne,

counting from its inception to its close, lasted about fifteen hours.

Evidently the overpowered Irish army did not retreat very fast.

Footnote 3:

In Ireland, at that season, there is a strong twilight until nearly 9

o’clock.—_Author._

We have already mentioned the principal men who fell on the Williamite

side. On the Jacobite side there fell Lords Dungan and Carlingford, Sir

Neal O’Neill and some other officers of note, together with some 1,200

rank and file killed or wounded. Few prisoners were taken. Mr. Story, as

usual, underestimates William’s loss, when he places it at “nigh four

hundred.” More candid English estimates place it at nearer a thousand,

and this was, probably, the true figure. The Chaplain, in dwelling on

the casualties, says plaintively: “The loss of Duke Schomberg, who was

killed soon after the first of our forces passed the river near

Oldbridge, was much more considerable than all that fell that day on

both sides.”

Drogheda, occupied by an Irish garrison of 1,500 men, surrendered, on

summons, the day after the battle. Had their commander made a spirited

sortie on William’s left wing, as it was crossing the river, good might

have resulted for the cause of James. It would seem that, like himself,

many of his officers lacked the daring enterprise that can alone win the

smiles of Bellona.

King James, shamefully for himself, deserted the battlefield, or,

rather, the outer edge of it, before the fight at the fords was over. An

Irish Protestant poet, the late Dr. W. R. Wilde, of Dublin, says of the

incident:

“But where is James? What! urged to fly,

Ere quailed his brave defenders!

Their dead in Oldbridge crowded lie,

But not a sword surrenders!”

He reached Dublin at 9 o’clock that evening, while still the Irish army

exchanged shots with William’s troops across the Nannywater at the pass

of Duleek! Tradition says that, meeting Lady Tyrconnel at the Castle, he

exclaimed: “Your countrymen run well, madam!” The spirited Irishwoman at

once replied: “I congratulate your Majesty on having won the race!”

English historians, in general, taking their cue from Story, are

ungenerous to the Irish in connection with the Boyne. English troops had

comparatively little hand in obtaining the victory. The French writers,

also, in order to screen the misconduct, and possibly treason, of De

Lauzun, seek to throw all the blame for the loss of the battle on their

Irish allies. Not so, many of the Irish Protestant writers, whose

coreligionists bore a great deal of the brunt of the fighting on

William’s side, and were thus enabled to know the truth. Among those

writers may be mentioned Colonel William Blacker, poet-laureate of the

Orange Order in Ireland, who wrote at the beginning of the last century,

and, in his poem, “The Battle of the Boyne,” gives full credit to his

Catholic fellow-countrymen for their valor, thus:

“In vain the sword Green Erin draws and life away doth fling—

Oh! worthy of a better cause and of a braver king!

In vain thy bearing bold is shown upon that blood-stained ground;

Thy towering hopes are overthrown—thy choicest fall around.

“Hurrah! hurrah! the victor shout is heard on high Donore!

Down Plottin’s Vale, in hurried rout, thy shattered masses pour.

But many a gallant spirit there retreats across the plain,

Who ‘change but kings’ would gladly dare that battlefield again!”

The expression, in regard to exchanging monarchs, alluded to in the

ballad, is founded on a saying attributed to Sarsfield, who, on being

taunted by a British officer at the Duleek outposts the night of the

engagement, exclaimed: “Change kings with us, and we will fight the

battle over again with you!”

James, after his defeat, remained but one day in Dublin. He summoned the

State Council and the Lord Mayor, bade them farewell, and left the

government of the kingdom and the command of the army in the hands of

Tyrconnel. Then, accompanied by a small staff, he rode to Bray and

thence by easy stages to Waterford, where he embarked for France and

reached that kingdom in safety. He was generously received by King

Louis. In justice to a monarch who is alleged to have spoken harshly and

unjustly of his Irish troops and subjects after the battle of the Boyne,

we must state that his published Memoirs, as also those of his son, the

heroic Duke of Berwick, bear the very highest testimony to the bravery

and devotion of the Irish army, particularly in dealing with the closing

campaign in Ireland, when it crowned itself with glory. Remembering

this, we may join with the poet in saying—

“Well, honored be the graves that close

O’er every brave and true heart,

And sorrows sanctified repose

Thy dust, discrownèd Stuart!”

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CHAPTER VI

Irish Army Retires on “The Line of the Shannon”—Douglas Repulsed at

Athlone—King William Begins Siege of Limerick—Sarsfield’s Exploit