Chapter XII: Reign of William and Mary (3)

Whether William was in earnest, or whether he only had recourse to a ruse to bring the combatants to their senses, the result was the same. The ministers stood confounded. To drive the king from the country by their quarrels, and that at a time when the old and implacable enemy of Protestantism and liberty was at their doors, would be a blow to freedom and to their own credit from which the most disastrous consequences must flow. They entreated him on their knees and with tears to forego this design, promising all that he could desire. William at length consented to make one more trial; but it was only on condition that the Bill of Indemnity should pass, and that he should himself proceed to Ireland, and endeavour, by his own personal and determined effort, to drive James thence.

Accordingly, on January 27, 1690, he called together the two Houses, and, announcing his intention to proceed to Ireland, declared the Parliament dissolved, amid the utmost signs of consternation in the Whigs, and shouts of exultation from the Tories. This act of William's to defeat the malice of the Whigs, and his continued firm resistance to their endeavours to fine and disqualify the Tories, had a wonderful effect on that party. A numerous body of them deputed Sir John Lowther to carry their thanks to the king, and assure him that they would serve him with all their hearts and influence. Numbers of them who had hitherto stood aloof began to appear at Court, and attended the levee to kiss the king's hand. William gave orders to liberate those whom the Whigs had sent to prison on charges of treason.

On the 1st of February the hour arrived in which all ecclesiastics who had neglected to take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy would be deposed. A considerable number of them came in in time; but Sancroft, the Primate, and five of his bishops, stood out, and were deprived of their bishoprics, but were treated with particular lenity.

It was soon found that the conduct of the Whigs had alienated a great mass of the people. Their endeavours, by Sacheverell's clause, to disqualify all who had consented to the surrender of the corporation charters, had made mortal enemies of those persons, many of whom were at the moment the leading members of the corporations, and therefore possessing the highest influence on the return of members to the new Parliament. The same was the case in the country, amongst those who had been sheriffs or other officers at that period. The consequence was that the Tories returned a decided majority to the new House, and amongst them came up Sir Robert Sawyer from Cambridge, whilst the violence of Hampden had caused his exclusion.

The revival of the Tory influence introduced great changes in the ministry. Halifax resigned the Privy Seal. Mordaunt--now Earl of Monmouth--Delamere, Sidney Godolphin, and Admiral Herbert--now Earl of Torrington--were dismissed. Caermarthen was continued Lord President of the Council, and Prime Minister. Sir John Lowther was appointed First Lord of the Treasury, in place of Monmouth. Nottingham retained his post as Secretary of State; and Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, was placed at the head of the Admiralty, Torrington having, to his great discontent, to yield that position, but retaining that of High Admiral, and being satisfied by a splendid grant of ten thousand acres of Crown land in the Peterborough fens. Delamere, too, was soothed on his dismissal by being created Earl of Warrington. Richard Hampden became Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Parliament met on the 20th of March, and the Commons, under the new Tory influence, elected Sir John Trevor Speaker, who was besides made First Commissioner of the Great Seal. In this man is said to have commenced that system of Government corruption of Parliament--the buying up, or buying off of members, which grew to such a height, and attained its climax under Sir Robert Walpole. Trevor was an unscrupulous Tory, and Burnet says he was "furnished with such sums of money as might purchase some votes." He undertook, accordingly, to manage the party in the House. The Whigs were in the worst of humours, but they had now learnt that it was not wise to push matters with the Crown too far, and as a body they watched their opportunity for recovering by degrees their ascendency. Some of the more violent, however, as the Earl of Shrewsbury and the notorious Ferguson, entered into immediate correspondence with James.

William, in his opening speech, dwelt chiefly on the necessity of settling the revenue, to enable him to proceed to Ireland, and on passing the Bill of Indemnity; and he was very plain in expressing his sense of the truculent spirit of party, which, in endeavouring to wound one another, injured and embarrassed his Government still more. He informed them that he had drawn up an Act of Grace, constituting the Bill of Indemnity, and should send it to them for their acceptance; for it is the practice for all such Acts to proceed from the Crown, and then to be voted by the Peers, and finally by the Commons. He then informed them that he left the administration during his absence in Ireland in the hands of the Queen; and he desired that if any Act was necessary for the confirmation of that authority, they should pass it. The Commons at once passed a vote of thanks, and engaged to support the Government of their Majesties by every means in their power. On the 27th of March they passed unanimously the four following resolutions--namely, that all the hereditary revenues of King James, except the hearth-tax, were vested now in their present Majesties; that a Bill should be brought in to declare and perpetuate this investment; that the moiety of the excise granted to Charles and James should be secured by Bill to their present Majesties for life; and finally, that the customs which had been granted to Charles and James for their lives should be granted for four years from the next Christmas. William was much dissatisfied with the last proviso, and complained that the Commons should show less confidence in him, who had restored their liberties, than in Charles and James, who destroyed them. Sir John Lowther pressed this point on the Commons strongly, but in vain; and Burnet told King William that there was no disrespect meant towards him, but that the Commons wished to establish this as a general principle, protective of future subjects from the evils which the ill-judged liberality of past Parliaments had produced.

The next measure on which the Whigs and Tories tried their strength was a Bill brought in by the Whigs to do what was already sufficiently done in the Bill of Rights--to pronounce William and Mary the rightful and lawful sovereigns of this realm, and next to declare that all the acts of the late Convention should be held as valid as laws. The first part, already sufficiently recognised, was quietly passed over; but the Tories made a stout opposition to extending the Act beyond the year 1689, on the plea that nothing could convert the self-constituted Convention into a legal Parliament. But the distinction was a mere party distinction; for, if the Convention was not a legal body, nothing could render its acts so. The Earl of Nottingham, who headed this movement, entered a strong protest on the journal of the Lords against it, and this protest was signed by many peers, and amongst them the Whig peers, Bolton, Macclesfield, Stamford, Bedford, Newport, Monmouth, Herbert, Suffolk, Warrington, and Oxford. The Bill, however, was carried, and with still more ease in the Commons.

The Tories, mortified at the triumph of the Whigs, now brought in a Bill to change the military government of the City of London as the lieutenancy of the counties had been changed. They thanked the king for having by his measures brought in so many Churchmen and thrown out so many Nonconformists. This Bill the Whigs managed to impede till the session closed; but not so with another from the Tory party, ordering payment of the five hundred pounds fines incurred by all who had taken office or served as magistrates without taking the necessary Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy. This was carried, and the money ordered to be paid into the Exchequer, and a separate account of it to be kept.

The defeat of the Whigs only infused more fierceness in the party warfare. They hastened to bring in a Bill compelling every person in office, civil, ecclesiastical, or military, to take an oath to abjure King James and his right to the Crown, thence called the Abjuration Oath. This oath might, moreover, be tendered by any magistrate to any subject of their Majesties whatever, and whoever refused it was to be committed to prison, and kept there till he complied. It was hoped by the Whigs that this Bill would greatly embarrass the Tories who had taken office under the present monarchy, and accordingly it met with a decided opposition in the Commons, and was thrown out by a majority of one hundred and ninety-two to one hundred and seventy-eight. It was then, with some alteration, introduced as a fresh Bill into the Lords. William went down to the Lords to listen personally to the debate; and several of the peers made very free and pertinent remarks on the uselessness of so many oaths to bind any disloyal or unconscientious person.

The Bill was defeated in the Lords by being committed, but never reported, for on the 20th of May, after King William had given his consent to the Bill, which he had recommended, for conferring on the queen full powers to administer the government during his absence in Ireland, and also to that revising the _quo warranto_ judgment against the City of London, the Marquis of Caermarthen appeared in the House with an Act of Grace ready drawn and signed by the king.

William had tried in vain to curb the deadly animosities of the contending parties by Bills of Indemnity. These could be discussed and rejected, not so an Act of Grace: it issued from the sovereign, and came already signed to Parliament. It must be at once accepted or rejected by each House, and in such a case as the present, where it was meant as a healing and pacifying act, it could not be rejected without a disloyal and ungracious air. Accordingly it was received with the deference which it deserved, and both Houses gave their sanction to it, standing bareheaded, and without one dissenting voice. From the benefit of this Act of Grace, pardoning all past offences, were, it is true, excepted thirty names, prominent amongst whom were the Marquis of Powis, the Lords Sunderland, Huntingdon, Dover, Melfort, and Castlemaine; the Bishops of Durham and St. Davids; the Judges Herbert, Jenner, Withers, and Holloway; Roger Lestrange; Lundy, the traitor governor of Londonderry; Father Petre; and Judge Jeffreys. This last monster of infamy was already deceased in the Tower, but it was well understood that if the others named only kept themselves at peace they would never be inquired after. Neither party, however, thanked William for the constrained peace. The Whigs were disappointed of the vengeance they burned to enjoy; the Tories, and even those who had the most narrowly escaped the intended mischief, ungenerously said that if William had really anything to avenge, he would not have pardoned it.

The day after the passing of this important Act he prorogued Parliament. The Convocation which had been summoned, and met in Henry VII.'s Chapel--St. Paul's, its usual meeting-place, having been burnt down in the Great Fire, was not yet rebuilt--had been prorogued some time before. Its great topic had been the scheme of comprehension, which was warmly advocated by Burnet and the more liberal members, but the High Church was as high and immovable as ever. Nothing could be accomplished, and from this time the Nonconformists gave up all hope of any reunion with the Church.

William now made preparations for the Irish campaign. It was time, for Schomberg had effected little, and the English fleet had done worse than nothing at sea. It was not only in Ireland that the danger of William lay, or whence came his troubles. He had to maintain the contest on the Continent against Louis XIV., against James in Ireland, against corruption and imbecility in his fleet, against the most wholesale mismanagement and peculation in every department of the English Government, and against the feuds and disaffection of his own courtiers and servants. Whilst the contests which we have just related were agitating Parliament, William was vigorously at work inquiring into the malversation all around him. Shales, the Commissary-General, was dismissed, and a new spirit was introduced into the commissariat under the vigilant eye of William himself. Instead of the vile poisons and putrid meats, excellent provisions were supplied to the army. The villainies by which the poor soldiers had been robbed of their clothing, and bedding, and tents, terminated, and they were soon well clothed, lodged, and equipped. The road to Chester swarmed with waggons conveying wholesome supplies, and a fleet lay there ready to convey the king over, with additional troops and stores. Before he set out himself, the army in Ireland amounted to thirty thousand effective men.

But the affairs of the Channel fleet were in the worst possible condition. William there committed the error of continuing Torrington, better known as Admiral Herbert--who had been suspected of a leaning towards James, and who had been already beaten at Bantry Bay--in the chief command, when he removed him from his post of First Lord of the Admiralty. Herbert was a debauched, effeminate fellow, indulging in all sorts of license and luxury, whilst his sailors were suffering the most atrocious treatment. They had such meat served out to them that neither they nor even dogs could touch it. They were ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-paid; the contractors and the officers were enriching themselves at their expense; and, what was worse, they were compelled to bear the disgrace of having our commerce interrupted in all directions by the French cruisers. Whilst they lay inactive in Portsmouth, the French scoured the English coast, and captured trading vessels with their cargoes to the value of six hundred thousand pounds.

William had, however, difficulties at home to surmount before he could depart for Ireland. Just as he was prepared to set out, the discovery was made of an extensive traitorous correspondence between a number of concealed Jacobites and the Court of St. Germains. Some of his own ministers and courtiers were deep in it. Two messengers had been despatched from James's queen from St. Germains, with letters to the conspiring Jacobites. One of these, of the name of Fuller, was induced by some means to betray the secret. He went boldly to Whitehall, and delivered his despatches to William. Crone, the other, was arrested, and soon after another messenger of the name of Tempest. The disclosures made through this means revealed an extensive ramification of treason that was enough to appal the stoutest heart and coolest brain. The queen's own relative, Clarendon, was one of the most zealous plotters; Ailesbury and Dartmouth, who had both taken the oaths to the new monarchs, were among the most guilty; and the latter, though an admiral, was prepared, in connection with other officers, to betray the coast defences, and to carry over their ships to the enemy. William Penn was arrested on account of an intercepted letter to James, and charged with treason; but he denied any treasonable intentions, and said he only corresponded with James as an old friend. Nothing of a criminal nature could be proved against him, and he was soon liberated. Viscount Preston, who had been raised to that dignity by James, but was not admitted by the peers to possess a valid patent of nobility, was another; and what was far more mortifying, the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had so recently resigned the seals as Secretary of State, was discovered to be deeply implicated. It was found that the conspiracy was spread far and wide throughout the country, and that the Jacobites in Worcestershire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and other northern counties, were laying in arms and ammunition, and gentlemen who had received commissions from James were actually mustering and drilling troops on the solitary moorlands. The correspondence was as active between England and Ireland, as between England and France.

Amid dangers of such magnitude it may seem strange that William should venture to leave England, and burthen his wife with the cares and responsibilities of such a crisis, amid the machinations of so many determined enemies; but his affairs as imperiously demanded his presence in Ireland, and he therefore took the best measures that he could for the assistance and security of the queen. He appointed a council of nine of the most efficient and trusty persons he could think of, some Whigs, some Tories. They were Devonshire, Dorset, Monmouth, Edward Russell, Caermarthen, Pembroke, Nottingham, Marlborough, and Lowther. In making this selection William must have put aside many personal prejudices. Marlborough was appointed as most likely to advise the queen as to military affairs, though he was the known partisan and adviser of Anne. Russell, who was an admiral and Treasurer of the Navy, was the person to advise her in naval matters, and Caermarthen was, from his experience, and as having a great regard for the queen, the man on whom she could most rely for the management of the main business of the State. William solemnly laid upon them the great trust which he reposed in them, and called upon them as men and statesmen, to afford the queen every assistance which her being left under such trying circumstances demanded for her. He likewise informed Rochester that he was well acquainted with the treasonable practices of his brother Clarendon, and bade him warn him from him to tempt him no further to a painful severity.

Having arranged this matter, William set out on the 4th of June for Chester, where he embarked on the 11th, and landed at Carrickfergus on the 14th. He proceeded immediately towards Belfast, and was met by Schomberg on the way. William was attended by Prince George of Denmark, the Duke of Ormond, the Earls of Oxford, Scarborough, and Manchester, Mr. Boyle, and many other persons of distinction. He appointed the whole of his army to rendezvous at Loughbrickland, and immediately set about organising his plans, and preparing his stores for an active campaign. Before we enter upon that, however, we must take a hasty glance at what Schomberg had done during the autumn, winter, and spring.

This was little for so numerous an army, commanded by so experienced a general. Schomberg was, it is true, eighty years of age, and many complained that time had diminished his fire, and that much more ought to have been effected. But William, who may be supposed a most competent judge, cast no blame upon him; on the contrary, he thanked him for having preserved his army at all, his troops having had to contend with the horrors of a deficient and most villainous commissariat, as we have already shown.

Schomberg on landing had taken Carrickfergus, Newry, and Dundalk, where he entrenched himself. He had found the country through which he passed a perfect waste. It could afford him no provisions, and, if he were compelled to fall back, no shelter. James, on his landing, had advanced from Dublin to Drogheda, where he was with twenty thousand men, besides vast numbers of wild Irish, armed with scythes, pikes, and skeans. But Schomberg found himself in no condition for fighting. His baggage could not reach him for want of waggons, and from the state of the roads. His arms were many of them good for nothing, being the vile rubbish furnished by the contractors under the management of the fraudulent Ministry and the infamous Commissary-General Shales. His soldiers were suffering from want of proper clothing, shoes, beds, and tents. Worse still, the soldiers were fast perishing with fever. Bad food, bad clothing, bad lodging, and drenching and continual rains without proper shelter, were fast doing their work on the English army. Schomberg did his best. He stimulated his soldiers to make roofs to their huts of turf and fern, and to make their beds of heather and fern, raised on dry mounds above the soaking rains. But all was in vain. The soldiers were become spiritless and demoralised. They were either too listless to move or too excited by whisky, which they managed to get, to follow his recommendations. Scenes like those which appeared in London during the Plague now horrified his camp. The soldiers gave way to wild license, drank, swore, sang bacchanalian songs, drank the Devil's health, and made seats of the corpses of their dead comrades at their revels, which they declared were the only ones they had to keep them out of the wet.

The sickness appeared at the same time in the English fleet which lay off the coast at Carrickfergus, and swept away almost every man from some of the vessels. By the commencement of November, Schomberg's army could not number more than five thousand effective men. The Irish in James's army did not suffer so much, and they rejoiced in the pestilence which was thus annihilating their heretic enemies. But the weather at length compelled James to draw off, first to Ardee, and then into winter quarters in different towns. Schomberg, thus set at liberty, quickly followed his example, and quartered his troops for the winter in the different towns of Ulster, fixing his headquarters at Lisburn. His army had, however, lost above six thousand men by disease.

In February, 1690, the campaign was begun by the Duke of Berwick, James's natural son, who attacked William's advanced post at Belturbet; but he met with such a reception that he nearly lost his life, being severely wounded and having his horse killed under him. In fact, the condition of the two armies had been completely changed during the winter by the different management of the two commanders. Schomberg had been diligently exerting himself to restore the health and to perfect the discipline of his troops. As spring advanced he received the benefit of William's exertions and stern reforms in England. Good, healthy food, good clothing, bedding, tents, and arms arrived. Fresh troops were from time to time landing, amongst them regiments of German and Scandinavian mercenaries. By the time of William's arrival the army was in a fine and vigorous condition, and amounted to thirty thousand men.

Not so the army of James: it had grown more and more disorderly. James and his Court had returned to Dublin, where they spent the winter in the grossest dissoluteness and neglect of all discipline or law. Gambling, riot, and debauchery scandalised the sober Catholics, who had hoped for a saviour in James. Of all the army, the cavalry alone had been maintained by its officers in discipline. The foot soldiers roamed over the country at pleasure, plundering their own compatriots. James's own kitchen and larder were supplied by his foragers from the substance of his subjects, without regard to law or any prospect of payment. It was in vain that remonstrances were made; James paid no attention to them. His bad money was gone; he had used up all the old pots, pans, and cracked cannon, and applied to Louis for fresh remittances, which did not arrive. To complete the ruin of his affairs, he requested the withdrawal of Rosen and D'Avaux, who, heartless as they were, saw the ruinous course things were taking, and remonstrated against it. Lauzun, an incompetent commander, was sent over to take their place, accompanied by about seven thousand French infantry. When Lauzun arrived in Ireland, the desolation of the country, the rude savagery of the people, and the disorders of the Court and capital, were such as to strike him and his officers with astonishment and horror. He declared in his letters to the French minister, Louvois, that the country was in so frightful a state that no person who had lived in any other could conceive it; that James's chief functionaries pulled each his different way, instead of assisting the king; and that "such were the wants, disunions, and dejection, that the king's affairs looked like the primitive chaos."

Unfortunately, Lauzun was not the man to reduce chaos to order. He had accompanied Mary, the queen of James, in her flight from London to Paris, and had there too won the good graces of Madame Maintenon; and by the influence of these ladies, who imagined him a great general, he obtained this important command. He had to fill the place of both D'Avaux and Rosen, of ambassador and general, without the sagacity and skill which would have fitted him for either. He conceived the greatest contempt and hatred of the Irish, and was not likely to work well with them. Such was the condition in which James was found on the landing of King William.

William, we have said, pushed on immediately to Belfast, and thence, without permitting himself to be delayed by the congratulatory multitudes that surrounded him, he hastened forward to his main army at Loughbrickland. The soldiers of his army consisted of a variety of nations, many of whom had won fame under great leaders. There were Dutch, who had fought under William and his great generals against those of Louis of France; Germans, Danes, Finlanders, French Huguenots, now purged of their false countrymen; English and Scottish troops, who had fought also in Holland, in Tangier, at Killiecrankie; and Anglo-Irish, who had won such laurels at Londonderry, Enniskillen, and Newton Butler. All were animated by the presence of the king, and of his assembled generals of wide renown, and with the confidence of putting down the Popish king, and his French supporters and Irish adherents, who had robbed and expelled them and their families. The Germans and Dutch burned to meet again the French invaders of their country, the desolators of the Palatinate; and the French Protestants were as much on fire to avenge themselves on their Catholic countrymen, who had been their oppressors. It was not merely English troops acting on ordinary grounds of hostility against Irish ones, but representatives of almost all Protestant Europe collected to avenge the wrongs of Protestants and of their own countries.

William was confident in his army, and declared that he was not come to Ireland to let the grass grow under his feet. Schomberg still recommended caution when it was no longer needed, and thus gave a colour to the words of those who accused him of having shown too much caution already, which they insinuated was but the result of old age. On the 24th of June, only ten days after landing, William was in full march southwards. James did not wait for his coming, but abandoned Dundalk and retreated into Drogheda. His generals, indeed, represented to him that caution and delay were his best policy against so powerful a force, and even recommended that he should retreat beyond Dublin and entrench himself at Athlone, as a more central and defensible position; but James would not listen to this, and Tyrconnel strengthened him in the resolution.

The morning of the 1st of July, destined to become a great epoch in Ireland, rose brilliantly, and the opposing armies were in motion by four o'clock. William overnight had given the word "Westminster" as the recognition sign, and ordered his men to wear each a green sprig in his hat, to distinguish them from the enemy, who, out of compliment to France, wore a white cockade, generally of paper. According to William's disposition of battle, Meinhart Schomberg, the son of the old general, supported by Portland and Douglas with the Scottish guards, was to take the right and secure the bridge of Slane. He himself headed the left wing near Drogheda with a strong force of cavalry, and Schomberg the centre, which was opposite Oldbridge, where he was supported by the Blues of Solmes, and the brave Londonderries and Enniskilleners, and on his left the French Huguenots under Caillemot, and between them and William the Danes. Meinhart Schomberg found the bridge of Slane already occupied by Sir Neil O'Neil, with a regiment of Irish Dragoons; but the English charged them briskly, killed O'Neil, and made themselves masters of the bridge. This was a grand advantage at the outset. It enabled the English to attack the right wing of James, and endangered their seizure of the pass of Duleek, a very narrow defile in the hills, about four miles in their rear, by which they would cut off altogether their retreat. Lauzun, who had posted the main strength of the Irish infantry at the foot of Oldbridge, and supported them by Sarsfield's horse, was compelled to despatch the horse towards Slane Bridge, to guard against this danger, thus weakening his centre.

Nearly at the same moment that this movement took place, William put himself at the head of his cavalry, and with his sword in his left hand, for his right arm was too sore and stiff from a gunshot received on the previous day to hold it, he dashed into the river and led his wing across. At the same moment Schomberg gave the word, and the centre was in motion. Solmes' Dutch Blues led the way, and their example was instantly followed by the men of Londonderry and Enniskillen, and at their left the Huguenots. The men waded through the stream, holding aloft their muskets and ammunition. The brunt of the encounter was there, for there the enemy had expected the main attack, and had not only concentrated their forces there, horse and foot, but had defended the bank with a breastwork and batteries. The English had to advance against the deadly fire from these defences, and from the thronging Irish, who raised the wildest hurrahs, whilst they could return no fire till they were nearly across and sufficiently raised from the water. Then they saw the breastwork and the batteries lined with one mass of foes. They, however, pushed resolutely forward, fired, charged the foe, and in an instant the whole demoralised Irish broke and fled. Never was there so complete and ignominious a rout. These men, on whom so much depended, but who, despite all warnings to James, had been suffered to plunder and riot without restraint or discipline, now dispersed with so dastardly a rapidity that it was more like a dream than a reality.

The engagement was now general, from the left where William commanded, almost under the walls of Drogheda, to the bridge of Slane. The English and their allies had forced their way across the river, and were engaged in fierce contest with the Irish horse and the French cavalry and foot. When Schomberg saw the cavalry of Tyrconnel and Hamilton bear down upon his centre, and that they had actually driven back Solmes' Blues into the river, he dashed into the river himself, to rally and encourage them. Probably stung by a generous sense of shame, for he had discouraged the attempt to attack the Irish army in that position, the old man now exhibited an opposite degree of incaution, for without defensive armour he rushed into the _mêlée_, disregarding the advice of his officers to put on his cuirass. As he rode through the river, Caillemot was borne past him to the north bank mortally wounded, but still crying to his brave Huguenots, "On! on! my lads! To glory! to glory!" Schomberg took up the cry of encouragement to the men, appalled by the loss of their general, and said, "Allons, messieurs, voilà vos persécuteurs!" But scarcely had he uttered the words when he, too, received a mortal wound and fell. When he was found he was dead, with a bullet wound through his neck, and a couple of sword gashes on his head.

For half an hour the battle raged with a fury such as the oldest soldiers of the Netherlands now declared they had never seen surpassed. Hamilton and Tyrconnel led on their cavalry against Schomberg's forces with a steadiness and bravery that were as much to their credit as their conduct in civil life had been disgraceful. William, on his part, had found a warm reception on the left. The Irish horse withstood him stoutly, and drove back his guards and the Enniskilleners repeatedly. On his first coming up to the Enniskilleners, he was mistaken for one of the enemy, and was near being shot by a trooper. The mistake being rectified, the Enniskilleners followed him with enthusiasm. William threw away all thought of danger, and led them into the thickest of the fight. At one moment a ball carried away the cock of his pistol, at another the heel of his boot, but he still led on. The Enniskilleners fought desperately, and the horse of Ginkell charged brilliantly.

FROM THE PAINTING PROBABLY BY JAN. WYCK,
IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY.
]

They were thus fighting their way towards the centre, and had advanced as far as Plottin Castle, about a mile and a half from Oldbridge, when the Irish horse made a last furious effort, drove back the Enniskilleners, and killed a number of them. William rallied them, and again led them to the charge, broke the Irish cavalry, and took prisoner Hamilton, who had been heading this gallant charge. When William saw, wounded and a prisoner, the man who had proved so traitorous to him when sent to Ireland, he said, "Is this business over, or will your horse make more fight?" "On my honour, sir," replied Hamilton, "I believe they will." "_Your_ honour, indeed!" muttered William; but ordering the wounded man to be properly attended to, he rode forward to join the main body and end the fight.

That was now soon over. The centre and the right wing had done dreadful execution. They had nearly annihilated whole regiments. One of them had only thirty men left without a wound. They had fought in a manner worthy of a better cause and a better leader, for James had early abandoned the field, and left his deluded followers to the mercy of the enemy. No sooner did he see the Irish fly before the enemy at Oldbridge than, from his safe position on the hill of Donore, he gave orders for all the baggage and the artillery, except six pieces, already in full employ in the engagement, to be conveyed with all speed on the road to Dublin, so as to effect their passage through the defile of Duleek; and, escorted by Sarsfield's horse, he made all haste after them.

If James was one of the worst and most infatuated monarchs that ever reigned in time of peace, in war he was the most dastardly. In England he fled disgracefully on the approach of William, without a blow, and here again he showed the same utter want of spirit and energy. He had taken no care to keep his soldiers disciplined and in proper tone for the coming war, and he deserted them at the first symptoms of reverse. If the English had pushed on briskly from the bridge of Slane, they might still have intercepted him, and brought him prisoner to William; but, the conflict over, they relaxed their efforts, and William gave orders to spare the flying troops as much as possible. When Lauzun and Tyrconnel approached the pass of Duleek with their retreating cavalry, they found it choked with a confused mass of waggons, artillery, and terrified fugitives. They therefore faced about, and repelled the pursuers till the rout had got through. The cavalry of William still followed the flying throng as far as the Neale, a second pass, and till it grew dark, when they returned to the main army. James continued his panic flight, however, never stopping till he reached Dublin. The city had all day been in a state of intense excitement. First had come the news that William was wounded, then that he was dead; amid the rejoicing of the Jacobites came the horrid news of the defeat, followed about sunset by James himself, attended by about two hundred cavalry, haggard, wayworn, and covered with dust. All that night kept pouring in the defeated troops, and early in the morning James, not deeming himself safe, took leave of the mayor, aldermen, and officers of his army, upbraiding the Irish with their cowardice in having deserted him almost without a blow, and vowing that he would never trust to an Irish army again. The Irish returned the compliment, and declared that, if the English would exchange kings, they were ready to fight again, and to conquer too. If any man had ever caused his own misfortune and defeat, it was James; but he never took the means to avoid discomfiture, and he never saw, or at least, never seemed to see, that the blame lay with himself. Without, therefore, making another effort, though he had a large army still on foot, and all the south of Ireland to employ it in, he continued his flight towards Waterford, in terror all the way lest he should be overtaken by William's cavalry, and, reaching Waterford on the third day, he got away by water, without loss of time, to Kinsale, whence he sailed for France, quitting Ireland at the spot where he had entered it.

It might have been expected that Tyrconnel and Lauzun would yet rally their forces at Dublin, and make a resolute stand there. But the decisive defeat of the Boyne, the untrustworthiness of the Irish infantry, the loss on the field amounting to upwards of one thousand five hundred, and those chiefly cavalry, the desertion of vast numbers of infantry on the road southward, and the precipitate flight of James, discouraged them. Towards evening of the same day that James left, Tyrconnel and Lauzun mustered their forces and marched out of the city, determining to make their stand on the Shannon, within the strong defences of Athlone and Limerick. No sooner had they evacuated the city than the Protestants issued from their retreats, liberated all the prisoners, and sent off messengers to invite William to enter his new capital in triumph. This he did on the 6th of July, and then made for Waterford.

William's object in reaching Waterford was to take ship for England--not, like James, to abandon his army out of mere cowardice--but in order to protect England too. He had received news that the French, under Tourville, were hovering on the southern coast of England; that they had again defeated the British fleet under the wretched Torrington, and were meditating invasion of the country. He hastened on; the Irish troops at his approach abandoned Clonmel and Kilkenny. Waterford was similarly evacuated, and William, nominating Count Solmes commander-in-chief during his absence, was about to embark, when he received further intelligence. Tourville had made a partial descent at Teignmouth in Devonshire, sacked it, and then drawn off in consequence of the menacing attitude of the inhabitants of the western counties. He therefore hastened to rejoin his army, which was on the way towards Limerick, where Douglas had found such resistance that he had been compelled to raise the siege. On the 9th of August he sat down before that town, and found the Irish determined to make a resolute defence of it.

The Irish, ashamed of their conduct at the battle of the Boyne, and seeing their Saxon masters once more rapidly recovering their ascendency in the island, one and all, men and officers, determined on here making a stand to the death. They did not owe their spirit to their French allies, for Lauzun and his officers ridiculed the idea of defending the place, which they regarded as most miserably fortified. Tyrconnel joined them in that opinion; but Sarsfield encouraged his countrymen, and exhorted them to cast up breastworks of earth, which, in our times--as at Sebastopol--have convinced military men that they are far more impervious to cannon than stone or brick walls. He could not convince the French, who had lost all faith in Irish prowess, and who pined to return to France from the miseries and privations of Ireland; nor Tyrconnel, who was old, and completely dispirited by the action of the Boyne. He and the French drew off with the French forces into Galway; and Boisseleau, a Frenchman, who _did_ sympathise with the Irish, and Sarsfield, were left to defend the place. They had yet twenty thousand men, who were animated by a new spirit, and were destined to make the defence of Limerick as famous as that of Londonderry.

Limerick stood partly on an island in the Shannon; and to take that part it was necessary to have boats, for only a single bridge connected the two parts of the town, or the two towns, as they were called--the English and the Irish. William had a quantity of tin boats on the way for this service, and his cannon and ammunition were also following him. Sarsfield seized immediately on this circumstance when it came to his knowledge. He got out of the city in the night, surprised the escort of the guns, and destroyed the guns, blew up the powder, and made good his return to the town. This exploit raised Sarsfield wonderfully in the opinion of his countrymen, and at the same time raised their own spirits.

William sent for fresh guns from Waterford, and pressed on the siege; but the autumnal rains began to deluge the low, marshy banks of the Shannon, and to sweep away his men with fever. The Irish, on the other hand, had received a fresh stimulus to exertion in the arrival of Baldearg O'Donnel, the chief of one of the most famous old races of Ulster, who had been in the service of Spain, and had returned to assist his countrymen in this last effort to throw off the yoke of the Saxon. The high veneration for the name of the O'Donnel, and the character of the man, placed him at the head of a large class of the Irish in Limerick. There was a prophecy that an O'Donnel was to conquer the English, and the enthusiastic Celts believed that this was the time. And, in truth, the prediction appeared beginning to verify itself, for, after a desperate attempt to take the town by storm on the 27th of August, William resolved to raise the siege, and place his troops in healthy quarters for the winter. During this attempt, William had another narrow escape from a cannon-ball. His men, too, after breaching the walls in several places, and carrying the counterscarp, or covered way, suffered great loss. On the 30th the siege was raised, and William hastened to Waterford, and thence to England. He left the government of the island in the care of three Lords Justices, namely, Viscount Sidney, Lord Coningsby, and Sir Charles Porter. About the same time Tyrconnel and Lauzun quitted Ireland for France, leaving the affairs of James in a council of civilians, and the army under a commission, at the head of which stood the Duke of Berwick as commander-in-chief, and in the very lowest place the brave Sarsfield, of whom the aged Tyrconnel entertained a jealousy worthy of himself and of his master.

_Reproduced by André & Sleigh, Ld., Bushey, Herts._

A LOST CAUSE: THE FLIGHT OF JAMES II. AFTER THE BATTLE OF THE BOYNE, 1690.

BY ANDREW C. GOW, R.A. FROM THE PAINTING IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF BRITISH ART. ]

We must now take notice of what had been passing in England and Scotland during William's campaign in Ireland. Immediately after his departure the traitor Crone was brought to the bar, and, after a full and fair trial, convicted and condemned to death. Pardon, however, was offered him on condition of his revealing what he knew of the Jacobite machinations. After a violent struggle with himself, and after two respites, he complied, and gave important information to the Privy Council. The evidences of an active conspiracy of the Jacobites were too prominent to be overlooked. Tourville, the French admiral, was hovering on the coasts of Devon and Dorsetshire, and the Jacobites, as expecting a descent of a French force, were all in a state of the greatest excitement. It was deemed necessary to arrest a number of the most dangerous conspirators, amongst whom was Clarendon, the queen's uncle; and he and the rest were committed to the Tower. Torrington was ordered to join the fleet in the Downs, and chase the French admiral from the coast. At St. Helens he was joined by a powerful Dutch squadron, under the command of Admiral Evertsen, and they lay off Ventnor, whilst Tourville with his fleet lay off the Needles. An engagement was expected every hour, when Torrington was seen to draw off from the coast of the Isle of Wight, and retreat before the French admiral towards the Strait of Dover. The alarm in London became excessive. The scheme of the Jacobites, as it was revealed to the Council, was to enter the Thames; the Jacobites in London had agreed to rise and seize the queen, and proclaim James. James himself had engaged to leave Ireland to Lauzun and Tyrconnel, and throw himself once more amongst his adherents in England. Another squadron of the French was to land at Torbay; and the country once in their possession, the united French fleet was to cut off the return of William from Ireland. With a knowledge of these plans, and the doubtful conduct of Torrington, the Privy Council was in a state of great agitation. Caermarthen was for the most decisive measures, in which he was energetically supported by Monmouth. They proposed that Russell, who was not only a first-rate officer, but a determined one, should be sent over to the fleet, and Monmouth, at his own request, as a military officer, was sent with him. A dispatch, however, was sent before them, ordering Torrington to come to an engagement at all hazards, and this compelled him to act before Russell and Monmouth could get on board. On the 30th of June, the day before the battle of the Boyne, he felt himself compelled to come to an engagement with Tourville off Beachy Head. Tourville had eighty-two men-of-war; the united fleet of England and Holland did not exceed sixty; but a Blake or Russell would have thought little of the difference. Torrington, as had been too plainly evident in the affair of Bantry Bay, was a man of very different stuff. When compelled to fight, he determined that the Dutch should bear the brunt of it. He therefore placed the Dutch vessels in the van, and gave the signal to engage. The Dutch fought with their usual bravery, and for many hours sustained almost the whole fury of the battle, little supported by the English. Torrington showed no inclination to engage, but appeared rather disposed to see the Dutch, whom he hated, annihilated. A few of the English captains did their duty gallantly; but, so far as Torrington was concerned, had it not been for the Dutch, the French might have ascended the Thames, as Van Tromp formerly did, and insulted the whole seaboard of the country at their pleasure. When the Dutch had lost two admirals and many other officers they drew off, their ships being in a terribly shattered condition. One of their dismantled ships fell into the hands of the French, the others Torrington ordered to be either burnt or towed away; and, ignominiously retiring into the Thames, he pulled up the buoys, to prevent the French from following. Tourville, however, had suffered so much from the Dutch, that he drew off towards his own coast, and left the Londoners to suffer all the alarms without the danger of invasion. London, indeed, was in the same state of terror as in the time of the Dutch invasion of the Thames. The wildest rumours were every hour arriving. The confidence in Torrington was gone, and he was generally denounced as being a traitor to the Government. Either he was a most incompetent commander or his heart was not in the cause: and the latter was no doubt the fact; for, though his treason was not patent at this time, it afterwards became certain enough that he maintained a close correspondence with the Courts of both St. Germains and Versailles. But, whether traitor or imbecile, London was in no degree confident of his being able to repel the French. It was believed by numbers that the dockyards at Chatham would be destroyed, the ships in the Thames under protection of the Tower be set fire to, and the Tower itself be cannonaded. To add to the gloom and affright, the news of the defeat of Count Waldeck at Fleurus, in the Netherlands, by Luxemburg, Louis's general, just then arrived. Paris was ablaze with fireworks and rejoicings; London was all gloom and panic.

And truly there were menacing circumstances. Tourville was bearding the English on their own coasts; Torrington dared not or would not go to encounter him; and Marshal Humières lay with a strong force on the opposite shores, not far from Dunkirk, in readiness, it was believed, to go on board Tourville's fleet and make a descent on England, where the Jacobites were prepared to join the invaders. But on the fourth day after the battle of Beachy Head arrived the news of William's splendid victory on the Boyne, and the spirit of the nation rose at once. It was felt that the ascendency of James was over, and the news of his ignominious flight, which soon followed, completely extinguished the hopes of his partisans, and gave stability to the throne of William and Mary.

And this was soon strikingly demonstrated. Tourville triumphantly ranged along the English coasts, after his victory at Beachy Head, without opposition, and he now imagined that nothing was necessary to the restoration of James but a descent on England with a tolerable force, which was certain to be welcomed by the expectant Jacobites. Accordingly Tourville took on board a considerable body of soldiers, and made for the coast of Devon. His fleet numbered a hundred and eleven sail, but of these a large number were mere Mediterranean galleys, rowed by slaves, and sent as transports to carry over the troops. On the 22nd of July he landed at Torbay, where William himself had landed; but, instead of finding the gentry or the people ready to join him in support of King James, the whole west rose as one man at the glare of the beacon signals which blazed on the hill-tops. Messengers were spurring from place to place all night to carry the exact intelligence to the authorities; and the next morning all Devonshire appeared to be marching for Torbay. Tourville speedily beheld numbers of armed horsemen, the gentry and yeomanry of the neighbourhood, assembled on the hills, and everything warned him to embark again as quickly as possible. But he would not retire without leaving some trace of his visit. He despatched a number of his galleys to Teignmouth, where the French landed, set fire to the town, burned down a hundred houses, destroyed the fishing-boats in the harbour, killed or drove away all the live stock they could find, and demolished the interior of the churches, the pulpits, the communion-tables, and the Bibles and Prayer-books, which they tore up and trampled under foot in their hatred of Protestantism. This specimen of what England was to expect if she received back James at the point of French bayonets produced the most salutary effects on the whole nation.