Part 48 (1/2)

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

Accession of James II.--Position of Public Affairs--Birth of an Heir--Landing of William of Orange--Arrival of King James in Ireland--The Siege of Derry--Cruelties of the Enniskilleners--Disease in Schomberg's Camp--The Battle of the Boyne--James' Defeat and Disgraceful Plight--The Siege of Athlone--The Siege of Limerick--Marlborough appears before Cork--William raises the Siege of Limerick and returns to England--The Siege of Athlone, Heroic Valour of its Defenders--The Battle of Aughrim--Surrender of Limerick.

[A.D. 1688-1691.]

King James' accession again raised the hopes of the Catholics, and again they were doomed to disappointment; while the Protestants, who had their fears also, soon learned that policy would bend itself to popularity.

Colonel Richard Talbot was now raised to the peerage as Earl of Tyrconnel, and appointed Commander-in-Chief of the forces, with an authority independent of the Lord Lieutenant. His character, as well as that of his royal master, has been judged rather by his political opinions than by facts, and both have suffered considerably at the hands of a modern historian, who has offered more than one holocaust to the manes of his hero, William of Orange.

The moderate and cautious Clarendon was appointed Viceroy, and did his best to appease the fears of the Protestants; but he was soon succeeded by Tyrconnel, whose zeal for Irish interests was not always tempered by sufficient moderation to conciliate English politicians. He had fought against O'Neill; he had opposed Rinuccini; he had served in the Duke of Ormonde's army; he had helped to defend Drogheda against the Republicans, and had lain there apparently dead, and thus escaped any further suffering; he was of the Anglo-Irish party, who were so faithfully loyal to the crown, and whose loyalty was repaid with such cold indifference; yet his virtues have been ignored, and Macaulay accuses him of having ”adhered to the old religion, like the Celts,”

which was true, and of ”having taken part with them in the rebellion of 1641,” which was not true.

James commenced his reign by proclaiming his desire for religious liberty. Individually he may not have been much beyond the age in opinion on this subject, but liberty of conscience was necessary for himself. He was a Catholic, and he made no secret of his religion; he was, therefore, obliged from this motive, if from no other, to accord the same boon to his subjects. The Quakers were set free in England, and the Catholics were set free in Ireland. But the Puritan faction, who had commenced by fighting for liberty of conscience for themselves, and who ended by fighting to deny liberty of conscience to others, were quite determined that neither Quakers nor Catholics should wors.h.i.+p G.o.d as they believed themselves bound to do. Such intolerance, unhappily, was not altogether confined to the illiterate. c.o.ke, in a previous generation, had declared that it was felony even to counsel the King to tolerate Catholics; and Usher, that it was a deadly sin. The King had neither the good sense nor the delicacy of feeling to guide him through these perils. His difficulties, and the complications which ensued, belong to the province of the English historian, but they were not the less felt in Ireland.

The Protestants professed to be afraid of being ma.s.sacred by the Catholics; the Catholics apprehended a ma.s.sacre from the Protestants.

Catholics were now admitted to the army, to the bar, and to the senate.

Protestants declared this an infringement of their rights, and forgot how recently they had expelled their Catholic fellow-subjects, not merely from honours and emoluments, but even from their altars and their homes.

An event now occurred which brought affairs to a crisis. The King's second wife, Mary of Modena, gave him an heir, and the heir appeared likely to live (A.D. 1688). William of Orange, who had long flattered himself that he should one day wear the crown of England, saw that no time should be lost if he intended to secure the prize, and commenced his preparations with all the ability and with all the duplicity for which his career has been admired by one party, and denounced by the other, according as political and religious opinions viewed the deceit under the strong light of the ability, or the ability under the glare of the deceit. The Protestant party could not but see all that was to be apprehended if a Catholic heir should succeed to the throne, and they sacrificed their loyalty to their interests, if not to their principles.

William arrived in England on the 5th of November, 1688. He professed to have come for the purpose of investigating the rumours which had been so industriously circulated respecting the birth of the heir who had barred his pretensions, and to induce the King to join the league which had been just formed against France; but he took care to come provided with an armament, which gave the lie to his diplomatic pretensions; and as soon as he had been joined by English troops, of whose disaffection he was well aware, his real motive was no longer concealed. James fled to France, whither he had already sent his Queen and heir. Still there was a large party in England who had not yet declared openly for the usurper; and had not James entirely alienated the affection of his subjects by his tyrannical treatment of the Protestant bishops, his conduct towards the University of Oxford, and the permission, if not the sanction, which he gave to Jeffreys in his b.l.o.o.d.y career, there can be little doubt that William should have fought for the crown on English ground as he did on Irish.

Ulster was princ.i.p.ally peopled by Protestant Presbyterians, from the north of Scotland. They were not likely to be very loyal even to a Stuart, for the Irish had been called over to Scotland before now to defend royal rights; they had not very defined religious opinions, except on the subject of hatred of Popery and Prelacy. It cannot be a matter of surprise, therefore, that these men hailed the prospect of a new sovereign, whose opinions, both religious and political, coincided with their own. If he, too, had very general views as to the rights of kings, and no very particular view as to rights of conscience being granted to any who did not agree with him, he was none the less acceptable.

Tyrconnel had neither men, money, nor arms, to meet the emergency. He had to withdraw the garrison from Derry to make up the contingent of 3,000 men, which he sent to a.s.sist the King in England; but they were immediately disarmed, and the young men of Derry closed their gates, and thus were the first to revolt openly against their lawful King. The native Irish had been loyal when loyalty cost them their lives, without obtaining for them any increased liberty to exercise their religion; they were, therefore, not less likely to be loyal now, when both civil and religious liberty might depend upon their fealty to the crown. The Enniskilleners revolted; and the whole of Ulster, except Charlemont and Carrickfergus, declared for William of Orange.

James determined to make an effort to regain his throne; and by this act rendered the attempt of his son-in-law simply a rebellion. Had the King declined the contest, had he violated the rules of government so grossly as no longer to merit the confidence of his people, or had there been no lawful heir to the throne, William's attempt might have been legitimate; under the circ.u.mstances, it was simply a successful rebellion. The King landed at Kinsale, on the 12th of March, 1689, attended by some Irish troops and French officers. He met Tyrconnel in Cork, created him a duke, and then proceeded to Bandon, where he received the submission of the people who had joined the rebellion. On his arrival in Dublin, he summoned a Parliament and issued proclamations, after which he proceeded to Derry, according to the advice of Tyrconnel. Useless negotiations followed; and James returned to Dublin, after having confided the conduct of the siege to General Hamilton. If that officer had not been incomparably more humane than the men with whom he had to deal, it is probable that the 'Prentice Boys of Derry would not have been able to join in their yearly commemoration of victory. The town was strongly fortified, and well supplied with artillery and ammunition; the besiegers were badly clad, badly provisioned, and dest.i.tute of almost every thing necessary to storm a town. Their only resource was to starve out the garrison; but of this resource they were partly deprived by the humanity of General Hamilton, who allowed a considerable number of men, women, and children to leave Derry, and thus enabled its defenders to hold out longer. Lundy, who urged them to capitulate to King James, was obliged to escape in disguise; and Major Baker, a.s.sisted by the Rev.

George Walker, a Protestant clergyman, then took the command. According to the statements of the latter, the garrison amounted to 7,500 men, and they had twenty-two cannon, which alone gave them an immense advantage over the royal army. So much has been already said and written, and sung of the bravery of the Derry men, that nothing more remains to say. That they were brave, and that they bravely defended the cause which they had adopted, there is no doubt; but if polemics had not mingled with politics in the encounter, it is quite possible that we should have heard no more of their exploits than of those other men, equally gallant and equally brave. The Enniskilleners, who have obtained an unenviable notoriety for their merciless cruelty in war, occupied the King's troops so as to prevent them from a.s.sisting the besiegers. Several encounters took place between the Derry men and the royalists, but with no other result than loss of lives on each side. On the 13th of June, a fleet of thirty s.h.i.+ps arrived from England with men and provisions; but the Irish had obtained the command of the river Foyle, and possession of Culmore Fort at the entrance, so that they were unable to enter. De Rosen was now sent by James to a.s.sist Hamilton. He proposed and carried out the barbarous expedition of driving all the Protestants whom he could find before the walls, and threatening to let them starve there to death unless the garrison surrendered. His plan was strongly disapproved by the King, it disgusted the Irish, and exasperated the besieged. The next day they erected a gallows on the ramparts, and threatened to hang their prisoners then and there if the unfortunate people were not removed. It is to the credit of the Derry men that they shared their provisions to the last with their prisoners, even while they were dying themselves of starvation. Perhaps the example of humanity set to them by General Hamilton was not without its effect, for kindness and cruelty seem equally contagious in time of war. Kirke's squadrons at last pa.s.sed the forts, broke the boom, and relieved the garrison, who could not have held out forty-eight hours longer. It was suspected that English gold had procured their admittance, and that the officers who commanded the forts were bribed to let them pa.s.s unscathed. The siege was at once raised; the royal army withdrew on the 5th of August; and thus terminated the world-famed siege of Derry.

James now held his Parliament in Dublin, repealed the Act of Settlement, pa.s.sed the Act of Attainder, and issued an immense quant.i.ty of base coin. He has been loudly condemned by some historians for these proceedings; but it should be remembered (1) that the Act of Settlement was a gross injustice, and, as such, it was but justice that it should be repealed. Had the measure been carried out, however severely it might have been felt by the Protestant party, they could not have suffered from the repeal as severely as the Catholics had suffered from the enactment. (2) The Act of Attainder simply proclaimed that the revolutionists were rebels against their lawful King, and that they should be treated as such. (3) The utterance of base coin had already been performed by several Governments, and James only availed himself of the prerogatives exercised by his predecessors.

The day on which the siege of Derry was raised, the royalists met with a severe reverse at Newtownbutler. They were under the command of Lord Mountcashel, when attacked by the Enniskilleners. The dragoons had already been dispirited by a reverse at Lisnaskea; and a word of command[538] which was given incorrectly, threw the old corps into confusion, from which their brave leader in vain endeavoured to rally them. Colonel Wolseley, an English officer, commanded the Enniskilleners; and the cruelties with which they hunted down the unfortunate fugitives, has made the name almost a byword of reproach.

Five hundred men plunged into Lough Erne to escape their fury, but of these only one was saved. Lord Mountcashel was taken prisoner, but he escaped eventually, and fled to France. Sarsfield, who commanded at Sligo, was obliged to retire to Athlone; and the victorious Williamites remained masters of that part of the country.

Schomberg arrived[539] at Bangor, in Down, on the 13th of August, 1689, with a large army, composed of Dutch, French Huguenots, and new levies from England. On the 17th he marched to Belfast, where he met with no resistance; and on the 27th Carrickfergus surrendered to him on honorable terms, after a siege of eight days, but not until its Governor, Colonel Charles MacCarthy More, was reduced to his last barrel of powder. Schomberg pitched on Dundalk for his winter quarters, and entrenched himself there strongly; but disease soon broke out in his camp, and it has been estimated that 10,000 men, fully one-half of the force, perished of want and dysentery. James challenged him to battle several times, but Schomberg was too prudent to risk an encounter in the state of his troops; and the King had not the moral courage to make the first attack. Complaints soon reached England of the condition to which the revolutionary army was reduced. If there were not ”own correspondents” then in camp, it is quite clear there were very sharp eyes and very nimble pens. Dr. Walker, whose military experience at Derry appears to have given him a taste for campaigning, was one of the complainants. William sent over a commission to inquire into the matter, who, as usual in such cases, arrived too late to do any good. The men wanted food, the horses wanted provender, the surgeons and apothecaries wanted medicines for the sick.[540] In fact, if we take a report of Crimean mismanagement, we shall have all the details, minus the statement that several of the officers drank themselves to death, and that some who were in power were charged with going shares in the embezzlement of the contractor, Mr. John Shales, who, whether guilty or not, was made the scapegoat on the occasion, and was accused, moreover, of having caused all this evil from partiality to King James, in whose service he had been previously. Mr. John Shales was therefore taken prisoner, and sent under a strong guard to Belfast, and from thence to London. As nothing more is heard of him, it is probable the matter was hushed up, or that he had powerful accomplices in his frauds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CASTLE OF TRIM.]

Abundant supplies arrived from England, which, if they could not restore the dead, served at least to renovate the living; and Schomberg was ready to take the field early in the year 1690, notwithstanding the loss of about 10,000 men. James, with the const.i.tutional fatuity of the Stuarts, had lost his opportunity. If he had attacked the motley army of the revolutionary party while the men were suffering from want and disease, and while his own troops were fresh and courageous, he might have conquered; the most sanguine now could scarcely see any other prospect for him than defeat. He was in want of everything; and he had no Englishmen who hoped for plunder, no French refugees who looked for a new home, no brave Dutchmen who loved fighting for its own sake, to fall back upon in the hour of calamity. His French counsellors only agreed to disagree with him. There was the ordinary amount of jealousy amongst the Irish officers--the inevitable result of the want of a competent leader in whom all could confide. The King was urged by one party (the French) to retire to Connaught, and entrench himself there until he should receive succours from France; he was urged by another party (the Irish) to attack Schomberg without delay. Louvais, the French Minister of War, divided his hatred with tolerable impartiality between James and William: therefore, though quite prepared to oppose the latter, he was by no means so willing to a.s.sist the former; and when he did send men to Ireland, under the command of the Count de Lauzan, he took care that their clothing and arms should be of the worst description. He received in exchange a reinforcement of the best-equipped and best-trained soldiers of the Irish army. Avaux and De Rosen were both sent back to France by James; and thus, with but few officers, badly-equipped troops, and his own miserable and vacillating counsel, he commenced the war which ended so gloriously or so disastrously, according to the different opinions of the actors in the fatal drama. In July, 1690, some of James'

party were defeated by the Williamites at Cavan, and several of his best officers were killed or made prisoners. Another engagement took place at Charlemont; the Governor, Teigue O'Regan, only yielded to starvation. He surrendered on honorable terms; and Schomberg, with equal humanity and courtesy, desired that each of his starving men should receive a loaf of bread at Armagh.

William had intended for some time to conduct the Irish campaign in person. He embarked near Chester on the 11th of June, and landed at Carrickfergus on the 14th, attended by Prince George of Denmark, the Duke of Wurtemburg, the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, the Duke of Ormonde, and the Earls of Oxford, Portland, Scarborough, and Manchester, with other persons of distinction. Schomberg met him half-way between Carrickfergus and Belfast. William, who had ridden so far, now entered the General's carriage, and drove to Belfast, where he was received with acclamations, and loud shouts of ”G.o.d bless the Protestant King!” There were bonfires and discharges of cannon at the various camps of the Williamites. The officers of several regiments paid their respects to him in state. On the 22nd the whole army encamped at Loughbrickland, near Newry. In the afternoon William came up and reviewed the troops, pitching his tent on a neighbouring eminence.[541] The army comprised a strange medley of nationalities. More than half were foreigners; and on these William placed his princ.i.p.al reliance, for at any moment a reaction might take place in favour of the lawful King. The Williamite army was well supplied, well trained, admirably commanded, accustomed to war, and amounted to between forty and fifty thousand. The Jacobite force only consisted of twenty thousand,[542] and of these a large proportion were raw recruits. The officers, however, were brave and skilful; but they had only twelve field-pieces, which had been recently received from France. On the 22nd, news came that James had encamped near Dundalk; on the 23rd he marched towards Drogheda. On the same day William went to Newry; he was thoroughly aware of the movements of his hapless father-in-law, for deserters came into his camp from time to time. James obtained his information from an English officer, Captain Farlow, and some soldiers whom he made prisoners at a trifling engagement which took place between Newry and Dundalk.

James now determined on a retreat to the Boyne through Ardee. His design was to protract the campaign as much as possible,--an arrangement which suited his irresolute habits; but where a kingdom was to be lost or won, it only served to discourage the troops and to defer the decisive moment.

The hostile forces confronted each other for the first time on the banks of the Boyne, June 30, 1689. The Jacobite army was posted on the declivity of the Hill of Dunore--its right wing towards Drogheda, its left extending up the river. The centre was at the small hamlet of Oldbridge. Entrenchments were hastily thrown up to defend the fords, and James took up his position at a ruined church on the top of the Hill of Dunore. The Williamite army approached from the north, their brave leader directing every movement, and inspiring his men with courage and confidence. He obtained a favourable position, and was completely screened from view until he appeared on the brow of the hill, where his forces debouched slowly and steadily into the ravines below. After planting his batteries on the heights, he kept up an incessant fire on the Irish lines during the afternoon of the 30th. But James' officers were on the alert, even if their King were indifferent. William was recognized as he approached near their lines to reconnoitre. Guns were brought up to bear on him quietly and stealthily; ”six shots were fired at him, one whereof fell and struck off the top of the Duke Wurtemberg's pistol and the whiskers of his horse, and another tore the King's coat on his shoulder.”[543]

William, like a wise general as he was, took care that the news of his accident should not dispirit his men. He showed himself everywhere, rode through the camp, was as agreeable as it was in his nature to be; and thus made capital of what might have been a cause of disaster. In the meantime James did all that was possible to secure a defeat. At one moment he decided to retreat, at the next he would risk a battle; then he sent off his baggage and six of his field-pieces to Dublin, for his own special protection; and while thus so remarkably careful of himself, he could not be persuaded to allow the most necessary precaution to be taken for the safety of his army. Hence the real marvel to posterity is, not that the battle of the Boyne should have been lost by the Irish, but that they should ever have attempted to fight at all. Perhaps nothing but the inherent loyalty of the Irish, which neither treachery nor pusillanimity could destroy, and the vivid remembrance of the cruel wrongs always inflicted by Protestants when in power, prevented them from rus.h.i.+ng over _en ma.s.se_ to William's side of the Boyne. Perhaps, in the history of nations, there never was so brave a resistance made for love of royal right and religious freedom, as that of the Irish officers and men who then fought on the Jacobite side.

The first attack of William's men was made at Slane. This was precisely what the Jacobite officers had antic.i.p.ated, and what James had obstinately refused to see. When it was too late, he allowed Lauzan to defend the ford, but even Sir Nial O'Neill's gallantry was unavailing.

The enemy had the advance, and Portland's artillery and infantry crossed at Slane. William now felt certain of victory, if, indeed, he had ever doubted it. It was low water at ten o'clock; the fords at Oldbridge were pa.s.sable; a tremendous battery was opened on the Irish lines; they had not a single gun to reply, and yet they waited steadily for the attack.

The Dutch Blue Guards dashed into the stream ten abreast, commanded by the Count de Solmes; the Londonderry and Enniskillen Dragoons followed, supported by the French Huguenots. The English infantry came next, under the command of Sir John Hanmer and the Count Na.s.sau. William crossed at the fifth ford, where the water was deepest, with the cavalry of his left wing. It was a grand and terrible sight. The men in the water fought for William and Protestantism; the men on land fought for their King and their Faith. The men were equally gallant. Of the leaders I shall say nothing, lest I should be tempted to say too much. James had followed Lauzan's forces towards Slane. Tyrconnel's valour could not save the day for Ireland against fearful odds. Sarsfield's horse had accompanied the King. The Huguenots were so warmly received by the Irish at the fords that they recoiled, and their commander, Caillemont, was mortally wounded. Schomberg forgot his age, and the affront he had received from William in the morning; and the man of eighty-two dashed into the river with the impetuosity of eighteen. He was killed immediately, and so was Dr. Walker, who headed the Ulster Protestants.