No More Learning

Russell proceeded to complain bitterly that the Whigs were neglected,
that the Revolution had aggrandised and enriched men who had made the
greatest efforts to avert it. And there is reason to believe that this
complaint came from his heart. For, next to his own interests, those
of his party were dear to him; and, even when he was most inclined to
become a Jacobite, he never had the smallest disposition to become a
Tory. In the temper which this letter indicates, he readily listened
to the suggestions of David Lloyd, one of the ablest and most active
emissaries who at this time were constantly plying between France and
England. Lloyd conveyed to James assurances that Russell would, when a
favourable opportunity should present itself, try to effect by means of
the fleet what Monk had effected in the preceding generation by means
of the army. [63] To what extent these assurances were sincere was a
question about which men who knew Russell well, and who were minutely
informed as to his conduct, were in doubt. It seems probable that,
during many months, he did not know his own mind. His interest was to
stand well, as long as possible, with both Kings. His irritable and
imperious nature was constantly impelling him to quarrel with both. His
spleen was excited one week by a dry answer from William, and the
next week by an absurd proclamation from James. Fortunately the most
important day of his life, the day from which all his subsequent years
took their colour, found him out of temper with the banished King.

Godolphin had not, and did not pretend to have, any cause of complaint
against the government which he served. He was First Commissioner of the
Treasury. He had been protected, trusted, caressed. Indeed the favour
shown to him had excited many murmurs. Was it fitting, the Whigs had
indignantly asked, that a man who had been high in office through the
whole of the late reign, who had promised to vote for the Indulgence,
who had sate in the Privy Council with a Jesuit, who had sate at the
Board of Treasury with two Papists, who had attended an idolatress to
her altar, should be among the chief ministers of a Prince whose title
to the throne was derived from the Declaration of Rights? But on William
this clamour had produced no effect; and none of his English servants
seems to have had at this time a larger share of his confidence than
Godolphin.

Nevertheless, the Jacobites did not despair. One of the most zealous
among them, a gentleman named Bulkeley, who had formerly been on terms
of intimacy with Godolphin, undertook to see what could be done. He
called at the Treasury, and tried to draw the First Lord into political
talk. This was no easy matter; for Godolphin was not a man to put
himself lightly into the power of others. His reserve was proverbial;
and he was especially renowned for the dexterity with which he, through
life, turned conversation away from matters of state to a main of cocks
or the pedigree of a racehorse. The visit ended without his uttering a
word indicating that he remembered the existence of King James.

Bulkeley, however, was not to be so repulsed. He came again, and
introduced the subject which was nearest his heart. Godolphin then asked
after his old master and mistress in the mournful tone of a man who
despaired of ever being reconciled to them. Bulkeley assured him that
King James was ready to forgive all the past. "May I tell His Majesty
that you will try to deserve his favour? " At this Godolphin rose, said
something about the trammels of office and his wish to be released from
them, and put an end to the interview.

Bulkeley soon made a third attempt. By this time Godolphin had
learned some things which shook his confidence in the stability of the
government which he served. He began to think, as he would himself have
expressed it, that he had betted too deep on the Revolution, and that
it was time to hedge. Evasions would no longer serve his turn. It was
necessary to speak out. He spoke out, and declared himself a devoted
servant of King James. "I shall take an early opportunity of resigning
my place. But, till then, I am under a tie. I must not betray my trust. "
To enhance the value of the sacrifice which he proposed to make, he
produced a most friendly and confidential letter which he had lately
received from William. "You see how entirely the Prince of Orange trusts
me. He tells me that he cannot do without me, and that there is no
Englishman for whom he has so great a kindness; but all this weighs
nothing with me in comparison of my duty to my lawful King. "

If the First Lord of the Treasury really had scruples about betraying
his trust, those scruples were soon so effectually removed that he
very complacently continued, during six years, to eat the bread of one
master, while secretly sending professions of attachment and promises of
service to another.

The truth is that Godolphin was under the influence of a mind far more
powerful and far more depraved than his own. His perplexities had
been imparted to Marlborough, to whom he had long been bound by such
friendship as two very unprincipled men are capable of feeling for each
other, and to whom he was afterwards bound by close domestic ties.

Marlborough was in a very different situation from that of William's
other servants. Lloyd might make overtures to Russell, and Bulkeley to
Godolphin. But all the agents of the banished Court stood aloof from
the traitor of Salisbury. That shameful night seemed to have for ever
separated the perjured deserter from the Prince whom he had ruined.
James had, even in the last extremity, when his army was in full
retreat, when his whole kingdom had risen against him, declared that
he would never pardon Churchill, never, never. By all the Jacobites the
name of Churchill was held in peculiar abhorrence; and, in the prose and
verse which came forth daily from their secret presses, a precedence in
infamy, among all the many traitors of the age, was assigned to him. In
the order of things which had sprung from the Revolution, he was one of
the great men of England, high in the state, high in the army. He
had been created an Earl. He had a large share in the military
administration. The emoluments, direct and indirect, of the places
and commands which he held under the Crown were believed at the Dutch
Embassy to amount to twelve thousand pounds a year. In the event of a
counterrevolution it seemed that he had nothing in prospect but a garret
in Holland, or a scaffold on Tower Hill. It might therefore have been
expected that he would serve his new master with fidelity, not
indeed with the fidelity of Nottingham, which was the fidelity of
conscientiousness, not with the fidelity of Portland, which was the
fidelity of affection, but with the not less stubborn fidelity of
despair.

Those who thought thus knew but little of Marlborough. Confident in his
own powers of deception, he resolved, since the Jacobite agents would
not seek him, to seek them. He therefore sent to beg an interview with
Colonel Edward Sackville.

Sackville was astonished and not much pleased by the message. He was a
sturdy Cavalier of the old school. He had been persecuted in the days of
the Popish plot for manfully saying what he thought, and what every body
now thinks, about Oates and Bedloe. [64] Since the Revolution he had
put his neck in peril for King James, had been chased by officers with
warrants, and had been designated as a traitor in a proclamation to
which Marlborough himself had been a party. [65] It was not without
reluctance that the stanch royalist crossed the hated threshold of the
deserter. He was repaid for his effort by the edifying spectacle of such
an agony of repentance as he had never before seen. "Will you," said
Marlborough, "be my intercessor with the King? Will you tell him what
I suffer? My crimes now appear to me in their true light; and I shrink
with horror from the contemplation. The thought of them is with me day
and night. I sit down to table; but I cannot eat. I throw myself on my
bed; but I cannot sleep. I am ready to sacrifice every thing, to brave
every thing, to bring utter ruin on my fortunes, if only I may be free
from the misery of a wounded spirit. " If appearances could be trusted,
this great offender was as true a penitent as David or as Peter.
Sackville reported to his friends what had passed. They could not but
acknowledge that, if the arch traitor, who had hitherto opposed to
conscience and to public opinion the same cool and placid hardihood
which distinguished him on fields of battle, had really begun to feel
remorse, it would be absurd to reject, on account of his unworthiness,
the inestimable services which it was in his power to render to the
good cause. He sate in the interior council; he held high command in
the army; he had been recently entrusted, and would doubtless again be
entrusted, with the direction of important military operations. It was
true that no man had incurred equal guilt; but it was true also that no
man had it in his power to make equal reparation. If he was sincere,
he might doubtless earn the pardon which he so much desired. But was he
sincere? Had he not been just as loud in professions of loyalty on the
very eve of his crime? It was necessary to put him to the test. Several
tests were applied by Sackville and Lloyd. Marlborough was required to
furnish full information touching the strength and the distribution of
all the divisions of the English army; and he complied. He was required
to disclose the whole plan of the approaching campaign; and he did so.
The Jacobite leaders watched carefully for inaccuracies in his reports,
but could find none. It was thought a still stronger proof of his
fidelity that he gave valuable intelligence about what was doing in the
office of the Secretary of State. A deposition had been sworn against
one zealous royalist. A warrant was preparing against another. These
intimations saved several of the malecontents from imprisonment, if
not from the gallows; and it was impossible for them not to feel some
relenting towards the awakened sinner to whom they owed so much.

He however, in his secret conversations with his new allies, laid no
claim to merit. He did not, he said, ask for confidence. How could he,
after the villanies which he had committed against the best of Kings,
hope ever to be trusted again? It was enough for a wretch like him to be
permitted to make, at the cost of his life, some poor atonement to the
gracious master, whom he had indeed basely injured, but whom he had
never ceased to love. It was not improbable that, in the summer, he
might command the English forces in Flanders. Was it wished that he
should bring them over in a body to the French camp? If such were the
royal pleasure, he would undertake that the thing should be done. But
on the whole he thought that it would be better to wait till the next
session of Parliament. And then he hinted at a plan which he afterwards
more fully matured, for expelling the usurper by means of the English
legislature and the English army. In the meantime he hoped that James
would command Godolphin not to quit the Treasury. A private man could
do little for the good cause. One who was the director of the national
finances, and the depository of the gravest secrets of state, might
render inestimable services.

Marlborough's pretended repentance imposed so completely on those who
managed the affairs of James in London that they sent Lloyd to France,
with the cheering intelligence that the most depraved of all rebels had
been wonderfully transformed into a loyal subject. The tidings filled
James with delight and hope. Had he been wise, they would have excited
in him only aversion and distrust. It was absurd to imagine that a man
really heartbroken by remorse and shame for one act of perfidy would
determine to lighten his conscience by committing a second act of
perfidy as odious and as disgraceful as the first. The promised
atonement was so wicked and base that it never could be made by any man
sincerely desirous to atone for past wickedness and baseness. The truth
was that, when Marlborough told the Jacobites that his sense of guilt
prevented him from swallowing his food by day and taking his rest at
night, he was laughing at them. The loss of half a guinea would have
done more to spoil his appetite and to disturb his slumbers than all the
terrors of an evil conscience. What his offers really proved was that
his former crime had sprung, not from an ill regulated zeal for the
interests of his country and his religion, but from a deep and incurable
moral disease which had infected the whole man. James, however, partly
from dulness and partly from selfishness, could never see any immorality
in any action by which he was benefited. To conspire against him, to
betray him, to break an oath of allegiance sworn to him, were crimes for
which no punishment here or hereafter could be too severe. But to murder
his enemies, to break faith with his enemies was not only innocent but
laudable. The desertion at Salisbury had been the worst of crimes;
for it had ruined him. A similar desertion in Flanders would be an
honourable exploit; for it might restore him.

The penitent was informed by his Jacobite friends that he was forgiven.
The news was most welcome; but something more was necessary to restore
his lost peace of mind. Might he hope to have, in the royal handwriting,
two lines containing a promise of pardon? It was not, of course, for
his own sake that he asked this. But he was confident that, with such
a document in his hands, he could bring back to the right path some
persons of great note who adhered to the usurper, only because they
imagined that they had no mercy to expect from the legitimate King. They
would return to their duty as soon as they saw that even the worst of
all criminals had, on his repentance, been generously forgiven. The
promise was written, sent, and carefully treasured up. Marlborough had
now attained one object, an object which was common to him with Russell
and Godolphin. But he had other objects which neither Russell nor
Godolphin had ever contemplated. There is, as we shall hereafter
see, strong reason to believe that this wise, brave, wicked man, was
meditating a plan worthy of his fertile intellect and daring spirit, and
not less worthy of his deeply corrupted heart, a plan which, if it had
not been frustrated by strange means, would have ruined William without
benefiting James, and would have made the successful traitor master of
England and arbiter of Europe.

Thus things stood, when, in May 1691, William, after a short and busy
sojourn in England, set out again for the Continent, where the regular
campaign was about to open. He took with him Marlborough, whose
abilities he justly appreciated, and of whose recent negotiations with
Saint Germains he had not the faintest suspicion. At the Hague several
important military and political consultations were held; and, on every
occasion, the superiority of the accomplished Englishman was felt by
the most distinguished soldiers and statesmen of the United Provinces.
Heinsius, long after, used to relate a conversation which took place at
this time between William and the Prince of Vaudemont, one of the ablest
commanders in the Dutch service. Vaudemont spoke well of several
English officers, and among them of Talmash and Mackay, but pronounced
Marlborough superior beyond comparison to the rest. "He has every
quality of a general. His very look shows it. He cannot fail to achieve
something great. " "I really believe, cousin," answered the King, "that
my Lord will make good every thing that you have said of him. "

There was still a short interval before the commencement of military
operations. William passed that interval in his beloved park at Loo.
Marlborough spent two or three days there, and was then despatched to
Flanders with orders to collect all the English forces, to form a camp
in the neighbourhood of Brussels, and to have every thing in readiness
for the King's arrival.

And now Marlborough had an opportunity of proving the sincerity of those
professions by which he had obtained from a heart, well described by
himself as harder than a marble chimneypiece, the pardon of an offence
such as might have moved even a gentle nature to deadly resentment. He
received from Saint Germains a message claiming the instant performance
of his promise to desert at the head of his troops. He was told that
this was the greatest service which he could render to the Crown. His
word was pledged; and the gracious master who had forgiven all past
errors confidently expected that it would be redeemed. The hypocrite
evaded the demand with characteristic dexterity. In the most respectful
and affectionate language he excused himself for not immediately obeying
the royal commands. The promise which he was required to fulfil had not
been quite correctly understood. There had been some misapprehension
on the part of the messengers. To carry over a regiment or two would
do more harm than good. To carry over a whole army was a business which
would require much time and management. [66] While James was murmuring
over these apologies, and wishing that he had not been quite so
placable, William arrived at the head quarters of the allied forces, and
took the chief command.

The military operations in Flanders recommenced early in June and
terminated at the close of September. No important action took place.
The two armies marched and countermarched, drew near and receded. During
some time they confronted each other with less than a league between
them. But neither William nor Luxemburg would fight except at an
advantage; and neither gave the other any advantage. Languid as the
campaign was, it is on one account remarkable. During more than a
century our country had sent no great force to make war by land out of
the British isles. Our aristocracy had therefore long ceased to be
a military class. The nobles of France, of Germany, of Holland, were
generally soldiers. It would probably have been difficult to find in the
brilliant circle which surrounded Lewis at Versailles a single Marquess
or Viscount of forty who had not been at some battle or siege. But the
immense majority of our peers, baronets and opulent esquires had never
served except in the trainbands, and had never borne a part in any
military exploit more serious than that of putting down a riot or of
keeping a street clear for a procession. The generation which had fought
at Edgehill and Lansdowne had nearly passed away. The wars of Charles
the Second had been almost entirely maritime. During his reign therefore
the sea service had been decidedly more the mode than the land service;
and, repeatedly, when our fleet sailed to encounter the Dutch, such
multitudes of men of fashion had gone on board that the parks and the
theatres had been left desolate. In 1691 at length, for the first time
since Henry the Eighth laid siege to Boulogne, an English army appeared
on the Continent under the command of an English king. A camp, which was
also a court, was irresistibly attractive to many young patricians
full of natural intrepidity, and ambitious of the favour which men
of distinguished bravery have always found in the eyes of women. To
volunteer for Flanders became the rage among the fine gentlemen who
combed their flowing wigs and exchanged their richly perfumed snuffs at
the Saint James's Coffeehouse. William's headquarters were enlivened
by a crowd of splendid equipages and by a rapid succession of sumptuous
banquets. For among the high born and high spirited youths who repaired
to his standard were some who, though quite willing to face a battery,
were not at all disposed to deny themselves the luxuries with which they
had been surrounded in Soho Square. In a few months Shadwell brought
these valiant fops and epicures on the stage. The town was made merry
with the character of a courageous but prodigal and effeminate coxcomb,
who is impatient to cross swords with the best men in the French
household troops, but who is much dejected by learning that he may find
it difficult to have his champagne iced daily during the summer. He
carries with him cooks, confectioners and laundresses, a waggonload of
plate, a wardrobe of laced and embroidered suits, and much rich tent
furniture, of which the patterns have been chosen by a committee of fine
ladies. [67]

While the hostile armies watched each other in Flanders, hostilities
were carried on with somewhat more vigour in other parts of Europe.
The French gained some advantages in Catalonia and in Piedmont. Their
Turkish allies, who in the east menaced the dominions of the Emperor,
were defeated by Lewis of Baden in a great battle. But nowhere were the
events of the summer so important as in Ireland.

From October 1690 till May 1691, no military operation on a large scale
was attempted in that kingdom. The area of the island was, during the
winter and spring, not unequally divided between the contending races.
The whole of Ulster, the greater part of Leinster and about one third
of Munster had submitted to the English. The whole of Connaught, the
greater part of Munster, and two or three counties of Leinster were held
by the Irish. The tortuous boundary formed by William's garrisons ran
in a north eastern direction from the bay of Castlehaven to Mallow, and
then, inclining still further eastward, proceeded to Cashel. From
Cashel the line went to Mullingar, from Mullingar to Longford, and from
Longford to Cavan, skirted Lough Erne on the west, and met the ocean
again at Ballyshannon. [68]

On the English side of this pale there was a rude and imperfect order.
Two Lords Justices, Coningsby and Porter, assisted by a Privy Council,
represented King William at Dublin Castle. Judges, Sheriffs and
Justices of the Peace had been appointed; and assizes were, after a long
interval, held in several county towns. The colonists had meanwhile
been formed into a strong militia, under the command of officers who had
commissions from the Crown. The trainbands of the capital consisted of
two thousand five hundred foot, two troops of horse and two troops
of dragoons, all Protestants and all well armed and clad. [69] On the
fourth of November, the anniversary of William's birth, and on the
fifth, the anniversary of his landing at Torbay, the whole of this force
appeared in all the pomp of war. The vanquished and disarmed natives
assisted, with suppressed grief and anger, at the triumph of the
caste which they had, five months before, oppressed and plundered with
impunity. The Lords Justices went in state to Saint Patrick's Cathedral;
bells were rung; bonfires were lighted; hogsheads of ale and claret were
set abroach in the streets; fireworks were exhibited on College Green; a
great company of nobles and public functionaries feasted at the Castle;
and, as the second course came up, the trumpets sounded, and Ulster King
at Arms proclaimed, in Latin, French and English, William and Mary, by
the grace of God, King and Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.
[70]

Within the territory where the Saxon race was dominant, trade and
industry had already begun to revive. The brazen counters which bore the
image and superscription of James gave place to silver. The fugitives
who had taken refuge in England came back in multitudes; and, by their
intelligence, diligence and thrift, the devastation caused by two years
of confusion and robbery was soon in part repaired. Merchantmen heavily
laden were constantly passing and repassing Saint George's Channel.
The receipts of the custom houses on the eastern coast, from Cork to
Londonderry, amounted in six months to sixty-seven thousand five hundred
pounds, a sum such as would have been thought extraordinary even in the
most prosperous times. [71]

The Irish who remained within the English pale were, one and all,
hostile to the English domination. They were therefore subjected to
a rigorous system of police, the natural though lamentable effect of
extreme danger and extreme provocation. A Papist was not permitted to
have a sword or a gun. He was not permitted to go more than three miles
out of his parish except to the market town on the market day. Lest he
should give information or assistance to his brethren who occupied the
western half of the island, he was forbidden to live within ten miles of
the frontier. Lest he should turn his house into a place of resort
for malecontents, he was forbidden to sell liquor by retail. One
proclamation announced that, if the property of any Protestant should be
injured by marauders, his loss should be made good at the expense of his
Popish neighbours. Another gave notice that, if any Papist who had not
been at least three months domiciled in Dublin should be found there, he
should be treated as a spy.
Not more than five Papists were to assemble
in the capital or its neighbourhood on any pretext. Without a protection
from the government no member of the Church of Rome was safe; and the
government would not grant a protection to any member of the Church of
Rome who had a son in the Irish army. [72]

In spite of all precautions and severities, however, the Celt found many
opportunities of taking a sly revenge. Houses and barns were frequently
burned; soldiers were frequently murdered; and it was scarcely possible
to obtain evidence against the malefactors, who had with them the
sympathies of the whole population. On such occasions the government
sometimes ventured on acts which seemed better suited to a Turkish than
to an English administration. One of these acts became a favourite theme
of Jacobite pamphleteers, and was the subject of a serious parliamentary
inquiry at Westminster. Six musketeers were found butchered only a few
miles from Dublin. The inhabitants of the village where the crime had
been committed, men, women, and children, were driven like sheep into
the Castle, where the Privy Council was sitting. The heart of one of the
assassins, named Gafney, failed him. He consented to be a witness, was
examined by the Board, acknowledged his guilt, and named some of his
accomplices. He was then removed in custody; but a priest obtained
access to him during a few minutes. What passed during those few minutes
appeared when he was a second time brought before the Council. He had
the effrontery to deny that he had owned any thing or accused any body.
His hearers, several of whom had taken down his confession in writing,
were enraged at his impudence. The Lords justices broke out; "You are
a rogue; You are a villain; You shall be hanged; Where is the Provost
Marshal? " The Provost Marshal came. "Take that man," said Coningsby,
pointing to Gafney; "take that man, and hang him. " There was no gallows
ready; but the carriage of a gun served the purpose; and the prisoner
was instantly tied up without a trial, without even a written order for
the execution; and this though the courts of law were sitting at the
distance of only a few hundred yards. The English House of Commons, some
years later, after a long discussion, resolved, without a division, that
the order for the execution of Gafney was arbitrary and illegal, but
that Coningsby's fault was so much extenuated by the circumstances in
which he was placed that it was not a proper subject for impeachment.
[73]

It was not only by the implacable hostility of the Irish that the Saxon
of the pale was at this time harassed. His allies caused him almost as
much annoyance as his helots. The help of troops from abroad was indeed
necessary to him; but it was dearly bought. Even William, in whom
the whole civil and military authority was concentrated, had found it
difficult to maintain discipline in an army collected from many lands,
and composed in great part of mercenaries accustomed to live at free
quarters. The powers which had been united in him were now divided and
subdivided. The two Lords justices considered the civil administration
as their province, and left the army to the management of Ginkell, who
was General in Chief. Ginkell kept excellent order among the auxiliaries
from Holland, who were under his more immediate command. But his
authority over the English and the Danes was less entire; and
unfortunately their pay was, during part of the winter, in arrear. They
indemnified themselves by excesses and exactions for the want of that
which was their due; and it was hardly possible to punish men with
severity for not choosing to starve with arms in their hands. At length
in the spring large supplies of money and stores arrived; arrears
were paid up; rations were plentiful; and a more rigid discipline was
enforced. But too many traces of the bad habits which the soldiers had
contracted were discernible till the close of the war. [74]

In that part of Ireland, meanwhile, which still acknowledged James as
King, there could hardly be said to be any law, any property, or any
government. The Roman Catholics of Ulster and Leinster had fled westward
by tens of thousands, driving before them a large part of the cattle
which had escaped the havoc of two terrible years. The influx of food
into the Celtic region, however, was far from keeping pace with the
influx of consumers. The necessaries of life were scarce. Conveniences
to which every plain farmer and burgess in England was accustomed could
hardly be procured by nobles and generals. No coin was to be seen except
lumps of base metal which were called crowns and shillings. Nominal
prices were enormously high. A quart of ale cost two and sixpence, a
quart of brandy three pounds. The only towns of any note on the western
coast were Limerick and Galway; and the oppression which the shopkeepers
of those towns underwent was such that many of them stole away with the
remains of their stocks to the English territory, where a Papist, though
he had to endure much restraint and much humiliation, was allowed to
put his own price on his goods, and received that price in silver.
Those traders who remained within the unhappy region were ruined.
Every warehouse that contained any valuable property was broken open by
ruffians who pretended that they were commissioned to procure stores for
the public service; and the owner received, in return for bales of cloth
and hogsheads of sugar, some fragments of old kettles and saucepans,
which would not in London or Paris have been taken by a beggar.

As soon as a merchant ship arrived in the bay of Galway or in the
Shannon, she was boarded by these robbers. The cargo was carried away;
and the proprietor was forced to content himself with such a quantity
of cowhides, of wool and of tallow as the gang which had plundered him
chose to give him. The consequence was that, while foreign commodities
were pouring fast into the harbours of Londonderry, Carrickfergus,
Dublin, Waterford and Cork, every mariner avoided Limerick and Galway as
nests of pirates. [75]

The distinction between the Irish foot soldier and the Irish Rapparee
had never been very strongly marked. It now disappeared. Great part of
the army was turned loose to live by marauding. An incessant predatory
war raged along the line which separated the domain of William from
that of James. Every day companies of freebooters, sometimes wrapped in
twisted straw which served the purpose of armour, stole into the English
territory, burned, sacked, pillaged, and hastened back to their
own ground. To guard against these incursions was not easy; for the
peasantry of the plundered country had a strong fellow feeling with the
plunderers. To empty the granary, to set fire to the dwelling, to drive
away the cows, of a heretic was regarded by every squalid inhabitant
of a mud cabin as a good work. A troop engaged in such a work might
confidently expect to fall in, notwithstanding all the proclamations
of the Lords justices, with some friend who would indicate the richest
booty, the shortest road, and the safest hiding place. The English
complained that it was no easy matter to catch a Rapparee. Sometimes,
when he saw danger approaching, he lay down in the long grass of the
bog; and then it was as difficult to find him as to find a hare sitting.
Sometimes he sprang into a stream, and lay there, like an otter, with
only his mouth and nostrils above the water. Nay, a whole gang of
banditti would, in the twinkling of an eye, transform itself into a
crowd of harmless labourers. Every man took his gun to pieces, hid the
lock in his clothes, stuck a cork in the muzzle, stopped the touch hole
with a quill, and threw the weapon into the next pond. Nothing was to be
seen but a train of poor rustics who had not so much as a cudgel among
them, and whose humble look and crouching walk seemed to show that their
spirit was thoroughly broken to slavery. When the peril was over, when
the signal was given, every man flew to the place where he had hid his
arms; and soon the robbers were in full march towards some Protestant
mansion. One band penetrated to Clonmel, another to the vicinity of
Maryborough; a third made its den in a woody islet of firm ground,
surrounded by the vast bog of Allen, harried the county of Wicklow, and
alarmed even the suburbs of Dublin. Such expeditions indeed were not
always successful. Sometimes the plunderers fell in with parties of
militia or with detachments from the English garrisons, in situations in
which disguise, flight and resistance were alike impossible. When this
happened every kerne who was taken was hanged, without any ceremony, on
the nearest tree. [76]

At the head quarters of the Irish army there was, during the winter, no
authority capable of exacting obedience even within a circle of a mile.
Tyrconnel was absent at the Court of France. He had left the supreme
government in the hands of a Council of Regency composed of twelve
persons. The nominal command of the army he had confided to Berwick; but
Berwick, though, as was afterwards proved, a man of no common courage
and capacity, was young and inexperienced. His powers were unsuspected
by the world and by himself; [77] and he submitted without reluctance
to the tutelage of a Council of War nominated by the Lord Lieutenant.
Neither the Council of Regency nor the Council of War was popular at
Limerick. The Irish complained that men who were not Irish had been
entrusted with a large share in the administration. The cry was loudest
against an officer named Thomas Maxwell. For it was certain that he was
a Scotchman; it was doubtful whether he was a Roman Catholic; and he had
not concealed the dislike which he felt for that Celtic Parliament which
had repealed the Act of Settlement and passed the Act of Attainder.
[78] The discontent, fomented by the arts of intriguers, among whom
the cunning and unprincipled Henry Luttrell seems to have been the most
active, soon broke forth into open rebellion. A great meeting was held.
Many officers of the army, some peers, some lawyers of high note and
some prelates of the Roman Catholic Church were present. It was resolved
that the government set up by the Lord Lieutenant was unknown to the
constitution. Ireland, it was said, could be legally governed, in the
absence of the King, only by a Lord Lieutenant, by a Lord Deputy or by
Lords Justices. The King was absent. The Lord Lieutenant was absent.
There was no Lord Deputy. There were no Lords Justices. The Act by
which Tyrconnel had delegated his authority to a junto composed of his
creatures was a mere nullity. The nation was therefore left without any
legitimate chief, and might, without violating the allegiance due to
the Crown, make temporary provision for its own safety. A deputation was
sent to inform Berwick that he had assumed a power to which he had
no right, but that nevertheless the army and people of Ireland would
willingly acknowledge him as their head if he would consent to govern by
the advice of a council truly Irish. Berwick indignantly expressed his
wonder that military men should presume to meet and deliberate without
the permission of their general. They answered that there was no
general, and that, if His Grace did not choose to undertake the
administration on the terms proposed, another leader would easily be
found. Berwick very reluctantly yielded, and continued to be a puppet in
a new set of hands. [79]

Those who had effected this revolution thought it prudent to send a
deputation to France for the purpose of vindicating their proceedings.
Of the deputation the Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork and the two
Luttrells were members. In the ship which conveyed them from Limerick
to Brest they found a fellow passenger whose presence was by no means
agreeable to them, their enemy, Maxwell. They suspected, and not without
reason, that he was going, like them, to Saint Germains, but on a very
different errand. The truth was that Berwick had sent Maxwell to watch
their motions and to traverse their designs. Henry Luttrell, the least
scrupulous of men, proposed to settle the matter at once by tossing the
Scotchman into the sea. But the Bishop, who was a man of conscience,
and Simon Luttrell, who was a man of honour, objected to this expedient.
[80]

Meanwhile at Limerick the supreme power was in abeyance. Berwick,
finding that he had no real authority, altogether neglected business,
and gave himself up to such pleasures as that dreary place of banishment
afforded. There was among the Irish chiefs no man of sufficient weight
and ability to control the rest. Sarsfield for a time took the lead. But
Sarsfield, though eminently brave and active in the field, was little
skilled in the administration of war, and still less skilled in civil
business. Those who were most desirous to support his authority were
forced to own that his nature was too unsuspicious and indulgent for
a post in which it was hardly possible to be too distrustful or too
severe. He believed whatever was told him. He signed whatever was set
before him. The commissaries, encouraged by his lenity, robbed and
embezzled more shamelessly than ever. They sallied forth daily, guarded
by pikes and firelocks, to seize, nominally for the public service, but
really for themselves, wool, linen, leather, tallow, domestic utensils,
instruments of husbandry, searched every pantry, every wardrobe, every
cellar, and even laid sacrilegious hands on the property of priests and
prelates. [81]

Early in the spring the government, if it is to be so called, of
which Berwick was the ostensible head, was dissolved by the return of
Tyrconnel. The Luttrells had, in the name of their countrymen, implored
James not to subject so loyal a people to so odious and incapable a
viceroy. Tyrconnel, they said, was old; he was infirm; he needed much
sleep; he knew nothing of war; he was dilatory; he was partial; he was
rapacious; he was distrusted and hated by the whole nation. The Irish,
deserted by him, had made a gallant stand, and had compelled the
victorious army of the Prince of Orange to retreat. They hoped soon to
take the field again, thirty thousand strong; and they adjured their
King to send them some captain worthy to command such a force. Tyrconnel
and Maxwell, on the other hand, represented the delegates as mutineers,
demagogues, traitors, and pressed James to send Henry Luttrell to
keep Mountjoy company in the Bastille. James, bewildered by these
criminations and recriminations, hesitated long, and at last, with
characteristic wisdom, relieved himself from trouble by giving all the
quarrellers fair words and by sending them all back to have their fight
out in Ireland. Berwick was at the same time recalled to France. [82]

Tyrconnel was received at Limerick, even by his enemies, with decent
respect. Much as they hated him, they could not question the validity
of his commission; and, though they still maintained that they had
been perfectly justified in annulling, during his absence, the
unconstitutional arrangements which he had made, they acknowledged that,
when he was present, he was their lawful governor. He was not altogether
unprovided with the means of conciliating them. He brought many gracious
messages and promises, a patent of peerage for Sarsfield, some
money which was not of brass, and some clothing, which was even more
acceptable than money. The new garments were not indeed very fine. But
even the generals had long been out at elbows; and there were few of the
common men whose habiliments would have been thought sufficient to dress
a scarecrow in a more prosperous country. Now, at length, for the first
time in many months, every private soldier could boast of a pair of
breeches and a pair of brogues. The Lord Lieutenant had also been
authorised to announce that he should soon be followed by several ships,
laden with provisions and military stores. This announcement was most
welcome to the troops, who had long been without bread, and who had
nothing stronger than water to drink. [83]

During some weeks the supplies were impatiently expected. At last,
Tyrconnel was forced to shut himself up; for, whenever he appeared in
public, the soldiers ran after him clamouring for food. Even the beef
and mutton, which, half raw, half burned, without vegetables, without
salt, had hitherto supported the army, had become scarce; and the common
men were on rations of horseflesh when the promised sails were seen in
the mouth of the Shannon. [84]

A distinguished French general, named Saint Ruth, was on board with his
staff. He brought a commission which appointed him commander in chief of
the Irish army. The commission did not expressly declare that he was to
be independent of the viceregal authority; but he had been assured by
James that Tyrconnel should have secret instructions not to intermeddle
in the conduct of the war. Saint Ruth was assisted by another general
officer named D'Usson. The French ships brought some arms, some
ammunition, and a plentiful supply of corn and flour. The spirits of the
Irish rose; and the Te Deum was chaunted with fervent devotion in the
cathedral of Limerick. [85]

Tyrconnel had made no preparations for the approaching campaign. But
Saint Ruth, as soon as he had landed, exerted himself strenuously to
redeem the time which had been lost. He was a man of courage, activity
and resolution, but of a harsh and imperious nature. In his own country
he was celebrated as the most merciless persecutor that had ever
dragooned the Huguenots to mass. It was asserted by English Whigs that
he was known in France by the nickname of the Hangman; that, at Rome,
the very cardinals had shown their abhorrence of his cruelty; and
that even Queen Christina, who had little right to be squeamish about
bloodshed, had turned away from him with loathing. He had recently held
a command in Savoy. The Irish regiments in the French service had formed
part of his army, and had behaved extremely well. It was therefore
supposed that he had a peculiar talent for managing Irish troops. But
there was a wide difference between the well clad, well armed and well
drilled Irish, with whom he was familiar, and the ragged marauders whom
he found swarming in the alleys of Limerick. Accustomed to the splendour
and the discipline of French camps and garrisons, he was disgusted by
finding that, in the country to which he had been sent, a regiment of
infantry meant a mob of people as naked, as dirty and as disorderly
as the beggars, whom he had been accustomed to see on the Continent
besieging the door of a monastery or pursuing a diligence up him. With
ill concealed contempt, however, he addressed himself vigorously to the
task of disciplining these strange soldiers, and was day and night in
the saddle, galloping from post to post, from Limerick to Athlone, from
Athlone to the northern extremity of Lough Rea, and from Lough Rea back
to Limerick. [86]

It was indeed necessary that he should bestir himself; for, a few days
after his arrival, he learned that, on the other side of the Pale,
all was ready for action. The greater part of the English force was
collected, before the close of May, in the neighbourhood of Mullingar.
Ginkell commanded in chief. He had under him the two best officers,
after Marlborough, of whom our island could then boast, Talmash and
Mackay. The Marquess of Ruvigny, the hereditary chief of the refugees,
and elder brother of the brave Caillemot, who had fallen at the Boyne,
had joined the army with the rank of major general. The Lord Justice
Coningsby, though not by profession a soldier, came down from Dublin, to
animate the zeal of the troops. The appearance of the camp showed that
the money voted by the English Parliament had not been spared. The
uniforms were new; the ranks were one blaze of scarlet; and the train of
artillery was such as had never before been seen in Ireland. [87]

On the sixth of June Ginkell moved his head quarters from Mullingar. On
the seventh he reached Ballymore. At Ballymore, on a peninsula almost
surrounded by something between a swamp and a lake, stood an ancient
fortress, which had recently been fortified under Sarsfield's direction,
and which was defended by above a thousand men. The English guns were
instantly planted. In a few hours the besiegers had the satisfaction of
seeing the besieged running like rabbits from one shelter to another.
The governor, who had at first held high language, begged piteously for
quarter, and obtained it. The whole garrison were marched off to Dublin.
Only eight of the conquerors had fallen. [88]

Ginkell passed some days in reconstructing the defences of Ballymore.
This work had scarcely been performed when he was joined by the Danish
auxiliaries under the command of the Duke of Wirtemberg. The whole army
then moved westward, and, on the nineteenth of June, appeared before the
walls of Athlone. [89]

Athlone was perhaps, in a military point of view, the most important
place in the island. Rosen, who understood war well, had always
maintained that it was there that the Irishry would, with most
advantage, make a stand against the Englishry. [90] The town, which was
surrounded by ramparts of earth, lay partly in Leinster and partly
in Connaught. The English quarter, which was in Leinster, had once
consisted of new and handsome houses, but had been burned by the Irish
some months before, and now lay in heaps of ruin. The Celtic quarter,
which was in Connaught, was old and meanly built. [91] The Shannon,
which is the boundary of the two provinces, rushed through Athlone in
a deep and rapid stream, and turned two large mills which rose on the
arches of a stone bridge. Above the bridge, on the Connaught side,
a castle, built, it was said, by King John, towered to the height of
seventy feet, and extended two hundred feet along the river. Fifty or
sixty yards below the bridge was a narrow ford. [92]

During the night of the nineteenth the English placed their cannon. On
the morning of the twentieth the firing began. At five in the afternoon
an assault was made. A brave French refugee with a grenade in his hand
was the first to climb the breach, and fell, cheering his countrymen to
the onset with his latest breath. Such were the gallant spirits which
the bigotry of Lewis had sent to recruit, in the time of his utmost
need, the armies of his deadliest enemies. The example was not lost. The
grenades fell thick. The assailants mounted by hundreds. The Irish gave
way and ran towards the bridge. There the press was so great that some
of the fugitives were crushed to death in the narrow passage, and others
were forced over the parapets into the waters which roared among the
mill wheels below. In a few hours Ginkell had made himself master of the
English quarter of Athlone; and this success had cost him only twenty
men killed and forty wounded. [93]

But his work was only begun. Between him and the Irish town the Shannon
ran fiercely. The bridge was so narrow that a few resolute men might
keep it against an army. The mills which stood on it were strongly
guarded; and it was commanded by the guns of the castle. That part of
the Connaught shore where the river was fordable was defended by works,
which the Lord Lieutenant had, in spite of the murmurs of a powerful
party, forced Saint Ruth to entrust to the care of Maxwell. Maxwell had
come back from France a more unpopular man than he had been when he
went thither. It was rumoured that he had, at Versailles, spoken
opprobriously of the Irish nation; and he had, on this account, been,
only a few days before, publicly affronted by Sarsfield. [94] On the
twenty-first of June the English were busied in flinging up batteries
along the Leinster bank. On the twenty-second, soon after dawn, the
cannonade began. The firing continued all that day and all the following
night. When morning broke again, one whole side of the castle had been
beaten down; the thatched lanes of the Celtic town lay in ashes; and one
of the mills had been burned with sixty soldiers who defended it. [95]

Still however the Irish defended the bridge resolutely. During several
days there was sharp fighting hand to hand in the strait passage. The
assailants gained ground, but gained it inch by inch. The courage of the
garrison was sustained by the hope of speedy succour. Saint Ruth had at
length completed his preparations; and the tidings that Athlone was
in danger had induced him to take the field in haste at the head of an
army, superior in number, though inferior in more important elements of
military strength, to the army of Ginkell. The French general seems to
have thought that the bridge and the ford might easily be defended, till
the autumnal rains and the pestilence which ordinarily accompanied them
should compel the enemy to retire. He therefore contented himself with
sending successive detachments to reinforce the garrison. The immediate
conduct of the defence he entrusted to his second in command, D'Usson,
and fixed his own head quarters two or three miles from the town. He
expressed his astonishment that so experienced a commander as Ginkell
should persist in a hopeless enterprise. "His master ought to hang him
for trying to take Athlone; and mine ought to hang me if I lose it. "
[96]

Saint Ruth, however, was by no means at ease.