But it is certain that, in his youth, he
was generally believed to possess, not merely that average measure of
fortitude which qualifies a soldier to go through a campaign without
disgrace, but that high and serene intrepidity which is the virtue of
great commanders, [698] It is equally certain that, in his later years,
he repeatedly, at conjunctures such as have often inspired timorous and
delicate women with heroic courage, showed a pusillanimous anxiety about
his personal safety.
was generally believed to possess, not merely that average measure of
fortitude which qualifies a soldier to go through a campaign without
disgrace, but that high and serene intrepidity which is the virtue of
great commanders, [698] It is equally certain that, in his later years,
he repeatedly, at conjunctures such as have often inspired timorous and
delicate women with heroic courage, showed a pusillanimous anxiety about
his personal safety.
Macaulay
Without the walls of the town,
scarcely a dwelling was to be seen except at a place called Oldbridge.
At Oldbridge the river was fordable; and on the south of the ford were a
few mud cabins, and a single house built of more solid materials.
When William caught sight of the valley of the Boyne, he could
not suppress an exclamation and a gesture of delight. He had been
apprehensive that the enemy would avoid a decisive action, and would
protract the war till the autumnal rains should return with pestilence
in their train. He was now at ease. It was plain that the contest would
be sharp and short. The pavilion of James was pitched on the eminence
of Donore. The flags of the House of Stuart and of the House of Bourbon
waved together in defiance on the walls of Drogheda. All the southern
bank of the river was lined by the camp and batteries of the hostile
army. Thousands of armed men were moving about among the tents; and
every one, horse soldier or foot soldier, French or Irish, had a white
badge in his hat. That colour had been chosen in compliment to the House
of Bourbon. "I am glad to see you, gentlemen," said the King, as his
keen eye surveyed the Irish lines. "If you escape me now, the fault will
be mine. " [687]
Each of the contending princes had some advantages over his rival.
James, standing on the defensive, behind entrenchments, with a river
before him, had the stronger position; [688] but his troops were inferior
both in number and in quality to those which were opposed to him. He
probably had thirty thousand men. About a third part of this force
consisted of excellent French infantry and excellent Irish cavalry. But
the rest of his army was the scoff of all Europe. The Irish dragoons
were bad; the Irish infantry worse. It was said that their ordinary way
of fighting was to discharge their pieces once, and then to run away
bawling "Quarter" and "Murder. " Their inefficiency was, in that age,
commonly imputed, both by their enemies and by their allies, to natural
poltroonery. How little ground there was for such an imputation has
since been signally proved by many heroic achievements in every part of
the globe. It ought, indeed, even in the seventeenth century, to have
occurred to reasonable men, that a race which furnished some of the best
horse soldiers in the world would certainly, with judicious training,
furnish good foot soldiers. But the Irish foot soldiers had not merely
not been well trained; they had been elaborately ill trained. The
greatest of our generals repeatedly and emphatically declared that even
the admirable army which fought its way, under his command, from Torres
Vedras to Toulouse, would, if he had suffered it to contract habits of
pillage, have become, in a few weeks, unfit for all military purposes.
What then was likely to be the character of troops who, from the day on
which they enlisted, were not merely permitted, but invited, to supply
the deficiencies of pay by marauding? They were, as might have been
expected, a mere mob, furious indeed and clamorous in their zeal for
the cause which they had espoused, but incapable of opposing a stedfast
resistance to a well ordered force. In truth, all that the discipline,
if it is to be so called, of James's army had done for the Celtic kerne
had been to debase and enervate him. After eighteen months of nominal
soldiership, he was positively farther from being a soldier than on the
day on which he quilted his hovel for the camp.
William had under his command near thirty-six thousand men, born in
many lands, and speaking many tongues. Scarcely one Protestant Church,
scarcely one Protestant nation, was unrepresented in the army which
a strange series of events had brought to fight for the Protestant
religion in the remotest island of the west. About half the troops were
natives of England. Ormond was there with the Life Guards, and Oxford
with the Blues. Sir John Lanier, an officer who had acquired military
experience on the Continent, and whose prudence was held in high esteem,
was at the head of the Queen's regiment of horse, now the First Dragoon
Guards. There were Beaumont's foot, who had, in defiance of the mandate
of James, refused to admit Irish papists among them, and Hastings's
foot, who had, on the disastrous day of Killiecrankie, maintained
the military reputation of the Saxon race. There were the two Tangier
battalions, hitherto known only by deeds of violence and rapine, but
destined to begin on the following morning a long career of glory.
The Scotch Guards marched under the command of their countryman James
Douglas. Two fine British regiments, which had been in the service
of the States General, and had often looked death in the face under
William's leading, followed him in this campaign, not only as their
general, but as their native King. They now rank as the fifth and sixth
of the line. The former was led by an officer who had no skill in the
higher parts of military science, but whom the whole army allowed to be
the bravest of all the brave, John Cutts. Conspicuous among the Dutch
troops were Portland's and Ginkell's Horse, and Solmes's Blue regiment,
consisting of two thousand of the finest infantry in Europe. Germany had
sent to the field some warriors, sprung from her noblest houses.
Prince George of Hesse Darmstadt, a gallant youth who was serving his
apprenticeship in the military art, rode near the King. A strong
brigade of Danish mercenaries was commanded by Duke Charles Frederic of
Wirtemberg, a near kinsman of the head of his illustrious family. It was
reported that of all the soldiers of William these were most dreaded
by the Irish. For centuries of Saxon domination had not effaced the
recollection of the violence and cruelty of the Scandinavian sea
kings; and an ancient prophecy that the Danes would one day destroy the
children of the soil was still repeated with superstitious horror, [689]
Among the foreign auxiliaries were a Brandenburg regiment and a Finland
regiment. But in that great array, so variously composed, were two
bodies of men animated by a spirit peculiarly fierce and implacable,
the Huguenots of France thirsting for the blood of the French, and the
Englishry of Ireland impatient to trample down the Irish. The ranks of
the refugees had been effectually purged of spies and traitors, and were
made up of men such as had contended in the preceding century against
the power of the House of Valois and the genius of the House of
Lorraine. All the boldest spirits of the unconquerable colony had
repaired to William's camp. Mitchelburne was there with the stubborn
defenders of Londonderry, and Wolseley with the warriors who had raised
the unanimous shout of "Advance" on the day of Newton Butler. Sir Albert
Conyngham, the ancestor of the noble family whose seat now overlooks
the Boyne, had brought from the neighbourhood of Lough Erne a gallant
regiment of dragoons which still glories in the name of Enniskillen, and
which has proved on the shores of the Euxine that it has not degenerated
since the day of the Boyne, [690]
Walker, notwithstanding his advanced age and his peaceful profession,
accompanied the men of Londonderry, and tried to animate their zeal by
exhortation and by example. He was now a great prelate. Ezekiel Hopkins
had taken refuge from Popish persecutors and Presbyterian rebels in
the city of London, had brought himself to swear allegiance to the
government, had obtained a cure, and had died in the performance of the
humble duties of a parish priest, [691] William, on his march through
Louth, learned that the rich see of Derry was at his disposal. He
instantly made choice of Walker to be the new Bishop. The brave old man,
during the few hours of life which remained to him, was overwhelmed with
salutations and congratulations. Unhappily he had, during the siege in
which he had so highly distinguished himself, contracted a passion for
war; and he easily persuaded himself that, in indulging this passion, he
was discharging a duty to his country and his religion. He ought to have
remembered that the peculiar circumstances which had justified him in
becoming a combatant had ceased to exist, and that, in a disciplined
army led by generals of long experience and great fame a fighting
divine was likely to give less help than scandal. The Bishop elect was
determined to be wherever danger was; and the way in which he exposed
himself excited the extreme disgust of his royal patron, who hated a
meddler almost as much as a coward. A soldier who ran away from a battle
and a gownsman who pushed himself into a battle were the two objects
which most strongly excited William's spleen.
It was still early in the day. The King rode slowly along the northern
bank of the river, and closely examined the position of the Irish, from
whom he was sometimes separated by an interval of little more than two
hundred feet. He was accompanied by Schomberg, Ormond, Sidney, Solmes,
Prince George of Hesse, Coningsby, and others. "Their army is but
small;" said one of the Dutch officers. Indeed it did not appear to
consist of more than sixteen thousand men. But it was well known, from
the reports brought by deserters, that many regiments were concealed
from view by the undulations of the ground. "They may be stronger than
they look," said William; "but, weak or strong, I will soon know all
about them. " [692]
At length he alighted at a spot nearly opposite to Oldbridge, sate
down on the turf to rest himself, and called for breakfast. The sumpter
horses were unloaded: the canteens were opened; and a tablecloth was
spread on the grass. The place is marked by an obelisk, built while
many veterans who could well remember the events of that day were still
living.
While William was at his repast, a group of horsemen appeared close to
the water on the opposite shore. Among them his attendants could discern
some who had once been conspicuous at reviews in Hyde Park and at balls
in the gallery of Whitehall, the youthful Berwick, the small, fairhaired
Lauzun, Tyrconnel, once admired by maids of honour as the model of manly
vigour and beauty, but now bent down by years and crippled by gout, and,
overtopping all, the stately head of Sarsfield.
The chiefs of the Irish army soon discovered that the person who,
surrounded by a splendid circle, was breakfasting on the opposite bank,
was the Prince of Orange. They sent for artillery. Two field pieces,
screened from view by a troop of cavalry, were brought down almost to
the brink of the river, and placed behind a hedge. William, who had just
risen from his meal, and was again in the saddle, was the mark of both
guns. The first shot struck one of the holsters of Prince George of
Hesse, and brought his horse to the ground. "Ah! " cried the King; "the
poor Prince is killed. " As the words passed his lips, he was himself
hit by a second ball, a sixpounder. It merely tore his coat, grazed his
shoulder, and drew two or three ounces of blood. Both armies saw that
the shot had taken effect; for the King sank down for a moment on his
horse's neck. A yell of exultation rose from the Irish camp. The English
and their allies were in dismay. Solmes flung himself prostrate on the
earth, and burst into tears. But William's deportment soon reassured his
friends. "There is no harm done," he said: "but the bullet came quite
near enough. " Coningsby put his handkerchief to the wound: a surgeon was
sent for: a plaster was applied; and the King, as soon as the dressing
was finished, rode round all the posts of his army amidst loud
acclamations. Such was the energy of his spirit that, in spite of his
feeble health, in spite of his recent hurt, he was that day nineteen
hours on horseback, [693]
A cannonade was kept up on both sides till the evening. William observed
with especial attention the effect produced by the Irish shots on the
English regiments which had never been in action, and declared himself
satisfied with the result. "All is right," he said; "they stand fire
well. " Long after sunset he made a final inspection of his forces by
torchlight, and gave orders that every thing should be ready for forcing
a passage across the river on the morrow. Every soldier was to put a
green bough in his hat. The baggage and great coats were to be left
under a guard. The word was Westminster.
The King's resolution to attack the Irish was not approved by all his
lieutenants. Schomberg, in particular, pronounced the experiment too
hazardous, and, when his opinion was overruled, retired to his tent in
no very good humour. When the order of battle was delivered to him, he
muttered that he had been more used to give such orders than to receive
them. For this little fit of sullenness, very pardonable in a general
who had won great victories when his master was still a child, the brave
veteran made, on the following morning, a noble atonement.
The first of July dawned, a day which has never since returned without
exciting strong emotions of very different kinds in the two populations
which divide Ireland. The sun rose bright and cloudless. Soon after four
both armies were in motion. William ordered his right wing, under the
command of Meinhart Schomberg, one of the Duke's sons, to march to the
bridge of Slane, some miles up the river, to cross there, and to turn
the left flank of the Irish army. Meinhart Schomberg was assisted by
Portland and Douglas. James, anticipating some such design, had already
sent to the bridge a regiment of dragoons, commanded by Sir Neil O'Neil.
O'Neil behaved himself like a brave gentleman: but he soon received a
mortal wound; his men fled; and the English right wing passed the river.
This move made Lauzun uneasy. What if the English right wing should get
into the rear of the army of James? About four miles south of the Boyne
was a place called Duleek, where the road to Dublin was so narrow, that
two cars could not pass each other, and where on both sides of the
road lay a morass which afforded no firm footing. If Meinhart Schomberg
should occupy this spot, it would be impossible for the Irish to
retreat. They must either conquer, or be cut off to a man. Disturbed by
this apprehension, the French general marched with his countrymen and
with Sarsfield's horse in the direction of Slane Bridge. Thus the fords
near Oldbridge were left to be defended by the Irish alone.
It was now near ten o'clock. William put himself at the head of his left
wing, which was composed exclusively of cavalry, and prepared to
pass the river not far above Drogheda. The centre of his army, which
consisted almost exclusively of foot, was entrusted to the command of
Schomberg, and was marshalled opposite to Oldbridge. At Oldbridge the
whole Irish infantry had been collected. The Meath bank bristled with
pikes and bayonets. A fortification had been made by French engineers
out of the hedges and buildings; and a breastwork had been thrown up
close to the water side, [694] Tyrconnel was there; and under him were
Richard Hamilton and Antrim.
Schomberg gave the word. Solmes's Blues were the first to move. They
marched gallantly, with drums beating, to the brink of the Boyne. Then
the drums stopped; and the men, ten abreast, descended into the water.
Next plunged Londonderry and Enniskillen. A little to the left of
Londonderry and Enniskillen, Caillemot crossed, at the head of a long
column of French refugees. A little to the left of Caillemot and his
refugees, the main body of the English infantry struggled through the
river, up to their armpits in water. Still further down the stream the
Danes found another ford. In a few minutes the Boyne, for a quarter of a
mile, was alive with muskets and green boughs.
It was not till the assailants had reached the middle of the channel
that they became aware of the whole difficulty and danger of the service
in which they were engaged. They had as yet seen little more than half
the hostile army. Now whole regiments of foot and horse seemed to start
out of the earth. A wild shout of defiance rose from the whole shore:
during one moment the event seemed doubtful: but the Protestants pressed
resolutely forward; and in another moment the whole Irish line gave
way. Tyrconnel looked on in helpless despair. He did not want personal
courage; but his military skill was so small that he hardly ever
reviewed his regiment in the Phoenix Park without committing some
blunder; and to rally the ranks which were breaking all round him was
no task for a general who had survived the energy of his body and of
his mind, and yet had still the rudiments of his profession to learn.
Several of his best officers fell while vainly endeavouring to prevail
on their soldiers to look the Dutch Blues in the face. Richard Hamilton
ordered a body of foot to fall on the French refugees, who were still
deep in water. He led the way, and, accompanied by several courageous
gentlemen, advanced, sword in hand, into the river. But neither
his commands nor his example could infuse courage into that mob of
cowstealers. He was left almost alone, and retired from the bank in
despair. Further down the river Antrim's division ran like sheep at the
approach of the English column. Whole regiments flung away arms, colours
and cloaks, and scampered off to the hills without striking a blow or
firing a shot, [695]
It required many years and many heroic exploits to take away the
reproach which that ignominious rout left on the Irish name. Yet, even
before the day closed, it was abundantly proved that the reproach was
unjust. Richard Hamilton put himself at the head of the cavalry, and,
under his command, they made a gallant, though an unsuccessful attempt
to retrieve the day. They maintained a desperate fight in the bed of the
river with Sulmes's Blues. They drove the Danish brigade back into the
stream. They fell impetuously on the Huguenot regiments, which, not
being provided with pikes, then ordinarily used by foot to repel horse,
began to give ground. Caillemot, while encouraging his fellow exiles,
received a mortal wound in the thigh. Four of his men carried him back
across the ford to his tent. As he passed, he continued to urge forward
the rear ranks which were still up to the breast in the water. "On;
on; my lads: to glory; to glory. " Schomberg, who had remained on the
northern bank, and who had thence watched the progress of his troops
with the eye of a general, now thought that the emergency required
from him the personal exertion of a soldier. Those who stood about him
besought him in vain to put on his cuirass. Without defensive armour
he rode through the river, and rallied the refugees whom the fall of
Caillemot had dismayed. "Come on," he cried in French, pointing to the
Popish squadrons; "come on, gentlemen; there are your persecutors. "
Those were his last words. As he spoke, a band of Irish horsemen rushed
upon him and encircled him for a moment. When they retired, he was on
the ground. His friends raised him; but he was already a corpse. Two
sabre wounds were on his head; and a bullet from a carbine was lodged
in his neck. Almost at the same moment Walker, while exhorting the
colonists of Ulster to play the men, was shot dead. During near half an
hour the battle continued to rage along the southern shore of the river.
All was smoke, dust and din. Old soldiers were heard to say that they
had seldom seen sharper work in the Low Countries. But, just at this
conjuncture, William came up with the left wing. He had found much
difficulty in crossing. The tide was running fast. His charger had been
forced to swim, and had been almost lost in the mud. As soon as the King
was on firm ground he took his sword in his left hand,--for his right
arm was stiff with his wound and his bandage,--and led his men to the
place where the fight was the hottest. His arrival decided the fate of
the day. Yet the Irish horse retired fighting obstinately. It was long
remembered among the Protestants of Ulster that, in the midst of the
tumult, William rode to the head of the Enniskilleners. "What will
you do for me? " he cried. He was not immediately recognised; and one
trooper, taking him for an enemy, was about to fire. William gently put
aside the carbine. "What," said he, "do you not know your friends? " "It
is His Majesty;" said the Colonel. The ranks of sturdy Protestant yeomen
set up a shout of joy. "Gentlemen," said William, "you shall be my
guards to day. I have heard much of you. Let me see something of you. "
One of the most remarkable peculiarities of this man, ordinarily so
saturnine and reserved, was that danger acted on him like wine,
opened his heart, loosened his tongue, and took away all appearance of
constraint from his manner. On this memorable day he was seen wherever
the peril was greatest. One ball struck the cap of his pistol: another
carried off the heel of his jackboot: but his lieutenants in vain
implored him to retire to some station from which he could give his
orders without exposing a life so valuable to Europe. His troops,
animated by his example, gained ground fast. The Irish cavalry made
their last stand at a house called Plottin Castle, about a mile and a
half south of Oldbridge. There the Enniskilleners were repelled with the
loss of fifty men, and were hotly pursued, till William rallied them and
turned the chase back. In this encounter Richard Hamilton, who had done
all that could be done by valour to retrieve a reputation forfeited by
perfidy, [696] was severely wounded, taken prisoner, and instantly brought,
through the smoke and over the carnage, before the prince whom he had
foully wronged. On no occasion did the character of William show itself
in a more striking manner. "Is this business over? " he said; "or will
your horse make more fight? " "On my honour, Sir," answered Hamilton, "I
believe that they will. " "Your honour! " muttered William; "your honour! "
That half suppressed exclamation was the only revenge which he
condescended to take for an injury for which many sovereigns, far more
affable and gracious in their ordinary deportment, would have exacted
a terrible retribution. Then, restraining himself, he ordered his own
surgeon to look to the hurts of the captive, [697]
And now the battle was over. Hamilton was mistaken in thinking that his
horse would continue to fight. Whole troops had been cut to pieces. One
fine regiment had only thirty unwounded men left. It was enough that
these gallant soldiers had disputed the field till they were left
without support, or hope, or guidance, till their bravest leader was a
captive, and till their King had fled.
Whether James had owed his early reputation for valour to accident and
flattery, or whether, as he advanced in life, his character underwent
a change, may be doubted.
But it is certain that, in his youth, he
was generally believed to possess, not merely that average measure of
fortitude which qualifies a soldier to go through a campaign without
disgrace, but that high and serene intrepidity which is the virtue of
great commanders, [698] It is equally certain that, in his later years,
he repeatedly, at conjunctures such as have often inspired timorous and
delicate women with heroic courage, showed a pusillanimous anxiety about
his personal safety. Of the most powerful motives which can induce human
beings to encounter peril none was wanting to him on the day of the
Boyne. The eyes of his contemporaries and of posterity, of friends
devoted to his cause and of enemies eager to witness his humiliation,
were fixed upon him. He had, in his own opinion, sacred rights to
maintain and cruel wrongs to revenge. He was a King come to fight for
three kingdoms. He was a father come to fight for the birthright of his
child. He was a zealous Roman Catholic, come to fight in the holiest of
crusades. If all this was not enough, he saw, from the secure position
which he occupied on the height of Donore, a sight which, it might have
been thought, would have roused the most torpid of mankind to emulation.
He saw his rival, weak, sickly, wounded, swimming the river, struggling
through the mud, leading the charge, stopping the flight, grasping the
sword with the left hand, managing the bridle with a bandaged arm. But
none of these things moved that sluggish and ignoble nature. He watched,
from a safe distance, the beginning of the battle on which his fate and
the fate of his race depended. When it became clear that the day was
going against Ireland, he was seized with an apprehension that his
flight might be intercepted, and galloped towards Dublin. He was
escorted by a bodyguard under the command of Sarsfield, who had, on that
day, had no opportunity of displaying the skill and courage which his
enemies allowed that he possessed, [699] The French auxiliaries, who
had been employed the whole morning in keeping William's right wing in
check, covered the flight of the beaten army. They were indeed in some
danger of being broken and swept away by the torrent of runaways, all
pressing to get first to the pass of Duleek, and were forced to fire
repeatedly on these despicable allies, [700] The retreat was, however,
effected with less loss than might have been expected. For even the
admirers of William owned that he did not show in the pursuit the energy
which even his detractors acknowledged that he had shown in the battle.
Perhaps his physical infirmities, his hurt, and the fatigue which he had
undergone, had made him incapable of bodily or mental exertion. Of the
last forty hours he had passed thirty-five on horseback. Schomberg, who
might have supplied his place, was no more. It was said in the camp that
the King could not do every thing, and that what was not done by him was
not done at all.
The slaughter had been less than on any battle field of equal importance
and celebrity. Of the Irish only about fifteen hundred had fallen; but
they were almost all cavalry, the flower of the army, brave and well
disciplined men, whose place could not easily be supplied. William
gave strict orders that there should be no unnecessary bloodshed,
and enforced those orders by an act of laudable severity. One of his
soldiers, after the fight was over, butchered three defenceless Irishmen
who asked for quarter. The King ordered the murderer to be hanged on the
spot, [701]
The loss of the conquerors did not exceed five hundred men but among
them was the first captain in Europe. To his corpse every honour was
paid. The only cemetery in which so illustrious a warrior, slain in arms
for the liberties and religion of England, could properly be laid
was that venerable Abbey, hallowed by the dust of many generations
of princes, heroes and poets. It was announced that the brave veteran
should have a public funeral at Westminster. In the mean time his corpse
was embalmed with such skill as could be found in the camp, and was
deposited in a leaden coffin, [702]
Walker was treated less respectfully. William thought him a busybody who
had been properly punished for running into danger without any call of
duty, and expressed that feeling, with characteristic bluntness, on the
field of battle. "Sir," said an attendant, "the Bishop of Derry has been
killed by a shot at the ford. " "What took him there? " growled the King.
The victorious army advanced that day to Duleek, and passed the warm
summer night there under the open sky. The tents and the baggage waggons
were still on the north of the river. William's coach had been brought
over; and he slept in it surrounded by his soldiers. On the following
day, Drogheda surrendered without a blow, and the garrison, thirteen
hundred strong, marched out unarmed, [703]
Meanwhile Dublin had been in violent commotion. On the thirtieth of June
it was known that the armies were face to face with the Boyne between
them, and that a battle was almost inevitable. The news that William had
been wounded came that evening. The first report was that the wound was
mortal. It was believed, and confidently repeated, that the usurper was
no more; and couriers started bearing the glad tidings of his death to
the French ships which lay in the ports of Munster. From daybreak on
the first of July the streets of Dublin were filled with persons eagerly
asking and telling news. A thousand wild rumours wandered to and fro
among the crowd. A fleet of men of war under the white flag had been
seen from the hill of Howth. An army commanded by a Marshal of France
had landed in Kent. There had been hard fighting at the Boyne; but
the Irish had won the day; the English right wing had been routed; the
Prince of Orange was a prisoner. While the Roman Catholics heard and
repeated these stories in all the places of public resort, the few
Protestants who were still out of prison, afraid of being torn to
pieces, shut themselves up in their inner chambers. But, towards five
in the afternoon, a few runaways on tired horses came straggling in with
evil tidings. By six it was known that all was lost. Soon after sunset,
James, escorted by two hundred cavalry, rode into the Castle. At
the threshold he was met by the wife of Tyrconnel, once the gay and
beautiful Fanny Jennings, the loveliest coquette in the brilliant
Whitehall of the Restoration. To her the vanquished King had to announce
the ruin of her fortunes and of his own. And now the tide of fugitives
came in fast. Till midnight all the northern avenues of the capital were
choked by trains of cars and by bands of dragoons, spent with running
and riding, and begrimed with dust. Some had lost their fire arms, and
some their swords. Some were disfigured by recent wounds. At two in the
morning Dublin was still: but, before the early dawn of midsummer, the
sleepers were roused by the peal of trumpets; and the horse, who had, on
the preceding day, so well supported the honour of their country,
came pouring through the streets, with ranks fearfully thinned, yet
preserving, even in that extremity, some show of military order. Two
hours later Lauzun's drums were heard; and the French regiments, in
unbroken array, marched into the city, [704] Many thought that, with
such a force, a stand might still be made. But, before six o'clock,
the Lord Mayor and some of the principal Roman Catholic citizens were
summoned in haste to the Castle. James took leave of them with a speech
which did him little honour. He had often, he said, been warned that
Irishmen, however well they might look, would never acquit themselves
well on a field of battle; and he had now found that the warning was but
too true. He had been so unfortunate as to see himself in less than
two years abandoned by two armies. His English troops had not wanted
courage; but they had wanted loyalty. His Irish troops were, no doubt,
attached to his cause, which was their own. But as soon as they were
brought front to front with an enemy, they ran away. The loss indeed had
been little. More shame for those who had fled with so little loss. "I
will never command an Irish army again. I must shift for myself; and so
must you. " After thus reviling his soldiers for being the rabble which
his own mismanagement had made them, and for following the example of
cowardice which he had himself set them, he uttered a few words more
worthy of a King. He knew, he said, that some of his adherents had
declared that they would burn Dublin down rather than suffer it to fall
into the hands of the English. Such an act would disgrace him in the
eyes of all mankind: for nobody would believe that his friends would
venture so far without his sanction. Such an act would also draw on
those who committed it severities which otherwise they had no cause to
apprehend: for inhumanity to vanquished enemies was not among the faults
of the Prince of Orange. For these reasons James charged his hearers on
their allegiance neither to sack nor to destroy the city, [705] He then
took his departure, crossed the Wicklow hills with all speed, and never
stopped till he was fifty miles from Dublin. Scarcely had he alighted
to take some refreshment when he was scared by an absurd report that the
pursuers were close upon him. He started again, rode hard all night,
and gave orders that the bridges should be pulled down behind him. At
sunrise on the third of July he reached the harbour of Waterford.
Thence he went by sea to Kinsale, where he embarked on board of a French
frigate, and sailed for Brest, [706]
After his departure the confusion in Dublin increased hourly. During the
whole of the day which followed the battle, flying foot soldiers,
weary and soiled with travel, were constantly coming in. Roman Catholic
citizens, with their wives, their families and their household stuff,
were constantly going out. In some parts of the capital there was still
an appearance of martial order and preparedness. Guards were posted at
the gates: the Castle was occupied by a strong body of troops; and it
was generally supposed that the enemy would not be admitted without a
struggle. Indeed some swaggerers, who had, a few hours before, run from
the breastwork at Oldbridge without drawing a trigger, now swore that
they would lay the town in ashes rather than leave it to the Prince of
Orange. But towards the evening Tyrconnel and Lauzun collected all their
forces, and marched out of the city by the road leading to that vast
sheepwalk which extends over the table land of Kildare. Instantly the
face of things in Dublin was changed. The Protestants every where came
forth from their hiding places. Some of them entered the houses of their
persecutors and demanded arms. The doors of the prisons were opened.
The Bishops of Meath and Limerick, Doctor King, and others, who had
long held the doctrine of passive obedience, but who had at length been
converted by oppression into moderate Whigs, formed themselves into a
provisional government, and sent a messenger to William's camp, with the
news that Dublin was prepared to welcome him. At eight that evening a
troop of English dragoons arrived. They were met by the whole Protestant
population on College Green, where the statue of the deliverer now
stands. Hundreds embraced the soldiers, hung fondly about the necks of
the horses, and ran wildly about, shaking hands with each other. On the
morrow a large body of cavalry arrived; and soon from every side came
news of the effects which the victory of the Boyne had produced.
James had quitted the island. Wexford had declared for William. Within
twenty-five miles of the capital there was not a Papist in arms. Almost
all the baggage and stores of the defeated army had been seized by the
conquerors. The Enniskilleners had taken not less than three hundred
cars, and had found among the booty ten thousand pounds in money,
much plate, many valuable trinkets, and all the rich camp equipage of
Tyrconnel and Lauzun, [707]
William fixed his head quarters at Ferns, about two miles from Dublin.
Thence, on the morning of Sunday, the sixth of July, he rode in great
state to the cathedral, and there, with the crown on his head, returned
public thanks to God in the choir which is now hung with the banners of
the Knights of Saint Patrick. King preached, with all the fervour of a
neophyte, on the great deliverance which God had wrought for the Church.
The Protestant magistrates of the city appeared again, after a long
interval, in the pomp of office. William could not be persuaded to
repose himself at the Castle, but in the evening returned to his camp,
and slept there in his wooden cabin, [708]
The fame of these great events flew fast, and excited strong emotions
all over Europe. The news of William's wound every where preceded by a
few hours the news of his victory. Paris was roused at dead of night by
the arrival of a courier who brought the joyful intelligence that the
heretic, the parricide, the mortal enemy of the greatness of France, had
been struck dead by a cannon ball in the sight of the two armies. The
commissaries of police ran about the city, knocked at the doors, and
called the people up to illuminate. In an hour streets, quays and
bridges were in a blaze: drums were beating and trumpets sounding: the
bells of Notre Dame were ringing; peals of cannon were resounding from
the batteries of the Bastile. Tables were set out in the streets; and
wine was served to all who passed. A Prince of Orange, made of straw,
was trailed through the mud, and at last committed to the flames. He was
attended by a hideous effigy of the devil, carrying a scroll, on which
was written, "I have been waiting for thee these two years. " The shops
of several Huguenots who had been dragooned into calling themselves
Catholics, but were suspected of being still heretics at heart, were
sacked by the rabble. It was hardly safe to question the truth of
the report which had been so eagerly welcomed by the multitude. Soon,
however, some coolheaded people ventured to remark that the fact of the
tyrant's death was not quite so certain as might be wished. Then arose
a vehement controversy about the effect of such wounds; for the vulgar
notion was that no person struck by a cannon ball on the shoulder could
recover. The disputants appealed to medical authority; and the doors of
the great surgeons and physicians were thronged, it was jocosely said,
as if there had been a pestilence in Paris. The question was soon
settled by a letter from James, which announced his defeat and his
arrival at Brest, [709]
At Rome the news from Ireland produced a sensation of a very different
kind. There too the report of William's death was, during a short
time, credited. At the French embassy all was joy and triumph: but the
Ambassadors of the House of Austria were in despair; and the aspect of
the Pontifical Court by no means indicated exultation, [710] Melfort,
in a transport of joy, sate down to write a letter of congratulation to
Mary of Modena. That letter is still extant, and would alone suffice
to explain why he was the favourite of James. Herod,--so William was
designated, was gone. There must be a restoration; and that restoration
ought to be followed by a terrible revenge and by the establishment of
despotism. The power of the purse must be taken away from the Commons.
Political offenders must be tried, not by juries, but by judges on whom
the Crown could depend. The Habeas Corpus Act must be rescinded. The
authors of the Revolution must be punished with merciless severity.
"If," the cruel apostate wrote, "if the King is forced to pardon, let
it be as few rogues as he can. " [711] After the lapse of some anxious
hours, a messenger bearing later and more authentic intelligence
alighted at the palace occupied by the representative of the Catholic
King. In a moment all was changed. The enemies of France,--and all the
population, except Frenchmen and British Jacobites, were her enemies,
eagerly felicitated one another. All the clerks of the Spanish legation
were too few to make transcripts of the despatches for the Cardinals and
Bishops who were impatient to know the details of the victory. The first
copy was sent to the Pope, and was doubtless welcome to him, [712]
The good news from Ireland reached London at a moment when good news
was needed. The English flag had been disgraced in the English seas.
A foreign enemy threatened the coast. Traitors were at work within the
realm. Mary had exerted herself beyond her strength. Her gentle nature
was unequal to the cruel anxieties of her position; and she complained
that she could scarcely snatch a moment from business to calm herself by
prayer. Her distress rose to the highest point when she learned that the
camps of her father and her husband were pitched near to each other, and
that tidings of a battle might be hourly expected. She stole time for a
visit to Kensington, and had three hours of quiet in the garden, then a
rural solitude, [713] But the recollection of days passed there with him
whom she might never see again overpowered her. "The place," she wrote
to him, "made me think how happy I was there when I had your dear
company. But now I will say no more; for I shall hurt my own eyes, which
I want now more than ever. Adieu. Think of me, and love me as much as I
shall you, whom I love more than my life. " [714]
Early on the morning after these tender lines had been despatched,
Whitehall was roused by the arrival of a post from Ireland. Nottingham
was called out of bed. The Queen, who was just going to the chapel where
she daily attended divine service, was informed that William had been
wounded. She had wept much; but till that moment she had wept alone, and
had constrained herself to show a cheerful countenance to her Court and
Council. But when Nottingham put her husband's letter into her hands,
she burst into tears. She was still trembling with the violence of her
emotions, and had scarcely finished a letter to William in which she
poured out her love, her fears and her thankfulness, with the sweet
natural eloquence of her sex, when another messenger arrived with the
news that the English army had forced a passage across the Boyne, that
the Irish were flying in confusion, and that the King was well. Yet she
was visibly uneasy till Nottingham had assured her that James was safe.
The grave Secretary, who seems to have really esteemed and loved her,
afterwards described with much feeling that struggle of filial duty with
conjugal affection. On the same day she wrote to adjure her husband to
see that no harm befell her father. "I know," she said, "I need not beg
you to let him be taken care of; for I am confident you will for your
own sake; yet add that to all your kindness; and, for my sake, let
people know you would have no hurt happen to his person. " [715] This
solicitude, though amiable, was superfluous. Her father was perfectly
competent to take care of himself. He had never, during the battle, run
the smallest risk of hurt; and, while his daughter was shuddering at the
dangers to which she fancied that he was exposed in Ireland, he was half
way on his voyage to France.
It chanced that the glad tidings arrived at Whitehall on the day to
which the Parliament stood prorogued. The Speaker and several members of
the House of Commons who were in London met, according to form, at ten
in the morning, and were summoned by Black Rod to the bar of the Peers.
The Parliament was then again prorogued by commission. As soon as this
ceremony had been performed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer put into
the hands of the Clerk the despatch which had just arrived from Ireland,
and the Clerk read it with a loud voice to the lords and gentlemen
present, [716] The good news spread rapidly from Westminster Hall to
all the coffeehouses, and was received with transports of joy. For
those Englishmen who wished to see an English army beaten and an English
colony extirpated by the French and Irish were a minority even of the
Jacobite party.
On the ninth day after the battle of the Boyne James landed at Brest,
with an excellent appetite, in high spirits, and in a talkative humour.
He told the history of his defeat to everybody who would listen to him.
But French officers who understood war, and who compared his story with
other accounts, pronounced that, though His Majesty had witnessed the
battle, he knew nothing about it, except that his army had been routed,
[717] From Brest he proceeded to Saint Germains, where, a few hours
after his arrival, he was visited by Lewis. The French King had too much
delicacy and generosity to utter a word which could sound like reproach.
Nothing, he declared, that could conduce to the comfort of the royal
family of England should be wanting, as far as his power extended. But
he was by no means disposed to listen to the political and military
projects of his unlucky guest. James recommended an immediate descent
on England. That kingdom, he said, had been drained of troops by the
demands of Ireland. The seven or eight thousand regular soldiers who
were left would be unable to withstand a great French army. The people
were ashamed of their error and impatient to repair it. As soon as their
rightful King showed himself, they would rally round him in multitudes,
[718] Lewis was too polite and goodnatured to express what he must
have felt. He contented himself with answering coldly that he could not
decide upon any plan about the British islands till he had heard from
his generals in Ireland. James was importunate, and seemed to think
himself ill used, because, a fortnight after he had run away from one
army, he was not entrusted with another. Lewis was not to be provoked
into uttering an unkind or uncourteous word: but he was resolute and,
in order to avoid solicitation which gave him pain, he pretended to
be unwell. During some time, whenever James came to Versailles, he was
respectfully informed that His Most Christian Majesty was not equal to
the transaction of business. The highspirited and quickwitted nobles who
daily crowded the antechambers could not help sneering while they bowed
low to the royal visitor, whose poltroonery and stupidity had a second
time made him an exile and a mendicant. They even whispered their
sarcasms loud enough to call up the haughty blood of the Guelphs in
the cheeks of Mary of Modena. But the insensibility of James was of no
common kind. It had long been found proof against reason and against
pity. It now sustained a still harder trial, and was found proof even
against contempt, [719]
While he was enduring with ignominious fortitude the polite scorn of
the French aristocracy, and doing his best to weary out his benefactor's
patience and good breeding by repeating that this was the very moment
for an invasion of England, and that the whole island was impatiently
expecting its foreign deliverers, events were passing which signally
proved how little the banished oppressor understood the character of his
countrymen.
Tourville had, since the battle of Beachy Head, ranged the Channel
unopposed. On the twenty-first of July his masts were seen from the
rocks of Portland. On the twenty-second he anchored in the harbour
of Torbay, under the same heights which had, not many months before,
sheltered the armament of William. The French fleet, which now had
a considerable number of troops on board, consisted of a hundred and
eleven sail. The galleys, which formed a large part of this force,
resembled rather those ships with which Alcibiades and Lysander disputed
the sovereignty of the Aegean than those which contended at the Nile
and at Trafalgar. The galley was very long and very narrow, the deck
not more than two feet from the water edge. Each galley was propelled by
fifty or sixty huge oars, and each oar was tugged by five or six
slaves. The full complement of slaves to a vessel was three hundred and
thirty-six; the full complement of officers and soldiers a hundred and
fifty. Of the unhappy rowers some were criminals who had been justly
condemned to a life of hardship and danger; a few had been guilty only
of adhering obstinately to the Huguenot worship; the great majority
were purchased bondsmen, generally Turks and Moors. They were of course
always forming plans for massacring their tyrants and escaping from
servitude, and could be kept in order only by constant stripes and by
the frequent infliction of death in horrible forms. An Englishman, who
happened to fall in with about twelve hundred of these most miserable
and most desperate of human beings on their road from Marseilles to join
Tourville's squadron, heard them vowing that, if they came near a man
of war bearing the cross of Saint George, they would never again see a
French dockyard, [720]
In the Mediterranean galleys were in ordinary use: but none had ever
before been seen on the stormy ocean which roars round our island. The
flatterers of Lewis said that the appearance of such a squadron on the
Atlantic was one of those wonders which were reserved for his reign;
and a medal was struck at Paris to commemorate this bold experiment in
maritime war, [721] English sailors, with more reason, predicted that
the first gale would send the whole of this fairweather armament to
the bottom of the Channel. Indeed the galley, like the ancient trireme,
generally kept close to the shore, and ventured out of sight of land
only when the water was unruffled and the sky serene. But the qualities
which made this sort of ship unfit to brave tempests and billows made it
peculiarly fit for the purpose of landing soldiers. Tourville determined
to try what effect would be produced by a disembarkation. The English
Jacobites who had taken refuge in France were all confident that the
whole population of the island was ready to rally round an invading
army; and he probably gave them credit for understanding the temper of
their countrymen.
Never was there a greater error. Indeed the French admiral is said by
tradition to have received, while he was still out at sea, a lesson
which might have taught him not to rely on the assurances of exiles.
He picked up a fishing boat, and interrogated the owner, a plain Sussex
man, about the sentiments of the nation. "Are you," he said, "for King
James? " "I do not know much about such matters," answered the fisherman.
"I have nothing to say against King James. He is a very worthy
gentleman, I believe.
scarcely a dwelling was to be seen except at a place called Oldbridge.
At Oldbridge the river was fordable; and on the south of the ford were a
few mud cabins, and a single house built of more solid materials.
When William caught sight of the valley of the Boyne, he could
not suppress an exclamation and a gesture of delight. He had been
apprehensive that the enemy would avoid a decisive action, and would
protract the war till the autumnal rains should return with pestilence
in their train. He was now at ease. It was plain that the contest would
be sharp and short. The pavilion of James was pitched on the eminence
of Donore. The flags of the House of Stuart and of the House of Bourbon
waved together in defiance on the walls of Drogheda. All the southern
bank of the river was lined by the camp and batteries of the hostile
army. Thousands of armed men were moving about among the tents; and
every one, horse soldier or foot soldier, French or Irish, had a white
badge in his hat. That colour had been chosen in compliment to the House
of Bourbon. "I am glad to see you, gentlemen," said the King, as his
keen eye surveyed the Irish lines. "If you escape me now, the fault will
be mine. " [687]
Each of the contending princes had some advantages over his rival.
James, standing on the defensive, behind entrenchments, with a river
before him, had the stronger position; [688] but his troops were inferior
both in number and in quality to those which were opposed to him. He
probably had thirty thousand men. About a third part of this force
consisted of excellent French infantry and excellent Irish cavalry. But
the rest of his army was the scoff of all Europe. The Irish dragoons
were bad; the Irish infantry worse. It was said that their ordinary way
of fighting was to discharge their pieces once, and then to run away
bawling "Quarter" and "Murder. " Their inefficiency was, in that age,
commonly imputed, both by their enemies and by their allies, to natural
poltroonery. How little ground there was for such an imputation has
since been signally proved by many heroic achievements in every part of
the globe. It ought, indeed, even in the seventeenth century, to have
occurred to reasonable men, that a race which furnished some of the best
horse soldiers in the world would certainly, with judicious training,
furnish good foot soldiers. But the Irish foot soldiers had not merely
not been well trained; they had been elaborately ill trained. The
greatest of our generals repeatedly and emphatically declared that even
the admirable army which fought its way, under his command, from Torres
Vedras to Toulouse, would, if he had suffered it to contract habits of
pillage, have become, in a few weeks, unfit for all military purposes.
What then was likely to be the character of troops who, from the day on
which they enlisted, were not merely permitted, but invited, to supply
the deficiencies of pay by marauding? They were, as might have been
expected, a mere mob, furious indeed and clamorous in their zeal for
the cause which they had espoused, but incapable of opposing a stedfast
resistance to a well ordered force. In truth, all that the discipline,
if it is to be so called, of James's army had done for the Celtic kerne
had been to debase and enervate him. After eighteen months of nominal
soldiership, he was positively farther from being a soldier than on the
day on which he quilted his hovel for the camp.
William had under his command near thirty-six thousand men, born in
many lands, and speaking many tongues. Scarcely one Protestant Church,
scarcely one Protestant nation, was unrepresented in the army which
a strange series of events had brought to fight for the Protestant
religion in the remotest island of the west. About half the troops were
natives of England. Ormond was there with the Life Guards, and Oxford
with the Blues. Sir John Lanier, an officer who had acquired military
experience on the Continent, and whose prudence was held in high esteem,
was at the head of the Queen's regiment of horse, now the First Dragoon
Guards. There were Beaumont's foot, who had, in defiance of the mandate
of James, refused to admit Irish papists among them, and Hastings's
foot, who had, on the disastrous day of Killiecrankie, maintained
the military reputation of the Saxon race. There were the two Tangier
battalions, hitherto known only by deeds of violence and rapine, but
destined to begin on the following morning a long career of glory.
The Scotch Guards marched under the command of their countryman James
Douglas. Two fine British regiments, which had been in the service
of the States General, and had often looked death in the face under
William's leading, followed him in this campaign, not only as their
general, but as their native King. They now rank as the fifth and sixth
of the line. The former was led by an officer who had no skill in the
higher parts of military science, but whom the whole army allowed to be
the bravest of all the brave, John Cutts. Conspicuous among the Dutch
troops were Portland's and Ginkell's Horse, and Solmes's Blue regiment,
consisting of two thousand of the finest infantry in Europe. Germany had
sent to the field some warriors, sprung from her noblest houses.
Prince George of Hesse Darmstadt, a gallant youth who was serving his
apprenticeship in the military art, rode near the King. A strong
brigade of Danish mercenaries was commanded by Duke Charles Frederic of
Wirtemberg, a near kinsman of the head of his illustrious family. It was
reported that of all the soldiers of William these were most dreaded
by the Irish. For centuries of Saxon domination had not effaced the
recollection of the violence and cruelty of the Scandinavian sea
kings; and an ancient prophecy that the Danes would one day destroy the
children of the soil was still repeated with superstitious horror, [689]
Among the foreign auxiliaries were a Brandenburg regiment and a Finland
regiment. But in that great array, so variously composed, were two
bodies of men animated by a spirit peculiarly fierce and implacable,
the Huguenots of France thirsting for the blood of the French, and the
Englishry of Ireland impatient to trample down the Irish. The ranks of
the refugees had been effectually purged of spies and traitors, and were
made up of men such as had contended in the preceding century against
the power of the House of Valois and the genius of the House of
Lorraine. All the boldest spirits of the unconquerable colony had
repaired to William's camp. Mitchelburne was there with the stubborn
defenders of Londonderry, and Wolseley with the warriors who had raised
the unanimous shout of "Advance" on the day of Newton Butler. Sir Albert
Conyngham, the ancestor of the noble family whose seat now overlooks
the Boyne, had brought from the neighbourhood of Lough Erne a gallant
regiment of dragoons which still glories in the name of Enniskillen, and
which has proved on the shores of the Euxine that it has not degenerated
since the day of the Boyne, [690]
Walker, notwithstanding his advanced age and his peaceful profession,
accompanied the men of Londonderry, and tried to animate their zeal by
exhortation and by example. He was now a great prelate. Ezekiel Hopkins
had taken refuge from Popish persecutors and Presbyterian rebels in
the city of London, had brought himself to swear allegiance to the
government, had obtained a cure, and had died in the performance of the
humble duties of a parish priest, [691] William, on his march through
Louth, learned that the rich see of Derry was at his disposal. He
instantly made choice of Walker to be the new Bishop. The brave old man,
during the few hours of life which remained to him, was overwhelmed with
salutations and congratulations. Unhappily he had, during the siege in
which he had so highly distinguished himself, contracted a passion for
war; and he easily persuaded himself that, in indulging this passion, he
was discharging a duty to his country and his religion. He ought to have
remembered that the peculiar circumstances which had justified him in
becoming a combatant had ceased to exist, and that, in a disciplined
army led by generals of long experience and great fame a fighting
divine was likely to give less help than scandal. The Bishop elect was
determined to be wherever danger was; and the way in which he exposed
himself excited the extreme disgust of his royal patron, who hated a
meddler almost as much as a coward. A soldier who ran away from a battle
and a gownsman who pushed himself into a battle were the two objects
which most strongly excited William's spleen.
It was still early in the day. The King rode slowly along the northern
bank of the river, and closely examined the position of the Irish, from
whom he was sometimes separated by an interval of little more than two
hundred feet. He was accompanied by Schomberg, Ormond, Sidney, Solmes,
Prince George of Hesse, Coningsby, and others. "Their army is but
small;" said one of the Dutch officers. Indeed it did not appear to
consist of more than sixteen thousand men. But it was well known, from
the reports brought by deserters, that many regiments were concealed
from view by the undulations of the ground. "They may be stronger than
they look," said William; "but, weak or strong, I will soon know all
about them. " [692]
At length he alighted at a spot nearly opposite to Oldbridge, sate
down on the turf to rest himself, and called for breakfast. The sumpter
horses were unloaded: the canteens were opened; and a tablecloth was
spread on the grass. The place is marked by an obelisk, built while
many veterans who could well remember the events of that day were still
living.
While William was at his repast, a group of horsemen appeared close to
the water on the opposite shore. Among them his attendants could discern
some who had once been conspicuous at reviews in Hyde Park and at balls
in the gallery of Whitehall, the youthful Berwick, the small, fairhaired
Lauzun, Tyrconnel, once admired by maids of honour as the model of manly
vigour and beauty, but now bent down by years and crippled by gout, and,
overtopping all, the stately head of Sarsfield.
The chiefs of the Irish army soon discovered that the person who,
surrounded by a splendid circle, was breakfasting on the opposite bank,
was the Prince of Orange. They sent for artillery. Two field pieces,
screened from view by a troop of cavalry, were brought down almost to
the brink of the river, and placed behind a hedge. William, who had just
risen from his meal, and was again in the saddle, was the mark of both
guns. The first shot struck one of the holsters of Prince George of
Hesse, and brought his horse to the ground. "Ah! " cried the King; "the
poor Prince is killed. " As the words passed his lips, he was himself
hit by a second ball, a sixpounder. It merely tore his coat, grazed his
shoulder, and drew two or three ounces of blood. Both armies saw that
the shot had taken effect; for the King sank down for a moment on his
horse's neck. A yell of exultation rose from the Irish camp. The English
and their allies were in dismay. Solmes flung himself prostrate on the
earth, and burst into tears. But William's deportment soon reassured his
friends. "There is no harm done," he said: "but the bullet came quite
near enough. " Coningsby put his handkerchief to the wound: a surgeon was
sent for: a plaster was applied; and the King, as soon as the dressing
was finished, rode round all the posts of his army amidst loud
acclamations. Such was the energy of his spirit that, in spite of his
feeble health, in spite of his recent hurt, he was that day nineteen
hours on horseback, [693]
A cannonade was kept up on both sides till the evening. William observed
with especial attention the effect produced by the Irish shots on the
English regiments which had never been in action, and declared himself
satisfied with the result. "All is right," he said; "they stand fire
well. " Long after sunset he made a final inspection of his forces by
torchlight, and gave orders that every thing should be ready for forcing
a passage across the river on the morrow. Every soldier was to put a
green bough in his hat. The baggage and great coats were to be left
under a guard. The word was Westminster.
The King's resolution to attack the Irish was not approved by all his
lieutenants. Schomberg, in particular, pronounced the experiment too
hazardous, and, when his opinion was overruled, retired to his tent in
no very good humour. When the order of battle was delivered to him, he
muttered that he had been more used to give such orders than to receive
them. For this little fit of sullenness, very pardonable in a general
who had won great victories when his master was still a child, the brave
veteran made, on the following morning, a noble atonement.
The first of July dawned, a day which has never since returned without
exciting strong emotions of very different kinds in the two populations
which divide Ireland. The sun rose bright and cloudless. Soon after four
both armies were in motion. William ordered his right wing, under the
command of Meinhart Schomberg, one of the Duke's sons, to march to the
bridge of Slane, some miles up the river, to cross there, and to turn
the left flank of the Irish army. Meinhart Schomberg was assisted by
Portland and Douglas. James, anticipating some such design, had already
sent to the bridge a regiment of dragoons, commanded by Sir Neil O'Neil.
O'Neil behaved himself like a brave gentleman: but he soon received a
mortal wound; his men fled; and the English right wing passed the river.
This move made Lauzun uneasy. What if the English right wing should get
into the rear of the army of James? About four miles south of the Boyne
was a place called Duleek, where the road to Dublin was so narrow, that
two cars could not pass each other, and where on both sides of the
road lay a morass which afforded no firm footing. If Meinhart Schomberg
should occupy this spot, it would be impossible for the Irish to
retreat. They must either conquer, or be cut off to a man. Disturbed by
this apprehension, the French general marched with his countrymen and
with Sarsfield's horse in the direction of Slane Bridge. Thus the fords
near Oldbridge were left to be defended by the Irish alone.
It was now near ten o'clock. William put himself at the head of his left
wing, which was composed exclusively of cavalry, and prepared to
pass the river not far above Drogheda. The centre of his army, which
consisted almost exclusively of foot, was entrusted to the command of
Schomberg, and was marshalled opposite to Oldbridge. At Oldbridge the
whole Irish infantry had been collected. The Meath bank bristled with
pikes and bayonets. A fortification had been made by French engineers
out of the hedges and buildings; and a breastwork had been thrown up
close to the water side, [694] Tyrconnel was there; and under him were
Richard Hamilton and Antrim.
Schomberg gave the word. Solmes's Blues were the first to move. They
marched gallantly, with drums beating, to the brink of the Boyne. Then
the drums stopped; and the men, ten abreast, descended into the water.
Next plunged Londonderry and Enniskillen. A little to the left of
Londonderry and Enniskillen, Caillemot crossed, at the head of a long
column of French refugees. A little to the left of Caillemot and his
refugees, the main body of the English infantry struggled through the
river, up to their armpits in water. Still further down the stream the
Danes found another ford. In a few minutes the Boyne, for a quarter of a
mile, was alive with muskets and green boughs.
It was not till the assailants had reached the middle of the channel
that they became aware of the whole difficulty and danger of the service
in which they were engaged. They had as yet seen little more than half
the hostile army. Now whole regiments of foot and horse seemed to start
out of the earth. A wild shout of defiance rose from the whole shore:
during one moment the event seemed doubtful: but the Protestants pressed
resolutely forward; and in another moment the whole Irish line gave
way. Tyrconnel looked on in helpless despair. He did not want personal
courage; but his military skill was so small that he hardly ever
reviewed his regiment in the Phoenix Park without committing some
blunder; and to rally the ranks which were breaking all round him was
no task for a general who had survived the energy of his body and of
his mind, and yet had still the rudiments of his profession to learn.
Several of his best officers fell while vainly endeavouring to prevail
on their soldiers to look the Dutch Blues in the face. Richard Hamilton
ordered a body of foot to fall on the French refugees, who were still
deep in water. He led the way, and, accompanied by several courageous
gentlemen, advanced, sword in hand, into the river. But neither
his commands nor his example could infuse courage into that mob of
cowstealers. He was left almost alone, and retired from the bank in
despair. Further down the river Antrim's division ran like sheep at the
approach of the English column. Whole regiments flung away arms, colours
and cloaks, and scampered off to the hills without striking a blow or
firing a shot, [695]
It required many years and many heroic exploits to take away the
reproach which that ignominious rout left on the Irish name. Yet, even
before the day closed, it was abundantly proved that the reproach was
unjust. Richard Hamilton put himself at the head of the cavalry, and,
under his command, they made a gallant, though an unsuccessful attempt
to retrieve the day. They maintained a desperate fight in the bed of the
river with Sulmes's Blues. They drove the Danish brigade back into the
stream. They fell impetuously on the Huguenot regiments, which, not
being provided with pikes, then ordinarily used by foot to repel horse,
began to give ground. Caillemot, while encouraging his fellow exiles,
received a mortal wound in the thigh. Four of his men carried him back
across the ford to his tent. As he passed, he continued to urge forward
the rear ranks which were still up to the breast in the water. "On;
on; my lads: to glory; to glory. " Schomberg, who had remained on the
northern bank, and who had thence watched the progress of his troops
with the eye of a general, now thought that the emergency required
from him the personal exertion of a soldier. Those who stood about him
besought him in vain to put on his cuirass. Without defensive armour
he rode through the river, and rallied the refugees whom the fall of
Caillemot had dismayed. "Come on," he cried in French, pointing to the
Popish squadrons; "come on, gentlemen; there are your persecutors. "
Those were his last words. As he spoke, a band of Irish horsemen rushed
upon him and encircled him for a moment. When they retired, he was on
the ground. His friends raised him; but he was already a corpse. Two
sabre wounds were on his head; and a bullet from a carbine was lodged
in his neck. Almost at the same moment Walker, while exhorting the
colonists of Ulster to play the men, was shot dead. During near half an
hour the battle continued to rage along the southern shore of the river.
All was smoke, dust and din. Old soldiers were heard to say that they
had seldom seen sharper work in the Low Countries. But, just at this
conjuncture, William came up with the left wing. He had found much
difficulty in crossing. The tide was running fast. His charger had been
forced to swim, and had been almost lost in the mud. As soon as the King
was on firm ground he took his sword in his left hand,--for his right
arm was stiff with his wound and his bandage,--and led his men to the
place where the fight was the hottest. His arrival decided the fate of
the day. Yet the Irish horse retired fighting obstinately. It was long
remembered among the Protestants of Ulster that, in the midst of the
tumult, William rode to the head of the Enniskilleners. "What will
you do for me? " he cried. He was not immediately recognised; and one
trooper, taking him for an enemy, was about to fire. William gently put
aside the carbine. "What," said he, "do you not know your friends? " "It
is His Majesty;" said the Colonel. The ranks of sturdy Protestant yeomen
set up a shout of joy. "Gentlemen," said William, "you shall be my
guards to day. I have heard much of you. Let me see something of you. "
One of the most remarkable peculiarities of this man, ordinarily so
saturnine and reserved, was that danger acted on him like wine,
opened his heart, loosened his tongue, and took away all appearance of
constraint from his manner. On this memorable day he was seen wherever
the peril was greatest. One ball struck the cap of his pistol: another
carried off the heel of his jackboot: but his lieutenants in vain
implored him to retire to some station from which he could give his
orders without exposing a life so valuable to Europe. His troops,
animated by his example, gained ground fast. The Irish cavalry made
their last stand at a house called Plottin Castle, about a mile and a
half south of Oldbridge. There the Enniskilleners were repelled with the
loss of fifty men, and were hotly pursued, till William rallied them and
turned the chase back. In this encounter Richard Hamilton, who had done
all that could be done by valour to retrieve a reputation forfeited by
perfidy, [696] was severely wounded, taken prisoner, and instantly brought,
through the smoke and over the carnage, before the prince whom he had
foully wronged. On no occasion did the character of William show itself
in a more striking manner. "Is this business over? " he said; "or will
your horse make more fight? " "On my honour, Sir," answered Hamilton, "I
believe that they will. " "Your honour! " muttered William; "your honour! "
That half suppressed exclamation was the only revenge which he
condescended to take for an injury for which many sovereigns, far more
affable and gracious in their ordinary deportment, would have exacted
a terrible retribution. Then, restraining himself, he ordered his own
surgeon to look to the hurts of the captive, [697]
And now the battle was over. Hamilton was mistaken in thinking that his
horse would continue to fight. Whole troops had been cut to pieces. One
fine regiment had only thirty unwounded men left. It was enough that
these gallant soldiers had disputed the field till they were left
without support, or hope, or guidance, till their bravest leader was a
captive, and till their King had fled.
Whether James had owed his early reputation for valour to accident and
flattery, or whether, as he advanced in life, his character underwent
a change, may be doubted.
But it is certain that, in his youth, he
was generally believed to possess, not merely that average measure of
fortitude which qualifies a soldier to go through a campaign without
disgrace, but that high and serene intrepidity which is the virtue of
great commanders, [698] It is equally certain that, in his later years,
he repeatedly, at conjunctures such as have often inspired timorous and
delicate women with heroic courage, showed a pusillanimous anxiety about
his personal safety. Of the most powerful motives which can induce human
beings to encounter peril none was wanting to him on the day of the
Boyne. The eyes of his contemporaries and of posterity, of friends
devoted to his cause and of enemies eager to witness his humiliation,
were fixed upon him. He had, in his own opinion, sacred rights to
maintain and cruel wrongs to revenge. He was a King come to fight for
three kingdoms. He was a father come to fight for the birthright of his
child. He was a zealous Roman Catholic, come to fight in the holiest of
crusades. If all this was not enough, he saw, from the secure position
which he occupied on the height of Donore, a sight which, it might have
been thought, would have roused the most torpid of mankind to emulation.
He saw his rival, weak, sickly, wounded, swimming the river, struggling
through the mud, leading the charge, stopping the flight, grasping the
sword with the left hand, managing the bridle with a bandaged arm. But
none of these things moved that sluggish and ignoble nature. He watched,
from a safe distance, the beginning of the battle on which his fate and
the fate of his race depended. When it became clear that the day was
going against Ireland, he was seized with an apprehension that his
flight might be intercepted, and galloped towards Dublin. He was
escorted by a bodyguard under the command of Sarsfield, who had, on that
day, had no opportunity of displaying the skill and courage which his
enemies allowed that he possessed, [699] The French auxiliaries, who
had been employed the whole morning in keeping William's right wing in
check, covered the flight of the beaten army. They were indeed in some
danger of being broken and swept away by the torrent of runaways, all
pressing to get first to the pass of Duleek, and were forced to fire
repeatedly on these despicable allies, [700] The retreat was, however,
effected with less loss than might have been expected. For even the
admirers of William owned that he did not show in the pursuit the energy
which even his detractors acknowledged that he had shown in the battle.
Perhaps his physical infirmities, his hurt, and the fatigue which he had
undergone, had made him incapable of bodily or mental exertion. Of the
last forty hours he had passed thirty-five on horseback. Schomberg, who
might have supplied his place, was no more. It was said in the camp that
the King could not do every thing, and that what was not done by him was
not done at all.
The slaughter had been less than on any battle field of equal importance
and celebrity. Of the Irish only about fifteen hundred had fallen; but
they were almost all cavalry, the flower of the army, brave and well
disciplined men, whose place could not easily be supplied. William
gave strict orders that there should be no unnecessary bloodshed,
and enforced those orders by an act of laudable severity. One of his
soldiers, after the fight was over, butchered three defenceless Irishmen
who asked for quarter. The King ordered the murderer to be hanged on the
spot, [701]
The loss of the conquerors did not exceed five hundred men but among
them was the first captain in Europe. To his corpse every honour was
paid. The only cemetery in which so illustrious a warrior, slain in arms
for the liberties and religion of England, could properly be laid
was that venerable Abbey, hallowed by the dust of many generations
of princes, heroes and poets. It was announced that the brave veteran
should have a public funeral at Westminster. In the mean time his corpse
was embalmed with such skill as could be found in the camp, and was
deposited in a leaden coffin, [702]
Walker was treated less respectfully. William thought him a busybody who
had been properly punished for running into danger without any call of
duty, and expressed that feeling, with characteristic bluntness, on the
field of battle. "Sir," said an attendant, "the Bishop of Derry has been
killed by a shot at the ford. " "What took him there? " growled the King.
The victorious army advanced that day to Duleek, and passed the warm
summer night there under the open sky. The tents and the baggage waggons
were still on the north of the river. William's coach had been brought
over; and he slept in it surrounded by his soldiers. On the following
day, Drogheda surrendered without a blow, and the garrison, thirteen
hundred strong, marched out unarmed, [703]
Meanwhile Dublin had been in violent commotion. On the thirtieth of June
it was known that the armies were face to face with the Boyne between
them, and that a battle was almost inevitable. The news that William had
been wounded came that evening. The first report was that the wound was
mortal. It was believed, and confidently repeated, that the usurper was
no more; and couriers started bearing the glad tidings of his death to
the French ships which lay in the ports of Munster. From daybreak on
the first of July the streets of Dublin were filled with persons eagerly
asking and telling news. A thousand wild rumours wandered to and fro
among the crowd. A fleet of men of war under the white flag had been
seen from the hill of Howth. An army commanded by a Marshal of France
had landed in Kent. There had been hard fighting at the Boyne; but
the Irish had won the day; the English right wing had been routed; the
Prince of Orange was a prisoner. While the Roman Catholics heard and
repeated these stories in all the places of public resort, the few
Protestants who were still out of prison, afraid of being torn to
pieces, shut themselves up in their inner chambers. But, towards five
in the afternoon, a few runaways on tired horses came straggling in with
evil tidings. By six it was known that all was lost. Soon after sunset,
James, escorted by two hundred cavalry, rode into the Castle. At
the threshold he was met by the wife of Tyrconnel, once the gay and
beautiful Fanny Jennings, the loveliest coquette in the brilliant
Whitehall of the Restoration. To her the vanquished King had to announce
the ruin of her fortunes and of his own. And now the tide of fugitives
came in fast. Till midnight all the northern avenues of the capital were
choked by trains of cars and by bands of dragoons, spent with running
and riding, and begrimed with dust. Some had lost their fire arms, and
some their swords. Some were disfigured by recent wounds. At two in the
morning Dublin was still: but, before the early dawn of midsummer, the
sleepers were roused by the peal of trumpets; and the horse, who had, on
the preceding day, so well supported the honour of their country,
came pouring through the streets, with ranks fearfully thinned, yet
preserving, even in that extremity, some show of military order. Two
hours later Lauzun's drums were heard; and the French regiments, in
unbroken array, marched into the city, [704] Many thought that, with
such a force, a stand might still be made. But, before six o'clock,
the Lord Mayor and some of the principal Roman Catholic citizens were
summoned in haste to the Castle. James took leave of them with a speech
which did him little honour. He had often, he said, been warned that
Irishmen, however well they might look, would never acquit themselves
well on a field of battle; and he had now found that the warning was but
too true. He had been so unfortunate as to see himself in less than
two years abandoned by two armies. His English troops had not wanted
courage; but they had wanted loyalty. His Irish troops were, no doubt,
attached to his cause, which was their own. But as soon as they were
brought front to front with an enemy, they ran away. The loss indeed had
been little. More shame for those who had fled with so little loss. "I
will never command an Irish army again. I must shift for myself; and so
must you. " After thus reviling his soldiers for being the rabble which
his own mismanagement had made them, and for following the example of
cowardice which he had himself set them, he uttered a few words more
worthy of a King. He knew, he said, that some of his adherents had
declared that they would burn Dublin down rather than suffer it to fall
into the hands of the English. Such an act would disgrace him in the
eyes of all mankind: for nobody would believe that his friends would
venture so far without his sanction. Such an act would also draw on
those who committed it severities which otherwise they had no cause to
apprehend: for inhumanity to vanquished enemies was not among the faults
of the Prince of Orange. For these reasons James charged his hearers on
their allegiance neither to sack nor to destroy the city, [705] He then
took his departure, crossed the Wicklow hills with all speed, and never
stopped till he was fifty miles from Dublin. Scarcely had he alighted
to take some refreshment when he was scared by an absurd report that the
pursuers were close upon him. He started again, rode hard all night,
and gave orders that the bridges should be pulled down behind him. At
sunrise on the third of July he reached the harbour of Waterford.
Thence he went by sea to Kinsale, where he embarked on board of a French
frigate, and sailed for Brest, [706]
After his departure the confusion in Dublin increased hourly. During the
whole of the day which followed the battle, flying foot soldiers,
weary and soiled with travel, were constantly coming in. Roman Catholic
citizens, with their wives, their families and their household stuff,
were constantly going out. In some parts of the capital there was still
an appearance of martial order and preparedness. Guards were posted at
the gates: the Castle was occupied by a strong body of troops; and it
was generally supposed that the enemy would not be admitted without a
struggle. Indeed some swaggerers, who had, a few hours before, run from
the breastwork at Oldbridge without drawing a trigger, now swore that
they would lay the town in ashes rather than leave it to the Prince of
Orange. But towards the evening Tyrconnel and Lauzun collected all their
forces, and marched out of the city by the road leading to that vast
sheepwalk which extends over the table land of Kildare. Instantly the
face of things in Dublin was changed. The Protestants every where came
forth from their hiding places. Some of them entered the houses of their
persecutors and demanded arms. The doors of the prisons were opened.
The Bishops of Meath and Limerick, Doctor King, and others, who had
long held the doctrine of passive obedience, but who had at length been
converted by oppression into moderate Whigs, formed themselves into a
provisional government, and sent a messenger to William's camp, with the
news that Dublin was prepared to welcome him. At eight that evening a
troop of English dragoons arrived. They were met by the whole Protestant
population on College Green, where the statue of the deliverer now
stands. Hundreds embraced the soldiers, hung fondly about the necks of
the horses, and ran wildly about, shaking hands with each other. On the
morrow a large body of cavalry arrived; and soon from every side came
news of the effects which the victory of the Boyne had produced.
James had quitted the island. Wexford had declared for William. Within
twenty-five miles of the capital there was not a Papist in arms. Almost
all the baggage and stores of the defeated army had been seized by the
conquerors. The Enniskilleners had taken not less than three hundred
cars, and had found among the booty ten thousand pounds in money,
much plate, many valuable trinkets, and all the rich camp equipage of
Tyrconnel and Lauzun, [707]
William fixed his head quarters at Ferns, about two miles from Dublin.
Thence, on the morning of Sunday, the sixth of July, he rode in great
state to the cathedral, and there, with the crown on his head, returned
public thanks to God in the choir which is now hung with the banners of
the Knights of Saint Patrick. King preached, with all the fervour of a
neophyte, on the great deliverance which God had wrought for the Church.
The Protestant magistrates of the city appeared again, after a long
interval, in the pomp of office. William could not be persuaded to
repose himself at the Castle, but in the evening returned to his camp,
and slept there in his wooden cabin, [708]
The fame of these great events flew fast, and excited strong emotions
all over Europe. The news of William's wound every where preceded by a
few hours the news of his victory. Paris was roused at dead of night by
the arrival of a courier who brought the joyful intelligence that the
heretic, the parricide, the mortal enemy of the greatness of France, had
been struck dead by a cannon ball in the sight of the two armies. The
commissaries of police ran about the city, knocked at the doors, and
called the people up to illuminate. In an hour streets, quays and
bridges were in a blaze: drums were beating and trumpets sounding: the
bells of Notre Dame were ringing; peals of cannon were resounding from
the batteries of the Bastile. Tables were set out in the streets; and
wine was served to all who passed. A Prince of Orange, made of straw,
was trailed through the mud, and at last committed to the flames. He was
attended by a hideous effigy of the devil, carrying a scroll, on which
was written, "I have been waiting for thee these two years. " The shops
of several Huguenots who had been dragooned into calling themselves
Catholics, but were suspected of being still heretics at heart, were
sacked by the rabble. It was hardly safe to question the truth of
the report which had been so eagerly welcomed by the multitude. Soon,
however, some coolheaded people ventured to remark that the fact of the
tyrant's death was not quite so certain as might be wished. Then arose
a vehement controversy about the effect of such wounds; for the vulgar
notion was that no person struck by a cannon ball on the shoulder could
recover. The disputants appealed to medical authority; and the doors of
the great surgeons and physicians were thronged, it was jocosely said,
as if there had been a pestilence in Paris. The question was soon
settled by a letter from James, which announced his defeat and his
arrival at Brest, [709]
At Rome the news from Ireland produced a sensation of a very different
kind. There too the report of William's death was, during a short
time, credited. At the French embassy all was joy and triumph: but the
Ambassadors of the House of Austria were in despair; and the aspect of
the Pontifical Court by no means indicated exultation, [710] Melfort,
in a transport of joy, sate down to write a letter of congratulation to
Mary of Modena. That letter is still extant, and would alone suffice
to explain why he was the favourite of James. Herod,--so William was
designated, was gone. There must be a restoration; and that restoration
ought to be followed by a terrible revenge and by the establishment of
despotism. The power of the purse must be taken away from the Commons.
Political offenders must be tried, not by juries, but by judges on whom
the Crown could depend. The Habeas Corpus Act must be rescinded. The
authors of the Revolution must be punished with merciless severity.
"If," the cruel apostate wrote, "if the King is forced to pardon, let
it be as few rogues as he can. " [711] After the lapse of some anxious
hours, a messenger bearing later and more authentic intelligence
alighted at the palace occupied by the representative of the Catholic
King. In a moment all was changed. The enemies of France,--and all the
population, except Frenchmen and British Jacobites, were her enemies,
eagerly felicitated one another. All the clerks of the Spanish legation
were too few to make transcripts of the despatches for the Cardinals and
Bishops who were impatient to know the details of the victory. The first
copy was sent to the Pope, and was doubtless welcome to him, [712]
The good news from Ireland reached London at a moment when good news
was needed. The English flag had been disgraced in the English seas.
A foreign enemy threatened the coast. Traitors were at work within the
realm. Mary had exerted herself beyond her strength. Her gentle nature
was unequal to the cruel anxieties of her position; and she complained
that she could scarcely snatch a moment from business to calm herself by
prayer. Her distress rose to the highest point when she learned that the
camps of her father and her husband were pitched near to each other, and
that tidings of a battle might be hourly expected. She stole time for a
visit to Kensington, and had three hours of quiet in the garden, then a
rural solitude, [713] But the recollection of days passed there with him
whom she might never see again overpowered her. "The place," she wrote
to him, "made me think how happy I was there when I had your dear
company. But now I will say no more; for I shall hurt my own eyes, which
I want now more than ever. Adieu. Think of me, and love me as much as I
shall you, whom I love more than my life. " [714]
Early on the morning after these tender lines had been despatched,
Whitehall was roused by the arrival of a post from Ireland. Nottingham
was called out of bed. The Queen, who was just going to the chapel where
she daily attended divine service, was informed that William had been
wounded. She had wept much; but till that moment she had wept alone, and
had constrained herself to show a cheerful countenance to her Court and
Council. But when Nottingham put her husband's letter into her hands,
she burst into tears. She was still trembling with the violence of her
emotions, and had scarcely finished a letter to William in which she
poured out her love, her fears and her thankfulness, with the sweet
natural eloquence of her sex, when another messenger arrived with the
news that the English army had forced a passage across the Boyne, that
the Irish were flying in confusion, and that the King was well. Yet she
was visibly uneasy till Nottingham had assured her that James was safe.
The grave Secretary, who seems to have really esteemed and loved her,
afterwards described with much feeling that struggle of filial duty with
conjugal affection. On the same day she wrote to adjure her husband to
see that no harm befell her father. "I know," she said, "I need not beg
you to let him be taken care of; for I am confident you will for your
own sake; yet add that to all your kindness; and, for my sake, let
people know you would have no hurt happen to his person. " [715] This
solicitude, though amiable, was superfluous. Her father was perfectly
competent to take care of himself. He had never, during the battle, run
the smallest risk of hurt; and, while his daughter was shuddering at the
dangers to which she fancied that he was exposed in Ireland, he was half
way on his voyage to France.
It chanced that the glad tidings arrived at Whitehall on the day to
which the Parliament stood prorogued. The Speaker and several members of
the House of Commons who were in London met, according to form, at ten
in the morning, and were summoned by Black Rod to the bar of the Peers.
The Parliament was then again prorogued by commission. As soon as this
ceremony had been performed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer put into
the hands of the Clerk the despatch which had just arrived from Ireland,
and the Clerk read it with a loud voice to the lords and gentlemen
present, [716] The good news spread rapidly from Westminster Hall to
all the coffeehouses, and was received with transports of joy. For
those Englishmen who wished to see an English army beaten and an English
colony extirpated by the French and Irish were a minority even of the
Jacobite party.
On the ninth day after the battle of the Boyne James landed at Brest,
with an excellent appetite, in high spirits, and in a talkative humour.
He told the history of his defeat to everybody who would listen to him.
But French officers who understood war, and who compared his story with
other accounts, pronounced that, though His Majesty had witnessed the
battle, he knew nothing about it, except that his army had been routed,
[717] From Brest he proceeded to Saint Germains, where, a few hours
after his arrival, he was visited by Lewis. The French King had too much
delicacy and generosity to utter a word which could sound like reproach.
Nothing, he declared, that could conduce to the comfort of the royal
family of England should be wanting, as far as his power extended. But
he was by no means disposed to listen to the political and military
projects of his unlucky guest. James recommended an immediate descent
on England. That kingdom, he said, had been drained of troops by the
demands of Ireland. The seven or eight thousand regular soldiers who
were left would be unable to withstand a great French army. The people
were ashamed of their error and impatient to repair it. As soon as their
rightful King showed himself, they would rally round him in multitudes,
[718] Lewis was too polite and goodnatured to express what he must
have felt. He contented himself with answering coldly that he could not
decide upon any plan about the British islands till he had heard from
his generals in Ireland. James was importunate, and seemed to think
himself ill used, because, a fortnight after he had run away from one
army, he was not entrusted with another. Lewis was not to be provoked
into uttering an unkind or uncourteous word: but he was resolute and,
in order to avoid solicitation which gave him pain, he pretended to
be unwell. During some time, whenever James came to Versailles, he was
respectfully informed that His Most Christian Majesty was not equal to
the transaction of business. The highspirited and quickwitted nobles who
daily crowded the antechambers could not help sneering while they bowed
low to the royal visitor, whose poltroonery and stupidity had a second
time made him an exile and a mendicant. They even whispered their
sarcasms loud enough to call up the haughty blood of the Guelphs in
the cheeks of Mary of Modena. But the insensibility of James was of no
common kind. It had long been found proof against reason and against
pity. It now sustained a still harder trial, and was found proof even
against contempt, [719]
While he was enduring with ignominious fortitude the polite scorn of
the French aristocracy, and doing his best to weary out his benefactor's
patience and good breeding by repeating that this was the very moment
for an invasion of England, and that the whole island was impatiently
expecting its foreign deliverers, events were passing which signally
proved how little the banished oppressor understood the character of his
countrymen.
Tourville had, since the battle of Beachy Head, ranged the Channel
unopposed. On the twenty-first of July his masts were seen from the
rocks of Portland. On the twenty-second he anchored in the harbour
of Torbay, under the same heights which had, not many months before,
sheltered the armament of William. The French fleet, which now had
a considerable number of troops on board, consisted of a hundred and
eleven sail. The galleys, which formed a large part of this force,
resembled rather those ships with which Alcibiades and Lysander disputed
the sovereignty of the Aegean than those which contended at the Nile
and at Trafalgar. The galley was very long and very narrow, the deck
not more than two feet from the water edge. Each galley was propelled by
fifty or sixty huge oars, and each oar was tugged by five or six
slaves. The full complement of slaves to a vessel was three hundred and
thirty-six; the full complement of officers and soldiers a hundred and
fifty. Of the unhappy rowers some were criminals who had been justly
condemned to a life of hardship and danger; a few had been guilty only
of adhering obstinately to the Huguenot worship; the great majority
were purchased bondsmen, generally Turks and Moors. They were of course
always forming plans for massacring their tyrants and escaping from
servitude, and could be kept in order only by constant stripes and by
the frequent infliction of death in horrible forms. An Englishman, who
happened to fall in with about twelve hundred of these most miserable
and most desperate of human beings on their road from Marseilles to join
Tourville's squadron, heard them vowing that, if they came near a man
of war bearing the cross of Saint George, they would never again see a
French dockyard, [720]
In the Mediterranean galleys were in ordinary use: but none had ever
before been seen on the stormy ocean which roars round our island. The
flatterers of Lewis said that the appearance of such a squadron on the
Atlantic was one of those wonders which were reserved for his reign;
and a medal was struck at Paris to commemorate this bold experiment in
maritime war, [721] English sailors, with more reason, predicted that
the first gale would send the whole of this fairweather armament to
the bottom of the Channel. Indeed the galley, like the ancient trireme,
generally kept close to the shore, and ventured out of sight of land
only when the water was unruffled and the sky serene. But the qualities
which made this sort of ship unfit to brave tempests and billows made it
peculiarly fit for the purpose of landing soldiers. Tourville determined
to try what effect would be produced by a disembarkation. The English
Jacobites who had taken refuge in France were all confident that the
whole population of the island was ready to rally round an invading
army; and he probably gave them credit for understanding the temper of
their countrymen.
Never was there a greater error. Indeed the French admiral is said by
tradition to have received, while he was still out at sea, a lesson
which might have taught him not to rely on the assurances of exiles.
He picked up a fishing boat, and interrogated the owner, a plain Sussex
man, about the sentiments of the nation. "Are you," he said, "for King
James? " "I do not know much about such matters," answered the fisherman.
"I have nothing to say against King James. He is a very worthy
gentleman, I believe.
