Envoi:
‘The Flight of the Geese’

Although the terms of the Treaty of Limerick allowed that once the Jacobite forces had made their decision as to their future, they would not be coerced into changing their minds, unsettling reports of conditions in France and the attempts of a few former Jacobite officers to suborn their regiments led to a spate of desertions, and therefore measures needed to be taken to stop the rot. Accordingly Sarsfield moved to Cork with a large number of troops while, in Limerick, as many men as possible were embarked upon the French fleet – de Tessé and d’Usson being particularly anxious to reach Versailles as soon as possible in order to present the true account of the Aughrim campaign to King Louis and King James.

In the wake of this heightened tension, accusations began to fly that Ginkel had deliberately broken the Treaty that he himself had promulgated, and many began to believe the adverse propaganda that began to materialise. The truth is that while Ginkel was intent that the agreement be observed to the letter, arranging for the charter of merchant vessels to carry the remainder of the troops and a limited number of their dependants to France, he was being hamstrung by a number of over-zealous subordinates, a prime example being Ouwerkerk, the Williamite commissioner for the embarkations taking place at Cork. Although one clause of the Treaty allowed for the transfer of any dependants to accompany the troops to France the cost of which would be met by England, a later clause explicitly stated that the such costs would only be met in the case of military personnel, and thus he refused passage to the wives and children of many of the soldiers as they did not have the wherewithal to pay for their journey.

This is not to say that similar events did not take place amongst the Jacobite ranks – at Limerick, Wauchope, overseeing the embarkations on Sarsfield’s behalf refused passage to a large number of ‘civilian dependants’ on the grounds that the troops concerned were from parts of Ireland too far removed from Limerick for their families to have travelled to the port in such a short period of time after the ratification of the Treaty.

For the Jacobites, the review of the troops on 5 October 1691 proved to be a fatal split between those who sailed to France and those who remained in Ireland, with particular vitriol being reserved for the Earl of Louth, Baron Westmeath, Viscounts Iveagh and Costello-Gallen as well as Colonel Wilson – the former Jacobite commissary general of foot – all of whom were retroactively accused of not only being in collusion with the enemy, but also of deliberately instructing their regiments to ignore Sarsfield and Wauchope’s exhortations to remain in Jacobite service. Despite Ginkel’s assurances to the contrary, those former Jacobites who enlisted in Williamite service were subsequently brigaded together under the command of Brian Magennis, 2nd Viscount Iveagh, and transferred to the Balkans where they joined the Imperialist forces fighting the Ottoman Turks, the majority eventually succumbing to disease and enemy action.

Upon their arrival, those individuals who did embark for France were faced with an uncertain future: firstly, many had to survive a harsh winter in Brittany with little or no shelter from the elements, and secondly few – officers included – had any idea of how and under what conditions the army was to be reformed on French soil. Eventually an agreement was reached between King James and King Louis that provided for a Jacobite Army in Exile to comprise of 2 troops of Life Guards, 2 regiments of horse, 2 regiments of dismounted dragoons, 8 regiments of foot and 3 independent companies of foot, the whole to be ‘under the command of James, and of such General Officers as he should appoint’.

The immediate problem for King James was that with the agreed organisation, he had a surfeit of senior officers looking for employment but only a limited number of regimental commands to fill and, as was inevitable political connections and affiliations would count more than meritorious service. A suitable example is the case of Colonel Richard Bellew.

At the beginning of the war, Bellew was commissioned as a lieutenant in Viscount Dongan’s Dragoons and saw active service during the occupation of Ulster, as a result of which he received his promotion to captain in May 1689. The following year he served at the Boyne, where his regimental commander was killed during the fighting against Württemburg’s Danes in the Oldbridge sector. During the reorganisation of the Army following the retreat to Limerick, Walter Nugent was given command of the regiment, and it may be at this time that Bellew received his majority as, by Aughrim, he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel. In the wake of Aughrim, Bellew assumed command of the regiment and led it through the final stages of the war and thence to France where it was earmarked to become the core of the 1st (King’s) Regiment of Dismounted Dragoons. In normal circumstances it would be natural to assume – as indeed Bellew himself did – that he would be given command of the reconstituted regiment, but these were not normal circumstances, and command of the regiment was given instead to Thomas Maxwell who had been captured at Athlone, and recently released under the terms of the Treaty of Limerick.

Feeling that he, and his family, had been deliberately mistreated – his father and brother would both die of wounds taken at Aughrim – Bellew resigned his commission and eventually returned to Ireland where he converted to the Anglican Church in order to recover the sequestrated family estates, becoming 3rd Baron Bellew of Duleek in 1694.

As for Sarsfield himself, in April 1692 he was given command of 8,000 Irish troops earmarked to take part in an invasion of England, but the comprehensive French defeat at the Battle of La Hogue on 19–20 May ensured that the Anglo-Dutch fleets retained control of the English Channel and the invasion plans came to nought. His subsequent conduct as one of the Duc de Luxembourg’s major-generals at the Battle of Steenkirk on 3 August saw him mentioned in despatches to King Louis XIV, and he remained with the army until the climactic battle of Landen on 29 July 1693, during the course of which he was mortally wounded whilst leading a French cavalry attack, his last words being ‘Oh! That this was for Ireland’.