1
A War of Kings:
November 1688 – December 1690
Just as it was assured that the most resistance to James’s plans to change the composition of the standing army would be met in England, it was also certain that in Ireland, these changes would be most welcome – not necessarily out of any loyalty to the King and the House of Stuart, but because many Irish nobles and magnates viewed James’s policies as being the best way to overturn the various political settlements that had seen their properties and powers denuded over the preceding half century.
When he received James’s instructions to begin a systematic weeding out of Protestants within the Irish Establishment, Tyrconnel, the Lord Deputy saw this not only as a means to obey his master’s wishes, but also to create – through the use of patronage – a military hierarchy in Ireland that owed its fortune to his good offices alone; in this way the careers of many officers received a boost which would see them firmly placed in the upper echelons of the new army. A prime example is Richard Hamilton of Nenagh, Co. Tipperary who had served previously in an Irish regiment of foot in French service, but was subsequently appointed colonel of dragoons on the Irish establishment and, after his return to Ireland in 1689, Lieutenant-General.1
Commissions were granted to anyone deemed politically reliable who were both willing and financially able to raise troops – Magnates such as the Earls of Antrim and Clanrickarde raised complete regiments from their families, dependants and retainers whilst many independent companies were raised by members of the middle classes: the result was an army that has been estimated as being anywhere between 75,000 and 100,000 men strong.
On paper – at least – this was indeed a formidable force and it was the latent threat posed by such numbers that led William to accede in sending Richard Hamilton to Ireland in the first place. But with the exclusion of those regiments which had not been sent to England, and with few exceptions amongst regiments raised by the more affluent of James’s supporters, the army was a paper tiger. The bulk of the army was ill-trained and ill-equipped, with no standard organisation. Just as importantly it was a huge financial liability: whilst regiments raised on familial lines could defer some of their costs, many other officers had sunk their own wealth into their units and such sources of income could not provide for the troops indefinitely.
In an effort to resolve the problem Tyrconnel took steps to rationalise the army: A standard regimental organisation was established – regiments of foot would consist, in the main, of a single battalion of thirteen companies (of which one could be equipped as grenadiers). A regiment of horse would consist of nine troops while one of dragoons would consist of eight.2 As a result of these changes the size of the army was slashed drastically and many units were either simply disbanded or merged with others to conform to the new regimental establishments – consequently large numbers of officers who had raised troops for James found their commissions terminated, and much ill will was generated at what was perceived to be Stuart ingratitude.
As the army reformed, and in anticipation of the coming struggle, Tyrconnel began to make arrangements to secure a number of strategic posts throughout the country. One of the foremost of these was the city of Derry, which lay on the west bank of the River Foyle on the borders of Counties Donegal and Londonderry. The city was strongly fortified with relatively modern defences, and was at this time occupied by a regiment of foot commanded by William Stewart, Lord Mountjoy.
Whilst Mountjoy’s troops were a mixture of Catholics and Protestants, he himself was a Protestant and in the Lord Deputy’s eyes, ultimately unreliable. He therefore ordered Mountjoy to bring his regiment to Dublin, and then cast about for a suitable body of troops with which to occupy Derry. The nearest was a detachment of the Earl of Antrim’s Regiment of Foot which was then forming around Coleraine prior to moving to Boyle, in Co. Roscommon, which was held by the remaining six companies of the regiment, under Antrim’s second in command Lt-Colonel Mark Talbot.
Mountjoy left Derry on 23 November, with no sign of the Earl of Antrim. As the troops departed, Derry would be left unoccupied for over two weeks, during which time the situation in Ulster would change dramatically. One of the main reasons for this is what is known as the Coomber Letter, addressed to Lord Mountalexander, one of Tyrconnel’s most vociferous opponents. This anonymous note was specifically designed to raise fears of a repetition of the Irish Uprising of 1641 during which many Protestants were murdered by Catholic rebels.
Whatever the provenance of the anonymous note it certainly had the desired effect, with its author writing that
‘all our Irishmen through Ireland is sworn: that on the ninth day of this month3 they are to fall on to kill and murder every man, wife and child; and I desire your Lordship to take care of yourself and all others that are judged by our men to be heads, for whosoever can kill any of you, they are to have a captain’s place; so my desire to your honour is to look to yourself and give other noblemen warning, and go not out either night or day without a good guard with you, and let no Irishman come near you, whatsoever he be.’
The implied threat was clear and soon, not only were copies of the letter being circulated throughout the north, but Mountalexander and his peers began to prepare for the inevitable, raising bodies of armed men to protect themselves and their co-religionists.
Much has been made of accounts that the Coleraine detachment took an excessive amount of time to reach its destination due to the ‘fact’ that Alexander, the septuagenarian Earl and regimental colonel insisted on wasting time in inducting recruits over six feet in height, or that by the time of the unit’s arrival at Derry it was accompanied by a mass of irregulars who were simply in attendance to pillage the city upon its occupation by Antrim’s regiment.
A more plausible explanation is that what was reported was the movement of a body of troops still in the process of implementing Tyrconnel’s ‘rationalisations’: a number of companies had been equipped, and had received some training, whilst the remainder of the troops were in various stages of being taught how to march and manoeuvre. Being the last of the regiment to be formed, the majority of these troops were both ill-equipped and ill-armed, giving rise to the myth of there being an armed rabble in attendance.
On 7 December – over two weeks late – the Coleraine detachment, under the command of Captain Daniel MacDonnell (an illegitimate son of the Earl), arrived on the eastern bank of the Foyle opposite Derry, and two officers were sent across into the city to make contact with the city council. Opinion within the city was divided – William’s victory in England was by no means certain – and a number of councillors wanted to err on the side of caution and not do anything which could be construed as an act of defiance against James.
As the meeting progressed, guards on the walls noticed that a number of Antrim’s men had been transported across the river and were approaching the city’s Ferry Quay Gate. Word spread, and whilst an argument over billeting rights had broken out and threatened to disrupt the talks, a group of thirteen apprentice boys4 rushed to the gate, pulled up the drawbridge, and slammed it shut in the faces of the grey coated infantry. Deprived of leadership, the Jacobite troops outside the walls began to mill in confusion, awaiting orders, and after the apprentices had used their momentary indecision to secure the other city gates, the soldiers withdrew back across the Foyle to rejoin the rest of the detachment.
Derry was now secure from any actions when the Earl of Antrim – who by now had rejoined his troops – might have decided to undertake, and with the more militant councillors gaining the initiative it was decided to send two letters. The first was to William of Orange, advising him of the situation in the north, and petitioning him for urgent assistance whilst the second was to Lord Mountjoy in Dublin, protesting that the incident at the Ferry Quay gate and the refusal to admit Antrim’s troops into Derry was the work of a number of hotheads and not the policy of the city council. Indeed, they continued to explain that the deed had caught the popular imagination in the wake of the ‘Coomber Letter’, being viewed as a demonstration of Divine Providence which stirred ‘up the mobile for our safety, and preservation of the peace of the kingdom against such bloody attempts as these northern people had formed against us’.
Tyrconnel had clearly misjudged and mismanaged the situation. And as Derry controlled the north-west it had to be secured for King James. Reasoning, therefore, that if the inhabitants would not accept a Catholic garrison they would accept a Protestant one he ordered Mountjoy and his exhausted troops to retrace their steps and return to Derry in ever-deteriorating winter weather.
On reaching Omagh, Mountjoy decided to rest his troops and arranged to meet a deputation from Derry at Raphoe. The terms he offered were simple: a free and general pardon if the popular garrison of the city were to surrender. On their return to the city, the deputation urged their colleagues to accept the offer but the mood within the city had begun to change, with the militarists coming to the fore (especially as several independently raised companies had now joined the garrison), and it was refused.
A second meeting took place, this time at St Johnston, and now it was for Derry’s representatives to submit conditions: only Protestant troops would be allowed to enter the city, the independent companies would remain, and a general pardon would be granted. Mountjoy could agree to none of this and intimated that he would march on the city and demand entrance in the name of the King; this showed the inherent weakness in the city’s position, for if Mountjoy were to carry out his threat and this time be refused entrance, then she would be deemed to be in a state of rebellion against the Crown.
For both parties the stakes had risen – perhaps too far – and a prompt resolution was needed: word had reached Mountjoy that a detachment of Sir Thomas Newcomen’s regiment5 had been rebuffed by the citizens of Enniskillen who were now preparing defensive works under the command of Gustavus Hamilton, a Protestant officer who had been cashiered during Tyrconnel’s purge of the army. On the other side, the reality of their situation was slowly becoming apparent to the Derry councillors, and an accord was hammered out which would answer the concerns of both sides, the main terms of which were as follows:
i) Within fifteen days of the ratification of the document, Mountjoy was to issue a general pardon for all crimes committed, with the exception of murder.
ii) Two companies of Mountjoy’s troops would be permitted to garrison Derry alongside the independent companies, the troops to be commanded by Mountjoy’s deputy, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Lundy, a Scots Protestant who had been a longstanding member of the garrison.
iii) No strangers would be permitted carry arms within or to spend the night in the city without a permit signed by either Lundy or the city’s two sheriffs.
iv) Antrim’s regiment was expressly forbidden to be included within any Jacobite garrison, and if – in the interim – Mountjoy’s men were ordered elsewhere, the defence of Derry would be left solely in the hands of the independent companies.
Terms were signed on 21 December 1688 and as a sign of good faith, Mountjoy reformed his regiment so that all of the Catholic soldiers were concentrated together and sent Lundy into the city with his garrison companies whilst the remainder of the regiment went into quarters in Strabane, Newtownstewart and Raphoe.
Even as the discussions between Mountjoy and the Derry councillors were taking place, Tyrconnel had sent an urgent message to the Earl of Antrim instructing him to be ready to march on Derry at a moment’s notice. But the Lord Deputy had been outmanoeuvred and had to be content in issuing further orders recalling Lord Mountjoy to Dublin. Many urged Mountjoy to forsake his oath to King James and take up the Governorship of Derry but he had been a soldier for too long and obeyed his orders without question, returning to Dublin aware that the impending interview with Tyrconnel would be unpleasant to say the least.
Mountjoy had always acted in good faith throughout the tortuous negotiations, and although this last decision was to have tragic personal consequences for him it would also have a lasting effect on the progress of the impending hostilities; even as he prepared to return to Dublin for the final time, he gave instructions to Lundy, ordering him to place Derry in a state of defence and also to repair as many of the city’s cannon as was possible, measures which would have a direct impact on any future Jacobite attempts to seize the city.
On his return to Dublin and his subsequent audience with Tyrconnel, Lord Mountjoy was not greeted with the histrionics and verbal firestorm that he had expected – the Lord Deputy had much on his mind, as word had just reached Dublin that James had successfully fled to the Continent and was in exile in France. In confidence Tyrconnel informed Mountjoy that the Jacobite position in Ireland was untenable, and that his advice would be for James to reach a settlement with William, and asked him to bear a message to that effect to the Jacobite Court in Exile near Paris. Mountjoy was to be accompanied by a Catholic judge, Sir Stephen Rice.
The party left Dublin on 10 January 1689, but while Mountjoy prepared himself for an audience with the king, Rice delivered a secret letter to James in which Tyrconnel denounced Mountjoy as a traitor who – despite his professions of loyalty – was merely biding his time before acceding to the military leadership of the Irish Protestants, and went on to state that the majority of the Irish were fiercely loyal in their support of their exiled monarch, and that all he had to do was to land in Ireland at the head of an army for the whole country would rise up in his support. Convinced of the veracity of Tyrconnel’s claims, James sought an audience with his cousin, King Louis XIV of France, whilst Rice was able to quietly dispose of a second letter which he carried which, in return for military support, offered Ireland to the French king as a protectorate.
Throughout December 1688, and as King James’s position in England had deteriorated, King Louis XIV kept a weather eye on the fluid situation in Ireland, in the belief that it was the only possible position from which to launch a second Stuart Restoration. England was perceived to be too firmly under Williamite control, whilst Scotland was too divided – the Catholic majority would at least enable James consolidate his position, and his presence in Ireland would, it was hoped, divert William away from Flanders which was obviously, for France, the crucial theatre of the war. Equally as crucial, French Foreign Policy had recently undergone a change with the Marquis de Louvois, Minister of War and prime advocate of reaching a military solution in the Low Countries, being temporarily superseded by his great rival, Seignelay, the Minister of Marine whose obvious plan was given to an overseas solution supported by the French Navy.6
Accordingly he sent an expert in engineering and naval gunnery, the Marquis de Pointis, to Ireland in order to provide an impartial view of the Jacobite position and to promise Tyrconnel immediate assistance in the form of several thousand antiquated matchlock muskets. For some time the French king had been attempting to balance his natural inclination to help his dispossessed cousin against French military concerns, and he now felt that a diversion in Ireland would only be of benefit to France. Accompanying de Pointis, and on a totally different mission was a promising young Irish officer, Michael Roth, Captain of the King’s Company of King James’s Foot Guards.
Captain Roth’s mission could not have been more different to that of his travelling companion – although, as a trusted officer and one of James’s intimates, he could be relied on to bring back an accurate picture of the military situation in Ireland, he was sent to Dublin merely to advise Tyrconnel of His Majesty’s instructions that Ireland be held secure until at least the end of the summer.
For a man once known to friend and foe alike as ‘Lying Dick Talbot’, and aware that, on his return, Captain Roth would no doubt be making an unofficial report to James, Tyrconnel’s response was a model of simple fact, without the usual embellishment:
‘There are four Regiments of Old Troopes, and one Battalion of the Regiment of Guards and three Regiments of Horse with one Troop of Grenadiers on Horseback. I have given out Commissions for neare forty Regiments of Foot, four Regiments of Dragoons and two of Horse, all of which amount to neare 40,000 men, who are all uncloathed and the greatest part unarmed, and are to be subsisted by their severall officers untill the last of February next out of their owne purses, to the ruine of most of them; but after that day I see no possibility for arming them, clothing them or subsisting them for the future but abandoning the Country to them: but after all if I may be supplied by the last of March with these succours that are necessary which I press in my letters, I doubt not that I shall preserve this Kingdome entirely for Your Majesty’.
It is clear that the reduction in numbers of men under arms had given Tyrconnel the solid core of an army which was comparable if not superior to that of England, but that without adequate logistical support his position would be untenable; however, in closing his dispatch he held out the hope that, with this support, the position in Ireland could be consolidated – James’s instructions that Tyrconnel hold out as best he could until the summer of 1689 was obviously impracticable. Tangible assistance was needed, and it was needed before William could consolidate his position in London and turn his attention once more to Ireland.
For his part William, in London, was in a quandary. He wanted to send assistance to the Irish Protestants, but not only was his position in England weaker and less stable than either he or his supporters had originally anticipated, but he also had to weigh his intentions against his obligations to his allies in Europe. In effect all he could offer the defenders of Derry and Enniskillen, and magnates such as Lord Mountalexander were a number of commissions to raise troops,7 along with his best wishes and a vague promise that help would be forthcoming as soon as it was practicable – hence his failed attempt to resolve matters diplomatically by sending Richard Hamilton as a personal envoy to Tyrconnel in Dublin.
The report which de Pointis sent back to the Sun King was sanguine enough – it was his estimation that, without considerable logistical and military support, the country would be unable to withstand any Williamite attack, but then added a codicil to the effect that should such support be forthcoming, not only would the Irish Jacobites be strong enough to secure the country and hold it for James, but they would also be strong enough to take the fight to the enemy and invade either England or Scotland.
On 12 March 1689, James landed at Kinsale in southern Ireland, in a country where, thanks to Tyrconnel, almost all resistance had been eradicated – With the exception of Protestant enclaves based upon Derry, Enniskillen and Hillsborough, the latter being held by Mountalexander’s ‘Council of the North’ and one or two small minorities such as Bandon in Co.Cork, the country was firmly in Jacobite hands. Besides a number of Jacobite exiles who had been able to make their way to the Court at St Germain, James was accompanied by the Comte d’Avaux, Louis’ ambassador to the Jacobite Court and Generals de Rosen, de Maumont and de Puisignan, a trio of French officers appointed to train and command the Jacobite army.
Even before James’s arrival, the war had been precipitated by Richard Hamilton leading a column of about 3,000 men into Ulster to pacify the Province, and on 14 March he faced an enemy force under the command of Sir Arthur Rawdon at the village of Dromore in Co. Down. The ‘Break’ of Dromore was a disaster for Rawdon who saw his troops flee the field before he could engage the Jacobites.
Ulster was now open to Hamilton’s men and, as they pushed onwards they were preceded by crowds of refugees. According to Macaulay in his History of England:
‘The flight became wild and tumultuous, the fugitives broke down the bridges and burned the ferryboats. Whole towns, the seats of Protestant population, were left in ruins without one inhabitant. The people of Omagh destroyed their own dwellings so utterly that no roof was left to shelter the enemy from the rain and wind. The people of Cavan migrated in one body to Enniskillen. The day was wet and stormy. The road was deep in mire. It was a piteous sight to see, mingled with the armed men, the women and children, weeping, famished and toiling through the mud up to their knees’.
Masking Coleraine, Hamilton moved upon Derry in an attempt to make good Tyrconnel’s mistake and consolidate the Jacobite position in the north of the country, whilst secondary Jacobite forces under Pierce Butler – Viscount Galmoy – and Patrick Sarsfield were deployed in the west of Ireland to take Enniskillen and Sligo respectively. Galmoy’s expedition ended in disaster whilst Sarsfield squandered his early successes by exceeding his remit and attempting to take the heavily fortified town of Ballyshannon.
As Hamilton approached Derry, he was able to successfully parry a series of thrusts by Lundy and morale in the city began to fall, despite the arrival of an English naval squadron on the Foyle, carrying much needed supplies and reinforcements.
Despite his defensive preparations, Lundy believed Derry to be indefensible and having persuaded the English troops to withdraw, began to open negotiations with Hamilton for the surrender of the city. The latter, anxious to secure Derry before the defenders realised the piteous state of the besieging forces, offered remarkably fair terms – a General Pardon and restitution for all damages incurred by the local population – and whilst they were being considered, Hamilton undertook to merely occupy his current positions and not press the siege further.
A large number of Derry’s citizens were inclined to accede to Hamilton’s proposals but before a decision could be reached, King James arrived at the city’s Bishop’s Gate at the head of a large force detached from the Dublin Garrison. Talks were immediately broken off and the end of negotiations marked the end of Lundy who was ejected from the city, eventually making his way to England.
Although command of the besieging forces fell to the French general, de Maumont, King James’s presence meant that rightly or wrongly all final decisions were his, and consequently he allowed a large number of civilians to leave Derry and pass through the Jacobite lines and thereby ease the defenders’ supply problems. From the outset, things went wrong for the Jacobites. On 21 April, de Maumont was killed when Adam Murray, one of the more prominent Loyalist officers led a raid on the siege lines near the Pennyburn Mill and two days later the new commanding general, de Pusignan, was mortally wounded at the same location.
Reassuming command, Richard Hamilton oversaw the consolidation of the siege lines with the capture of a Williamite outpost at Culmore, and the construction of a boom across the Foyle to prevent waterborne assistance from reaching the city. As these preparations were being completed, Hamilton launched a co-ordinated attack on Windmill Hill which came to within a whisker of success; according to one of the defenders
‘[grenadiers] came over the bog, near the Double Bastion and beat our men thence, all but a little boy, who when they were climbing the trenches stood stoutly upon the trench and threw stones at them. Our men being then reinforced from the city came down with spirit and beat them quite over the meadows.’
As the siege progressed, a second English relief force – under Percy Kirke – arrived, but unable to traverse the boom, it relocated to Inch Island in Lough Swilly from whence it could fortify its position and await developments. The siege had now become a stalemate with both sides being ravaged by sickness and the deteriorating weather conditions.
Towards the end of June, command of the besiegers was conferred upon another French general, Conrad de Rosen who almost immediately ordered the Earl of Clancarty’s regiment to launch a frontal assault on a series of outworks that had been constructed to protect the Butcher’s Gate. As had often happened before, the attacking troops initially carried all before them only to be thrown back by a desperate, last-ditch counterattack – It was to be the last major engagement of the siege.
Where force of arms failed, de Rosen issued the orders which have garnered for him a degree of infamy: local Protestants were herded into the no-man’s land between the besiegers and the besieged, in the hope that their co-religionists would not allow them to starve, thus placing an ever greater strain on Derry’s already precarious supply problems. Led by Hamilton, the senior Irish officers complained to the King and de Rosen was relieved of his command and sent back to France, whilst for the second time negotiations for the surrender of the city were initiated.
Although the besieger’s position was becoming critical, the situation within the city was now virtually untenable with ever increasing numbers succumbing to starvation and disease. Aware of Kirke’s position on Inch Island, the Governors agreed that unless the city was relieved within twelve days, they would sign Articles of Surrender. Coming under pressure to act, Kirke re-entered Lough Foyle and on the evening of 28 July, a flotilla comprising the frigate Dartmouth and the merchantmen Jerusalem and Mountjoy began its slow progress up the river. Coming under intense artillery fire from Jacobite batteries on both banks, Mountjoy forced a passage and broke the boom – Derry had finally been relieved.
Like Derry, Enniskillen had become one of the main focal points for Protestant resistance to King James, and Tyrconnel ordered three separate armies to converge upon the town – forces under the Duke of Berwick and Patrick Sarsfield were to move down from the north, whilst Justin MacCarthy, Viscount Mountcashel, would approach from the southeast. The three commanders failed to co-ordinate with each other and it was left for Mountcashel to attack the town alone. An attempt to take Crom Castle was a confused and mismanaged affair, and then a force from Enniskillen under the command of Colonel William Wolseley elected not to wait behind fixed defences, but to meet the Jacobites in the open field. A skirmish at Lisnaskea on 31 July led to Mountcashel’s cavalry being scattered, and he withdrew to a defensive position near the village of Newtownbutler and deploying his small force on the edge of a small bog that the enemy would have to traverse to come to close quarters, Mountcashel ordered parties forward to raze the village.
Launching an immediate attack, the Enniskilleners soon found that the summer weather had made the bog firmer underfoot and less of an obstacle and as they overran the artillery which anchored the centre of the Jacobite line, Wolseley unleashed his mounted troops upon the wavering enemy who soon disintegrated – in the confusion the notoriously short-sighted Mountcashel was knocked to the ground and almost killed, being captured instead.
Without celebrating his victory, Wolseley about-turned and force-marched back to Enniskillen in order to face the potential threat from Sarsfield who was now forced to withdraw from Sligo to Athlone. For James, now back in Dublin, it seemed as if ill-fortune was dogging his every waking hour – the setbacks at Derry and Newtownbutler had been bad enough, but then came the news of the death of ‘Bonnie Dundee’ following the pyrrhic victory at Killiekrankie and on 18 August a Williamite army under the Duke of Schomberg landed at Bangor Lough, effectively consigning the war to a resolution in Ireland.
As soon as it was accepted that James’s landing at Kinsale was a credible threat to the new régime, William became aware that any future strategy would have to be developed in Flanders – his own favourite area of operations – and Ireland, where the priority became to succour the Ulster Protestants before any accommodation was reached with the Jacobite government in Dublin, and so, following the relief of Derry a plan of campaign was formulated which called for a force of 22,000 men to be landed on the Ulster seaboard, and from there march southwards to meet and defeat King James’s forces in a single engagement. A simple plan which had an unspoken benefit in that if the Jacobites refused to give battle, Dublin would fall by default and the Williamite campaign receive a welcome boost.
Distrustful of his new subjects, William decided that this Irish army would consist of a core of Dutch troops – whose services would be obtained by the transfer of several thousand veteran English troops to Flanders under the command of John Churchill, Earl of Marlborough – whilst the remainder of the force would comprise of newly raised troops who would have no previous loyalties to the House of Stuart.
Throughout late summer, as Schomberg methodically reduced the Jacobite positions in the north, James’s advisors counselled a withdrawal into the west of Ireland so as to preserve an ‘army in being’ and maintain a credible threat in the face of the enemy, but the king overruled them, announcing that he who held Dublin held Ireland, and that the capital was to be protected at all costs. This may have been a reflection of his indecision at Salisbury in November 1688 or indeed an acknowledgement that he had made wrong decisions during the early stages of the siege of Derry which had greatly contributed to the failure to take the city, but whatever the reason James was adamant: the army would march to engage the enemy in battle.
Preceded by raiding parties under the command of James’s son, James Fitzjames, Duke of Berwick, the armies closed with each other near the town of Dundalk, where Schomberg had pitched camp. With the weather steadily worsening, hygiene amongst the raw English troops broke down and an epidemic of ‘camp fever’ broke out and spread like wildfire, with almost a third of the army succumbing over autumn and winter. Luckily for Schomberg, his Dutch and French Huguenot troops had taken adequate precautions and suffered lightly in comparison.
On 21 September 1689, James arrived with his army a little to the south of the Williamite encampment and, whilst both staffs counselled their commanders to engage the enemy, Schomberg preferred to remain within his defences while James balked at ordering a frontal assault and, after some ineffective skirmishing ordered his troops to withdraw. Again indecision proved to be the bane of the Jacobite high command for while victory was by no means certain, and with a large portion of his army hors de combat, Schomberg could have taken almost unacceptable losses in any battle which in turn would have caused either William or Parliament to reconsider their Irish strategy.
A short campaign was waged again in the west, which resulted in a second Jacobite occupation of Sligo, but to all intents and purposes the fighting season was at an end, with both armies moving into winter quarters. Of the two commanders, Schomberg had the most reason to be pleased, having fully consolidated his hold on Ulster.
Whilst the Williamites used the winter to reorganise, refit and plan for the attack on Dublin, the Jacobite command structure seemingly disintegrated with officers of all ranks leaving the army to attend to personal business at a time when reorganisation and training were of paramount importance. Indeed, this attitude filtered down to the ranks when many ordinary soldiers, viewing their loyalty as being solely due to their feudal superiors simply left the army and went home.
At the highest level, command was also abrogated, with James moving to Kilkenny, ostensibly in order to escape a similar epidemic that had plagued Schomberg at Dundalk, but even so he ignored the necessity of defeating the enemy forces in Ulster in favour of developing plans for the transfer of the cream of the army to Scotland from whence a Hiberno-Scots force would invade England and retake the throne. Exactly how this was to be achieved in the face of overwhelming English naval superiority, and without French support was never explained.
Alone amongst the Jacobite high command, Tyrconnel reasoned – quite rightly – that William’s unpopularity in England was but a transitory affair, and that 1690 would be a year of decision. Further envoys were sent to King Louis at Versailles requesting further French support; support which was, conditionally at least, readily available.
Despite the early victories in 1689, many believed that the Jacobite army was a hollow reed, and following various petitions for physical assistance, Louis agreed to send a brigade of French troops to Ireland, under the provision that a similar number of Irishmen be sent to France as a foreign brigade in French service. The reinforcements landed at Cork on 22 March – 6,000 French infantry under the command of the Duc de Lauzun, as well as a number of individual officers who, in return for promotion, had been attached to the Jacobite army as advisors. In addition, almost 450 tons of much needed military supplies – uniforms, weapons, munitions, foodstuffs – were also landed, providing a welcome boost to King James’s war effort. Finally, on 18 April the fleet sailed for Brest, having embarked five regiments of Irish foot under the command of Mountcashel who had earlier violated his parole and escaped confinement at Enniskillen.
Whilst the forces in Ireland remained in winter quarters,William began preparations to send additional troops to Ireland where, having consolidated his own and locally-raised forces he would take personal command of the army for the coming campaign. Like Tyrconnel, he believed that they were approaching a decisive moment in the war; irrespective of his reception in 1688, he was fully aware that many Englishmen could not divorce themselves from the fact that, as a Dutchman, he was the enemy, and his continued patronage of a clique of Dutch advisors did nothing to assuage the anger of those who had vainly sought advancement under the new regime: Discontent had led to the overthrow of one monarchy and could easily lead to the overthrow of another. And so, in order to silence his critics, he had to win the war, win it quickly and above all win it convincingly so as to unite the country against the real enemy: France. Accordingly, the king addressed both Houses of Parliament on 27 January 1690, confirming his intentions for concluding the war, adding:
‘It is a very sensible affliction to me, to see my good people burthened with taxes; but, since the speedy recovery of Ireland is, in my opinion, the only means to ease them, and to preserve the peace and honour of the nation, I am resolved to go thither in person’.
The Duke of Schomberg began the campaign of 1690 with the capture – in May – of a number of isolated Jacobite garrisons, but before he was able to implement plans for the march of Dublin, William landed at Carrickfergus on 14 June at the head of 15,000 fresh troops, many of whom were Dutch or Danish veterans secured under contract from their respective governments.
William’s plan of campaign was relatively straightforward – trusting in what he believed to be his numerical and qualitative advantage, the army would march southwards via Newry and the Moyry Pass, with its ultimate objective being the capture of Dublin. Trusting that James would not give up his capital without a fight, he would meet and defeat the Jacobite army en route. He therefore issued instructions that his army would concentrate at Loughbrickland in Co. Down.
Once his scouts had reported that William was on the move, James gave his commanders orders to march north and engage the Williamites as they exited the Moyry Pass, trusting to the adverse terrain to nullify the enemy’s superior numbers. As had happened on many occasions, James’s resolve crumbled as soon as he received contrary advice, this time from de Lauzun, who believed that Moyry was too far forward from Dublin and could easily be outflanked by troops moving from Armagh. As a result, a covering force under Lt-Colonel Laurence Dempsey was left to ambush William’s advance guard, whilst the remainder of the army turned about and marched back south towards the capital and the last natural feature upon which a defence of Dublin could be mounted – the River Boyne.
On 29 June 1690, King James’s army crossed the Boyne and began to occupy defensive positions based on the northern slopes of the Hill of Donore, the strategy being to firstly deny the Williamites the established crossing points at Drogheda, Oldbridge and Slane and then to launch a series of local counterattacks when his troops were at their most vulnerable, emerging on to the southern bank of the Boyne. As darkness fell that evening, a welcome reinforcement arrived in the form of Patrick Sarsfield at the head of a column of 3,000 men, bringing the total of James’s forces up to around 25,000 effectives.
During the early hours of 30 June, William’s army began to arrive on the hills to the north of the river, but despite his numerical superiority – his forces totalled some 36,000 men under arms – he was unwilling to commit his forces to any major action on a Monday, believing the day to be unlucky, and contented himself to observing the Jacobite positions, and during one such reconnaissance he was himself slightly wounded by enemy fire.
That evening, William rode around his encampment to allay rumours of his death and, following a stormy council of war decided upon his own plan of attack: the passage of the Boyne would be forced by three separate columns. One, consisting of half of the army under the command of the Duke of Schomberg would attack directly across the river in the face of the Jacobite positions around Oldbridge, whilst supporting columns would cross the Boyne both up and downstream from this main assault and turn the enemy’s flanks. It was an ambitious plan, made even more so by a lack of knowledge of the terrain on the Boyne’s southern bank, but if it succeeded it would encircle James’s army and win the war with a single stroke.
Heavily outnumbered, it was soon apparent that James had also been outmanoeuvred. During the early hours of 1 July, believing that the westward moving column of 12,000 men under Count Meinhard Schomberg formed the main body of William’s army, and leading with arguably his best troops – de Lauzun’s French brigade – he began steadily to weaken his main position in order to counter the perceived threat to his left flank.
At 10.00am, and following a heavy preparatory bombardment, William’s Dutch Guards began the first of a number of sequential river crossings, and initiated a one-sided grinding match with the Jacobite foot. As English, French Huguenot and Danish troops arrived to expand the Williamite bridgehead Tyrconnel, in charge of the Jacobite centre, threw several cavalry regiments, including James’s Life Guards under the nineteen-year-old Duke of Berwick, into the combat. With a number of successive charges the enemy advance was contained and for a while the battle hung in the balance. The Irish cavalry broke the Huguenot Foot, killing both their commander the Marquis de Caillemotte and the Duke of Schomberg who had ridden up in an attempt to rally the disorganised Frenchmen.
It looked as if Fate had intervened on James’s behalf as the entire Williamite centre was now pinned against the Boyne while, despite it having swept aside a regiment of Jacobite dragoons which had held the ford at Rosnaree, adverse terrain was preventing Count Schomberg’s column and James’s left flank from engaging each other. But Fate is fickle, and shortly after midday reports began to arrive at Tyrconnel’s headquarters with the unwelcome news that a third column – under William himself – had crossed the Boyne downstream at Mill Ford and had turned the army’s right flank.
In order to avoid the unnecessary destruction of his command, Tyrconnel gave the order for the troops to conduct a fighting withdrawal across the Hill of Donore towards the bridge across the River Nanny at Duleek, and sent a laconic final message to James: ‘The Enemy has forced the River, the Right Wing is defeated’.
A race to reach the Nanny crossing now began with James being escorted off the field by two full regiments of cavalry – his troops there enjoying a clear advantage over Count Schomberg’s forces who, needing to find a way through the boggy terrain, had to content themselves with nipping at the enemy’s heels without posing a serious threat. On the other side of the field, however, matters were completely different and only a sacrificial last stand at Platin Hall by troops under Richard Hamilton gave Tyrconnel the opportunity to successfully disengage his forces and make for safety.
Even as the two wings approached the relative safety of Duleek, disaster almost struck the Jacobite army as numbers of cavalrymen fleeing the collapse of the army’s right flank burst through their own foot who were attempting to cross the long and narrow Magdalene Bridge, the army’s sole line of retreat. Time passed with no sighting of William’s main body, and with their king now safely on his way to Dublin, James’s troops began to make their way slowly across the bottleneck and from there march eastwards to the River Naul where Tyrconnel and de Lauzun were able to establish a blocking position and discourage a close enemy pursuit.
William’s plan had in fact worked far better than anticipated. The movement of the Jacobite main body to cover the crossings at Rossnaree had not only forced a change in James’s battle plan, but had led to the French troops’ removal from their position covering Oldbridge. Had the brigade remained in situ, then the crossing of the Dutch Guards would have undoubtedly have been a much costlier affair and indeed, given the inability of their supporting units to clear the southern bank of the Boyne before William’s decisive crossing at Mill Ford, the whole central attack might have been successfully beaten back.
As it was, by late afternoon William was in possession of the field having suffered relatively few casualties – estimates place his losses as being around 500 as opposed to around 1,500 Jacobites – but was unable to follow up the retreating enemy and consolidate his victory as the adverse terrain which had so nearly caused the disintegration of King James’s army likewise delayed the evolution of a co-ordinated pursuit. William’s commanders were content with glowering across the Naul at Tyrconnel’s rearguard until darkness fell.
James did his cause the utmost disservice, pausing only in Dublin to change horses and blame his most loyal adherents for the defeat, before riding hard to Kinsale, from where he took ship to France and a return to exile. Tyrconnel, Berwick and Sarsfield, amongst others, strove to reorganise the army and continue the march westwards towards Limerick and the ‘Line’ of the River Shannon where they intended to go on the defensive pending the arrival of further French support.
After securing Drogheda, which surrendered on 2 July, William marched on Dublin which fell without a struggle a day later. While the majority of the army went into camp, a column under Lt-General James Douglas was sent to capture the town of Athlone, a strategic crossing point over the Shannon. After a week’s unsuccessful investment (17 – 24 July) the Scotsman was forced to admit defeat.
William then led the bulk of his army towards Limerick, whilst a subsidiary operation comprising the Danish contingent, under the command of Württemburg-Neustadt, and a number of troops from England under the command of John Churchill, Earl of Marlborough, captured the Jacobite held ports on the Irish south coast. Lines of supply and communication to France were thus extended, with Galway the only large port still in Jacobite hands aside from Limerick itself.
His left flank thus secure, William arrived before Limerick in early August anticipating that a successful siege could be concluded before the weather broke and the troops were forced into winter quarters. All that he required was the arrival of his siege train, but fate was to play a cruel trick: acting on local intelligence, Patrick Sarsfield led a mounted column on a raid against William’s siege artillery, catching up with it on the night of 12 August, whilst it was encamped at Ballyneety, some eight miles to the south east of William’s main camp.
Although Sarsfield’s raid failed in its objective of destroying the siege outright, it did cause sufficient confusion to delay the deployment of the guns against the walls of Limerick. Inevitably, a breach was soon made in the walls. The anticipated break in the weather came on 25 August, flooding the siege works, but the bombardment continued in an effort to enlarge the gap in the defences.
Two days later, the order was given for a general assault on the breach, which by now had been extended to a width of forty-two yards, but the defenders had been busy and as the Williamite troops stormed over the rubble they were met by a second wall, manned by soldiers and civilians alike using whatever weapons came to hand, even throwing stones and broken bottles. Eventually the retreat was sounded, with the attackers leaving between 1,500 and 3,000 of their comrades in the breach.
It was to be the last attack, and on Friday 29 August, the siege was raised and the army withdrew to Tipperary with William making preparations to return to England. His was not the only departure of note – Tyrconnel had embarked on a French squadron in order to offer a personal report to King James and King Louis, but of more crucial importance, de Lauzun’s French brigade also embarked for France, thus depriving the Jacobites of a much needed cadre of veteran troops.
As the campaigning season drew to a close, the situation could be regarded as a ‘winning draw’ for William – Derry had been relieved, and despite the reverse at Limerick, much of the country was in his hands, which meant that he could turn his eyes to Flanders and his favoured theatre of operations. And yet, the situation could have been drastically different; the victory at the Boyne had been somewhat negated by French triumphs at Fleurus and Beachy Head, and if de Lauzun had have been more of a soldier than a courtier, the French brigade might still have had a crucial role to play in the war.