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A a military adventure the stay of
James in Ireland was not creditable to a man who had served in three campaigns
with the great Turenne, fought against Conde and Spain, and been Admiral
of the Fleet in England. In watching his Irish campaign we are gripped
by the same sense of unreality which pervades much of the course of the
Confederate Wars. The irresolution of the King and of Tyrconnel, the treacheries
of the French generals, the jealousies of the leaders, and the blunders
or faithlessness of many of the officers are severely criticized by the
Jacobite Colonel, Charles O'Kelly, who describes the campaigns through
which he fought on the side of the King in Ireland. The conclusion to
which he comes is that the errors of James proceeded "from a wrong
maxim of State" which many believed he took, namely, "that the
only way to recover England was to lose Ireland."[1] He was persuaded
that England, being chiefly afraid of Ireland as a Catholic stronghold,
would immediately recall him when his French and Irish armies were well
beaten. "This grand design," however, not being of a nature
to commend itself to "le Grand Monarque," who had poured out
money on behalf of his ally, James took a less conspicuous way; he determined
that as soon as possible the French minister, Count d'Avaux, who had been
sent with him to report to Louis XIV the progress of events,[2] and also
the French general, de Rosen, should be removed out of Ireland.
[1] Macariae Excidium, pp. 42-45; and see J. T. Gilbert, A Jacobite Narrative
of the War in Ireland, 1688-1691 (1892), p. 63; C. Leslie, Answer to a
book entitled, The State of the Protestants in Ireland, (1692), pp. 7,
8.
[2] Negotiations de M. le Comte d'Avaux en Irlande, 1689-90 (1860). This
correspondence gives an almost daily report of events in Ireland from
the French point of view. It was privately printed by the English Foreign
Office; and cf. Macarice Excidium, p. 45.
A campaign in which the main object of the commanders was to lose the
war, and in which the prime purpose of the King was to cashier his generals,
becomes uninteresting. James had everything in his favour when he landed.
William had not expected this move and was caught unprepared; it was more
than a year before he could be ready to cross to Ireland. The whole of
the country owned the authority of James except the towns of Enniskillen
and Derry, which were practically English Protestant strongholds, but
James firmly believed that he had only to show himself before their walls
to recall these Englishmen to their obedience, and "to protect them
from the ill-treatment which he apprehended they might receive from the
Irish." He therefore posted straight to Derry, which was surrounded
by an army chiefly composed of Rapparees with a thousand regulars under
General Hamilton, and summoned the garrison to surrender. It seemed likely
that they might consent, for the city was in a state of confusion and
without a leader; but the appointment of Major Baker and of the vigorous
and war-like George Walker, Rector of Donaghmore, to be Governors, decided
the citizens on resistance, and the appearance of King James was greeted
with fierce cries of "No surrender," while a chance volley fired
from a bastion struck down the officer riding beside him. The whole place
became a hive of industry, every citizen taking his part in the defence
of the town, which, weak as it was and crowded with refugees, made a gallant
defence and for nearly four months sustained all the horrors of a close
siege.[3]
[3] Rev. George Walker, The Siege of Londonderry, ed. P. Dwyer (1893).
The actual siege began on April 19, 1689, and it was not until July 31
that the besieging army, foiled at last, marched away towards Strabane.
The city had been invested for 103 days, and had refused every offer of
King James, though they had lost from disease, hunger, and wounds 10,361
persons, and had been reduced to the utmost extremities of want. On the
other side, the investing army had lost before the walls a hundred officers
and over eight thousand men. The incidents of the siege are well known.
The weakness of Lundy, the Commander-in-Chief, and his attempt to betray
the city to James, the erecting of the boom across the Foyle to prevent
relief by sea, and the sailing away of the ships that were bringing food
to the famished inhabitants almost reduced them to despair. The sturdy
patience with which all sufferings were endured well merit the encomium
of Berwick, the natural son of James and one of his youngest commanders,
who remarked of his opponents: "The most desperate expedients of
the Irish commanders were defeated by a heroism which has not been surpassed
in ancient or modern days." The brutal conduct of de Rosen, who proposed
to drive in all the Protestant inhabitants of the surrounding districts,
that they might die of starvation under the walls within sight of the
hungry people within, excited the King's anger and caused him to press
for his recall. "Having done what he did at Londonderry," James
found him incapable henceforth of serving him usefully. De Rosen was equally
disliked by Tyrconnel, as being a better general than himself, and he
was shortly afterward replaced by the Count de Lauzun, who brought over
an army of veteran troops for which Tyrconnel exchanged six thousand half-trained
Irish soldiers; these he proposed to send out under the command of Justin
MacCarthy, Lord Mountcashel, of whose popularity and skill as an officer
the Viceroy had shown himself jealous.
Misfortune followed James from the first. An attempt to capture Enniskillen
was followed by the rout of his troops at Newtown-Butler, owing, it was
said, to a mistake in the word of command, which was understood to order
a retreat. Mountcashel was captured, and Sarsfield, who here first comes
upon the scene, and who had raised by his credit two thousand men in Connacht,
was forced to retire to Athlone, leaving the province exposed to the enemy.
Sarsfield was already becoming known as a young captain trusted and beloved
by his soldiers, but this was no recommendation to his superiors, who
seem to have resolutely held him from any post of honour or responsibility.
Mountcashel escaped from his confinement, but only to find that he was
to be sent abroad with the Irish troops. Thus, very early in the war,
James lost a capable officer, who was forced by the jealousy of a fellow-countryman
to seek in foreign service those laurels for his famous "Mountcashel's
Brigade" which they might have gained at home. James still had in
his army the splendid fighting nucleus of Clare's dragoons and Dillon's
horse, besides Berwick's guards and five thousand French foot. But under
the irresolute and blundering command of the King and Tyrconnel they proved
ineffectual and useless. The summer passed without any striking military
event. But signs that active preparations were being made for the final
struggle were visible when, on August 13, 1689, an army of fifteen thousand
men landed at Bangor, Co. Down, under the command of the Duke of Schomberg.
This veteran of eighty-two years of age had been driven out of France,
in which country he had risen to be a Marshal in the army, by the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes, after which he took service under William of Orange,
now become King of England. He brought over an army composed of many nationalities,
which captured Carrickfergus and Charlemont, but during that miserable
winter it had no further successes. Set down in camp in Dundalk, the bad
food, the moistness of the climate, and the lazy carelessness of the English,
who would not build for themselves the necessary shelters, wrought havoc
with Schomberg's fine army. It was fast melting away with disease, lice,
and scurvy.[4] The ships and the great hospital in Belfast were crowded
with sick men, and between November and the following May over 3,760 were
buried from this hospital alone.
[4] G. Story, Impartial History of the Wars in Ireland (1693), pp. 27-31,
35-39.
Now was the chance for James to strike, but though his army lay not far
off the winter passed away, and no move was made. "Our general would
not risk anything," writes the French Dumont, "nor King James
venture anything." James was occupied in Dublin with his Irish Parliament,
where his young officers were amusing themselves, "the ladies having
expected them with great impatience."[5] Tyrconnel was disbanding
the troops that should have saved his master's cause, he having "no
great inclination" for the fighting men [6] of which they were composed.
Thus the chance was allowed to slip by and on June 14, 1690, William III
landed at Carrickfergus and was immediately joined by Schomberg. Two days
later James set out to meet him, resolved, as he had said fully a year
before, "not to be tamely walked out of Ireland, but to have one
blow for it at least."[7] He marched north to the passes which divided
Ulster from the south, but instead of awaiting William's advance in this
favourable position, he retreated again across the Boyne, drawing up his
forces at the Leinster side of the river, apparently with the object of
escaping more easily back to Dublin in case of defeat. Every act of the
King showed a painful indecision. He posted a body of foot at the ford
of Oldbridge, "not," as he says in his Memoirs, "that it
was to be maintained," and he sent away his battering engines by
night to Dublin, ordering his men to pull down their tents and prepare
for a march before the battle began. These orders, followed by counter-orders,
were not calculated to encourage inexperienced troops already dismayed
by a retreat and whose only chance lay in the excitement of a vigorous
onset. They look suspiciously like a confirmation of O'Kelly's view that
James was not anxious to win the battle. He was at a disadvantage as regards
numbers; though the accounts differ. Story and the Jacobite tract "A
Light to the Blind" agree in giving the numbers of the Orange troops
as 36,000 men, belonging to ten different nationalities, while James had
about 20,000 or 23,000, including the French troops, but he had a marked
inferiority in arms and guns.
[5] Macariae Excidium, p. 40-41.
[6] Ibid. p. 47.
[7] J. S. Clarke, Life of James II, edited from the King's own Memoirs,
ii, 373.
Though the battle of the Boyne is popularly regarded as a struggle between
English and Irish, few of William's English troops took part in the fight;
he was doubtful whether their steadiness could be depended upon when they
were face to face with their lawful king. And though it is considered
as a contest between Protestant and Catholic forces, and is annually celebrated
in the North as a Protestant victory, William's splendid regiment of Blue
Guards, which so largely contributed to his success, was chiefly made
up of Dutch Catholic soldiers. When James asked them how they could serve
on an expedition designed to destroy their own religion one of them replied
that "his soul was God's but his sword belonged to the Prince of
Orange." As though to complete the contrariness which meets us here,
as at every point in Irish history, William's army marched with sprigs
of green in their caps, while the Jacobites wore strips of white paper.
The battle, fought on July 1, 1690, (July 12, New Style) centred in the
contest for the ford of Oldbridge, which was gallantly maintained by the
troops of James. The enemy had the advantage of the high ground on the
north of the Boyne and their line stretched from the fordable shallows
of the river toward Slane on their right and in the direction of Drogheda
on the left. In the early morning William narrowly escaped being cut off.
He was seated on a grassy slope above the river watching his men as they
marched in. His officers, Schomberg, Ormonde, Count Solmes, and others,
were around him. On the opposite bank were the Jacobite officers, on horseback,
riding by to watch the muster of the Williamite forces. They included
Tyrconnel, Sarsfield, Parker, and Lauzun, besides the Duke of Berwick,
who, before his twentieth year, had fought in more than one European campaign,
and whose bravery was said to be always conspicuous as his conduct was
always deficient. They were followed by some dragoons, who, planting two
small field-pieces near the river, suddenly let fly a couple of shots,
one of which grazed William's shoulder just as he was mounting his horse.
The rumour spread, even to Paris, that he was killed; but, making light
of the wound, he remained in the saddle till nightfall.
The main encounter was on the following day. A portion of the Williamite
army was sent round to the right to capture the fords near Slane, with
the intention, if the crossing at Oldbridge could be carried and the army
of James forced back, of cutting off his retreat. If this had been done
the rout of his army must have been complete. When the fords of Slane
had been secured, in spite of a vigorous defence by Sir Neal O'Neill's
dragoons, the main action was fought out at Oldbridge. Schomberg, in command
of the centre, saw his Danes and Huguenots wavering under the fierce attack
of the Irish led by Colonel Hamilton. Plunging into the river, the old
General cried aloud to his Huguenot followers: "Allons, messieurs,
voila vos persecuteurs." In the confused mêlée that
succeeded these inflammatory words, a band of Irish horse pushed its way
through the main body of the enemy, and the old Marshal fell, with two
sabre-cuts in his head and a shot through his body. Dr. Walker, of Derry,
fell not far from his commander. But William, riding up and down between
his regiments, succeeded in crossing lower down and attacked the Irish
on the flank. They only gave way in the late evening after furious fighting.
The news was brought to James in a church at the summit of the Hill of
Donore, from which place of safety he had watched the action of his left
wing. He ordered a general charge before the ill news should reach the
troops beneath him, but Lauzun advised him to take his own regiment of
horse and some dragoons and make the best of his way to Dublin, leaving
to him the conduct of the retreat. The King, though he had often complained
that all that the French seemed to care for was to get him out of the
country, was at last persuaded to take Lauzun's advice. He arrived in
Dublin that night. Lady Tyrconnel, as she received James at the Castle
gate and conducted him up the staircase, asked what his Majesty would
take for supper. He replied by explaining what a breakfast he had got,
which made him have but little stomach for his supper. Next morning, sending
for the Mayor and sheriffs, he told them that in England he had an army
which durst have fought, but they proved false and deserted him; and that
here he had an army which was loyal enough, but would not stand by him.[8]
[8] Story op. cit., p. 88; Harris, History of William of Orange (1749),
p. 271; C. Leslie, op. cit., Appendix No. 21, p. 71.
Lauzun followed the King's leisurely retreat along the Irish coast and
hurried him out of the country. James himself was the first to announce
to the French Court the news of his defeat. Berwick says that the French
officers, in coming to Ireland, "had but three objects in view: to
get there, to fight, and to return." They undoubtedly felt that the
quickest way to accomplish their third object was to send the King off
before them.
So far as James's prospects of regaining his crown were concerned, his
Irish career closed with the battle of the Boyne. He never returned, and
in spite of a regular correspondence with his friends in Ireland, his
future designs seemed more likely to prosper if conducted through Scotland
or directly with England. But the Irish fought on under better leadership,
and they emulated at Limerick the feats accomplished by their opponents
at Derry. After the Boyne, where cavalry support had been withheld from
the hard-pressed foot until too late, the main body of the French foot
made an orderly retreat, covered by the Irish dragoons, who fought a rearward
action till they reached the Pass of Duleek, where they turned and offered
battle. But William "thought it more prudent to halt and suffer them
to march away," being probably as anxious to assist his father-in-law's
escape from Ireland as he had been to aid his flight from London. To have
had James on his hands as a prisoner would have created an embarrassing
position, considering the nearness of their relationship. He permitted
the King to "be his own messenger as to what had happened to him
at the Boyne."[9]
[9] J. T. Gilbert, A Jacobite Narrative of the War in Ireland, 1688-1691
p. 105.
The rapid surrender of the Southern towns contrasts strangely with their
resistance when, just forty years before, Cromwell had stood at their
gates. They may have remembered their fate when they defied the Protector.
Drogheda, Wexford, Kilkenny and Carrick, Clonmel, Duncannon, and Waterford
surrendered one after another or were abandoned. Dublin, which in March
had given a royal welcome to King James, now, on July 6, received King
William.
The wonderful rally made at Limerick after the disheartenment that followed
the retreat from the Boyne proves the truth of Sarsfield's exclamation:
"Low as we now are, change Kings with us and we will fight it over
again." By an almost simultaneous movement the army converged on
Limerick, and Tyrconnel and Lauzun, who were playing a double game, and
doing all they could to induce the leaders to submit to William, were
no less chagrined than William himself at the sight of the great concentration
of troops before the city. Having no confidence that a treaty with the
English would be carried out, the Irish were resolved to "put their
backs to the walls of Limerick and there engage in a regular fight for
the whole kingdom," and gentlemen, burgesses, and farmers gathered
from all parts "to share in the glory of that day."[10] The
city was weak and ill fortified, without ramparts save "some miserable
little towers without ditches," but though the men who defended it
were poorly clad and without money they were fighting for all that they
were and all that they had. The siege of Limerick and battle of Aughrim
were the final important contests of Irish Ireland.
[10] J. T. Gilbert, op. cit., p. 109.
Tyrconnel, who had been left in charge when James abandoned Ireland, "sank
prodigiously," as Berwick tells us, "after the battle of the
Boyne, being as irresolute in his mind as he was unwieldy in person."[11]
But it was not only that Tyrconnel was past his prime; he had made up
his mind not to oppose the Prince of Orange in his conquest of Ireland.
He shipped away his wife with all his own wealth and the King's treasure
to France, there to spread untrue news of the defeat of the Irish army,
and to discourage Louis from sending reinforcements. "Lying Dick
Talbot," as he might now be well called, had made his terms with
William, "leaving to Providence the restoration of their King."
When the officers unanimously rejected his advice he appointed a Frenchman,
M. Boisseleau, as Governor of Limerick, with the Duke of Berwick, Dorington,
Sarsfield, Luttrell, Wauchop, and Maxwell as commanders, and sent off
the rest of the forces to Connacht. He himself withdrew to Galway, thirty
miles off, to arrange for the shipping of the French brigade to France,
they having declared that they would stay no longer now that the King
was gone. On August 9, the city of Limerick, having refused to surrender
on William's summons, was invested and the siege began.
[11] Memoirs of the Duke of Berwick (1779), i, 95.
The great exploit of the early part of the siege was Sarsfield's capture
of William's convoy of guns which was being drawn up towards his camp
for use in battering the walls. News was brought that they had arrived
within seven miles of the camp and Sarsfield, who had held the passes
of the Shannon the whole winter against William's army, and knew every
fordable spot, determined that they should go no further. With five hundred
dragoons he passed the Shannon at dead of night and, following up its
course, recrossed at an undefended ford near Killaloe, some miles above
William's camp. Quietly and noiselessly, guided by Rapparees, they pursued
their way, till they came where the convoy of great cannon was stationed.
Overpowering the guard, they piled carriages and wagons, ammunition and
provisions, into one heap, filling the guns with powder and digging their
mouths into the ground. Then, after fixing a train to the powder, they
vanished into the darkness. A few minutes later, when a party of Orange
soldiers sent out by William was drawing near to the spot, a terrific
explosion was heard, the guns being actually blown into the air and the
whole heap destroyed. Some of the guard who had slept that night "awoke
in another world." Sarsfield is the hero of the siege of Limerick.
Tyrconnel would readily have omitted him altogether from his list of officers,
but for the fury of the soldiers, of whom he was the idol. As it was,
his name was placed last. Sarsfield laid the plans and inspired the besieged.
Berwick tells us that he was a gentleman by birth with an estate of nearly
£2,000 a year, a man of amazing stature, "utterly void of sense,
very good-natured, and very brave."[12] He had served in France,
and as a lieutenant of lifeguards in England. He was to his countrymen
the ideal of the fearless and dashing officer, and the exploit of the
guns so much raised his reputation that scheming men like Luttrell, by
constant flatteries, came near to turn his head, making him believe "that
he was the greatest general in the world." Tyrconnel, on returning
from France, brought him the title of Earl of Lucan from the King. But,
as in Derry, the valour of the townspeople was undermined by the treachery
of their commanders. The chief traitor was Colonel Luttrell, a capable
but utterly unscrupulous officer, who bent his energies to aiding William
and overthrowing Tyrconnel. Though a personal friend to Luttrell, Sarsfield
was not so "void of sense" as to be ignorant of what was going
on, and he gave a short answer, threatening to expose the cabals of these
dangerous incendiaries if they did not mend their ways.[13]
[12] Ibid., i, pp. 95-96.
[13] After the capitulation of Limerick, Luttrell received 2,000 crowns
from the Prince of Orange, with his elder brother's estate; but he met
his reward in 1717, when he was assassinated by some unknown hand in the
streets of Dublin.
"Never," says Colonel O'Kelly, "was a town better attacked
and better defended than the city of Limerick. William left nothing unattempted
that the art of war, the skill of a good captain, and the valour of veteran
soldiers could put in execution to gain the place; and the Irish omitted
nothing that courage and constancy could practise to defend it."[14]
The siege ended in a terrific assault on August 27. A large breach having
been made in the wall, the foreign troops, composed of men of ten nationalities,
forced their way within the walls, fighting for every inch of ground they
gained, and under a storm of fire pouring on them from all sides at once.
They were obliged to retire, leaving nearly two thousand of their men
wounded or dead behind them. William called a council of war and ordered
another attack next morning, but his men refused to move, even though
he offered to lead them in person. "Highly incensed," he broke
up the camp, ordered the troops into winter-quarters, and with Prince
George of Denmark and the Duke of Ormonde departed to England, hastened
by reports of an intended landing by James on English shores. William,
like James, took ship at Duncannon. His losses had been very severe. The
Danes, a force of nearly seven thousand men, lost forty-five officers.
It was probably the worst repulse that William had experienced in the
course of his wars. His retreating army carried away between four and
five thousand sick and wounded, besides over four hundred men burned accidentally
to death in hospital. When this dreadful accident occurred, the Irish
troops, who were in hot pursuit, stopped short, and "rushing into
the flames, saved the lives of their enemies at the hazard of their own."[15]
The French also suffered severely, in one French regiment only six officers
remaining in condition to do duty, seventy-one having been put out of
action; the cost of the war to France had been over £18,000,000
sterling, besides the arrears due to the army.
[14] Macariae Excidium, p. 69; Contemporary Diary of the Siege of Limerick,
by Colonel Richard, 1691, in Gilbert, op. cit., Appendix No. XV, pp. 282-298.
[15] J. Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, iii, p. 42.
The French official report of the fighting says of the Irish: "The
Irish soldiers have not only fought, but endured with extraordinary patience
all the hardships of the siege, which have been very great; they have
been almost constantly under arms and they were in want of the greater
part of the necessaries of life as well as of medicines for the sick and
wounded." Their officers, also, are said to have "signalized
themselves extremely."[16] No one was so disappointed at the result
of the siege as the two Jacobite conspirators, Tyrconnel and Lauzun, who
from the safe shelter of the walls of Galway were watching for the fall
of the city they were bound to defend; on hearing of the raising of the
siege, these inseparable friends took ship to France, each anxious to
be first in throwing the blame of the disaster on the other; but Tyrconnel,
by a "bountiful distribution of the King's gold," succeeded
in outwitting the French general, who barely escaped a second internment
in the Bastille, while the Viceroy secretly allied himself with the English
interest at the French Court, though outwardly still holding to James.
[16] French official account from a Government Journal of October 17th,
1690, edited by J. C. O'Callaghan. For a similar expression of opinion
by the French generals, see J. Bramhill, The Rawdon Papers (1819), p.
347.
Meanwhile, things had not been going well in Ireland. Berwick had made
an abortive attack on Birr with an immense army, and Churchill, the future
Duke of Marlborough, and renegade follower of James, had landed on the
south coast, reducing Cork and Kinsale in a few hours. There was no regular
government, for the ill-defined authority put by Tyrconnel into the hands
of the young Duke of Berwick, who showed himself little fitted for responsibility
and only intent on amusing himself, was not recognized by the Irish gentry,
who tried to set up a senate in his place. But treachery was working everywhere;
even in the senate a large party of Tyrconnel's adherents was secretly
working for William, though many of them were Irish Catholics. These men
of the "New Interest," as they were called, had purchased lands
on James's accession from the Puritan owners, and they thought they had
a better chance of retaining their acquisitions by submitting to the new
Government. They dreaded the restoration of the old Irish race as much
as the Puritans had done, fearing that the re-establishment of James's
authority might lead to the sacrifice of their newly-acquired estates.
Sarsfield, who was himself free from sordid motives, tried to mediate
between the factions, but he was a soldier by trade and character and
unfitted for delicate tasks of government. He signed every paper that
was brought to him, believed everything that was told him, and hastened
gladly back to his military camp at Athlone, delighted to find the people
who had been represented to him as all at loggerheads apparently pliable
and accommodating. Connacht and the West of Munster still adhered outwardly
to James, and the proposed arrival of St Ruth, an officer of great experience,
from France with fresh assistance from Louis gave new spirit to the Irish
Army. Tyrconnel, now returned, was enjoying the bonfires, balls, and banquets
organised by Galway while he waited for hunger to "constrain the
obstinate Irish to hearken to the treaty with William so often proposed."
On May 9, 1691, St. Ruth and the French fleet appeared off Limerick, accompanied
by the Chevaliers de Tesse and d'Usson, to the joy of the old Irish and
the chagrin of Tyrconnel and the New Interest.
Two military events divide the first siege of Limerick from the second.
One was the capture of Athlone, a strongly fortified town lying on both
sides of the Shannon, and the main pass into Connacht from Leinster. The
other was the battle of Aughrim.
General Ginkel had been left by the Prince of Orange in command of his
army in Ireland when he left hurriedly for England. After slight successes
in various parts of Leinster, Ginkel gathered his scattered forces and
on June 19, 1691, he appeared before the town of Athlone with eighteen
thousand men. The citadel had been vigorously defended the year before
by the Governor, Colonel Richard Grace, one of the Confederates of half
a century ago; when he found that the English town, which lay on the Leinster
side of the river, could not be defended he had burned it and broken down
the bridge. Being summoned to surrender, he had fired a pistol over the
head of the messenger, and told him that those were the terms he was out
for.[17] The besieging army had finally marched away. On its return under
Ginkel, the ruined English town was entered, after a fierce resistance,
on the day after his arrival (June 20), the news bringing up St. Ruth
to Ballinasloe, about twelve miles away. St Ruth had, since his landing,
been struggling with great difficulties. He had brought very little money,
and the clothes sent were so poor in quality that Tyrconnel had to don
a suit himself in order to get the officers to put them on. The common
soldiers were nearly naked, having had neither pay nor clothing given
to them. Provisions, however, had arrived with St Ruth, in spite of the
Viceroy's assurances to the French King that "an Irish army can live
upon bread and water";[18] but as no boats had been provided, St
Ruth was at a loss how to get them up the Shannon to Athlone.
[17] George Story, Impartial History of the Wars in Ireland (1693), p.
103; for the general history of these wars see, besides the references
given, J. S. Clarke's James II, vol. ii; J. Bramhill, Rawdon Papers (1819);
Sir John Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland (1790), vols.
ii, iii; Harris, History of William of Orange (1749).
[18] C. O'Kelly, Macariae Excidium, p. 111.
While Ginkel was organizing his army, St Ruth was galloping over the country
looking for horses to carry up his provisions, one supply of which was
eaten up before he could get up the next. He began to learn that "he
had been more credulous than wary in his transactions with James."
Tyrconnel, though his authority was supposed to be confined to civil affairs,
interfered with all the French general's plans, and had the effrontery
to appear at the head of the army which it was his object to betray. Neglect
and divided counsels brought about the loss of the town. Ginkel, after
bombarding it from the Leinster bank with terrible newly-invented engines,
several times attempted to cross the river to the almost ruined town that
still held out against him, but the bravery of the defenders defeated
all his efforts. As fast as his men threw planks and beams across the
broken arches of the bridge, they were pulled down by a soldier named
Custume with eight or ten determined companions, working under fire from
the enemy.[19] He was on the point of raising the siege when he received
a message from the Irish side informing him that the watch that night
would be held by raw recruits. Ginkel took the hint. At the tolling of
the Angelus his men, in companies of sixty at a time, took the river with
amazing resolution, the stream being very rapid and deep, and the Irish
showering down shot upon them as they swam. They repaired the bridge,
and two thousand men penetrated into the town, capturing it with much
slaughter. Valiant Richard Grace lay dead with other officers among the
ruins. General Mackey, praising his victorious army, said that "they
were brave men, and the best of men if they would swear less." Athlone
fell by treachery and carelessness combined. It is said by O'Kelly that
the chief traitor was Colonel Maxwell, a Scottish officer, whom Sarsfield
had a few days before publicly accused of dealings with the enemy; yet
Tyrconnel insisted on giving him a command. This opening of a way into
Connacht produced consternation throughout the country. St Ruth, against
the advice of Sarsfield and most of the Irish leaders, drew his army to
Aughrim, and there awaited battle, determined to avenge the loss of Athlone
or to die.
[19] J. S. Clarke, Life of James II (1816), edited from the King's own
memoirs, ii, p. 454.
The battle of Aughrim is the last pitched battle fought by Irishmen on
Irish ground. Aughrim was twenty miles from Athlone, west of the Shannon,
in Co. Galway. St Ruth selected an excellent position along the ridge
of Kilcommedan Hill, with a morass in front and an old broken causeway
on the left only wide enough for two horsemen to ride abreast. Beyond
the causeway was the castle of Aughrim, which Colonel Walter Bourke was
sent to occupy with two hundred men. The Irish cavalry reserve was marshalled
in two lines, with Sarsfield and d'Usson commanding. The foot, who rapidly
entrenched their position, were about ten thousand strong, under Dorington
and Hamilton, and they fought that day with stubborn valour, to the surprise
and delight of St Ruth, who had heard in France a bad account of the Irish
infantry. On July 12 Ginkel's army appeared in sight, and he quickly appreciated
the sternness of the task that lay before him. As often as they advanced,
the English were beaten back, and at sunset the Irish foot still maintained
the ground; even the advance of the cavalry, who pushed their way among
the infantry holding the bog, did not cause them to flinch. The communicating
trenches between their lines enabled the Irish to throw the weight of
their defence on whichever side it was needed, and Colonel Earl, whose
men were struggling uphill knee-deep through mud and water, was taken
prisoner, and the infantry driven back almost level with their guns. The
English cavalry then endeavoured to pass the narrow causeway close under
the castle; this made even St Ruth exclaim "They are brave fellows;
it is a pity they should be so exposed,"[20] but they managed to
make good the pass and get in among the Irish on the flank. But the centre
was firmly pushing back Ginkel's foot, and St. Ruth, watching the steady
advance of his men from the slopes of the hill, exclaimed that he would
beat the enemy back to the gates of Dublin.[21] Then, giving an order
to the gunners where to direct their fire, he put himself at the head
of the cavalry and turned to relieve the right flank, which was struggling
with the English horse. But as he rode down the hill a cannon-shot picked
him out, and he fell, throwing the cavalry into momentary confusion. The
sudden halt made the ill tidings known, and as St. Ruth had kept the command
entirely in his own hands there was no one prepared to take up his authority,
for Sarsfield, the only officer who could have retrieved the situation,
had been left, through jealousy, with his regiment far in the rear and
out of sight of the action. St Ruth's French guards withdrew from the
field, followed by some of the Irish horse, and though the foot still
stubbornly maintained their ground they were unsupported and un-officered.
Slowly they were pushed back again up the hill toward their camp, dropping
in numbers as they struggled upwards. The fall of night and a heavy rain
alone put an end to the slaughter and, finding themselves leaderless and
under a torrent of fire on the open hillside, they gradually melted away.
[20] G. Story, Continuation of the Impartial History of the Wars in Ireland
(1690), p. 132.
[21] G. Story, op. cit., p. 133.
The battle of Aughrim was followed by the surrender of Galway and Sligo,
and their garrisons marched out with favourable terms to take part in
the last scene of the great drama behind the walls of Limerick. With the
fall of St. Ruth at Aughrim, says Colonel O'Kelly, "died the hope
and good fortune of Ireland."
The short second siege of Limerick, to be ended by the treaty, was carried
out amid a succession of disasters, which could not all have been accidental.
The drawing off of the cavalry by Sheldon before the siege began removed
the only impediment to the completion of the bridge which Ginkel was building
across the Shannon; and Colonel Clifford, who was in command at the pass
where the bridge was being constructed, persistently looked the other
way. The schemes of Tyrconnel, who hastened to write to James that all
was lost and that submission to William was the only means to save Ireland,
came to a sudden end by his death from apoplexy after dining with d'Usson,
the French commander, with whom, in spite of the desperate condition of
Irish affairs, "he was very merry and jocose."[22] Luttrell
was carrying on a secret correspondence with Ginkel, and d'Usson was eager
to get home to France. Within the city Sarsfield was in vain trying to
hold the townsmen in check, being as usual placed in the position where
he could be of least avail, while his cavalry, who might have relieved
the place, were being marched off towards Sligo by Sheldon.
[22] Tyrconnel believed that he died of poison. G. Story, op. cit., p.
187.
The condition of affairs in the besieged city is described by a native
poet, David O'Bruadair, a devoted admirer of Sarsfield, to whom several
of his poems refer. He was shut up in Limerick during the wars and sieges
of this period. He was an adherent of the Stuarts, bitterly sarcastic
against men who secured their way of retreat by going over to William's
side, and lamenting the miseries of the people who were crowding into
the town for shelter and safety. Later his laments were addressed to the
Irish troops "sent o'er the ocean in cheerless ships" and to
the clergy, many of whom were enduring cold and exposure. But he shows
that the city was broken into factions and seamed with treachery. A considerable
party, to which he seems to have belonged, were in favour of accepting
the Articles of Capitulation, which he calls "these relief-bringing
Articles"; and in this view he seems to have been of one mind with
Sarsfield, who, to the astonishment and consternation of all Ireland "appeared
now most active to forward the treaty and took most pains to persuade
the colonels and captains to a compliance." This "sudden, unexpected,
and prodigious change in Sarsfield," as brave Colonel O'Kelly calls
it, had such influence that the terms were accepted with little difficulty,
few like himself being determined that there should be no agreement.
Many followed Sarsfield as they would have followed him anywhere, though
with reluctance and regret. He may have considered that continued resistance
was useless, that the terms offered were good, and that the people were
weary of war. Money, too, was being freely expended to buy over the goodwill
of the officers. Yet O'Kelly feels that there was some mystery in this
rapid change of feeling. O'Bruadair boldly lays the blame of the capitulation
on the dissensions within the town and the universal anarchy without.
The highwaymen, largely recruited from the broken regiments of James's
army, were a terror to the country. They had grown from small bodies of
marauders into formidable armies of irregulars, who would obey no orders
save those given by their own chosen leaders, of whom the most noted at
the time was Baldearg O'Donnell, a descendant of the old princely house
of Ulster, who had served in Spain until the landing of William of Orange
in Ireland. Then he had slipped off to his own country, and was given
some troops by Tyrconnel with an indefinite commission. But O'Donnell,
around whom a popular superstition grew up, on account of a prophecy that
one of his name should free Ireland from the English yoke, began to form
a party of his own, and Tyrconnel, who feared a combination of the Ulster
Irish under one of their own race, did all he could to thwart him and
render him powerless.
King James says that he had raised eight regiments of over seven thousand
men "besides a rabble of irregulars that destroyed the country."
Baldearg played fast and loose with all parties. He took £2,000
from Ginkel and joined his irregulars to the Williamite army, forcing
old Sir Teague O'Regan to surrender Sligo, which was strongly holding
for James, on September 14, 1691. He then took to the life of a Rapparee,
at the head of a large band of followers. We hear of bodies of these freebooters
in Connacht and the Bog of Allen numbering several hundreds at a time,
who lived in the hills or islands and terrorized the country. They would
meet at appointed signals, but when searched for they seemed to disappear
in the long grass, dropping their arms, so that "they looked like
the poorest humblest slaves in the world, and the soldiers might search
till they were weary before they would find one gun." All parties
united to try and put down these outlaws; even O'Bruadair says that the
earth had not before known "a litter of such a kind," whose
conduct had been the disgraceful cause of gallows erected like shop-signs
in every town. "How that gang, who spared not man or woman, could
hope to find mercy is more than the wisest know."[23] Added to these
pests of society were the storekeepers and subalterns, who seized upon
goods and food of all kinds under guise of the King's orders and often
holding papers signed by Sarsfield, but little of whose ill-gotten gains
reached the King's army. "These caterpillars," as O'Kelly calls
them, came out in swarms, escorted by parties of soldiers, "searching
all places both above and under ground." [24]
[23] Poems of David O'Bruadair, in a poem popularly known as "The
Shipwreck" (Irish Texts Society, vol. xviii), iii, 165-181. For Baldearg
and his Rapparees, see Charles O'Kelly, Macariae Excidium (1850), pp.
125 seq.; 141-143; Story, Impartial History of the Wars in Ireland (1693),
pp. 152-153. Baldearg was ambitious to revive the title of Earl of Tyrconnel
in his own person, which may explain the Viceroy's jealousy of him, as
the actual holder of the title.
[24] C. O'Kelly, op. cit., pp. 96-97.
The country was in such a distracted state that the very thought of peace
was sufficient to secure the signing of the Articles. The Articles of
Capitulation, which we consider in a separate chapter, consisted of two
parts, Military and Civil—the Military Clauses being signed first.
Yet at the time of their presentation Limerick was not subdued, and there
was news of a French fleet at sea coming to its relief. But Ginkel was
anxious to close the war and get his troops back to England before the
winter. On October 3, 1691, after long discussion, the Military Articles
proposed by Ginkel were signed by Sarsfield, Gallmoy, Purcell, Dillon
and Brown, and by the Lords Justices recently appointed to succeed Tyrconnel,
on the Irish side, and by Ginkel on the other. The French generals also
signed. A day or two later the French fleet sailed into Dingle Bay.
END OF CHAPTER X
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