The Vacillation of James—He holds a Council of War,
and finally decides to fight—Nevertheless he sends Six of his Twelve
Field-pieces to Dublin — William's Council of War—Duke Schomberg
overruled—His Chagrin—Tuesday, the 1st of July, 1690—William's Orders
for forcing the Passage of the Boyne—Both James and William neglect to
secure the Bridge of Slane—Count Schomberg forces the Passage at
Rossnaree—Sir Neil O'Neill is slain—The Order of Crossing and how the
Jacobites received William's Forces—Death of Caillemot—Duke Schomberg
plunges into the Fight unarmed—He is killed— Walker of Derry is shot
dead—William heads the Inniskillings—The Jacobites retreat—Flight of
King James to Dublin.
The strongly pronounced contrast between the
characters of the two commanders in the conflict in Ulster was never
more evident than on the eve of battle. Vacillation, which was a marked
characteristic of James, now became painfully and disconcertingly
evident to his generals. He held a council of war, at which it was again
recommended to retreat to the Shannon, and gain time by protracting the
war, rather than risk all upon one contest; and James, feeling himself
to be far from master of his fate or captain of his soul, was perturbed
by conflicting opinions, he himself being much in favour of a project
which had originated with his French allies. It was known that the
French fleet was on the English coast—in fact, on this very day (June
the 30th) it had defeated the united English and Dutch squadrons off
Beachy Head— and that Sir Cloudesley Shovel, with the squadron of
men-of-war which had attended William on his passage, had
received orders to join the Earl of Torrington. The English transports
in Carrickfergus Bay, on which William's army depended for provisions
and stores, were thus left unprotected, and it was proposed to send ten
small frigates and twelve privateers, who had accompanied the French
troops, under Lauzun, and were still at Waterford, to destroy them. A
defeat such as this, it was considered, would disconcert the forces of
William, and, by leaving them dependent on the country through which
they marched, would soon demoralize them to such an extent that a
protracted campaign must inevitably prove a failure. These
considerations, however, gave way before the fact that they were now
face to face with the foe, and it was too late to retreat. Then,
remembering the strength of their position, the Jacobite generals
resolved to await the morrow and the morrow's deeds.
Not so James, who by his lack of determination and
his hesitancy appeared to be resolved to destroy any hope of success
which his army cherished. One moment he decided on a general retreat,
and for that purpose ordered the camp to be raised; but the next minute
he altered his plan, and, sending off the baggage and six of his twelve
field-pieces to Dublin, he apparently made up his mind to risk a battle.
The removal of the baggage was no doubt a good preparation for an
orderly retreat, but it was also a plain intimation to the army that a
retreat was in contemplation; otherwise the reduction of the artillery
must be considered a fatal diminution of strength. James indeed seems to
have thought of nothing so much as means whereby to keep open a passage
in the rear; and all his anxiety appears to have been lest William's
forces should by a flank movement cut off his retreat to the south,
where he had already privately made preparations for his flight to
France. It is evident, also, that he resolved to place himself in such a
position during the battle that he would be one of the first to see on
which side fortune turned, so that in case of defeat he might with ease
make good his escape. Still, with such apprehensions, it is strange how
difficult it proved to persuade him to take any precautions for the
defence of the fords up the river; for late on the eve of the battle he
could only be induced with much difficulty to send Sir Neil O'Neill with
his regiment of dragoons to defend the Pass of Rossnaree, about four
miles from the Jacobite camp towards Slane.
William also called a council of war, at nine o'clock
in the evening, not to take the advice of his officers, but to convey to
them the fact that he had resolved to force the passage of the river
next morning. Rendered impatient by news he had received of political
intrigues in England, and apprehensive, from reports that had reached
him from the Jacobite camp, that James would retreat, he would not
listen to Schomberg's urgent advice against an enterprise that appeared
to be very hazardous. Determined that his plans should not be known, and
suspicious of the fidelity of some of his officers, he merely announced
that he would send to the tent of each officer that night his particular
orders. Schomberg, who appears to have been ignorant of the motives of
William, is said, when the order of battle was delivered to him, to have
remarked that he was more used to giving such orders than to receiving
them. The old general is also said to have been much annoyed at the
overruling of his advice to detach a portion of the army to secure the
bridge of Slane, so as to turn the flank of the Jacobites and cut them
off from the Pass of Duleek. At midnight William made a final inspection
of his forces by torchlight, and issued his final orders, which included
directions that "every soldier was to put a green bough in his hat. The
baggage and great coats were to be left under a guard. The word was
'Westminster'."
The morning of Tuesday, the 1st of July, 1690, dawned
bright and unclouded on the hostile camps. The first movement in the
Williamite army was the march, at sunrise, of a division of 10,000
picked men. William's orders were that the river should be crossed in
three places. The right wing, commanded by Count Meinhardt Schomberg
(one of the Duke's sons), assisted by Lieutenant-General Douglas and
Lord Portland, was to pass at some fords near the bridge of Slane to
turn the left flank of the Jacobite army. The centre, consisting chiefly
of infantry, and commanded by the Duke of Schomberg, was to pass at the
fords in front of the Jacobite camp at Oldbridge, where had been
collected all James's foot, dragoons, and horse, with the sole exception
of Sarsfield's regiment. The left wing, composed exclusively of cavalry,
and led by King William in person, was to pass at a ford not far above
Drogheda, and flank their foes whilst they were engaged.
James had been prepared for the movement of William's
right wing the night before, and he now saw his fatal error in rejecting
the advice of his officers to provide against it. He hastily ordered the
whole of his left wing, which included Lauzun's French division, with
part of his centre, and his six remaining field-pieces, to proceed with
all possible expedition to oppose the flanking division; but it was too
late to obstruct their passage. The troops under Meinhardt Schomberg
marched more rapidly, and the cavalry forced the passage of the river at
Rossnaree, which was gallantly defended by Sir Neil O'Neill, who lost
seventy of his men and was himself mortally wounded. Portland's infantry
and the artillery crossed at Slane, where the bridge had been broken but
the river was fordable. Their progress was at first arrested by a
morass; but finding, on trial, that though difficult it was not
impossible to pass, the infantry marched into it, while the artillery
went round by a narrow tract of firm ground at the back of the marshy
portion. The Jacobites, astonished, turned and fled, while their
opponents, unacquainted with the nature of the ground, advanced
stolidly, though slowly and floundering at every step. The cavalry moved
more rapidly, and drove before them, with slaughter, all who offered any
opposition to their progress.
It was now nearly ten o'clock, and William, having
heard that Count Schomberg had succeeded in crossing, ordered the
advanced body of his centre to pass the fords. This was composed of the
Dutch, the Brandenburghers, the Huguenots, and the Inniskillings.
Solme's Blues were the first to move. They advanced with drums beating
to the brink of the Boyne, and, marching ten abreast, entered the stream
at the highest ford opposite Oldbridge. So shallow was the water here
that the drummers only required to raise the drums to their knees. The
Londonderry and Enniskillen horse followed, and at their left the
Huguenots entered, led by Caillemot, brother of the Marquis de Ruvigny.
The English infantry came next, under Sir John Hanmer and the Count
Nassau; lower down were the Danes; and at the fifth ford, which was
considerably nearer to Drogheda, and at which the water was deeper than
at any of the former, William himself crossed with the cavalry of his
left wing. Thus was the Boyne, for nearly a mile of its course, filled
with thousands of armed men struggling to gain the opposite bank, which
bristled with pikes and bayonets. A fortification had been made by
French engineers out of the hedges and buildings, and a breastwork had
been thrown up close to the water-side. Tyrconnell was there, and under
him were Richard Hamilton and the Earl of Antrim.
When the Dutch reached the middle of the river a
heavy fire was opened upon them from the breastworks, houses, and
hedges, but was ill-directed, and therefore without much effect. As fast
as they reached the opposite bank they formed and attacked the Jacobites,
who fled from their first defences in the utmost disorder; but as their
assailants advanced, fresh troops sprang up from the hedges and ridges
behind, and, multiplied to the eye by the manner in which they were
disposed, presented a far more formidable appearance than was
anticipated. Five battalions bore down upon the Dutch, but they were
repulsed. The Jacobite horse were next directed against them, but with
no better success, and the Dutch had repulsed two attacks when the
Inniskillings and Huguenots arrived to assist them, and drove back with
great slaughter a third body of horse.
General Richard Hamilton, who acted throughout the
day with marked bravery, and who commanded the Jacobite horse, enraged
at the pusillanimity of the foot, distributed brandy among his men, and
then led them furiously against the advancing troops, who had now
cleared most of the hedges and were ready to form on the unbroken
ground. At the same time the French infantry rose suddenly from behind
the low hills in the rear, and advanced in good order to support
Hamilton's charge. The English centre, confounded at this sudden attack,
stood for a moment irresolute. A squadron of Danes, attacked by a part
of Hamilton's horse, turned in mid-stream, being followed into the water
by their pursuers. The latter then threw themselves upon the Huguenots
under Caillemot, who, being unsupported, and having no pikes to
withstand the charge, were broken, and their gallant leader ridden down
and mortally wounded. Four of his men carried him back across the ford
to his tent. As he was borne away he urged on his men, crying to them in
French: "To glory, my lads, to glory!"
The Jacobite foot left to defend the ford were, in
point of numbers, utterly inadequate, and it is stated that very few of
them had muskets, their principal arm being the pike. At the onset they
saw themselves unsupported, and they had already suffered severely
before the horse came to sustain them, so that under the circumstances
they scarcely deserve the epithet of a "mob of cow stealers" which
Macaulay bestows upon them. Tyrconnell, who held the chief command in
the absence of James, behaved like a gallant soldier; but it would have
required more consummate generalship than he possessed to retrieve the
fortune of the day. The Jacobite cavalry fought with much valour, the
only exceptions being Clare's and Dungan's dragoons; and, the latter
having lost their able young commander by a cannon-shot at the
commencement of the action, their discouragement was to a certain extent
excusable. It was also unfortunate for the Jacobites that Sarsfield's
horse accompanied King James as his body-guard, and were thus prevented
from taking any part in the action.
Schomberg, who watched the struggle from the northern
bank, perceiving the distress of the centre, and learning of the death
of Caillemot, now plunged into the river with the impetuosity of a young
man, disdaining to don his cuirass, which was pressed upon him by those
near him. Without defensive armour he rode through the river to rally
the Huguenots, whom the fall of Caillemot had dismayed. "Come on!" he
cried in French to the refugees; "there are your persecutors!" pointing
with his sword as he spoke to the French squadrons serving under King
James. These were his last words. At this moment a troop of Jacobite
horse dashed furiously in his direction. He was surrounded and killed,
receiving two sabre wounds on the head and a carbine bullet in the neck.
About the same time Walker, the gallant Governor of Londonderry, to whom
William had just given the See of that city, was also shot dead. The
King, who believed that clergymen should confine themselves to such
spiritual weapons as the sword of faith and the breastplate of
righteousness, when informed that "the Bishop of Derry has been killed
by a shot at the ford", contented himself by asking: " What took him
there?" The firing had now continued incessantly for about an hour, but
it began to slacken amid the general disorder; the tide had begun to run
very fast and the passage of the Boyne was becoming more difficult. The
battle raged with great fury along the southern shore of the river, the
contest being well sustained by both parties; but the Jacobite horse of
one wing had to resist unsupported the advance of all the horse and foot
of William's left and centre, to which task it was entirely unequal, and
they retired, fighting obstinately.
The day was decided by the approach of William, who
did not cross the river until late in the action. The advance of the
cavalry had been retarded by the unexpected difficulties experienced in
crossing, owing to the bottom of the river which was extremely soft,
indeed so much so that William's own charger was forced to swim, and was
very nearly lost, the King being obliged to dismount and be carried over
by his attendants. As soon as he was on firm ground he took his sword in
his left hand—his right it will be remembered had been wounded the day
before—and led his men to the place where the fight was hottest. They
were charged by the Jacobite cavalry with such violence that they were
driven back. At this moment William, in the midst of the tumult, rode up
to the Inniskillings and cried: "What will you do for me?" He was not
immediately recognized, and one dragoon, in the heat of action,
mistaking the King's identity, was about to shoot him, when William
calmly turned the weapon aside, with the query: "Do you not know your
friends?" "It is His Majesty!" cried the Colonel, and the Inniskillings
received the announcement with a shout of delight. "Gentlemen," said
William, "you shall be my guards to-day. I have heard much of you. Let
me see something of you." At length the Jacobite infantry gave way on
every side. Hamilton again placed himself at the head of the cavalry and
made a desperate attempt to retrieve the future of the day; but though
they made a momentary impression they were soon routed, and he was
himself severely wounded and taken prisoner.
Meinhardt Schomberg had in the meanwhile been
clearing the difficult grounds which had retarded his march, and was now
engaged in a pursuit of the troops opposed to him towards Duleek. Long
before this an aide-de-camp brought news to James that William's forces
had made good their passage at Oldbridge, whereupon the hapless monarch
ordered Lauzun to march in a parallel direction with that of Douglas and
Count Schomberg towards Duleek, which place he reached before the flying
throng of the Jacobite foot. Tyrconnell came up next; and now for the
first time the French infantry rendered good service to their side by
their admirable discipline, preserving their own order and cooperating
with the Jacobite cavalry in covering the retreat. Berwick's horse was
the last to cross the narrow pass of Duleek, with the forces of William
close in the rear; but beyond the defile the Jacobites rallied. Five of
the six field-pieces which James had taken with him in the morning
towards Slane were still available; the sixth had stuck in a bog. At the
deep defile of Naul the last stand was made. It was now nine o'clock;
the fighting had lasted since ten o'clock in the forenoon. The Jacobites
drew up in good order and presented a determined front; seeing which it
was deemed impolitic for so small a force to attack them, and the order
was given for a return to Duleek.
Thus ended the memorable battle of the Boyne, in
which William is said to have lost not more than 500 men, while the loss
of the Jacobites has been variously estimated at from 1500 to 2000,
including Lords Dungan and Carlingford and Sir Neil O'Neill. To William
the day was embittered by the loss of Schomberg and Caillemot. James
fled precipitately to Dublin. William's army lay on their arms at Duleek.
The King's coach had been brought over, and he slept in it surrounded by
his soldiers.