King William lands at Carrickfergus—He drives to
Belfast—Receives a Warm Welcome—He goes to Lisburn—James marches
North—William assembles his Forces at Loughbrickland—He encamps near
Newry—James advances to Dundalk—He recrosses the Boyne and
encamps—William arrives within Two Miles of Drogheda, and encamps
also—He is fired on by the Jacobites and wounded—The Composition of his
Army.
The King, having set out on his journey to Ireland on
the 4th of June, arrived on the 8th at the port of Chester, where a
fleet of transports and a squadron of men-of-war, the latter under the
command of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, awaited his arrival. On the nth he
embarked, attended by Prince George of Denmark, who had offered his
services, and had equipped himself at great charge; the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt;
the young Duke of Ormonde, the Earls of Oxford, Scarborough and
Manchester, the Count de Solmes, Major-General Mackay, and other persons
of distinction; and on Saturday afternoon, the 14th, he landed at
Carrickfergus, where he was received with every expression of the
general joy at his appearance. But William, though he was not insensible
to the loyal fervour his presence awakened, was one of the most
practical of men. His first duty he considered was to consult Schomberg
and then to review his forces, and accordingly no sooner had he landed
than he was in the saddle and on the road to Belfast. At the White
House, halfway between Carrickfergus and Belfast, the King was met by
Schomberg, the Duke of Wurtemberg, Kirke, and other officers, and,
entering Schomberg's carriage, he drove to Belfast, where he was warmly
welcomed with shouts of "God bless the Protestant King".
The Belfast of that day was but a small place,
consisting of only five streets, ill paved and dirty, the houses being
small and uncomfortable. The castle, which had been the seat of Baron
Chichester of Belfast, who had rebuilt and transformed it into "a dainty
stately palace", was prepared for the reception of the King, who was
welcomed at the North Gate of what is described as "the very large town
the greatest for trade in the north of Ireland" by the magistrates and
burgesses in their robes of office, and signals of His Majesty's arrival
were transmitted through the adjacent country by a royal salute fired
from Belfast castle and by the discharge of cannon placed at wide
intervals for the purpose of conveying intelligence from post to post.
In addition, bonfires on the heights of Antrim and Down, which could be
seen across the bays of Carlingford and Dundalk, conveyed news to friend
and foe alike that William was in Ireland. On Monday the 16th the
nobility, clergy, and gentry of Ulster congregated in Belfast, and an
address of the northern clergy to the King was presented by Walker and
was graciously received.
Having heard that a French fleet had sailed for
England to support the intrigues of those who were disaffected to his
government, his political interests, combined with his military genius,
urged the King to prosecute a rapid and vigorous campaign, and the
spirit of their leader was soon infused into all who acted under him.
Having issued proclamations against rapine, violence, and injustice, and
prohibited pillaging under severe penalties, William busied himself in
collecting forces. He had come provided with all the sinews of war,
having brought with him £200,000 in specie, a large quantity of
ammunition, and a substantial supply of provisions. Supplies were
dispensed with a liberal hand, and all paymasters received orders to
send in their accounts without delay, so that there might
be no discontent with regard to arrears. The Paymaster-General who
accompanied the King was Thomas Coningsby, M.P. for Leominster.
Having given orders for the entire army to take the
field, William left Belfast on the 19th of June, 1690, and proceeded to
Lisburn and Hillsborough, and while here he authorized the Collector of
Customs at Belfast to pay annually £1200 to trustees for the benefit of
the dissenting ministers of Down and Antrim, a sum awarded for their
loyalty to the royal cause and in compensation for the losses they had
sustained thereby. This grant was later inserted in the Civil List, and
made payable by the Exchequer. This donation, known as Regium Donum,
was increased in 1785 and 1792, and was annually bestowed by the
Government on the Presbyterian clergy of Ulster, until the
disestablishment of the Church of Ireland.
On the 16th of June James left Dublin to march
against his adversary with an army of about 20,000 men, imperfectly
disciplined and scantily supplied with even the most necessary
requirements for a campaign. He had many brave officers; his French
division was composed of first-rate troops, well equipped and well
appointed; the Irish horse were admirable, but the dragoons were not so
well trained; the Irish infantry consisted for the most part of raw
levies, scarcely half armed; and for artillery he was only able to take
with him twelve field-pieces with which he had recently been provided by
France.
William, who was never so happy as when he was in
camp or took the field, was indefatigable in his efforts to raise the
spirits of the soldiers and make them forget the calamities of the past
year. His forces were ordered to assemble at Loughbrickland, and to
prepare for an immediate advance, for he was fully determined to take
the earliest opportunity to fight. When Schomberg and several other
officers recommended caution and delay, he answered decisively: "I came
not to Ireland to let grass grow under my feet". He joined the army at
Loughbrickland on the 22nd of June, and immediately ordered the troops
to change camp, with a view to make their march to new ground partake of
the nature of a review. The day was windy and dusty, and some of his
officers thought that the King, who suffered from weak lungs, would
review the troops from a distance and thus escape the dust raised by
their march. William, however, did not content himself with a
perfunctory inspection, but rode in among the regiments, inspected the
troops severally as well as collectively with a critical eye, and, with
a few grave words addressed to each regiment, greatly raised the spirits
of his men. He then took up his residence in the camp in a little wooden
structure specially designed for the purpose by Wren, and the men,
elated by having the King in their midst, boasted that once encamped
amongst them their leader never left them until he left the country.
In camp the King lived a life of Spartan simplicity,
refusing to sign an order for wine, saying he would drink water as his
soldiers did. From early morning until late in the day he was in the
saddle inspecting his men, or taking the lie of the country so as to be
prepared for action at any moment. There was a healthy activity in his
movements which affected his men for good, and led to a wholesome spirit
of emulation by which the entire army of 36,000 men greatly benefited.
The King, in addition, wisely caused the fleet to accompany the
southward movement of the army, hugging the coast the while. Thus from
time to time it was visible to the troops, to whom it proved the source
of not a little satisfaction.
James advanced to Dundalk, while William was encamped
a few miles beyond Newry; and, in order to ascertain the strength of his
opponent, James dispatched, on the 22nd of June, Colonel Dempsey, with
sixty horse, and Lieutenant-Colonel FitzGerald, with a party of
grenadiers, to lie in wait for one of William's reconnoitring-parties.
This duty was so well performed by the Jacobite forces that a detachment
of between two and three hundred of William's foot and dragoons was
routed with great loss at the half-way bridge between Dundalk and Newry.
An English officer, who was taken prisoner, represented William's army
as 50,000 strong; and although this was supposed by James to be a gross
exaggeration, intended to have the effect of inducing him to fly, he
nevertheless wrote privately to Sir Patrick Trant, Commissioner of
Inland Revenue, ordering him to have a vessel at Waterford ready to
convey him to France in case of disaster, and he even sent his luggage
to Waterford to be put on board. James now commenced his retrograde
movement and retired to Ardee. When, therefore, William's advanced guard
reached Dundalk, nothing was to be seen of the Jacobite army save a
great cloud of dust which was slowly rolling southwards. The Jacobites
retreated by easy marches, and on the 28th commenced recrossing the
Boyne, on the right bank of which James resolved to make a stand,
because, as he tells us in his Memoirs, had he left the passage
open to William, he would have been obliged to abandon all Leinster to
him.
William continued to push forward till, on Monday
morning, the 30th of June, 1690, his army, marching in three columns,
came within two miles of Drogheda, and, at about nine o'clock, within
sight of the enemy's camp. Here the King, who rode at the head of his
advanced guard, observed a hill to the west of the town, near the
southern frontier of the County Louth, and to the summit of this he went
with some of his principal officers to obtain a fuller view of the
Jacobite position. This had been well chosen, on ground which sloped
down to the river, and backed by an amphitheatre of hills. The Jacobite
army was encamped on the declivity of the hill of Donore, with its right
wing towards Drogheda, and its left extending in two lines up the river
to a morass which was difficult to pass. As there are no considerable
inequalities in the surface, the whole of James's lines must have been
visible from the heights on the opposite side of the river, and to a
great extent exposed to the fire of William's artillery. James's centre
was at the hamlet of Oldbridge, close to the bank of the river, where he
caused some entrenchments to be hastily thrown up to defend the
principal fords, of which there are four near this point, a fifth being
a little lower down the stream, and two or three others a few miles
higher up in the direction of Slane. There are two islands in the river
near Oldbridge which facilitate the passage; and at that season—which
was remarkable for drought—and at the time of low water the Boyne was
fordable throughout a great part of its course. James himself took up
his position at a small ruined church on the top of the hill of Donore,
three miles behind which lay the village and pass of Duleek, which
afforded him the only means of retreat in case of defeat, and which was
so narrow that it could be defended with ease. Drogheda, which was
garrisoned by Jacobites, was at that time only a knot of narrow, crooked
lanes encircled by a ditch and a mound. The houses were built of wood,
with high gables and projecting upper storeys.
While his army marched into camp, William, desirous
to gauge more closely the strength of the Jacobite army, rode with some
of his officers within musket-shot of the river, opposite one of the
fords. Having conferred here for some time with them, the King continued
his course westward, and after a while he seated himself on the grass on
a piece of rising ground in order to take some refreshment. The Jacobite
generals, Berwick, Sarsfield, and Tyrconnell, had observed his movements
as they rode slowly along the opposite bank of the river, and they noted
the spot where William had seated himself. They now ordered two
field-pieces, concealed by a party of horse, to be brought into a
ploughed field opposite William's resting-place, and trained from behind
a hedge on the King and his attendants. When, after being seated for
about an hour, William rose and was in the act of mounting his horse,
both guns were discharged, one killing a man and two horses in a line
with the King, but at a little distance from him ; the other grazed
William's right shoulder, tore his coat, and slightly wounded him. This
naturally caused some commotion in the immediate surroundings of the
royal party, which resulted in a report in the Jacobite camp that the
Prince of Orange was killed, a report which even penetrated via Dublin
to Paris before it was contradicted. The two guns continued to fire on
the party of horse which attended William's movements, until he directed
them to retire under shelter of the hill, while he himself had his wound
dressed; which being done, he remounted and rode through the camp to
assure the army of his safety.
That army consisted of some 36,000 men of various
nationalities, the composite parts of which it was composed being so
admirably summarized by Macaulay that his description of it may here be
given: "About half the troops were natives of
England. Ormonde was there with the Life Guards, and Oxford with the
Blues. Sir John Lanier, an officer who had acquired military experience
on the Continent, and whose prudence was held in high esteem, was at the
head of the Queen's regiment of horse. . . . There were Beaumont's foot,
who had in defiance of the mandate of James, refused to admit Irish
Papists among them, and Hasting's foot, who had, on the disastrous day
of Killiecrankie, maintained the military reputation of the Saxon race.
There were the two Tangier battalions, hitherto known only by deeds of
violence and rapine. . . . Two fine English regiments, which had been in
the service of the States General, and had often looked death in the
face under William's leading, followed him in this campaign, not only as
their general, but as their native King. . . . The former was led by an
officer who had no skill in the higher parts of military science, but
whom the whole army allowed to be the bravest of all the brave, John
Cutts. The Scotch footguards marched under the command of their
countryman James Douglas. Conspicuous among the Dutch troops were
Portland's and Ginkell's Horse, and Solmes's Blue regiment, consisting
of two thousand of the finest infantry in Europe. ... A strong brigade
of Danish mercenaries was commanded by Duke Charles Frederic of
Wurtemberg. . . . Among the foreign auxiliaries were a Brandenburg
regiment and a Finland regiment. . . . Mit-chelburne was there with the
stubborn defenders of Londonderry and Wolseley with the warriors who had
raised the unanimous shout of 'Advance' on the day of Newton Butler. Sir
Albert Conyngham . . . had brought from the neighbourhood of Lough Erne
a regiment of dragoons which still glories in the name of Enniskillen."
Such were the elements of which William's army was
composed. Early in the afternoon of the 30th, his artillery having
arrived, batteries were planted, and the cannonading was kept up on both
sides of the river until night, little damage on either side being done.