The History of England, from the Accession of James II Volume III Part 39

[Footnote 679: Villare Hibernic.u.m, 1690.]

[Footnote 680: The order addressed to the Collector of Customs will be found in Dr. Reid's History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.]

[Footnote 681: "La gayete peinte sur son visage," says Dumont, who saw him at Belfast, "nous fit tout esperer pour les heureux succes de la campagne."]

[Footnote 682: Story's Impartial Account; MS. Journal of Colonel Bellingham; The Royal Diary.]

[Footnote 683: Story's Impartial Account.]

[Footnote 684: Lauzun to Louvois, June 23/July 3 1690; Life of James, ii. 393, Orig. Mem.]

[Footnote 685: Story's Impartial Account; Dumont MS.]

[Footnote 686: Much interesting information respecting the field of battle and the surrounding country will be found in Mr. Wilde's pleasing volume ent.i.tled "The Beauties of the Boyne and Blackwater."]

[Footnote 687: Memorandum in the handwriting of Alexander, Earl of Marchmont. He derived his information from Lord Selkirk, who was in William's army.]

[Footnote 688: James says (Life, ii 393. Orig. Mem.) that the country afforded no better position. King, in a thanksgiving sermon which he preached at Dublin after the close of the campaign, told his hearers that "the advantage of the post of the Irish was, by all intelligent men, reckoned above three to one." See King's Thanksgiving Sermon, preached on Nov 16. 1690, before Lords Justices. This is, no doubt, an absurd exaggeration. But M. de la Hoguette, one of the princ.i.p.al French officers who was present at the battle of the Boyne, informed Louvois that the Irish army occupied a good defensive position, Letter of La Hoguette from Limerick, July 31/Aug 1690.]

[Footnote 689: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, March, 1690.]

[Footnote 690: See the Historical records of the Regiments of the British army, and Story's list of the army of William as it pa.s.sed in review at Fingla.s.s, a week after the battle.]

[Footnote 691: See his Funeral Sermon preached at the church of Saint Mary Aldermary on the 24th of June 1690.]

[Footnote 692: Story's Impartial History; History of the Wars in Ireland by an Officer of the Royal Army; Hop to the States General, June 30/July 10. 1690.]

[Footnote 693: London Gazette, July 7. 1690; Story's Impartial History; History of the Wars in Ireland by an Officer of the Royal Army; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Lord Marchmont's Memorandum; Burnet, ii. 50.

and Thanksgiving Sermon; Dumont MS.]

[Footnote 694: La Hoguette to Louvois, July 31/Aug 10 1690.]

[Footnote 695: That I have done no injustice to the Irish infantry will appear from the accounts which the French officers who were at the Boyne sent to their government and their families. La Hoguette, writing hastily to Louvois on the 4/14th of July, says: "je vous diray seulement, Monseigneur, que nous n'avons pas este battus, mais que les ennemys ont cha.s.ses devant eux les trouppes Irlandoises comme des moutons, sans avoir essaye un seul coup de mousquet."

Writing some weeks later more fully from Limerick, he says, "J'en meurs de honte." He admits that it would have been no easy matter to win the battle, at best. "Mais il est vray aussi," he adds, "que les Irlandois ne firent pas la moindre resistance, et plierent sans tirer un seul coup." Zurlauben, Colonel of one of the finest regiments in the French service, wrote to the same effect, but did justice to the courage of the Irish horse, whom La Hoguette does not mention.

There is at the French War Office a letter hastily scrawled by Boisseleau, Lauzun's second in command, to his wife after the battle. He wrote thus: "Je me porte bien, ma chere feme. Ne t'inquieste pas de moy.

Nos Irlandois n'ont rien fait qui vaille. Ils ont tous lache le pie."

Desgrigny writing on the 10/20th of July, a.s.signs several reasons for the defeat. "La premiere et la plus forte est la fuite des Irlandois qui sont en verite des gens sur lesquels il ne faut pas compter du tout." In the same letter he says: "Il n'est pas naturel de croire qu'une armee de vingt cinq mille hommes qui paroissoit de la meilleure volonte du monde, et qui a la veue des ennemis faisoit des cris de joye, dut etre entierement defaite sans avoir tire l'epee et un seul coup de mousquet.

Il y a en tel regiment tout entier qui a laisse ses habits, ses armes, et ses drapeaux sur le champ de bataille, et a gagne les montagnes avec ses officiers."

I looked in vain for the despatch in which Lauzun must have given Louvois a detailed account of the battle.]

[Footnote 696: Lauzun wrote to Seignelay, July 16/26 1690, "Richard Amilton a ete fait prisonnier, faisant fort bien son devoir."]

[Footnote 697: My chief materials for the history of this battle are Story's Impartial Account and Continuation; the History of the War in Ireland by an Officer of the Royal Army; the despatches in the French War Office; The Life of James, Orig. Mem. Burnet, ii. 50. 60; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; the London Gazette of July 10. 1690; the Despatches of Hop and Baden; a narrative probably drawn up by Portland, which William sent to the States General; Portland's private letter to Melville; Captain Richardson's Narrative and map of the battle; the Dumont MS., and the Bellingham MS. I have also seen an account of the battle in a Diary kept in bad Latin and in an almost undecipherable hand by one of the beaten army who seems to have been a hedge schoolmaster turned Captain. This Diary was kindly lent to me by Mr. Walker, to whom it belongs. The writer relates the misfortunes of his country in a style of which a short specimen may suffice: 1 July, 1690. "O diem illum infandum, c.u.m inimici pot.i.ti sunt pa.s.s apud Oldbridge et nos circ.u.mdederunt et fregerunt prope Plottin. Hinc omnes fugimus Dublin versus. Ego mec.u.m tuli Cap Moore et Georgium Ogle, et venimus hac nocte Dub."]

[Footnote 698: See Pepys's Diary, June 4. 1664. "He tells me above all of the Duke of York, that he is more himself, and more of judgment is at hand in him, in the middle of a desperate service than at other times."

Clarendon repeatedly says the same. Swift wrote on the margin of his copy of Clarendon, in one place, "How old was he (James) when he turned Papist and a coward?"--in another, "He proved a cowardly Popish king."]

[Footnote 699: Pere Orleans mentions that Sarsfield accompanied James.

The battle of the Boyne had scarcely been fought when it was made the subject of a drama, the Royal Flight, or the Conquest of Ireland, a Farce, 1690. Nothing more execrable was ever written. But it deserves to be remarked that, in this wretched piece, though the Irish generally are represented as poltroons, an exception is made in favour of Sarsfield.

"This fellow," says James, aside, "I will make me valiant, I think, in spite of my teeth." "Curse of my stars!" says Sarsfield, after the battle. "That I must be detached! I would have wrested victory out of heretic Fortune's hands."]

[Footnote 700: Both La Hoguette and Zurlauben informed their government that it had been necessary to fire on the Irish fugitives, who would otherwise have thrown the French ranks into confusion.]

[Footnote 701: Baden to Van Citters, July 8. 1690.]

[Footnote 702: New and Perfect Journal, 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.]

[Footnote 703: Story; London Gazette, July 10. 1690.]

[Footnote 704: True and Perfect journal; Villare Hibernic.u.m; Story's Impartial History.]

[Footnote 705: Story; True and Perfect journal; London Gazette, July 10 1690 Burnet, ii. 51.; Leslie's Answer to King.]

[Footnote 706: Life of James, ii. 404., Orig. Mem.; Monthly Mercury for August, 1690.]

[Footnote 707: True and Perfect journal. London Gazette, July 10 and 14. 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. In the Life of James Bonnell, Accountant General of Ireland, (1703) is a remarkable religious meditation, from which I will quote a short pa.s.sage. "How did we see the Protestants on the great day of our Revolution, Thursday the third of July, a day ever to be remembered by us with the greatest thankfulness, congratulate and embrace one another as they met, like persons alive from the dead, like brothers and sisters meeting after a long absence, and going about from house to house to give each other joy of G.o.d's great mercy, enquiring of one another how they past the late days of distress and terror, what apprehensions they had, what fears or dangers they were under; those that were prisoners, how they got their liberty, how they were treated, and what, from time to time, they thought of things."]

[Footnote 708: London Gazette, July 14. 1690; Story; True and Perfect Journal; Dumont MS. Dumont is the only person who mentions the crown.

As he was present, he could not be mistaken. It was probably the crown which James had been in the habit of wearing when he appeared on the throne at the King's Inns.]

[Footnote 709: Monthly Mercury for August 1690; Burnet, ii. 50; Dangeau, Aug. 2. 1690, and Saint Simon's note; The Follies of France, or a true Relation of the extravagant Rejoicings, &c., dated Paris, Aug. 8. 1690.]

[Footnote 710: "Me tiene," the Marquis of Cogolludo, Spanish minister at Rome, says of this report, "en sumo cuidado y desconsuelo, pues esta seria la ultima ruina de la causa comun."--Cogolludo to Ronquillo, Rome, Aug. 2. 1690,]

[Footnote 711: Original Letters, published by Sir Henry Ellis.]

[Footnote 712: "Del sucesso de Irlanda doy a v. Exca la enorabuena, y le aseguro no ha bastado casi la gente que tengo en la Secretaria para repartir copias dello, pues le he enbiado a todo el lugar, y la primera al Papa."--Cogolludo to Ronquillo, postscript to the letter of Aug. 2.

Cogolludo, of course, uses the new style. The tidings of the battle, therefore, had been three weeks in getting to Rome.]

[Footnote 713: Evelyn (Feb. 25. 1689/90) calls it "a sweet villa."]

[Footnote 714: Mary to William, July 5. 1690.]

[Footnote 715: Mary to William, July 6. and 7. 1690; Burnet, ii. 55.]

[Footnote 716: Baden to Van Citters, July 8/18 1690.]

[Footnote 717: See two letters annexed to the Memoirs of the Intendant Foucault, and printed in the work of M. de Sirtema des Grovestins in the archives of the War Office at Paris is a letter written from Brest by the Count of Bouridal on July 11/21 1690. The Count says: "Par la relation du combat que j'ay entendu faire au Roy d'Angleterre et a plusieurs de sa suite en particulier, il ne me paroit pas qu'il soit bien informe de tout ce qui s'est pa.s.se dans cette action, et qu'il ne scait que la deroute de ses troupes."]

[Footnote 718: It was not only on this occasion that James held this language. From one of the letters quoted in the last note it appears that on his road front Brest to Paris he told every body that the English were impatiently expecting him. "Ce pauvre prince croit que ses sujets l'aiment encore."]

[Footnote 719: Life of James, ii. 411, 412.; Burnet, ii. 57; and Dartmouth's note.]

[Footnote 720: See the articles Galere and Galerien, in the Encyclopedie, with the plates; A True Relation of the Cruelties and Barbarities of the French upon the English Prisoners of War, by R.