192

CHAPTER X.

James lands in Ireland in March, 1689-The disturbed state of IrelandIllegal and violent Government of Lord Tyrconnel- The Protestants refuse Lord Antrim admission into Derry-Tyrconnel disarms the Protestants, and enlists the Roman Catholics-James lays siege to Derry-Sufferings and fortitude of the Inhabitants-The siege is raised-The Battle of Newtown Butler-Violent proceedings of the Irish Parliament-The general act of attainder - Adulteration of the coinage-Schomberg's campaign in the autumn of 1689—In 1690 William takes the command-The Battle of the Boyne.

IT has been already mentioned that at the end of February James quitted St. Germains, and a fortnight later landed at Kinsale, in the county Cork, with the hope of making victories in Ireland the means of recovering his authority in England. Louis, whose idea of the kingly dignity was that it was most becomingly shown by acting as master of ceremonies on a most imposing scale of magnificence, had never had a more splendid opportunity of displaying his genius as such, than when his cousins were driven from their English throne and threw themselves on his protection and hospitality; and it cannot be denied that his conduct to them was marked not only with a truly royal liberality, but with a delicacy of good taste and kind feeling which did not commonly seem to belong to his character.

The moment that the news reached Versailles that the

Fames and his Queen reach France.

193

Queen had landed in France, labourers were set to work to repair the road by which she was to travel. Royal carriages were sent to Calais for her conveyance; the royal guard furnished her escort. As she approached the capital, Louis himself went to meet her with a gorgeous train of a hundred carriages-and-six. He descended from his coach to salute her, and led the way to the Palace of St. Germains, which had been already furnished for her use. James himself arrived he was received with equal pomp. Louis requested him to consider the palace as his own, so long as he might need it, and in addition to 16,000 louis, which had been placed in his and the Queen's apartments for a present supply, allotted them also a pension of £2,000 a month.1

When

He had expressed a courteous hope that they would not long require a French home; and when, after a two months sojourn at St. Germains, James's deliberations resulted in a resolution to raise his standard in Ireland, Louis equipped him for his enterprise with unstinted prodigality of resources. There was policy in the lavishness of his aid, for, in truth, it was of no little importance to himself that William should not be able to throw the weight of England into the scale against him in the war which he was now waging. He did not, indeed, furnish James with any French regiments, since it would clearly have been fatal to every hope of success for him to seem to depend for his restoration on foreign bayonets. Nor was there any deficiency of men in Ireland. But he lent him a large body of Lord Macaulay, without mentioning his authority, calls the pension £45,000 a year. But Madame de Sévigné, who exalts the munificence to the very utmost, as the very "image of the Almighty," says expressly that the sum was "" cinquante mille francs par mois" (Letter of January 17), and St. Simon fixes it at the same sum.

skilful officers to discipline the recruits whom he might tempt to his service, and an officer whom he held in high esteem to act as Commander-in-Chief. The Count de

Rosen belonged by birth to one of the noblest families of Livonia, and was connected by marriage with the celebrated Bernard, Duke of Weimar. Louis, who was generally eager to engage foreign talent in his service, had gladly employed and promoted him, and eventually raised him to the rank of Marshal. But, according to St. Simon, whose account of him probably embodies the estimate formed of him by his brother officers, his talents did not rise above those of a dashing cavalry officer, or a general of division under the orders of others; and, if they had been greater, they would have been neutralized by his coarseness of manners and extreme ferocity of disposition.

Besides these officers, Louis gave arms for 10,000 men, great quantities of ammunition, and above £100,000 of money. That James might from the first be surrounded with some of the dignity of a Court, the Count d'Avaux, than whom France had no abler diplomatist, also accompanied him as accredited ambassador, being further authorized by his master to expend large sums, if opportunity should arise, in gaining over members of the English Parliament. A splendid fleet was equipped at Brest, and on the 12th of March disembarked James and his retinue in safety at Kinsale.

He came to men who were expecting him, and who had been urgent in their entreaties that he should not delay his arrival. Ireland had been for some time in a state of great agitation. In some parts of the country civil war was already raging. Tyrconnel had been carrying out his instructions with a fierce and blind zeal, and trampling on

James returns to Ireland.

195

laws and precedents with a perfect disregard of every will but his own, which James himself could not have surpassed. He had filled the judicial bench with Papists, and had even given the seals to Alexander Fitton, a man notoriously guilty of forgery, but who, in his and his master's eyes, had atoned for his guilt by renouncing Protestantism. Another Roman Catholic, Stephen Rice,' had been made Chief Baron, for the express purpose of undoing the Act of Settlement; and he, by a series of illegal decisions, had stripped Protestant after Protestant of his estate, and confiscated charter after charter of the chief boroughs and cities of the kingdom.

In like manner the army had been purged of Churchmen and Presbyterians; and the intelligence of William's arrival in Torbay had hardly crossed the Channel when a rumour was spread abroad that Tyrconnel was meditating a renewal of the atrocities of Sir Phelim O'Neill, in a fresh massacre of every Englishman or Protestant in the island. It was not the less believed because he denied it. But those who conceived themselves thus, threatened with extermination were not inclined to submit tamely to such a fate. At Bandon and Mallow in the south, and at Sligo in the west, they took arms and formed themselves into bands for self-defence. At Enniskillen, on Lough Erne, they even sallied out to encounter some companies of infantry which Tyrconnel had sent to take up their quarters among them, routed them, and drove them back to Cavan; and at Londonderry the citizens, with equal resolution, prepared for what proved a more protracted and arduous struggle.

He seems to have been the author of a saying, since attributed, on other occasions, to more honest men, that "he would drive a coach-andsix through the Act of Parliament."

The 9th of December was believed to have been fixed for the intended massacre'; and, a day or two before that date, the Earl of Antrim, at the head of 1,200 men, crossed Lough Foyle at the ferry which gave access to the town from the Coleraine road, and demanded admittance and quarters in the name of King James. The civic authorities had no inclination to refuse him admittance. Chief Baron Rice had quelled the spirit of the Corporation. The Bishop held, and at all times consistently preached, the most extreme doctrines of non-resistance. The magistrates were on the point of submitting to the Earl's demand, a submission which might have affected the whole subsequent history of the country, and which would certainly have deprived it of its most brilliant episode, when a few young Protestant apprentices were suddenly seized with a generous fear for their liberty and their religion, which overbore all other fear. Hearing what was passing, they rushed to the gates, closed them in the face of the soldiers; let fall the portcullis; manned the guns on the lines; and sent out messengers in every direction to implore instant aid from the inhabitants of the surrounding district.

No call was ever more promptly answered. Men of all classes, gentry, farmers, and peasants, poured in to the threatened city with such rapidity and in such numbers that Lord Antrim did not dare to attempt to force an entrance; and Tyrconnel himself, whom the news of what was taking place in England had rendered doubtful of the issue of the contest there, for a moment thought it best to temporize, and to seek rather to tranquillize than to subdue. He sent Lord Mountjoy, the Master of the Ordnance, who, being a Protestant himself, was more likely