The History of England, from the Accession of James II Volume III Part 21

The outcry against those who were, with good reason, suspected of having invited the enemy to make a descent on our sh.o.r.es was vehement and general, and was swollen by many voices which had recently been loud in clamour against the government of William. The question had ceased to be a question between two dynasties, and had become a question between England and France. So strong was the national sentiment that nonjurors and Papists shared or affected to share it. Dryden, not long after the burning of Teignmouth, laid a play at the feet of Halifax, with a dedication eminently ingenious, artful, and eloquent. The dramatist congratulated his patron on having taken shelter in a calm haven from the storms of public life, and, with great force and beauty of diction, magnified the felicity of the statesman who exchanges the bustle of office and the fame of oratory for philosophic studies and domestic endearments. England could not complain that she was defrauded of the service to which she had a right. Even the severe discipline of ancient Rome permitted a soldier, after many campaigns, to claim his dismission; and Halifax had surely done enough for his country to be ent.i.tled to the same privilege. But the poet added that there was one case in which the Roman veteran, even after his discharge, was required to resume his s.h.i.+eld and his pilum; and that one case was an invasion of the Gauls.

That a writer who had purchased the smiles of James by apostasy, who had been driven in disgrace from the court of William, and who had a deeper interest in the restoration of the exiled House than any man who made letters his calling, should have used, whether sincerely or insincerely, such language as this, is a fact which may convince us that the determination never to be subjugated by foreigners was fixed in the hearts of the people, [727]

There was indeed a Jacobite literature in which no trace of this patriotic spirit can be detected, a literature the remains of which prove that there were Englishmen perfectly willing to see the English flag dishonoured, the English soil invaded, the English capital sacked, the English crown worn by a va.s.sal of Lewis, if only they might avenge themselves on their enemies, and especially on William, whom they hated with a hatred half frightful half ludicrous. But this literature was altogether a work of darkness. The law by which the Parliament of James had subjected the press to the control of censors was still in force; and, though the officers whose business it was to prevent the infraction of that law were not extreme to mark every irregularity committed by a bookseller who understood the art of conveying a guinea in a squeeze of the hand, they could not wink at the open vending of unlicensed pamphlets filled with ribald insults to the Sovereign, and with direct instigations to rebellion. But there had long lurked in the garrets of London a cla.s.s of printers who worked steadily at their calling with precautions resembling those employed by coiners and forgers. Women were on the watch to give the alarm by their screams if an officer appeared near the workshop. The press was immediately pushed into a closet behind the bed; the types were flung into the coalhole, and covered with cinders: the compositor disappeared through a trapdoor in the roof, and made off over the tiles of the neighbouring houses. In these dens were manufactured treasonable works of all cla.s.ses and sizes, from halfpenny broadsides of doggrel verse up to ma.s.sy quartos filled with Hebrew quotations. It was not safe to exhibit such publications openly on a counter. They were sold only by trusty agents, and in secret places.

Some tracts which were thought likely to produce a great effect were given away in immense numbers at the expense of wealthy Jacobites.

Sometimes a paper was thrust under a door, sometimes dropped on the table of a coffeehouse. One day a thousand copies of a scurrilous pamphlet went out by the postbags. On another day, when the shopkeepers rose early to take down their shutters, they found the whole of Fleet Street and the Strand white with seditious handbills, [728]

Of the numerous performances which were ushered into the world by such s.h.i.+fts as these, none produced a greater sensation than a little book which purported to be a form of prayer and humiliation for the use of the persecuted Church. It was impossible to doubt that a considerable sum had been expended on this work. Ten thousand copies were, by various means, scattered over the kingdom. No more mendacious, more malignant or more impious lampoon was ever penned. Though the government had as yet treated its enemies with a lenity unprecedented in the history of our country, though not a single person had, since the Revolution, suffered death for any political offence, the authors of this liturgy were not ashamed to pray that G.o.d would a.s.suage their enemy's insatiable thirst for blood, or would, if any more of them were to be brought through the Red Sea to the Land of Promise, prepare them for the pa.s.sage, [729] They complained that the Church of England, once the perfection of beauty, had become a scorn and derision, a heap of ruins, a vineyard of wild grapes; that her services had ceased to deserve the name of public wors.h.i.+p; that the bread and wine which she dispensed had no longer any sacramental virtue; that her priests, in the act of swearing fealty to the usurper, had lost the sacred character which had been conferred on them by their ordination, [730] James was profanely described as the stone which foolish builders had rejected; and a fervent pet.i.tion was put up that Providence would again make him the head of the corner.

The blessings which were called down on our country were of a singular description. There was something very like a prayer for another b.l.o.o.d.y Circuit; "Give the King the necks of his enemies;" there was something very like a prayer for a French invasion; "Raise him up friends abroad;"

and there was a more mysterious prayer, the best comment on which was afterwards furnished by the a.s.sa.s.sination Plot; "Do some great thing for him; which we in particular know not how to pray for." [731]

This liturgy was composed, circulated, and read, it is said, in some congregations of Jacobite schismatics, before William set out for Ireland, but did not attract general notice till the appearance of a foreign armament on our coast had roused the national spirit. Then rose a roar of indignation against the Englishmen who had dared, under the hypocritical pretence of devotion, to imprecate curses on England. The deprived Prelates were suspected, and not without some show of reason.

For the nonjurors were, to a man, zealous Episcopalians. Their doctrine was that, in ecclesiastical matters of grave moment, nothing could be well done without the sanction of the Bishop. And could it be believed that any who held this doctrine would compose a service, print it, circulate it, and actually use it in public wors.h.i.+p, without the approbation of Sancroft, whom the whole party revered, not only as the true Primate of all England, but also as a Saint and a Confessor? It was known that the Prelates who had refused the oaths had lately held several consultations at Lambeth. The subject of those consultations, it was now said, might easily be guessed. The holy fathers had been engaged in framing prayers for the destruction of the Protestant colony in Ireland, for the defeat of the English fleet in the Channel, and for the speedy arrival of a French army in Kent. The extreme section of the Whig party pressed this accusation with vindictive eagerness. This then, said those implacable politicians, was the fruit of King William's merciful policy. Never had he committed a greater error than when he had conceived the hope that the hearts of the clergy were to be won by clemency and moderation. He had not chosen to give credit to men who had learned by a long and bitter experience that no kindness will tame the sullen ferocity of a priesthood. He had stroked and pampered when he should have tried the effect of chains and hunger. He had hazarded the good will of his best friends by protecting his worst enemies. Those Bishops who had publicly refused to acknowledge him as their Sovereign, and who, by that refusal, had forfeited their dignities and revenues, still continued to live unmolested in palaces which ought to be occupied by better men: and for this indulgence, an indulgence unexampled in the history of revolutions, what return had been made to him? Even this, that the men whom he had, with so much tenderness, screened from just punishment, had the insolence to describe him in their prayers as a persecutor defiled with the blood of the righteous; they asked for grace to endure with fort.i.tude his sanguinary tyranny; they cried to heaven for a foreign fleet and army to deliver them from his yoke; nay, they hinted at a wish so odious that even they had not the front to speak it plainly. One writer, in a pamphlet which produced a great sensation, expressed his wonder that the people had not, when Tourville was riding victorious in the Channel, bewitted the nonjuring Prelates. Excited as the public mind then was, there was some danger that this suggestion might bring a furious mob to Lambeth. At Norwich indeed the people actually rose, attacked the palace which the Bishop was still suffered to occupy, and would have pulled it down but for the timely arrival of the trainbands, [732] The government very properly inst.i.tuted criminal proceedings against the publisher of the work which had produced this alarming breach of the peace, [733] The deprived Prelates meanwhile put forth a defence of their conduct. In this doc.u.ment they declared, with all solemnity, and as in the presence of G.o.d, that they had no hand in the new liturgy, that they knew not who had framed it, that they had never used it, that they had never held any correspondence directly or indirectly with the French court, that they were engaged in no plot against the existing government, and that they would willingly shed their blood rather than see England subjugated by a foreign prince, who had, in his own kingdom, cruelly persecuted their Protestant brethren.

As to the write who had marked them out to the public vengeance by a fearful word, but too well understood, they commended him to the Divine mercy, and heartily prayed that his great sin might be forgiven him.

Most of those who signed this paper did so doubtless with perfect sincerity: but it soon appeared that one at least of the subscribers had added to the crime of betraying his country the crime of calling G.o.d to witness a falsehood, [734]

The events which were pa.s.sing in the Channel and on the Continent compelled William to make repeated changes in his plans. During the week which followed his triumphal entry into Dublin, messengers charged with evil tidings arrived from England in rapid succession. First came the account of Waldeck's defeat at Fleurus. The King was much disturbed.

All the pleasure, he said, which his own victory had given him was at an end. Yet, with that generosity which was hidden under his austere aspect, he sate down, even in the moment of his first vexation, to write a kind and encouraging letter to the unfortunate general, [735] Three days later came intelligence more alarming still. The allied fleet had been ignominiously beaten. The sea from the Downs to the Land's End was in possession of the enemy. The next post might bring news that Kent was invaded. A French squadron might appear in Saint George's Channel, and might without difficulty burn all the transports which were anch.o.r.ed in the Bay of Dublin. William determined to return to England; but he wished to obtain, before he went, the command of a safe haven on the eastern coast of Ireland. Waterford was the place best suited to his purpose; and towards Waterford he immediately proceeded. Clonmel and Kilkenny were abandoned by the Irish troops as soon as it was known that he was approaching. At Kilkenny he was entertained, on the nineteenth of July, by the Duke of Ormond in the ancient castle of the Butlers, which had not long before been occupied by Lauzun, and which therefore, in the midst of the general devastation, still had tables and chairs, hangings on the walls, and claret in the cellars. On the twenty-first two regiments which garrisoned Waterford consented to march out after a faint show of resistance; a few hours later, the fort of Duncannon, which, towering on a rocky promontory, commanded the entrance of the harbour, was surrendered; and William was master of the whole of that secure and s.p.a.cious basin which is formed by the united waters of the Suir, the Nore and the Barrow. He then announced his intention of instantly returning to England, and, having declared Count Solmes Commander in Chief of the army of Ireland, set out for Dublin, [736]

But good news met him on the road. Tourville had appeared on the coast of Devons.h.i.+re, had put some troops on sh.o.r.e, and had sacked Teignmouth; but the only effect of this insult had been to raise the whole population of the western counties in arms against the invaders. The enemy had departed, after doing just mischief enough to make the cause of James as odious for a time to Tories as to Whigs. William therefore again changed his plans, and hastened back to his army, which, during his absence, had moved westward, and which he rejoined in the neighbourhood of Cashel, [737]

About this time he received from Mary a letter requesting him to decide an important question on which the Council of Nine was divided.

Marlborough was of opinion that all danger of invasion was over for that year. The sea, he said, was open; for the French s.h.i.+ps had returned into port, and were refitting. Now was the time to send an English fleet, with five thousand troops on board, to the southern extremity of Ireland. Such a force might easily reduce Cork and Kinsale, two of the most important strongholds still occupied by the forces of James.

Marlborough was strenuously supported by Nottingham, and as strenuously opposed by the other members of the interior council with Caermarthen at their head. The Queen referred the matter to her husband. He highly approved of the plan, and gave orders that it should be executed by the General who had formed it. Caermarthen submitted, though with a bad grace, and with some murmurs at the extraordinary partiality of His Majesty for Marlborough, [738]

William meanwhile was advancing towards Limerick. In that city the army which he had put to rout at the Boyne had taken refuge, discomfited, indeed, and disgraced, but very little diminished. He would not have had the trouble of besieging the place, if the advice of Lauzun and of Lauzun's countrymen had been followed. They laughed at the thought of defending such fortifications, and indeed would not admit that the name of fortifications could properly be given to heaps of dirt, which certainly bore little resemblance to the works of Valenciennes and Philipsburg. "It is unnecessary," said Lauzun, with an oath, "for the English to bring cannon against such a place as this. What you call your ramparts might be battered down with roasted apples." He therefore gave his voice for evacuating Limerick, and declared that, at all events, he was determined not to throw away in a hopeless resistance the lives of the brave men who had been entrusted to his care by his master, [739]

The truth is, that the judgment of the brilliant and adventurous Frenchman was bia.s.sed by his inclinations. He and his companions were sick of Ireland. They were ready to face death with courage, nay, with gaiety, on a field of battle. But the dull, squalid, barbarous life, which they had now been leading during several months, was more than they could bear. They were as much out of the pale of the civilised world as if they had been banished to Dahomey or Spitzbergen. The climate affected their health and spirits. In that unhappy country, wasted by years of predatory war, hospitality could offer little more than a couch of straw, a trencher of meat half raw and half burned, and a draught of sour milk. A crust of bread, a pint of wine, could hardly be purchased for money. A year of such hards.h.i.+ps seemed a century to men who had always been accustomed to carry with them to the camp the luxuries of Paris, soft bedding, rich tapestry, sideboards of plate, hampers of Champagne, opera dancers, cooks and musicians. Better to be a prisoner in the Bastille, better to be a recluse at La Trappe, than to be generalissimo of the half naked savages who burrowed in the dreary swamps of Munster. Any plea was welcome which would serve as an excuse for returning from that miserable exile to the land of cornfields and vineyards, of gilded coaches and laced cravats, of ballrooms and theatres, [740]

Very different was the feeling of the children of the soil. The island, which to French courtiers was a disconsolate place of banishment, was the Irishman's home. There were collected all the objects of his love and of his ambition; and there he hoped that his dust would one day mingle with the dust of his fathers. To him even the heaven dark with the vapours of the ocean, the wildernesses of black rushes and stagnant water, the mud cabins where the peasants and the swine shared their meal of roots, had a charm which was wanting to the sunny skies, the cultured fields and the stately mansions of the Seine. He could imagine no fairer spot than his country, if only his country could be freed from the tyranny of the Saxons; and all hope that his country would be freed from the tyranny of the Saxons must be abandoned if Limerick were surrendered.

The conduct of the Irish during the last two months had sunk their military reputation to the lowest point. They had, with the exception of some gallant regiments of cavalry, fled disgracefully at the Boyne, and had thus incurred the bitter contempt both of their enemies and of their allies. The English who were at Saint Germains never spoke of the Irish but as a people of dastards and traitors, [741] The French were so much exasperated against the unfortunate nation, that Irish merchants, who had been many years settled at Paris, durst not walk the streets for fear of being insulted by the populace, [742] So strong was the prejudice, that absurd stories were invented to explain the intrepidity with which the horse had fought. It was said that the troopers were not men of Celtic blood, but descendants of the old English of the pale, [743] It was also said that they had been intoxicated with brandy just before the battle, [744] Yet nothing can be more certain than that they must have been generally of Irish race; nor did the steady valour which they displayed in a long and almost hopeless conflict against great odds bear any resemblance to the fury of a coward maddened by strong drink into momentary hardihood. Even in the infantry, undisciplined and disorganized as it was, there was much spirit, though little firmness.

Fits of enthusiasm and fits of faintheartedness succeeded each other.

The same battalion, which at one time threw away its arms in a panic and shrieked for quarter, would on another occasion fight valiantly. On the day of the Boyne the courage of the ill trained and ill commanded kernes had ebbed to the lowest point. When they had rallied at Limerick, their blood was up. Patriotism, fanaticism, shame, revenge, despair, had raised them above themselves. With one voice officers and men insisted that the city should be defended to the last. At the head of those who were for resisting was the brave Sarsfield; and his exhortations diffused through all ranks a spirit resembling his own. To save his country was beyond his power. All that he could do was to prolong her last agony through one b.l.o.o.d.y and disastrous year, [745]

Tyrconnel was altogether incompetent to decide the question on which the French and the Irish differed. The only military qualities that he had ever possessed were personal bravery and skill in the use of the sword.

These qualities had once enabled him to frighten away rivals from the doors of his mistresses, and to play the Hector at c.o.c.kpits and hazard tables. But more was necessary to enable him to form an opinion as to the possibility of defending Limerick. He would probably, had his temper been as hot as in the days when he diced with Grammont and threatened to cut the old Duke of Ormond's throat, have voted for running any risk however desperate. But age, pain and sickness had left little of the canting, bullying, fighting d.i.c.k Talbot of the Restoration. He had sunk into deep despondency. He was incapable of strenuous exertion. The French officers p.r.o.nounced him utterly ignorant of the art of war. They had observed that at the Boyne he had seemed to be stupified, unable to give directions himself, unable even to make up his mind about the suggestions which were offered by others, [746] The disasters which had since followed one another in rapid succession were not likely to restore the tone of a mind so pitiably unnerved. His wife was already in France with the little which remained of his once ample fortune: his own wish was to follow her thither: his voice was therefore given for abandoning the city.

At last a compromise was made. Lauzun and Tyrconnel, with the French troops, retired to Galway. The great body of the native army, about twenty thousand strong, remained at Limerick. The chief command there was entrusted to Boisseleau, who understood the character of the Irish better, and consequently, judged them more favourably, than any of his countrymen. In general, the French captains spoke of their unfortunate allies with boundless contempt and abhorrence, and thus made themselves as hateful as the English, [747]

Lauzun and Tyrconnel had scarcely departed when the advanced guard of William's army came in sight. Soon the King himself, accompanied by Auverquerque and Ginkell, and escorted by three hundred horse, rode forward to examine the fortifications. The city, then the second in Ireland, though less altered since that time than most large cities in the British isles, has undergone a great change. The new town did not then exist. The ground now covered by those smooth and broad pavements, those neat gardens, those stately shops flaming with red brick, and gay with shawls and china, was then an open meadow lying without the walls.

The city consisted of two parts, which had been designated during several centuries as the English and the Irish town. The English town stands on an island surrounded by the Shannon, and consists of a knot of antique houses with gable ends, crowding thick round a venerable cathedral. The aspect of the streets is such that a traveller who wanders through them may easily fancy himself in Normandy or Flanders.

Not far from the cathedral, an ancient castle overgrown with weeds and ivy looks down on the river. A narrow and rapid stream, over which, in 1690, there was only a single bridge, divides the English town from the quarter anciently occupied by the hovels of the native population. The view from the top of the cathedral now extends many miles over a level expanse of rich mould, through which the greatest of Irish rivers winds between artificial banks. But in the seventeenth century those banks had not been constructed; and that wide plain, of which the gra.s.s, verdant even beyond the verdure of Munster, now feeds some of the finest cattle in Europe, was then almost always a marsh and often a lake, [748]

When it was known that the French troops had quitted Limerick, and that the Irish only remained, the general expectation in the English camp was that the city would be an easy conquest, [749] Nor was that expectation unreasonable; for even Sarsfield desponded. One chance, in his opinion, there still was. William had brought with him none but small guns.

Several large pieces of ordnance, a great quant.i.ty of provisions and ammunition, and a bridge of tin boats, which in the watery plain of the Shannon was frequently needed, were slowly following from Cashel. If the guns and gunpowder could be intercepted and destroyed, there might be some hope. If not, all was lost; and the best thing that a brave and high spirited Irish gentleman could do was to forget the country which he had in vain tried to defend, and to seek in some foreign land a home or a grave.

A few hours, therefore, after the English tents had been pitched before Limerick, Sarsfield set forth, under cover of the night, with a strong body of horse and dragoons. He took the road to Killaloe, and crossed the Shannon there. During the day he lurked with his band in a wild mountain tract named from the silver mines which it contains. Those mines had many years before been worked by English proprietors, with the help of engineers and labourers imported from the Continent. But, in the rebellion of 1641, the aboriginal population had destroyed the works and ma.s.sacred the workmen; nor had the devastation then committed been since repaired. In this desolate region Sarsfield found no lack of scouts or of guides; for all the peasantry of Munster were zealous on his side.

He learned in the evening that the detachment which guarded the English artillery had halted for the night about seven miles from William's camp, on a pleasant carpet of green turf under the ruined walls of an old castle that officers and men seemed to think themselves perfectly secure; that the beasts had been turned loose to graze, and that even the sentinels were dozing. When it was dark the Irish hors.e.m.e.n quitted their hiding place, and were conducted by the people of the country to the place where the escort lay sleeping round the guns. The surprise was complete. Some of the English sprang to their arms and made an attempt to resist, but in vain. About sixty fell. One only was taken alive. The rest fled. The victorious Irish made a huge pile of waggons and pieces of cannon. Every gun was stuffed with powder, and fixed with its mouth in the ground; and the whole ma.s.s was blown up. The solitary prisoner, a lieutenant, was treated with great civility by Sarsfield. "If I had failed in this attempt," said the gallant Irishman, "I should have been off to France." [750]

Intelligence had been carried to William's head quarters that Sarsfield had stolen out of Limerick and was ranging the country. The King guessed the design of his brave enemy, and sent five hundred horse to protect the guns. Unhappily there was some delay, which the English, always disposed to believe the worst of the Dutch courtiers, attributed to the negligence or perverseness of Portland. At one in the morning the detachment set out, but had scarcely left the camp when a blaze like lightning and a crash like thunder announced to the wide plain of the Shannon that all was over, [751]

Sarsfield had long been the favourite of his countrymen; and this most seasonable exploit, judiciously planned and vigorously executed, raised him still higher in their estimation. Their spirits rose; and the besiegers began to lose heart. William did his best to repair his loss. Two of the guns which had been blown up were found to be still serviceable. Two more were sent for from Waterford. Batteries were constructed of small field pieces, which, though they might have been useless against one of the fortresses of Hainault or Brabant, made some impression on the feeble defences of Limerick. Several outworks were carried by storm; and a breach in the rampart of the city began to appear.

During these operations, the English army was astonished and amused by an incident, which produced indeed no very important consequences, but which ill.u.s.trates in the most striking manner the real nature of Irish Jacobitism. In the first rank of those great Celtic houses, which, down to the close of the reign of Elizabeth, bore rule in Ulster, were the O'Donnels. The head of that house had yielded to the skill and energy of Mountjoy, had kissed the hand of James the First, and had consented to exchange the rude independence of a petty prince for an eminently honourable place among British subjects. During a short time the vanquished chief held the rank of an Earl, and was the landlord of an immense domain of which he had once been the sovereign. But soon he began to suspect the government of plotting against him, and, in revenge or in selfdefence, plotted against the government. His schemes failed; he fled to the continent; his t.i.tle and his estates were forfeited; and an Anglosaxon colony was planted in the territory which he had governed.

He meanwhile took refuge at the court of Spain. Between that court and the aboriginal Irish there had, during the long contest between Philip and Elizabeth, been a close connection. The exiled chieftain was welcomed at Madrid as a good Catholic flying from heretical persecutors.

His ill.u.s.trious descent and princely dignity, which to the English were subjects of ridicule, secured to him the respect of the Castilian grandees. His honours were inherited by a succession of banished men who lived and died far from the land where the memory of their family was fondly cherished by a rude peasantry, and was kept fresh by the songs of minstrels and the tales of begging friars. At length, in the eighty-third year of the exile of this ancient dynasty, it was known over all Europe that the Irish were again in arms for their independence. Baldearg O'Donnel, who called himself the O'Donnel, a t.i.tle far prouder, in the estimation of his race, than any marquisate or dukedom, had been bred in Spain, and was in the service of the Spanish government. He requested the permission of that government to repair to Ireland. But the House of Austria was now closely leagued with England; and the permission was refused. The O'Donnel made his escape, and by a circuitous route, in the course of which he visited Turkey, arrived at Kinsale a few days after James had sailed thence for France. The effect produced on the native population by the arrival of this solitary wanderer was marvellous. Since Ulster had been reconquered by the Englishry, great mult.i.tudes of the Irish inhabitants of that province had migrated southward, and were now leading a vagrant life in Connaught and Munster. These men, accustomed from their infancy to hear of the good old times, when the O'Donnel, solemnly inaugurated on the rock of Kilmacrenan by the successor of Saint Columb, governed the mountains of Donegal in defiance of the strangers of the pale, flocked to the standard of the restored exile. He was soon at the head of seven or eight thousand Rapparees, or, to use the name peculiar to Ulster, Creaghts; and his followers adhered to him with a loyalty very different from the languid sentiment which the Saxon James had been able to inspire. Priests and even Bishops swelled the train of the adventurer.

He was so much elated by his reception that he sent agents to France, who a.s.sured the ministers of Lewis that the O'Donnel would, if furnished with arms and ammunition, bring into the field thirty thousand Celts from Ulster, and that the Celts of Ulster would be found far superior in every military quality to those of Leinster, Munster and Connaught. No expression used by Baldearg indicated that he considered himself as a subject. His notion evidently was that the House of O'Donnel was as truly and as indefeasibly royal as the House of Stuart; and not a few of his countrymen were of the same mind. He made a pompous entrance into Limerick; and his appearance there raised the hopes of the garrison to a strange pitch. Numerous prophecies were recollected or invented. An O'Donnel with a red mark was to be the deliverer of his country; and Baldearg meant a red mark. An O'Donnel was to gain a great battle over the English near Limerick; and at Limerick the O'Donnel and the English were now brought face to face, [752]

While these predictions were eagerly repeated by the defenders of the city, evil presages, grounded not on barbarous oracles, but on grave military reasons, began to disturb William and his most experienced officers. The blow struck by Sarsfield had told; the artillery had been long in doing its work; that work was even now very imperfectly done; the stock of powder had begun to run low; the autumnal rain had begun to fall. The soldiers in the trenches were up to their knees in mire. No precaution was neglected; but, though drains were dug to carry off the water, and though pewter basins of usquebaugh and brandy blazed all night in the tents, cases of fever had already occurred, and it might well be apprehended that, if the army remained but a few days longer on that swampy soil, there would be a pestilence more terrible than that which had raged twelve months before under the walls of Dundalk, [753]

A council of war was held. It was determined to make one great effort, and, if that effort failed, to raise the seige.

On the twenty-seventh of August, at three in the afternoon, the signal was given. Five hundred grenadiers rushed from the English trenches to the counterscarp, fired their pieces, and threw their grenades. The Irish fled into the town, and were followed by the a.s.sailants, who, in the excitement of victory, did not wait for orders. Then began a terrible street fight. The Irish, as soon as they had recovered from their surprise, stood resolutely to their arms; and the English grenadiers, overwhelmed by numbers, were, with great loss, driven back to the counterscarp. There the struggle was long and desperate. When indeed was the Roman Catholic Celt to fight if he did not fight on that day? The very women of Limerick mingled, in the combat, stood firmly under the hottest fire, and flung stones and broken bottles at the enemy. In the moment when the conflict was fiercest a mine exploded, and hurled a fine German battalion into the air. During four hours the carnage and uproar continued. The thick cloud which rose from the breach streamed out on the wind for many miles, and disappeared behind the hills of Clare. Late in the evening the besiegers retired slowly and sullenly to their camp. Their hope was that a second attack would be made on the morrow; and the soldiers vowed to have the town or die.

But the powder was now almost exhausted; the rain fell in torrents; the gloomy ma.s.ses of cloud which came up from the south west threatened a havoc more terrible than that of the sword; and there was reason to fear that the roads, which were already deep in mud, would soon be in such a state that no wheeled carriage could be dragged through them. The King determined to raise the siege, and to move his troops to a healthier region. He had in truth staid long enough; for it was with great difficulty that his guns and waggons were tugged away by long teams of oxen, [754]

The history of the first siege of Limerick bears, in some respects, a remarkable a.n.a.logy to the history of the siege of Londonderry. The southern city was, like the northern city, the last asylum of a Church and of a nation. Both places were crowded by fugitives from all parts of Ireland. Both places appeared to men who had made a regular study of the art of war incapable of resisting an enemy. Both were, in the moment of extreme danger, abandoned by those commanders who should have defended them. Lauzun and Tyrconnel deserted Limerick as Cunningham and Lundy had deserted Londonderry. In both cases, religious and patriotic enthusiasm struggled una.s.sisted against great odds; and, in both cases, religious and patriotic enthusiasm did what veteran warriors had p.r.o.nounced it absurd to attempt.

It was with no pleasurable emotions that Lauzun and Tyrconnel learned at Galway the fortunate issue of the conflict in which they had refused to take a part. They were weary of Ireland; they were apprehensive that their conduct might be unfavourably represented in France; they therefore determined to be beforehand with their accusers, and took s.h.i.+p together for the Continent.

Tyrconnel, before he departed, delegated his civil authority to one council, and his military authority to another. The young Duke of Berwick was declared Commander in Chief; but this dignity was merely nominal. Sarsfield, undoubtedly the first of Irish soldiers, was placed last in the list of the councillors to whom the conduct of the war was entrusted; and some believed that he would not have been in the list at all, had not the Viceroy feared that the omission of so popular a name might produce a mutiny.

William meanwhile had reached Waterford, and had sailed thence for England. Before he embarked, he entrusted the government of Ireland to three Lords Justices. Henry Sydney, now Viscount Sydney, stood first in the commission; and with him were joined Coningsby and Sir Charles Porter. Porter had formerly held the Great Seal of the kingdom, had, merely because he was a Protestant, been deprived of it by James, and had now received it again from the hand of William.

On the sixth of September the King, after a voyage of twenty-four hours, landed at Bristol. Thence he travelled to London, stopping by the road at the mansions of some great lords, and it was remarked that all those who were thus honoured were Tories. He was entertained one day at Badminton by the Duke of Beaufort, who was supposed to have brought himself with great difficulty to take the oaths, and on a subsequent day at a large house near Marlborough which, in our own time, before the great revolution produced by railways, was renowned as one of the best inns in England, but which, in the seventeenth century, was a seat of the Duke of Somerset. William was every where received with marks of respect and joy. His campaign indeed had not ended quite so prosperously as it had begun; but on the whole his success had been great beyond expectation, and had fully vindicated the wisdom of his resolution to command his army in person. The sack of Teignmouth too was fresh in the minds of Englishmen, and had for a time reconciled all but the most fanatical Jacobites to each other and to the throne. The magistracy and clergy of the capital repaired to Kensington with thanks and congratulations. The people rang bells and kindled bonfires. For the Pope, whom good Protestants had been accustomed to immolate, the French King was on this occasion subst.i.tuted, probably by way of retaliation for the insults which had been offered to the effigy of William by the Parisian populace. A waxen figure, which was doubtless a hideous caricature of the most graceful and majestic of princes, was dragged about Westminster in a chariot. Above was inscribed, in large letters, "Lewis the greatest tyrant of fourteen." After the procession, the image was committed to the flames, amidst loud huzzas, in the middle of Covent Garden, [755]

When William arrived in London, the expedition destined for Cork, was ready to sail from Portsmouth, and Marlborough had been some time on board waiting for a fair wind. He was accompanied by Grafton. This young man had been, immediately after the departure of James, and while the throne was still vacant, named by William Colonel of the First Regiment of Foot Guards. The Revolution had scarcely been consummated, when signs of disaffection began to appear in that regiment, the most important, both because of its peculiar duties and because of its numerical strength, of all the regiments in the army. It was thought that the Colonel had not put this bad spirit down with a sufficiently firm hand.

He was known not to be perfectly satisfied with the new arrangement; he had voted for a Regency; and it was rumoured, perhaps without reason, that he had dealings with Saint Germains. The honourable and lucrative command to which he had just been appointed was taken from him, [756]

Though severely mortified, he behaved like a man of sense and spirit.

Bent on proving that he had been wrongfully suspected, and animated by an honourable ambition to distinguish himself in his profession, he obtained permission to serve as a volunteer under Marlborough in Ireland.

At length, on the eighteenth of September, the wind changed. The fleet stood out to sea, and on the twenty-first appeared before the harbour of Cork. The troops landed, and were speedily joined by the Duke of Wirtemberg, with several regiments, Dutch, Danish, and French, detached from the army which had lately besieged Limerick. The Duke immediately put forward a claim which, if the English general had not been a man of excellent judgment and temper, might have been fatal to the expedition.

His Highness contended that, as a prince of a sovereign house, he was ent.i.tled to command in chief. Marlborough calmly and politely showed that the pretence was unreasonable. A dispute followed, in which it is said that the German behaved with rudeness, and the Englishman with that gentle firmness to which, more perhaps than even to his great abilities, he owed his success in life. At length a Huguenot officer suggested a compromise. Marlborough consented to waive part of his rights, and to allow precedence to the Duke on the alternate days. The first morning on which Marlborough had the command, he gave the word "Wirtemberg." The Duke's heart was won by this compliment and on the next day he gave the word "Marlborough."

But, whoever might give the word, genius a.s.serted its indefeasible superiority. Marlborough was on every day the real general. Cork was vigorously attacked. Outwork after outwork was rapidly carried. In forty-eight hours all was over. The traces of the short struggle may still be seen. The old fort, where the Irish made the hardest fight, lies in ruins. The Daria Cathedral, so ungracefully joined to the ancient tower, stands on the site of a Gothic edifice which was shattered by the English cannon. In the neighbouring churchyard is still shown the spot where stood, during many ages, one of those round towers which have perplexed antiquaries. This venerable monument shared the fate of the neighbouring church. On another spot, which is now called the Mall, and is lined by the stately houses of banking companies, railway companies, and insurance companies, but which was then a bog known by the name of the Rape Marsh, four English regiments, up to the shoulders in water, advanced gallantly to the a.s.sault. Grafton, ever foremost in danger, while struggling through the quagmire, was struck by a shot from the ramparts, and was carried back dying. The place where he fell, then about a hundred yards without the city, but now situated in the very centre of business and population, is still called Grafton Street. The a.s.sailants had made their way through the swamp, and the close fighting was just about to begin, when a parley was beaten.

Articles of capitulation were speedily adjusted. The garrison, between four and five thousand fighting men, became prisoners. Marlborough promised to intercede with the King both for them and for the inhabitants, and to prevent outrage and spoliation. His troops he succeeded in restraining; but crowds of sailors and camp followers came into the city through the breach; and the houses of many Roman Catholics were sacked before order was restored.

No commander has ever understood better than Marlborough how to improve a victory. A few hours after Cork had fallen, his cavalry were on the road to Kinsale. A trumpeter was sent to summon the place. The Irish threatened to hang him for bringing such a message, set fire to the town, and retired into two forts called the Old and the New. The English horse arrived just in time to extinguish the flames. Marlborough speedily followed with his infantry. The Old Fort was scaled; and four hundred and fifty men who defended it were all killed or taken. The New Fort it was necessary to attack in a more methodical way. Batteries were planted; trenches were opened; mines were sprung; in a few days the besiegers were masters of the counterscarp; and all was ready for storming, when the governor offered to capitulate. The garrison, twelve hundred strong, was suffered to retire to Limerick; but the conquerors took possession of the stores, which were of considerable value. Of all the Irish ports Kinsale was the best situated for intercourse with France. Here, therefore, was a plenty unknown in any other part of Munster. At Limerick bread and wine were luxuries which generals and privy councillors were not always able to procure. But in the New Fort of Kinsale Marlborough found a thousand barrels of wheat and eighty pipes of claret.

His success had been complete and rapid; and indeed, had it not been rapid, it would not have been complete. His campaign, short as it was, had been long enough to allow time for the deadly work which, in that age, the moist earth and air of Ireland seldom failed, in the autumnal season, to perform on English soldiers. The malady which had thinned the ranks of Schomberg's army at Dundalk, and which had compelled William to make a hasty retreat from the estuary of the Shannon, had begun to appear at Kinsale. Quick and vigorous as Marlborough's operations were, he lost a much greater number of men by disease than by the fire of the enemy. He presented himself at Kensington only five weeks after he had sailed from Portsmouth, and was most graciously received. "No officer living," said William, "who has seen so little service as my Lord Marlborough, is so fit for great commands." [757]

In Scotland, as in Ireland, the aspect of things had, during this memorable summer, changed greatly for the better. That club of discontented Whigs which had, in the preceding year, ruled the Parliament, browbeaten the ministers, refused the supplies and stopped the signet, had sunk under general contempt, and had at length ceased to exist. There was harmony between the Sovereign and the Estates; and the long contest between two forms of ecclesiastical government had been terminated in the only way compatible with the peace and prosperity of the country.

This happy turn in affairs is to be chiefly ascribed to the errors of the perfidious, turbulent and revengeful Montgomery. Some weeks after the close of that session during which he had exercised a boundless authority over the Scottish Parliament, he went to London with his two princ.i.p.al confederates, the Earl of Annandale and the Lord Ross. The three had an audience of William, and presented to him a manifesto setting forth what they demanded for the public. They would very soon have changed their tone if he would have granted what they demanded for themselves. But he resented their conduct deeply, and was determined not to pay them for annoying him. The reception which he gave them convinced them that they had no favour to expect. Montgomery's pa.s.sions were fierce; his wants were pressing; he was miserably poor; and, if he could not speedily force himself into a lucrative office, he would be in danger of rotting in a gaol. Since his services were not likely to be bought by William, they must be offered to James. A broker was easily found. Montgomery was an old acquaintance of Ferguson. The two traitors soon understood each other. They were kindred spirits, differing widely in intellectual power, but equally vain, restless, false and malevolent.

Montgomery was introduced to Neville Payne, one of the most adroit and resolute agents of the exiled family, Payne had been long well known about town as a dabbler in poetry and politics. He had been an intimate friend of the indiscreet and unfortunate Coleman, and had been committed to Newgate as an accomplice in the Popish plot. His moral character had not stood high; but he soon had an opportunity of proving that he possessed courage and fidelity worthy of a better cause than that of James and of a better a.s.sociate than Montgomery.

The negotiation speedily ended in a treaty of alliance, Payne confidently promised Montgomery, not merely pardon, but riches, power and dignity. Montgomery as confidently undertook to induce the Parliament of Scotland to recall the rightful King. Ross and Annandale readily agreed to whatever their able and active colleague proposed. An adventurer, who was sometimes called Simpson and sometimes Jones, who was perfectly willing to serve or to betray any government for hire, and who received wages at once from Portland and from Neville Payne, undertook to carry the offers of the Club to James. Montgomery and his two n.o.ble accomplices returned to Edinburgh, and there proceeded to form a coalition with their old enemies, the defenders of prelacy and of arbitrary power, [758]

The Scottish opposition, strangely made up of two factions, one zealous for bishops, the other zealous for synods, one hostile to all liberty, the other impatient of all government, flattered itself during a short time with hopes that the civil war would break out in the Highlands with redoubled fury. But those hopes were disappointed. In the spring of 1690 an officer named Buchan arrived in Lochaber from Ireland. He bore a commission which appointed him general in chief of all the forces which were in arms for King James throughout the kingdom of Scotland. Cannon, who had, since the death of Dundee, held the first post and had proved himself unfit for it, became second in command. Little however was gained by the change. It was no easy matter to induce the Gaelic princes to renew the war. Indeed, but for the influence and eloquence of Lochiel, not a sword would have been drawn for the House of Stuart.

He, with some difficulty, persuaded the chieftains, who had, in the preceding year, fought at Killiecrankie, to come to a resolution that, before the end of the summer, they would muster all their followers and march into the Lowlands. In the mean time twelve hundred mountaineers of different tribes were placed under the orders of Buchan, who undertook, with this force, to keep the English garrisons in constant alarm by feints and incursions, till the season for more important operations should arrive. He accordingly marched into Strathspey. But all his plans were speedily disconcerted by the boldness and dexterity of Sir Thomas Livingstone, who held Inverness for King William. Livingstone, guided and a.s.sisted by the Grants, who were firmly attached to the new government, came, with a strong body of cavalry and dragoons, by forced marches and through arduous defiles, to the place where the Jacobites had taken up their quarters. He reached the camp fires at dead of night.

The first alarm was given by the rush of the horses over the terrified sentinels into the midst Of the crowd of Celts who lay sleeping in their plaids. Buchan escaped bareheaded and without his sword. Cannon ran away in his s.h.i.+rt. The conquerors lost not a man. Four hundred Highlanders were killed or taken. The rest fled to their hills and mists, [759]