The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 4

T >> Thomas Babington Macaulay >> The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 4

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William kept his own counsel so well that not a hint of his
intention got abroad. Some thought that Dunkirk, some that Ypres
was his object. The marches and skirmishes by which he disguised
his design were compared by Saint Simon to the moves of a skilful
chess player. Feuquieres, much more deeply versed in military
science than Saint Simon, informs us that some of these moves
were hazardous, and that such a game could not have been safely
played against Luxemburg; and this is probably true, but
Luxemburg was gone; and what Luxemburg had been to William,
William now was to Villeroy.

While the King was thus employed, the Jacobites at home, being
unable, in his absence, to prosecute their design against his
person, contented themselves with plotting against his
government. They were somewhat less closely watched than during
the preceding year; for the event of the trials at Manchester had
discouraged Aaron Smith and his agents. Trenchard, whose
vigilance and severity had made him an object of terror and
hatred, was no more, and had been succeeded, in what may be
called the subordinate Secretaryship of State, by Sir William
Trumball, a learned civilian and an experienced diplomatist, of
moderate opinions, and of temper cautious to timidity.602 The
malecontents were emboldened by the lenity of the administration.
William had scarcely sailed for the Continent when they held a
great meeting at one of their favourite haunts, the Old King's
Head in Leadenhall Street. Charnock, Porter, Goodman, Parkyns and
Fenwick were present. The Earl of Aylesbury was there, a man
whose attachment to the exiled house was notorious, but who
always denied that he had ever thought of effecting a restoration
by immoral means. His denial would be entitled to more credit if
he had not, by taking the oaths to the government against which
he was constantly intriguing, forfeited the right to be
considered as a man of conscience and honour. In the assembly was
Sir John Friend, a nonjuror who had indeed a very slender wit,
but who had made a very large fortune by brewing, and who spent
it freely in sedition. After dinner,--for the plans of the
Jacobites were generally laid over wine, and generally bore some
trace of the conviviality in which they had originated,--it was
resolved that the time was come for an insurrection and a French
invasion, and that a special messenger should carry the sense of
the meeting to Saint Germains. Charnock was selected. He
undertook the commission, crossed the Channel, saw James, and had
interviews with the ministers of Lewis, but could arrange
nothing. The English malecontents would not stir till ten
thousand French troops were in the island; and ten thousand
French troops could not, without great risk, be withdrawn from
the army which was contending against William in the Low
Countries. When Charnock returned to report that his embassy had
been unsuccessful, he found some of his confederates in gaol.
They had during his absence amused themselves, after their
fashion, by trying to raise a riot in London on the tenth of
June, the birthday of the unfortunate Prince of Wales. They met
at a tavern in Drury Lane, and, when hot with wine, sallied forth
sword in hand, headed by Porter and Goodman, beat kettledrums,
unfurled banners, and began to light bonfires. But the watch,
supported by the populace, was too strong for the revellers. They
were put to rout; the tavern where they had feasted was sacked by
the mob; the ringleaders were apprehended, tried, fined and
imprisoned, but regained their liberty in time to bear a part in
a far more criminal design.603

By this time all was ready for the execution of the plan which
William had formed. That plan had been communicated to the other
chiefs of the allied forces, and had been warmly approved.
Vaudemont was left in Flanders with a considerable force to watch
Villeroy. The King, with the rest of his army, marched straight
on Namur. At the same moment the Elector of Bavaria advanced
towards the same point on one side, and the Brandenburghers on
another. So well had these movements been concerted, and so
rapidly were they performed, that the skilful and energetic
Boufflers had but just time to throw himself into the fortress.
He was accompanied by seven regiments of dragoons, by a strong
body of gunners, sappers and miners, and by an officer named
Megrigny, who was esteemed the best engineer in the French
service with the exception of Vauban. A few hours after Boufflers
had entered the place the besieging forces closed round it on
every side; and the lines of circumvallation were rapidly formed.

The news excited no alarm at the French Court. There it was not
doubted that William would soon be compelled to abandon his
enterprise with grievous loss and ignominy. The town was strong;
the castle was believed to be impregnable; the magazines were
filled with provisions and ammunition sufficient to last till the
time at which the armies of that age were expected to retire into
winter quarters; the garrison consisted of sixteen thousand of
the best troops in the world; they were commanded by an excellent
general; he was assisted by an excellent engineer; nor was it
doubted that Villeroy would march with his great army to the
assistance of Boufflers, and that the besiegers would then be in
much more danger than the besieged.

These hopes were kept up by the despatches of Villeroy. He
proposed, he said, first to annihilate the army of Vaudemont, and
then to drive William from Namur. Vaudemont might try to avoid an
action; but he could not escape. The Marshal went so far as to
promise his master news of a complete victory within twenty-four
hours. Lewis passed a whole day in impatient expectation. At
last, instead of an officer of high rank loaded with English and
Dutch standards, arrived a courier bringing news that Vaudemont
had effected a retreat with scarcely any loss, and was safe under
the walls of Ghent. William extolled the generalship of his
lieutenant in the warmest terms. "My cousin," he wrote, "you have
shown yourself a greater master of your art than if you had won a
pitched battle."604 In the French camp, however, and at the
French Court it was universally held that Vaudemont had been
saved less by his own skill than by the misconduct of those to
whom he was opposed. Some threw the whole blame on Villeroy; and
Villeroy made no attempt to vindicate himself. But it was
generally believed that he might, at least to a great extent,
have vindicated himself, had he not preferred royal favour to
military renown. His plan, it was said, might have succeeded, had
not the execution been entrusted to the Duke of Maine. At the
first glimpse of danger the bastard's heart had died within him.
He had not been able to conceal his poltroonery. He had stood
trembling, stuttering, calling for his confessor, while the old
officers round him, with tears in their eyes, urged him to
advance. During a short time the disgrace of the son was
concealed from the father. But the silence of Villeroy showed
that there was a secret; the pleasantries of the Dutch gazettes
soon elucidated the mystery; and Lewis learned, if not the whole
truth, yet enough to make him miserable. Never during his long
reign had he been so moved. During some hours his gloomy
irritability kept his servants, his courtiers, even his priests,
in terror. He so far forgot the grace and dignity for which he
was renowned throughout the world that, in the sight of all the
splendid crowd of gentlemen and ladies who came to see him dine
at Marli, he broke a cane on the shoulders of a lacquey, and
pursued the poor man with the handle.605

The siege of Namur meanwhile was vigorously pressed by the
allies. The scientific part of their operations was under the
direction of Cohorn, who was spurred by emulation to exert his
utmost skill. He had suffered, three years before, the
mortification of seeing the town, as he had fortified it, taken
by his great master Vauban. To retake it, now that the
fortifications had received Vauban's last improvements, would be
a noble revenge.

On the second of July the trenches were opened. On the eighth a
gallant sally of French dragoons was gallantly beaten back; and,
late on the same evening, a strong body of infantry, the English
footguards leading the way, stormed, after a bloody conflict, the
outworks on the Brussels side. The King in person directed the
attack; and his subjects were delighted to learn that, when the
fight was hottest, he laid his hand on the shoulder of the
Elector of Bavaria, and exclaimed, "Look, look at my brave
English!" Conspicuous in bravery even among those brave English
was Cutts. In that bulldog courage which flinches from no danger,
however terrible, he was unrivalled. There was no difficulty in
finding hardy volunteers, German, Dutch and British, to go on a
forlorn hope; but Cutts was the only man who appeared to consider
such an expedition as a party of pleasure. He was so much at his
ease in the hottest fire of the French batteries that his
soldiers gave him the honourable nickname of the Salamander.606

On the seventeenth the first counterscarp of the town was
attacked. The English and Dutch were thrice repulsed with great
slaughter, and returned thrice to the charge. At length, in spite
of the exertions of the French officers, who fought valiantly
sword in hand on the glacis, the assailants remained in
possession of the disputed works. While the conflict was raging,
William, who was giving his orders under a shower of bullets, saw
with surprise and anger, among the officers of his staff, Michael
Godfrey the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. This
gentleman had come to the King's headquarters in order to make
some arrangements for the speedy and safe remittance of money
from England to the army in the Netherlands, and was curious to
see real war. Such curiosity William could not endure. "Mr.
Godfrey," he said, "you ought not to run these hazards; you are
not a soldier; you can be of no use to us here." "Sir," answered
Godfrey, "I run no more hazard than Your Majesty." "Not so," said
William; "I am where it is my duty to be; and I may without
presumption commit my life to God's keeping; but you--" While
they were talking a cannon ball from the ramparts laid Godfrey
dead at the King's feet. It was not found however that the fear
of being Godfreyed,--such was during some time the cant phrase,--
sufficed to prevent idle gazers from coming to the trenches.607
Though William forbade his coachmen, footmen and cooks to expose
themselves, he repeatedly saw them skulking near the most
dangerous spots and trying to get a peep at the fighting. He was
sometimes, it is said, provoked into horsewhipping them out of
the range of the French guns; and the story, whether true or
false, is very characteristic.

On the twentieth of July the Bavarians and Brandenburghers, under
the direction of Cohorn, made themselves masters, after a hard
fight, of a line of works which Vauban had cut in the solid rock
from the Sambre to the Meuse. Three days later, the English and
Dutch, Cutts, as usual, in the front, lodged themselves on the
second counterscarp. All was ready for a general assault, when a
white flag was hung out from the ramparts. The effective strength
of the garrison was now little more than one half of what it had
been when the trenches were opened. Boufflers apprehended that it
would be impossible for eight thousand men to defend the whole
circuit of the walls much longer; but he felt confident that such
a force would be sufficient to keep the stronghold on the summit
of the rock. Terms of capitulation were speedily adjusted. A gate
was delivered up to the allies. The French were allowed forty-
eight hours to retire into the castle, and were assured that the
wounded men whom they left below, about fifteen hundred in
number, should he well treated. On the sixth the allies marched
in. The contest for the possession of the town was over; and a
second and more terrible contest began for the possession of the
citadel.608

Villeroy had in the meantime made some petty conquests. Dixmuyde,
which might have offered some resistance, had opened its gates to
him, not without grave suspicion of treachery on the part of the
governor. Deynse, which was less able to make any defence, had
followed the example. The garrisons of both towns were, in
violation of a convention which had been made for the exchange of
prisoners, sent into France. The Marshal then advanced towards
Brussels in the hope, as it should seem, that, by menacing that
beautiful capital, he might induce the allies to raise the siege
of the castle of Namur. During thirty-six hours he rained shells
and redhot bullets on the city. The Electress of Bavaria, who was
within the walls, miscarried from terror. Six convents perished.
Fifteen hundred houses were at once in flames. The whole lower
town would have been burned to the ground, had not the
inhabitants stopped the conflagration by blowing up numerous
buildings. Immense quantities of the finest lace and tapestry
were destroyed; for the industry and trade which made Brussels
famous throughout the world had hitherto been little affected by
the war. Several of the stately piles which looked down on the
market place were laid in ruins. The Town Hall itself, the
noblest of the many noble senate houses reared by the burghers of
the Netherlands, was in imminent peril. All this devastation,
however, produced no effect except much private misery. William
was not to be intimidated or provoked into relaxing the firm
grasp with which he held Namur. The fire which his batteries kept
up round the castle was such as had never been known in war. The
French gunners were fairly driven from their pieces by the hail
of balls, and forced to take refuge in vaulted galleries under
the ground. Cohorn exultingly betted the Elector of Bavaria four
hundred pistoles that the place would fall by the thirty-first of
August, New Style. The great engineer lost his wager indeed, but
lost it only by a few hours.609

Boufflers now began to feel that his only hope was in Villeroy.
Villeroy had proceeded from Brussels to Enghien; he had there
collected all the French troops that could be spared from the
remotest fortresses of the Netherlands; and he now, at the head
of more than eighty thousand men, marched towards Namur.
Vaudemont meanwhile joined the besiegers. William therefore
thought himself strong enough to offer battle to Villeroy,
without intermitting for a moment the operations against
Boufflers. The Elector of Bavaria was entrusted with the
immediate direction of the siege. The King of England took up, on
the west of the town, a strong position strongly intrenched, and
there awaited the French, who were advancing from Enghien. Every
thing seemed to indicate that a great day was at hand. Two of the
most numerous and best ordered armies that Europe had ever seen
were brought face to face. On the fifteenth of August the
defenders of the castle saw from their watchtowers the mighty
host of their countrymen. But between that host and the citadel
was drawn up in battle order the not less mighty host of William.
Villeroy, by a salute of ninety guns, conveyed to Boufflers the
promise of a speedy rescue; and at night Boufflers, by fire
signals which were seen far over the vast plain of the Meuse and
Sambre, urged Villeroy to fulfil that promise without delay. In
the capitals both of France and England the anxiety was intense.
Lewis shut himself up in his oratory, confessed, received the
Eucharist, and gave orders that the host should be exposed in his
chapel. His wife ordered all her nuns to their knees.610 London
was kept in a state of distraction by a succession of rumours
fabricated some by Jacobites and some by stockjobbers. Early one
morning it was confidently averred that there had been a battle,
that the allies had been beaten, that the King had been killed,
that the siege had been raised. The Exchange, as soon as it was
opened, was filled to overflowing by people who came to learn
whether the bad news was true. The streets were stopped up all
day by groups of talkers and listeners. In the afternoon the
Gazette, which had been impatiently expected, and which was
eagerly read by thousands, calmed the excitement, but not
completely; for it was known that the Jacobites sometimes
received, by the agency of privateers and smugglers who put to
sea in all weathers, intelligence earlier than that which came
through regular channels to the Secretary of State at Whitehall.
Before night, however, the agitation had altogether subsided; but
it was suddenly revived by a bold imposture. A horseman in the
uniform of the Guards spurred through the City, announcing that
the King had been killed. He would probably have raised a serious
tumult, had not some apprentices, zealous for the Revolution and
the Protestant religion, knocked him down and carried him to
Newgate. The confidential correspondent of the States General
informed them that, in spite of all the stories which the
disaffected party invented and circulated, the general persuasion
was that the allies would be successful. The touchstone of
sincerity in England, he said, was the betting. The Jacobites
were ready enough to prove that William must be defeated, or to
assert that he had been defeated; but they would not give the
odds, and could hardly be induced to take any moderate odds. The
Whigs, on the other hand, were ready to stake thousands of
guineas on the conduct and good fortune of the King.611

The event justified the confidence of the Whigs and the
backwardness of the Jacobites. On the sixteenth, the seventeenth,
and the eighteenth of August the army of Villeroy and the army of
William confronted each other. It was fully expected that the
nineteenth would be the decisive day. The allies were under arms
before dawn. At four William mounted, and continued till eight at
night to ride from post to post, disposing his own troops and
watching the movements of the enemy. The enemy approached his
lines in several places, near enough to see that it would not be
easy to dislodge him; but there was no fighting. He lay down to
rest, expecting to be attacked when the sun rose. But when the
sun rose he found that the French had fallen back some miles. He
immediately sent to request that the Elector would storm the
castle without delay. While the preparations were making,
Portland was sent to summon the garrison for the last time. It
was plain, he said to Boufflers, that Villeroy had given up all
hope of being able to raise the siege. It would therefore be an
useless waste of life to prolong the contest. Boufflers however
thought that another day of slaughter was necessary to the honour
of the French arms; and Portland returned unsuccessful.612

Early in the afternoon the assault was made in four places at
once by four divisions of the confederate army. One point was
assigned to the Brandenburghers, another to the Dutch, a third to
the Bavarians, and a fourth to the English. The English were at
first less fortunate than they had hitherto been. The truth is
that most of the regiments which had seen service had marched
with William to encounter Villeroy. As soon as the signal was
given by the blowing up of two barrels of powder, Cutts, at the
head of a small body of grenadiers, marched first out of the
trenches with drums beating and colours flying. This gallant band
was to be supported by four battalions which had never been in
action, and which, though full of spirit, wanted the steadiness
which so terrible a service required. The officers fell fast.
Every Colonel, every Lieutenant Colonel, was killed or severely
wounded. Cutts received a shot in the head which for a time
disabled him. The raw recruits, left almost without direction,
rushed forward impetuously till they found themselves in disorder
and out of breath, with a precipice before them, under a terrible
fire, and under a shower, scarcely less terrible, of fragments of
rock and wall. They lost heart, and rolled back in confusion,
till Cutts, whose wound had by this time been dressed, succeeded
in rallying them. He then led them, not to the place from which
they had been driven back, but to another spot where a fearful
battle was raging. The Bavarians had made their onset gallantly
but unsuccessfully; their general had fallen; and they were
beginning to waver when the arrival of the Salamander and his men
changed the fate of the day. Two hundred English volunteers,
bent on retrieving at all hazards the disgrace of the recent
repulse, were the first to force a way, sword in hand, through
the palisades, to storm a battery which had made great havoc
among the Bavarians, and to turn the guns against the garrison.
Meanwhile the Brandenburghers, excellently disciplined and
excellently commanded, had performed, with no great loss, the
duty assigned to them. The Dutch had been equally successful.
When the evening closed in the allies had made a lodgment of a
mile in extent on the outworks of the castle. The advantage had
been purchased by the loss of two thousand men.613

And now Boufflers thought that he had done all that his duty
required. On the morrow he asked for a truce of forty-eight hours
in order that the hundreds of corpses which choked the ditches
and which would soon have spread pestilence among both the
besiegers and the besieged might be removed and interred. His
request was granted; and, before the time expired, he intimated
that he was disposed to capitulate. He would, he said, deliver up
the castle in ten days, if he were not relieved sooner. He was
informed that the allies would not treat with him on such terms,
and that he must either consent to an immediate surrender, or
prepare for an immediate assault. He yielded, and it was agreed
that he and his men should be suffered to depart, leaving the
citadel, the artillery, and the stores to the conquerors. Three
peals from all the guns of the confederate army notified to
Villeroy the fall of the stronghold which he had vainly attempted
to succour. He instantly retreated towards Mons, leaving William
to enjoy undisturbed a triumph which was made more delightful by
the recollection of many misfortunes.

The twenty-sixth of August was fixed for an exhibition such as
the oldest soldier in Europe had never seen, and such as, a few
weeks before, the youngest had scarcely hoped to see. From the
first battle of Conde to the last battle of Luxemburg, the tide
of military success had run, without any serious interruption, in
one direction. That tide had turned. For the first time, men
said, since France had Marshals, a Marshal of France was to
deliver up a fortress to a victorious enemy.

The allied forces, foot and horse, drawn up in two lines, formed
a magnificent avenue from the breach which had lately been so
desperately contested to the bank of the Meuse. The Elector of
Bavaria, the Landgrave of Hesse, and many distinguished officers
were on horseback in the vicinity of the castle. William was near
them in his coach. The garrison, reduced to about five thousand
men, came forth with drums beating and ensigns flying. Boufflers
and his staff closed the procession. There had been some
difficulty about the form of the greeting which was to be
exchanged between him and the allied Sovereigns. An Elector of
Bavaria was hardly entitled to be saluted by the Marshal with the
sword. A King of England was undoubtedly entitled to such a mark
of respect; but France did not recognise William as King of
England. At last Boufflers consented to perform the salute
without marking for which of the two princes it was intended. He
lowered his sword. William alone acknowledged the compliment. A
short conversation followed. The Marshal, in order to avoid the
use of the words Sire and Majesty, addressed himself only to the
Elector. The Elector, with every mark of deference, reported to
William what had been said; and William gravely touched his hat.
The officers of the garrison carried back to their country the
news that the upstart who at Paris was designated only as Prince
of Orange, was treated by the proudest potentates of the Germanic
body with a respect as profound as that which Lewis exacted from
the gentlemen of his bedchamber.614

The ceremonial was now over; and Boufflers passed on but he had
proceeded but a short way when he was stopped by Dykvelt who
accompanied the allied army as deputy from the States General.
"You must return to the town, Sir," said Dykvelt. "The King of
England has ordered me to inform you that you are his prisoner."
Boufflers was in transports of rage. His officers crowded round
him and vowed to die in his defence. But resistance was out of
the question; a strong body of Dutch cavalry came up; and the
Brigadier who commanded them demanded the Marshal's sword. The
Marshal uttered indignant exclamations: "This is an infamous
breach of faith. Look at the terms of the capitulation. What have
I done to deserve such an affront? Have I not behaved like a man
of honour? Ought I not to be treated as such? But beware what you
do, gentlemen. I serve a master who can and will avenge me." "I
am a soldier, Sir," answered the Brigadier, "and my business is
to obey orders without troubling myself about consequences."
Dykvelt calmly and courteously replied to the Marshal's indignant
exclamations. "The King of England has reluctantly followed the
example set by your master. The soldiers who garrisoned Dixmuyde
and Deynse have, in defiance of plighted faith, been sent
prisoners into France. The Prince whom they serve would be
wanting in his duty to them if he did not retaliate. His Majesty
might with perfect justice have detained all the French who were
in Namur. But he will not follow to such a length a precedent
which he disapproves. He has determined to arrest you and you
alone; and, Sir, you must not regard as an affront what is in
truth a mark of his very particular esteem. How can he pay you a
higher compliment than by showing that he considers you as fully
equivalent to the five or six thousand men whom your sovereign
wrongfully holds in captivity? Nay, you shall even now be
permitted to proceed if you will give me your word of honour to
return hither unless the garrisons of Dixmuyde and Deynse are
released within a fortnight." "I do not at all know," answered
Boufflers, "why the King my master detains those men; and
therefore I cannot hold out any hope that he will liberate them.
You have an army at your back; I am alone; and you must do your
pleasure." He gave up his sword, returned to Namur, and was sent
thence to Huy, where he passed a few days in luxurious repose,
was allowed to choose his own walks and rides, and was treated
with marked respect by those who guarded him. In the shortest
time in which it was possible to post from the place where he was
confined to the French Court and back again, he received full
powers to promise that the garrisons of Dixmuyde and Deynse
should be sent back. He was instantly liberated; and he set off
for Fontainebleau, where an honourable reception awaited him. He
was created a Duke and a Peer. That he might be able to support
his new dignities a considerable sum of money was bestowed on
him; and, in the presence of the whole aristocracy of France, he
was welcomed home by Lewis with an affectionate embrace.615