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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He however, in his secret conversations with his new allies, laid
no claim to merit. He did not, he said, ask for confidence. How
could he, after the villanies which he had committed against the
best of Kings, hope ever to be trusted again? It was enough for a
wretch like him to be permitted to make, at the cost of his life,
some poor atonement to the gracious master, whom he had indeed
basely injured, but whom he had never ceased to love. It was not
improbable that, in the summer, he might command the English
forces in Flanders. Was it wished that he should bring them over
in a body to the French camp? If such were the royal pleasure, he
would undertake that the thing should be done. But on the whole
he thought that it would be better to wait till the next session
of Parliament. And then he hinted at a plan which he afterwards
more fully matured, for expelling the usurper by means of the
English legislature and the English army. In the meantime he
hoped that James would command Godolphin not to quit the
Treasury. A private man could do little for the good cause. One
who was the director of the national finances, and the depository
of the gravest secrets of state, might render inestimable
services.

Marlborough's pretended repentance imposed so completely on those
who managed the affairs of James in London that they sent Lloyd
to France, with the cheering intelligence that the most depraved
of all rebels had been wonderfully transformed into a loyal
subject. The tidings filled James with delight and hope. Had he
been wise, they would have excited in him only aversion and
distrust. It was absurd to imagine that a man really heartbroken
by remorse and shame for one act of perfidy would determine to
lighten his conscience by committing a second act of perfidy as
odious and as disgraceful as the first. The promised atonement
was so wicked and base that it never could be made by any man
sincerely desirous to atone for past wickedness and baseness. The
truth was that, when Marlborough told the Jacobites that his
sense of guilt prevented him from swallowing his food by day and
taking his rest at night, he was laughing at them. The loss of
half a guinea would have done more to spoil his appetite and to
disturb his slumbers than all the terrors of an evil conscience.
What his offers really proved was that his former crime had
sprung, not from an ill regulated zeal for the interests of his
country and his religion, but from a deep and incurable moral
disease which had infected the whole man. James, however, partly
from dulness and partly from selfishness, could never see any
immorality in any action by which he was benefited. To conspire
against him, to betray him, to break an oath of allegiance sworn
to him, were crimes for which no punishment here or hereafter
could be too severe. But to murder his enemies, to break faith
with his enemies was not only innocent but laudable. The
desertion at Salisbury had been the worst of crimes; for it had
ruined him. A similar desertion in Flanders would be an
honourable exploit; for it might restore him.

The penitent was informed by his Jacobite friends that he was
forgiven. The news was most welcome; but something more was
necessary to restore his lost peace of mind. Might he hope to
have, in the royal handwriting, two lines containing a promise of
pardon? It was not, of course, for his own sake that he asked
this. But he was confident that, with such a document in his
hands, he could bring back to the right path some persons of
great note who adhered to the usurper, only because they imagined
that they had no mercy to expect from the legitimate King. They
would return to their duty as soon as they saw that even the
worst of all criminals had, on his repentance, been generously
forgiven. The promise was written, sent, and carefully treasured
up. Marlborough had now attained one object, an object which was
common to him with Russell and Godolphin. But he had other
objects which neither Russell nor Godolphin had ever
contemplated. There is, as we shall hereafter see, strong reason
to believe that this wise, brave, wicked man, was meditating a
plan worthy of his fertile intellect and daring spirit, and not
less worthy of his deeply corrupted heart, a plan which, if it
had not been frustrated by strange means, would have ruined
William without benefiting James, and would have made the
successful traitor master of England and arbiter of Europe.

Thus things stood, when, in May 1691, William, after a short and
busy sojourn in England, set out again for the Continent, where
the regular campaign was about to open. He took with him
Marlborough, whose abilities he justly appreciated, and of whose
recent negotiations with Saint Germains he had not the faintest
suspicion. At the Hague several important military and political
consultations were held; and, on every occasion, the superiority
of the accomplished Englishman was felt by the most distinguished
soldiers and statesmen of the United Provinces. Heinsius, long
after, used to relate a conversation which took place at this
time between William and the Prince of Vaudemont, one of the
ablest commanders in the Dutch service. Vaudemont spoke well of
several English officers, and among them of Talmash and Mackay,
but pronounced Marlborough superior beyond comparison to the
rest. "He has every quality of a general. His very look shows it.
He cannot fail to achieve something great." "I really believe,
cousin," answered the King, "that my Lord will make good every
thing that you have said of him."

There was still a short interval before the commencement of
military operations. William passed that interval in his beloved
park at Loo. Marlborough spent two or three days there, and was
then despatched to Flanders with orders to collect all the
English forces, to form a camp in the neighbourhood of Brussels,
and to have every thing in readiness for the King's arrival.

And now Marlborough had an opportunity of proving the sincerity
of those professions by which he had obtained from a heart, well
described by himself as harder than a marble chimneypiece, the
pardon of an offence such as might have moved even a gentle
nature to deadly resentment. He received from Saint Germains a
message claiming the instant performance of his promise to desert
at the head of his troops. He was told that this was the greatest
service which he could render to the Crown. His word was pledged;
and the gracious master who had forgiven all past errors
confidently expected that it would be redeemed. The hypocrite
evaded the demand with characteristic dexterity. In the most
respectful and affectionate language he excused himself for not
immediately obeying the royal commands. The promise which he was
required to fulfil had not been quite correctly understood. There
had been some misapprehension on the part of the messengers. To
carry over a regiment or two would do more harm than good. To
carry over a whole army was a business which would require much
time and management.66 While James was murmuring over these
apologies, and wishing that he had not been quite so placable,
William arrived at the head quarters of the allied forces, and
took the chief command.

The military operations in Flanders recommenced early in June and
terminated at the close of September. No important action took
place. The two armies marched and countermarched, drew near and
receded. During some time they confronted each other with less
than a league between them. But neither William nor Luxemburg
would fight except at an advantage; and neither gave the other
any advantage. Languid as the campaign was, it is on one account
remarkable. During more than a century our country had sent no
great force to make war by land out of the British isles. Our
aristocracy had therefore long ceased to be a military class. The
nobles of France, of Germany, of Holland, were generally
soldiers. It would probably have been difficult to find in the
brilliant circle which surrounded Lewis at Versailles a single
Marquess or Viscount of forty who had not been at some battle or
siege. But the immense majority of our peers, baronets and
opulent esquires had never served except in the trainbands, and
had never borne a part in any military exploit more serious than
that of putting down a riot or of keeping a street clear for a
procession. The generation which had fought at Edgehill and
Lansdowne had nearly passed away. The wars of Charles the Second
had been almost entirely maritime. During his reign therefore the
sea service had been decidedly more the mode than the land
service; and, repeatedly, when our fleet sailed to encounter the
Dutch, such multitudes of men of fashion had gone on board that
the parks and the theatres had been left desolate. In 1691 at
length, for the first time since Henry the Eighth laid siege to
Boulogne, an English army appeared on the Continent under the
command of an English king. A camp, which was also a court, was
irresistibly attractive to many young patricians full of natural
intrepidity, and ambitious of the favour which men of
distinguished bravery have always found in the eyes of women. To
volunteer for Flanders became the rage among the fine gentlemen
who combed their flowing wigs and exchanged their richly perfumed
snuffs at the Saint James's Coffeehouse. William's headquarters
were enlivened by a crowd of splendid equipages and by a rapid
succession of sumptuous banquets. For among the high born and
high spirited youths who repaired to his standard were some who,
though quite willing to face a battery, were not at all disposed
to deny themselves the luxuries with which they had been
surrounded in Soho Square. In a few months Shadwell brought these
valiant fops and epicures on the stage. The town was made merry
with the character of a courageous but prodigal and effeminate
coxcomb, who is impatient to cross swords with the best men in
the French household troops, but who is much dejected by learning
that he may find it difficult to have his champagne iced daily
during the summer. He carries with him cooks, confectioners and
laundresses, a waggonload of plate, a wardrobe of laced and
embroidered suits, and much rich tent furniture, of which the
patterns have been chosen by a committee of fine ladies.67

While the hostile armies watched each other in Flanders,
hostilities were carried on with somewhat more vigour in other
parts of Europe. The French gained some advantages in Catalonia
and in Piedmont. Their Turkish allies, who in the east menaced
the dominions of the Emperor, were defeated by Lewis of Baden in
a great battle. But nowhere were the events of the summer so
important as in Ireland.

From October 1690 till May 1691, no military operation on a large
scale was attempted in that kingdom. The area of the island was,
during the winter and spring, not unequally divided between the
contending races. The whole of Ulster, the greater part of
Leinster and about one third of Munster had submitted to the
English. The whole of Connaught, the greater part of Munster, and
two or three counties of Leinster were held by the Irish. The
tortuous boundary formed by William's garrisons ran in a north
eastern direction from the bay of Castlehaven to Mallow, and
then, inclining still further eastward, proceeded to Cashel. From
Cashel the line went to Mullingar, from Mullingar to Longford,
and from Longford to Cavan, skirted Lough Erne on the west, and
met the ocean again at Ballyshannon.68

On the English side of this pale there was a rude and imperfect
order. Two Lords Justices, Coningsby and Porter, assisted by a
Privy Council, represented King William at Dublin Castle. Judges,
Sheriffs and Justices of the Peace had been appointed; and
assizes were, after a long interval, held in several county
towns. The colonists had meanwhile been formed into a strong
militia, under the command of officers who had commissions from
the Crown. The trainbands of the capital consisted of two
thousand five hundred foot, two troops of horse and two troops of
dragoons, all Protestants and all well armed and clad.69 On the
fourth of November, the anniversary of William's birth, and on
the fifth, the anniversary of his landing at Torbay, the whole of
this force appeared in all the pomp of war. The vanquished and
disarmed natives assisted, with suppressed grief and anger, at
the triumph of the caste which they had, five months before,
oppressed and plundered with impunity. The Lords Justices went in
state to Saint Patrick's Cathedral; bells were rung; bonfires
were lighted; hogsheads of ale and claret were set abroach in the
streets; fireworks were exhibited on College Green; a great
company of nobles and public functionaries feasted at the Castle;
and, as the second course came up, the trumpets sounded, and
Ulster King at Arms proclaimed, in Latin, French and English,
William and Mary, by the grace of God, King and Queen of Great
Britain, France, and Ireland.70

Within the territory where the Saxon race was dominant, trade and
industry had already begun to revive. The brazen counters which
bore the image and superscription of James gave place to silver.
The fugitives who had taken refuge in England came back in
multitudes; and, by their intelligence, diligence and thrift, the
devastation caused by two years of confusion and robbery was soon
in part repaired. Merchantmen heavily laden were constantly
passing and repassing Saint George's Channel. The receipts of the
custom houses on the eastern coast, from Cork to Londonderry,
amounted in six months to sixty-seven thousand five hundred
pounds, a sum such as would have been thought extraordinary even
in the most prosperous times.71

The Irish who remained within the English pale were, one and all,
hostile to the English domination. They were therefore subjected
to a rigorous system of police, the natural though lamentable
effect of extreme danger and extreme provocation. A Papist was
not permitted to have a sword or a gun. He was not permitted to
go more than three miles out of his parish except to the market
town on the market day. Lest he should give information or
assistance to his brethren who occupied the western half of the
island, he was forbidden to live within ten miles of the
frontier. Lest he should turn his house into a place of resort
for malecontents, he was forbidden to sell liquor by retail. One
proclamation announced that, if the property of any Protestant
should be injured by marauders, his loss should be made good at
the expense of his Popish neighbours. Another gave notice that,
if any Papist who had not been at least three months domiciled in
Dublin should be found there, he should be treated as a spy. Not
more than five Papists were to assemble in the capital or its
neighbourhood on any pretext. Without a protection from the
government no member of the Church of Rome was safe; and the
government would not grant a protection to any member of the
Church of Rome who had a son in the Irish army.72

In spite of all precautions and severities, however, the Celt
found many opportunities of taking a sly revenge. Houses and
barns were frequently burned; soldiers were frequently murdered;
and it was scarcely possible to obtain evidence against the
malefactors, who had with them the sympathies of the whole
population. On such occasions the government sometimes ventured
on acts which seemed better suited to a Turkish than to an
English administration. One of these acts became a favourite
theme of Jacobite pamphleteers, and was the subject of a serious
parliamentary inquiry at Westminster. Six musketeers were found
butchered only a few miles from Dublin. The inhabitants of the
village where the crime had been committed, men, women, and
children, were driven like sheep into the Castle, where the Privy
Council was sitting. The heart of one of the assassins, named
Gafney, failed him. He consented to be a witness, was examined by
the Board, acknowledged his guilt, and named some of his
accomplices. He was then removed in custody; but a priest
obtained access to him during a few minutes. What passed during
those few minutes appeared when he was a second time brought
before the Council. He had the effrontery to deny that he had
owned any thing or accused any body. His hearers, several of whom
had taken down his confession in writing, were enraged at his
impudence. The Lords justices broke out; "You are a rogue; You
are a villain; You shall be hanged; Where is the Provost Marshal?"
The Provost Marshal came. "Take that man," said Coningsby,
pointing to Gafney; "take that man, and hang him." There was no
gallows ready; but the carriage of a gun served the purpose; and
the prisoner was instantly tied up without a trial, without even
a written order for the execution; and this though the courts of
law were sitting at the distance of only a few hundred yards. The
English House of Commons, some years later, after a long
discussion, resolved, without a division, that the order for the
execution of Gafney was arbitrary and illegal, but that
Coningsby's fault was so much extenuated by the circumstances in
which he was placed that it was not a proper subject for
impeachment.73

It was not only by the implacable hostility of the Irish that the
Saxon of the pale was at this time harassed. His allies caused
him almost as much annoyance as his helots. The help of troops
from abroad was indeed necessary to him; but it was dearly
bought. Even William, in whom the whole civil and military
authority was concentrated, had found it difficult to maintain
discipline in an army collected from many lands, and composed in
great part of mercenaries accustomed to live at free quarters.
The powers which had been united in him were now divided and
subdivided. The two Lords justices considered the civil
administration as their province, and left the army to the
management of Ginkell, who was General in Chief. Ginkell kept
excellent order among the auxiliaries from Holland, who were
under his more immediate command. But his authority over the
English and the Danes was less entire; and unfortunately their
pay was, during part of the winter, in arrear. They indemnified
themselves by excesses and exactions for the want of that which
was their due; and it was hardly possible to punish men with
severity for not choosing to starve with arms in their hands. At
length in the spring large supplies of money and stores arrived;
arrears were paid up; rations were plentiful; and a more rigid
discipline was enforced. But too many traces of the bad habits
which the soldiers had contracted were discernible till the close
of the war.74

In that part of Ireland, meanwhile, which still acknowledged
James as King, there could hardly be said to be any law, any
property, or any government. The Roman Catholics of Ulster and
Leinster had fled westward by tens of thousands, driving before
them a large part of the cattle which had escaped the havoc of
two terrible years. The influx of food into the Celtic region,
however, was far from keeping pace with the influx of consumers.
The necessaries of life were scarce. Conveniences to which every
plain farmer and burgess in England was accustomed could hardly
be procured by nobles and generals. No coin was to be seen except
lumps of base metal which were called crowns and shillings.
Nominal prices were enormously high. A quart of ale cost two and
sixpence, a quart of brandy three pounds. The only towns of any
note on the western coast were Limerick and Galway; and the
oppression which the shopkeepers of those towns underwent was
such that many of them stole away with the remains of their
stocks to the English territory, where a Papist, though he had to
endure much restraint and much humiliation, was allowed to put
his own price on his goods, and received that price in silver.
Those traders who remained within the unhappy region were ruined.
Every warehouse that contained any valuable property was broken
open by ruffians who pretended that they were commissioned to
procure stores for the public service; and the owner received, in
return for bales of cloth and hogsheads of sugar, some fragments
of old kettles and saucepans, which would not in London or Paris
have been taken by a beggar.

As soon as a merchant ship arrived in the bay of Galway or in the
Shannon, she was boarded by these robbers. The cargo was carried
away; and the proprietor was forced to content himself with such
a quantity of cowhides, of wool and of tallow as the gang which
had plundered him chose to give him. The consequence was that,
while foreign commodities were pouring fast into the harbours of
Londonderry, Carrickfergus, Dublin, Waterford and Cork, every
mariner avoided Limerick and Galway as nests of pirates.75

The distinction between the Irish foot soldier and the Irish
Rapparee had never been very strongly marked. It now disappeared.
Great part of the army was turned loose to live by marauding. An
incessant predatory war raged along the line which separated the
domain of William from that of James. Every day companies of
freebooters, sometimes wrapped in twisted straw which served the
purpose of armour, stole into the English territory, burned,
sacked, pillaged, and hastened back to their own ground. To guard
against these incursions was not easy; for the peasantry of the
plundered country had a strong fellow feeling with the
plunderers. To empty the granary, to set fire to the dwelling, to
drive away the cows, of a heretic was regarded by every squalid
inhabitant of a mud cabin as a good work. A troop engaged in such
a work might confidently expect to fall in, notwithstanding all
the proclamations of the Lords justices, with some friend who
would indicate the richest booty, the shortest road, and the
safest hiding place. The English complained that it was no easy
matter to catch a Rapparee. Sometimes, when he saw danger
approaching, he lay down in the long grass of the bog; and then
it was as difficult to find him as to find a hare sitting.
Sometimes he sprang into a stream, and lay there, like an otter,
with only his mouth and nostrils above the water. Nay, a whole
gang of banditti would, in the twinkling of an eye, transform
itself into a crowd of harmless labourers. Every man took his gun
to pieces, hid the lock in his clothes, stuck a cork in the
muzzle, stopped the touch hole with a quill, and threw the weapon
into the next pond. Nothing was to be seen but a train of poor
rustics who had not so much as a cudgel among them, and whose
humble look and crouching walk seemed to show that their spirit
was thoroughly broken to slavery. When the peril was over, when
the signal was given, every man flew to the place where he had
hid his arms; and soon the robbers were in full march towards
some Protestant mansion. One band penetrated to Clonmel, another
to the vicinity of Maryborough; a third made its den in a woody
islet of firm ground, surrounded by the vast bog of Allen,
harried the county of Wicklow, and alarmed even the suburbs of
Dublin. Such expeditions indeed were not always successful.
Sometimes the plunderers fell in with parties of militia or with
detachments from the English garrisons, in situations in which
disguise, flight and resistance were alike impossible. When this
happened every kerne who was taken was hanged, without any
ceremony, on the nearest tree.76

At the head quarters of the Irish army there was, during the
winter, no authority capable of exacting obedience even within a
circle of a mile. Tyrconnel was absent at the Court of France. He
had left the supreme government in the hands of a Council of
Regency composed of twelve persons. The nominal command of the
army he had confided to Berwick; but Berwick, though, as was
afterwards proved, a man of no common courage and capacity, was
young and inexperienced. His powers were unsuspected by the world
and by himself;77 and he submitted without reluctance to the
tutelage of a Council of War nominated by the Lord Lieutenant.
Neither the Council of Regency nor the Council of War was popular
at Limerick. The Irish complained that men who were not Irish had
been entrusted with a large share in the administration. The cry
was loudest against an officer named Thomas Maxwell. For it was
certain that he was a Scotchman; it was doubtful whether he was a
Roman Catholic; and he had not concealed the dislike which he
felt for that Celtic Parliament which had repealed the Act of
Settlement and passed the Act of Attainder.78 The discontent,
fomented by the arts of intriguers, among whom the cunning and
unprincipled Henry Luttrell seems to have been the most active,
soon broke forth into open rebellion. A great meeting was held.
Many officers of the army, some peers, some lawyers of high note
and some prelates of the Roman Catholic Church were present. It
was resolved that the government set up by the Lord Lieutenant
was unknown to the constitution. Ireland, it was said, could be
legally governed, in the absence of the King, only by a Lord
Lieutenant, by a Lord Deputy or by Lords Justices. The King was
absent. The Lord Lieutenant was absent. There was no Lord Deputy.
There were no Lords Justices. The Act by which Tyrconnel had
delegated his authority to a junto composed of his creatures was
a mere nullity. The nation was therefore left without any
legitimate chief, and might, without violating the allegiance due
to the Crown, make temporary provision for its own safety. A
deputation was sent to inform Berwick that he had assumed a power
to which he had no right, but that nevertheless the army and
people of Ireland would willingly acknowledge him as their head
if he would consent to govern by the advice of a council truly
Irish. Berwick indignantly expressed his wonder that military men
should presume to meet and deliberate without the permission of
their general. They answered that there was no general, and that,
if His Grace did not choose to undertake the administration on
the terms proposed, another leader would easily be found. Berwick
very reluctantly yielded, and continued to be a puppet in a new
set of hands.79