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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Those who had effected this revolution thought it prudent to send
a deputation to France for the purpose of vindicating their
proceedings. Of the deputation the Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork
and the two Luttrells were members. In the ship which conveyed
them from Limerick to Brest they found a fellow passenger whose
presence was by no means agreeable to them, their enemy, Maxwell.
They suspected, and not without reason, that he was going, like
them, to Saint Germains, but on a very different errand. The
truth was that Berwick had sent Maxwell to watch their motions
and to traverse their designs. Henry Luttrell, the least
scrupulous of men, proposed to settle the matter at once by
tossing the Scotchman into the sea. But the Bishop, who was a man
of conscience, and Simon Luttrell, who was a man of honour,
objected to this expedient.80

Meanwhile at Limerick the supreme power was in abeyance. Berwick,
finding that he had no real authority, altogether neglected
business, and gave himself up to such pleasures as that dreary
place of banishment afforded. There was among the Irish chiefs no
man of sufficient weight and ability to control the rest.
Sarsfield for a time took the lead. But Sarsfield, though
eminently brave and active in the field, was little skilled in
the administration of war, and still less skilled in civil
business. Those who were most desirous to support his authority
were forced to own that his nature was too unsuspicious and
indulgent for a post in which it was hardly possible to be too
distrustful or too severe. He believed whatever was told him. He
signed whatever was set before him. The commissaries, encouraged
by his lenity, robbed and embezzled more shamelessly than ever.
They sallied forth daily, guarded by pikes and firelocks, to
seize, nominally for the public service, but really for
themselves, wool, linen, leather, tallow, domestic utensils,
instruments of husbandry, searched every pantry, every wardrobe,
every cellar, and even laid sacrilegious hands on the property of
priests and prelates.81

Early in the spring the government, if it is to be so called, of
which Berwick was the ostensible head, was dissolved by the
return of Tyrconnel. The Luttrells had, in the name of their
countrymen, implored James not to subject so loyal a people to so
odious and incapable a viceroy. Tyrconnel, they said, was old; he
was infirm; he needed much steep; he knew nothing of war; he was
dilatory; he was partial; he was rapacious; he was distrusted and
hated by the whole nation. The Irish, deserted by him, had made a
gallant stand, and had compelled the victorious army of the
Prince of Orange to retreat. They hoped soon to take the field
again, thirty thousand strong; and they adjured their King to
send them some captain worthy to command such a force. Tyrconnel
and Maxwell, on the other hand, represented the delegates as
mutineers, demagogues, traitors, and pressed James to send Henry
Luttrell to keep Mountjoy company in the Bastille. James,
bewildered by these criminations and recriminations, hesitated
long, and at last, with characteristic wisdom, relieved himself
from trouble by giving all the quarrellers fair words and by
sending them all back to have their fight out in Ireland. Berwick
was at the same time recalled to France.82

Tyrconnel was received at Limerick, even by his enemies, with
decent respect. Much as they hated him, they could not question
the validity of his commission; and, though they still maintained
that they had been perfectly justified in annulling, during his
absence, the unconstitutional arrangements which he had made,
they acknowledged that, when he was present, he was their lawful
governor. He was not altogether unprovided with the means of
conciliating them. He brought many gracious messages and
promises, a patent of peerage for Sarsfield, some money which was
not of brass, and some clothing, which was even more acceptable
than money. The new garments were not indeed very fine. But even
the generals had long been out at elbows; and there were few of
the common men whose habiliments would have been thought
sufficient to dress a scarecrow in a more prosperous country.
Now, at length, for the first time in many months, every private
soldier could boast of a pair of breeches and a pair of brogues.
The Lord Lieutenant had also been authorised to announce that he
should soon be followed by several ships, laden with provisions
and military stores. This announcement was most welcome to the
troops, who had long been without bread, and who had nothing
stronger than water to drink.83

During some weeks the supplies were impatiently expected. At
last, Tyrconnel was forced to shut himself up; for, whenever he
appeared in public, the soldiers ran after him clamouring for
food. Even the beef and mutton, which, half raw, half burned,
without vegetables, without salt, had hitherto supported the
army, had become scarce; and the common men were on rations of
horseflesh when the promised sails were seen in the mouth of the
Shannon.84

A distinguished French general, named Saint Ruth, was on board
with his staff. He brought a commission which appointed him
commander in chief of the Irish army. The commission did not
expressly declare that he was to be independent of the viceregal
authority; but he had been assured by James that Tyrconnel should
have secret instructions not to intermeddle in the conduct of the
war. Saint Ruth was assisted by another general officer named
D'Usson. The French ships brought some arms, some ammunition, and
a plentiful supply of corn and flour. The spirits of the Irish
rose; and the Te Deum was chaunted with fervent devotion in the
cathedral of Limerick.85

Tyrconnel had made no preparations for the approaching campaign.
But Saint Ruth, as soon as he had landed, exerted himself strenuously to redeem
the time which had been lost. He
was a man of courage, activity and resolution, but of a harsh and
imperious nature. In his own country he was celebrated as the
most merciless persecutor that had ever dragooned the Huguenots
to mass. It was asserted by English Whigs that he was known in
France by the nickname of the Hangman; that, at Rome, the very
cardinals had shown their abhorrence of his cruelty; and that
even Queen Christina, who had little right to be squeamish about
bloodshed, had turned away from him with loathing. He had
recently held a command in Savoy. The Irish regiments in the
French service had formed part of his army, and had behaved
extremely well. It was therefore supposed that he had a peculiar
talent for managing Irish troops. But there was a wide difference
between the well clad, well armed and well drilled Irish, with
whom he was familiar, and the ragged marauders whom be found
swarming in the alleys of Limerick. Accustomed to the splendour
and the discipline of French camps and garrisons, he was
disgusted by finding that, in the country to which he had been
sent, a regiment of infantry meant a mob of people as naked, as
dirty and as disorderly as the beggars, whom he had been
accustomed to see on the Continent besieging the door of a
monastery or pursuing a diligence up him. With ill concealed
contempt, however, he addressed himself vigorously to the task of
disciplining these strange soldiers, and was day and night in the
saddle, galloping from post to post, from Limerick to Athlone,
from Athlone to the northern extremity of Lough Rea, and from
Lough Rea back to Limerick.86

It was indeed necessary that he should bestir himself; for, a few
days after his arrival, he learned that, on the other side of the
Pale, all was ready for action. The greater part of the English
force was collected, before the close of May, in the
neighbourhood of Mullingar. Ginkell commanded in chief. He had
under him the two best officers, after Marlborough, of whom our
island could then boast, Talmash and Mackay. The Marquess of
Ruvigny, the hereditary chief of the refugees, and elder brother
of the brave Caillemot, who had fallen at the Boyne, had joined
the army with the rank of major general. The Lord Justice
Coningsby, though not by profession a soldier, came down from
Dublin, to animate the zeal of the troops. The appearance of the
camp showed that the money voted by the English Parliament had
not been spared. The uniforms were new; the ranks were one blaze
of scarlet; and the train of artillery was such as had never
before been seen in Ireland.87

On the sixth of June Ginkell moved his head quarters from
Mullingar. On the seventh he reached Ballymore. At Ballymore, on
a peninsula almost surrounded by something between a swamp and a
lake, stood an ancient fortress, which had recently been
fortified under Sarsfield's direction, and which was defended by
above a thousand men. The English guns were instantly planted. In
a few hours the besiegers had the satisfaction of seeing the
besieged running like rabbits from one shelter to another. The
governor, who had at first held high language, begged piteously
for quarter, and obtained it. The whole garrison were marched off
to Dublin. Only eight of the conquerors had fallen.88

Ginkell passed some days in reconstructing the defences of
Ballymore. This work had scarcely been performed when he was
joined by the Danish auxiliaries under the command of the Duke of
Wirtemberg. The whole army then moved westward, and, on the
nineteenth of June, appeared before the walls of Athlone.89

Athlone was perhaps, in a military point of view, the most
important place in the island. Rosen, who understood war well,
had always maintained that it was there that the Irishry would,
with most advantage, make a stand against the Englishry.90 The
town, which was surrounded by ramparts of earth, lay partly in
Leinster and partly in Connaught. The English quarter, which was
in Leinster, had once consisted of new and handsome houses, but
had been burned by the Irish some months before, and now lay in
heaps of ruin. The Celtic quarter, which was in Connaught, was
old and meanly built.91 The Shannon, which is the boundary of the
two provinces, rushed through Athlone in a deep and rapid stream,
and turned two large mills which rose on the arches of a stone
bridge. Above the bridge, on the Connaught side, a castle, built,
it was said, by King John, towered to the height of seventy feet,
and extended two hundred feet along the river. Fifty or sixty
yards below the bridge was a narrow ford.92

During the night of the nineteenth the English placed their
cannon. On the morning of the twentieth the firing began. At five
in the afternoon an assault was made. A brave French refugee with
a grenade in his hand was the first to climb the breach, and
fell, cheering his countrymen to the onset with his latest
breath. Such were the gallant spirits which the bigotry of Lewis
had sent to recruit, in the time of his utmost need, the armies
of his deadliest enemies. The example was not lost. The grenades
fell thick. The assailants mounted by hundreds. The Irish gave
way and ran towards the bridge. There the press was so great that
some of the fugitives were crushed to death in the narrow
passage, and others were forced over the parapets into the waters
which roared among the mill wheels below. In a few hours Ginkell
had made himself master of the English quarter of Athlone; and
this success had cost him only twenty men killed and forty
wounded.93

But his work was only begun. Between him and the Irish town the
Shannon ran fiercely. The bridge was so narrow that a few
resolute men might keep it against an army. The mills which stood
on it were strongly guarded; and it was commanded by the guns of
the castle. That part of the Connaught shore where the river was
fordable was defended by works, which the Lord Lieutenant had, in
spite of the murmurs of a powerful party, forced Saint Ruth to
entrust to the care of Maxwell. Maxwell had come back from France
a more unpopular man than he had been when he went thither. It
was rumoured that he had, at Versailles, spoken opprobriously of
the Irish nation; and he had, on this account, been, only a few
days before, publicly affronted by Sarsfield.94 On the twenty-
first of June the English were busied in flinging up batteries
along the Leinster bank. On the twenty-second, soon after dawn,
the cannonade began. The firing continued all that day and all
the following night. When morning broke again, one whole side of
the castle had been beaten down; the thatched lanes of the
Celtic town lay in ashes; and one of the mills had been burned
with sixty soldiers who defended it.95

Still however the Irish defended the bridge resolutely. During
several days there was sharp fighting hand to hand in the strait
passage. The assailants gained ground, but gained it inch by
inch. The courage of the garrison was sustained by the hope of
speedy succour. Saint Ruth had at length completed his
preparations; and the tidings that Athlone was in danger had
induced him to take the field in haste at the head of an army,
superior in number, though inferior in more important elements of
military strength, to the army of Ginkell. The French general
seems to have thought that the bridge and the ford might easily
be defended, till the autumnal rains and the pestilence which
ordinarily accompanied them should compel the enemy to retire. He
therefore contented himself with sending successive detachments
to reinforce the garrison. The immediate conduct of the defence
he entrusted to his second in command, D'Usson, and fixed his own
head quarters two or three miles from the town. He expressed his
astonishment that so experienced a commander as Ginkell should
persist in a hopeless enterprise. "His master ought to hang him
for trying to take Athlone; and mine ought to hang me if I lose
it."96

Saint Ruth, however, was by no means at ease. He had found, to
his great mortification, that he had not the full authority which
the promises made to him at Saint Germains had entitled him to
expect. The Lord Lieutenant was in the camp. His bodily and
mental infirmities had perceptibly increased within the last few
weeks. The slow and uncertain step with which he, who had once
been renowned for vigour and agility, now tottered from his easy
chair to his couch, was no unapt type of the sluggish and
wavering movement of that mind which had once pursued its objects
with a vehemence restrained neither by fear nor by pity, neither
by conscience nor by shame. Yet, with impaired strength, both
physical and intellectual, the broken old man clung
pertinaciously to power. If he had received private orders not to
meddle with the conduct of the war, he disregarded them. He
assumed all the authority of a sovereign, showed himself
ostentatiously to the troops as their supreme chief, and affected
to treat Saint Ruth as a lieutenant. Soon the interference of the
Viceroy excited the vehement indignation of that powerful party
in the army which had long hated him. Many officers signed an
instrument by which they declared that they did not consider him
as entitled to their obedience in the field. Some of them offered
him gross personal insults. He was told to his face that, if he
persisted in remaining where he was not wanted, the ropes of his
pavilion should be cut. He, on the other hand, sent his
emissaries to all the camp fires, and tried to make a party among
the common soldiers against the French general.97

The only thing in which Tyrconnel and Saint Ruth agreed was in
dreading and disliking Sarsfield. Not only was he popular with
the great body of his countrymen; he was also surrounded by a
knot of retainers whose devotion to him resembled the devotion of
the Ismailite murderers to the Old Man of the Mountain. It was
known that one of these fanatics, a colonel, had used language
which, in the mouth of an officer so high in rank, might well
cause uneasiness. "The King," this man had said, "is nothing to
me. I obey Sarsfield. Let Sarsfield tell me to kill any man in
the whole army; and I will do it." Sarsfield was, indeed, too
honourable a gentleman to abuse his immense power over the minds
of his worshippers. But the Viceroy and the Commander in Chief
might not unnaturally be disturbed by the thought that
Sarsfield's honour was their only guarantee against mutiny and
assassination. The consequence was that, at the crisis of the
fate of Ireland, the services of the first of Irish soldiers were
not used, or were used with jealous caution, and that, if he
ventured to offer a suggestion, it was received with a sneer or a
frown.98

A great and unexpected disaster put an end to these disputes. On
the thirtieth of June Ginkell called a council of war. Forage
began to be scarce; and it was absolutely necessary that the
besiegers should either force their way across the river or
retreat. The difficulty of effecting a passage over the shattered
remains of the bridge seemed almost insuperable. It was proposed
to try the ford. The Duke of Wirtemberg, Talmash, and Ruvigny
gave their voices in favour of this plan; and Ginkell, with some
misgivings, consented.99

It was determined that the attempt should be made that very
afternoon. The Irish, fancying that the English were about to
retreat, kept guard carelessly. Part of the garrison was idling,
part dosing. D'Usson was at table. Saint Ruth was in his tent,
writing a letter to his master filled with charges against
Tyrconnel. Meanwhile, fifteen hundred grenadiers; each wearing in
his hat a green bough, were mustered on the Leinster bank of the
Shannon. Many of them doubtless remembered that on that day year
they had, at the command of King William, put green boughs in
their hats on the banks of the Boyne. Guineas had been liberally
scattered among these picked men; but their alacrity was such as
gold cannot purchase. Six battalions were in readiness to support
the attack. Mackay commanded. He did not approve of the plan; but
he executed it as zealously and energetically as if he had
himself been the author of it. The Duke of Wirtemberg, Talmash,
and several other gallant officers, to whom no part in the
enterprise had been assigned, insisted on serving that day as
private volunteers; and their appearance in the ranks excited the
fiercest enthusiasm among the soldiers.

It was six o'clock. A peal from the steeple of the church gave
the signal. Prince George of Hesse Darmstadt, and Gustavus
Hamilton, the brave chief of the Enniskilleners, descended first
into the Shannon. Then the grenadiers lifted the Duke of
Wirtemberg on their shoulders, and, with a great shout, plunged
twenty abreast up to their cravats in water. The stream ran deep
and strong; but in a few minutes the head of the column reached
dry land. Talmash was the fifth man that set foot on the
Connaught shore. The Irish, taken unprepared, fired one confused
volley and fled, leaving their commander, Maxwell, a prisoner.
The conquerors clambered up the bank over the remains of walls
shattered by a cannonade of ten days. Mackay heard his men
cursing and swearing as they stumbled among the rubbish. "My
lads," cried the stout old Puritan in the midst of the uproar,
"you are brave fellows; but do not swear. We have more reason to
thank God for the goodness which He has shown us this day than to
take His name in vain." The victory was complete. Planks were
placed on the broken arches of the bridge and pontoons laid on
the river, without any opposition on the part of the terrified
garrison. With the loss of twelve men killed and about thirty
wounded the English had, in a few minutes, forced their way into
Connaught.100

At the first alarm D'Usson hastened towards the river; but he was
met, swept away, trampled down, and almost killed by the torrent
of fugitives. He was carried to the camp in such a state that it
was necessary to bleed him. "Taken!" cried Saint Ruth, in dismay.
"It cannot be. A town taken, and I close by with an army to
relieve it!" Cruelly mortified, he struck his tents under cover
of the night, and retreated in the direction of Galway. At dawn
the English saw far off, from the top of King John's ruined
castle, the Irish army moving through the dreary region which
separates the Shannon from the Suck. Before noon the rearguard
had disappeared.101

Even before the loss of Athlone the Celtic camp had been
distracted by factions. It may easily be supposed, therefore,
that, after so great a disaster, nothing was to be heard but
crimination and recrimination. The enemies of the Lord Lieutenant
were more clamorous than ever. He and his creatures had brought
the kingdom to the verge of perdition. He would meddle with what
he did not understand. He would overrule the plans of men who
were real soldiers. He would entrust the most important of all
posts to his tool, his spy, the wretched Maxwell, not a born
Irishman, not a sincere Catholic, at best a blunderer, and too
probably a traitor. Maxwell, it was affirmed, had left his men
unprovided with ammunition. When they had applied to him for
powder and ball, he had asked whether they wanted to shoot larks.
Just before the attack he had told them to go to their supper and
to take their rest, for that nothing more would be done that day.
When he had delivered himself up a prisoner, he had uttered some
words which seemed to indicate a previous understanding with the
conquerors. The Lord Lieutenant's few friends told a very
different story. According to them, Tyrconnel and Maxwell had
suggested precautions which would have made a surprise
impossible. The French General, impatient of all interference,
had omitted to take those precautions. Maxwell had been rudely
told that, if he was afraid, he had better resign his command. He
had done his duty bravely. He had stood while his men fled. He
had consequently fallen into the hands of the enemy; and he was
now, in his absence, slandered by those to whom his captivity was
justly imputable.102 On which side the truth lay it is not easy,
at this distance of time, to pronounce. The cry against Tyrconnel
was, at the moment, so loud, that he gave way and sullenly
retired to Limerick. D'Usson, who had not yet recovered from the
hurts inflicted by his own runaway troops, repaired to Galway.103

Saint Ruth, now left in undisputed possession of the supreme
command, was bent on trying the chances of a battle. Most of the
Irish officers, with Sarsfield at their head, were of a very
different mind. It was, they said, not to be dissembled that, in
discipline, the army of Ginkell was far superior to theirs. The
wise course, therefore, evidently was to carry on the war in such
a manner that the difference between the disciplined and the
undisciplined soldier might be as small as possible. It was well
known that raw recruits often played their part well in a foray,
in a street fight or in the defence of a rampart; but that, on a
pitched field, they had little chance against veterans. "Let most
of our foot be collected behind the walls of Limerick and Galway.
Let the rest, together with our horse, get in the rear of the
enemy, and cut off his supplies. If he advances into Connaught,
let us overrun Leinster. If he sits down before Galway, which may
well be defended, let us make a push for Dublin, which is
altogether defenceless."104 Saint Ruth might, perhaps, have
thought this advice good, if his judgment had not been biassed by
his passions. But he was smarting from the pain of a humiliating
defeat. In sight of his tent, the English had passed a rapid
river, and had stormed a strong town. He could not but feel that,
though others might have been to blame, he was not himself
blameless. He had, to say the least, taken things too easily.
Lewis, accustomed to be served during many years by commanders
who were not in the habit of leaving to chance any thing which
could he made secure by wisdom, would hardly think it a
sufficient excuse that his general had not expected the enemy to
make so bold and sudden an attack. The Lord Lieutenant would, of
course, represent what had passed in the most unfavourable
manner; and whatever the Lord Lieutenant said James would echo. A
sharp reprimand, a letter of recall, might be expected. To return
to Versailles a culprit; to approach the great King in an agony
of distress; to see him shrug his shoulders, knit his brow and
turn his back; to be sent, far from courts and camps, to languish
at some dull country seat; this was too much to be borne; and yet
this might well be apprehended. There was one escape; to fight,
and to conquer or to perish.

In such a temper Saint Ruth pitched his camp about thirty miles
from Athlone on the road to Galway, near the ruined castle of
Aghrim, and determined to await the approach of the English army.

His whole deportment was changed. He had hitherto treated the
Irish soldiers with contemptuous severity. But now that he had
resolved to stake life and fame on the valour of the despised
race, he became another man. During the few days which remained
to him he exerted himself to win by indulgence and caresses the
hearts of all who were under his command.105 He, at the same
time, administered to his troops moral stimulants of the most
potent kind. He was a zealous Roman Catholic; and it is probable
that the severity with which he had treated the Protestants of
his own country ought to be partly ascribed to the hatred which
he felt for their doctrines. He now tried to give to the war the
character of a crusade. The clergy were the agents whom he
employed to sustain the courage of his soldiers. The whole camp
was in a ferment with religious excitement. In every regiment
priests were praying, preaching, shriving, holding up the host
and the cup. While the soldiers swore on the sacramental bread
not to abandon their colours, the General addressed to the
officers an appeal which might have moved the most languid and
effeminate natures to heroic exertion. They were fighting, he
said, for their religion, their liberty and their honour. Unhappy
events, too widely celebrated, had brought a reproach on the
national character. Irish soldiership was every where mentioned
with a sneer. If they wished to retrieve the fame of their
country, this was the time and this the place.106