Chapter 16

At Knocknacloy he had the center of his army protected by the hill, the right by a marsh, and the left by the river, so that, a flanking movement on Monroe's part being impossible, the Scottish general was forced to make a frontal attack. Under cover of the rearguard action at the pass, which caused both delay and confusion to Monroe's army, Owen Roe formed his men in order of battle. His first line was of four columns, with considerable spaces between them; his cavalry was on the right and left wings, behind this first line; while three columns more were drawn up some distance farther back, behind the openings in the front line, and forming the reserve. We should remember that not only was Owen Roe's army outnumbered by Monroe's, but also that Owen Roe had no artillery, while Monroe was well supplied with guns.

Meanwhile Monroe's army came into touch with Owen Roe's force, and the Scottish general opened fire with guns and muskets, to which the muskets of Owen Roe as vigorously replied. The Scottish artillery was planted on a hillock a quarter-mile from Owen Roe's center, and under cover of its fire an infantry charge was attempted, which was brilliantly repulsed by the pikemen of Owen Roe's army. A second attack was made by the Scottish cavalry, who tried to ford the river, and thus turn the left flank of the Irish army, but they were met and routed by the Irish horse. This was about six in the evening, and the sun, hanging low in the sky, fell full in the faces of the Scottish troops. Owen Roe promptly followed up the rout of the Scottish horse by an advance, making a sweeping movement from right to left, and thereby forcing Monroe towards the junction of two streams, where he had no space to move. At this point Owen Roe's army received a notable accession of strength in the form of four squadrons of cavalry, sent earlier in the day to guard against the possible approach of George Monroe from Coleraine.

At a signal from Owen Roe, his army advanced upon Monroe's force, to be met by a charge of the Scottish cavalry, instantly replied to by a charge of the Irish cavalry through the three open spaces in the front infantry line of Owen Roe's army. Monroe's first line was broken, and the Irish pikemen, the equivalent of a bayonet charge, steadily forced him backwards. It was a fierce struggle, hand to hand, eye to eye, and blade to blade. The order of Owen Roe's advance was admirably preserved, while the Scottish and English forces were in confusion, already broken and crowded into a narrow and constricted space between the two rivers. Finally the advancing Irish army reached and stormed the hillock where Monroe's artillery was placed, and victory was palpably won. The defeat of the Scottish and English army became an utter rout, and when the sun set more than three thousand of them lay dead on the field.

It is almost incredible that the Irish losses were only seventy, yet such is the number recorded, while not only was the opposing army utterly defeated and dispersed, but Monroe's whole artillery, his tents and baggage, fifteen hundred horses, twenty stand of colors, two months' provisions and numbers of prisoners of war fell into the hands of Owen Roe; while, as a result of the battle, the two auxiliary forces were forced to retreat and take refuge in Coleraine and Derry, General Robert Monroe escaping meanwhile to Carrickfergus. It is only just to him to say that our best accounts of the battle come from officers in Monroe's army, Owen Roe contenting himself with the merest outline of the result gained, but saying nothing of the consummate generalship that gained it.

For the next two years we see Owen Roe O'Neill holding the great central plain, the west and most of the north of Ireland against the armies of the English Parliamentarians and Royalists alike, and gaining victory after victory, generally against superior numbers, better armed and better equipped. We find him time after time almost betrayed by the Supreme Council, in which the Norman lords of Leinster, perpetually anxious for their own feudal estates, were ready to treat with whichever of the English parties was for the moment victorious, hoping that, whatever might be the outcome of the great English struggle, they themselves might be gainers. At this time they were in possession of many of the abbey lands, and there was perpetual friction between them and the ecclesiastics, their co-religionists, who had been driven from these same lands, so that the Norman landowners were the element of fatal weakness throughout this whole movement, willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike. While praying for the final defeat of the English parliamentary forces, they dreaded to see this defeat brought about by Owen Roe O'Neill, in whom they saw the representative of the old tribal ownership of Gaelic times, a return to which would mean their own extinction.

Matters went so far that the Supreme Council, representing chiefly these Norman lords, had practically betrayed its trust to the Royalist party in England, and would have completed that betrayal had not the beheading of King Charles signalized the triumph of the Parliamentarians. Even then the Norman lords hoped for the Restoration, and strove in every way to undermine the authority of their own general, Owen Roe O'Neill, who was almost forced to enter into an alliance with the Puritans by the treachery of the Norman lords. It is of the greatest interest to find Monroe writing thus to Owen Roe in August, 1649: "By my own extraction, I have an interest in the Irish nation. I know how your lands have been taken, and your people made hewers of wood and drawers of water. If an Irishman can be a scourge to his own nation, the English will give him fair words but keep him from all trust, that they may destroy him when they have served themselves by him."

On November 6, 1649, this great general died after a brief illness, having for seven years led his armies to constant victory, while the Norman lords, who were in name his allies, were secretly plotting against him for their own profit. Yet so strong and dominant was his genius that he overcame not only the forces of his foes but the treacheries of his friends, and his last days saw him at one with the Normans, while the forces of the Parliamentarians in Ireland were calling on him for help.

We sea, therefore, that for full eight years, from the beginning of 1642 to the close of 1649, Ireland had an independent national government, with a regularly elected Representative Assembly, and a central authority, the Supreme Council, appointed by that Assembly, with judges going circuit and holding their courts regularly, while the Supreme Council held a state of almost regal magnificence, and kept several armies continuously in the field. While Owen Roe O'Neill lived, that part of the army under his command was able not only to secure an unbroken series of victories for itself, but also to retrieve the defeats suffered by less competent commanders, so that at his death he was at the summit of power and fame. If regret were ever profitable, we might well regret that he did not follow the example of the great English commander, his contemporary, and declare himself Lord Protector of Ireland, with despotic power.

After his death, the work he had done so well was all undone again, in part by treachery, in part by the victories of Oliver Cromwell. Yet ten years after the Lord Protector's arrival in Ireland, his own work was undone not less completely, and the Restoration saw once more enthroned every principle against which Cromwell had so stubbornly contended.

XIV.

THE JACOBITE WARS.

A.D. 1660-1750.

The Restoration saw Cromwell's work completely undone; nor did the class which helped him to his victories again rise above the surface. The genius of the Stuarts was already sowing the seeds of new revolutions; but the struggle was presently to be fought out, not between the king and the people, but between the king and the more liberal or more ambitious elements of the baronial class, who saw in the despotic aspirations of the Stuarts a menace to their own power.

These liberal elements in England selected as their champion Prince William of Nassau, before whose coming the English king found it expedient to fly to France, seeking and finding a friend in that apostle of absolutism, Louis XIV. We have already seen how the interests of the feudal lords of Ireland, with the old Norman families as their core, drew them towards the Stuarts. The divine right of the landowner depended, as we saw, on the divine right of kings; so that they naturally gravitated towards the Stuarts, and drew their tenants and retainers after them. Thus a considerable part of Ireland was enlisted on the side of James II, and shared the misfortunes which presently overtook him--or in truth did not overtake him, as the valiant gentleman outran them and escaped. Nothing is more firmly fixed in the memories of the whole Irish people than a good-natured contempt for this runaway English king, whose cause they were induced by the feudal lords to espouse. We shall follow the account of an officer in the Jacobite army in narrating the events of the campaigns that ensued.

James, having gained courage and funds from his sojourn at the court of Louis XIV, presently made his appearance in Ireland, relying on the support of the feudal lords. He landed at Kinsale, in Cork, on March 12, 1688, according to the Old Style, and reached Dublin twelve days later, warmly welcomed by Lord and Lady Tyrconnell. The only place in the country which strongly declared for William was the walled city of Derry, whence we have seen the Puritan forces issuing during the wars of the preceding generation. James, this officer says, went north to Derry, in spite of the bitterness of the season, "in order to preserve his Protestant subjects there from the ill-treatment which he apprehended they might receive from the Irish," and was mightily surprised when the gates were shut in his face and the citizens opened fire upon him from the walls.

James withdrew immediately to Dublin, assembled a Parliament there, and spent several months in vain discussions, not even finding courage to repeal the penal laws which Queen Elizabeth had passed against all who refused to recognize her as the head of the church. James was already embarked on a career of duplicity, professing great love for Ireland, yet fearing to carry out his professions lest he might arouse animosity in England, and so close the door against his hoped-for return.

Enniskillen, on an island in Lough Erne, dominated by a strong castle, was, like Derry, a settlement of Scottish and English colonists brought over by the first of the Stuarts. These colonists were up in arms against the grandson of their first patron, and had successfully attacked his forces which were besieging Derry. James, therefore, sent a small body of troops against them; but the expedition ended in an ignominious rout rather than a battle, for the Jacobite army seems hardly to have struck a blow. The Irish leader, Lord Mountcashel, who manfully stood his ground in the general panic, was wounded and taken prisoner.

The armies of James, meanwhile, made no headway against the courageous and determined defenders of Derry, where the siege was degenerating into a blockade, the scanty rations and sickness of the besieged being a far more formidable danger than the attacks of the besiegers. James even weakened the attacking forces by withdrawing a part of the troops to Dublin, being resolved at all risks to protect himself.

So devoid of resolution and foresight was James that we only find him taking means to raise an army when Schomberg, the able lieutenant of William, was about to invade the north of Ireland. Schomberg landed at Bangor in Down in August, 1689, and marched south towards Drogheda, but finding that James was there before him, he withdrew and established a strongly fortified camp near Dundalk. James advanced to a point about seven miles from Schomberg, and there entrenched himself in turn, and so the two armies remained; as one of Schomberg's officers says, "our General would not risk anything, nor King James venture anything." The long delay was very fatal to Schomberg's army, his losses by sickness and disease being more than six thousand men.

Early in November, as winter was already making itself felt, James decided to withdraw to Dublin; as our narrator says, "the young commanders were in some haste to return to the capital, where the ladies expected them with great impatience; so that King James, being once more persuaded to disband the new levies and raising his camp a little of the soonest, dispersed his men too early into winter quarters, having spent that campaign without any advantage, vainly expecting that his Protestant subjects of England who were in the camp of Schomberg would come over to him. And now the winter season, which should be employed in serious consultations, and making the necessary preparations for the ensuing campaign, was idly spent in revels, in gaming, and other debauches unfit for a Catholic court. But warlike Schomberg, who, after the retreat of James, had leisure to remove his sickly soldiers, to bury the dead, and put the few men that remained alive and were healthy into winter quarters of refreshment, took the field early in spring, before Tyrconnell was awake, and reduced the castle of Charlemont, the only place that held for James in Ulster, which was lost for want of provisions; and the concerns of the unfortunate James were ill-managed by those whom he entrusted with the administration of public affairs."

We come thus to the spring of 1690. Derry was still holding out valiantly against the horrors of famine and sickness, the blockade being maintained, though nothing like a determined storm was attempted. A little of the courage shown by the apprentices of Derry, had he possessed it, might have revived the drooping fortunes of the fugitive English king. It seems, however, that even Schomberg's withdrawal to Carrickfergus failed to arouse him to more vigorous and valiant measures. It is clear that he was ready to abandon his Irish allies, hoping by their betrayal to gain favor with his "subjects in England," whom he confidently expected to recall him, as they had recalled his brother Charles thirty years before. James found an able lieutenant in Tyrconnell, who thoroughly entered into his master's schemes of duplicity; and it is fairly clear that these two worthies, had occasion offered, would have betrayed each other with a perfectly good grace.

Thus matters dragged on quite indecisively until June, 1690, when King William landed at Carrickfergus with a mixed force of English, Scottish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and German troops, and joined his forces to the remnant of Schomberg's army. James, as we saw, had disbanded his army on breaking up his camp in the previous autumn, and had made no effective effort to get a new army together. Nor could he have used a strong army, had he possessed one. Nevertheless James marched north with such troops as were available, leaving Dublin on June 16th. He took up a strong position on the borders of Ulster and Leinster, thus blocking William's way south to the capital, only to abandon it again on the news of William's approach, when he retired to Drogheda and encamped there. He thus gave the whole advantage of initiative into the hands of his opponent, a brave man and a skillful general.

James seems to have hoped that William's army would be mowed down by disease, as Schomberg's had been in the preceding campaign. And there is reason to believe that Tyrconnell, foreseeing the defeat of James, wished to avoid any serious fighting, which would be an obstacle in his way when he sought to patch up a peace with the victor and make terms for himself. But his opponent was inspired by a very different temper, and William's army advanced steadily southwards, to find James encamped on the southern bank of the Boyne.

There were several fords by which William's army would have to cross on its way south. But James was such an incapable general that he did not even throw up trenches to defend the fords. William's army arrived and encamped on the north bank of the river, and the next day, June 30th, was employed in an artillery duel between the two armies, when considerable injury was inflicted on William's forces, although he was far stronger in artillery than his opponent. During that night, James, already certain of defeat, sent away most of his artillery to Dublin, leaving only six guns with his army on the Boyne.

It seems tolerably certain that, when the battle began again next day, William's army numbered between forty-five and fifty thousand, with the usual proportion of cavalry,--probably a tenth of the whole. James, on the other hand, had from twenty to twenty-five thousand men, about a tenth of them, probably, being mounted; he had, by his own fault, only six guns against about fifty in William's batteries. William's line of battle was formed, as usual, with the infantry in the center and the cavalry on the wings. He gave the elder Schomberg command of the center, while Schomberg's son, with the cavalry of the right wing, was sent four or five miles up the river to Slane, to cross there and turn the left flank of the opposing army. William himself led the cavalry on the left wing, and later on in the battle, descending the river, crossed at a lower ford. He could thus attack the right flank of his opponent; the infantry composing the center of his army advancing, meanwhile, under cover of a heavy artillery fire, and forcing the fords of the Boyne.

The river is shallow here, and in the middle of summer the water is nowhere too deep for wading, so that it was a very slight protection to the army of James. A better general would at least have chosen a stronger position, and one which would have given him some manifest advantage. Such positions were to be found all along the road by which William had advanced from Carrickfergus. The country on both sides of the Boyne is flat; rolling meadows with the shallow river dividing them--a country giving every opportunity to cavalry.

William's right, under the younger Schomberg, made several unsuccessful attempts to cross the river at Slane, being repeatedly beaten back by Arthur O'Neill's horse. Finally, however, the way was cleared for him by a vigorous cannonade, to which O'Neill, having no cannon, was unable to reply, and William's right wing thus forced the passage of the Boyne.

William's center now advanced, and began the passage of the river, under cover of a heavy artillery fire. Every foot of the advance was stubbornly contested, and such headway was made by the Irish troops that Schomberg's bodyguard was scattered or cut to pieces, and he himself was slain. The center of William's army was undoubtedly being beaten back, when, crossing lower down with eighteen squadrons of cavalry, he fiercely attacked the right flank of the Irish army and thus turned the possibility of defeat into certain victory. That the Irish troops, although outnumbered two to one and led by a coward, fought valiantly, is admitted on all sides. They charged and re-charged ten times in succession, and only gave way at last under pressure of greatly superior numbers. The retreat of the Irish army was orderly,--the more so, doubtless, because the former king of England was no longer among them, having most valiantly fled to Dublin, and thence to Kinsale, where he took ship for France, leaving behind him a reputation quite singular in the annals of Ireland.

Within a week after the battle, the Irish army, which had preserved order and discipline even in the face of the flight of James, occupied Limerick, and made preparations to hold that strong position, with the untouched resources of the western province behind them, and the hope, unshaken by their rude experience, that the runaway king might reinforce them by sea. Through all the events that followed, presently to be narrated, it must be understood that Tyrconnell was steadily seeking to undermine the resolution of the Irish army, hoping the sooner to make his peace with King William, to secure his Irish estates, and, very possibly, be appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, under the new king.

William meanwhile brought his army southwards, being welcomed to Dublin by the large English element there, and presently continued his march to Waterford, which was surrendered to him, as was alleged, by Tyrconnell's orders. He also reduced Kilkenny, to which Tyrconnell had failed to send reinforcements, though repeatedly appealed to by its commander. About this time, on July 28th or a day or two later, the brave garrison of Derry was relieved by some of William's ships, which broke the line of blockade across the river and brought abundant provisions to the emaciated defenders.

A section of William's army under Douglas was sent to take Athlone, the strong fortress which guarded the ford, and later the bridge across the Shannon--the high road from Leinster to the western province of Connacht, beyond the river. Douglas, after a fierce attack lasting seven days, was compelled to retreat again to the main army encamped at Waterford. The French auxiliaries under Lauzun, who had not hitherto greatly distinguished themselves for valor, losing less than a score of men at the Boyne, now deserted Limerick and retreated to Galway, taking with them, if the fugitive king may be credited, a great quantity of ammunition from the fortress of Limerick.

Finally, on August 9th, William's army appeared before Limerick, and the famous siege began. Tyrconnell signalized himself by deserting the fords over the Shannon and departing to Galway, declaring that the town would certainly surrender within a week. The city, however, was of a different opinion. The garrison, under Sarsfield, made vigorous preparation for a defence, and a party under Sarsfield himself cut off one of William's convoys from Dublin, destroying the siege-train which was being brought for the attack on the city. William's cavalry, taking advantage of Tyrconnell's retreat, crossed the ford of the Shannon to complete the investment of the city on that side, but they presently returned, having done nothing effective.

We hear of more attempts by Tyrconnell to undermine the resolution of the army, and of attacks by William's force, which gave him possession of the outworks, so that he was able presently to begin cannonading the walls, to make a breach for an assault. The officer in the Irish army whom we have already quoted, gives this account of the siege: "Never was a town better attacked and better defended than the city of Limerick. William left nothing unattempted that the art of war, the skill of a great captain and the valor of veteran soldiers could put in execution to gain the place; and the Irish omitted nothing that courage and constancy could practice to defend it. The continual assaults of the one and the frequent sallies of the other consumed a great many brave men both of the army and the garrison. On the nineteenth day, William, after fighting for every inch of ground he gained, having made a large breach in the wall, gave a general assault which lasted for three hours; and though his men mounted the breach, and some even entered the town, they were gallantly repulsed and forced to retire with considerable loss. William, resolving to renew the assault next day, could not persuade his men to advance, though he offered to lead them in person. Whereupon, all in a rage, he left the camp, and never stopped till he came to Waterford, where he took shipping for England; his army in the meantime retiring by night from Limerick."