CHAPTER VIII
Fall of Cork and Kinsale—Lauzun, the French General, Accused by Irish Writers—Sarsfield’s Popularity—Tyrconnel Returns to Ireland—Berwick Departs
THE successful defence of Limerick by the Irish was somewhat offset in the following month of September by the victorious expedition from England, against Cork and Kinsale, led by John Churchill, afterward Duke of Marlborough, the greatest general of that age. Cork, under the military governor, McEligott, defended itself vigorously during a siege of five days, but the defences and garrison were both weak, and, eventually, the city capitulated on honorable conditions. These were subsequently violated by some soldiers and camp-followers of the English army, but Marlborough suppressed, in as far as he could, the disorders as soon as he heard of them. The English lost the Duke of Grafton—natural son of Charles II—and many other officers and private men during the siege. Marlborough, with characteristic promptitude, moved at once on Kinsale. The old town and fort, not being defensible, were, after some show of resistance, abandoned by the Irish troops, who took post in the new fort, commanding the harbor, which they held with creditable tenacity, during fourteen days. They, at last, capitulated, their ammunition having run low, and were allowed, in recognition of their valor, to retire to Limerick, the garrison in that city being thus augmented by 1,200 tried warriors. Marlborough accomplished his task within five weeks, and returned to England a popular idol. The loss of Cork and Kinsale, particularly the latter, was a severe blow to the Irish army, as it was, thereby, deprived of the most favorable seaports by which supplies from France could reach it. It should have been stated that Marlborough, in the capture of those towns, was materially assisted by the English fleet. His army was a very formidable one, consisting of 9,000 picked men from England, and a detachment, nearly equal in numbers, which joined him, under the Duke of Wurtemburg and General Scravenmore. The latter body consisted of troops who had fought at the Boyne and Limerick. Wurtemburg, on account of his connection with royalty, claimed the command in chief. Marlborough, who was as great a diplomat as he was a general, agreed to command alternately, but he was, all through the operations, the real commander. Students of history will remember that, in after wars on the Continent, Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy commanded on alternate days. But there was a great difference in this case, Eugene having been regarded as nearly as good a general as Marlborough himself.
O’Callaghan attributes the failure of the main Irish army to succor the Cork and Kinsale garrisons to the misconduct of Lauzun in deserting Ireland, with his remaining 5,000 French troops, at this critical period. He quotes King James’s and Berwick’s memoirs, the Rawdon papers, and other authorities, to show that the Duke of Berwick had advanced with 7,000 men as far as Kilmallock, in Limerick County, to raise the siege of Cork, when he found himself destitute of cannon, which had been carried off by the French general, and could not expose his inferior force, destitute of artillery, to the formidable force under his uncle, Marlborough. He was, therefore, most reluctantly compelled to abandon the enterprise. Lauzun, it is further claimed, carried off most of the powder stored in Limerick, and, had it not been for Sarsfield’s exploit at Ballyneety, that city must have fallen if a second assault had been delivered by William, as only fifty barrels of powder remained after the fight of August 27th.
The autumn and winter of 1690-91 were marked by constant bloody skirmishes between the cavalry and infantry outposts of the two armies. Hardly a day passed without bloodshed. Considerable ferocity was exhibited by both parties, and neither seemed to have much the advantage of the other. Story’s narrative of this period is one unbroken tale of disorder and strife. His narration, if taken without a grain of salt, would lead us to believe that nearly all the able-bodied Celtic-Irish were put to the sword, at sight, by his formidable countrymen and their allies, although he does admit, occasionally, that the Irish succeeded in killing a few, at least, of their enemies. The most considerable of these lesser engagements occurred between Sarsfield and the Duke of Berwick on the Irish side and General Douglas and Sir John Lanier on the side of the Williamites. The Irish leaders made an attack on Birr Castle in September, and were engaged in battering it, when the English, under Lanier, Douglas, and Kirk, marched to relieve it. They were too many for Berwick and Sarsfield, who retired on Banagher, where there is a bridge over the Shannon. The English pursued and made a resolute attempt to take the bridge, but the Irish defended it so steadily, and with such loss to the enemy, that the latter abandoned the attempt at capture and retired to Birr. Sarsfield possessed one great advantage over all the higher officers of King James’s army. He could speak the Irish (Gaelic) language fluently, having learned it from the lips of his mother, Anna O’More. This gave him vast control over the Celtic peasantry, who fully trusted him, as he did them, and they kept him informed of all that was passing in their several localities. The winter was exceptionally severe—so much so that, at some points, the deep and rapid Shannon was all but frozen across. Besides, there were several bridges that, if carelessly guarded, could be easily surprised and taken by the invaders. Sarsfield’s Celtic scouts, in December, observed several parties of British cavalry moving along the banks of the river. Their suspicions were excited, and they, at once, communicated with their general. The latter had no sooner taken the alarm than one English force, under Douglas, showed itself at Jamestown, and another, under Kirk and Lanier, at Jonesboro. The English commanders were astonished at finding the Irish army prepared to receive them warmly at both points. After severe skirmishing, they withdrew. The cold had become so severe that foreign troops were almost useless, while the Irish became, if possible, more alert. Sarsfield, at the head of his formidable cavalry, harassed the retreat of the Williamites to their winter quarters.
The Duke of Tyrconnel, who had, according to O’Callaghan, and other annalists, sailed from Galway with Lauzun, and, according to other authorities from Limerick, with De Boisseleau, after William’s repulse, returned from France, in February, accompanied by three men-of-war well laden with provisions. They carried but few arms and no reinforcements, but the aged duke, who seemed to be in good spirits, said that the latter would speedily follow. The amount of money he brought with him was comparatively insignificant—only 14,000 louis d’or—which he devoted to clothing for the army, as most of the men were nearly in rags, and had received no pay in many months. He had deposited 10,000 louis, additional, at Brest for the food supply of the troops.
He found unholy discord raging in the Irish ranks. Sarsfield had discovered that some members of the Senate, or Council, appointed by Tyrconnel before he left for France, had been in treasonable correspondence with the enemy, and that this treachery had led to the attempt at the passage of the Shannon made by the English in December. The Council consisted of sixteen members, four from each province, and was supposed to have supreme direction of affairs. Through the influence of Sarsfield, Lord Riverston and his brother, both of whom were strongly suspected of treason, were dismissed from that body, and Judge Daly, another member, whose honesty was doubted, was placed under arrest in the city of Galway. A difference had also arisen between Sarsfield and Berwick, although they were generally on good terms, because the former did not always treat the latter with the deference due an officer higher in rank. Berwick was an admirable soldier, but he lacked Sarsfield’s experience, and, naturally, did not understand the Irish people quite as well as the native leader did. In fact, Sarsfield was the hero of the time in the eyes of his countrymen, and, had he been unduly ambitious, might have deposed Berwick, or even Tyrconnel, and made himself dictator. But he was too good a patriot and true a soldier to even harbor such a thought. After all his splendid services, he was ungratefully treated. He deserved the chief command, but it was never given him, and he received, instead, the barren title of Earl of Lucan, the patent of which had been brought over from James by Tyrconnel. But it was gall and wormwood for Sarsfield to learn from the duke that a French commander-in-chief, Lieutenant-General the Marquis de St. Ruth, had been chosen by Louis and James to take charge of military matters in Ireland forthwith. Already he ranked below Tyrconnel and Berwick, although having much more ability than the two combined, as he had proven on many occasions.
General St. Ruth, if we are to believe Lord Macaulay and other Williamite partisans, was more distinguished for fierce persecution of the French Protestants, called Huguenots, than anything else in his career. He had served in the French army, in all its campaigns, under Turenne, Catinat, and other celebrated soldiers, since 1667, and, while yet in vigorous middle life, had won the rank of lieutenant-general. He had married the widow of old Marshal De Meilleraye, whose page he had been in his boyhood, and, according to St. Simon’s gossipy memoirs, the couple led a sort of cat-and-dog existence, the king having been often compelled to interfere between them. Of St. Ruth’s person, St. Simon says: “He was tall and well-formed, but, as everybody knew, extremely ugly.” The same authority says the general was “of a brutal temper,” and used to baton his wife whenever she annoyed him. It is well known that St. Simon was a venomous detractor of those who had incurred his resentment, or that of his friends, and this may account for his uncomplimentary references to St. Ruth. Irish tradition says that the latter was hard-featured, but of commanding person, with a piercing glance and a voice like a trumpet. It is certain that he had an imperious disposition and was quick to fly into a rage. When appointed to the command in Ireland, he had just returned from a successful campaign in Savoy, where Mountcashel’s Irish Brigade, as already stated, had formed a portion of his victorious forces. He had learned to appreciate Irish courage and constancy during that campaign, and was, on that account as much as any other, deemed the fit man to lead the Irish soldiers on their own soil to victory.
Tyrconnel had accepted St. Ruth from Louis and James, because he could not help himself, and, also, because he was jealous of Sarsfield. The viceroy was no longer popular in Ireland. He was aged, infirm, and incompetent, and it would seem his temper had grown so bad that he could not get along peaceably with anybody. One faction from the Irish camp had sent representatives to James in the palace of St. Germain, begging that Tyrconnel be recalled and the command placed in the hands of Sarsfield. But Tyrconnel, because of old association, was all-powerful with the exiled king, and his cause, therefore, prevailed. Soon afterward the gallant Duke of Berwick, who subsequently won the battle of Almanza and placed Philip V—King Louis’s grandson—on the throne of Spain, unable to agree with either Tyrconnel or Sarsfield, was relieved of command in Ireland and joined his father in France. This was an additional misfortune for Ireland. Berwick, the nephew of the great Duke of Marlborough, was, both by nature and training, a thorough soldier. He was the very soul of bravery, and could put enthusiasm into an Irish army by his dashing feats of arms. He was missed in the subsequent battles and sieges of that war. His career in the French army was long and brilliant. After rising to the rank of marshal, he was killed by a cannon shot while superintending the siege of Philipsburg, in 1734. The aristocratic French family of Fitzjames is lineally descended from the Duke of Berwick, and that house, although of illegitimate origin, represents the male Stuart line, just as the House of Beaufort, in England, represents, with the bend sinister shadowing its escutcheon, the male line of the Plantagenets. Strange to say, the Duke of Berwick’s great qualities as a general were not even suspected by his associates, either French, English, or Irish, in Ireland. When Tyrconnel left him in command, leading officers of the Irish army declared that they would not serve, unless he consented to be governed by a council more national in composition than that nominated by Tyrconnel. After some strong protests, Berwick yielded the point, but never afterward made any attempt at bona-fide command. He felt that he was but a figurehead, and was glad when Tyrconnel’s return led to his recall from a position at once irksome and humiliating. Had he been King James’s legitimate son, the House of Stuart would probably have found in him a restorer. He inherited the Churchill genius from his mother, Arabella, who was King James’s mistress when that monarch was Duke of York. She was not handsome of feature, but her figure was perfect, and the deposed king, to judge by his selections, must have had a penchant for plain women. O’Callaghan, in his “History of the Irish Brigades,” says of the Duke of Berwick: “He was one of those commanders of whom it is the highest eulogium to say that to such, in periods of adversity, it is safest to intrust the defence of a state. Of the great military leaders of whose parentage England can boast, he may be ranked with his uncle, Marlborough, among the first. But to his uncle, as to most public characters, be was very superior as a man of principle. The Regent Duke of Orleans, whose extensive acquaintance with human nature attaches a suitable value to his opinion, observed: ‘If there ever was a perfectly honest man in the world, that man was the Marshal Duke of Berwick.’” We have also the testimony of his French and other contemporaries that he was a man of majestic appearance—much more “royal” in that respect than any other scion of his race.