What would have happened if he had done so is anything but a pleasant subject for speculation. Happily, at the eleventh hour he refused to acknowledge himself beaten. Sick of the strife of words and longing for the reality of deeds, he announced his intention to place himself at the head of the English forces in Ireland, “and with the blessing of God Almighty endeavour to reduce that kingdom that it may no longer be a charge to this.”
In this we may see more than the expression of a pious hope. As statesman and soldier William had seen that Ireland was the back-door of Great Britain, and that so long as it remained open so long would the whole kingdom be vulnerable to foreign invasion, and so he went to close it.
It was a strange position for any man to be placed in. He was going to fight for everything that he held dear. He knew that if he lost in Ireland he must lose also in England and the Netherlands, but he was also going to fight against the father of the woman whom he had now come to love so dearly that her death, when it happened, came nearer to wrecking his imperial intellect than all the other trials and troubles of his laborious and almost joyless life. He had no feeling of personal enmity against James as he had against Louis, and it was duty, and duty alone, which took him to the Irish war. Almost the last words that he said to his wife concerning the enemy whom he was about to meet on the battlefield were:
“God send that no harm may come to him!”
Mr. Traill has thus tersely summed up the condition of affairs at this moment: “Ireland in the hands of a hostile army, the shores of England threatened by a hostile fleet, a dangerous conspiracy only detected on the eve of success, a formidable insurrection imminent in the country he was leaving behind him....”
And yet, gloomy as the outlook seemed, his spirits rose as they ever did when he saw the moment for doing instead of talking draw near, and Bishop Burnett tells us that he said to him on the eve of his departure: “As for me, but for one thing I should enjoy the prospect of being on horseback and under canvas again, for I am sure that I am fitter to direct a campaign than to manage your Houses of Lords and Commons.”
These words were well worthy of the man who, not many days later, quietly sat down to breakfast in the open air beside Boyne Water, within full sight of the enemy and within easy range of their guns. Breakfast over, he mounted his horse and was promptly fired at. The first shot from two field-pieces which had been trained on him and his staff killed a man and two horses. The second grazed his shoulder and made him reel in his saddle.
“There was no need for any bullet to come nearer than that!” was his remark on the occurrence. Certainly not many bullets have ever come nearer to changing the history of Britain, and therefore of the British Empire, than that one.
MADE HIM REEL IN HIS SADDLE.