A History of England, Period III. Constitutional Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

The northern and eastern part of the island was in the hands of the English, and brought under some sort of government by the Lords Justices. In that part trade and industry had revived. In the Irish portion of the island, into which the Celtic inhabitants had crowded, there was wild confusion and much distress. Gangs of robbers infested the country, the soldiers were little better themselves than robbers. The currency of James's brass money entirely ruined trade. As usual in Ireland, jealousy of race began to show itself. In the Councils of Regency and of War, to whom the management of James's affairs were intrusted, men not of Irish blood had considerable influence; they were therefore involved in constant quarrels with the purely Irish party. Some order however began to show itself when Tyrconnel returned from France, accompanied by a French general of ability called St. Ruth. St. Ruth devoted himself with extreme energy to discipline the crowd of disorderly bandits whom he had to command, and prepared as well as he could to oppose the advance of Ginkel, who, seconded by Tollemache and St. Ruth comes from France. Mackay, moved in the beginning of June from their headquarters at Mullingar. The French generals, both now and before, had been of opinion that Athlone was the right spot for the Irish to make a stand. It lay almost in the middle of the island, half on one side, half on the other of the Shannon, separating the provinces of Leinster and Connaught. Ginkel determined that he would take this place, which seemed to him to be the key of the Irish frontier. It was a work of no common difficulty. St. Ruth thought the attempt absolutely hopeless. "His master," he said of Ginkel, "ought to hang him for attempting to take the town, mine ought to hang me if I lose it." The half of the town upon the English side of the river was taken on the 19th, but the real difficulty yet remained. Siege of Athlone. The narrow bridge which joined the two towns was gallantly defended. There was a ford lower down, but it was almost impassable. During the rest of the month the efforts of the besiegers were in vain. At last want of supplies compelled them either to succeed or to retreat. A gallant assault on the ford, which was almost up to the necks of the men, proved successful; to the astonishment and anger of St. Ruth the town was taken (June 30).

In spite of the advice of Sarsfield and the rest of the Irish generals, who wisely wished to employ their undisciplined troops in a partisan warfare, St. Ruth determined to fight. He fell back about thirty miles from Athlone, to the hill of Aghrim, where his troops occupied rising ground, covered along its whole front by a deep bog; while along the bottom of the firm ground ran enclosures, which were turned into breastworks. Against these difficulties Ginkel marched. But the Irish, now well posted and well commanded, showed such firmness, that it seemed probable they would make good their position, and evening was already drawing on, when at length Mackay, with the Battle of Aghrim. July 12, 1691. English and Huguenot cavalry, succeeded in passing the bog, and placing his troops on the flank of the Irish army. At this critical moment St. Ruth was killed. With singular folly, his friends concealed his death, not only from his men, but also from his generals. Sarsfield had been ordered to remain immoveable with reserves till St. Ruth ordered his advance, as the order did not come Sarsfield did not move, and the victory of the English thus became complete. The Irish army broke up, and was pursued with relentless cruelty; 6000 or 7000 Irish are said to have been put to death as they fled. The plain beyond the field of battle was so studded with white corpses, that it was described as looking like a pasture covered with flocks of sheep.

This battle completed the conquest of Ireland. The fall of Galway immediately followed, and Ginkel proceeded to attack for a second time the city of Limerick. The chances were now all in favour of the English, while the Irish were thoroughly disheartened by their late defeat. Ginkel's army was well supplied, and all hope of succour was Second siege and capitulation of Limerick. Oct. 3. cut off from the besieged by an English squadron which occupied the Shannon. Under these circumstances a capitulation was granted, the terms of which were fairly favourable to the Irish. By the military treaty, all officers and soldiers who desired it were conveyed to France, under command of their own generals. By the civil treaty, the Roman Catholics were promised the enjoyment of such privileges as they had enjoyed in the reign of Charles II. To all who took the oath of allegiance a perfect amnesty was promised. It is to the disgrace of England that this treaty with regard to the Catholics was not kept. End of the Irish war. For the time, however, Ireland was completely subdued, and the English supremacy established so firmly, that for more than a century, in spite of the difficulties which more than once beset the English Government, no outbreak of the Irishry against the Englishry was even suggested.

In Scotland, at length, the establishment of the Government was Revolution completed in Scotland. equally complete. The members of the factious Club had gone so far as to make common cause with the Jacobites. But in the Parliament which met in 1690, under the management of Melville as Lord High Commissioner, the Government succeeded in obtaining a majority. The union among its opponents was at once dissolved. A general acquiescence met the re-establishment of the Presbyterian form of Church government, and no further difficulties of importance were to be apprehended. William could now turn his attention to the affairs of England and of the Continent.

Jacobite plots in England.

In England, from the middle of 1690, the Jacobite intrigues continued. The lenity shown by William, after the abortive efforts of the Jacobites during the threatened French invasion, encouraged further conspiracies. It seemed certain that William's presence would be required abroad, and that again during his absence an opportunity would be offered for striking a blow against the Government. In December 1690, a meeting was held of the leading Jacobites, and it was determined that Preston should be sent to St. Germains. He was to beg James to return to England, bringing with him a sufficient French force to secure his success, but at the same time, in the name of the Jacobites, he was to intreat him to allow the Protestant religion to remain undisturbed, and to rule in strict accordance with law. Preston's plot thwarted. Besides this general letter, separate papers were intrusted to Preston, especially one from the nonjuring Bishop Turner, apparently in the name of Sancroft and his brother Bishops. He also took with him notes as to the most vulnerable points of the coast. But the captain of the ship which was engaged to take him over thought it wiser to inform Lord Caermarthen what he was doing, and just as the messengers thought they were safe out of the river, a vessel of remarkable swiftness belonging to Lord Caermarthen's son suddenly appeared alongside, and they were discovered hidden among the gravel which formed the ballast of their vessel.

William's successful policy abroad.

The capture of Preston, and the disclosure of the Jacobite plot, allowed William to go abroad, leaving the complete investigation of the treason to his ministers in England. On the Continent his diplomacy had been singularly successful. He had brought together a great coalition, and had succeeded in winning the Duke of Savoy, whom the King of France had reckoned among his allies, and whose territory closed the passage of the French to the Spanish dominions in Italy. Success would have cemented the coalition, and induced Denmark and Sweden, which were still wavering, to join it. But in rapidity of action a coalition is seldom a match for a single power, and Louis was able to forestall the action of the allies, and capture the important fortress of Mons, in spite of all William's efforts to relieve it. But this first success, though damaging to the coalition, produced no very important military events; the advantages of the French both in Spain and Italy were counterbalanced by the disasters which befell their allies First crisis of the war over. the Turks in Hungary, and the main armies in Flanders under William and Luxemburg were content merely to watch each other. The first crisis of the war was in fact over. The centre of the coalition was William; his strength was derived from his position as King of England; deprived of that position, he would have lost most of his influence, and the only chance of depriving him of it had been the success of the Irish. It was in Ireland, therefore, that the real crisis of the war had arrived. The defeat of James at the Boyne in 1690, and of St. Ruth at Aghrim almost exactly a year after, had thus rendered all hopes of destroying William's position futile. Once again, in the following year, the same critical situation of affairs arose. With the battle of La Hogue the success of James became hopeless, and though the war continued for many years, there is no other point in it which can really be called critical.

James's hopes upheld by the treason of the ministry

The causes which led James still to cherish hope, and which induced him to persuade Louis to contemplate that invasion of England to which the battle of La Hogue put an end, are to be found in the conduct of the Jacobite party in England: for while William's attention was constantly turned to the Continent, treason found its way among his own immediate ministers. Uncertain even yet of the stability of the new Government, three of the greatest among them determined to be safe on either issue. Admiral Russell, and Godolphin, head of the Treasury, succeeded in obtaining written pardons from James; and Marlborough, whose previous treachery might have been supposed unpardonable, made such a show of repentance, that he obtained the same favour, promising in exchange, when he should be in command of the English troops, to bring them over to the enemy. But even the treachery of Marlborough and of Marlborough. partook of the greatness of his character. His views reached far beyond this commonplace act of treason. He was already devising plans by which the fate of England and of Europe should be in his own hands. As his schemes were not yet ready, though the opportunity he had mentioned to James arose in Flanders, he contrived to excuse himself from performing his promise. But before long circumstances led him to believe that he might carry out his treacherous plans in a way more in accordance with his own wishes. The session of Parliament had been a somewhat stormy one. The immense emoluments of place-holders had excited the anger of the Opposition, and although the extreme measures suggested, which went so far as to cut down all official salaries to £500, had destroyed all attempts at wholesome reform, there was much continued discontent against the Court. There had been bitter quarrels also between the Upper and Lower Houses upon new arrangements of the Treason Law which had been suggested, and all parties seemed to be combined in mistrust and dislike of the favours lavished on foreigners. This state of affairs seemed to open the way for Marlborough's intrigues. In fact, years of rivalry and several bloody wars, coupled with constant outrages on one side or the other on distant colonies, had rendered the Dutch at least as hateful to the English as the French; nor was the feeling diminished by seeing many of the greater and more lucrative offices in the hands of members of the hated nation. By working on this feeling, Marlborough hoped to induce Parliament to petition the King to discharge all foreign troops, a line of conduct which at a subsequent period was actually followed. Once rid of these troops (and he thought it impossible that William, situated as he was, could withstand a formal Parliamentary request), Marlborough relied on his own ability to induce the English army, which was very jealous of William's liking for his own Dutch troops, to further his views. The absolute authority which his wife exercised over the Princess Anne enabled him to secure her adhesion to his plans. She wrote friendly and repentant letters to her father. With the army at his command, and with the Protestant heiress inclined to favour his projects, Marlborough would declare for James, and secure his return without the danger of foreign invasion, without the shedding of a drop of blood. Such at least was the story he told the Jacobites. Men who knew his character mistrusted him. It was more likely, they thought, and this seems to have been his real plan, that he would declare not for King James, but for Princess Anne herself. He would thus become indirectly the ruler of England, and as such the head of the European coalition, and the arbiter of Europe.