O welcome be our noble king! Resound the harp, each dulcet string, While every loyal chord shall ring, And every loyal tongue shall sing, With filial burst, God save the king!
Oh, ever on his natal day Our grateful homage we shall pay; And bless the fav'ring breeze whose wing Wafted our great and generous king!
After this long digression we shall resume our story in the following chapter.
CHAPTER XIII.
----Hark! from camp to camp The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the fix'd sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other's watch; Steed threatens steed in high and boastful neighings, Piercing the night's dull ear.
King Henry V.
King James, almost immediately after his arrival in his capital of Dublin, assembled and met the Irish parliament. His Majesty proceeded in great state to the House of Peers to open the session, where, arrayed in his royal robes, and adorned with his crown,[48] he met the assembled lords and commons of Ireland. He made a most truly dignified and impressive speech[49] from the throne, with all that native grace and dignity with which indeed King James was peculiarly gifted; and he adopted his royal residence, while he sojourned in his Irish capital, at the Castle of Dublin, from whence His Majesty issued various proclamations.
The morning which succeeded the said meeting of parliament, at an early hour, the Duke of Tyrconnel received an express, which stated, that[50] "the Prince of Orange had landed at Carrickfergus, from the Mary yacht, attended by Prince George of Denmark, the Duke of Ormond, the Earls of Devonshire, Oxford, Scarborough, and Manchester, the Honourable Mr. Boyle, and many other persons of distinction. He tarried," it was added to the report, "only about half an hour after his landing, and then set off in Duke Schomberg's carriage for Belfast."
When this was told to King James, his only reply was, in allusion to Prince George: "What! has little 'est-il possible' deserted me at last!" [51]
The plain, but extraordinary fact now came forth, that the Prince of Orange had been actually six days in Ireland before any intimation or express to that effect had arrived thereby to acquaint King James of the event.