[254] Captain Kennedy to the Scotch Council, December 12, in Leven and Melville Papers. Story’s Impartial History, November to February, 1689-90. The author of Light to the Blind says the attack on Newry was a mere reconnaissance and that there was no repulse. Schomberg says Boisseleau was there, State Papers, Domestic, December 6. As to the action at Cavan, besides the above and Berwick’s memoirs, there are accounts in State Papers, Domestic, particularly Schomberg’s letter, February 19, and that of Gustavus Hamilton, ambiguously calendared under March 21, 1689 (Addenda, p. 571).
[255] Melfort’s unpopularity is sufficiently shown by Dundee’s letters to him, June 27 and 28, Napier, iii. 599. Notices in Dangeau and De Sourches. Avaux’s letters, particularly that of July 16/26, enclosing James’s requirements, Louvois to Avaux, September 7/17. Madame de Sévigné marvelled greatly at Lauzun’s ‘second volume.’ The reference to her letters and to Bussy Rabutin’s concerning him are collected in the Grands Ecrivains edition of La Bruyère, i. 335, 535, where he is characterised under the name of Straton. Madame de Caylus in her memoirs notes the good luck of Lauzun in being in England at the critical time, gaining honour and glory for helping William by assisting the flight of James.
[256] Lauzun to Seignelay, April 6/16, in appendix to Ranke’s History and to Louvois, ib. June 16. Proclamation of March 25/April 4. It was known at the French Court that Lauzun was ‘extrêmement ulceré avec raison’ against Dover, De Sourches, April 24/May 4. Compare the extracts in Miss Sandars’s Lauzun. True and Perfect Journal, June 16.
[257] Simon Luttrell’s orders as Governor of Dublin, May 3 and June 18, 1690, in appendix to King’s State of the Protestants, nos. 30 and 31. Besides King’s principal book on this subject we have his autobiography, the original Latin printed in English Historical Review, vol. xiii., an English version in King’s A great Archbishop of Dublin, and his diary edited by Dr. Lawlor in the Irish Journal of Archæology, 1903.
[258] Archdeacon Hamilton’s Life of Bonnell, 3rd edition, 1707, particularly pp. 60, 273. Bonnell to Strype, August 20, 1684, January 21, and April 17, 1689, and August 5, 1690, in English Historical Review, xix. 122, 299. Clarendon and Rochester Corr., i. 245, 266. Cartwright was buried in Christ Church with a full choral service, all the principal people in Dublin attending, Athenæ Oxonienses, p. 831. Bonnell to Harty, Portland Papers, November 3, 1691.
[259] College register for 1689-90 printed in Stubbs’s Hist. of the University of Dublin, pp. 127-133. Harris’s Ware, ii. 288. King, iii. 15.
[CHAPTER LIV]
WILLIAM III. IN IRELAND, 1690. THE BOYNE
The French contingent. Dover and Lauzun.
Lauzun and Dover were in Dublin together early in April, and continued to quarrel there. The Englishman made light of the French contingent, saying that Louis was plainly deceiving King James, who would be well advised to make terms with the Prince of Orange. Uncle and nephew might then join their forces to those of the Augsburg allies and attack the tyrant of Europe. The old courtier proposed to go to William and make terms for himself, but James could not countenance this, though willing to give him a pass for Flanders, since he could not venture into France. In the end he was allowed to live and die unmolested in England. As for Lauzun, he had no hopes of successfully resisting the Prince of Orange, and proposed to burn Dublin and destroy the country entirely while retreating from point to point, but James thought this policy too cruel. In the meantime the French general exerted himself in the work of arming and organising the Irish, and in this he made considerable progress. He could not speak or understand English, and his attendance at the Council was waste of time, so he proposed to do business with the King and Tyrconnel. The three accordingly met daily, and Lauzun succeeded in making friends with the Lord Lieutenant, who had been cautioned by Avaux not to trust him lest he should usurp all power, seeing that he had already ruined his career by vaingloriousness, and was not likely to be much changed for the better. But he assured the French minister that he was a chastened man and worked with a single eye to the interest and wishes of his own King.[260]