Louvois had strictly charged Lauzun not to attempt any dazzling exploit, but to devote himself entirely to gain time and to prolong the war. From the slavish way in which he addressed the great minister, belittling himself and claiming no merit but in strict obedience, it is evident that Lauzun distrusted his own powers. He had no belief in the cause for which he was fighting, and his main objects were to get King James safely back to his wife and to restore to King Louis his money, his guns, and as many of his soldiers as possible. Above all things he longed to get out of Ireland himself. The glory of defending Limerick was left to Boisseleau, the credit of keeping the French troops together after the retreat from the Boyne chiefly belongs to the Swiss Colonel Zurlauben and to a captain named La Pujade, of whom little else seems to be known. John and Anthony Hamilton as well as Tyrconnel accompanied Lauzun in the retreat to Limerick. La Hoguette and several other field officers seemed only anxious to get to the sea. During the battle the only French officer of rank killed was the Marquis d’Hoquincourt, who commanded an Irish battalion. Finding that his men would not stand, he charged alone and fell covered with wounds. Lauzun certainly gained no glory, and was quite unfit for the task in hand, but he maintained order during the retreat on the day of the Boyne, and the rear was then the post of honour. Long imprisonment may have shaken his nerves, but it seems hard to call him a coward, as Rousset has done, and he is more fairly to be judged by what he wrote to Louvois from Galway shortly before sailing for France:—‘The bad state of affairs and my small capacity will cause me to make many mistakes, but I beg you to excuse me to His Majesty; and at least I can assure you that death would be sweeter than what I suffer here.’[272]
King James had been most careful to provide for his own escape. More than a week before the battle he sent Sir Patrick Trant to prepare a ship at Waterford, and on the day after it he rode hard in that direction. Leaving Dublin about five in the morning, he soon reached Bray with two troops, which he left behind with orders to defend the bridge until twelve. No man pursued, and he travelled unmolested through the Wicklow highlands to Arklow, where there was a halt of two hours. Soon after leaving this place he was overtaken by La Hoguette and his three comrades, who had succeeded in mounting themselves, and who declared that they had been followed by troops. This was certainly not the case, but James was easily persuaded to mend his pace. At Enniscorthy he entered the house of Francis Randall, a Quaker, who observed that ‘the dejected monarch’ had been riding with his pistols at full cock. The man of peace set this right, prevented his men from seizing the King in hope of reward, and provided fresh horses. James reached Duncannon Fort about sunrise. La Hoguette and his friends went to Passage, higher up the Suir, where they found a ship of St. Malo mounting twenty-eight guns. The captain, who may have been in treaty with Trant, dropped down with the tide and was out of the river before night. King James’s Tower at Duncannon still preserves the memory of his flight. When safe at sea the Frenchmen wished him to go straight to Brest, but he preferred Kinsale, which was reached in the morning. There he found ten out of the twenty-five French frigates, provided at Mary of Modena’s request to secure her husband’s retreat and, if possible, to stop William’s supplies. The rest of the squadron did not reach Ireland. Before sailing finally James wrote to Tyrconnel giving him power to continue the struggle or to make terms at his discretion, and leaving him 50,000 pistoles, which was all the money he had. He reached Brest on the ninth day after the Boyne, bringing the first news of his own overthrow to France. Louis XIV. was as kind and hospitable as ever, but took care not to trust his guest with another army.[273]
The ground over which the Jacobite army retreated was so difficult that no very close pursuit was made. Some scattered horsemen hung about Lauzun’s flanks next morning, and added to the confusion of the beaten army, but without making any real impression. The glen at Naul formed an obstacle not to be attempted when daylight was failing. William went back to Duleek and spent the night in his carriage, the army bivouacking round him. The night was cold, though the day had been hot, and the soldiers made fires out of four or five thousand pikes and muskets which the fugitives had thrown away so as to run faster. Next morning, parties were detached to bring the tents and baggage from beyond the Boyne. Suspense reigned in Dublin during the day after the battle. Simon Luttrell had intended to carry off some of the chief Protestant inhabitants as hostages, but was prevented by rumours of a force landing near the town. Most of the well-to-do Roman Catholics followed him southwards, but their poorer co-religionists were soon in as bad a position and subjected to as great fear as the Protestants had been. They were protected by Captain Robert Fitzgerald, uncle of the Earl of Kildare, who lived in England. But some outrages were committed by the Galway Protestants, who had been long prisoners. Fitzgerald had been turned out of the army by Tyrconnel, deprived of his troop, for which he had paid 2000l., and imprisoned for some time. He now formed a guard of the most respectable Protestants, who prevented plunder, the hope of which had drawn some of King James’s men back into the town. A French soldier was caught trying to burn the thatch in Kevin Street, but was released after two days because he had acted under the orders of his major. Dublin narrowly escaped the fate of the Palatinate. Fitzgerald occupied the Castle immediately after Luttrell had left it, and in the morning a committee of nine, of which Dr. King was one, took charge of the city, and appointed him Governor until the King’s pleasure should be known. At noon he sent a letter to William, asking for help lest the enemy should return and injure the town. During the day the rescued Protestants ran about saluting and embracing each other, and blessing God for their wonderful deliverance, as if they had risen from the dead, and when at eight in the evening a troop of dragoons came in with an officer to take charge of stores, they hugged the horses and almost pulled the men off in their joy. When the King himself arrived, the rejoicings were not so great as for that first troop. Early on July 4, a large body of cavalry came in accompanied by the young Duke of Ormonde as a volunteer, and the Blue Dutch Guards followed later. William encamped at Finglas, and on Sunday, July 6, rode into Dublin to attend service at St. Patrick’s and hear a sermon from Dr. King. He returned to camp afterwards, and next day issued a declaration offering protection for person and property to ‘all poor labourers, common soldiers, country farmers, ploughmen, and colliers,’ and inhabitants of towns who had fled, provided they returned home by August 1, surrendered their arms, and gave their names for registration. Tenants were to pay their rents to Protestant landlords, but in other cases to hold the money until further orders. All disorder was to be sternly repressed, but ‘the desperate leaders of the present rebellion,’ who had called in the French, oppressed the Protestants, and rejected pardon offered a year before—these were to be left to the event of war unless they showed themselves fully penitent. William would have given better terms to the hostile landowners, but the men who had been included in the great Act of Attainder were in no forgiving mood, and he had to yield. When the time allowed had expired, this declaration was found to have had little effect, and the period of grace was extended to August 25, somewhat better conditions being given to the tenants and labourers. But for men of superior rank and quality, and for holders of office, no course was left but to surrender and betake themselves to some town where they might be allowed subsistence if destitute. Foreigners who came into the King’s quarters, might have passports to go home to their respective countries.[274]
Final ruin of the Stuart cause.
The reign of the Stuarts ended with the second flight of James II., though the military reduction of Ireland was deferred for more than a year. Owing chiefly to Sarsfield’s exploit, William abandoned the siege of Limerick, the defence of which forms a kind of counterpart to that of Londonderry. The international character of the contest is emphasised by the fact that in the decisive battle of Aughrim, the English army was commanded by a Dutchman, and the Irish by a Frenchman. Later on no Jacobite insurrection took place in Ireland, but vast numbers of Irishmen entered the French service and worked against England though they were unable to do anything for their own country. Sarsfield fell at Landen. At Paris in 1715, said Bolingbroke, ‘care and hope sat on every busy Irish face. Those who could write and read had letters to show, and those who had not arrived to this pitch of erudition had their secrets to whisper. No sex was excluded from this ministry. Fanny Oglethorpe kept her corner in it, and Olive Trant was the great wheel of our machine.’ But Ireland herself was quiet during the ill-starred movements in Scotland and in the North of England. In 1745 again nothing happened in Ireland, though the refugees had much to do with the events of that year, and were largely instrumental in the English defeat at Fontenoy. Of the seven men of Moidart who stood by Charles Edward on the Inverness-shire shore, at least two were Irish, one being a son of Tyrconnel’s secretary, Thomas Sheridan.
Sir Charles Wogan, who escaped from Newgate in 1715 and served both France and Spain, secured Maria Clementina for the Pretender. He told Swift that Irish soldiers abroad ‘had always the post of honour allowed them, where it was mixed with danger, and lived in perpetual fire,’ but that their reward was systematically scanty. Promises made to them were not kept. But they continued to fight bravely, to plot, and to hope against hope. During the dreary period of the penal laws the exiles damaged England without benefiting Ireland, but many of them or their children achieved success abroad. The names of O’Donnell, Macmahon, and Wall have a place in continental history.
FOOTNOTES:
[260] Lauzun to Seignelay, April 6/16 and July 16/26, in Ranke’s appendix.
[261] There is a full account of the Charlemont episode in Story’s Impartial Account, and an accurate contemporary plan in the Continuation. Compare Schomberg’s letters in State Papers, Domestic, December 26, March (p. 534), May 5, 11, 12, and 19.
[262] Delamere to Carmarthen, n.d., but calendared in State Papers, Domestic, under 1689, p. 381. Grey’s Debates, ix. 512, x. 2, 150. ‘Is the King so cock-sure of his army?’ was one of Delamere’s questions.