7: NA Kew, ADM1/11935
8: Lacy, op cit, pp. 9–32
9: Simpson, Annals of Derry, p. 19
10: Ibid; Lacy, op cit, p. 68
11: Simpson, op cit, p. 19; Lacy, op cit, pp. 69–70
12: Simpson, op cit, pp. 21–3; Lacy, op cit, pp. 72–7
13: Simpson, op cit, pp. 25–6; Lacy, pp. 78–80
14: Lacy, op cit, pp. 81–87; Simpson, op cit, pp. 28–33; Macrory, The Siege of Derry, pp. 68–80
15: Simpson, op cit, pp. 34–5
16: Scott et al, The Cannon from the City of Derry, p. 118
17: Lacy, op cit, pp. 90–1
18: Milligan, The Walls of Derry, p. 33
19: Ibid, p. 122
20: Lacy, op cit, p. 100; further information from St Columb’s Cathedral.
21: Ibid, p. 25 & p. 95
22: Chartrand, Louis XIV’s Army, p. 11
23: Ibid, p. 8
24: Ibid, pp. 7–8
25: Ibid, p. 8
26: Ibid, p. 10
27: Ibid, p. 11
28: Harris, Revolution, pp. 1–2
29: Clark, The Later Stuarts, p. 117
30: Ibid, p. 127
31: Stewart, The Narrow Ground, pp. 63–4
32: Quoted in Maguire, Kings in Conflict, p. 54
33: Ibid
34: These were the Earls of Devonshire, Danby and Shrewsbury, the Bishop of London, Henry Compton, Lord Lumley, Edward Russell and Henry Sidney. Harris – op cit, p. 3 – describes their letter as ‘incredible’ since it was ‘an invitation to a foreign power from high-ranking political and religious figures to invade their own country’.
35: Clark, op cit, pp. 138–9
36: Ibid, p. 139
37: Ibid
38: Ibid, pp. 142–153
__________
1 The monks of the Dub Regles adopted the Rule of St Augustine and the church became an Augustinian monastery, surviving as such until the end of the middle ages. The site, therefore, has an ecclesiastical history of some 1,400 years.
2 The former county formed the basis of the new county of Londonderry. To Coleraine county were added parts of Counties Tyrone and Antrim as well as part of County Donegal in which sat the city of Londonderry.
3 Reps suggested that the original plans for Philadelphia had parallels with those for Londonderry.
4 Grammar schools were so called because their pupils were taught Latin grammar.
5 Their name derives from the German eidgenossen, men bound to one another by oath. France’s Protestants originated in Switzerland and were followers of Calvin.
6 This had a long-lasting effect which continued until the present reign which required all royal births to be witnessed on behalf of Parliament. This requirement has now been dropped.
7 Although this may be seen as a significant event in Irish history there is nothing in Kinsale today to mark the arrival of King James
8 William’s family held large estates in Nassau and were counts of Nassau. In spite of his religious upbringing, William was a very tolerant man and made no distinctions between Catholics and Protestants; his Blue Guards were mostly Catholic and their loyalty to William was unquestioning.
CHAPTER TWO
The Closing of the Gates
When King James II came to the throne in 1685 on the death of his brother Charles II, there were expectations in Ireland that the social and political situation of the country’s Catholics might improve. Those Catholics who had lost land and property during the Cromwellian period had hoped that the restoration of the monarchy would see a reversal of the confiscations that had taken place under the Commonwealth with a repeal of the Acts of Settlement that, in 1652, had gifted land to supporters of the parliamentary cause and placed two-thirds of all the land in Ireland into Protestant hands. But Charles II, although sympathetic to the plight of the Catholic gentry – who had, after all, provided him with much support and many officers for his army in exile – adopted a pragmatic stance. Realizing that he had been restored to the throne by the army of the Commonwealth and that to upset the parliamentarians could well lead to a second, and possibly permanent, spell of exile, Charles chose to do little and his Irish Catholic subjects were disappointed.
The little that Charles did do was enshrined in a declaration of 30 November 1660 by which those Cromwellian adventurers and soldiers who had been given land in lieu of pay that was due to them were allowed to hold whatever estates were theirs on 7 May 1659. Nonetheless there were some exceptions: Ormonde and other loyalists were to have all their property restored and the Church of Ireland was to be treated likewise, as were all Anglicans who had lost property. Some Catholics, those who had remained loyal to the crown since 22 October 1642, were also to have their property restored while those Cromwellians who had been in possession of it were to receive compensation. Sir Charles Petrie considered that Charles would never have signed the declaration ‘had his information concerning conditions in Ireland been more accurate, or had he paid the briefest of visits to the country’. Petrie provided no evidence to substantiate his theory.
But King James II was considered to be a very different individual. As Duke of York he had adopted Catholicism with enthusiasm and much was hoped from him. There were signs that he might be willing to improve the situation of Catholic landowners whose property had been confiscated under Cromwell. Such hopes may have been raised when James removed the incumbent viceroy, the Duke of Ormonde, and replaced him with Henry Hyde, second Earl of Clarendon and his own brother-in-law. A contemporary commentator wrote that
The Duke of Ormonde, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, is removed from that government, and two lords justices appointed for that purpose at present: his [Ormonde’s] regiment is given to Col. Talbot: the privy council is dissolved, and a new one appointed, and some talk as if there were a design for the papists regaining their estates in that kingdom.
The two lords justices were the Archbishop of Armagh and the Earl of Granard. The Colonel Talbot to whom Ormonde’s Regiment was given was Richard Talbot, of Malahide,1 a close friend and confidant of James II. Ormonde had expected to be succeeded by Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, but the latter showed no desire to take up the appointment, which then passed to his elder brother Henry. Not only was Richard Talbot given command of Ormonde’s regiment but he was also ennobled as Baron of Talbotstown, Viscount Baltinglas and Earl of Tyrconnel. It was by the last title, which had once belonged to The O’Donnell, that Talbot was to be best known and remembered. He was also promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general and appointed commander-in-chief of the army in Ireland.
Clarendon and Tyrconnel were not men who could work together. The former lacked his father’s ability but had inherited his narrowness of mind while harbouring a dislike of Irishmen and Catholics in general and of Talbot, now Tyrconnel, in particular. Some contemporaries felt that James intended that the two should neutralize each other but ‘the elevation of Tyrconnel to the peerage and to the rank of Lieutenant-General was as far as James felt he could safely go for the moment . . . it was only the first step in a revolution of the Irish administration’.
Initially, Tyrconnel did nothing overt against Clarendon who did not travel to Dublin until January 1686. Thereafter there was friction between the pair, with Tyrconnel doing his utmost to undermine Clarendon and force James to recall the viceroy. In February 1687 the viceroy resigned but, although Tyrconnel hoped to be appointed in his stead, James was unwilling to give him that title. Rather Tyrconnel was made lord deputy in Ireland but since, effectively, he was the viceroy, he set about reforming the military and civil services in the country. Whereas James had instructed Tyrconnel to treat Catholics and Protestants alike, the lord deputy had his own agenda and began purging both the army and the administration of Protestants, replacing them with Catholics. Tyrconnel, ‘a fighting man, truculent and ambitious’, was the brother of a former Catholic archbishop of Dublin and was married to Frances Jennings, a sister of Sarah, later to be the first Du
chess of Marlborough. A very ambitious individual, Tyrconnel ‘worked whole-heartedly . . . to build up the royal power in Ireland; but on a catholic basis’. In the long term, however, he did more to bring about James’ defeat in Ireland than almost any other individual or factor.
One of Tyrconnel’s first measures as lord deputy was to reform the councils and corporations of Ireland which were entirely Protestant in their composition with Catholics denied seats. At first Tyrconnel suggested that Catholics and Protestants should have equal representation on councils but when this proposal was rejected he invoked the royal prerogative to issue an order in council that called in the charters of the towns and cities. Most councils accepted this, but among the few that did not were those of Londonderry and Dublin. The recalcitrant councils were brought into line by the courts, which decided that the king could do as he wished with their charters as he had awarded them in the first instance. James commented that there was ‘no great trouble except at Londonderry (a stubborn people, as they appeared to be afterwards), who stood an obstinate suit, but were forced at last to undergo the same fate with the rest’. Tyrconnel issued another order in council that warned those clerics who pronounced from the pulpit on matters political that there would be penalties should such oratory persist.
The Irish army was a separate establishment from that of England – and a further discrete establishment was maintained in Scotland – and was paid for from the monarch’s personal purse rather than by Parliament which voted the funds for the English army.1 In 1684, the year before James came to the throne, the army of Ireland included a troop of Horse Guards, the Regiment of Guards in the Kingdom of Ireland, twenty-four troops of cavalry and seventy-five companies of infantry, giving an overall force of some 1,400 horse and 6,400 foot soldiers.2 The Irish army was deficient in artillery, the third major arm or fighting element, but contemporary practice was to raise a train of artillery for each campaign or war rather than to maintain a permanent body of artillery. In England the artillery was the responsibility of the Board of Ordnance rather than the army and came under command of the Master-General of the Ordnance;3 a similar arrangement existed in Ireland where Lord Mountjoy was Master-General of the Irish Ordnance.4 The English Board of Ordnance equated to a department of government and the Master-General of the Ordnance had responsibility for all matters related to the artillery and those services associated with it: manufacturing, testing and maintaining the weapons; recruiting and training gunners and their teams; ensuring the availability of munitions and other necessary stores.5 His responsibility extended to engineering services and supplies as well as the upkeep of fortresses (the letters BO can be seen to this day on many such buildings) and to the Royal Navy, for which he also oversaw the provision of weaponry and other associated stores. During 1684 the Irish army was reorganized into regiments so that when James became king in 1685 there were three cavalry and seven infantry regiments in his army in Ireland. Some permanent Irish artillery had been formed under Mountjoy’s command (he assumed his post in 1684) but the Irish Board of Ordnance was subject to that in London. In 1685 a regiment of dragoons was also added to the Irish army’s order of battle.6
The officers and soldiers of the Irish army had not been confined to service at home. Since the monarch had more discretion in the employment of his Irish forces than those in England, some of his Irish troops had seen service on the continent, often on loan to other monarchs, and even in Tangier.2 Irish forces had also been prepared for service in Scotland on two occasions; these expeditions, which were cancelled, would have seen them fight against the Covenanters. However, the army’s primary employment had been as a police force within Ireland; soldiers were posted in small groups throughout the country to combat tories, or thieves. Thus it was not an effective military force; it was considered inefficient and was, at times, close to mutiny, although poor pay may have provided much of the reason for this latter state. Prospects for this army being successful in action were poor; the contrast with the contemporary French army could not have been greater.7
With Talbot’s appointment as lord deputy, the army was faced with further changes as a purge of Protestant officers and soldiers began. This followed the disbandment of the militia which had been almost entirely Protestant.8 By the time James landed at Kinsale in March 1689 Talbot had removed more than 4,000 Protestants, about a tenth of whom were officers. Talbot’s plan to convert the Irish army to a largely Catholic force was pushed through in quick time. In 1685 there were fewer than a thousand Catholic soldiers but their numbers had increased almost fivefold by the end of 1686, a period of only eighteen months. One of the last regiments that Talbot set out to purge was the garrison regiment in Londonderry, commanded by William Stewart, Lord Mountjoy, of Ramelton in County Donegal, which was ordered to Dublin in November 1688. Mountjoy’s lieutenant-colonel was a Scot, Robert Lundy, who had seen much service and was to be one of the central figures of the siege. We shall see later how the attempted replacement of Mountjoy’s Regiment with the Earl of Antrim’s Regiment was a major factor in events at Londonderry.
William III disbanded the Irish army, which was now James’ army anyway, with the exception of a single regiment which had been deployed to England. The latter was Forbes’s Regiment, later to become the Royal Irish, the senior Irish line infantry regiment3 of the British Army, from which William removed all Catholics. Similar purges of Catholics took place throughout the English army. Although William might have declared it disbanded, the Irish army continued in existence and began expanding its infantry establishment; there were thirty-five regiments by May 1689. The normal complement of a regiment was thirteen companies, each nominally sixty strong, but many mustered fewer men. This Irish Jacobite army also included two battalions of foot guards, seven regiments of horse, seven dragoon regiments and a troop of horse grenadiers. By the time that Londonderry became the front line in the war in Ireland the Jacobite army had increased to about sixty regiments, with some infantry units having as many as forty-five companies, an unmanageable order of battle. A process of rationalization in 1689 reduced this figure to forty-five infantry regiments, nine cavalry, including a Life Guard, and eight dragoon regiments. One contemporary account suggests that the army increased to 60,000 soldiers before being reduced to 35,000.
A similar situation had arisen with the English army which had lost most of its officers following John Churchill’s defection to William. With only one-third of its experienced officers remaining in service, the army faced many problems, especially as it tried to expand, and, during the Irish campaign, these had often appalling consequences for its soldiers while testing the faith of William and his Dutch commanders in their English soldiery.
Needless to say, the rapid expansion in the Irish army also caused many problems, not the least of which was in supply. It is hardly surprising that logistics were to prove the greatest weakness of the Jacobite army at war. Many Jacobite soldiers were neither equipped nor clothed properly, with contemporary accounts showing that large numbers went to war in their everyday clothing while carrying cudgels, sticks and a variety of agricultural implements as weapons.10 Training also suffered, there not being sufficient time, nor enough instructors, to drill them in all the skills necessary for waging war, although some summer camps of instruction were held. Small wonder that this army was described as a ‘rabble’ by friend and foe alike. However, during 1689 standards improved considerably, in some part due to a decision by Patrick Sarsfleld to dismiss all those who did not meet his standards; Sarsfield’s action followed the 1689 campaign and thus did not affect events at Londonderry. These comments apply only to the Jacobite infantry since the cavalry was a very different story and, from the start, Jacobite cavalry were recognized as the match of anything that any other European nation could put into the field. As the cavalry were seen as the arme blanche of most armies, commissions in cavalry regiments were the most attractive to officers, and those regiments tended to number the socially elite in their ranks.11
This was also the case with the Jacobite cavalry with many officers drawn from those Irish Catholics who had served Charles II but who had been sent to the continent to do so; perhaps the best-known example of one of these men was Sarsfield, who was to earn distinction as one of the outstanding soldiers of his generation.12
In spite of its shortcomings, when the Jacobite army first took the field it enjoyed significant success. Much of this might have been due to the even greater shortcomings of the army’s Williamite opponents, but the morale effect of that success should not be understated. We have already seen that James, having fled into exile in France, had arrived in Ireland on 12 March 1689, landing at Kinsale. He had the support of Louis XIV and also found that Talbot had created a Catholic army and Catholic civil service in Ireland, James, however, was now becoming a pawn in the European power struggle in which the two principal figures were Louis and William. Although James hoped to regain his kingdoms, this was not an inherent part of Louis’ strategy. The latter saw James’ presence in Ireland, with a large army and French support, as something to distract William from the main conflict in Europe.
The French monarch’s strategy would compel William to guard his back. He would be forced to undertake a campaign in Ireland to contain the threat from James and would have to deploy English forces that might otherwise have reinforced the armies of the League of Augsburg on the mainland. And, of course, as we have seen, the Jacobite threat was not confined to Ireland since James also enjoyed considerable support in Scotland – where he was King James VII. Success in Ireland would allow James to move to Scotland, thus increasing the threat to England. This was to be James’ strategy, which he hoped would lead eventually to his return to London. Louis had every reason to be happy with his strategy.
By the time James arrived in Ireland his forces had enjoyed considerable success in Ulster. Early the previous December, an anonymous letter, addressed to Lord Mount-Alexander and dated 3 December, was, allegedly, found in Comber, a small village in County Down. Written in a semi-literate hand, or the hand of someone wishing to be considered semi-literate, the letter read:
The Siege of Derry 1689 Page 4
