Nor had Lundy been slow in carrying out this work. His energy had inspired the townspeople with confidence and ensured that an otherwise penny-pinching corporation would spend money on improving the city’s defences. He had done wonders for morale in the city, according to one contemporary commentator, who noted that ‘The Opinion they had of his Experience in War, and Zeal for the Cause they were to Maintain, gave all the People great Expectation from his Conduct.6 The writer of those words was the Reverend George Walker, rector of Donoughmore near Dungannon in County Tyrone, who was recounting his experience when he made a visit to the city in March 1689. On that occasion Walker was seeking assistance for Dungannon from Lundy and he was successful in his mission, recording that Lundy ‘approves and encourages the design, sends two files of his disciplined men to Dungannon, and afterwards two troops of dragoons’.7 Walker was later to become a governor of the city during the siege and to produce the first account of that siege. By contrast, Lundy is remembered more commonly as a traitor with a name that has become synonymous with treachery, in Ulster at least. But it is a simple fact of history that the work carried out to the city’s defences at Lundy’s behest and under his supervision was responsible for the city being able to stand against the Jacobite army. One recent writer on the siege avers that apart from ‘the building of a ravelin in front of the Bishop’s Gate, [Lundy] had done little to improve the defences’.8 As may be seen, this assessment is far from accurate.
Lundy had also made appeals for assistance to several noteworthy figures including the Duke of Ormonde, the Earl of Clarendon (the former lord lieutenant of Ireland), Admiral Herbert, commanding the Royal Navy, and Major-General McKay in Scotland. To each of these he had written ‘begging of them’ to represent the condition of the Protestants of Ireland ‘to his Highness the prince of Orange’. In his appeal he made it clear that ‘without a speedy supply of men money arms and ammunition . . . they [were] all lost’. He had also remonstrated against any precipitate action that might bring the fury of Tyrconnel on the city while it was still in a state unfit to meet an assault. Thus when the gentry of the counties of Londonderry, Tyrone and Donegal had a meeting in the city on 16 January to discuss a letter from their counterparts in Antrim and Down proposing that they all entered into an association ‘for defence of the Protestant religion’, Lundy opposed the idea, saying that it was a downright defiance to the government and that they were in no fit condition to be provoking the government in such fashion at that time. This association was the Council of the North, which we shall meet later. Lundy counselled that the Protestants of the north-west should continue to prepare themselves for defence ‘but with little noise, for fear of bringing an Army amongst them’.
Following Lundy’s advice, the gentry of the north-western counties began raising regiments: County Londonderry was able to raise one dragoon and three infantry regiments and also chose Lundy as governor of the county. In Tyrone one dragoon and two infantry regiments were added to the Williamite order of battle while Lundy and Colonel Hamilton were made joint governors of the county. For its part, Donegal, which elected Colonel Hamilton as governor, contributed another three infantry regiments as well as one of dragoons. Lundy appointed majors to each of these regiments from Protestant officers of Mountjoy’s Regiment who had laid down their commissions from Tyrconnel and come back to the north.
Robert Lundy might have been the principal architect of the city’s defences but he was not alone in his efforts on its behalf. Captain John Forward,1 sheriff of Donegal, brought in a shipload of arms and powder from The Netherlands while, as we have seen, other landowners in Counties Donegal, Londonderry and Tyrone strengthened the local garrison with their newly-raised regiments.9 John Forward had also ignored Tyrconnel’s order to disarm the Protestants of Donegal and was thus able to ensure that the men of his county were prepared for the forthcoming conflict. He had been active from the beginning of the crisis and with William Stewart had ‘brought about two or three hundred horse into the city’ on 10 December. John Cowan, from St Johnston in County Donegal, had also brought a company of foot soldiers to the city, and these, with Forward and Stewart’s horsemen, were offered to the city fathers to assist the defence. Further troops came from Limavady where Philips recruited ‘about three or four hundred horse’, while William Hamilton of Moyagh brought in another two hundred.10
The corporation had already chosen David Cairnes, a local lawyer and uncle to one of the apprentices who had shut the gates, to obtain help for the city from England. As we have seen, Cairnes had helped to organize the existing garrison into six companies before departing for London on 11 December to make an appeal to the Irish Society for arms and ammunition to defend the city they had adopted. He carried ‘a large letter of credence, and full instructions under the hands and seals of the chief then in town . . . [and] also a letter to the [Irish] Society in London’. A private cypher was devised so that Cairnes might correspond securely.11
In County Fermanagh the people of Enniskillen and the surrounding area had also taken steps to protect their interests against a Jacobite attack. Although Enniskillen was a small town, really only a village of about eighty dwellings, outside a castle, it had become a stronghold for the Protestants of the region of south-west Ulster and north Connaught. On 16 December 1688 an act of defiance by the Enniskillen men had caused a Jacobite force to retreat into Cavan to be ‘seen no more’.’ Enniskillen and Derry had become rebel strongholds but in the rest of Ulster the prospects for the Protestant people seemed much less auspicious.
Tyrconnel wrote to the exiled James II in France, using Mountjoy as the bearer of the letter, suggesting that he (Tyrconnel) could lay waste to Ireland for James but that preserving and making use of the country for the king was not possible. The Lord Deputy was having a crisis of loyalty, if not of conscience, and was considering the possibility of a compromise with William that would give Catholics in Ireland more justice than they had seen under Charles II. Using Mountjoy as a messenger also served to get the latter out of Ireland, as Tyrconnel suspected his loyalty following the compromise that Mountjoy had arranged at Derry. But Mountjoy did not make his journey to Paris alone. He was accompanied by Stephen Rice, Chief Baron of the Exchequer Court, who, unknown to Mountjoy, carried another message to James, indicating that the latter was a traitor and the leader of Ireland’s Protestants. Otherwise, Tyrconnel advised James, Ireland was firmly on the king’s side and would rise in arms if he were to come to Ireland with a French army. James was happy to allow Mountjoy to return to Ireland but Louis XIV took a different view and ordered the earl to be locked up in a Paris prison where he remained for the next three years.214
Louis now saw the advantage of supporting James in Ireland but with the limited objectives that we have already noted, whereas James saw Ireland as a stepping-off point for Scotland. There, Claverhouse, ‘Bonnie Dundee’, was also ready to rise in arms in support of James who, with Ireland and Scotland behind him, could march south to London and be restored to his kingdoms. James’ strategy was to make Derry a critical objective in any Irish campaign since from there he could transport an army to Scotland.
Meanwhile Tyrconnel was also negotiating with William, who had no desire to become involved in military action in Ireland and, in any case, had no troops to spare for a campaign there, such was the state of the English army. With Tyrconnel hinting that Ireland might come over to William’s cause there seemed every reason for negotiations. An intermediary was found in the person of Richard Hamilton, an Irish Catholic officer in one of the regiments previously deployed to England but who had become a prisoner of William. Hamilton told William that he knew Tyrconnel, which was true, and that he believed that he could persuade the latter to change sides. Having spoken to Tyrconnel, Hamilton undertook to return to England to report to William, and with the help of John Temple, an officer in William’s service, who vouched for him, travelled to Ireland with William’s offer to Tyrconnel and the Irish Catholics. We do not know if
Hamilton’s original intentions were honest, or if Tyrconnel would have accepted William’s terms, since events now moved so quickly that the Irish Catholics would accept no compromise. Tyrconnel had set rolling a ball that had now achieved its own momentum over which the Lord Deputy had little control. For the unfortunate John Temple the apparent treachery of Hamilton led to his taking his own life rather than face dishonour. He was to be but one of the many casualties that the course of events in Ireland was to cause.15
By the time James landed at Kinsale in March, Tyrconnel had already decided that he would remain true to the Jacobite cause and called for support for his master throughout Ireland. A banner displayed on Dublin Castle bore the legend ‘Now or Never! Now and for Ever’. Any man who could raise a body of troops for the army was offered a commission; this had a huge response with some sources putting the number of troops raised as high as 100,000.16 This is a most unlikely figure and a maximum of 50,000 is more plausible. The Protestants of Leinster, Munster and Connaught suffered attacks and outrages that included the theft or destruction of property on a massive scale. Louis’ ambassador to James’ court, Comte d’Avaux, reported that more than 5,000 cattle had been slaughtered by thieves in a six-week period; Macrory records this as 50,000 cattle and 300,000 sheep although Avaux’s ‘plus de cinq mille boeufs’, with no mention of sheep, leaves little doubt of the figure. Livestock was stolen and killed for no purpose other than to remove the hides of the beasts, which were then left to rot in the countryside. Milligan suggests that Avaux noted that since the cattle ‘were mostly killed during Lent’ their carcasses were left untouched. Once again, this is a complete departure from the original. However, Avaux did reckon that Ireland would need ten years to recover from the depredations of six weeks, which suggests that the problem was more than 5,000 slaughtered cattle. He also wished to have provost companies assigned to dealing with the thieves who plagued Ireland.17
By the time James came ashore there was no opposition outside Ulster. Less than a week later, Avaux was writing from Cork to tell Louis that Tyrconnel believed that the Irish Protestants would fall back on Londonderry, a strong town in Irish terms, and that this might lead to an encounter that would last several days. That same day, however, he was writing to Louvois, Louis’ war minister, with the information that Tyrconnel believed that besieging Londonderry would be more difficult than had been imagined.18 On 15 April a Mr Evans, ‘lately come out of Ireland’, gave evidence to the House of Commons of James’ arrival in Ireland ‘with two and twenty ships; accompanied by Count Davaux, and other French officers, to the number of two hundred; and of his going to Cork and Dublin; and his intentions to go Northwards, and into Scotland; and of the seizing of the Duke of Ormonde’s estate, and the stocks of the Protestants’.19 Evans appeared to be very well informed. Tyrconnel had travelled south to bring his king the news that opposition outside Ulster was non-existent, but he also assured James that the opposition in Ulster was being dealt with; already Lieutenant-General Richard Hamilton had marched north from Dublin leading a force of 2,500 men, as many as Tyrconnel could spare from the capital, to deal with the Ulster rebels. This was the same Richard Hamilton who had travelled from London as an emissary to Tyrconnel from William.
In his report to James, Tyrconnel noted that the army was not yet battleworthy, a view supported by Avaux in many of his letters.20 However, the anonymous Jacobite author of A Light to the Blind had a higher opinion of the same army and wrote that:
Of battering cannon, of field pieces they had enough to their purpose . . . Of small arms they had some store; they had iron and artificiers to form a sufficiency in a short time, as also to cast mortars and bombs, pikes, half pikes, scythes, spades, pickaxes, and other utensils of war they might have in abundance.21
That this assessment was foolishly optimistic was to be proved beyond any doubt when the Jacobite army laid siege to the city.
What of the French support that arrived with James? This had been much less than might have been expected and the arms supplied were of poor quality, probably weapons of which the French quartermasters wished to dispose. However, James was accompanied by some 200 officers, both British and French, as Evans had told the House of Commons. These included James’ illegitimate sons, the Duke of Berwick and the Grand Prior, the former born in 1671 and, therefore, only eighteen, the latter some two years younger, as well as men of experience, commanders and advisers such as John Drummond, Earl of Melfort, a Scot, and Henry Jermyn, Lord Dover. His military commanders included Patrick Sarsfield, John Wauchope and William Dorrington. Among the Frenchmen in James’ entourage was le Comte d’Avaux, Louis’ ambassador, Conrad de Rosen, the French commander, and several senior army officers. The latter included Maumont, Pusignan, Lery and the Marquis de Pointis; the last named was a naval officer but also an engineer and artilleryman.22
In Dublin James summoned the Irish Parliament to meet on 7 May but, before that, he made a speech in the capital in which he outlined his policy in Ireland. He promised religious freedom for everyone and asked that nothing should be preached or taught that might ‘alienate the hearts of our people from us’. Appealing to those Protestants who had fled the country to return to Ireland within forty days, he guaranteed that they and their property would receive full protection.23 James was sincere in his appeal and probably believed that his Protestant subjects would accept his promises and guarantees. In that judgement he was completely out of touch with the levels of suspicion, distrust and hatred that prevailed across the land.
Richard Hamilton’s army was already making war in Ulster and thereby ensuring that James’ promises and appeals would fall on deaf ears. Londonderry and Enniskillen were the major Protestant strongholds in Ulster but not the only ones. Ulster’s Protestants had heard stories of the size of the army that Tyrconnel had mustered, stories that were exaggerated as is the nature of such things, and felt that it would not be long before this army would be used against them. No Protestant is likely to have believed that the army existed for the safety or advantage of their community.
At this stage, John Hawkins, a young Protestant of some means, helped galvanize the defensive spirit in Ulster, persuading both Protestant and Dissenter that they should arm and come together to defend both their persons and their homes.24 In January 1689 the aristocracy of the north-eastern counties had appointed Lord Mount-Alexander, he to whom the Comber Letter had been addressed, as leader of all Protestant forces in the counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down and Monaghan. By mid-January, the gentry of these four counties had formed the Council of the North, which met at Hillsborough, and made approaches to the Protestants of the other Ulster counties. The Council had also approached the Earl of Clarendon for support in asking William for troops, arms and equipment as well as money to defend Ulster against the Jacobite threat. Their requirements included 10,000 infantry, 1,500 cavalry and 20,000 muskets for local volunteers. Mount-Alexander had written to Robert Lundy, telling him of the preparations being made for a Jacobite expedition into Ulster and asking that Lundy should join forces with the Council’s army.
Lundy’s reply to Mount-Alexander showed a strategic awareness of the overall situation in Ulster and the importance of Londonderry:
I writ him word that I could not come to join him in his country as he desired, for fear of the Irish marching straight to Derry, but as soon as was possible I would march with all the forces I could make and 2 field pieces and all the ammunition I could spare to Dungannon, which was the pass in to our north and in case the Irish Army [marched] straight to him if he would keep the pass of Portadown for me I would march that way to join him, and that in the meantime I had posted Captain Stewart at Dungannon with 3 troops of dragoons, 100 detached Red Coats and 6 country companies3 to make that pass good and keep the garrison of Charlemont in [as] they had been very troublesome to the country by plundering them of their goods and cattle.
Thus it appears that Lundy was well informed on what was happening elsewhere in Ulster, even t
o the extent of knowing that the Jacobite garrison of Charlemont was making nuisance raids throughout the surrounding countryside, stealing cattle and provisions. But he continued to hold paramount the integrity of Londonderry and hence his reluctance to move his force away from the city. It is unlikely that such a move would have met with the approval of the local gentry in any case, leaving Lundy able only to field a small force.
The news that William and Mary had been proclaimed as joint sovereigns in England seems to have lulled the Council of the North into a state of inertia. Believing that this news meant that Tyrconnel would come to terms with William, the Council lost any sense of urgency and, in spite of the exhortations of John Hawkins, seemed to think that the crisis was over. A few companies of soldiers were mustered and deployed to various points but the earlier plans to gather and store weapons, ammunition and other military equipment now seemed to be of passing interest. In the light of what was about to happen it was as well that Lundy had not sent any troops to join them.
The Siege of Derry 1689 Page 6
