If the garrison chose to refuse this initial offer then the business of a siege began. This was a very exact military science which, by this time, had burgeoned in terms of military engineering. Artillerymen and engineers now came into their own with the latter preparing the way for the heavy guns to be brought ever closer to the walls; the preferred effective range was from 600 yards down to 100 yards, from which distance the guns could bombard the walls until the structure began to crumble. Once a useable breach had been created another offer of terms was made. Acceptance meant that the garrison would be accorded the same respect as if they had agreed to the initial call to surrender the fortress; but should the second offer be rejected, it was recognized that no quarter would be given in the ensuing assault, nor could it be sought, and that the entire garrison would perish. Civilians within the fortress might also die in the fierce fighting that would follow an assault through the breach, and this had to be considered by the commanders of the fortress.
However, all of this was irrelevant to the people sheltering behind Derry’s walls. They had no real concept of what was happening, or about to happen, and no knowledge of the protocols recognized by soldiers. To them the situation was one of mortal peril, and Derry was the last place in which they could seek refuge. This was a clear matter of survival, and such was their fear that they were no longer prepared to trust James, or any of his representatives, whether soldiers or courtiers.
And so Lundy made his escape from the city, aided by Walker and Baker. Tradition has it that he climbed down a pear tree close to the walls while wearing the garments of a private soldier and carrying on his back a load of fuze cord, or match. It is said that the pear tree was still present many decades later but the story is doubtful: had not the walls been cleared of anything that would have assisted a Jacobite assault? Perhaps the pear tree later grew near the walls with the story of Lundy’s departure amended to give it a key role in that flight from the anger of the besieged. One account indicates that ‘Lundy, one Gilner Brasier7 and Lieutenant Wildman made their escapes in disguise and went down to [Culmore] with Benjamin Adair, who came for powder to the town, and so got off to Scotland’.77 Adair was one of the officers of the garrison of Culmore Fort, so it would seem that Lundy and the other pair left the city disguised as soldiers taking munitions to Culmore with Adair. That Lundy took ship to Scotland rather than slipping across to the Jacobite lines suggests that he had never been a Jacobite agent; this is strengthened further by his inclusion in a list of traitors attainted by the Irish parliament in May 1689. Why attaint a Jacobite agent?
As Lundy departed, so a new heroic figure took centre stage in the city. This was a local man, Adam Murray, who had already distinguished himself at the head of a cavalry unit at the fords. Murray had returned to the city and then taken a small force to Culmore. His return from Culmore to Derry coincided with James’ approach to Bishop’s Gate on 18 April, and while he was en route to the city Murray received a despatch from Lundy ordering him to take his troops (as well as his cavalry he also had 1,500 infantry) to Cloughglass, about two miles north-west of the city. However, Murray learned from the messenger who carried Lundy’s despatch that negotiations for surrender terms were underway and he made straight for Derry instead of moving to Cloughglass. En route his men fought a brief skirmish with Jacobite dragoons before Murray entered the city by the Ship Quay Gate and then made for the council meeting. Once there, he accused Lundy and others of treachery before going outside to address the townspeople and soldiers whom he urged to hold out, assuring them that such was his own intention.78 Murray’s intervention at this point prompted those seeking terms to leave the city and was probably the final factor in Lundy’s decision to quit.
Adam Murray, not surprisingly, was offered the governorship but turned down the appointment, saying that he preferred to serve the city as a soldier, judging ‘himself fitter for action and service in the field, than for conduct or government in the town’.79 However, he did accept an invitation to attend what ought to have been a gathering of all the officers of the garrison to choose a new governor. In the event there were only about fifteen present and the gubernatorial nominations were Major Henry Baker, Major Jonathan Mitchelburne and Lieutenant Colonel Richard Johnston. Henry Baker received the majority of the votes and was elected as governor but declared that ‘the work they had now laid on him was too much for him to discharge, and therefore [he] desired they would allow him an assistant for the stores and provisions’. And it was then that the Reverend George Walker became assistant governor, on the proposal of Baker. The latter was to control all matters of a military nature while Walker was the civil administrator and had charge of the stores.80 Walker’s version of events is that the garrison ‘unanimously resolved to choose Mr Walker and Major Baker, to be their Governors during the Siege’, which puts a different complexion on the outcome of the election.81 With this change in control of the city began the period of 105 days known as the Siege of Derry and described by Macaulay as the most important siege in English history. The paradox of the siege is that Derry could never have held out had it not been for Robert Lundy, who was now fleeing the city in ignominy.
Notes
Once again the NAS documents on Lundy provide much of the information on which this chapter is based and their use will be clear to the reader.
1: Dalton’s Army List
2: HLRO, HoCJ, 4 April & 15 April 1689
3: Mackenzie, op cit, p. 29n
4: In view of the later frustration suffered by those involved in the defence of the city in trying to obtain compensation for their losses, it is enlightening to note that Massereene was paid £900 for his salmon on the orders of King William.
5: Quoted in Macrory, op cit, p. 152
6: Walker, op cit, p. 30
7: Simpson, op cit, pp. 97–99
8: Mackenzie, op cit, p. 29
9: HLRO, HoCJ, 12 August 1689
10: Ash, A Circumstantial Journal of the Siege of Londonderry, p. 62
11: Simpson, op cit, p. 105
12: Milligan, op cit, p. 70
13: Simpson, op cit, p. 104
14: Ibid, p. 105
15: Ibid; Walker, op cit, p. 22; Ash does not give a figure for the size of the Williamite force but notes that it outnumbered the Jacobites by five to one (p. 62).
16: Gilbert, op cit, p. 45
17: Mitchelburne, op cit
18: Simpson, op cit, p. 106; Walker, op cit, p. 23; Mackenzie, op cit, p. 30. Ash mentions the arrival of this fleet as an afterthought, following his diary entry for 1 July.
19: Powley, The Naval Side of King William’s War, p. 92. Powley gives Captain Cornwall’s forename as Wolfran.
20: Ash, op cit, pp. 83–4
21: Mitchelburne, op cit.
22: Simpson, op cit, p. 106
23: Ibid, pp. 106–7
24: Ibid, p. 107
25: Ibid; HLRO, HoCJ, 12 August 1689
26: Chandler, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough, p. 102
27: Ibid
28: Quoted in ibid, p. 105
29: Murtagh & Murtagh, op cit, p. 41; Avaux, op cit, p. 461
30: Franco-Irish Correspondence, pp. 86–9: letter and report, dated 29 April, from Rosen to Louvois from the Jacobite headquarters at Lifford.
31: Mackenzie, op cit, p. 31; Walker, op cit, pp. 21–3
32: HLRO, HoCJ, 12 August 1689
33: Simpson, op cit, p. 105; Mitchelburne, op cit
34: Franco-Irish Correspondence, pp. 86–9: letter and report, dated 29 April, from Rosen, op cit
35: Ibid
36: National Army Museum, London (NAM). Letter to author.
37: Chandler, op cit, p. 102
38: Ibid, p. 137
39: Mitchelburne, op cit
40: Ibid
41: Ibid
42: Simpson, op cit, p. 107
43: Ibid
44: Mitchelburne, op cit. This is supported by the evidence of Cornet Nicholson to the House of Comm
ons: HoCJ, 12 August 1689.
45: Simpson, op cit, p. 108
46: Ibid; HLRO, HoCJ, 12 August 1689; Walker, op cit, p. 23; Mackenzie, op cit, p. 32
47: Simpson, op cit, p. 109
48: HLRO, HoCJ, 12 August 1689
49: Ibid
50: Ibid
51: Ibid; Powley, op cit, p. 268
52: HLRO, HoCJ, 12 August 1689
53: Young, Fighters of Derry, pp. 71–2
54: HLRO, HoCJ, 6 July 1689
55: Simpson, op cit, p. 109
56: Ibid
57: Mitchelburne, op cit
58: Avaux, op cit, p. 59
59: Ibid, p. 73
60: Ibid, pp. 99–103
61: Ibid
62: Simpson, op cit, p. 110; Gilbert, op cit, p. 62
63: Walker, op cit, p. 24
64: Gilbert, op cit, p. 62
65: Walker, op cit, pp. 25–6
66: Simpson, op cit, p. 112
67: Ibid; Gilbert, op cit, pp. 62–3
68: Milligan, op cit, p. 126
69: Walker, op cit, p. 26
70: Quoted in Milligan, op cit, p. 130
71: Ibid; Gilbert, op cit, p. 63
72: Franco-Irish Correspondence, pp. 86–9: letter and report, dated 29 April, from Rosen, op cit
73; Gilbert, op cit, p. 63
74: Avaux, op cit, p. 23
75: Walker, op cit, p. 28
76: Young, op cit, p. 157
77: Mitchelburne, op cit
78: Simpson, op cit, pp. 111–112
79: Mackenzie, op cit, p. 37
80: Ibid, pp. 37–8
81: Walker, op cit, p. 29
__________
1 A groat was a silver coin worth four pence (4d), less than 2p in today’s coinage.
2 The full text of the articles adopted by this council of war appear as Appendix Three. Small beer was a brew that attracted a lower excise duty than the full-strength brew and it continued to be produced until the duty on it was raised to the same as the full-strength product. The closest modern equivalent would be low-alcohol beer.
3 Since there was then a joint monarchy of William and Mary the warships of the Royal Navy ought to have been referred to as Their Majesties’ Ships (TMS) rather than His, or Her, Majesty’s Ship (HMS) but such a practice was not adopted and ships’ logs of the time continue to refer to vessels as His Majesty’s Ships. However, in his account of the siege, Cecil Davis Milligan uses the abbreviation TMS for Royal Navy ships.
4 Fitted with a plug bayonet, the standard English matchlock measured an inch short of seven feet, less than half the length of a pike. The flintlock was two inches shorter again.38
5 It is possible that it was a branch of Cunningham’s family that gave the village of Newtowncunningham and the neighbouring Manorcunningham, in east Donegal, their names.
6 See Appendix Seven for Vauban’s time scale for preparing a siege.
7 Gilner Brasier, or Kilner Brazier, is said by Young to have been in the city throughout the siege. From Rath in County Donegal, he was promoted colonel. After the war he was MP for Dundalk (1698–9), St Johnstown (1703–13) and Kilmallock (1715 until his death). There is no evidence that he fled the country with Lundy although he seems to have assisted the Scot’s escape.76
CHAPTER FIVE
Guarding Derry’s Walls
In the days following 18 April the city, its garrison and inhabitants, and the soldiers of the Jacobite army settled into a state of uneasy warfare. No one could be certain of what would happen next, or where it might happen. The one certainty within the walls was that Londonderry had to be ready to meet an attack at any time. To meet that prospect the defending regiments were mustered with each company, of about sixty men, allowed to choose its own captain and each captain in turn permitted to select the colonel under whom he and his men would serve.1 It was a very unmilitary procedure that led to disparities in regimental strengths. These were recorded as:
The Rev George Walker’s Regiment
(formerly Sir Arthur Rawdon’s dragoons)
15
companies
Major Baker to be Colonel of Charlemont’s Regiment
25
Major Crofton to be Colonel of Canning’s Regiment
12
Major Mitchelburne to be Colonel of Skeffmgton’s Regiment
17
Lt-Col Whitney to be Colonel of Hamilton’s Regiment
13
Major Parker to command the Coleraine Regiment
13
Captain Hamill to be Colonel of a regiment
14
Captain Adam Murray to be Colonel of Horse
8
With a total of 117 companies, each with a nominal strength of sixty men, this order of battle amounts to a total force of 7,020 soldiers with 341 officers within the walls.2 Mackenzie also recorded the presence of ‘several volunteers in town who did good service’. Among the latter were Captain Joseph Johnston, Captain William Crooke and Mr David Kennedy. (Johnston later suffered a fatal leg injury in a mortar attack.)3 Since the force that had marched out to do battle at the fords had supposedly disposed 10,000 men, the final strength of the garrison suggests that that figure was greatly exaggerated or that casualties in the field force had been very high. The former is the more plausible explanation, although it is possible that many men, suffering an acute blow to their morale, took the opportunity to desert.
Each regiment was allotted a section of the walls to defend and to which they were to repair ‘upon all alarms, without any parading, . . . into their own ground and places, without the least disorder or confusion’.4 (The complete set of standing orders for the garrison is reproduced in Appendix Three.) It is assumed that the soldiers of Murray’s Regiment, although cavalry, were assigned a dismounted role, although, as we shall see, they also took part in a number of well-planned and executed forays outside the walls in the course of which Murray demonstrated considerable qualities as a leader and a soldier. (Such forays began very early on with Mackenzie recording a sally on the evening of 20 April, the same day on which Lord Strabane had approached the city to parley and had offered Murray a colonelcy and £1000 if he would join the Jacobites; this offer was refused.)5 His regiment was of limited use in the overall context of a siege: it was as true in the seventeenth century as it is in the twenty-first that infantry are essential to seize and hold ground; whether supported by cavalry or tanks, the infantryman has always shouldered the greater part of the burden of the battlefield. The drummers of each regiment were quartered in one house ‘so that on the least notice they repair’d to the respective post of the company they belong’d to’. This allowed the drummers to beat the alarm for their own companies at which the soldiers would take up their battle stations.
Other standing orders issued by the council of war provided that all the adjutants – those officers responsible for the efficient running of each regiment – should be quartered together, with the adjutant of each regiment remaining on the main guard until his unit be relieved from its spell of duty. No drinking was permitted after 8 o’clock each evening and no candles were to be lit in case these might help the enemy in firing their cannon at night-time. The garrison’s store of ammunition was to be moved ‘out of the grand store and lodged in four several places’ to prevent the loss of the entire supply by accidental fire ‘or treachery’. A further indication of the fear of treachery is shown by the order to lodge all the keys to the gates on the main guard with none of them to be in the possession of anyone below the rank of captain, two of whom should ‘attend at each gate every night’. To prevent soldiers breaking into shops and cellars, the goods of merchants who had fled the city were to be gathered into the common store and an inventory made. Finally, soldiers were forbidden to fire any unnecessary shots.6
The walls were also defended by some 200 artillerymen under a master gunner called Alexander Watson, who had experience as an artilleryman. However, few of Watson’s men would have had gunnery expe
rience and would therefore have needed considerable guidance. Watson’s gunners manned twenty pieces of artillery of which eight were sakers, firing a six-pound round, and twelve were demi-culverins, firing rounds of between ten and twelve pounds.7 At some stage, and it is not certain when but it must have been before the siege began since these guns are said to have fired on James and his retinue,8 an additional battery was emplaced at St Columb’s Cathedral with two cannon hoisted to the top of the tower and sited there; these guns had been brought from Culmore Fort and the task was overseen by Captains Robert and George Gregory, two brothers.9 The original spire, which had been removed some years before, had been a wooden construction covered in lead. That lead had been retained and was later put to good use by the defenders, as we shall see. Since the cathedral stands on the highest ground of the island of Derry, the guns on the tower commanded an excellent field of fire all around the city. Thus the cathedral tower acted as a cavalier, a high block behind the bastions of a fortress that gave the gunners a clear view of the area surrounding the fortress.10
Outside the walls, the Jacobite army was making ready for a siege although it lacked much of the equipment considered necessary. Walker’s claim that the Jacobites mustered over 20,000 men is far from true.11 The besieging army is not likely to have been more than 10,000 strong, and at least one Williamite source supports this. It is also possible that there were no more than about 7,000 Jacobite soldiers at Derry. In the course of the next 105 days King James’ generals may well have deployed some 20,000 men in total at Derry, but this would have involved a roulement, or rotation, of units at the city and the figure would also have included those troops deployed to protect the Jacobite lines of communication with Dublin; these were not only open to interdiction by the Inniskilling men but also traversed countryside where the rule of law had broken down. During the siege thirty-five Jacobite regiments, including ten of cavalry, would have taken their place at some time in the lines around the city. The anonymous author of A Jacobite Narrative of the War in Ireland also claims that, in May, there were 20,000 Jacobite troops – horse, foot and dragoons – deployed around the city, but this is an exaggerated number, probably intended to support the author’s contention that the city should have been taken quickly.12
The Siege of Derry 1689 Page 12
