The History of the Williamite and Jacobite Wars in Ireland; from their origin to the capture of Athlone

Front matter

Gbis SSook belongs to S WiATHEW DOREY, 1 r>xj:B3L.iKr. cfas æp ■ *j8j " Everywhere have I sought peace and found g* *®) it nowhere save in a corner with a book."— J&1 Thomas a Kcnipis. *& eft; Jfb <2 " He that loveth a book will never want a faithful kv friend, a wholesome counsellor, a cheerful companion, (rC kv an effectual comforter."— Isaac Bac row. c9< "By the aid of books we collect around us all things, ;§. cQ( all places, men and times. To be without books is the J§_ cQ: abvss of penury." — J. Ruslcin. )fa «8U.— .__. * &> Jtttjiwb ."albert, glulu ai ®gt_xmtwl. THE HISTORY OF THE WILLIAMITE AND JACOBITE WARS IN IRELAND, FROM THEIR ORIGIN TO THE CAPTURE OF ATHLONE. BT THE LATE ROBERT CANE, ESQ., M.D., WITH CONTINUATION TO THE DEATH OE JAMES II. EY MAURICE LENIHAN, Esq., J.R, M.R.I.A., MAYOR OF LIMERICK.

ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS OF THE CELEBRATED STATESJIEN AND GENERALS OF THE TIME, AND MAPS AND PLANS OF THE TOWNS AND BATTLES. DUBLIN: JAMES DUFFY & SONS, 15 Wellington Quay, AUD 1 Paternoster Row, London. 1884. JACOBITE AVARS. To understand the history of the struggle made by divided Ireland in the wars of William and James ; to comprehend why it was that one portion of the country sided with the foreign Protestant invader, and another with the Catholic legitimist ; or to appreciate what interest Ireland could have had in the battling for power between a Dutch usurper and an English tyrant ; one must look back beyond the period, and outside the locality of these contentions. It must be borne in mind, that, at the period of the Revolution, Ireland was inhabited by two races,* be- * "It might seem, therefore, that the Irish Roman Catholic was in a situation which his English and Scotch brethren in the faith might well envy.

In fact, however, his condition was more pitiable and irritating than theirs, for though not persecuted as a 1; tween whom blood and religion had built up broad barriers ; barriers which confiscation, evil deeds, and evil laws had made almost insurmountable, while the very memories of past struggles and bygone wrongs cemented more strongly the wall which severed the inhabitants of a common country.* Before the Revolution of 1688, Ireland was nearly a subdued, if not a conquered, country. Its citadels, its arms, its trade, its broad and fertile lands, were in the hands of English and Scotch settlers: the descendants of Cromwell's soldiers and the proteges of the first James — men professing the religion of the Reformation, and possessed of the wealth of the country. They made England's Irish garrison, and ruled over the natives — the Celtic Catholics — who still lingered on the soil, almost wild in the wilds, and but civilized where they held their heads and septs together, and, in defiance of English law, sheltered their persecuted priesthood ; or where they inhabited towns and villages, in despite of the oppressive survedlance of those masters, who forbade alike the teacher and the school, the priest and the monastery; and denied corporate rights, civic freedom, or military position to every Catholic Irishman.

Chapter I. The Muster Of The North

Upon the holy festival of Christ's nativity, and in the year 1688, that unfortunate exile from throne and country, James II., landed upon the coast of France in search of hospitality and succour, and not without hopes of regaining all he had lost. For arms, and money, and soldiers he looked to the French king; but his main hopes rested upon the attachment of his Irish subjects and the Earl of Tyrconnel. There, in Ire land, he dreamed, might be a kingdom for a Catholic king, for there was a Catholic army, and towns and garrisons with Catholic corporations within their walls, whence battle might be made with the plunderer of his crown and kingdoms. Within the brief term of eighteen days after his arrival in France, he dispatched Captain Rooth with a letter, descriptive of his position and his expectations, to the Governor of Ireland.

" I send this bearer, Captain Rooth, to you, to give notice of my being here, and to be informed how things are with you, that accordingly I may take my measures ; hoping that you will be able to defend yourself and support my interest there till summer at least. I am sure you will do it to the utmost of your power, and I hope this king will so press the Hollanders, that the P. of Orange will not have men to spare to attack you ; in the meantime (till I hear from you by the bearer), all I can get this king to do is to send seven or eight thousand muskets ; he not being willing to venture more armes or any men, till he knows the con dition you are in, so that it wdl be absolutely necessary that you send back this bearer as soon as may be, with one or two persons more, in order thereunto. Just before I left Rochester I had a letter from you — as I remember it was on the 1 3th of December — which tould me all was quiet with you, and I hope is so still, and that the Prince of Orange has sent over no force to invade you yet ; what more I have to say I refer to my Lord Melford's letter, and to this bearer, who can give you an account how we all got away, and how kindly I have been received here.

I have not had any letter from England of a later date than the day I left it ; you may expect a duplicate of this, which I purpose to send, for fear of accidents. — J. R."* This letter, of which Rooth was the bearer, plainly shows the wretched condition of James, who though then absent nearly three weeks out of England, had not in that kingdom one earnest friend to send after him into France letter, word, or message. It shows, too, that while the King of France was willing to aid him, he yet awaited information from Tyrconnel, to whom he looked rather than to James, as a principal in whatever movement was to be made in Ireland, and that he should do so was quite in keeping with the correspondence entered into, months before, between Tyrconnel and Louis XIV., through the instrumentality of M. de Bonrepaux and M. de Seig nelay, for the ultimate independence of Ireland. * Clarke's Life of James, vol. ii. p. 319.

Tyrconnel was at that moment the centre upon which everything turned. James relied upon him in all matters; Louis regarded him as chief of Ireland; and William sought by negotiation to induce him to a quiet surrender of the kingdom. He was but Deputy- Governor of Ireland, yet three sovereigns were treating with him as though he were its King. The partisans of William were persuading him to hand over the kingdom to their master, and he listened as though he meant to follow their advice, and looked upon all resistance as vain, awaiting but the sanction of James, pleading it would not be honourable to resign the trust without at least that Sovereign's knowledge ; and while he thus made an ostentatious display of wavering and hesitation, he was treating with Louis for foreign aid, and stipulating arrangements for war with all the energies of his nature, having succeeded for a time in deceiving even the wily William as to his designs.* Tyrconnel had already enrolled great masses of the Irish people into nominal regiments, and was preparing to make them soldiers, but he wanted for them arms, ammunition, clothing, and money.

The Revo lution of England had progressed even faster than his movements in Ireland, and though willing to take the field, he was far from a fit condition of readiness to do so. While James had been flying out of England,un foreseen circumstances had occurred in Ireland which hastened the necessity for war. The trumpet had blown, and aroused to arms men determined to use them. * Vide Harris, Clarke, Dalrymple, and the State Papers. The Protestants of Ireland had become imbued with a belief that the creating of Catholic magistrates and a Catholic army, and the measures taken to dis arm the Protestants, were but the prelude to a mas sacre of all professing their faith, and though there are no facts on historic record to warrant so dire an apprehension, yet it is certain that such a belief and dread kept them in a state of constant excitement, and begot that resistance at Derry and Enniskillen of which James was in ignorance when he sent Rooth with his letter to Tyrconnel.

In the first week of December, 1688, anonymous letters had been written to various influential Pro testants in the North, purporting to be friendly inti mations of a massacre of Protestants to be made by the Catholics on the 9th of December. Had there been really such a conspiracy, some evidence of its existence would have been discovered within latter years, but no document or fact, no living lips or pen ever recorded aught about it, beyond the surmises of the period, and those unrepresented letters. It is rational to assume that if it had a real existence, some one of such a confederacy would have revealed it for the reward sure to follow such a revelation ; but nothing of the kind has ever happened ; it is therefore far more probable, that, like other mock plots of the day, it was got up by some of the northern leaders with a view to stir up the Protestants of Ulster into that union of resistance which terror of it did beget ; and for such an end it was a dexterous means.

The men who received these letters exhibited them to their friends, and sent copies of them into the surrounding towns and villages, where they created a spirit of determined resistance. Amongst the towns occupied by Protestant settlers in the North, whose quiet was disturbed by these rumours and letters, two were peculiarly well fitted for military defence — they were the towns of Ennis killen and Derry — the one was built in the midst of, and surrounded at all points by water; the other was compensated for whatever it lacked in position, by its being, for those days, a strongly walled city. Men's hearts and courage grow large in proportion with the power and strength of the resources which surround them ; to such points they congregate, and in such places they stand together, and face the danger which threatens them; and right gallantly the men of Enniskillen and Derry looked to the edges of their swords, and resolved to use them.

Their courage, too, waxed the stronger, because of the, to them, joyous news just arrived in Ireland, that James had fled from England, and that the Prince of Orange was seated on his throne. Both were Protestant English settlements, made upon the confiscated territories of Irish chieftains, previous to the plantation of Ulster. The water bound site of Enniskillen was occupied by a fortalice* of the Maguires. Londonderry, anterior to the settle ment, was known in Irish history by little else than ecclesiastical character, and was called Deirie Calgach and Derry-Columbkille ; but after the sale of Ulster, the cognomen of London was prefixed to Derry, and it was made a fortified city, because, saith the order of * Irish Parliamentary Gazetteer, vol. ii. page 186. bom '-> ■ .*^gc. England, " The town or borough of Deiree* is, by reason of the natural seat and situation thereof, a place very convenient and fit to be made both a town of war and a town of merchandize."

And the order was somewhat prophetic. Derry was surrounded by a good wall, but having a sloping aspect up from the River Foyle, upon whose banks it is built, would not now be considered as a good military situation. It had also severalf bastions, but its best military protection was the invincible spirit of its people. At the period of the excitement consequent upon the apprehended massacre, the condition of both par ties as to arms and the necessaries of war was un suited to a great struggle. The Protestants had been extensively disarmed, and the Protestant militia had been broken — though some of its officers still lingered in the ranks of Tyrconnel's new levies, who were mostly raw and undrilled, and very imperfectly armed, having little else than the wretched arms taken up under the proclamations ; there being no efficiently supplied magazines at the Lord Deputy's service.

There were several regiments, mere skeletons, the ranks being unfilled, and those enrolled unpaid. Tyrconnel speedily learned the condition of the matter, and sought by proclamations and tenders of security to Protestants, to allay the fears which pervaded the entire Protestant party. He even put on the sem blance of being about to leave the country, and offered to resign the sword into other hands, while his effects were said, the better to remove all doubts of his inten- * Larcom's Derry, page 38. | Eight bastions, two platforms, and the roof of the church as a third, were its defences, according to Walker. tions, to have been put on board a ship in Dublin harbour ; but he had no such intentions, and he was actually, while so dissembling, arranging the army for the North, issuing commissions to Irish noblemen and gentlemen to raise new corps and regiments at their own expense, and using all the rough and worn ma terials within his reach to wage war with the enemy.

That enemy have hitherto been called Protestants, and Tyrconnel's party Catholics, but now that they have become enrolled as partisans of rival kings, they are henceforth to be designated as Williamites or English, and as Jacobites or Irish. It was virtually a war between the two nations — each using foreign aid. The one, as conquerors, fighting to retain what they had won ; the other, as helots, battling to be free. The Williamites were inconsiderable in numbers, save in the North. In Dublin their numbers were con trolled by a large Jacobite party ; south and west of Dublin they were but isolated individuals, or sections too small to effectively muster and show front to the Jacobites ; but they were numerous in the North, and had possessed themselves of Derry, Enniskillen, Cole raine, the Fort of Culmore, and also of Sligo, a° northern point of Connaught.

It was much in favour of the Williamite party too, just then, that of the eight thousand men who consti tuted the Irish Jacobite army, one half had been sent over into England to aid in resisting the Orange in vasion, and the other half were scattered over the kingdom; Tyrconnel having but six hundred with him in Dublin ; besides, the Williamite party had, in des pite of all efforts to disarm them, retained a quantity of good and useful arms,* and were men trained to, and familiar with, their use from their earliest years, while the Jacobites were mostly men, into whose hands arms had fallen for the first time, and who had much to learn before becoming accustomed to them, while the great bulk had no arms at all. In the latter end of the previous month, November, the regiment of Lord Mountjoy had been ordered from Derry up to Dublin.

This regiment, officered by Protes tants, and holding a large number of that persuasion in its ranks, possessed the confidence of the Northerns, while they looked with deep apprehension to the regiment intended to replace Mountjoy's, that of the Earl of Antrim! — one of Tyrconnel's new levies, wholly Catholic, and recruited exclusively of men of six feet and upwards. Owing to the confusion inse parable from such periods, this regiment was not in readiness to replace Mountjoy's for a fortnight after the latter's removal for Dublin, and to this circum stance — as well as to the ill-equipped condition of the first of its companies which came before it, armed only only with skeins and clubs — Derry was indebted for its readiness for resistance.! * Harris, page 186. f " They were all of them entirely Papists, and many of them, both officers and soldiers, the offspring or near relatives of those who, in the rebellion of 1641, had so deeply imbrued their hands in British and Protestant blood.

And they had, too, just reason to believe that these rake-hells (who were the very scum of the country) had the hereditary inclinations as well as the blood of their ancestors running in their veins." — Mackenzie's Narrative, page 2. X Graham's Derry, page 18. The refusal of Derry to admit this regiment and that of Enniskillen to join the regiment of Sir Thomas Newcomen, quartered within its walls, marked the spirit of the day and temper of the Williamite party, and virtually opened the struggle with such energy as to give to it thus early that prestige of success which eventuated in triumph. The seventh of December, 1688, was a day of earnest thought and stirring excitement in the town of Derry. Two communications had that day been made to its authorities of a startling nature. One was a copy of the celebrated letter to the Earl of Mount Alexander,* detailing a contemplated massacre of the Protestants for the 9th of December ; the other was a letter from one of the old governors, Colonel Philips, announcing to them that the first companies of Lord Antrim's regiment had arrived in his village of Newtown-Limavaddy, but twelve miles distant from Derry, for which city they were on their march, and adverting to the Mount Alexander letter, and to the 9th of December as the day of doom, then within * " December Srd, 1688.

" Good mt Loed, — I have written to you to let you know that all our Irishmen through Ireland is sworn that, on the 9th day of this month they are all to fall on and kill and murder man, wife, and child : and I desire your lordship to take care of yourself, and all others that are judged by our men to be heads, for who soever of them can kill any of you, they are to have a captain's place ,- so my advice to your honour is, to look to yourself and give other noblemen warning ; and go not out, either night or day, without a good guard with you, and let no Irishman come near you, whosoever he be ; so this is all from him who was your father's friend, and is your friend, and will be, though I dare not be known as yet for fear of my life." — Mackenzie, p. 3. forty-eight hours of completion, calling upon them to look to their own safety,* and to close their gates against men presumed to be the instruments or doers of the intended massacre ; and promising, in the event of their doing so, to be with them with all the men he could muster.

While these alarming communications were on their way to Derry, the foremost companies of Lord An trim's regiment were moving in the same direction — and before the excitement produced by these letters had time to cool, it was announced in the midst of the assembled public that the Antrim regiment was with in two miles of their walls. There was but little time for deliberating : bold men talked of shutting their gates and denying admission to the dreaded stran gers ; the humbler citizens clamoured to be doing it ; discreet men, and men of substance, who had some thing to lose, hesitated, and their wavering was con firmed into a refusal so to act, when, upon consulting with the bishop, he was found to be totally averse to such a proceeding. Meanwhile, three companies of the obnoxious regiment appeared on the opposite banks of the Foyle, from whence they could approach the city directly, only by a ferry, there being then no bridge connecting the opposite banks.

The men rested on the water's edge while their officers were ferryed over into the city, where they came to seek billets and accommodation for their men. Meeting with the delay consequent upon the disturbed state of the town, the officers did not return as speedily as they were expected, and the men began to cross the river, * "Walker' 8 Derry. and were gathering upon the near banks, preparing to enter the place where their chief arms* already were, as well as their anticipated quarters. This movement but added to the excitement and increased the alarm of the youth of Derry, nine of whom are said to have been the number taking the initiative in a measure of bold resistance ; they drew their swords, seized the city keys from the main guard, and rushing to the ferry gate, to which Antrim's men were now approaching, they pulled up the draw-bridge, closed and locked the gates, and thence hastily passing to the other entrances, closed all, securing them by guards.

And this was Derry's first act of rebellion against James. The suddenness of the proceeding secured its success. The grave citizens and the authorities who disapproved had not time to resist. The people mustered in the market place, and there came mayor, sheriffs and officers, and even their bishop, all to urge upon the humbler men of Derry to forego their resistance, and open the gates. The bishop preached to them of the danger of resisting, and of itst unwarrantable dis loyalty, but magisterial influence and episcopal authority no longer weighed with the resolved popu lace of Derry ; the gates remained closed, the men were obstinate against peace-preaching. The Antrim men at the gates claimed to be ad mitted, but the threat of a discharge of cannon into their unarmed ranks compelled them speedily to retire, and to consult their own safety by getting beyond the reach of the guns upon the walls of the * Mackenzie, page 5. f Mackenzie. closed city.

Thus did the energy and warlike spirit of a few young men lay the foundation of that northern resistance to James, which ultimately led to such serious results. That 7th of December, 1688, opened with all the agitation appertaining to a weighty matter, where men will differ as to the expediency of the course to be taken ; the prompt action of a few youths decided the great bulk of those who hesitated, and night closed round the little town of Derry, with its gates locked and sentinelled, citizen soldiers on its bastions, and resolute resistance in the breasts of its inhabitants. It was a night of watchfulness and action ; messengers were despatched into all parts of the country around the town, apprising men of similar opinions of the course they had taken, and calling for aid everywhere. Next day they broke open the magazine, which, in addition to a thousand stand of old arms,* contained the new arms meant for the Antrim regiment.

They took away 150 muskets, with the necessary ammunition, powder, ball, and matches, and then proceeded to expel the few Catholic inhabitants of their town, and a convent of Dominican friars; and on getting a report of the Prince of Orange's success in England, they expressed their joy by a discharge of cannon. Some of the Antrim regiment still lingered on the other side of the Foyle, but the drilling of the Derry men with arms in their hands and the roar of cannon on their walls, suggested to them the propriety of a quick retreat, as they possessed no weapons of war suitable for a struggle with the armed garrison. * Mackenzie. E The retreating Jacobites met their colonel, Lord Antrim, at some little distance from Derry, whither he was proceeding, accompanied by Colonel Philips, who seems to have dexterously concealed from Antrim his real sentiments, for that nobleman selected him as messenger into Derry to seek ad mission for his troops ; and when Philips arrived there, he induced the authorities to put on the semblance of constraining* him to remain with them, and sent back word to Antrim, advising him against proceeding to Derry.

Antrim took the advice, and went to Coleraine to rally and gather his men into military order. In Derry all was bustle. Colonel Philips was made governor, and Mr. Cairnes, an earnest Wil liamite, was sent over into England to seek for assistance there. All the citizens, able to bear arms, were enrolled and embodied, making six companies of foot; while companies of horse and foot arrived daily out of the surrounding districts, mostly led by gentry of the neighbourhood resolved to side with Derry in the coming struggle. To gain time, and polish over the roughness of their disobedience, they wrote to Lord Mountjoy, seeking his influence with the Lord Tyrconnel in mitigation of their offence, and in so doing displayed a want of con fidence in their own strength, and a want of sincerity in the mode of doing it, not creditable to men engaged in what they conceived to be a great and a true eause.

The want of confidence arose from the neces sities of their position, and the want of sincerity was * Mackenzie. an error peculiar to the times and manners of the period ; it was the vice of greater men than the citizens of Derry, and is to be found in the actions of the viceroy himself and others of the aristocracy of the day. It is one of the vices of servitude and oppression, and is peculiar to countries suffering, or who have suffered, under arbitrary power: there, truth, law, or justice are not sure safeguards, and lying and duplicity are the weapons with which slaves resist and great men oppress and plunder, until the vice sinks into, and becomes as it were a part of man's nature. Thus the authorities of Derry used one language to describe their resistance when writing into England, and another when writing for the eyes of Tyrconnel,* who having learned how Derry had closed its gates against Antrim's regiment, ordered * This want of candour will be best understood from a few passages selected from two documents put forward at that time by the men of Derry, each being for different parties.

Thus the letter to Mountjoy was intended for Tyrconnel and his government, and the letter into England for the "Williamite party there ; both these were issued at the one time, and are to be found in full in the appendix to " Mackenzie's Siege of Derry." First — " The last post carried up to his Excellency the news of what our rabble have done in the town, how they had shut the gates against some of the Earl of Antrim's regiment, which we then blamed them for, though we could not restrain them." — Derry Letter to Lord Mountjoy. Second — " "Whilst the younger and more inconsiderate were consulting their own safety (and it seems had resolved on the means), a part of the Earl of Antrim's regiment (newly levied, and all composed of highlanders and Ulster Papists) came to the river side, and their officers came over into the city to the sheriffs for quarters and lodgings for them.

"We confess our fears on the occasion became more pungent, but we still remained silent, ex cept our prayers and devotions. But just as the soldiers were Lord Mountjoy and Lieutenant-Colonel Lundy, with six companies of soldiers, to march to Derry and teach it obedience. When Mountjoy arrived at Omagh, twenty-six miles from Derry, he there halted, and sent to the closed city, requiring that commissioners would be appointed to treat with him; who were accordingly sent, but being unable to obtain the terms they were instructed to seek for, returned to Derry without effecting any definite treaty. His lordship personally went to Derry, and there effected for his sovereign, James II., the strangest treaty ever made with disobedient subjects under the like circumstances. The treaty bears date the 21st December, 1688, and sets out as being articles of agreement between Lord Viscount Mountjoy, Mas ter of the Ordnance, and one of his Majesty's Privy Council, on the one part, and the mayor and citizens of Derry, and their adherents, of the other part ; and provides — First.

That within fifteen days Lord Mount joy shall obtain pardon for everything done at Derry — for all its inhabitants, all its abettors and aiders through out the North, and for all crimes, or imputed crimes, save murder. Second. That only two companies of soldiers,* namely, those of Lieutenant-Colonel Lundy andCaptain approaching our gates, the youthhood, by a strange impulse, ran in one body and shut the gates, and put themselves in the best posture of defence they could. "We blamed, but could not guide or persuade them to any less resolution that night." — Derry Letter to the Society at London. How different the phraseology of these two documents ; in Ihc letter for Dublin Castle they are described as a rabble no restraint could stop, while in the letter for England they are described tenderly as " youthhood not to be persuaded." * "And that they be all Protestants." — Walker s Derry.

William Steevens, be permitted within the walls until the pardon be obtained, and that all parties of soldiers admitted after that event and until the first of March next, should consist of one-half Protestants at the least. Third. That until the pardon be obtained, the city should keep its own guards and watches; that no strangers be allowed within its walls, unless permitted by Colonel Lundy and the Sheriffs. Fourth. That if, before the 1st of March, Mountjoy's companies were removed, the city should then be allowed to mount its own guards and watches. Fifth. That the Derry men should be free to go where they list, with their families, and any detained ships be released. Sixth. That until the 26th of March next, no soldier of Antrim's regiment should be quar tered in Derry or its suburbs.