| Battle of the Boyne | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theWilliamite War in Ireland and theNine Years' War | |||||||
_tussen_Jacobus_II_en_Willem_III%2c_12_juli_1690_Rijksmuseum_SK-A-605.jpeg) Battle of the Boyne between James II of England, VII of Scotland and William III of England, II of Scotland, 11 July 1690,Jan van Huchtenburg | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Williamites Dutch Republic |  Jacobites France | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| William IIIDuke of Schomberg †Godert de GinkelCount of SolmsDuke of Wurttemberg | James IIEarl of TyrconnellAntoine CaumontDuke of Berwick | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 36,000 | 23,500 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 500 killed or wounded | 1,500 killed or wounded | ||||||
  Location within Ireland | |||||||
TheBattle of the Boyne (Irish:Cath na BóinneIPA:[ˈkahn̪ˠəˈbˠoːn̠ʲə]) took place in1690 between the forces of thedeposed KingJames II, and those of KingWilliam III who, with his wife QueenMary II (his cousin and James's daughter),had acceded to the Crowns of England and Scotland[b] in 1689. The battle was fought across theRiver Boyne close to the town ofDrogheda in theKingdom of Ireland, modern-dayIreland, and resulted in a victory for William. This turned the tide inJames's failed attempt to regain the British crown and ultimately aided in ensuring the continuedProtestant ascendancy in Ireland.
The battle took place on 1 July 1690O.S. William's forces defeated James's army, which consisted mostly of raw recruits. Although the Williamite War in Ireland continued until the signing of theTreaty of Limerick in October 1691,James fled to France after the Boyne, never to return.
The battle was a major encounter in James's attempt to regain the thrones of England and Scotland, resulting from theInvitation to William and William's wife, Mary, from the 'immortal seven' English peers to take the throne to defend Protestantism. But the conflict had broader and deeper European geopolitical roots, of the League of Augsburg and theGrand Alliance against the expansionist ambitions of CatholicLouis XIV of France, or of theHouse of Bourbon against theHouse of Habsburg.[1][2][3][4][5] If the battle is seen as part of theWar of the Grand Alliance,Pope Alexander VIII was an ally of William and a friend to James; thePapal States were part of the Grand Alliance with a shared hostility to the Catholic Louis XIV of France, who at the time was attempting to establish dominance in Europe and to whom James was an ally.[6]
The previous year William had sent theDuke of Schomberg to take charge of the Irish campaign.[7] He was a 74-year-old professional soldier who had accompanied William during theGlorious Revolution. He brought an army of 20,000 men, which arrived atBangor. Under his command, affairs had remained static and very little had been accomplished, partly because the English troops suffered severely from fever[8] and the army's move south was blocked by Jacobite forces; both sides camped for the winter.[1]
In an Irish context, the war was asectarian andethnic conflict, in many ways a re-run of theIrish Confederate Wars of 50 years earlier. For theJacobites, the war was fought for Irish sovereignty, religious tolerance for Catholicism, and land ownership. The Catholic upper classes had lost or had been forced to exchange almost all their lands afterCromwell's conquest, as well as the right to hold public office, practice their religion, and sit in theIrish Parliament.[9] To these ends, underRichard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnel, they had raised an army to restore James II after the Glorious Revolution.Sir James Fitz Edmond Cotter being the commander-in-chief of allKing James's forces in the counties of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary.[10] By 1690, they controlled all of Ireland except forDerry andEnniskillen.[1]The majority of Irish people were Jacobites and supported James II due to his 1687Declaration of Indulgence or, as it is also known, the Declaration for the Liberty of Conscience, that granted religious freedom to all denominations in England and Scotland and also due to James II's promise to the Irish Parliament of an eventual right to self-determination.[11][12]
Conversely, for the Williamites in Ireland, the war was about maintaining Protestant rule in Ireland. They feared for their lives and their property if James and his Catholic supporters were to rule Ireland, nor did they trust the promise of tolerance, seeing the Declaration of Indulgence as a ploy to re-establish Catholicism as the solestate religion. James had already antagonised English Protestants with his actions. In particular, they dreaded a repeat of theIrish Rebellion of 1641, which had been marked by widespread killing. For these reasons, Protestants foughten masse for William of Orange. Many Williamite troops at the Boyne, including their very effective irregular cavalry, wereUlster Protestants, who called themselves "Enniskilliners" and were referred to by contemporaries as "Scots-Irish". These "Enniskilliners" were mostly the descendants of Anglo-Scottishborder reivers; large numbers of these reivers had settled around Enniskillen inCounty Fermanagh.[13][14]
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The opposing armies in the battle were led by the Roman Catholic king James II of England and Ireland (VII of Scotland) and, opposing him, his nephew and son-in-law, the Protestant king William III ("William of Orange") who had deposed James the previous year. James's supporters controlled much of Ireland and the Irish Parliament.[2][15] James also enjoyed the support of his cousin, Louis XIV, who did not want to see a hostile monarch on the throne of England. Louis sent 6,000 French troops to Ireland to support the Irish Jacobites.[16] William was alreadyStadtholder of the Netherlands and was able to call on Dutch and allied troops from Europe as well asEngland andScotland.[15]
James was a seasoned officer who had proved his bravery when fighting in Europe,[2] notably at theBattle of the Dunes.[17] However, recent historians have suggested that he was prone to panicking under pressure and making rash decisions,[18] which it has been suggested may have been due to poor health associated with the Stuart line.[2][19]
William, although a seasoned commander,[20] had yet to win a major battle. William's success against the French had been reliant upon tactical manoeuvres and good diplomacy rather than force.[20][15] His diplomacy had assembled theLeague of Augsburg,[21] a multi-national coalition formed to resist French aggression in Europe. From William's point of view, his taking power in England and the ensuing campaign in Ireland was just another front in the war against France in general, and Louis XIV in particular.[22]
James II's subordinate commanders wereRichard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, who wasLord Deputy of Ireland and James's most powerful supporter in Ireland;Sir James Fitz Edmond Cotter, Brigadier General in command of all the Jacobite forces in counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary, and an intimate ofJames II; and the French generalLauzun.[23] William's commander-in-chief was the Duke of Schomberg. Born inHeidelberg, Germany, Schomberg had fought for a few different countries and had formerly been aMarshal of France, but, being aHuguenot, was compelled to leave France in 1685 because of therevocation of the Edict of Nantes.[24][25]
TheWilliamite army at the Boyne was about 36,000 strong, composed of troops from many countries;[26] Only around half of them were British.[27] Around 20,000 troops had been in Ireland since 1689,[28] commanded by Schomberg.[26] William himself had landed inCarrickfergus on 14 JuneO.S. He met Schomberg at nearbyWhitehouse, and then proceeded south throughBelfast.[29]Loughbrickland was the rallying point of the scattered divisions of the army.[30][31] He arrived there with another 16,000 in June 1690.[32] On 30 June O.S. William had reached the top of a hill near the southern border of County Louth.[30]
William's troops were generally far better trained and equipped than James's.[26] The best Williamite infantry were from Denmark (7000) and the Netherlands (6000), professional soldiers equipped with the latestflintlock muskets.[1][33] The Danish infantry was commanded by GeneralErnst von Tettau. There was also a large (3000) contingent of French Huguenot troops fighting with the Williamites.[33] William did not yet have a high opinion of his English and Scottish troops, with the exception of the Ulster Protestant "skirmishers" who hadheld Derry in the previous year; the English and Scottish troops were felt at this stage to be politically unreliable, since James had been their legitimate monarch up to a year before. Moreover, they had only been raised recently and had seen little action.[34] However, this battle would give William cause to evaluate them more favourably, due to the impressive behaviour of the English troops, such as the Duke of Beaufort's Regiment of Foot.[35]
James’s flag was erected at the town ofDonore, on the opposite side of the river Boyne.[30] The Jacobites were 23,500 strong.[26] James had several regiments of French troops, but most of his manpower was provided by Irish Catholics, with some English and Scottish Jacobites also present. The Jacobites' Irish cavalry, who were recruited from among the dispossessed Irishgentry, proved themselves to be high-calibre troops during the course of the battle.[36] However, the Irish infantry, predominantlypeasants who had been pressed into service, were not trained soldiers. They had been hastily trained, poorly equipped, and only a minority of them had functional muskets. In fact, some of them carried only farm implements such asscythes at the Boyne.[37] Furthermore, the Jacobite infantry who actually had firearms were all equipped with the obsoletematchlock musket.[1] The French and Irish troops wore a white rallying mark, as a compliment to the Bourbons and to distinguish them from the Williamites.[30]
_p235_PLAN_OF_THE_BATTLE_OF_BOYNE.jpg)
William sailed fromHoylake inCheshire, landing at Carrickfergus,County Antrim on 14 June O.S. and marched south. Referring toDublin, he was heard to remark that "the place was worth fighting for".[30] James chose to place his line of defence on theRiver Boyne, around 30 mi (48 km) from Dublin. The Williamites reached the Boyne on 29 June. The day before the battle, William himself had a narrow escape when he was wounded in the shoulder by Jacobiteartillery while surveying thefords over which his troops would cross the Boyne.[38]
The battle itself was fought on 1 July O.S. (11 JulyN.S.), for control of a ford on the Boyne nearDrogheda, about 2.5 km (1.6 mi) north-west of thehamlet ofOldbridge. As a diversionary tactic, William sent about a quarter of his men under the cover of morning mist to cross the river at Roughgrange, about 4 km (2.5 mi) west of Donore and about 6 mi (9.7 km) south-west of Oldbridge. The Duke of Schomberg's son,Meinhardt, led this crossing, which a small force of Irishdragoons inpicquet underNeil O'Neill unsuccessfully opposed.[39] James thought that he might be outflanked and sent a large part of his army, including his best French troops along with most of his artillery, to counter this move. What neither side had realised was that there was a deep, swampyravine at Roughgrange. Because of this ravine, the opposing forces there could not engage each other, but literally sat out the battle as artillery engaged. The Williamite forces went on a long detour march which, later in the day, almost saw them cut off the Jacobite retreat at the village ofNaul.[40]
At the main ford near Oldbridge, William's infantry, led by the eliteDutch Blue Guards underSolms, forced their way across the river, using their superior firepower to slowly drive back the Jacobite foot soldiers, but were pinned down when the Jacobite cavalry, commanded by James II's sonJames FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick,[41] counter-attacked. Having secured the village of Oldbridge, the Williamite infantry tried to hold off successive Jacobite Irish cavalry attacks with disciplined volley fire, but many were scattered and driven into the river, with the exception of the Blue Guards.[42] When William saw his Dutch Guards isolated on the enemy side of the river and without any protection from natural obstacles he was extremely worried according to an eyewitness:
But when he saw them stand their ground and fire by platoons, so that the horse were forced to run away in great disorder, he breathed out…, and said he had seen his Guards do that which he had never seen foot do in his life.[43]
The Blue Guards had formed up in three separatesquares and were, by usingplatoon fire, able to drive away the Jacobite cavalry.[42][43] The Williamites were not able to resume their advance until their own horsemen managed to cross the river and, after being badly mauled, particularly the Huguenots,[44] managed to hold off the Jacobite cavalry. William's second-in-command, the Duke of Schomberg, andGeorge Walker were killed in this phase of the battle. The Irish cavalry finally gave up when Danish infantry commanded byWurttemberg and cavalry led byGodert de Ginkel (about 11 or 12 squadrons), who had both crossed the river further downstream, advanced towards them.[42]
The Jacobites retired in good order. William had a chance to trap them as they retreated across theRiver Nanny atDuleek, but his troops were held up by a successful rear-guard action. The Dutch secretary of King William,Constantijn Huygens Jr., has given a good description (in Dutch) of the battle and its aftermath, including subsequent cruelties committed by the victorious soldiers.[45]
The casualty figures of the battle were quite low for a battle of such a scale—of the 50,000 or so participants, about 2,000 died.[1] Three quarters of the dead were Jacobites. William's army had far more wounded. At the time, most casualties of battles tended to be inflicted in the pursuit of an already-beaten enemy; this did not happen at the Boyne, as the counter-attacks of the skilled Jacobite cavalry screened the retreat of the rest of their army, and in addition William was always disinclined to endanger the person of James, since he was the father of his wife,Mary. The Jacobites were badly demoralised by the order to retreat, which lost them the battle. Many of the Irish infantrymen deserted, abandoning clothing in their escape.[46] The Williamites triumphantly marched into Dublin two days after the battle. The Jacobite army abandoned the city and marched toLimerick, behind theRiver Shannon, where they wereunsuccessfully besieged.
Soon after the battle, William issued theDeclaration of Finglas, offering full pardons to ordinary Jacobite soldiers, but not to their leaders.
The battle was overshadowed in Britain by the defeat of an Anglo-Dutch fleet by the French on the previous day at theBattle of Beachy Head, a far more serious event in the short term;[47] but on the continent the Battle of the Boyne was treated as an important victory. Its importance lay in the fact that it was the first proper victory for the League of Augsburg, a precarious alliance between the Vatican and Protestant countries. The victory motivated more nations to join the alliance and in effect ended the fear of a French conquest of Europe.[48]
The Boyne also had strategic significance for both England and Ireland. It marked the beginning of the end of James's hope of regaining his throne by military means and probably assured the triumph of the Glorious Revolution. In Scotland, news of this defeat temporarily silenced theHighlanders supporting theJacobite rising, which had been led byBonnie Dundee who was killed the previous July at theBattle of Killiecrankie.[49] The battle was a general victory for William. Owing to the political situation mentioned above, Catholic institutions amongst William's continental allies hailed his victory with bell-ringing.[50]
_-_A_Lost_Cause%2c_Flight_of_King_James_II_after_the_Battle_of_the_Boyne_-_N01530_-_National_Gallery.jpg)
The battle caused the Jacobites to abandon the city of Dublin, which was occupied by William's forces, without a fight. Despairing of his hopes for victory, James II fled toDuncannon and returned to exile in France, even though his army left the field relatively unscathed. James's loss of nerve and speedy exit from the battlefield enraged his Irish supporters and he was derisively nicknamedSéamus a' chaca ("James the shit") in Irish.[51][52] The war in Ireland had not ended, however. The Franco-Irish Jacobite army regrouped in Limerick and fought off a Williamite assault on the city in late August. It was not until the following year and battle of Aughrim that their forces were broken and afteranother siege of Limerick, they surrendered to William's general Godard de Ginkel. The war in Ireland formally ended with theTreaty of Limerick in 1691. This allowed over 14,000 Irish soldiers under Patrick Sarsfield, to leave for France and allowed most Irish Catholic land owners to keep their land provided they swore allegiance to William of Orange. However, the Protestant dominated Irish Parliament rejected these terms, not ratifying the treaty until 1697—and then not in full—and imposed a tough Penal Code resented by Irish Catholics for many years.[53][54][55][56]
Originally, theTwelfth of July commemoration was that of the 1691Battle of Aughrim,[57] symbolising British Protestants' victory in theWilliamite war in Ireland. At Aughrim, which took place a year after the Boyne, the Jacobite army was destroyed, deciding the war in the Williamites' favour. The Boyne, which, in the oldJulian calendar, took place on 1 July O.S., was treated as less important, third after Aughrim and the anniversary of theIrish Rebellion of 1641 on 23 October O.S.
In 1752, theGregorian calendar was alsoadopted in Ireland.[58] However, even after this date, "The Twelfth" continued to be commemorated at Aughrim, on 12 July NS,[57] following the usual historical convention of commemorating events of that period within Great Britain and Ireland by mapping the Julian date directly onto the modern Gregorian calendar date (as happens for example withGuy Fawkes Night on 5 November). But, after theOrange Order was founded in 1795 amidsectarian violence in County Armagh, the two events were combined in the late 18th century.[57]
![Medal struck to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne (Robert Chambers, p. 8, July 1832)[59]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aMedal_Struck_to_Commemorate_the_Battle_of_the_Boyne_(Robert_Chambers%2c_p.8%2c_July_1832)_-_Copy.jpg)
The Battle of the Boyne remains a controversial topic today[when?] inNorthern Ireland, where some Protestants remember it as the great victory over Catholics that resulted in the sovereignty ofParliament and the Protestant monarchy.[60]
In recent decades, "The Twelfth" has often been marked by confrontations, as members of the Orange Order attempt to celebrate the date by marching past or through what they see as their traditional route.[61] Some of these areas, however, now have a nationalist majority who object to marches passing through what they see as their areas.[60]
Many[quantify] nationalists[who?] still see these marches as provocative, whilst Unionist marchers insist that it is part of their historical right to celebrate. Since the start ofthe Troubles, the celebrations of the battle have been seen as playing a critical role in the awareness of those involved in the unionist/nationalist tensions in Northern Ireland. Better policing and improved dialogue between the sides in the 21st century have made for more peaceful parades.[60]
There are also traditions set to happen on 11 July, the eve of the Twelfth Night, known as the Eleventh Night. On this night, Protestants ignite bonfires all over Northern Ireland to celebrate the commencement of the Twelfth Night.
The reason they use bonfires to symbolize the event dates back to the pagan celebrations ofMidsummer,Bealtaine andSamhain, where fire is used as a symbol of celebration.[62]
Many object to the use of bonfires in Loyalist celebrations today, especially because many bonfires now include "the burning of flags, effigies and election posters."[63]
The site of the Battle of the Boyne sprawls over a wide area west of the town of Drogheda inIreland. In the County Development Plan for 2000, Meath County Council rezoned the land at the eastern edge of Oldbridge, at the site of the main Williamite crossing, to residential status. A subsequent planning application for a development of over 700 houses was granted by Meath County Council and this was appealed against by local historians toAn Bord Pleanála (The Planning Board). In March 2008, after an extremely long appeal process, An Bord Pleanála approved permission for this development to proceed.[64] Further plans have been submitted for hundreds more homes and a link to the River Boyne Boardwalk.[65]
The Battle of the Boyne Visitor Centre at Oldbridge house is run by theOffice of Public Works, an agency of theIrish government, and is about one mi (1.6 km) to the west of the main river crossing point. The battle's other main combat areas, at Duleek, Donore and Plattin, along the Jacobite line of retreat, are marked withtourist information signs.
On 4 April 2007, in a sign of improving relations between unionist and nationalist groups, the newly elected First Minister of Northern Ireland, the ReverendIan Paisley, was invited to visit the battle site by theTaoiseach (Prime Minister)Bertie Ahern later in the year. Following the invitation, Paisley commented that "such a visit would help to demonstrate how far we have come when we can celebrate and learn from the past so the next generation more clearly understands". On 10 May, the visit took place, and Paisley presented the Taoiseach with a Jacobite musket in return for Ahern's gift at theSt Andrews talks of a walnut bowl made from a tree from the site. A new tree was also planted in the grounds of Oldbridge House by the two politicians to mark the occasion.[66]
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