Battle of the Boyne, 1690 Battle of the Boyne, 1690 Battle of the Boyne, 1690 Enlarge image The War of the two Kings In 1685 King James II, a Catholic, became the King of England following the death of his brother Charles II. The English wanted a Protestant king and were determined to get rid of King James II. They invited the Protestant prince William of Orange of the Netherlands to take the throne. William was married to King James II's eldest daughter Mary Stuart. King James refused to give up his throne or to carry out reforms that William requested. However in 1689, William of Orange and Mary were crowned the monarchs of England. William was now king of Ireland too. Most Irish people wanted to get the throne back for James II. They decided to help King James, and a war began in Ireland. Patrick Sarsfield, First Earl of Lucan Courtesy of 'The History of County Dublin, 1906'. Enlarge image Fighting broke out in Ireland and also in Scotland, where James was from. The people who fought for King James were known as ‘Jacobites’. The people who supported William were known as 'Williamites'.

King James went to France and Ireland to get support from Catholics. James was not popular with the Protestant Irish because he removed many of them from positions of power. Many Protestants did not at first wish to support Prince William but they disliked the way James took away their power. Fighting broke out in many places in Ireland. In 1689, the city of Derry was placed under siege by the army of King James because the soldiers there were not loyal to James and would not let his army enter the city. The siege lasted for over one hundred days causing terrible suffering to the civilians of the city. The supporters of King William eventually won and the siege was ended. Enlarge image 1690 In June 1690, William of Orange landed in Carickfergus. He brought a large army with him. His army was made up of Dutch, French, Irish, Scottish and Italian soldiers and many others. William marched south towards Dublin . However, King James also had an army in Ireland at the time. Some of James’ army were Irish but others were English, Scots and French. The French King, Louis XIV gave soldiers to James as he wanted James to be king of England.

William’s army fought King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690. The leader of James’ army was Patrick Sarsfield. William of Orange won the battle and also captured the cities of Dublin and Cork. King James left Ireland for France. Battle of the Boyne | Military Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Battle of the Boyne Painting of the battle by Jan Wyck c. 1693 Date 1 July 1690 O.S.

(11 July N.S., but now celebrated on 12 July) Location Belligerents Jacobite forces Williamite forces Commanders and leaders James VII and II William III of Orange Strength 25,000, including: -19,000 Irish Catholics William III ("William of Orange") King of England, Scotland and Ireland, Stadtholder in the Netherlands The Battle of the Boyne (Irish language: Cath na Bóinne , IPA: [ˈkah n̪ˠə ˈbˠoːn̪ʲə] ) was fought in 1690 between two rival claimants of the English, Scottish, and Irish thrones – the Catholic King James and the Protestant King William (who had deposed James in 1688 ) – across the River Boyne near Drogheda on the east coast of Ireland. The battle, won by William, was a turning point in James's unsuccessful attempt to regain the crown and ultimately helped ensure the continuation of Protestant ascendancy in Ireland . The battle took place on 1 July 1690 in the "old style" (Julian) calendar.

This was equivalent to 11 July in the "new style" (Gregorian) calendar, although today its commemoration is held on 12 July. [1] William's forces defeated James's army of mostly raw recruits. The symbolic importance of this battle has made it one of the best-known battles in the history of the British Isles and a key part of the folklore of the Orange Order . Its commemoration today is principally by the Protestant Orange Institution . Contents Edit The battle is seen as the decisive encounter in a war that was primarily about James's attempt to regain the thrones of England and Scotland, resulting from the Immortal Seven's invitation to William and James's daughter, Mary, to take the throne. It is especially remembered as a crucial moment in the struggle between Irish Protestant and Catholic interests. In an Irish context, however, the war was a sectarian and ethnic conflict, in many ways a re-run of the Irish Confederate Wars of 50 years earlier. For the Jacobites, the war was fought for Irish sovereignty, religious toleration for Catholicism, and land ownership.

The Catholic upper classes had lost almost all their lands after Cromwell's conquest , as well as the right to hold public office, practice their religion, and sit in the Irish Parliament . They saw the Catholic King James as a means of redressing these grievances and securing the autonomy of Ireland from England. To these ends, under Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnel , they had raised an army to restore James after the Glorious Revolution . By 1690, they controlled all of Ireland except for the province of Ulster. Most of James II's troops at the Boyne were Irish Catholics. Conversely, for the Williamites, the war was about maintaining Protestant and English rule in Ireland. They feared for their lives and their property if James and his Catholic supporters were to rule Ireland. In particular, they dreaded a repeat of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 , which had been marked by widespread killings. For these reasons, Protestants fought en masse for William of Orange. Many Williamite troops at the Boyne, including their very effective irregular cavalry, were Protestants from Ulster, who called themselves "Inniskillingers" and were referred to by contemporaries as " Scots-Irish ".

Ironically, historian Derek Brown notes that if the battle is seen as part of the War of the Grand Alliance, Pope Alexander VIII was an ally of William and an enemy to James; the Papal States were part of the Grand Alliance with a shared hostility to Louis XIV of France, who at the time was attempting to establish dominance in Europe and to whom James was an ally. [2] Opposing forces Deposed King of England, Scotland and Ireland, by Godfrey Kneller , 1684 Commanders Edit The opposing armies in the battle were led by the Roman Catholic King James II of England, Scotland, and Ireland 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. 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. William was already Stadtholder of the Netherlands and was able to call on Dutch and allied troops from Europe as well as England and Scotland.

James was a seasoned officer who had proven his bravery when fighting for his brother — King Charles II — in Europe, notably at the Battle of the Dunes ( 1658 ). However, recent historians have noted that he was prone to panicking under pressure and making rash decisions, possibly due to the onset of the dementia which would overtake him completely in later years. William, although a seasoned commander, was hardly one of history's great generals and had yet to win a major battle. Many of his battles ended in stalemates, prompting at least one modern historian to argue that William lacked an ability to manage armies in the thick of conflict. William's success against the French had been reliant upon tactical manoeuvres and good diplomacy rather than force. His diplomacy had assembled the League of Augsburg , a multi-national coalition formed to resist French aggression in Europe. From William's point of view, his takeover of power in England and the ensuing campaign in Ireland was just another front in the war against King Louis XIV. James II's subordinate commanders were Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell , who was Lord Deputy of Ireland and James's most powerful supporter in Ireland; and the French general Lauzun .

William's second-in-command was the Duke of Schomberg , a 75-year-old professional soldier. Born in Heidelberg, Germany, Schomberg had formerly been a Marshal of France , but, being a Huguenot, was compelled to leave France in 1685 because of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes . Armies Edit The Williamite army at the Boyne was about 36,000 strong, composed of troops from many countries. Around 20,000 troops had been in Ireland since 1689, commanded by Schomberg. William himself arrived with another 16,000 in June 1690. William's troops were generally far better trained and equipped than James's. The best Williamite infantry were from Denmark and the Netherlands, professional soldiers equipped with the latest flintlock muskets . There was also a large contingent of French Huguenot troops fighting with the Williamites. William did not have a high opinion of his English and Scottish troops, with the exception of the Ulster Protestant irregulars who had held Ulster in the previous year.

The English and Scottish troops were felt 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 battle action. The Jacobites were 23,500 strong. James had several regiments of French troops, but most of his manpower was provided by Irish Catholics. The Jacobites' Irish cavalry, who were recruited from among the dispossessed Irish gentry, proved themselves to be high calibre troops during the course of the battle. However, the Irish infantry, predominantly peasants 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 as scythes at the Boyne. On top of that, the Jacobite infantry who actually had firearms were all equipped with the obsolete matchlock musket. The battle Edit Battle of the Boyne between James II and William III, 11 July 1690, Jan van Huchtenburg . William had landed in Carrickfergus in Ulster on 14 June 1690 and marched south to take Dublin.

James chose to place his line of defence on the River Boyne, around 30 miles (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 Jacobite artillery while surveying the fords over which his troops would cross the Boyne. The battle itself was fought on 1 July OS (11th NS), for control of a ford on the Boyne near Drogheda, about 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) NW of the hamlet of Oldbridge (and about 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi) WNW of the modern Boyne River Bridge ). William sent about a quarter of his men to cross the river at Roughgrange , about 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) west of Donore and about 6 miles (9.7 km) SW of Oldbridge . The Duke of Schomberg's son, Meinhardt , led this crossing, which Irish dragoons in picquet under Neil O'Neill unsuccessfully opposed.

James, an inexperienced general , thought that he might be outflanked and sent half his troops, along with most of his artillery, to counter this move. What neither side had realized was that there was a deep, swampy ravine at Roughgrange . Because of this ravine, the opposing forces there could not engage each other, but literally sat out the battle. 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 of Naul . At the main ford near Oldbridge, William's infantry led by the elite Dutch Blue Guards forced their way across the river, using their superior firepower to slowly drive back the enemy foot-soldiers, but were pinned down when the Jacobite cavalry counter-attacked. Having secured the village of Oldbridge, some Williamite infantry tried to hold off successive cavalry attacks with disciplined volley fire, but were scattered and driven into the river, with the exception of the Blue Guards. William's second-in-command, the Duke of Schomberg, and George Walker were killed in this phase of the battle.

The Williamites were not able to resume their advance until their own horsemen managed to cross the river and, after being badly mauled, managed to hold off the Jacobite cavalry until they retired and regrouped at Donore, where they once again put up stiff resistance before retiring. The Jacobites retired in good order. William had a chance to trap them as they retreated across the River Nanny at Duleek , 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. [3] 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. Although three-quarters of them were Jacobites, William's army had far more wounded. At the time most of the 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.

The Jacobites were badly demoralised by the order to retreat, which lost them the battle. Many of the Irish infantrymen deserted. The Williamites triumphantly marched into Dublin two days after the battle. The Jacobite army abandoned the city and marched to Limerick, behind the River Shannon, where they were unsuccessfully besieged . After his defeat James did not stay in Dublin, but rode with a small escort to Duncannon 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, who fought on until the Treaty of Limerick in 1691; he was derisively nicknamed Seamus a' chaca ("James the shit") in Irish. Aftermath Edit The battle was overshadowed in its time in England by the defeat of an Anglo-Dutch fleet by the French two days later at the Battle of Beachy Head , a far more serious event in the short term; only on the continent was the Boyne treated as an important victory. Its importance lay in the fact that it was the first proper victory for the League of Augsburg , the first-ever alliance between the Vatican and Protestant countries.

Thus the victory motivated more nations to join the alliance and in effect ended the fear of a French conquest of Europe. The Boyne also had strategic significance for both England and Ireland. It marked 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 the Highlanders supporting the Jacobite Rising , which Bonnie Dundee had led. In Ireland, the Boyne fully assured the Jacobites that they could successfully resist William. But it was a general victory for William, and is still celebrated by the Protestant Orange Order on the Twelfth of July . The treaty of Limerick was written first and was very generous to Catholics. It allowed most land owners to keep their land so long as they swore allegiance to William of Orange. It also said that James could take a certain number of his soldiers and go back to France. However, Protestants in England were annoyed with this kind treatment towards the Catholics, especially when they were gaining strength and money. Because of this, the penal laws were introduced. These laws included banning Catholics from owning weapons, reducing their land, and prohibiting them from working in the legal profession.

Commemoration of the battle Edit Originally, Irish Protestants commemorated the Battle of Aughrim on 12 July (old style, equivalent to 23 July new style), symbolising their victory in the Williamite 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 old Julian calendar, took place on 1 July, was treated as less important, third after Aughrim and the anniversary of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 on 23 October.

What was celebrated on "The Twelfth" was not William's "victory over Popery at the Battle of the Boyne", but the extermination of the elite of the Catholic Irish at Aughrim , thereby ending the fear of having to surrender the planted lands.[ citation needed ] In 1752, the Gregorian calendar was adopted in Ireland, which erroneously placed the Boyne on 12 July instead of Aughrim (the correct equivalent date was 11 July, as the difference between the calendars for the year in question, 1690, was not 11 days but only 10 days). However, even after this date, "The Twelfth" still commemorated Aughrim[ Clarification needed ]. But after the Orange Order was founded in 1795 amid sectarian violence in Armagh, the focus of parades on 12 July switched to the Battle of the Boyne. Usually the dates before the introduction of the calendar on 14 September 1752 are mapped in English language histories directly onto the Julian dates without shifting them by 10 or 11 days.

[4] Being suspicious of anything with Papist connotations, however, rather than shift the anniversary of the Boyne to the new 1 July or celebrate the new anniversary of Aughrim, the Orangemen continued to march on 12 July which was (erroneously) thought to have marked the battle of the Boyne in New Style dates[ Clarification needed ]. Despite this, there are also smaller parades and demonstrations on 1 July, the date which maps the old style date of the Boyne to the new style in the usual manner and which also commemorate the heavy losses of the 36th (Ulster) Division on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916.[ citation needed ] The memory of the battle also has resonance among Irish nationalists. Most Irish people see the battle as a major step on the road to the complete British colonisation of Ireland.

In 1923, IRA members blew up a large monument to the battle on the battlefield site on the Boyne and destroyed a statue of William III in 1929 that stood outside Trinity College, Dublin in the centre of the Irish capital.[ citation needed ] "The Twelfth" in Great Britain and Ireland today Main article: The Twelfth The Battle of the Boyne remains a controversial topic today in Northern Ireland , where some Protestants remember it as the great victory over Catholics that resulted in the sovereignty of Parliament and the Protestant monarchy. 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. Some of these areas, however, now have a nationalist majority who object to marches passing through what they see as their areas. Each side thus dresses up the disputes in terms of the other's alleged attempts to repress them; Nationalists still see Orange Order marches as provocative attempts to "show who is boss", whilst Unionists insist that they have a right to "walk the Queen's highway".

Since the start of The 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. The battlefield today Edit The site of the Battle of the Boyne sprawls over a wide area west of the town of Drogheda. 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 by local historians to An Bord Pleanala (The Planning Board) . In March 2008 after an extremely long appeal process, An Bord Pleanala approved permission for this development to proceed. However, due to the current economic climate in Ireland, no work has yet started on this development. The current Interpretive Centre dedicated to informing tourists and other visitors about the battle is about 1-mile (1.6 km) to the west of the main crossing point. This facility was redeveloped in 2008 and is now open for tourists.

The battle's other main combat areas (at Duleek, Donore and Plattin – along the Jacobite line of retreat) are marked with tourist 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 Reverend Ian Paisley , was invited to visit the battle site by the Taoiseach (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 the St 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.

[5] See also Battle of The Boyne Battle of The Boyne Orange Order of Canada Top Surnames John Shields (c.1645 - c.1738) See discussion under William Shields (1600) and also under his 2 oldest sons William and James Shields It is generally believed that John Shields' family came to Maryland about 1738/1739, and settled... Please link GENi profiles involved to this project.

Part of the Williamite War in Ireland Date: 1 July 1690 Old Style (11 July New Style, but now celebrated on 12 July) Location: 36,000 Ulster Protestants, English, Dutch Commanders and leaders The Battle of the Boyne (Irish: Cath na Bóinne, IPA: [ˈkah n̪ˠə ˈbˠoːn̪ʲə]) was fought in 1690 between two rival claimants of the English, Scottish, and Irish thrones – the Catholic King James and the Protestant King William (who had deposed James in 1688) – across the River Boyne near Drogheda on the east coast of Ireland. The battle, won by William, was a turning point in James's unsuccessful attempt to regain the crown and ultimately helped ensure the continuation of Protestant ascendancy in Ireland. The battle took place on 1 July 1690 in the "old style" (Julian) calendar.

This was equivalent to 11 July in the "new style" (Gregorian) calendar, although today its commemoration is held on 12 July.[1] William's forces defeated James's army of mostly raw recruits. The symbolic importance of this battle has made it one of the best-known battles in the history of the British Isles and a key part of the folklore of the Orange Order. Its commemoration today is principally by the Protestant Orange Institution. Contents [hide] 1 Background to the battle 2 Opposing forces 5 Commemoration of the battle 5.1 "The Twelfth" in Great Britain and Ireland today 5.2 The battlefield today 9 External links Background to the battle The battle is seen as the decisive encounter in a war that was primarily about James's attempt to regain the thrones of England and Scotland, resulting from the Immortal Seven's invitation to William and James's daughter, Mary, to take the throne. It is especially remembered as a crucial moment in the struggle between Irish Protestant and Catholic interests. In an Irish context, however, the war was a sectarian and ethnic conflict, in many ways a re-run of the Irish Confederate Wars of 50 years earlier.

For the Jacobites, the war was fought for Irish sovereignty, religious toleration for Catholicism, and land ownership. The Catholic upper classes had lost almost all their lands after Cromwell's conquest, as well as the right to hold public office, practice their religion, and sit in the Irish Parliament. They saw the Catholic King James as a means of redressing these grievances and securing the autonomy of Ireland from England. To these ends, under Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnel , they had raised an army to restore James after the Glorious Revolution. By 1690, they controlled all of Ireland except for the province of Ulster. Most of James II's troops at the Boyne were Irish Catholics. Conversely, for the Williamites, the war was about maintaining Protestant and English rule in Ireland. They feared for their lives and their property if James and his Catholic supporters were to rule Ireland. In particular, they dreaded a repeat of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, which had been marked by widespread killings. For these reasons, Protestants fought en masse for William of Orange.

Many Williamite troops at the Boyne, including their very effective irregular cavalry, were Protestants from Ulster, who called themselves "Inniskillingers" and were referred to by contemporaries as "Scots-Irish". Ironically, historian Derek Brown notes that if the battle is seen as part of the War of the Grand Alliance, Pope Alexander VIII was an ally of William and an enemy to James; the Papal States were part of the Grand Alliance with a shared hostility to Louis XIV of France, who at the time was attempting to establish dominance in Europe and to whom James was an ally.[2] Opposing forces[edit] James VII and II Deposed King of England, Scotland and Ireland, by Godfrey Kneller, 1684 Commanders[edit] The opposing armies in the battle were led by the Roman Catholic King James II of England, Scotland, and Ireland 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. 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. William was already Stadtholder of the Netherlands and was able to call on Dutch and allied troops from Europe as well as England and Scotland. James was a seasoned officer who had proven his bravery when fighting for his brother — King Charles II — in Europe, notably at the Battle of the Dunes (1658). However, recent historians have noted that he was prone to panicking under pressure and making rash decisions, possibly due to the onset of the dementia which would overtake him completely in later years. William, although a seasoned commander, was hardly one of history's great generals and had yet to win a major battle. Many of his battles ended in stalemates, prompting at least one modern historian to argue that William lacked an ability to manage armies in the thick of conflict. William's success against the French had been reliant upon tactical manoeuvres and good diplomacy rather than force. His diplomacy had assembled the League of Augsburg, a multi-national coalition formed to resist French aggression in Europe. From William's point of view, his takeover of power in England and the ensuing campaign in Ireland was just another front in the war against King Louis XIV.

James II's subordinate commanders were Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, who was Lord Deputy of Ireland and James's most powerful supporter in Ireland; and the French general Lauzun. William's second-in-command was the Duke of Schomberg, a 75-year-old professional soldier. Born in Heidelberg, Germany, Schomberg had formerly been a Marshal of France, but, being a Huguenot, was compelled to leave France in 1685 because of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Armies[edit] The Williamite army at the Boyne was about 36,000 strong, composed of troops from many countries. Around 20,000 troops had been in Ireland since 1689, commanded by Schomberg. William himself arrived with another 16,000 in June 1690. William's troops were generally far better trained and equipped than James's. The best Williamite infantry were from Denmark and the Netherlands, professional soldiers equipped with the latest flintlock muskets. There was also a large contingent of French Huguenot troops fighting with the Williamites.

William did not have a high opinion of his English and Scottish troops, with the exception of the Ulster Protestant irregulars who had held Ulster in the previous year. The English and Scottish troops were felt 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 battle action. The Jacobites were 23,500 strong. James had several regiments of French troops, but most of his manpower was provided by Irish Catholics. The Jacobites' Irish cavalry, who were recruited from among the dispossessed Irish gentry, proved themselves to be high calibre troops during the course of the battle. However, the Irish infantry, predominantly peasants 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 as scythes at the Boyne. On top of that, the Jacobite infantry who actually had firearms were all equipped with the obsolete matchlock musket.

The battle[edit] Battle of the Boyne between James II and William III, 11 July 1690, Jan van Huchtenburg. William had landed in Carrickfergus in Ulster on 14 June 1690 and marched south to take Dublin. James chose to place his line of defence on the River Boyne, around 30 miles (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 Jacobite artillery while surveying the fords over which his troops would cross the Boyne. The battle itself was fought on 1 July OS (11th NS), for control of a ford on the Boyne near Drogheda, about 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) NW of the hamlet of Oldbridge (and about 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi) WNW of the modern Boyne River Bridge).

William sent about a quarter of his men to cross the river at Roughgrange, about 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) west of Donore and about 6 miles (9.7 km) SW of Oldbridge. The Duke of Schomberg's son, Meinhardt, led this crossing, which Irish dragoons in picquet under Neil O'Neill unsuccessfully opposed. James, an inexperienced general, thought that he might be outflanked and sent half his troops, along with most of his artillery, to counter this move. What neither side had realized was that there was a deep, swampy ravine at Roughgrange. Because of this ravine, the opposing forces there could not engage each other, but literally sat out the battle. 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 of Naul. At the main ford near Oldbridge, William's infantry led by the elite Dutch Blue Guards forced their way across the river, using their superior firepower to slowly drive back the enemy foot-soldiers, but were pinned down when the Jacobite cavalry counter-attacked.

Having secured the village of Oldbridge, some Williamite infantry tried to hold off successive cavalry attacks with disciplined volley fire, but were scattered and driven into the river, with the exception of the Blue Guards. William's second-in-command, the Duke of Schomberg, and George Walker were killed in this phase of the battle. The Williamites were not able to resume their advance until their own horsemen managed to cross the river and, after being badly mauled, managed to hold off the Jacobite cavalry until they retired and regrouped at Donore, where they once again put up stiff resistance before retiring. The Jacobites retired in good order. William had a chance to trap them as they retreated across the River Nanny at Duleek, 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.[3] 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.

Although three-quarters of them were Jacobites, William's army had far more wounded. At the time most of the 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. The Jacobites were badly demoralised by the order to retreat, which lost them the battle. Many of the Irish infantrymen deserted. The Williamites triumphantly marched into Dublin two days after the battle. The Jacobite army abandoned the city and marched to Limerick, behind the River Shannon, where they were unsuccessfully besieged. After his defeat James did not stay in Dublin, but rode with a small escort to Duncannon 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, who fought on until the Treaty of Limerick in 1691; he was derisively nicknamed Seamus a' chaca ("James the shit") in Irish.

Aftermath[edit] The battle was overshadowed in its time in England by the defeat of an Anglo-Dutch fleet by the French two days later at the Battle of Beachy Head, a far more serious event in the short term; only on the continent was the Boyne treated as an important victory. Its importance lay in the fact that it was the first proper victory for the League of Augsburg, the first-ever alliance between the Vatican and Protestant countries. Thus the victory motivated more nations to join the alliance and in effect ended the fear of a French conquest of Europe. The Boyne also had strategic significance for both England and Ireland. It marked 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 the Highlanders supporting the Jacobite Rising, which Bonnie Dundee had led. In Ireland, the Boyne fully assured the Jacobites that they could successfully resist William. But it was a general victory for William, and is still celebrated by the Protestant Orange Order on the Twelfth of July. The treaty of Limerick was written first and was very generous to Catholics.

It allowed most land owners to keep their land so long as they swore allegiance to William of Orange. It also said that James could take a certain number of his soldiers and go back to France. However, Protestants in England were annoyed with this kind treatment towards the Catholics, especially when they were gaining strength and money. Because of this, the penal laws were introduced. These laws included banning Catholics from owning weapons, reducing their land, and prohibiting them from working in the legal profession. Commemoration of the battle[edit] This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. (March 2011) Originally, Irish Protestants commemorated the Battle of Aughrim on 12 July (old style, equivalent to 23 July new style), symbolising their victory in the Williamite 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 old Julian calendar, took place on 1 July, was treated as less important, third after Aughrim and the anniversary of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 on 23 October. What was celebrated on "The Twelfth" was not William's "victory over Popery at the Battle of the Boyne", but the extermination of the elite of the Catholic Irish at Aughrim, thereby ending the fear of having to surrender the planted lands.[citation needed] In 1752, the Gregorian calendar was adopted in Ireland, which erroneously placed the Boyne on 12 July instead of Aughrim (the correct equivalent date was 11 July, as the difference between the calendars for the year in question, 1690, was not 11 days but only 10 days). However, even after this date, "The Twelfth" still commemorated Aughrim[clarification needed]. But after the Orange Order was founded in 1795 amid sectarian violence in Armagh, the focus of parades on 12 July switched to the Battle of the Boyne.

Usually the dates before the introduction of the calendar on 14 September 1752 are mapped in English language histories directly onto the Julian dates without shifting them by 10 or 11 days.[4] Being suspicious of anything with Papist connotations, however, rather than shift the anniversary of the Boyne to the new 1 July or celebrate the new anniversary of Aughrim, the Orangemen continued to march on 12 July which was (erroneously) thought to have marked the battle of the Boyne in New Style dates[clarification needed]. Despite this, there are also smaller parades and demonstrations on 1 July, the date which maps the old style date of the Boyne to the new style in the usual manner and which also commemorate the heavy losses of the 36th (Ulster) Division on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916.[citation needed] The memory of the battle also has resonance among Irish nationalists. Most Irish people see the battle as a major step on the road to the complete British colonisation of Ireland.

In 1923, IRA members blew up a large monument to the battle on the battlefield site on the Boyne and destroyed a statue of William III in 1929 that stood outside Trinity College, Dublin in the centre of the Irish capital.[citation needed] "The Twelfth" in Great Britain and Ireland today[edit] Main article: The Twelfth The Battle of the Boyne remains a controversial topic today in Northern Ireland, where some Protestants remember it as the great victory over Catholics that resulted in the sovereignty of Parliament and the Protestant monarchy. 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. Some of these areas, however, now have a nationalist majority who object to marches passing through what they see as their areas. Each side thus dresses up the disputes in terms of the other's alleged attempts to repress them; Nationalists still see Orange Order marches as provocative attempts to "show who is boss", whilst Unionists insist that they have a right to "walk the Queen's highway".

Since the start of The 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. The battlefield today[edit] The site of the Battle of the Boyne sprawls over a wide area west of the town of Drogheda. 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 by local historians to An Bord Pleanala (The Planning Board) . In March 2008 after an extremely long appeal process, An Bord Pleanala approved permission for this development to proceed. However, due to the current economic climate in Ireland, no work has yet started on this development. The current Interpretive Centre dedicated to informing tourists and other visitors about the battle is about 1-mile (1.6 km) to the west of the main crossing point. This facility was redeveloped in 2008 and is now open for tourists.

The battle's other main combat areas (at Duleek, Donore and Plattin – along the Jacobite line of retreat) are marked with tourist 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 Reverend Ian Paisley, was invited to visit the battle site by the Taoiseach (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 the St 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.[5] See also[edit] Irish calendar Irish battles British military history Orange Institution The Boyne Water Notes[edit] This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.

Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2008) Jump up ^ When the Gregorian calendar first came into use in Britain in 1752, the difference between the two calendars had been 11 days for dates since 28 February 1700. But for dates prior to then, it was still only 10 days, and this led to some confusion when recalculating dates of events that occurred prior to the start of the 18th century. Jump up ^ How the battle of the Boyne earned its place in history The Guardian, 11 July 2000 Jump up ^ Observaties van een Zeventiende-eeuwse wereldbeschouwer, Constantijn Huygens en de uitvinding van het moderne dagboek. Dekker, Rudolf, Amsterdam 2013 p. 45-47. Jump up ^ So for example, William of Orange is said to have landed at Brixham in England on 5 November, although Dutch history records he left the Netherlands on 11 November because the Netherlands were already using the Gregorian calendar.

Jump up ^ Staff, BBCNews – Paisley and Ahern visit 1690 site, BBC, 11 May 2007 Further reading[edit] Padraig Lenihan, 1690 Battle of the Boyne, Tempus Publishing, Gloucestershire 2003. ISBN 0-7524-3304-0 G.A Hayes McCoy, Irish Battles, Belfast 1990, ISBN 0-86281-250-X. Richard Doherty, 'The Williamite War in Ireland 1688–1691', Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998.

ISBN 1-85182-375-1 External links[edit] Battle of the Boyne visitor centre at Oldbridge, plus battle information Boyne Valley Tourist Portal – Information on Battle of the Boyne Tourist Information on Battle of the Boyne Visitor Centre Primary and secondary sources relating to the Battle of the Boyne (From the National Library of Ireland's Sources database) Modern mapping of the area Ordnance Survey Ireland Select "Historic mapping" to see site of the "Boyne Obelisk" (destroyed, 1923) on the northern side of the [subsequent] bridge.

Interview with historian Padraig Lenihan on the Battle of the Boyne [show] v t e Public holidays in the United Kingdom Coordinates: 53.723°N 6.417°W Categories: 1690 in IrelandBattles involving EnglandBattles involving IrelandBattles involving the Dutch RepublicBattles of the Williamite War in IrelandHistory of County LouthOrange OrderJames II of EnglandWilliam III of England Navigation menu Create accountLog inArticleTalkReadEditView history Search Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Donate to Wikipedia Wikimedia Shop Interaction Help About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact page Tools Print/export Languages Ænglisc Cymraeg Dansk Deutsch Español Euskara فارسی Français Gaeilge Gàidhlig Italiano Nederlands 日本語 Norsk bokmål Norsk nynorsk Polski Português Русский Scots Српски / srpski Svenska Українська Tiếng Việt 中文 Edit links This page was last modified on 13 December 2013 at 17:59. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.

By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Add profiles to this project Add collaborators to this project Add Profiles 6/12/2006 • Military History It would be difficult to find a battle more indelibly etched into the folk memory of a people than the Battle of the Boyne, which remains as meaningful to Irish Protestants today as it was to their forefathers in 1690. Each year on July 12, thousands of Orangemen march to the sound of tin whistles, accordions and booming lambeg drums to honor the ‘glorious and immortal memory’ of William III, Prince of Orange and King of England. On the day of the Orange Parade, countless street murals throughout Northern Ireland depict ‘King Billy,’ as he is affectionately known to the Protestants, heroically crossing the Boyne River on his beautiful white mare. William himself would have been surprised to learn that he had become a folk hero to so many Protestant Irishmen. To him, the entire conflict in Ireland was but an irritating sideshow to his main interests on the European Continent.

The Dutch prince had accepted the invitation to come to England and preserve the Protestant religion from the Catholic designs of the Stuart King James II because he saw England as a useful ally in his principal struggle against King Louis XIV of France. Indeed, much of William’s life was spent either at war or preparing for war against France’s ‘Sun King,’ whose great ambition was to make himself supreme monarch of Europe. Biographer Nesca A. Robb described William’s obsession with thwarting Louis at every turn as ‘the governing passion of his whole life.’ Even when barely into adulthood, William began to see France as a threat to the prosperity, religion and political freedom of his homeland, the United Provinces of the Netherlands. Louis, on the other hand, came to regard the Dutch prince as his greatest enemy. Most of William’s contemporaries, friend and foe alike, found his life to be one of the great success stories of the 17th century. Willem, Prince of Orange and Count of Nassau, was born on November 14, 1650. His father, Willem II, had died of smallpox just eight days before his birth.

The leaders of the Netherlands had long distrusted Orange power and influence, which had dominated the government for the previous 70 years. Consequently, upon Willem II’s sudden death, the five leading Dutch provinces did not appoint a successor, instead governing the United Provinces collectively from 1650 to 1672 as a republic. In 1653, Jan de Witt became the dominant figure in the Dutch republic. During that period, young Willem was cared for under various guardianships. Being a member of the House of Orange filled the youngster with a sense of the greatness of his family tradition. His guardians groomed him for leadership. At age 2 1/2, Willem had his own court. By age 4, he was making public appearances and, five years later, he began to appear alone in public. His education included a thorough grounding in military theory and instruction in his responsibilities as a future military leader. As a child of state, Willem was surrounded by men who distrusted him and were determined to prevent his rise to power. That hostile situation schooled him from a very early age to be politically astute, to trust his instincts and to be his own best counsel.

On April 29, 1672, 21-year-old Willem was thrust into the European military arena when Louis XIV invaded the Netherlands. The Dutch had to face not just the military might of France, but of England, which sought revenge for the humiliating destruction of the English fleet at the Medway near London by the Dutch navy in 1667, and had therefore agreed to an alliance with Louis. It was a time of dire crisis for the Netherlands as the French crossed the Rhine River on June 14, and seized Utrecht on June 20. A few days later, the French were outside Amsterdam, and the Dutch government was suing for peace. Louisâ terms proved to be too exorbitant for the Dutch, who in desperation broke open their dikes and flooded the countryside, bogging down the French army. In August, the people rose in a stormy rebellion against their own government that soon swept the country. On August 27, Jan de Witt was overthrown and murdered, resulting in Prince Willem III being chosen as captain general and stadholder at the head of the government.

At that time, Louis, ignoring the advice of his best generals, dispersed his forces against the Dutch and their German allies, while waiting for the winter to freeze the flooded Netherlands and restore mobility to his army. Willem, meanwhile, found allies among fellow heads of state who were becoming fearful of Louisâ growing power–the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, King Charles II of Spain, and Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg. In September 1672, Willem tried to take advantage of the dispersal of French forces with a series of raids, most notable at Chareroi, but none succeeded. The advent of winter in December brought a French offensive under Franois-Henri de Montmorency, duc de Luxembourg, which threatened to take Leyden and the Hague, until an unexpected thaw turned the marshy ground into a boggy quagmire, forcing him to withdraw to Utrecht. Louis II, Prince de Cond, suffered similar problems when he tried to take Amsterdam. While Dutch troops held on behind their flooded polders (lands reclaimed from the sea), their navy, under the formidable Admiral Michael A. de Ruyter, repeatedly defeated the English and French fleets off the coast.

In June 1673, King Louis, in personal command of a 40,000-man army, invaded the Netherlands and, aided by his chief engineer, Sbastien le Prestre de Vauban, briefly besieged and took the Dutch fortress at Maastricht on June 29. Willem’s allies, however, forced Louis to commit his forces to other fronts, such as the Franche-Comt, Alsace and the Rhineland. Meanwhile, growing public opposition to the war in England helped Willem convince the English government to withdraw from the conflict with the signing of the Treaty of Westminster on February 19, 1674. Throughout the summer of 1677, Willem and the duc de Luxembourg carried on a campaign of maneuver that was generally advantageous to the French, but in which neither side struck a decisive blow. Although he had been confronted time and again by superior forces and more experienced generals, the tenacious Willem managed to thwart French war objectives against his country. Finally, informed by his financial minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, that the war was becoming a disastrous burden on the French treasury, Louis agreed to negotiate an end to hostilities.

The Dutch States General agreed–over the objections of the still-bellicose Prince of Orange. The Dutch War ended, for the time being at least, with the Treaty of Nijmegen on August 10, 1678, but the next decade was a tense period in the history of the Netherlands. Relations between Willem and many Dutch leaders worsened because the prince was determined to resist the aggressive designs of Louis XIV, while most of his countrymen desired peace. That situation changed on February 6, 1685, when King Charles II of England died and his brother, James Stuart, Duke of York, acceded to the throne as James II. In 1673, James had converted to Catholicism and that, as well as his friendship with King Louis, threatened to revive the Anglo-French alliance. Most English, who were overwhelmingly Protestant, disliked James but were willing to put up with him, expecting his daughter Mary to become queen after he died. Not only was Mary a Protestant, but in November 1677, she had married her cousin, Prince Willem of Orange.

Encouraged by the presence of a Catholic on the English throne, on October 18, 1685, King Louis repealed the Edict of Nantes, which had guaranteed freedom of worship to French Protestants, or Huguenots. As a result, some 50,000 Huguenot families left France. Another consequence was a revived fear of France among the Protestant princes of Germany, which Willem exploited by forging a new coalition against Louis, the League of Augsburg–also known as the Grand Alliance–on July 9, 1686. Then, in 1688, James had a son by his second wife, causing concern throughout England that a Catholic Stuart dynasty would become permanent. In July of that year, a group of prominent Englishmen invited Willem and Mary to come over with an army and help the people rise against King James. The Netherlands government gave its blessing to the enterprise, and Prince Willem of Orange, backed by a 15,000-man army, sailed off to become King William of England.

William landed at Torbay on November 5, 1688, and marched slowly through the country, gaining followers as he went, while support for King James withered away. James fled to France on December 11, and in January 1689, a specially called Parliament declared that James had abdicated, and offered the throne to William and Mary. Although the English made an attempt to appoint Mary the sole English monarch, she rejected the proposal. William, too, had no intention of being his wife’s consort, stating that if that was all England could do for him after he had saved the country, then he would go back to the Netherlands ‘and meddle no more in their affairs.’ The two were declared joint sovereigns–King William III and Queen Mary II–on February 13. To confirm his claim to the throne, on April 21 William promised to obey the Declaration of Rights (later called the Bill or Rights), which assured the English people of certain basic rights while making it illegal for the king to keep a standing army, levy taxes without Parliament’s approval or become a Roman Catholic. The pragmatic William was willing to let Parliament limit his power in return for its support against France.

Meanwhile, James was not about to give up his kingdom without a fight. He still had considerable support among the Catholics of Ireland, and he looked upon that island as a stepping stone to the recovery of his throne. He landed there in March 1689, and William declared war on Louis XIV the following May. Initial opposition to Jamesâ invasion was nonexistent, and he marched into Dublin on March 24–the first English monarch to visit the Irish capital since Richard II almost 300 years earlier. Within a month, however, English power in Ireland had been reduced to Londonderry and Enniskillen. Those cities managed to withstand a 105-day siege and gave William time to raise a large army. In August 1689, 10,000 soldiers under the command of William’s most trusted officer, Marshal Frederick Herman Schomberg, landed unopposed at Groomsport, in County Down. The army’s composition reflected the international character of the war then engulfing the European continent. William’s troops included not only English and Dutch soldiers, but Danish mercenaries and French Huguenots–the latter including the 75-year-old Schomberg himself.

Jamesâ Jacobite supporters were reinforced by a 6,000-man French brigade commanded by Antonin Nompar de Caumont, comte de Lauzun, although one of its six battalions was made up of Walloons and two of Protestant Germans who until recently had been French prisoners of war. William soon became disillusioned with the lethargic way Schomberg was handling the campaign, and he wrote several letters to the marshal, urging him to attack the Jacobites, as Jamesâ supporters called themselves (after the Latin term for James, Jacobus). Instead of taking the initiative, however, Schomberg gave excuses, making much of the strength of Jamesâ army, and complaining about the weather, disease and lack of medicine. On June 14, 1690, a frustrated William, determined to take personal charge of the Irish campaign, landed at Carrickfergus with 36,000 troops, to an enthusiastic welcome from the townspeople. Along the way, bonfires lit up the hills of Antrim and Down, spreading the news of the king’s arrival. William remained in Belfast for five days while Schomberg advised caution.

Then, impatient to end the Irish nuisance, William organized his troops and set out southward to seek out and engage the Jacobites. James remained elusive for a time, but finally, on June 29, he halted his army near the Boyne River, a few miles from Drogheda, indicating his intention to stand and fight. The next morning, William gazed down from the high ground into the Boyne Valley and surveyed the Jacobitesâ tents lining the south bank. ‘I am glad to see you gentlemen,’ he is reported to have said. ‘If you escape me now, the fault will be mine.’ While his troops made camp, William and his officers rode down to the north bank to get a better assessment of the enemy–during which they stopped to sit down for a picnic lunch. Some of Jamesâ officers spotted the king, wearing his Star of Garter, and could not believe their good fortune. They quickly brought up and mounted two cannons behind a clump of bushes. As William and his entourage mounted their horses, the Jacobites fired two shots. The first struck the horse of Prince George of Hesse, while the second ripped through the sleeve of William’s uniform. William slumped over on the neck of his horse.

His followers gasped in horror, while Jacobites across the river shouted joyfully. News of William’s apparent death spread through the Jacobite camp with lightning speed and James dispatched messengers to France to convey the good news to King Louis. For 48 hours, the Jacobites celebrated. Some staged a mock funeral, while others made a dummy of straw and wax, christened it the ‘Prince of Orange’ and shot at it all night long. To paraphrase future humorist Mark Twain, however, reports of William’s death proved to be greatly exaggerated. He had merely suffered a slight shoulder injury. Within a few hours of the incident, he was riding along the ranks of his army, waving his right arm to show that he was all right. That brush with death only stiffened his determination to engage his adversaries–he had waited long enough. At 9 a.m. on June 30, he called a council of war and informed his officers that they would attack the enemy the next morning. The battle began on July 1 (later altered to July 12 when England changed from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1752), when William’s Blue Dutch Guards crossed the Boyne.

The Jacobites fired at them, but fled when the Guards reached the south bank. The Danes and Huguenots then tried to cross, but were driven back into the river. The battle’s outcome remained much in doubt, but William’s troops held firm and repulsed three charges by Jamesâ cavalry. As the Jacobite horsemen attacked once more, William came up on the left wing, having forded the river a mile downstream at Drybridge, and struggled to the south bank through the marshy ground. Unable to use his right arm, he drew his sword with his left and addressed the Inniskilling Cavalry with the exhortation, ‘Men of Enniskillen, what will you do for me?’ They replied by following him without hesitation to a hill at Donore, where they became embroiled in an engagement so confused that on several occasions Williamite units found themselves fighting one another. William’s bravery proved to be a decisive factor in the battle’s outcome. One bullet had grazed his leg, tearing away a piece of his boot, but he refused to leave the field. At one point, one of William’s men failed to recognize him and pointed a gun at his head.

William pushed the weapon way and chided the officer, saying, ‘What, do you not know your own friends?’ Less fortunate was Marshal Schomberg, who upon seeing the Williamite foothold on the south bank endangered near the village of Oldbridge, personally led his fellow Huguenots to reinforce them, only to be hacked twice by sabers and fatally shot in the back–by one of his own panicky troops or by a deserter to the Jacobite side, depending on whose account one reads. At about 2 p.m., a messenger brought James the news that Williamsâ forces had secured Oldbridge and the right wing of the Jacobite army was defeated. James still had not committed the main part of his army, which he had held in readiness for what he thought would be the main Williamite effort at Rosnaree. At that point, however, he also became aware that Williamite dragoons, commanded by Marshal Schomberg’s son, Count Meinhard Schomberg, were flanking him to the south. His friend Lauzun persuaded him to withdraw to Dublin before that dragoon force cut off his escape route. His army followed in disarray, leaving behind its baggage and artillery.

Continuing his flight to the south coast, where a squadron of French frigates awaited him, James sailed to France. He would never set foot in the British Isles again. On July 6, William entered Dublin in triumph. William’s victory at the Boyne was less than overwhelming, but the outcome of the Irish campaign was no longer in doubt. Spain and Austria, William’s partners in the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV, rejoiced upon learning of it. Illustrated brochures of the battle circulated in many parts of Europe. In Ireland itself, William’s victory was to have importance that reached well beyond the politics of the day and enshrined his name in its history and folklore. William remained in Ireland until late August, but the Jacobites reorganized and fought on under the leadership of Colonel Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan. Bitterly disappointed at his failure to break the back of Jacobite resistance, William returned to England. The subordinates he left behind to conduct the war did not finally defeat their stubborn opponents until the fall of 1891.

The Pacification of Limerick, signed on October 13, 1691, provided for an honorable settlement, guaranteeing the rights and property of the Irish Catholics in return for their sworn loyalty to King William and Queen Mary. Although the treaty was ratified by the English Parliament, its liberal terms were rejected by the Protestant Irish, who enacted a harshly anti-Catholic Penal Code of their own, which drove Sarsfield and a multitude of other Irish Jacobites out of the country and into service with the French army. William’s war against Louis XIV dragged on, with neither king able to gain the upper hand. Finally, a stalemated peace came in the form of the Treaty of Ryswyck, signed by France, England, Spain, the Netherlands and the German principalities between September 20 and October 30, 1697. During the last years of his life, William became concerned with the possibility that the death of the childless Spanish King Charles II might lead to the accession of a French Bourbon to the Spanish throne, thus bringing Spain, her prosperous colonial empire and the Spanish Netherlands under French influence.

That fear became a reality in 1700, on March 13, Charlesâ will revealed that Philip of Anjou, Louisâ second grandson, had been declared the heir to the Spanish throne; and Charles died on November 1 of 1700. Louis continued to aggravate relations with William by sheltering James II and, after Jamesâ death in 1701, recognizing his son as the rightful heir to the English throne. While England and the Netherlands prepared for another war, French forces occupied the Spanish Netherlands, which were also claimed by the counterclaimant to the Spanish throne, Emperor Leopold I, in March 1701. With France and Austria at war, King William III again showed his immense diplomatic skill by negotiating another Grand Alliance against Louis XIV on September 7, 1701. This alliance involved Austria, England, the Netherlands, Prussia, most of the other German states and later, Portugal. William was not destined to long outlive the man he had deposed, however, nor would he see England launch the all-out campaign against France that had been his life-long ambition.

While riding at Hampton Court in London on March 19, 1702, he was thrown from his horse and died at age 51. Assessing William III’s place in history has led to much controversy over the years. One of his biographers, Nesca A. Robb, has said that ‘it may be the force of his living personality, as well as a measure of his greatness, that he can still arouse passionate hero worship and passionate animosity.’ William was a soldier king, one of the last European monarchs to lead his troops into battle. He is not regarded as an outstanding strategist, but it should be noted that he constantly had to face Louisâ generals, some of whom were the greatest military geniuses of the century, and who commanded larger armies than William could muster. William proved adapt at the diplomatic aspect of warfare, particularly in his organization of effective alliances against France. This would prompt British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to later say of William that ‘perhaps he has never been surpassed in the sagacity, patience, and discretion of statecraft.’ It was as an English monarch that William left his greatest mark on history.

By coming to England and accepting the crown, he made possible the Glorious Revolution, which led to great changes in English politics and society, and paved the way for many of the freedoms enjoyed by Britishers–and Americans–today. As for his impact on his native Netherlands, it is true that he saved the republic in 1672 and transformed the Dutch army into one of the world’s best fighting forces. It is also true, however, that his obsessive fight with Louis XIV drained the Netherlands financially and that in the years following his death, that once-formidable Dutch naval and commercial power declined to second-rate status. Ironically, it is in Ireland, which least interested him and where he spent the least amount of time, that ‘King Billy,’ whether loved or hated, is best remembered today. This article was written by Ron Chepesiuk and originally published in the June 2001 issue of Military History magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Military History magazine today!

Question: Which monarch won the Battle of the Boyne in 1690?
Answer: William III of Orange