A battle between cousins
Violet Powell
IRELAND'S FATE: THE BOYNE AND AFTER by Robert Shepherd Aurum Press, £14.95 , pp. 256 Just over 300 years ago a battle was fought on the River Boyne in Co. Meath. As Frances Ledwidge wrote 200 years later, The river seemed to gush across the ground, To the cracked metre of a march- ing tune.'
Robert Shepherd has set himself the task of disentangling legend from historical fact, without discounting the legends them- selves, and the mark they have left on Irish history. He has first to explain that the Battle of the Boyne was not a simple Catholic against Protestant conflict, and not even a fight between two claimants to the three separate kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. This was essentially only an act in the larger European theatre of war.
The system of arranged marriages among the royal families of Europe meant that close relations were frequently to be found fighting on opposite sides, but the Battle of the Boyne was surely an extreme example of a family at war with itself. James II was deemed to have abdicated the English crown when he fled from England to France. William, Prince of Orange, had been proclaimed as King William III, jointly with his wife Mary II. Mary was the daughter of James II, and William was his nephew. In addition, James's commanders included the Duke of Berwick and his brother Henry Fitzjames, illegitimate sons of James by Arabella Churchill. Her brother, John Churchill, later Duke of Marlborough, had served in James's army but defected to William's. Another son-in- law of James, Prince George of Denmark, was also serving with William.
Robert Shepherd makes it clear that James's difficulties were increased by the paranoia of his first cousin, Louis XIV of France. Louis XIV determined to remain dominant in Europe and refused help to the Emperor, a fellow Catholic, when the Turks besieged Vienna. The Austrian capital was, in fact, rescued by John Sobieski of Poland. Louis's gamble in tacitly supporting the Sultan against Christ- ian Europe had misfired. Shepherd sug- gests that the decision to revoke the Edict of Nantes in 1685 may have been a sop to the Papacy. It was probably not accepted as such by the Pope, and its immediate effect was to send a flood of Huguenots across the Channel to England. This undermined James's efforts to allay suspi- cion of the Church of Rome. It also deprived Louis of many talented French- men.
Louis's calculations suggested to him that to support a war in Ireland would progressively weaken William, the Protest- ant ally of the Catholic Emperor. With this in mind he agreed to sponsor James's attempt to regain his throne by way of Ireland. The King of France took farewell of his cousin with double-edged words: `The best wish I can form for your service is that I may never see you again.' As a boy Louis had known only too well what a plague exiled Stuarts could be, as indeed they were destined to be once again.
No King of England had landed in 'Unfortunate manna!'
Ireland since Richard II in 1384. James was greeted with enthusiasm, and for a time it seemed possible that he would be able to regain England through the backdoor of Ireland. Probably the most famous episode before the Battle of the Boyne itself was the Siege of Derry. The beleaguered Pro- testants were eventually relieved by General Kirk, notorious for his brutal conduct after the battle of Sedgemoor; Kirk's excesses followed the execution of the Duke of Monmouth, yet another nephew of James II. Like John Churchill, Kirk had decided that it would be as well to be on what could be assessed as the winning side. William himself was Mostly concerned with campaigns on the mainland of Europe, but when he turned his atten- tion to Ireland, and arrived at Ulster in person, he galvanised his army. Shepherd finds it difficult to admire or even like William, but he admits that he was a fearless general with a real concern for the welfare of his soldiers, however chilly he might have been in personal relationships.
The account of the Battle of the Boyne given in Ireland's Fate is clear, with an excellent plan. After the battle the defeat- ed James arrived in Dublin and gave the city fathers a piece of his mind, as he had considered that the Irish had failed to stand. He then went on the run again, and eventually made a bad-penny return to France. The war was not, of course, over, but in October 1691 the Treaty of Limerick brought fighting to an end.
The 12,000 soldiers, 'the Wild Geese', who left Ireland for France to serve in many countries, are, perhaps, regarded by Robert Shepherd as having caused more of a loss to Ireland than was actually the case. In spite of the penal times, and the restrictions on Catholics, many of the aristocracy and landed gentry survived on their estates until the day of Catholic emancipation. It can also be argued that the emigrants, who distinguished them- selves all over Europe, though exiles, had far more opportunities for rising in the world than their native island could ever have offered them.
The legend of King Billy still seems to cause some bewilderment to Robert Shepherd, in spite of his experience of the Province. He includes a harrowing passage on the sacrifice, approaching annihilation, of the Ulster Division on the Somme in 1916. The division attacked on 1 July, anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, and snatches of 'The tune they played was the Protestant Boys' was heard amid gunfire.
Robert Shepherd has a distinct weakness for King James II as a character, not an opinion universally held. The King is, however, commemorated by what has been called the best of London statues.
Defeated he may have been, but with his air of a dyspeptic bloodhound transformed by the genius of Grinling Gibbons, James stands outside the National Gallery as a triumphant Roman Emperor.
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