Orange and Green - G. A. Henty (the reader ebook TXT) 📗

influence with the Protestants of his neighbourhood would suffice to prevent these from interfering with the household at the castle.

The Irish army marched towards the Shannon, and were concentrated part in the neighbourhood of Athlone, and part at Limerick. William shortly prepared to follow them. He, too, divided his army into two columns. The main body, under his own command, took the road to Limerick; while the other division, consisting of five regiments of cavalry and twelve of infantry, was despatched, under the command of General Douglas, for the purpose of investing the fortress of Athlone.

As the armies marched west, their path was marked by wholesale outrage and destruction. Although protections were granted to the peasants and inhabitants of the towns and villages through which the armies marched, they were entirely disregarded by the soldiers, who plundered, ill used, and sometimes murdered the defenceless people, carrying away without payment all provisions on which they could lay their hands.

The king sometimes hanged those who were caught in these acts of plunder and slaughter, but this had but little effect. The Dutch soldiers, alone, maintained their order and discipline. The foreign mercenaries, composed for the most part of the sweepings of the great cities, behaved with a brutality and cruelty almost without example, and which was acknowledged by all the historians of the time, Protestant as well as Catholic. Indeed, the Protestant inhabitants suffered even more than the Catholics, for many of the latter fled at the approach of the army, while the Protestants, regarding them as friends and deliverers, remained quietly at home, and suffered every insult and outrage at the hands of this horde of savages, who were perfectly indifferent as to the religion of those they plundered.

Captain Davenant's troop was with the force which had retired to Athlone, and there awaited the approach of the column of General Douglas. The reports of the conduct of the enemy, that were brought in by the flying peasants, filled the Irish troops with indignation and rage, and when, on arriving before the town, General Douglas sent a messenger to demand its surrender, Colonel Grace, who commanded, only replied by firing a pistol towards him.

Athlone stood on either side of the Shannon. The town on the eastern bank of the river was called "the English town," that on the western "the Irish "--a distinction existing in many of the Irish towns, where the early English settlers found it expedient to live apart from the Irish, for mutual protection against attack. Colonel Grace had retired to the west bank of the river, which was strongly fortified, destroying the English town and breaking down part of the bridge across the river.

The garrison consisted of three regiments of foot and nine troops of horse; and when Douglas erected his batteries and opened fire on the castle, they replied briskly, and their guns got the better of those in the batteries. A strong detachment of horse and mounted grenadiers was sent by Douglas to Lanesborough, some miles north of the town, with orders to pass the river at that point, but the post was held by Irish troops, who easily repulsed the attempt.

It was next proposed to pass the river at a ford a short distance from the bridge; but the troops had little heart for the enterprise, as the ford was covered by field works erected by the Irish.

The assailants were already reduced to considerable straits. They had consumed all provisions found in the town, plundering without mercy the Protestant inhabitants, who had been well treated by the Irish troops, while the conduct of the army effectually deterred the country people from bringing in provisions.

The circulation of the report that General Sarsfield, with fifteen thousand men, was on the march to cut off the besiegers of Athlone, determined General Douglas to make a speedy retreat. In his fear of being cut off, he abandoned all his heavy baggage, and, quitting the high road, made his way by unfrequented routes, which added to the hardships of the march. In its retreat, the column was accompanied by the unhappy Protestant inhabitants, who feared to remain behind, lest the Irish should retaliate upon them the sufferings which had been inflicted upon their countrymen.

In the meantime, the main English army had done but little. In Dublin, a commission had been appointed to examine into and forfeit the lands of all Catholics, and adherents of King James, and having set this machine at work, the king proceeded with his army southward through Carlow, Kilkenny, and Waterford, all of which places surrendered, the garrisons being allowed to march out, with their arms and baggage, to join their main army on the Shannon.

At Waterford, the king received such serious news as to the state of things in England, that he determined to return home. On arriving at Dublin, he was overwhelmed with petitions from the inhabitants, as to the shameful conduct of the troops left in garrison there, especially those of Trelawney's, Schomberg's, and some other regiments of horse, who, the people complained, treated them, although Protestants, far worse than James's Catholic soldiers had done. Inquiry showed these complaints to be well founded, and, finding it impossible to restore order and discipline among them, the king at once sent these regiments back to England.

Then, receiving better news from home, he again started to rejoin his army, and marched towards Limerick, being joined on his way by the division under Douglas, which had driven along with them all the cattle and horses of the country through which they had passed.

Limerick was, at that time, the second city in Ireland. The country, for a long distance along the mouth of the Shannon, was much wooded, but in the immediate vicinity of the town it was surrounded by thick inclosures, houses, orchards, gardens, and plantations. The cultivated land was everywhere divided into small fields, inclosed by hedges and intersected by lanes. To the east of the town the Shannon divides itself, forming an island on which part of the city is situated.

This was called the English town, and was connected by a bridge, called Thomond Bridge, with the Clare side of the river on the north; and on the south, by another bridge, with the Irish town on the county of Limerick side. The Thomond Bridge was defended by a strong fort and some field works on the Clare side, and on the city side by a drawbridge, flanked by towers and the city walls. The bridge was very long and narrow.

The position of the English town was, indeed, almost impregnable. It was built upon a rock of considerable extent, and the land outside the walls was low and marshy, and could at any time be flooded. The Shannon was broad and rapid. The Irish town on the Limerick shore was not strong, being defended only by ordinary walls. If this were captured, however, the English town could still hold out.

The king made his approaches to the city slowly, being obliged to level the numerous inclosures as he moved on. These were occupied by the Irish infantry, who, lining every hedge, kept up a galling fire, falling back gradually as heavy bodies of troops were brought up against them, until they reached the cover of the guns of the city and fort. Upon these opening fire, William's army halted and encamped before the Irish town.

Here, as at the Boyne, the king had a narrow escape, a cannonball from the walls striking the ground at his foot as he was passing through a gap in a hedge.

The king had learned that great dissensions existed between the Irish and French, and relied upon this, as much as upon the strength of his arms, to obtain possession of the city. His information was, indeed, correct. King James, in his flight, had left no orders as to who should assume the supreme command. The Duke of Berwick had considerable claims. Lauzun and the French officers declined altogether to receive orders from Tyrconnell, and the Irish officers equally objected to act under the command of a Frenchman. Consequently, during the whole siege, the main Irish army, which, by acting upon William's rear, could speedily have made his position untenable, remained inactive. Monsieur Boileau, a French officer, was governor of the town, but Lauzun, having examined the fortifications, pronounced the place wholly incapable of defence, declaring that the walls could be knocked down with roasted apples, and so ordered the entire French division to march to Galway, and there await an opportunity for embarking for France, leaving the Irish to defend the city if they chose.

Lauzun, in fact, was a courtier, not a soldier. He desired to get back to Versailles at any hazard, and had so inspired his officers and men with his own sentiments that there was a general cry among them to be recalled to France. They had, indeed, no interest in the cause in which they fought. They looked with contempt at their half-armed and half-trained allies, and they grumbled continually at the hardships which they had to undergo. It was indeed an evil day, for King James's cause, when he exchanged Mountcashel's fine division for these useless allies, who, throughout the war, not only did no service, but were the cause of endless dissension and disaster.

As soon as King William had taken up his position in front of Limerick, he sent a summons to Boileau to surrender. The latter consulted with Tyrconnell, Sarsfield, and some other officers, for, even to the last moment, it was a question whether the place should be defended.

At last, however, a decision was made. The reply was addressed to William's secretary, Sir Robert Roultwell, as Boileau could not acknowledge the prince as king, and was too polite to hurt his feelings by a denial of the royal title. He expressed great surprise at the summons he had received, and said that he hoped to merit the good opinion of the Prince of Orange better by a vigorous defence, than by a shameful surrender, of the fortress which had been committed to his charge by his master King James the Second.

The king's camp was now formed in regular order; he himself taking his place on its right, having near him the Horse Guards, and the Blue Dutch Guards, who were always his main reliance. To the left of these were the English and Dutch regiments, further on the French and Danes, while the Brandenburghers and other German regiments formed the extreme left of the line. To their great satisfaction, the post assigned to the Danes was one of the rude circular redoubts called, in Ireland, Danish forts, and probably constructed by their own far-off ancestors.

Chapter 9: Pleasant Quarters.

After the termination of the short siege of Athlone, the troop of Captain Davenant were despatched to join the army near Limerick, and, on their arrival there, were ordered to take up their quarters at the house of a Protestant gentleman named Conyers, four miles from the town on the Limerick side of the river.

It was a mansion of considerable size, standing in large grounds, for its proprietor was one of the largest landowners in the county of Limerick, his grandfather having been a colonel in one of Cromwell's regiments. Mr. Conyers himself had gone to Dublin, upon the passing of the act sequestrating the property of all the Protestants by James's parliament, to endeavour to obtain a remission of the decree, so far as it concerned his house and adjoining grounds. As he had influential friends there, he had remained, urging his petition, until the battle of the Boyne and the entry of King William into Dublin entirely changed the position. But he then, owing to the disturbance of the country, and the fact that the Irish army had retired to Limerick, found it impossible to return home. He had, however, travelled with William's army, to which he was able to give much useful information regarding the defences, and details of the country