Battle of the Boyne

Battle of the Boyne, (July 1, 1690), in British history, a major conflict fought along the Boyne River in Ireland between King William III (William of Orange) and the exiled king James II. Having been deposed and exiled after William’s landing at Brixham and subsequent English desertions, James II sought to retake his throne through an alliance with Ireland and France. A string of Irish Jacobite victories in the northern country were followed by a swift but indecisive loss on the Boyne River. Although James’s escape dragged the First Jacobite Rising into 1691, the Battle of the Boyne reassured William’s allies of his commitment to defeating all French-aligned forces.

Background

The last half of the 17th century was a turbulent time for England. Following the English Civil War’s bloody end, the country was ruled by the Puritan Oliver Cromwell and, after his death, his son Richard. The English Protectorate only ended after Richard’s resignation, after which Parliament alone ruled until the house of Stuart’s restoration in 1660. Under King Charles II, the crown began to align itself with France, then an ambitious continental power and the strongest of the Catholic kingdoms. Charles was a shrewd politician, and some years before his death in 1685, he signed the Treaty of Dover. In exchange for financial assistance from France, Charles would privately convert to Catholicism and devote a number of English warships to King Louis XIV’s war effort against the Protestant Dutch Republic.

Despite Charles’s foreign political savvy, his domestic policy of religious tolerance did not sit well with many Irish Catholics, who had supported the exiled Stuarts at great personal risk. Under Cromwell’s rule, much of their property had been stripped from them. English Protestants were also incentivized to settle in Ireland, further reducing the power of Irish Catholics. Having suffered so heavily for the Stuarts, Charles’s Catholic subjects hoped for more explicitly beneficial treatment. Charles’s support of his fellow believers was tacit, in contrast to that of his openly Catholic brother, James. When James II acceded to the throne in 1685, he enacted a number of military reforms in Ireland aimed at eliminating local Protestant influence. The earl of Tyrconnell was tasked with disarming Protestant militias and levying an Irish army loyal not to Anglican-controlled Parliament but only to the crown.

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A History of War

On the other side of the North Sea, tensions escalated between France and the Dutch Republic. William III of Orange, an elected stadtholder (chief magistrate) of five major Dutch provinces, had successfully defended the Netherlands against a French invasion from 1672 to 1678. A second invasion in 1680 cemented William’s opposition to an expansionist France. Setting aside religious differences, he joined the League of Augsburg alongside a number of Catholic powers aimed at putting a decisive end to French land grabs.

Shortly before the end of the first French invasion, William had wed his cousin Mary, who was also King Charles II’s niece. In the absence of any eligible male heirs, Mary was second to an aging James in the line of succession, meaning that upon James’s death, she and William could turn English firepower on France. William understood the importance of the Royal Navy in any military designs against France, and such designs would end in disaster as long as Charles remained a French ally with Catholic sympathies. Unfortunately for William, the line of succession changed in June 1688, when King James II’s wife bore a son.

Amid doubts regarding the child’s legitimacy, William rallied thousands of Dutchmen to his banner and prepared to cross the North Sea. With favourable weather conditions that stayed the English fleet, he landed that November at Brixham, located in Devonshire on Tor Bay. James’s government and military splintered as men flocked to William’s standard. William entered London in mid-December. By Christmas Eve, James had quietly quit his country for France, effectively ceding the throne to William.

In April 1689, Parliament crowned William and Mary joint sovereigns of Britain. Between William III’s landing and coronation, however, Ireland had grown dangerously recalcitrant. Tyrconnell was able to muster his formidable army of Irish Catholics, known as Jacobites for their loyalty to the exiled James II. Tyrconnell consolidated Jacobite dominance in Ireland over a matter of months, with only a few pockets of Protestant resistance. Just weeks before William’s coronation, James received enough French support to set in motion his plan to retake the throne. On March 12 he landed in the southern Irish town of Kinsale with nearly all the northern country under his control. Two major Protestant strongholds, Derry (now Londonderry) and Enniskillen, became the sites of major conflict over the next few months.

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James lay siege to Derry on April 18. The city held out for three months until a Williamite relief force arrived, and by the end of July the Jacobites had retreated. Also in July, Protestants rebuffed a Jacobite army at Enniskillen and forced them to withdraw. Following Enniskillen, William dispatched a landing force of some 20,000 men from England under the duke of Schomberg, a seasoned military commander from the Holy Roman Empire. Schomberg’s army was primarily Dutch, with some fresh English recruits and a few thousand Danes. At the head of this army, Schomberg landed in Northern Ireland at Bangor on August 13. He seized the town of Carrickfergus and advanced south toward Dublin. James’s armies, which by now had reached Drogheda en route to the Irish capital, wheeled around to block Schomberg’s movements. In September the two forces took up camp on opposite sides of Dundalk, a town in the south of Ulster province. They remained there through the winter.

During this lull in fighting, James’s envoys in France were able to secure reinforcements from the mainland. Some 6,000 French musketeers landed in southern Ireland in March 1690. In London, William convinced Parliament to grant him more funds for the duration of the war. He also announced his intention to personally bring an end to the Jacobite rising. At the head of 15,000 reinforcements, William landed at Carrickfergus on June 14, 1690.

James deduced that protecting Dublin was of paramount importance. It was both the Irish seat of power and unacceptably unfortified. With Dublin’s poor position as a defense point itself, his advisers were split regarding the best location to halt William’s advance. Some thought he should create a bottleneck at Moyry Pass, while others were wary of being flanked and slaughtered. James settled on a defensive position on the southern banks of the Boyne River, 25 miles (40 kilometres) north of Dublin and the ancient city’s largest natural defense. He set up camp on June 29. William established his headquarters across the river shortly thereafter.

Battle

South of the Boyne, James II commanded an army of roughly 23,000 men. The overwhelming majority were Irish Catholics trained under Tyrconnell’s supervision, in addition to the 6,000 French soldiers from Louis XIV. While the French had seen combat, the Irish troops were far less experienced and bore outdated muskets. Furthermore, James had a speckled military past that painted him as a poor commander. At the Boyne, James decided to position the bulk of his forces along the river, deployed such that they could make immediate contact with William’s army upon their crossing. This would hold their centre in place and prevent William’s artillery from firing, without killing their fellow soldiers. The remainder of his men were tasked with destroying bridges and guarding potential fords. To this end, James set a small force east to the crossing at Drogheda and dispatched dragoons to the southwestern ford near the village of Rosnaree.

North of the Boyne, William III’s army numbered some 37,000 men. Roughly half were British. The remainder were mostly Dutch, with a few thousand Danes and a smattering of French Huguenots. His Dutch soldiers were seasoned fighters from the war against France, and all were armed with modern flintlock muskets. William also possessed an estimated eight times the number of James’s artillery pieces. Unlike his opponent, William had proven his military acumen, in his defense of the Netherlands. He was determined to bring his skills to the Boyne as well. After much internal debate, William settled on a three-pronged strategy. On his right flank, a troop of cavalry and several thousand infantrymen would move to cross the river at Slane. In the centre, the duke of Schomberg would concentrate roughly 20,000 men on James’s core army and simultaneously bombard them with artillery. On the left, William himself would lead some 8,000 men to a third river crossing and force James’s right flank to meet him. All three parts were to be executed simultaneously to deny James the opportunity to respond.

In the early hours of July 1, William’s right wing began to mobilize. They marched south to cross north of Rosnaree but were met by a number of Jacobite dragoons, who held up the crossing until mid-morning. Although the Williamite forces successfully crossed, James’s commanders were now aware of their enemy’s movements, and they sent a sizable detachment to stop any further advance.

In the centre, William split his forces into three groups, which forded at Drybridge, Yellow Island, and Oldbridge. William himself stayed with the reserves, awaiting further developments. James had ordered his men to fall back a bit to give battle on slightly more favourable ground, but, upon seeing the Williamite centre’s movements, he ordered his commanders to mount a counterattack. Over the course of a few hours, they were able to slow enemy advances, even killing Schomberg, William’s lieutenant. However, the Jacobites could not stop the vastly more powerful army. Perceiving the overall success of his centre’s maneuver, William prepared to cross the Boyne himself, reaching the southern banks at Mill’s Ford. With the tide of the battle now firmly in William’s favour, James ordered a measured withdrawal south to Duleek. He and his army escaped mostly intact.

Aftermath and significance

The Battle of the Boyne may have been a victory for William III, but it was far from decisive. William’s failure to destroy the Jacobites or adequately pursue the retreating army only made it more difficult to quell the rebellion in Ireland. The scattered remains of James’s army fell back to Dublin and then southwest to Limerick, on the other end of the island. James himself fled to France. On July 6 William entered Dublin with little resistance. He then issued the Declaration of Finglas, which demanded total Irish repentance or the forfeit of their lands. Rather than surrender, the remaining Jacobites fortified Limerick and held out under siege until the following year. The 1691 Treaty of Limerick brought a formal end to this rising. But with James II still alive in France, William III’s reign would suffer periodic challenges through the end of the century.

The Battle of the Boyne also had an impact on the continental balance of power. The League of Augsburg was rightfully fearful of France’s rising power, and Louis XIV’s repeated attacks on the Dutch Republic were of particular concern. The Franco-Irish defeat at the Boyne reassured William’s allies that Louis would not go unchecked. Britain could be counted on to resist French expansionism. With the crown now in Protestant hands, Britain was both politically and religiously opposed to French Catholic domination. William’s ascent helped bring an end to the War of the Grand Alliance by 1697.