the succession during his youth, partly through the influence of Cromwell, he was chosen Stadtholder in 1672. On 4th November 1677, he married Mary, daughter of the Duke of York, afterwards James II. On 30th June 1688 he received an invitation from English politicians, to intervene for the restoration of national rights and liberties, and on the 5th of November landed at Torbay with an English and Dutch force. He was received with enthusiasm, and James, after entering into negotiations with him, fled to France in December. A convention was immediately summoned, and, on the 13th of February 1688-'9, William and Mary were proclaimed joint sovereigns of England. They were crowned on the 11th April, and on the same day were proclaimed King and Queen by the estates of Scotland. While the revolution in Great Britain was thus accomplished almost without bloodshed, the greater part of Ireland remained loyal to James. The Catholic Irish were in the ascendant everywhere except at Londonderry, Enniskillen, and a few unimportant places, chiefly in Ulster. James landed at Kinsale in the month of March 1688-'9, and held a Parliament in Dublin in May. Where the Protestants resisted at all, they were everywhere on the defensive. Londonderry, one of the few remaining strongholds in English hands, was besieged from 18th April to 30th July, when the place was relieved by a naval force from England. About two weeks later Duke Schomberg, with some 16,000 men, chiefly foreign mercenaries, arrived in Belfast Lough; but, though he gained some successes, he was quite unable to cope with James's army, and was obliged to entrench himself near Dundalk. Reinforcements were sent in March 1690, and, on the 11th June, William himself sailed from Highlake, near Chester, with more troops, and landed at Carrickfergus on the 14th, where he was met by Schomberg, who resigned the chief command into his hands. The King's united forces numbered about 36,000 men—English, Irish, French, Dutch, and Brandenburgers. He had a military chest of £200,000, and was amply provided with artillery and munitions of war. His principal generals were: Duke Schomberg, Count de Zolmes, Count Schomberg, the Earl of Oxford, General de Ginkell, Lieutenant-General Douglass, Sgravenmoer, Lanier, Kirk, La Forest, Tettau, Sidney, and Nassau. On the 19th June, at Belfast, then a small town of some three hundred houses, he issued a proclamation forbidding plunder or violence by those under his command, and declaring the chief intention and design of his expedition to be "to reduce our kingdom of Ireland to such a state that all who behave themselves as becomes dutiful and loyal subjects may enjoy their liberties and possessions under a just and equal government." At Hillsborough, on 19th June, he issued a warrant granting a pension of £1,200 a year to the Presbyterian ministers of the north of Ireland, "wherein," said Harris, "betakes notice of their loyalty and good affections, the losses they had sustained, and their constant labour to unite the hearts of others to zeal and loyalty toward him." (This was the nucleus of the Regium Donum, gradually increased to £40,000 per annum, and extinguished in our time by the payment of a capital sum under the Church Act.) The Enniskillen and Londonderry regiments were received into the regular army, upon the same footing as the other troops. It was known that James had marched north at the head of a large force, and the country south of Dundalk was believed to be friendly to him. Some of William's generals recommended great caution in the advance; but, declaring that the country was worth fighting for, and that he had not come to let the grass grow under his feet, but was determined to prosecute the war with the utmost vigour, he reviewed his army at Loughbrickland, marched to Dundalk, and hearing that the enemy had abandoned Ardee, pushed on thither. There was considerable difference of opinion in James's cabinet as to the proper policy to be pursued in the emergency. His council on the whole advised that he should strengthen Dublin, Drogheda, and the Leinster garrisons, hold the line of the Shannon, and wait the chance of reinforcements from France, of William's retreat being cut off by a French squadron, or of a diversion in James's favour in England. James himself was, however, determined to defend the Boyne at Oldbridge. He had all the advantages he could desire; the river was tolerably deep, there was a morass to be passed, and behind it rising ground. On 30th June (o.s.), William, being informed that James had repassed the Boyne, moved his whole army, in three columns, at break of day, to the river, and sent a detachment towards Drogheda. From a hill he had a view of a portion of the Irish army encamped in two lines on the south bank. William was somewhat disconcerted by the apparently honest report of a deserter, who placed the numbers of the enemy at a much higher figure than he had antici-
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