Battle of the Boyne, 1690: two kings, one river

In July 1690 two kings faced each other across the River Boyne, west of Drogheda: William III, Dutch Prince of Orange and new king of England, Scotland and Ireland, and his uncle and father-in-law James II, the Catholic king he had replaced. Both commanded in person, at the head of more soldiers than any other battle fought in Ireland. It did not end the war, yet few days in Irish history are remembered, or argued over, more.²

From the Glorious Revolution to the Boyne

In 1688 the Protestant William took the throne in the Glorious Revolution and James fled to France. James was an ally of Louis XIV, William's old enemy, so the struggle for the three crowns became part of the Nine Years' War, in which William led the anti-French Grand Alliance. A century of plantation by English and Scottish Protestants, in the years after the defeat of the Gaelic lords at Kinsale in 1601, had left the country bitterly divided, and the war took on a sectarian and ethnic edge.³ › Battle of Staffarda, 1690

James landed at Kinsale in March 1689 with French support. Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell, had raised a Catholic army; only Derry and Enniskillen held out against it. A Williamite army under the veteran Duke of Schomberg landed in August 1689 but wasted away from disease at Dundalk. William came himself in June 1690, landing at Carrickfergus on 14 June, and marched south toward Dublin.⁴

The armies and the commanders

The Office of Public Works puts William's army at about 36,000 and James's at about 25,000. The National Army Museum gives 37,000 against 23,000, and P. W. Joyce, writing in 1910, 40,000 against 26,000. William's army was strikingly international: at its core were Dutch and Danish professionals, about 13,000 of them by the National Army Museum's count, plus French Huguenots, Germans, and English, Scottish and Irish regiments, many of them raw. Many of its men carried the latest flintlock muskets, and Dutch units used new platoon fire tactics.⁵

The Jacobite army was mostly Irish Catholic, stiffened by French troops sent by Louis XIV under the Comte de Lauzun. Many infantrymen had no firearm at all, most of the rest only old matchlocks, and artillery was scarce. Its strength was the cavalry, raised largely from the Catholic gentry. James and Tyrconnell had seen plenty of war, but unlike William and Schomberg neither had commanded a large army in the field.⁶

The battle, phase by phase

William reached the Boyne on 30 June (one account gives 29 June). That day, while he studied the fords, a Jacobite cannon ball wounded him slightly. Rejecting Schomberg's advice for a wide western sweep, he planned three blows: a strong force upstream toward Slane and Rosnaree, the main assault at the ford of Oldbridge, and a crossing downstream toward Drogheda. James held the south bank around Donore Hill.⁷

Early on 1 July, between a quarter and a third of William's army, under Schomberg's son Meinhard, crossed upstream near Rosnaree. Fearing encirclement, James sent west perhaps half or more of his army, French troops included. Both forces then stalled at Roughgrange, across a marshy ravine neither had scouted, and sat out most of the battle.⁸

At about ten o'clock, after a bombardment, William's Dutch Blue Guards waded the river at Oldbridge, with Huguenots behind them, and drove the Jacobite foot from the village. Irish cavalry and James's Life Guards under his son the Duke of Berwick charged them again and again as they climbed the bank. Schomberg was killed rallying Huguenots broken by a charge, and so was George Walker, a leader of Derry's defense the year before.⁹

Around midday William led cavalry across further downstream. With more foot and horse now over the river and the western flank threatening the Dublin road, James ordered a retreat. His army fell back through Duleek and over the River Nanny in good order, its cavalry, French included, covering the withdrawal.¹⁰

Why did James II lose at the Boyne?

James lost because he was outnumbered, outgunned and outmaneuvered. William's march upriver drew much of the Jacobite army away from Oldbridge, where better armed Dutch and Huguenot infantry then forced the main ford. James's poorly equipped foot could not hold the crossing, and his fine cavalry could only cover the retreat.¹¹

Casualties

Losses were light for the age, “not heavy” in the words of the Oxford Companion to British History. The National Army Museum estimates about 800 Williamites killed and wounded and perhaps twice as many Jacobites. No exact count survives.¹²

The Williamite side

For William it was a hard-won success: he was wounded and lost his best general. But the flank threat and frontal assault worked, and his army entered Dublin within days. Irish Protestants, who had lived through the siege of Derry, came to see it as a providential deliverance. With Aughrim a year later, it helped establish the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland.¹³

The Jacobite side

For the Jacobites the Boyne was a defeat, not a disaster. Their raw, poorly armed infantry lost the fords, but the cavalry charged repeatedly and saved the army. James is judged harshly. He fought on the Boyne instead of falling back to the Shannon as his French advisers urged, drew troops away from the decisive ford, and was on a ship for France within days. Tyrconnell and Irish officers such as Patrick Sarsfield fought on in his name.¹⁴

Aftermath: not decisive, yet decisive

Militarily the Boyne settled little. The Jacobite army withdrew largely intact, and the war went on for another year, until their decisive defeat at Aughrim on 12 July 1691. Limerick surrendered on terms in October 1691, and under the Treaty of Limerick thousands of Jacobite soldiers left with Sarsfield for France.¹⁵

Politically it was enormous: James's flight ended his real hope of regaining his thrones and freed William's resources for the war against Louis XIV. The Jacobite cause lived on in exile until its last rising, with victory at Prestonpans and final defeat at Culloden. The Boyne belongs beside the turning points in our guide to the greatest battles in British history.¹⁶

Rome, Versailles and the Grand Alliance

In European terms this was no simple Protestant against Catholic contest: the papacy itself was at odds with Louis XIV, and popular accounts even place the Pope on William's side. Pope Innocent XI had quarrelled bitterly with Louis XIV, who seized papal Avignon, and disapproved of James's rash attempts to restore Catholicism in England; he died in August 1689, a year before the battle. Popular accounts say his successor Alexander VIII welcomed William's victory, but the details are shaky: one reference work credits it to the dead Innocent and rejects the story of a Te Deum at St Peter's.¹⁷

1 July, 11 July or 12 July?

In 1690 Britain and Ireland still used the Julian (Old Style) calendar, ten days behind the Gregorian one. So 1 July in Ireland was 11 July in most of continental Europe. Ireland changed calendars in 1752 and the anniversary settled on 12 July. Either eleven days, the gap after 1700, were added instead of ten, or the Boyne absorbed the older celebration of Aughrim, fought on 12 July 1691 Old Style.¹⁸

The Orange Order, founded in 1795 and named after William of Orange, commemorates the battle, and its marching season peaks on 12 July. For members and many unionists the Twelfth parades celebrate a cherished tradition; many nationalists see them as provocative.¹⁹

The battlefield today

The battlefield lies on the south bank, about 3 km north of Donore in County Meath. The Office of Public Works runs the Battle of the Boyne Visitor Centre in Oldbridge House, a restored eighteenth-century house, with period weapons and a laser battlefield model. Walkways cross the battlesite and follow the river, and the grounds are free. At the time of writing the exhibition was in the adjoining Stable Yard while the house was closed, so check before visiting.²⁰