1690 Battle of the Boyne

Book Code:  AM0165

1690 Battle of the Boyne

On 1 July 1690 some 23,000 soldiers of the deposed King James II peered anxiously through morning mist towards the River Boyne below them. These Jacobites were mostly Irish Catholics reinforced with grumbling Frenchmen sent by the Sun King, Louis XIV. But William of Orange's much larger army of English, Dutch, Huguenots, Scots and Germans was already stirring. Beset by plots in Britain and reverses on land and sea, William needed to crush the Jacobite army on the spot. Why, then, after he sent part of his army to cross the river upstream, didn't William trap and annihilate the Jacobites? Does the fact that James fled from the battlefield, and Ireland, make the Boyne consequential and decisive? His flight was in sharp contrast to the carefully crafted image of William as a fearless and inspirational warrior-king. The Boyne was, and is, politically potent: how many other battles are commemorated every year? Yet it was militarily indecisive. The largest battle in Irish history, it concluded the English War of Succession, the Irish and French-backed James II being defeated by William III securing a Protestant monarchy in England.

Padraig Lenihan
Hardcover 320 pages

 

1690 Battle of the Boyne