General Percy Kirke and the Later Stuart Army 9781474210690, 9781441158826, 9781441118035

Citation preview

For ’Cesca, who makes everything possible.

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Malin Head ATLANTIC OCEAN

Inishowen Head INISHOWEN

Greencastle Redcastle

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Whitecastle

Lough Swilly

Lough Foyle

Rathmullan Causeway Culmore

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Pennyburn Londonderry

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Newtown Limavady

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The Battle of Sedgemoor 6th July 1685

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Langmoor Plungeon Lower Plungeon Upper Plungeon Trelawney’s Battalion Kirke’s Battalion Coldstream Guards Grenadier Guards Royal Scots Royal Guns

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Abbreviations ADC aide-de-camp Add. MSS.

Additional Manuscript

ADM

Admiralty Papers, the National Archives

BL

British Library, London

Bod. Lib.

Bodleian Library, Oxford

Bt Baronet CA California CO

Colonial Office Papers, the National Archives

CSPC  Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies CSPD

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series

CSPV

Calendar of State Papers,Venetian

CT Connecticut CTB

Calendar of Treasury Books

CTP

Calendar of Treasury Papers

Dalton, Army Lists Dalton, English Army Lists and Commission Registers, 1661–1714 EHR

English Historical Review

f./ff. folio/folios HMC  Reports of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts HMSO

His/Her Majesty’s Stationery Office

HPT Henning (ed.), The House of Commons, 1660–1690. Also at www.historyofparliamentonline.org. Knt knight JP

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Justice of the Peace

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Abbreviations JSAHR

xi

Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research

Letter Book The Letter Book of Colonel Percy Kirke, containing his dispatches from Tangier, 1681–3, to Secretary Jenkins, and to the Lords of the Treasury. Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, MSS. 2572. MP

Member of Parliament

MS. Manuscript MSS. Manuscripts NC

North Carolina

NCO

non-commissioned officer

NJ

New Jersey

NLI

National Library of Ireland

ODNB Matthews and Harrison (eds), The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Also at www.oxforddnb.com PC

Registers of the Privy Council, the National Archives

p.a.

per annum

QRWS Records of the Queen’s Royal Regiment, West Surrey, Surrey History Centre, Woking Rev. Reverend RN

Royal Navy

RPCS

Register of the Privy Council of Scotland

SP

State Papers, the National Archives

TNA

The National Archives, Kew, London

VA Virginia WO

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War Office Papers, the National Archives

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Notes Chapter One   1 Two secondary sources claim that George Kirke was MP for Clitheroe, Lancashire, in the 1626 Parliament but this is incorrect. William Kirke, from a prominent Lancashire family, was elected alongside Sir Ralph Assheton, 1st Bt of Great Leaver, Whalley, Malham (1579–1644) (Browne Willis, Notitia Parliamentaria, pp. 232, 245).   2 Page (ed.), History of the County of York North Riding, vol. 2, pp. 182–7, 196–202.   3 The second portrait dated from 1637 or 1638 to mark her appointment as the Queen’s dresser and was later engraved by Isaac Becket (1653–1719). See HMC, 15th Report, Somerset, Ailesbury and Puleston MSS., Appendix, Part 7, p. 183.   4 This was relatively unusual. ‘Shooting the bridge’ was so dangerous that most people travelling by water disembarked and re-embarked above and below the bridge. Only during ‘slack water’ immediately following high or low tide was it relatively safe for a boat to risk passing through the arches (Pepys, Diary, vol. 10, p. 235; Pierce, Old London Bridge, pp. 180–1).   5 Duchess of York from 1673 on her marriage to James, Duke of York, and Queen of England, 1685–8.  6 Poems by Mrs. Anne Killigrew, p. 77.   7 The Board of Green Cloth supervised the financial management and travel arrangements of the royal household.  8 Lindley, Fenland Riots and the English Revolution, pp. 46–7, 54, 89, 224–5; Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers, vol. 1, p. 184.  9 Gregg, King Charles I, pp. 225–6. 10 I.e., ‘assayer’, one who tests. 11 CTB, 1676–9, pp. 612–13. There were over 1,500 rooms within the complex of Whitehall Palace. Gater and Wheeler (eds), Survey of London: Volume 16: St. Martinin-the-Fields I: Charing Cross, pp. 71–81. 12 See Parry, Golden Age Restor’d; Bright (ed.), Poems from Sir Kenhelm Digby’s Papers, pp. 17–20. 13 Ludlow, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 198. 14 Gater and Wheeler (eds), Survey of London: Volume 16, St. Martin-in-the-Fields I: Charing Cross, pp. 82–6; Sheppard (ed.), Survey of London: Volume 36, Covent Garden, pp. 263–5. 15 Aylmer, King’s Servants, pp. 142, 317, 347; HMC, 6th Report, Appendix, p. 540a. 16 Page (ed.), History of the County of York North Riding, pp. 182–7. 17 Keeper of the Royal Aviary. 18 The short account of the life of George Kirke is heavily indebted to Philip Lewin, ‘Kirke, George’, ODNB. 19 In effect this was a crown dowry: later, Charles II regularized the payment of royal dowries, each worth £2,000, to all the queen’s maids of honour who left office to enter advantageous marriages. See Harris, A Passion for Government, p. 16; Harris, Transformations of Love, pp. 106–12.

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190 Notes 20 Anne’s grandfather, Paul, 1st Viscount Bayning (1588–1629), left £153,000 in money plus extensive landed estates in Suffolk and Essex (Ian W. Archer, ‘Bayning, Paul’, ODNB). 21 See Pepys, Diary, vol. 3, p. 86; vol. 4, p. 136; vol. 5, p. 166. 22 Davenport and Oxford performed a ‘mock marriage’ in either 1662 or 1663 but the poor girl harboured the illusion ever after that the union was legal. Mock marriages between the pampered and bored young men and women in the Restoration court were quite popular during the 1660s. See V. E. Chancellor, ‘Davenport, Hester’, ODNB; D’Aulnoy, Memoirs, pp. 428–32. 23 Hamilton, Memoirs of the Court of Charles II by Count Grammont, p. 358; Hatton, George I, p. 390; Jonathan Spain, ‘Beauclerk, Charles’, ODNB; Chester (ed.), Marriage, Baptismal and Burial Registers of the Collegiate Church or Abbey of St. Peter, Westminster, p. 295. 24 Sackville, Poems on Several Occasions, pp. 21–39. Mary Kirke’s portrait, in a mildly provocative pose, was painted by Sir Peter Lely between about 1680 and 1684. A mezzotint is in the possession of the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG D39235). 25 Harris, Transformations of Love, p. 220. Monmouth’s mother was the Welsh prostitute, Lucy Walter (c. 1630–58). 26 Mulgrave, whose arrogance had earned him the nickname ‘Haughty’, boasted that he was ‘the terror of husbands’. In 1682 he even made a pass at Princess, later Queen, Anne (1665–1714), for which indiscretion he suffered a short banishment in Tangier (Somerset, Queen Anne, pp. 37–8; Gregg, Queen Anne, pp. 27–8). ‘The Duke of Monmouth, being jealous of Lord Mulgrave’s courting his newest mistress, Moll Kirke, watched his coming late thence four or five nights ago and made the guards keep him among them all night’ (HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 27). 27 Godfrey, a comrade of Kirke in the Royal English Regiment in France until 1674, was cashiered from the 1st Foot Guards in 1681 because of his Exclusionist and pro-Monmouth leanings. He was a seasoned duellist and later acted as principal second in the many affairs of honour fought by his great friend Thomas, Earl Wharton (1648–1715) (HPT, vol. 2, pp. 402–3; Childs, The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution, p. 155; Carswell, Old Cause, pp. 44–8; Bulstrode, Collection of Autograph Letters and Historical Papers formed by Alfred Morrison, vol. 7, pp. 304–5; Jones, Middleton, pp. 28–9). 28 Wilson, Court Satires of the Restoration, pp. 257–8; Wilson, Court Wits of the Restoration, p. 26; HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 27; G. E. C., Complete Baronetage, 1649–1664, p. 93; Sheffield, Works of John Sheffield, vol. 2, pp. 33–4, 326; Savile Correspondence, pp. 39, 57. For gossip concerning Mary Kirke’s conduct see D’Aulnoy, Memoirs, pp. 66–293. 29 Monmouth took the rank of colonel-in-chief and directed the regiment in France until 1674, when he was replaced in the field by his lieutenant colonel, Robert Scott, a relative of his wife, Anna Scott, Duchess of Monmouth (1651–1732). When Scott’s ill health obliged him to return to England in November 1676, he was succeeded by Justin Macarty or MacCarthy, 1st Viscount Mountcashel from 1689 (c. 1643–94). 30 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 153; Herbert, ‘Captain Henry Herbert’s Narrative’, pp. 296, 359–60; CSPD, 1673–5, p. 209. 31 Sackville, ‘A faithful Catalogue’, in Poems on Several Occasions, p. 34. 32 Sir Roger Martin, ‘Advice, or a heroic Epistle to Mr. Fr[ancis] Villiers, to an excellent Tune called a Health to Betty’, BL Harleian MSS. 7319, p. 278.

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33 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 201, 304, 315, 331; vol. 2, pp. 25, 91; CSPD, 1673–5, p. 400; CSPD, 1675–6, pp. 151, 192; CSPD, 1678, p. 492; CSPD, 1683, p. 27; CSPD, 1684–5, p. 247; CSPD, 1685, p. 349; CSPD, 1690–1, p. 25.

Chapter Two   1 See Childs, Armies and Warfare in Europe, 1648–1789; Childs, Warfare in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 86–109; Carsten, Princes and Parliaments in Germany; P. H. Wilson, German Armies; Störkel, ‘The Defenders of Mayence in 1792’; Nimwegen, Dutch Army, p. 323. See Hartmann, The King my Brother, p. 131.   2 12 CII c. 15 (Raithby (ed.), Statutes of the Realm, vol. 5, pp. 238–41).  3 Hamilton, Grenadier Guards, vol. 1, pp. 41–3; Rogers, Fifth Monarchy Men, pp. 78–95.   4 Firth and Davies, Regimental History of Cromwell’s Army, pp. 52–7.  5 Ogilby, Entertainment of Charles II; Evelyn, Diary, 23 April 1661.   6 12 CII c. 15 (Raithby (ed.), Statutes of the Realm, vol. 5, pp. 238–41); Lee, ‘Government and Politics in Scotland, 1661–1681’, pp. 37–8, 155; Fissel, Bishops’ Wars, pp. 15, 22, 37.   7 On the Restoration armies in general see Childs, Army of Charles II; Walton, History of the British Standing Army, 1660–1700; Manning, Apprenticeship in Arms, pp. 264 passim; Beckett, ‘The Irish Forces, 1660–1685’, pp. 41–53; Miller, Swords for Hire, pp. 210–11; Firth and Davies, Regimental History of Cromwell’s Army, pp. 625–70; Dalton, Irish Army, pp. xii–xiii, 53; Dalton, Scots Army, part 1, pp. 1–87.   8 This regiment, later Prince George of Denmark’s, was commanded by Colonel Sir Charles Littleton (c. 1629–1716). It was disbanded on 28 February 1689.  9 Miller, Swords for Hire, pp. 207–11. 10 See Rogers, Dutch in the Medway. 11 In 1665, 65 per cent of the regular officers had either fought for Charles I or accompanied Charles II into exile; 25 per cent were career professionals who had returned from the Anglo-Dutch Brigade and other overseas employments; and ten per cent had a republican background. 12 Miller, Popery and Politics, p. 11; Miller, ‘Catholic Officers in the later Stuart Army’, pp. 35–53. In 1676, Seth Ward (1617–89), Bishop of Salisbury, conducted a survey of his flock. Out of 108,294 inhabitants, 103,671 were ‘conformists’, 3,000 non-conformist, 1,075 ‘separatist’ and 548 Roman Catholic (HMC, Duke of Leeds MSS., p. 18). Thus, in this rural diocese, only 0.6 per cent of the population was Roman Catholic. The ratio was appreciably higher in some urban areas, especially London. 13 Bruce, Purchase, pp. 6–19. 14 Hon. Philip Darcy (1661–94), second son of Conyers Darcy, 2nd Earl of Holderness (1622–92), and his second wife, Lady Frances Howard (c. 1627–70). 15 Bruce, Purchase, p. 15. Charles was anxious to deprive Russell, a convinced Whig, of the command of a key infantry regiment. 16 Walton, History of the British Standing Army, p. 455. 17 Defoe, Great Law of Subordination Consider’d, pp. 9–11. 18 There were several artistic soldiers in Charles II’s army. John Tidcomb (1642–1713) was a literary dilettante and later member of the Kit-Cat Club. John Cutts, 1st Baron of Gowran (c. 1660–1707), published three volumes of poetical works (see

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192 Notes Bibliography). Lord Mulgrave was a critic, memoirist and dramatist while Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon (1637–85), was a poet, author, translator, mercenary and captain of the Band of Gentleman Pensioners, 1676–7. Kirke resembled his colleague, comrade and lifelong friend, John Lanier (d. 1692), who, despite being a nephew of Nicholas Lanier (1588–1666), the great connoisseur and master of the music to Charles I, similarly demonstrated a complete absence of aesthetic inclinations (Wilson, Nicholas Lanier, p. 236). 19 CSPD, 1665–6, p. 153. 20 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 70; CSPD, 1665–6, p. 522. Most young officers received their first commissions as teenagers or, in some instances, while still very young children. 21 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 42, 47, 69, 98; Newman, Royalist Officers in England and Wales, p. 423; HPT, vol. 1, pp. 764–5. The Killigrews of Woolston, Cornwall, and Wrays of Trebeigh became related by marriage in the 1590s (Worthy, Devonshire Wills, pp. 392–3). 22 The other new company was commanded by Captain Hercules Lowe (d. 1677). 23 Probably a son of Sir Thomas Sandys, lieutenant in the King’s Troop of the Life Guard, 1661–8. 24 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 45, 112. Although infantry ensigns and cavalry cornets were equivalent as the most junior commissioned ranks, the latter arm was senior to and more prestigious than the former. Kirke thus achieved de facto promotion. 25 Childs, The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution, p. 39. 26 ‘as things currently stand’. 27 A civil war royalist veteran, Littleton had been promoted from cornet to lieutenant of Lord Frescheville’s troop in the Royal Horse Guards on 27 September 1665 to replace Sir Thomas Carnaby who had been stabbed to death ‘by one Harland’ while in York on 20 September 1665 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 4, 55, 155). 28 National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, Herbert MSS. HM2. 14/7a, ‘The Journal of Henry Herbert, 1672’, p. 83. 29 See Childs, ‘The British Brigade in France’; Atkinson, ‘Charles II’s Regiments in France’; Glozier, Scottish Soldiers in France; Jennings, Wild Geese in Spanish Flanders; Henry, Irish Military Community in Spanish Flanders; Childs, ‘The Scottish Brigade’, pp. 59–62. 30 Hutton, Charles II, pp. 263–6, 270–1, 446–58; Browning (ed.), English Historical Documents, 1660–1714, pp. 863–7. The treaty called for six regiments, each of ten, 100-man companies. The commanding officer was to carry the rank of general in the French army. A codicil to the treaty allowed Charles to send just 4,000 soldiers to France if he was unable to produce the full quota of 6,000 (Hartmann, The King my Brother, p. 316). 31 Jones had been major of John Humphrey’s foot regiment in the New Model, which participated in Cromwell’s ‘Western Design’ during 1655 and 1656 fighting in Barbados and Jamaica, before appointment to the brigade commanded by Sir William Lockhart that campaigned alongside the French army in Flanders from 1657 to 1659. Jones so distinguished himself at the Siege of Dunkirk and the Battle of the Dunes in 1658 that he was created a knight bachelor by Cromwell. At the Restoration he secured the lieutenancy of the troop of Captain Francis, 1st Baron Hawley of Duncannon (1608–84), in the Royal Horse Guards. Jones had risen to captain by 1665 but left England two years later to take a commission as the lieutenant of the Gens d’Armes Anglais in the French army, the first indication that he had converted to Roman Catholicism. Jones bought the Gens d’Armes from its founder, Sir George Hamilton (d. 1676), in 1671 before its expansion into the light horse regiment. Jones

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retained his troop in the Royal Horse Guards throughout. He was killed by a musket ball to the throat while attending Monmouth at the siege of Maastricht in 1673. 32 ‘Captain Henry Herbert’s Narrative’, pp. 317, 325, 329. 33 On the Franco-Dutch War, see Rousset, Histoire de Louvois, vol. 1; Corvisier, Louvois; Ekberg, Failure of Louis XIV’s Dutch War; Sypestein and Bordes, De Verdediging van Nederland in 1672 en 1673; Trevelyan, William the Third and the Defence of Holland; Ten Raa and De Bas (eds), Het Staatsche Leger, vol. 5; Fruin, De Oorlog van 1672; Baxter, William III, pp. 57–159; Robert, Les Campagnes de Turenne en Allemagne. On Scandinavian aspects, see Oakley, War and Peace in the Baltic, 1560–1790, pp. 97–100; Frost, Northern Wars, pp. 192–225. 34 The Duchy of Lorraine had been invaded and occupied by France in 1670. 35 Spielman, Leopold I, pp. 58–9; McKay, Great Elector, pp. 210–14. 36 Glozier, Scottish Soldiers, p. 138. 37 Lynn, Wars of Louis XIV, pp. 117–18; McKay, Great Elector, pp. 206–15; Frost, Northern Wars, pp. 208–11. The Swedish invasion of Brandenburg-Prussia was delayed until 1675 enabling the Great Elector to re-join his Imperial allies during the 1674 campaigning season. 38 The party included Colonel Sir Henry Jones and Captain Edmund Mayne (1633– 1711) of the Light Horse; Lieutenant Percy Kirke, Captain Charles Godfrey and Captain John Churchill from the Royal English; the Duke of Monmouth and his omnipresent henchman, Lieutenant Colonel Sir Thomas Armstrong (c. 1633–84) of the King’s Troop of Life Guards; and William, 3rd Baron Alington of Killard, County Cork (c. 1634–85), ‘a young silly lord’ according to Pepys, but a man of some ambition who had acquired useful martial experience during the recent AustroTurkish War, 1663–4, and the siege of Candia. Alington, colonel of wartime infantry battalions in 1667 and 1678, was created major general on 1 May 1678 but his rank lapsed at the disbandment in 1679 (‘Captain Henry Herbert’s Narrative’, p. 367; SP 78/137, ff. 113 passim; SP 77/42, ff. 150, 179, 204, 214; London Gazette, nos. 792, 793; Pepys, Diary, vol. 8, p. 117; Hartmann, The King my Brother, p. 262; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 80, 212, 235). 39 A ‘siege in form’ had evolved into a well-established but deadly ritual. Like the popular court masques, it followed a familiar script and sequence of acts, a politicomilitary drama played on an alfresco stage: everyone knew the likely course of events, timetable and denouement. It was said that the great Vauban could predict, almost to the day, how long a siege would last. It was a huge advertisement of a monarch’s power and warning of what might happen to those who failed to take heed. Kings, queens, courts and governments attended as spectators – Louis, his ladies and ministers, watched the sieges of Lille in 1667, Maastricht in 1673 and Besançon in 1674, full ceremonial being observed in the tented city – whereas they were not present at battles, unless by accident. Young gentlemen on a Grand Tour looked to widen their horizons by witnessing such an event. 40 See Woodbridge, ‘Two Foster Brothers of D’Artagnan’. Montbrun died in action at the Battle of Marsaglia in 1693 (Bosc, Military History of the late Prince Eugene of Savoy and of the late John, Duke of Marlborough, vol. 2, pp. 2, 25). 41 Bullet wounds to the head and neck were common among troops moving uphill. Also, because both defenders and attackers fought from trenches and breastworks, a high proportion of all wounds inflicted during sieges were to the upper-body. 42 Churchill, Marlborough, vol. 1, pp. 95–8; D’Oyley, Monmouth, pp. 87–9; Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, vol. 1, pp. 120–4; Narrative of the Siege and Surrender of

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194 Notes Maestricht, pp. 8–11; Maurier, Lives of all the Princes of Orange, pp. 235–7; Sheffield, Works, vol. 2, pp. 23–4, 31–2; Perwich, Despatches, pp. 252–3. The Brussels Bastion was subsequently renamed ‘Monmouth Bastion’ to mark this achievement (Carr, Particular Account of the Present Siege of Maastricht, p. 3). 43 Narrative of the Siege and Surrender of Maestricht, pp. 1–12; Evelyn, Diary, vol. 4, 21 August 1674. 44 The effective commander was Lieutenant Colonel John Lanier, who had been a captain in Jones’s Light Horse from 1672–4. He was knighted by Charles II in 1678. 45 Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, vol. 1, p. 136; Churchill, Marlborough, vol. 1, pp. 107–9; Coxe, Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough, vol. 1, p. 5. 46 Entzheim – variously spelled Entsheim, Ensheim or Enzheim – was also known as the Battle of Waldheim or Molsheim. It is now the site of Strasbourg international airport. 47 Douglas’s Scottish regiment was not present at Entzheim. Douglas attended in his capacity as a brigadier-general of Turenne’s army. 48 Morning mist or fog frequently featured in many major battles because most were fought on low-lying ground, close to waterways, in autumn as campaigns reached their denouements. 49 CSPD, 1673–5, no. 3093; Atkinson, ‘Feversham’s Account of the Battle of Entzheim – 1674’; Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, vol. 1, pp. 134–43; SP 29/361, ff. 246–7; SP 44/41, p. 8; SP 78/139, ff. 123, 144; Legrand-Girarde, Turenne en Alsace, pp. 22 passim; Melville, Memoirs, pp. 205–10; Clark, Anthony Hamilton, pp. 52–4. See Rambaut and Vigne, Britain’s Huguenot War Leaders, pp. 1–12; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 176. 50 SP 78/139, ff. 145, 172. The Frenchman’s death was received in England with a surprising measure of regret, probably because of his Protestantism. See The FrenchMan’s Lamentation; A Description of the Funeral Solemnities; A True Relation of the Successes & Advantages obtained by the most Christian King’s Army commanded by the Viscount de Turenne. 51 SP 78/139, ff. 72–90, 139; SP 78/140, ff. 1, 4, 112–55, 139, 142–4, 163; CSPD, 1675–6, pp. 299, 303, 310, 316; Savile Correspondence, p. 42; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 202–4; Childs, ‘The British Brigades in France, 1672–1678’, pp. 395–6; Lynn, Wars of Louis XIV, pp. 144–57. 52 HMC, 9th Report, vol. 2, pp. 389–90, 1 December 1677. 53 Lord George Douglas was created 1st Earl of Dumbarton on 9 March 1675 (M. R. Glozier, ‘Douglas, George’, ODNB). 54 CSPD, 1677–8, p. 593; CSPD, 1678, pp. 204–5. 55 HMC, Ormonde MSS., new series, vol. 7, p. 85. 56 WO 26/4, p. 188; CSPD, 1678, pp. 241, 291, 364, 390, 424, 643, 658; HMC, Ormonde MSS., old series, vol. 1, p. 25. 57 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 182, 204. Theophilus Oglethorpe (1650–1702), a client of Feversham, was commissioned major. Oglethorpe had joined the French army at the age of 18 in 1668; captain in Sir Henry Jones’s/Monmouth’s Light Horse, 1 February 1672–5; captain in the Royal English, 1675–8; major of Feversham’s Dragoons in England, 1678; lieutenant in the 3rd Troop of the Life Guard, 1678; major, 1679; lieutenant colonel, 1680; colonel of the Holland infantry battalion, 1685; brigadier-general, 1688; resigned his commissions after the Glorious Revolution, 1688, and became a minor Jacobite plotter, 1689–98. Took the oaths of allegiance to William III in 1698. A rake and thug, he belied his Christian name (Childs, Nobles, Gentlemen, p. 69; John Childs, ‘Oglethorpe, Sir Theophilus’, ODNB).

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Chapter Three   1 Charles had been receiving subsidies from Louis XIV since 1674. The amounts were modest – no more than £1,200,000 were received over the entire reign – but provided some financial comfort and served as a reminder of his obligations (Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II, pp. 381, 438).  2 Burnet, History of his own Time, vol. 2, p. 123. A total of 41 MPs were army officers in 1678 (Childs, Army of Charles II, pp. 38–9).   3 Grenadiers made their debut in the French army in 1667 (Chartrand, Louis XIV’s Army, pp. 18–19; Gaya, Treatise of the Arms and Engines of War, p. 132). Grenadier units were specifically designed for siege warfare rather than battle.   4 Son, by his first wife, of Sir Roger Langley, 2nd Bt of Sheriff-Hutton (c. 1627–99), high sheriff of Yorkshire, 1663–4. Langley was a client of Monmouth. Ensign in the Royal English in France, 1672; captain by 1675; lieutenant colonel, 1676. Captain in the 1st Foot Guards in England, 1677; temporary lieutenant colonel of the 2nd battalion of Monmouth’s foot in England, 1678–9; dismissed from the Guards, 11 November 1681 (Childs, Nobles, Gentlemen, p. 49).  5 Weaver, Story of the Royal Scots, pp. 32–3.  6 Advice to a Soldier.   7 See Childs, Army of Charles II, pp. 184–95; Childs, ‘Monmouth and the Army in Flanders’, pp. 3–12; SP 44/52, pp. 63–75; BL Add. MSS. 10115, Sir Joseph Williamson’s State Papers, 1677–8, relative to the Preparations for the projected War with France, ff. 81–4.  8 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 261.  9 See HMC, 9th Report, Part 2, p. 235; Dalton, Scots Army, part 1, pp. 17–27; Sidgwick, ‘The Pentland Rising and the Battle of Rullion Green’, pp. 449–52; McLay, ‘The Restoration and the Glorious Revolution’, pp. 302–6. 10 The Cumberland militia did not assemble on a single occasion between 1676 and 1679 (Beckett, Amateur Military Tradition, p. 54). 11 PC 2/68, p. 104; Sidney, Diary, vol. 1, p. 5. 12 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 255, 261. 13 Horse grenadiers were copied from France where they had first appeared in the Maison du Roi in 1676. These three troops joined the regular establishment. 14 McLay, ‘The Restoration and the Glorious Revolution’, pp. 307–11; London Gazette, no. 1419; A further and more particular Account of the total Defeat of the Rebels in Scotland; An exact Relation of the Defeat of the Rebels at Bothwell Bridge; The great Victory obtained by his Majesty’s Army, under the Command of his Grace the Duke of Monmouth, against the Rebels in the West of Scotland; The full and true Account of all the Proceedings in Scotland since the Rebellion began; The last true and new Intelligence from Scotland; A true Account of the great Victory obtained over the Rebels in Scotland; Brownlee, Narrative of the Battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge; Aiton, History of the Rencounter at Drumclog and the Battle at Bothwell Bridge, pp. 51–75; Wilson et al., True and Impartial Relation of the Persecuted Presbyterians in Scotland; Thomson, Martyr Graves of Scotland, pp. 36–55. 15 Feversham’s Dragoons were disbanded, probably later in 1679 after Bothwell Bridge, and reformed on 19 November 1683 as the Royal Dragoons with John Churchill as colonel. On 4 May 1684 the regiment incorporated the three troops of the Tangier Horse (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 255, 301, 324–32; Atkinson, Royal Dragoons, pp. 1–35).

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196 Notes 16 News from Windsor. 17 England’s Lamentation for the Duke of Monmouth’s Departure; Dalton, Scots Army, part 1, p. 60. 18 Craven, a royalist cavalry commander during the first Civil War, was a member of the Privy Council and colonel of the Coldstream Guards. He was a political ally of Prince Rupert. 19 The members were: York (chairman); Monmouth, colonel of the Life Guards; Sir Philip Howard (d. 1686), captain of the Queen’s Troop of Life Guards; Feversham, captain of the Duke of York’s Troop of Life Guards; Oxford, colonel of the Royal Horse Guards; John Russell, colonel of the 1st Foot Guards; Craven, colonel of the Coldstream Guards; Sir Walter Vane (d. 1674), colonel of the Holland Regiment; and Sir Charles Littleton, colonel of the Lord Admiral’s Regiment. 20 Sir Henry Bennet (c. 1618–85), created 1st Baron Arlington in 1665 and 1st Earl of Arlington in 1672. 21 Glozier, Schomberg, pp. 73–86. 22 BL Add. MSS. 10115. 23 The Secretary at War was clerk to the commander-in-chief. Following Monck’s death in 1670, he became a senior clerk in the secretary of state’s office dealing with routine military administration. During Blathwayt’s tenure, the office became more independent but remained subordinate to the secretary of state. See Jacobsen, Blathwayt; Preston, ‘William Blathwayt and the Evolution of a royal, personal Secretariat’. 24 Created 1st Baron Griffin of Braybrooke by James II on 3 December 1688. 25 Childs, ‘The army and the Oxford parliament of 1681’; CSPD, 1680–1, p. 679; CSPD, 1682, p. 7; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 223–90, 292–9; Webb, Lord Churchill’s Coup, pp. 51–78. 26 Charles lacked all confidence in his brother’s political abilities and had been heard to remark that when James came to the throne he would not last four years. This was remarkably prescient: James’s effective reign measured three years and ten months (Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 413). 27 North, Lives of the Norths, vol. 2, p. 207. 28 The Protestant Granard had been appointed in 1680 in succession to the Earl of Ossory. Dalton, Irish Army, p. 135; Kenyon, Sunderland, pp. 100–4; Childs, The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 60–1. 29 Between 1682 and 1685, Feversham acted as York’s military patronage agent.

Chapter Four   1 The three battalions from Dunkirk were commanded by Sir Robert Harley (1626–73) (1,000 men), Colonel Lewis Farrell (500 men) and Colonel John Fitzgerald (500 men) (Newman, Royalist Officers, p. 262; Firth and Davies, Regimental History of Cromwell’s Army, pp. 691–2; HMC, Portland MSS., vol. 3, pp. 224–50).   2 See Cholmley, Memoirs; Cholmley, Short Account of the Progress of the Mole at Tangier; Skempton, Biographical Dictionary of the Civil Engineers, vol. 1, pp. 133–4. Between 1673 and 1676, the building of the mole at Tangier cost £243,897 5s 4½d (Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 58, part 2, p. 619).

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  3 The Canal du Midi was not opened until 1681. However, it was far too narrow and shallow to permit the passage of large warships.   4 See Saunders, Fortress Builder, pp. 86–93.   5 On the history of Tangier under English occupation see Routh, Tangier; Childs, Army of Charles II, pp. 115–51; Le Fevre, ‘Tangier, the Navy and its Connection with the Glorious Revolution of 1688’; Hornstein, Restoration Navy and English Foreign Trade, 1674–1688.  6 Addison, Discourse of Tangier; Brief Relation of the present State of Tangier.  7 Exact Journal of the Siege of Tangier.   8 Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland (1641–1702), principal secretary of state for the south.   9 These four companies had recently returned from France where they had been part of the Royal English Regiment. They were commanded by Captains George Wingfield (d. 1693), Thomas Barber (sometimes Barbour), William Mathews and Charles Wingfield (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 255). 10 The convoy comprised HMS Swan (5th rate, 32 guns), Old James (2nd rate, 60 guns) and Garland (5th rate, 30 guns). Warships were ‘rated’ according to the number of guns carried. 1st rate, 80–90 guns; 2nd rate, 60–79 guns; 3rd rate, 54–64 guns; 4th rate, 43–53 guns; 5th rate, 20–42 guns; 6th rate, 4–19 guns. 11 James Halkett, of the Pitfarran family, Fifeshire, had earlier fought in Tangier as a young cornet in Captain John Fitzgerald’s troop of horse under the governorship of the Earl of Teviot, 1663–4. By 1666 he had returned to Scotland and was commissioned cornet in General Thomas Dalyell’s troop in Lieutenant General William Drummond’s newly raised regiment of horse, August 1666. He resigned this commission in March 1667 and entered the Earl of Dumbarton’s regiment of foot in the French army, where he served for 12 years rising to captain and, by 1679, major. When Dumbarton’s left France it was quartered first in East Anglia before transfer to Ireland in April 1679. Halkett was a brave and valiant leader, well respected by his men. He was knighted in 1681 following his return from Tangier and awarded a pension of £150 p.a. on the Scottish establishment. At the time of his death in October 1684, Halkett was lieutenant colonel of the Royal Scots. His widow was granted an annual pension of £100 in 1684 (Dalton, Scots Army, part 2, pp. 49n. 82; Dalton, Irish Army, pp. 127–8; Halkett, Diary, pp. 3–4; Glozier, Scottish Soldiers, pp. 181–91). 12 Glozier, Scottish Soldiers, pp. 181–2; Bod. Lib. MSS. Carte 256, ff. 257–8, 12 April 1680. The Royal Scots’ four Protestant companies remained in Ireland. 13 MSS. Carte 146, ff. 276–80, 283–5; MSS. Carte 39, ff. 144, 307. 14 Inter alia, The present Interest of Tangier; The Moores baffled being a Discourse concerning Tanger; Devonshire Ballad to the Tune of 1642; An exact Journal of the Siege of Tangier; A faithful Relation of the most remarkable Transactions which have happened at Tangier; Great and bloody News from Tangier; Londons Joy and Tryumph; A particular Narrative of a great Engagement between the Garrison of Tangier, and the Moors; A particular Relation of the late Success of his Majesties Forces at Tangier against the Moors; A true Relation of a great and bloody Fight between the English and the Moors before Tangiere; A short Account of the Progress of the Mole at Tangier; The present Danger of Tangier; His Majesties Message to the Commons in Parliament, relating to Tangier; A Letter from Tangier concerning the Death of Jonas Rowland, the Renegade, and other strange Occurrences since the Embassadors Arival here; The present State of Tangier in a Letter to His Grace, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland; with

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198 Notes the present State of Algiers; A full and true Relation, of the fortunate Victory gained over the Moors by the Garrison of Tangier, upon the 27. of October, 1680; The last Account from Fez; Tangers Rescue; A Discourse touching Tanger in a Letter to a Person of Quality; A Discourse touching Tanger on these Heads; The last Account from Fez. Poets also glorified Tangier. See Beach, ‘Restoration Poetry and the Failure of English Tangier’. 15 The ‘King’s Battalion’ comprised two companies (240 men) from the 1st Foot (Grenadier) Guards led by Sackville and Captain George Bowes; one company (120 men) from the 2nd Foot (Coldstream) Guards under Captain Thomas Talmash (c. 1651–94), who was major of the battalion; 120 men from the Duke of York’s regiment of foot under Captain James Fortrey (d. 1719, later Groom of the Bedchamber to James II); and 120 men from the Earl of Mulgrave’s (the Holland) regiment of foot under Captain Philip Kirke, Percy’s younger brother. 16 Sackville, a captain in the 1st Foot Guards and another veteran from France in the 1670s, was a political refugee from the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis. MP for East Grinstead, he had been dismissed from the House of Commons on 25 March 1679 for publicly questioning both the character of Titus Oates and the veracity of his evidence. Sackville, who converted to Roman Catholicism in 1685, owed his appointment to York’s patronage. He resigned his commission in December 1688 and became a steadfast Jacobite (HPT, vol. 3, pp. 377–8). 17 MSS. Carte 222, f. 226. Both Mulgrave and Lumley had returned to England by 27 July 1680. 18 Letter Book, ff. 7–11, 18–22. 19 As deputy governor, Fairborne was lieutenant colonel of the 1st Tangier Regiment. This regiment became Kirke’s; Queen’s Dowager’s Foot; ultimately 2nd Foot. 20 A particular Relation of the late Success of His Majesty’s Forces at Tangier against the Moors, p. 4; A particular Narrative of a great Engagement between the Garrison of Tangier, and the Moors. 21 Fairborne was appointed governor of Tangier on 10 November 1680, 14 days after his death (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 277–8). 22 Halkett (Hacket), A full and true Relation of the fortunate Victory gained over the Moors by the Garrison of Tangier, pp. 1–4; Halkett, ‘Diary’, pp. 5–19. 23 Frederick Bacher or Beecher, Judge of the Court of Admiralty in Tangier (Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 18). 24 Ross, Tangers Rescu, or, a Relation of the late memorable Passages at Tanger, pp. 4–31; Halkett, ‘Diary’, pp. 20–2. 25 Kenyon, Sunderland, p. 53n. 26 James Lesley was reputedly a common trooper in the Tangier Horse prior to 1664; cornet in the Tangier Horse, 11 August 1664; captain in the Old (1st) Tangier Regiment, 15 December 1674; major of Old Tangier Regiment, 10 November 1680; knighted in 1680; ambassador to the court of Morocco, 1680–1; major of the Queen’s Foot (Old Tangier Regiment), 1684; lieutenant colonel of the Queen’s by November 1687; colonel of his own foot battalion (15th Foot), 31 December 1688. Served with Mackay in Scotland, 1689–91. Cashiered for his role in the surrender of Dixmuyde, 18 July 1695 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 42, 177, 278, 302, 320; vol. 2, pp. 25, 109, 132; vol. 3, p. 144; Hopkins, Glencoe, pp. 144–5, 318–19; Childs, Nine Years’ War, pp. 284–8). 27 Tangier was directly governed and administered by the Tangier Committee, a committee of the Privy Council, chaired initially by the Duke of York.

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28 Halkett, ‘Diary’, pp. 21–2; Letter Book, ff. 11–12. 29 Usually, Kirke employed a secretary but he had to write his own letters during this excursion. They reveal a man literate but uneducated, uneasy with grammar, syntax and spelling. 30 It is unclear who attended Kirke but his aide-de-camp, Francis Nicholson (1655– 1728), then a lieutenant in Kirke’s own battalion, was certainly present. See Webb, ‘Strange Career of Francis Nicholson’, pp. 513–19. 31 Routh, Tangier, p. 207; The last Account from Fez, pp. 1–4. 32 On slavery in Tangier, as practised by both the English garrison and Moroccans, see Aylmer, ‘Slavery under Charles II: the Mediterranean and Tangier’; Colley, Captives, pp. 23–41. Muslim slaves, belonging to both the king and private individuals, were essential to Tangier’s economy. Some were personal servants while others laboured on the mole, repaired buildings and fortifications, and worked as stevedores and porters in the harbour. See Letter Book, ff. 7–22, 33–4, 40–3, 110–14, 162–3, 172–6, 208–16, 221–2, 226–7, 231–2, 316–20. 33 The Venetian gold ducat, one of the principal media of exchange in the Mediterranean basin, was worth five Dutch guilders whereas one silver piece of eight, or dollar, could be exchanged for two Dutch guilders. Letter Book, ff. 98–103. 34 HMC, 10th Report, Appendix, Part 4, p. 175; Letter Book, ff. 141–4. 35 Kirke sold his commission in the Royal Horse Guards to Captain-Lieutenant Henry Corn(e)wall on 15 November 1682 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 299). 36 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 295, 302. 37 Letter Book, ff. 330–2. 38 Letter Book, ff. 271, 417, 424–5. 39 Letter Book, ff. 345, 380–1; Tomlinson, Guns and Government, p. 223. 40 Kirke dictated his official correspondence to a secretary who noted his words in shorthand before transcribing them in consistent spelling but Proustian syntax. Kirke then checked the drafts before copying and transmission. He often used the letter book as an archive. 41 Letter Book, ff. 50–2, 98–103. 42 CO 279/29, ff. 88–9, 23 Feb. 1682, Kirke’s Report to the Tangier Committee; Letter Book, ff. 118–22. 43 Letter Book, ff. 22–5, 30–1, 33–4, 56–60, 66–8, 69–71, 162–7. 44 While in England, Ohadu’s portrait was painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723) and Jan Wyck (c. 1640–1702). He sits on a rearing steed, dressed in flowing red and white robes. His black hair is relatively short beneath a white turban and the beard and moustache carefully and neatly trimmed. In his right hand he grasps a long lance. The picture is in the possession of English Heritage and hangs in Chiswick House, London. 45 Routh, Tangier, pp. 220–1; Franklin, Letter from Tangier, concerning the Death of Jonas Rowland, the Renegade, p. 1; Letter Book, ff. 77–81. 46 Captured 8 August 1681 by Captain William Booth RN (c. 1657–1703) in HMS Adventure (5th rate, 32 guns), with assistance from Captain John Benbow (1653– 1702) in HMS Nonsuch (4th rate, 42 guns). Booth was knighted on 12 November 1682 (J. D. Davies, ‘Booth, Sir William’, ODNB). 47 Letter Book, ff. 90–4, 15 December 1681. 48 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, p. 77, 5 October 1682. 49 A congratulatory Poem; A Letter sent by the Emperor of Morocco and King of Fez to His Majesty of Great Britain; A new Poem.

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200 Notes 50 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, p. 78. 51 Letter Book, ff. 411–12, 21, March 1683. Inaccurate translation bedevilled AngloMoorish relations. Kirke was never certain that his own letters and those he received were reliably rendered into and out of Arabic by translators who were usually merchants with a only working knowledge of colloquial Arabic (Letter Book, ff. 465–6, 488). 52 60,000 lbs. 53 Letter Book, ff. 342–3, 346–9, 357–8. 54 Letter Book, ff. 6–18. For medical provision at Tangier see Arni, Hospital Care and the British Standing Army, 1660–1714, pp. 9–31. 55 Letter Book, ff. 40–6, 47–9, 50–2, 53–60. 56 Routh, Tangier, pp. 198–219; Letter Book, ff. 62–6. 57 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, pp. 78–9. On 8 February 1683, York Castle and Peterborough Tower had been repaired at a cost of £621 (Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 91; Letter Book, ff. 305–8, 310–11). 58 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 91. 59 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, pp. 61–2, Kirke to George Legge, 18 May 1681; Letter Book, ff. 125–30. 60 Letter Book, ff. 5, 7–18. 61 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, pp. 64, 73–4, 79. 62 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 301. 63 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, pp. 78–9; Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 91; Letter Book, f. 309. 64 Letter Book, ff. 66–8, 86–7, 94–8, 125–30, 162–9, 228–31, 255–6, 299, 382. 65 Letter Book, ff. 254–7, 266–7. 66 Letter Book, ff. 2–4, 197–200, 256, 272–6, 277–8, 283, 434–5, 438–9. 67 Letter Book, ff. 206–8, 221–2, 318–19, 483. Unfortunately, Kirke’s dispatches include little more by way of personal information. 68 Letter Book, ff. 296–9; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 1, p. 261. 69 CO 279/26, f. 183. 70 CTB, vol. 7, pp. 1009–11. 71 The annual cost to the government of an 11-company battalion of infantry was c. £12,000. 72 Letter Book, ff. 195–7, 312–13, 451–3. It is possible that the decision to evacuate Tangier was taken in October/early November 1682. Kirke sold his captaincy in the Royal Horse Guards on 15 November 1682. He would not have done so, effectively selling himself out of the standing army, unless sure that his 1st Tangier Regiment was going to be entered on to the permanent establishment on return to England. 73 Luis de Vasconcelos e Sousa, 3rd Count of Castelo Melhor (1636–1720).

Chapter Five    1 The word, ‘ketch’, derived from ‘catch’ or fishing vessel. By the mid-seventeenth century, ketches were used extensively as coasters, especially in the coal trade. A merchant ketch ranged between 40 and 80 feet in length and carried a triangular headsail, a square-rigged main mast mounting mainsail and topsail and a lateen sail on the mizzen mast. The crew numbered, typically, 24 men. Naval ketches were similarly rigged, often with a main topgallant added above the main topsail, but

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larger, up to 120 feet long (Dear and Kemp (eds), Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, p. 302).   2 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, pp. 83–5; Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 3–4, 58–67.   3 Arni, Hospital Care, pp. 22, 27.   4 Pepys, Letters and the Second Diary, pp. 151–2, Pepys to John Evelyn, 7 August 1683, Portsmouth. Beckman was appointed chief engineer of the Ordnance Office in 1685 and knighted in 1686 (Piers Wauchope, ‘Beckman, Martin’, ODNB).    5 Tangier was a crown colony, thus all buildings and land belonged to the king. Compensation was only paid to people who lost personal property and business assets.   6 HMS Grafton (3rd rate, 70 guns, Flag Captain Sir William Booth); Henrietta (3rd rate, 62 guns, Vice Admiral Sir John Berry, second-in-command); Montagu (3rd rate, 52 guns, Captain Henry Killigrew (1652–1712)), a distant kinsman of Kirke by marriage); Oxford (4th rate, 54 guns, Captain Charles Wilde); Woolwich (4th rate, 54 guns, Captain Thomas Fowler); Mary Rose (4th rate, 40 guns, Captain John Ashby); St David (4th rate, 54 guns, Captain George Rooke (c. 1650–1709)); Bonaventure (4th rate, 42 guns, Captain Henry Priestman); and Greyhound (6th rate, 16 guns, Captain Randall MacDonell).    7 ‘Extracts from the Captain’s Log of HMS Grafton’, in Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 269–72.    8 Thomas Phillips was an ensign in a Portsmouth garrison company where Dartmouth had been governor until succeeded in 1682 by Edward Noel, 1st Earl of Gainsborough (1641–89).    9 Samuel Pepys, ‘A Journal towards Tangier begun Monday 30 July, 1683’, in Pepys’s Later Diaries, p. 131.  10 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 67–71, 28 August 1683.  11 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 104.   12 Pepys always referred to Kirke as ‘governor’ throughout the ‘Journal towards Tangier’ and the Tangier Papers.   13 Pepys, ’Journal towards Tangier’, p. 132.   14 Pepys, ‘Journal towards Tangier’, p. 136.   15 Pepys, ‘Journal towards Tangier’, p. 143.   16 ‘Journal towards Tangier’, pp. 140–1; ‘Log of HMS Grafton’, p. 273; HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, pp. 51–2. The parade was the subject of a painting by Dirck Stoop (c. 1610–86), a Dutch painter from Utrecht patronized by Queen Catherine of Braganza, which now hangs in the National Army Museum, Chelsea. It is, however, very inaccurate and Stoop took considerable artistic licence in depicting Tangier’s topography. Clearly he had never visited the town. The author is grateful to Lieutenant General Jonathon Riley for providing a digital copy of this painting.   17 Pepys, ‘Journal towards Tangier’, p. 141.  18 Bryant, Samuel Pepys: the Saviour of the Navy, pp. 14–15n.   19 Pepys, ‘Journal towards Tangier’, p. 157. These notes are to be found in Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 89–104.   20 See, Pepys, Diary.   21 Elizabeth Pepys, née de St Michel (1640–69), had died on 10 November 1669.   22 See, Evelyn, Diary; Pepys, Particular Friends.  23 The Sun, no. 1230, 3 September 1796; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 1, p. 354.   24 Pepys, ‘Journal towards Tangier’, p. 131.   25 Mrs Mary Kirke was permitted to use the title ‘Lady’ from 7 January 1689 when her father succeeded his brother James Howard, 3rd Earl of Suffolk (1619–89), as

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202 Notes 4th Earl of Suffolk (G. E. C., Complete Peerage, vol. 12, pp. 470–1). Before then, she was often called ‘Madam’ rather than the less-elevated ‘Mrs’. Although Mary’s father hovered on the fringes of Restoration politics, her uncle James had exercised some political influence by virtue of being the uncle of Charles II’s long-term mistress, Barbara Palmer, née Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland (c. 1640–1709).  26 Pepys, Diary, vol. 6, p. 191; vol. 3, p. 87; vol. 7, pp. 69–70.  27 The Sun, no. 1230, 3 September 1796.  28 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, p. 48.   29 Following two years’ unhappy naval service as a volunteer, George Byng was awarded a cadetship in the 1st Tangier Regiment by Kirke, a friend of Byng’s maternal uncle, Colonel Johnson. Again benefiting from Kirke’s patronage, Byng transferred back into the navy as a lieutenant in 1684 (John B. Hattendorf, ‘Byng, George’, ODNB).  30 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 113, 225.  31 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 216.   32 Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (1621–83), was the leader of the movement to exclude the Duke of York from the succession to the throne.  33 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 139.   34 ‘Journal towards Tangier’, p. 131. This was less than the whole story. St Michel succeeded Phineas Bowles (1647–1714) as storekeeper at Tangier but Herbert decided to keep most naval stores at Gibraltar, obliging St Michel to move to that port. This ‘disobligement’ may well, in Pepys’s eyes, have constituted ‘persecution’. Moreover, ‘Balty’ had been very active in securing evidence that led to Pepys’s acquittal in June 1680.   35 The ‘sweating tub’, or fumigation cabinet, was a well-recognized method of failing to cure syphilis. The patient, along with some mercury, was enclosed in a wooden box with just his/her head exposed. A fire was lit beneath the cabinet which raised the temperature within and vaporized the mercury so that it could be ingested through the skin and respiratory tract. It was notably unsuccessful and most unpleasant for the patient.  36 Pepys, Tangier Papers, ‘Notes on Tangier’, p. 90. Unfortunately the editor of these ‘Notes’, Edwin Chappell, censored Pepys’s text but enough remains for the meaning to be abundantly clear. Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 89–104, 101, 113, 138,151–2, 168, 216, 224; Bryant, Saviour of the Navy, p. 97; Letter Book, f. 384.  37 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 89–104.   38 Pepys did not comment upon Kirke’s professional capacity although he did observe that, during an excursion along the coast in a rowing boat, he appeared ignorant of the precise extent of Tangier’s territory (Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 166). However, Kirke had ‘weak eyes’ (Letter Book, f. 166) and he may well have been unable to see the landmarks.  39 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 112.   40 J. Hordesnell (Letter Book, f. 384).  41 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 98–9. This was a common justification among members of Dartmouth’s expedition: they were doing God’s work in demolishing Sodom, if not Gomorrah. Pepys dined with Ken on Friday 26 October and conversation turned to the ‘viciousness of this place and its being time for God Almighty to destroy it’ (Pepys, ‘Journal towards Tangier,’ p. 159).   42 Captain Thomas Silver, mate to the Master Gunner of Whitehall and St James’s Park, 1682–1703, and Master Gunner of Whitehall and St James’s Park, 1703–9

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(Tomlinson, Guns and Government, pp. 238–9). He commanded four companies of miners responsible for the demolition of the mole and the town.  43 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 92, 97.  44 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 95, 89.  45 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 89–90.  46 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 90.  47 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 103.  48 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 90.   49 In 1662 Colonel Henry Norwood went from the Dunkirk garrison to Tangier where he was lieutenant governor from February 1664 to October 1669. The accusations of embezzlement were probably true (Firth and Davies, Regimental History of Cromwell’s Army, pp. 697–8; Arni, Hospital Care, pp. 20–1).  50 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 90.   51 A ‘bagno’ or ‘bagnio’ was originally a bath house or Turkish baths but it was also the prison holding Tangier’s Muslim slaves (Letter Book, ff. 111, 162).  52 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 90.   53 Dartmouth’s mother was Elizabeth Washington (c. 1616–88), daughter of Sir William Washington of Packington, Leicestershire (1590–1643).  54 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 90.  55 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 76, 102, 210, 316; vol. 2, pp. 19, 50, 109, 132, 180; vol. 3, pp. 107, 242; Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 92, 96; Letter Book, f. 134.  56 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 92.   57 John Erlisman was Comptroller of Tangier [i.e. general and financial manager of the colony’s civilian administration] and, afterwards, consul at Algiers (CTB, 1681–5, 7 August 1684).  58 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 92–3.  59 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 93.   60 Edmund Dummer (c. 1651–1713), a shipwright and marine engineer who travelled through the Mediterranean in HMS Woolwich (4th rate, 54 guns) during 1682 and 1683. On the outward voyage, his ship had called at Tangier to return Ambassador Ohadu and, on the inward leg, Dummer was diverted to Tangier to assist Dartmouth with the evacuation (Fox, ‘The ingenious Mr. Dummer’, pp. 21–2).  61 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 102–3.   62 Thomas Session.   63 Edward Rothe.   64 Anthony Fist, Henry Sheres’s clerk.   65 A Sephardic Jew and native of Holland, Samuel de Paz was Dartmouth’s Spanish secretary responsible for translation from and into Spanish. He had been seconded to the expedition from his permanent position as translator and copyist in the office of the secretary of state for the north. In February 1688, de Paz was uncovered as a Dutch spy who had been passing English government secrets to either the States General or the Prince of Orange, or both. He fled to the Dutch Republic before he could be arrested (Jones, Charles Middleton, pp. 73, 121–2; Sainty (ed.), Officials of the Secretaries of State, p. 75).   66 Probably Captain James Purcell, a Jacobite colonel in 1689. Purcell had previously served in Thomas Dongan’s regiment in the French Army (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 209).  67 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 93–5.   68 The meaning is unclear. Pepys might mean that Kirke physically stood upon Cranborow while staving the barrels or, more likely, used a piece of furniture.

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204 Notes   69 A piece of eight.  70 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 99.  71 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 97.  72 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 95–6.  73 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 96. Pepys’s brother-in-law, Balthazar St Michel, mustermaster in Tangier, must have connived at these frauds. The figure given by Pepys is massively exaggerated and does not tally with the number of soldiers evacuated to England.   74 Rev. Thomas Hughes, chaplain of the 1st Tangier Regiment, 1683–4; chaplain of Kirke’s Foot, 1684–7. No record of military appointment after 1688 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 303; vol. 2, pp. 57, 132).   75 Cloudesley Shovell.   76 Rev. Dr George Mercer, schoolmaster in Tangier since 1675 (HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, p. 39).  77 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 96.  78 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 97–8.  79 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 97. Kirke was fashionably anti-Semitic, often blaming the Jews for causing and exploiting poor relations with the Moroccans (Letter Book, ff. 40–1, 118–22, 137–40, 153–60, 201–2, 232–45, 299, 325–6, 363, 377–8, 382).  80 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 96–7. Inattentive sentries had come to Kirke’s attention in 1682 (Letter Book, ff. 232–45).   81 Captain George Wingfield (d. 1693) of the 1st Tangier Regiment (Kirke’s).  82 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 97.  83 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 99.  84 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 99–100. This problem long pre-dated Kirke’s governorship and he had commented on it in letters to the Tangier Committee (Letter Book, ff. 56–60, 256).  85 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 100  86 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 100.   87 John Forgeon, alderman of Tangier.  88 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 103   89 A pratique master was the quarantine officer. He inspected every vessel entering a port to ensure that both ship and crew were healthy and did not threaten the town with contagion.  90 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 100–1.  91 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 138–9.  92 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 164.   93 During Pepys’s 14-year tenure as treasurer of the Tangier Committee, he had handled over £1,200,000 of royal funds. Because government paymasters enjoyed the right to invest for private profit any balances resting in their hands, he made his fortune in the process (Bryant, Saviour of the Navy, pp. 64–80; Tomalin, Samuel Pepys, pp. 145–7; Pepys, Diary, vol. 10, p. 409. See, Clay, Public Finance and Private Wealth).  94 Carswell, Old Cause, pp. 94–5, 191.   95 See, Parker, Sugar Barons; Ward, Trip to Jamaica; Harlow, Christopher Codrington, pp. 210–46.  96 Childs, Army of Charles II, pp. 83–9, 254–5; Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 93.  97 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 117–18.

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 98 Pepys, Life, Journals and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, Smith (ed.).  99 Bryant, Saviour of the Navy, pp. 97–8. 100 Callow, Making of King James II, pp. 149, 151, 172–3. 101 ‘Log of HMS Grafton’, pp. 285–6; HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, pp. 189–90; HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, pp. 52–4. 102 The companies of Kirke, Major Sir James Lesley, Captains Thomas St John, Thomas Barber, George Wingfield, John Burgess and Charles Wingfield. 103 The companies of Lieutenant Colonel Marmaduke Boynton, Captains Brent Ely, Henry Rowe, George Talbot and Zouch Tate. 104 Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 58, part 2, p. 619. 105 Pepys, Letters and Second Diary, pp. 167–8, Pepys to Dartmouth, 6 April 1684, London. 106 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, p. 103, 12 December 1683; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 1, pp. 249–61. 107 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, pp. 112, 115; CSPD, 1683–4, no. 344. 108 Childs, Army of Charles II, p. 58; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 110; Brooks, General and Compleat List Military, p. 14; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, p. 91. 109 Brooks, General and Complete List Military, p. 4. 110 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 1, pp. 263–4; vol. 2, pp. 2–3; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 302; Dalton, Irish Army, pp. 143–4. 111 CTB, 1681–5, part 2, p. 1262; CSPD, 1684–5, p. 130. The position was renewed under both James II and William & Mary (CTB, 1689–1692, pp. 330, 349–50, 609, 867, 1158). 112 The other asylum was the Dutch Republic where reception depended upon the state of Anglo-Dutch relations. 113 CSPD, 1681–5, pp. 718, 731; Adams, Founding of New England, pp. 407–8. 114 Randolph, Edward Randolph: his Letters and official Papers, vol. 1, pp. 244–7; vol. 4, pp. 3, 6, 18, 29, 40, 88. 115 CSPC, 1681–5, nos. 1928, 1941, 1953, 2026; CSPC, 1685–8, no. 190; CTB, 1681–5, no. 1409; Leach, Arms for Empire, pp. 75–6; Barnes, Dominion of New England, p. 45; Beall, ‘Cotton Mather’s Early “Curiosa Americana” and the Boston Philosophical Society of 1683’, pp. 362–3; Jacobsen, William Blathwayt, pp. 111, 130; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 49, 51, 179–80. See, Andros, Andros Tracts, pp. v–xlix.

Chapter Six   1 The colonel’s company was normally commanded by the battalion’s senior lieutenant who received the honorary title of captain-lieutenant. William Berry (d. 1717) was commissioned lieutenant in Kirke’s regiment on 3 February 1681 and raised to captain-lieutenant on 25 December 1681. He was promoted lieutenant colonel of the Enniskillen Horse (Colonel William Wolseley), 20 July 1689. Berry was on half-pay from 1697 until 1706 when he was commissioned major of the foot battalion of Henry Scott, 1st Earl of Deloraine (1676–1730), Monmouth’s third legitimate son (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 282, 320; vol. 2, pp. 25, 132; vol. 3, p. 27; vol. 5, p. 259).  2 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 5–6; Bowen, Britannia Depicta, pp. 64–5.

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206 Notes   3 The Rye House plotters intended to assassinate both Charles II and York as they returned to London after attending the horse races on Newmarket Heath. The Rye House was situated just north of Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire.  4 Wyndham, Protestant Duke, p. 129.  5 Grey, Secret History, pp. 99–102, 110–11; Greaves, Secrets of the Kingdom, pp. 272–5.  6 Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 2, book 2, appendix to part 1, p. 27.  7 Grey, Secret History, pp. 119–22. A bandolier was a wide belt, slung across the chest, from which one dozen, wooden cylinders were suspended each containing a bullet, wadding and enough gunpowder both to charge and prime a musket. Bandoliers, sometimes known as the ‘12 apostles’, were principally associated with matchlock muskets. The flintlock’s higher rate of fire required soldiers to carry more rounds and so the cartridge box, mounted on a waist-belt, became standard issue.   8 Firth and Davies, Regimental History of Cromwell’s Army, pp. 456, 459, 438, 535–6, 539, 479–80, 540–1.  9 Packe, Historical Record of the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards, pp. 33–4. 10 Kirke’s battalion, formerly the Queen’s, became the Queen Dowager’s after the death of Charles II. 11 Atkinson, Royal Dragoons, p. 40. 12 HMC, Buccleuch & Queensberry (Drumlanrig) MSS., vol. 2, p. 80. 13 Penaluna, Historical Survey of the County of Cornwall, vol. 1, p. 96; Hardy, Chronological List, p. 2. 14 Magdalen College, Cambridge, Pepysian Library No. 2490, Edward Dummer, ‘A Journal of the Proceedings of the Duke of Monmouth’s Invading of England, with the Progress and Issue of the Rebellion attending it. Kept by Mr. Edward Dummer, then serving in the Train of Artillery employed by His Majesty for the Suppression of the Same’. Entry for 20 June 1685. 15 Hamilton, Grenadier Guards, vol. 1, pp. 272, 278; HMC, Buccleuch & Queensberry (Drumlanrig) MSS., vol. 2, p. 81, Whitehall, 26 June 1685, midnight; also p. 84. 16 Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 2, book 2, appendix to part 1, pp. 21–3. 17 HMC, Buccleuch & Queensberry (Drumlanrig) MSS., vol. 2, pp. 78–9; Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 2, book 2, appendix to part 1, pp. 23–4. 18 ‘I see plainly that I am to have the trouble, and that the honour will be another’s’ (Churchill to Clarendon, 4 July 1685, Churchill, Marlborough, vol. 1, p. 212). So began the rift between Churchill and James that was to prove central to the functioning of the machinery of the Glorious Revolution in 1688. 19 A troop of horse grenadiers (50 men) had first been attached to each of the three troops of the Life Guard in 1679. A horse grenadier troop was also added to the 4th Troop of the Life Guard, which was created in 1686 and disbanded in 1689. The 20 horse grenadiers from the 1st Troop of the Life Guard were commanded by Captains John Parker (c. 1651–c. 1719), the future Jacobite, and Thomas Gay; those from the 2nd Troop by Captains Richard Potter and Robert Dixon; and those from the 3rd Troop by Captains Anthony Heyford and John Vaughan. 20 Fifth son of Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl of Northampton (1601–43). He fought for Charles I in the Civil War, was knighted in 1661 and ended his life in the rank of lieutenant general. Henry Compton (c. 1631–1713), his younger brother, became Bishop of London in 1675.

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21 Tomlinson, Guns and Government, pp. 48, 233. The conveyance of these eight guns required 60 wagons and 1,500 horses. 22 Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, p. 165. 23 HMC, Buccleuch & Queensberry (Drumlanrig) MSS., vol. 2, p. 80; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 19. 24 Fourth son of the Hon. Sir William Douglas, 2nd Bt of Glenbervie (d. c. 1660). Archibald Douglas was a veteran of France and Tangier and a younger brother of Colonel Sir Robert Douglas, 3rd Bt of Glenbervie, who was killed at Steenkirk in 1692. 25 Fireworker in the Ordnance Office, 1682–1700, and Firemaster for the Fireships, c. 1692–1700 (Tomlinson, Guns and Government, p. 238). 26 Chief Bombardier of the Ordnance Office, 1686–8 (Tomlinson, Guns and Government, p. 238). 27 Bowen, Britannia Depicta, p. 26. 28 Bowen, Britannia Depicta, pp. 84–6. 29 Dummer, ‘Journal’, 21–23 June 1685. 30 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 22; Fea, King Monmouth, p. 251. 31 Third son of Sir Humphrey Mon(n)oux, 1st Bt of Wootton, Bedfordshire (d. 1676). The surname is sometimes given as ‘Manocks’, probably a phonetic rendition. 32 Sometimes ‘Chetwynd’. Appointed troop quartermaster in the Royal Horse Guards, 12 December 1677; cornet, 1 July 1685. Had left the army by 1689 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 199, 313; vol. 2, pp. 4, 48, 120). 33 Dummer, ‘Journal’, 19 June 1685; HMC, Buccleuch & Queensberry (Drumlanrig) MSS., vol. 2, pp. 79–80. 34 Whiting, Persecution Exposed, pp. 143–4. Some authors have accused Kirke’s infantry of committing this outrage but, although writing about 30 years after the event, Whiting clearly remembered that the culprits were mounted. 35 At Pensford on Friday 26 June, Churchill hanged a feltmaker from Yeovil named Jarvis who had been captured during the earlier skirmish near Glastonbury: he died ‘obstinately and impenitently’ (Dummer, ‘Journal’, 26 June 1685). 36 This state of affairs was far from unusual in seventeenth-century warfare. Maps varied between non-existent and useless and, without plentiful sources of dependable local intelligence, it was surprisingly easy to lose an entire enemy army even when it was nearby. ‘Always remain in contact’, was the golden rule broken by Monmouth, Churchill, Oglethorpe and, to a lesser extent, Feversham. See, Lund, War for the Every Day, pp. 65–100. 37 Also known as Philip’s Norton. 38 Bristol was an ‘open’ or unfortified city. A stretch of the medieval wall still ran across the peninsula formed by the loop of the Avon affording the southern sector some protection but, elsewhere, only a few fragments remained. The last of the civil war fortifications, Prince Rupert’s Fort, had been demolished by 1671 and the site developed as a housing estate. The old castle had been knocked down in 1656 and the area turned ‘into streets and pleasant buildings’ (Millerd, An exact Delineation; Porter, Blast of War, pp. 27–8, 75–8, 128, 135). 39 These Gloucestershire militiamen do not appear to have informed Feversham that Monmouth was in Keynsham preparing to cross the Avon. 40 Charles Wyndham (c. 1638–1706) was the fourth but second surviving son of Sir Edmund Wyndham (c. 1600–81) of Kentsford, Somerset, and a nephew of Colonel Sir Francis Wyndham, 1st Bt (c. 1610–76), defender of Dunster Castle during the Civil War, who helped Charles II to escape from England following the defeat at

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208 Notes Worcester in 1651 (Ollard, Escape of Charles II, pp. 69 passim; HPT, vol. 3, pp. 772–6). 41 Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, vol. 1, pp. 297–8; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 22. 42 The Adlam family came from the Warminster-Westbury region of Wiltshire. A Captain W. Adlam had fought for the Parliamentarians during the first English Civil War. Captain Benjamin Adlam joined Monmouth with a very small troop known as the ‘Wiltshire Horse’, which was incorporated within Grey’s cavalry regiment. He was badly wounded at Sedgemoor and hanged outside Westonzoyland church. Timothy Adlam, a yeoman from West Woodlands in eastern Somerset, adjacent to Westbury, also followed Monmouth (Wigfield, Monmouth Rebels, p. 2). 43 Millerd, An exact Delineation; Ogilby, Britannia Depicta, pp. 66, 69–70; Defoe, Tour, vol. 2, p. 285. In many instances, Defoe simply copied Ogilby’s brief descriptions of various towns and villages. 44 HMC, Ormonde MSS., new series, vol. 7, pp. 343–4. 45 Feversham had led a contingent of guards to fight a blaze in the Middle Temple, London, on 26 January 1679. All the water supplies were frozen and, in sacrilegious desperation, beer was thrown on the flames. Finally, some houses were blown up to create a fire break but debris from one of the collapsing buildings struck Feversham on the head causing a depressed fracture of the skull. His cranium was trepanned with a cylindrical saw and he appeared to make a full recovery. However, those seeking thereafter to find fault insinuated that he had suffered permanent damage to his mental health (Rambaut and Vigne (eds), Britain’s Huguenot War Leaders, p. 2). His entry in the ODNB (Stuart Handley, ‘Duras, Louis’) also disparages his martial abilities. Most of these adverse comments emanate from Burnet, History of his own Time, vol. 3, pp. 49–50. 46 Grafton’s mother was the Countess of Castlemaine, then Charles II’s principal mistress. 47 There was considerable tension between military and social rank at this stage of the British military history. Almost certainly Feversham intended Grafton physically to lead the attack and expected Kirke to provide professional expertise and a measure of common sense. 48 When travelling from Warminster to Bath in 1687, Celia Fiennes noted that on leaving Norton St Philip, ‘a very neate stone built village … you pass a good way between 2 stone walls to the Bath’ (Fiennes, Journeys, p. 44). 49 Species-rich hedgerows, thick with leaves and summer growth, played major roles in many seventeenth-century battles. They could ‘turn’ low-velocity musket and pistol balls and were impassable to mounted troops. Tactically-aware soldiers used hedges and ditches to ‘channel’ attacking troops to the advantage of the defence. Often referred to as ‘breastworks’, they were thus the contemporary equivalent of both minefields and trenches. 50 Gathercole, Norton St. Philip, pp. 11, map B; Foxcroft, ‘Monmouth at Philip’s Norton’, pp. 9–13; Bowen, Britannia Depicta, pp. 67, 70, 86. It has proved difficult to reconstruct the topography of Philip’s Norton, ‘of 4 furlongs extent and good accommodation, has a market on Fridays and 3 fairs annually’, but the description presented is congruent with both contemporary maps and reports of the action. 51 Younger son of Francis, 1st Baron Hawley, royalist cavalry colonel during the first Civil War. Hawley had been a 2nd lieutenant in the Royal English Regiment in the French Brigade between 1675 and 1678; captain in Monmouth’s Foot, 1678; lieutenant in the 1st Foot Guards, 1680; captain in the 1st Foot Guards, 1684;

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lieutenant colonel of Colonel John Berkeley’s Dragoons, 31 December 1688; colonel of Berkeley’s Dragoons, 10 May 1692. He died, intestate, from a grenade burst at the Battle of Steenkirk, 24 July 1692, leaving his wife, Judith Hughes (c. 1658–c. 1735), whom he had married on 21 January 1684, a penniless widow. Through the influence of Hawley’s half- brother, Brigadier Thomas Erle (c. 1650–1720), she secured a pension from William III plus army commissions for her three sons. The eldest was General Henry ‘Hangman’ Hawley (c. 1685–1759). Francis Hawley’s portrait, painted c. 1685, is on loan to the National Army Museum, Chelsea (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 208, 275, 315, 327; vol. 2, pp. 12, 19, 92, 128, 253; vol. 3, pp. 33, 285; A. W. Massie, ‘Hawley, Henry’, ODNB; HPT, vol. 2, pp. 515–16; Dalton, George the First’s Army, vol. 2, p. 41; Notes and Queries, 10th series, vol. 6, pp. 6–7). 52 HMC, Buccleuch & Queensberry (Drumlanrig) MSS., vol. 2, p. 83. 53 Although unmentioned in the sources, the horse grenadiers must have operated on foot throughout. Indeed, the nature of their weapons indicated that the horse grenadiers were dragoons, trained to move on horseback but fight dismounted. 54 These were two or three pounder ‘battalion guns’ that usually travelled with the infantry and were positioned in the intervals between regiments in line (Childs, Nine Years’ War, pp. 86–7). 55 James II noted this expression of loyalty and, three years later, drew entirely the wrong conclusions. 56 Oglethorpe was joined by a volunteer, Peregrine Osborne, Viscount Dunblane (c. 1659–1729), the Earl of Danby’s eldest son (Browning, Danby, vol. 1, p. 372). 57 It may seem slightly odd that Monmouth’s column exiting Frome was headed by the supply train but, knowing that the enemy lay to the north, as a matter of routine, the baggage, artillery and ‘soft’ elements would have been brought to the head of the column and the fighting troops positioned to the rear and left. 58 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 57–8. The total loss, later estimated at £410 9s, devolved on Captain Thomas St John, the convoy commander. He petitioned the Treasury for reimbursement during 1686. See Davies (ed.), ‘Three Letters’, p. 114. 59 Childs, Nobles, Gentlemen, p. 76. 60 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, p. 126, Henry Sheres to Lord Dartmouth, 30 June 1685, Frome. 61 William Culli[y]ford served in the Royal English Regiment in France during the 1670s. Lieutenant in Monmouth’s Foot, 1678; lieutenant to Kirke’s company in Plymouth’s Foot in Tangier, 1680; captain-lieutenant, 27 November 1680; captain, 3 January 1681. He was not commissioned in Kirke’s Foot in England in 1684 but was quartermaster of Feversham’s army during the Sedgemoor campaign, 1685. Captain in the Royal Dragoons, 29 July 1685; major, 1689; lieutenant colonel of Thomas Windsor’s Horse, 1694; lieutenant colonel of Lord Mohun’s Foot, 1702; retired, 1706 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 207, 269, 279, 281; vol. 2, pp. 51, 126; vol. 3, p. 356; Atkinson, Royal Dragoons, p. 58). 62 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, p. 127. 63 A sub-constable. 64 Defoe, Tour, vol. 2, p. 35. 65 Dummer, ‘Journal’, 4 July 1685; HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, p. 127. 66 Grey, Secret History, pp. 123–4. 67 Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax had earlier reached the same conclusion and located their main camp at Westonzoyland during the siege of Bridgewater, 11–23 July 1645 (Green, ‘The Siege of Bridgewater’, pp. 12–25).

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210 Notes 68 Dummer, ‘Journal’, 5 July 1685; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 28. 69 A 15th, John Coy’s troop of the Royal Dragoons, was absent guarding the crossing of the Parrett at Burrow Bridge. 70 HMC, 9th Report, p. 6. 71 Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, p. 160. 72 Richard Godfrey was illegitimate and sometimes known by the surname of his other parent, Newman or Newton. 73 St Mary’s. 74 Roads on causeways were nearly always paved thus enabling much faster marching than was otherwise possible. 75 Sir Hugh Middleton, 1st Bt of Hackney (c. 1658–1702). He had served as a lieutenant in the second battalion of Monmouth’s Foot in 1678, suggesting service in France during the 1670s, and was commissioned captain in Colonel John Berkeley’s Dragoons on 17 July 1685. A loyalist, he left the army after the Glorious Revolution. He was probably serving either as a volunteer or an ADC to Feversham. Middleton was a grandson of Sir Hugh Middleton or Myddleton, 1st Bt (c. 1560–1631), the hydrological entrepreneur (Wotton et al. (eds), Baronetage of England, vol. 2, p. 463). 76 Monmouth, in his later relation of the battle, said that small, portable bridges had been prepared to aid the crossing of the various ditches but these are not mentioned in any other source (Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 28). 77 Where King Alfred had burned the cakes. 78 Hucker was to be disappointed. When tried in Taunton before Jeffreys, he pleaded his treachery in mitigation but Jeffreys informed him that he deserved a ‘double death’: one for rebelling against his sovereign and another for betraying his friends. He was hanged in Taunton on 30 September (Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, part 1, book 2, pp. 189, 200; Wigfield, Monmouth Rebels, p. 90; Muddiman (ed.), Bloody Assizes, pp. 127–9; HMC, Stopford-Sackville MSS., vol. 1, pp. 27–8, letter from Rev. Andrew Paschall, 8 April 1685, Chedzoy). 79 ‘The Battle of Sedgemoor’, in Parker, Tom Balch, p. 140. 80 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 28. 81 Rev. Andrew Paschall (c. 1636–91), vicar of Chedzoy, ‘An Account of the Rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth in a Letter to Dr. James’, in Heywood, A Vindication of Mr. Fox’s History, appendix 4, p. 39. Little, Monmouth Episode, p. 179, and Clifton, Last Popular Rebellion, p. 202, following Paschall, identify this perspicacious and enterprising officer as ‘Captain Mackintosh’ of the Royal Scots. However, the regimental lists for both 1684 and 1685 do not include this name. The only Mackintosh in either the Scottish or English army at this time was Captain Alexander Mackintosh of the Royal Dragoons (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 314; vol. 2, p. 10). This Mackintosh was present with his command at Sedgemoor and, in view of Churchill’s deployment of the dragoons midway through the battle, it is possible that his troop was camped close to the infantry. As we have noted, foot units in camp routinely marked out the ground on which they would deploy in an emergency. 82 Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, p. 162; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 28. 83 Cornbury commanded the four troops of the Royal Dragoons present during the Sedgemoor campaign. Churchill, the regimental colonel, was fully occupied with his role as Feversham’s deputy. 84 Evelyn, Diary, vol. 3, p. 167. 85 Wade was shot and captured at Brendon on Exmoor. He saved his neck by writing a full confession and turning King’s Evidence against Lord Delamere. He was

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pardoned on 26 May 1686 and transferred his allegiance to his benefactor, James II, receiving appointment as town clerk of Bristol in 1688. Dismissed after the Glorious Revolution, Wade appears to have devoted his remaining 20 years to private legal practice. 86 One source says that Feversham did not visit Bridgwater until the afternoon of 6 July. He allowed Colonel James Butler, 7th Earl of Ossory (1665–1745), the honour of being the first to enter the town (Davies (ed.), ‘Three Letters’, pp. 115–16). 87 Fea, King Monmouth, p. 295; Roberts, Life, Progresses and Rebellion of James, Duke of Monmouth, vol. 2, pp. 92–3. 88 Kirke made the tithingmen of Chedzoy responsible for burying rebel corpses subsequently discovered on and around the battlefield (QRWS 1/8/2/5). 89 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 36. A mark was worth 13s 4d. 90 Oglethorpe left Westonzoyland at 05:00 on Monday 6 July and arrived in Whitehall late on the same evening (Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 26). 91 There was a Yellow Regiment in the Hampshire Militia (Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, p. 161). 92 A plaque was subsequently erected on the site of the White Hart Inn to commemorate the six hanged plus another five later executed in Glastonbury following conviction at the Bloody Assizes. 93 Earle, Monmouth’s Rebels, p. 137. 94 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 38. 95 Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, pp. 162–6. 96 Western, English Militia in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 54–7; Clifton, Last Popular Rebellion, pp. 229–30; Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 6–8; Whiting, Persecution Exposed, pp. 144–5; Burnet, History of his own Time, vol. 3, p. 415; Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, pp. 159–66. For some indication of the extent of the militia’s security operations see, Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 16–50. See also, Scott, ‘Military Effectiveness of the West Country Militia’. 97 The above account of Monmouth’s Rebellion makes no claim to originality and, apart from the sources mentioned in the footnotes above, is drawn principally from the following authorities: Little, Monmouth Episode; Clifton, Last Popular Rebellion; Churchill, Marlborough, vol. 1, pp. 203–25; D’Oyley, Monmouth, pp. 275–322; Wigfield, Monmouth Rebels; Earle, Monmouth’s Rebels; Chandler, Sedgemoor, 1685, pp. 31–5, 63–71; HMC, Stopford-Sackville MSS., pp. 1–19; An Account of the most remarkable Fights and Skirmishes between His Majesty’s Forces and the Rebels in the West; An Account of the Defeat of the Rebels in England, p. 2; Tutchin, The Bloody Assizes, or a Complete History of the Life of George, Lord Jefferies, p. 23; HMC, Portland MSS., vol. 2, pp. 157–8.

Chapter Seven   1 Whiting, Persecution Exposed, pp. 301–2.    2 Brigadier-general was an appointment awarded to some regimental colonelscommandant. Recipients were usually called ‘colonel’ rather than ‘brigadier’. It was superseded by the rank of brigadier in 1928.    3 As a final insult to the rebels and their families, the bodies of both judicial and military victims were buried in shallow graves that rapidly developed into public

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212 Notes eyesores and hazards to health. James also ignored the pleas of local landowners that the transportation of numerous tenants and labourers was damaging the local economy (Sankey, Jacobite Prisoners of the 1715 Rebellion, p. xii).    4 Monmouth had proclaimed himself king on 20 June while in Taunton. The proclamation was published on 21 June (HMC, Bath MSS., vol. 2, pp. 170–1).   5 Miller, James II, p. 141.    6 Hon. Henry Bertie (c. 1656–1734) of Chesterton, Oxfordshire, 8th son of Sir Montagu Bertie, 2nd Earl of Lindsey (1608–66), was captain of a troop of horse in the Oxfordshire militia (HPT, vol. 1, p. 643).    7 Timmons, ‘Executions following Monmouth’s Rebellion’, p. 287; Davies (ed.), ‘Three Letters’, p. 116.    8 Initially, these were the troops of Lieutenant Colonel Lord Cornbury and Captain Charles Nedby. Colonel John Churchill’s troop and that of Captain John Coy were guarding rebel prisoners in Salisbury. Churchill returned to London after Sedgemoor. Until 12 June, his troop had been commanded by Captain-Lieutenant Thomas Hussey who was then promoted to a captaincy in the Queen’s Dragoons, a new regiment commanded by the Duke of Somerset: Lieutenant Francis Langston (d. 1723), younger brother of Captain Thomas Langston, was elevated to captain-lieutenant in his stead (Atkinson, Royal Dragoons, pp. 46–7; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, pp. 10, 11; Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, vol. 1, p. 341). Captain Henry Cornwall’s troop of the Royal Horse Guards was detached from Feversham’s army to guard prisoners at Warminster (HMC, Stopford-Sackville MSS., vol. 1, p. 21).   9 Oldmixon, History of England, p. 704. Oldmixon wrote this passage some 40 years after the event so its accuracy of detail cannot be guaranteed. As Dr Johnson remarked, ‘how seldom descriptions correspond with realities: and the reason is that people do not write them till some time after, and then their imagination has added circumstances’ (Boswell, Life of Johnson, pp. 227–8).  10 HMC, Stopford-Sackville MSS., vol. 1, pp. 19–20; Timmons, ‘Executions following Monmouth’s Rebellion’, p. 288.  11 Tutchin, Western Martyrology, p. 216.  12 Toulmin, History of Taunton, p. 179.   13 Timmons, ‘Executions following Monmouth’s Rebellion’, pp. 286–91; Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), pp. 524–6.   14 For this see, Timmons, ‘Executions following Monmouth’s Rebellion’ pp. 286–91; Zook, ‘ “The Bloody Assizes” ’, p. 379; CSPD, 1685, no. 1338; HMC, StopfordSackville MSS., vol. 1, p. 19; HMC, 2nd Report, Appendix, p. 99; Keeton, Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, p. 306. Timmons omits the ten hangings ordered for Bridgewater because there is no evidence that they occurred.  15 CSPD, 1685, no. 1225.  16 CSPD, 1685, no. 1285.  17 CSPD, 1685, no. 1466. Henry Withers probably served in France during the later 1670s; lieutenant in Monmouth’s Foot in England, 1678; ensign in Tangier, 1679; lieutenant in Kirke’s (1st Tangier Regiment), 1683; captain, 1 October 1688; brevet colonel of foot, 1 July 1689; adjutant general of the foot in Ireland, 20 October 1689; major of 1st Foot Guards, 1695; lieutenant colonel, 1695; lieutenant general, 1 January 1707 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 208, 255, 302, 320; vol. 2, p. 183; vol. 3, pp. 102, 107, 242; vol. 4, p. 66; vol. 5, pp. 158–9; Letter Book, f. 13). Withers’s ensign in 1685 was Roger Elliott (c. 1665–1714), a cousin of Kirke.

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  18 On 7 July, Captain Thomas Barber’s company (Kirke’s battalion) at Pendennis was ordered to march to Plymouth, its place there being taken by an independent company commanded by Captain Richard, 1st Baron Arundell of Trerice (d. 1688). At Plymouth, Barber’s company linked-up with that of Major Sir James Lesley and, on 13 July, they set off together for Somerset: the journey would have taken about ten days. Kirke’s infantry strength was thereby increased to 12 companies. Immediately after Sedgemoor, James was anxious to reduce military expenditure as quickly as possible. When Kirke was informed by Blathwayt of the imminent arrival of Barber and Lesley, he was also told that all his companies would be reduced to 60 men each while the weapons and equipment that had been lost in the wagon at Wells on 1 July would have to be made good out of those seized from the rebels (Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 42; HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, p. 128).  19 Burnet, Bishop Burnet’s History of his own Time, vol. 1, p. 647.   20 Muddiman (ed.), Bloody Assizes, p. 23.  21 Whiting, Persecution Exposed, pp. 144–6; Burnet (1857), History of his own Time, p. 415; WO 4/1, ff. 12–13, 21 July 1685; QRWS 1/8/2/4, 21 July 1685, Sunderland to Kirke.  22 CSPD, 1685, no. 1317.  23 CSPD, 1685, no. 1317. Although he cites no authority, Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), p. 549, says that Kirke sold many such ‘pardons’, charging between 20 and 40 pounds sterling apiece, thus allowing many of the more wealthy prisoners to escape. ‘They were not valid in law yet afforded those who purchased them time to settle their affairs and retire to Holland and other places of shelter.’ He was not alone in perfidy. There were several ‘pardon merchants’ and a commission was established in April 1686 to investigate their activities (Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 110).  24 CSPD, 1685, no. 1338.  25 Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, vol. 1, p. 343; Burnet (1857), History of his own Time, p. 415; Roberts, Life, Progresses and Rebellion of James, Duke of Monmouth, vol. 2, p. 182.   26 The other members of the Special Commission were Sir William Montague (d. 1706), Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer; Sir Robert Wright (c. 1634–89), Recorder of Cambridge; Sir Francis Wythens (c. 1635–1704), Justice of the King’s Bench; and Sir Cresswell Levinz (1627–1701), Justice of the Common Pleas. Sir Henry Pollexfen (c. 1632–91) was the principal crown prosecutor.  27 Steele, Royal Proclamations, vol. 1, no. 3815; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 1, pp. 356–7.  28 Childs, The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 83–118; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 91, 109–10, 142, 275.  29 Clarke, Life of James II, vol. 2, pp. 44–5. This opinion was also held by the 2nd Earl of Ailesbury, one of James’s courtiers (Ailesbury, Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 121–3).  30 Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 1, p. 354.  31 Oldmixon, History of England, pp. 704–5.   32 Andrew M. Coleby ‘Mews, Peter’, ODNB; Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 2, book 2, part 1, pp. 203–4; Anderdon, Life of Thomas Ken, vol. 1, pp. 282–3; Mackintosh, Miscellaneous Works, pp. 275–6. Many prisoners were housed in the cloisters of St Andrew’s Cathedral, Wells.  33 Irving, Life of Judge Jeffreys, p. 306.  34 Hatton Correspondence, vol. 2, p. 60.  35 Grey, Debates of the House of Commons, vol. 8, pp. 357–8, 12 November 1685.

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214 Notes  36 Little, Monmouth Episode, pp. 238–9; Clifton, Last Popular Rebellion, pp. 239–41; Turner, James II, pp. 281–4.  37 The Sun, no. 1230, 3 September 1796.   38 As a practising Roman Catholic, James was unable to exercise his office as supreme head of the Church of England. Therefore, the government of the church was entrusted to a Commission for Ecclesiastical Causes that quickly became the instrument through which the king assaulted Anglican political, educational and spiritual monopolies.   39 Bloxam (ed.), Magdalen College and King James II, p. 217.   40 The legal arguments are discussed in Kenyon, Revolution Principles.  41 Turner, James II, pp. 283–5.  42 Dunton, An Impartial History of the Life and Death of George, Lord Jeffreys, p. 26.  43 Tutchin, A New Martyrology, or The Bloody Assizes, now exactly methodised in one Volume. The first martyrology, The Protestant Martyrs, or the Bloody Assizes, was also written by John Tutchin but bears no date of publication. Some authorities have assumed 1688 but it is impossible that James II and his lord chamberlain, the Earl of Mulgrave, would have licensed such sedition. Either it appeared in December 1688 or, more probably, after the appointment of the Earl of Dorset, a moderate Whig and active supporter of the Glorious Revolution, to the office of lord chamberlain on 14 February 1689. The book was reprinted twice in 1689, revised editions following during 1693 and 1705, this under a new title, The Western Martyrology.   44 It has not proved possible to discover these letters. They are not among Dunton’s miscellaneous correspondence housed in the Bodleian Library, MSS. Rawlinson D. 71 and D. 72 (Dunton, Life and Errors, vol. 2, pp. 753–60). Muddiman (ed.), Bloody Assizes, pp. 126–7, 131–6. See Parks, ‘John Dunton and The Works of the Learned’; Bhowmik, ‘Facts and Norms in the Marketplace of Print’.   45 Muddiman (ed.), Bloody Assizes, pp. 8–10; Pitts, A New Martyrology, or, The Bloody Assizes.   46 This paragraph must have been written by Tutchin after 1702 because in it he refers to the Observator, a journal he edited between 1702 and 1710.  47 Tutchin, Western Martyrology, pp. 224–31.  48 Pittis, The True-Born Englishman, pp. 48–51; The Examination Tryal and Condemnation of Rebellion, p. 6.   49 Cobbett and Howell (eds), Complete Collection of State Trials, vol. 14, pp. 1095–1200.   50 Horsley, ‘The Trial of John Tutchin, Author of the “Observator”’; Dunton, Life and Errors, pp. 245, 277; Clifton, Last Popular Rebellion, pp. 235, 268–9; Plomer, Dictionary, pp. 108–10.   51 It might be recalled (Chapter 8) that Feversham had hanged six rebels outside the White Hart Inn at Glastonbury on 7 July and left their naked bodies dangling (Tutchin, Western Martyrology, pp. 228–9).  52 Tutchin, A New Martyrology, pp. 524–6; Tutchin, Western Martyrology, pp. 216–18.   53 This was changed to ‘looseness’ in the 1719 edition, vol. 3, p. 434. See also, A Compleat History of all the Rebellions, Insurrections &c.  54 Kennett, Compleat History of England, vol. 3, p. 438. The story of Kirke taking advantage of a young woman in return for sparing the life of her brother/father/ husband/lover was taken up in a number of subsequent histories: Muddiman (ed.), Bloody Assizes, pp. 22–4, 129–31; Ailesbury, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 123; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 39–40. ‘The Treachery of Colonel Kirke, 1685’ (1799), by Robert Smirke (1753–1845), housed in the National Portrait Gallery, London, No. NPG D3497, is a thoroughly unrealistic depiction of Kirke’s alleged

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rape of the young woman, now identified as an innkeeper’s daughter. Kirke appears in tights resembling the product of a union between a member of the corps de ballet and a medieval troubadour. A print entitled, ‘Colonel Kirke’s brutal Conduct to a Lady who solicited the Life of her Brother’, appeared in 1803 and swathed Kirke in mid-eighteenth-century costume.  55 Echard, History of England, vol. 3, pp. 774–6.  56 Boyer, History of King William III, vol. 1, part 2, pp. 32–4.  57 Foxcroft, Supplement to Burnet’s History of my own Time, p. 168.  58 Burnet, History of his own Time, vol. 1, pp. 647–8.   59 Many subsequent historians have parroted Kennett and Burnet. See Webb, Lord Churchill’s Coup, pp. 96–7; Lustig, Imperial Executive in America, pp. 131–3; Bremer, Congregational Communion, p. 228; Trench, Western Rising, p. 239; Watson, Captain-General and Rebel Chief, pp. 269–70; Little, Monmouth Episode, pp. 203–4; Keen, Revolutions in Romantic Literature, p. 326. Earle, Monmouth’s Rebels, pp. 137–40, is less harsh and makes the point that others were equally culpable.   60 Rapin de Thoyras, History of England, vol. 2, p. 750.  61 Hume, History of England, vol. 8, pp. 224–5.  62 Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 1, part 1, book 2, pp. 198–9.  63 Locke, Western Rebellion.  64 Macaulay, History of England, vol. 2, pp. 624–8.  65 Fox, History of the early Part of the Reign of James II.  66 Lingard, History of England, vol. 14, pp. 75–7; Hay, Enigma of James II, p. 113.  67 Webb, Lord Churchill’s Coup, pp. 98–9; Manning, Apprenticeship in Arms, p. 278. The latter is fancifully inaccurate on this point.   68 It was first performed at the Royal Olympic Theatre, 19 February 1857. A review of an amateur performance at Southsea is in the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, no. 3602, 23 February 1867. In Taylor’s version, Kirke was removed from the command in Somerset for his ’barbarity’ and the agent bearing Sunderland’s order of dismissal was John Churchill.  69 Parker, Tom Balch, pp. 81, 86, 107–8; Blackmore, Lorna Doone, pp. 618–27. See Prologue, ‘Kirke and Lorna Doone’.  70 Everett-Green, In Taunton Town, pp. 381–97.   71 Muddiman (ed.), Bloody Assizes, pp. 22–4. Muddiman’s source, Jeffery (ed.), ‘A List of King James’s Army on Hounslow Heath … 30th June 1686’, pp. 229–32, is in error. Charles Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, p. 91, recognizes the mistake.  72 Mackintosh, Miscellaneous Works, p. 276.   73 WO 5/1, pp. 272–3.  74 Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), p. 542; HMC, Stopford-Sackville MSS., vol. 1, pp. 26–7. It is now the site of the Tangier urban regeneration area.  75 Oldmixon, History of England, p. 705.  76 CSPD, 1685, no. 1466.   77 Son of Hon. Edward Russell (d. 1665) and younger brother of Admiral Edward Russell.   78 Lieutenant Colonel of the Royal Dragoons, 1 July 1689.   79 The infantry regiment of Sir Charles Littleton, known as Prince George of Denmark’s Foot, arrived in Taunton to relieve Trelawney’s on 26 September (HMC, Stopford-Sackville MSS., vol. 1, p. 27). Lancaster, Warrington, Liverpool, Preston, Ormskirk and Wrexham, all strongly Whig in politics and suspected of sympathizing with Monmouth, received lengthy visitations from troops of

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216 Notes dragoons. The ‘honest town of Wigan’ was spared (WO 4/1, p. 23, Blathwayt to Captain Peter Shakerley, Governor of Chester, 28 November 1685).  80 Latimer, Annals of Bristol in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 434–8.   81 Charles Trelawney, a member of an ancient, landed Cornish family, impoverished through its royalism and loyalty to Charles I, was the younger brother of Sir Jonathan Trelawney, 3rd Bt (1650–1721), bishop of Bristol from 8 November 1685.   82 The infantry battalions forming the Somerset garrison, headquartered at Taunton, each served a tour of approximately one month: Kirke’s, Trelawney’s, Littleton’s and, finally, the Royal Scots. Thereafter, a regular military presence was no longer required. This pattern was atypical: the rotation of domestic garrisons usually occurred either every 12 months or, in the case of the guards regiments in and around London, not at all, so this rapid circulation of units into and out of Somerset may have been motivated by the need to mitigate the unsavoury effect of violence and depredation upon military discipline.  83 Atkinson, Royal Dragoons, pp. 47–8, 50–2; Webb, Lord Churchill’s Coup, pp. 97–8.   84 Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, pp. 163–5; Little, Monmouth Episode, pp. 186–7.  85 Toulmin, History of Taunton, pp. 164–8; Oldmixon, History of England, p. 704.   86 Kirke and his officers were probably gathered on the first floor of the new Market House, built in 1682, which comprised space for commercial premises on the ground floor and municipal assembly rooms above looking over the Cornhill, or Island. The current Market House on Fore Street, next to the market cross, dates from 1772. There is a local tradition that Kirke lodged in the Three Cups Inn, now the County Hotel (Toulmin, History of Taunton, pp. 180–3). Similar traditions whereby young ladies dressed in white to plead with figures in authority for the lives of condemned persons existed in other parts of the country (Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 268).  87 Boswell, Life of Johnson, p. 849; the Sun, no. 1230, 3 September 1796.   88 John Merrill had been appointed deputy paymaster and solicitor (i.e. regimental agent) to the Coldstream Guards, 4 July 1711 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 6, p. 56; AO 1/60/66; Guy, Oeconomy and Discipline, p. 59).  89 The Sun, no. 1230, 3 September 1796, ‘Story of General Kirk rectified’. The letter was then in the possession of a ‘physician, at Wilmington, in North America’.   90 Technically, Sir Peter Killigrew entailed his estates upon his son-in-law, Martin Lister-Killigrew (Lysons, Magna Britannia, vol. 3, pp. 102).  91 HPT, vol. 2, p. 679; Gilbert, Parochial History of Cornwall, vol. 1, pp. 389–400. Martin Lister-Killigrew supervised the erection of the Killigrew Monument, opposite Arwenack House on the Falmouth waterfront, in 1738. See, Gay, Old Falmouth, pp. 11, 17, 35, 45, 49, 65, 66.  92 Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), pp. 545–8; Letter Book, f. 241; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 282, 302, 320, 323; vol. 2, pp. 25, 27, 132, 135; vol. 3, pp. 139, 193; vol. 5, pp. 56, 126; vol. 6, p. 199. Dalton mistakenly called ‘Lister’ ‘Lester’ throughout the second volume. Toulmin’s revisionism was substantially repeated by Roberts, Life, Progresses and Rebellion of James, Duke of Monmouth, vol. 2, pp. 171–87.   93 Timmons, ‘Executions following Monmouth’s Rebellion’, pp. 288–9; Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), pp. 546–7. Savage does not question that the lady was Mrs Elizabeth Rowe.  94 Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), pp. 164n–5n; the Sun, no. 1230, 3 September 1796.

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  95 Pomfret, ‘Cruelty and Lust: an Epistolary Essay’, in Miscellany Poems on Several Occasions, pp. 166–79.   96 Ronnick, ‘The Phrase “Nerone Neronior”’, pp. 169–70.  97 Toulmin, History of Taunton, pp. 166–7; Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), pp. 541–5. Toulmin’s explanation is repeated verbatim by Macaulay, History of England, vol. 2, pp. 627–8.  98 Saunders, Hawkwood: Diabolical Englishman, p. 222.  99 Mackintosh, Miscellaneous Works, p. 275–7. 100 Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), p. 543. 101 Briggs, ‘Historical Traditions in English Folk-Tales’, pp. 232, 241; Briggs, British Folk-Tales, p. 201; Parker, Tom Balch, pp. 137–44; Tongue, Somerset Folklore, p. 191.

Chapter Eight  1 Binet, H H h H, section 30.  2 London Gazette, no. 1584, 7–11 August 1684.   3 Montagu & Norman (eds), Survey of London: Volume 13, St. Margaret’s Westminster, pp. 236–48; CTB, 1685–9, pp. 1052, 1558; WO 5/4, p. 22. It is probable that he inherited the tenancy of the West Byfleet property from his father who had taken a long lease in order to attend Charles I when at Nonsuch Palace.   4 See Guy, Oeconomy and Discipline, pp. 88–115, 137–61.   5 Guy, ‘The Fall and Rise of the British Army, 1660–1704’, p. 10.   6 The portrait is now in the possession of the Surrey Infantry Museum, Clandon Park, Guildford, Surrey. A peasant in Northern Ireland apparently once complained to Kirke that soldiers had pillaged him of all he had in the world. Then ‘thou art a happy man’, said Kirke, ‘for then they will plunder thee no more’ (London Journal, no. 136, 3 March 1722).  7 Foskett, Samuel Cooper, pp. 48–51; Pepys, Diary, vol. 9, pp. 138, 259, 276–7.  8 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 62; Wigfield, Monmouth Rebels, pp. xv–xviii, 61.  9 Oldmixon, History of England, p. 705: no source cited. See also, Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 39, 41. This story was repeated in Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), pp. 548–9. Boyer, History of King William III, vol. 1, part 2, p. 34, says that, ‘afterwards [Kirke] endeavoured to palliate [these cruelties] by pretending that he did nothing but by express order from the king and his general’, but does not mention a conversation with Foulkes. 10 Cardigan, Life and Loyalties of Thomas Bruce, p. 112. 11 Bridgwater Castle was later demolished and Castle Street built across the site. Dunning and Elrington (eds), Victoria County History. A History of the County of Somerset, vol. 6, pp. 206–7. 12 Oldmixon, History of England, p. 705. 13 Pryme, Diary, p. 30; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 392. 14 CSPD, 1683, pp. 166–7. 15 His Majesty’s Gracious Declaration to all his loving Subjects for Liberty of Conscience, 4 April 1687, in Browning (ed.), English Historical Documents, 1660–1714, pp. 395–7. 16 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 92, 191; Portland MSS. Pw A 2084, November 1685; Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 2–5, 22–3, 119–37. This

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218 Notes antagonism between the Roman Catholic and Protestant officers proved an essential pre-condition for the events of the autumn and winter of 1688. 17 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 191. 18 Organizing marches was the task of the adjutant, Lieutenant William Storton – variously Storeton, Stouton, Stoughton – of Captain Charles Wingfield’s company, a veteran of the Royal English Regiment and Tangier. He worked closely with the quartermaster, William Wallis. 19 CSPD, 1685, no. 1738; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 43–5; Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 37–9. 20 Evelyn, Diary, 29 June 1678. The idea of an annual army encampment on the outskirts of London to express the crown’s military power probably originated with James when Duke of York as a component in ‘an intensification in all three kingdoms of that mildly authoritarian policy adopted by Charles II in 1681 … directed by James, Sunderland and [the Duchess of] Portsmouth’ (Kenyon, Sunderland, p. 107). See Brooks, General and compleat List military. 21 Bowen, Britannia Depicta, p. 23. 22 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, pp. 143–4. An artist’s impression of the hospital is presented in Arni, Hospital Care and the British Standing Army, pp. 110–11. 23 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 377; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, pp. 94, 111, 141. His regiment was given to the Irish Roman Catholic veteran from France, Richard Hamilton, son of Sir George Hamilton and brother of Anthony (Clark, Anthony Hamilton, pp. 44–68). Langdale received the compensatory offices of governor of Hull (4 November 1687) and captain of the grenadier company in the infantry battalion of the Roman Catholic, William Herbert, 1st Viscount Montgomery (c. 1657–1745). 24 Evelyn, Diary, 6 June 1687; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 162, 198, 212–13. Morrice presents the menus served at the tables of Dumbarton and Feversham. See Jeffery, ‘Draught of King James the Second’s Army’. 25 England’s Triumph, or a Poem on the royal Camp at Hounslow-Heath; Evelyn, Diary, 2 June 1686. 26 The valiant Soldiers’ Gallantry, or the Glory of the Camp-Royal on Hounslow-Heath. 27 Johnson, A humble and hearty Address to all the English Protestants in this present Army, in A fifth Collection of Papers relating to the present Juncture of Affairs in England, pp. 12–13; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 298–9. 28 The Royal Encampment, or His Majesty’s Forces on Hounslow-Heath; An exact Prospect of his Majesty’s Forces as they are encamped on Hounslow-Heath, 19 July 1686; Campement de l’Armée de sa Majesté le Roy de la Grande Bretagne a Hounsslaucheats, June 1687. ‘The Grand Review of the Army on Hounslow Heath’, by Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611–93), hangs in the National Army Museum, Chelsea. The painting probably shows the ‘general rendezvous’ when all the forces in the camp paraded before James and Queen Mary on 30 June 1686. James and Mary took the salute from the ‘scaffold’ depicted in the right foreground. See Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 96–8; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 131. 29 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 287. No record of the outcome has been discovered. 30 Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 83–118. 31 A younger son of Sir Francis Godolphin (1605–67) of Breage, Cornwall, and his wife, Dorothy, née Berkeley, and brother of Sidney, 1st Earl Godolphin (1645–1712). 32 Kirke was the executor of his late brother’s will (Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 59). 33 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 63–5.

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34 Reresby, Memoirs, p. 398; Grey, Debates, vol. 8, pp. 353–69. 35 Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 47–50. 36 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 8, 9 April 1687. This passage refers to James dismissing from public office several of those who had declined to give assurances that they would favour the repeal of the Test Acts and Penal Laws. 37 The verb ‘to cashier’ originally meant to dismiss from military office without financial compensation. 38 This was the episode of the ‘Portsmouth Captains’. Colonel James Fitzjames, 1st Duke of Berwick (1670–1734), James II’s illegitimate son by John Churchill’s elder sister, Arabella (1649–1730), ordered each of the 12 company captains in his regiment, then garrisoning Portsmouth, to accept into their ranks a number of Catholic Irishmen. Lieutenant Colonel John Beaumont (c. 1636–1701) and Captains Thomas Paston, Simon Pack, Thomas Orme, William Cooke and John Port refused. They were courtmartialled and cashiered. See Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 151–4. 39 Duckett, Penal Laws and Test Act, vol. 1, p. 10. 40 Portland MSS. Pw A 680. 41 See Cox, King William’s European Joint Venture. 42 HPT, vol. 3, pp. 395–6; John B. Hattendorf, ‘Savage, Richard’, ODNB. 43 Secretary at War William Blathwayt’s part in the army conspiracy has yet to be investigated. Neither his biographer, Gertrude Jacobsen, nor the short entry in the ODNB by Barbara C. Murison, suggests involvement but circumstantial evidence indicates that he played a crucial role by providing false orders, delaying the transmission of instructions and determining the billets and quarters of various key units. 44 Torrington, Memoirs, pp. 27–8. 45 Mazure, Histoire de la Révolution, vol. 2, p. 472. 46 Bod. Lib. MSS. Rawlinson D.148, ‘Letter about the Revolution in the Army in 1688’, 16 October 1713, London. This anonymous letter was probably the work of Ambrose Norton (c. 1646–1723), major of Princess Anne of Denmark’s Horse in 1688, which was effectively commanded by Langston because Colonel Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans (1670–1726), was on secondment to the Imperial army in Hungary. A slightly edited version is printed in Macpherson, Original Papers, vol. 1, pp. 287–96. 47 Sheridan’s ‘Historical Account’, written in 1702 (HMC, Stuart MSS., vol. 6, pp. 1–75), exonerated James from all responsibility for Catholicization in Ireland by blaming Tyrconnell and Sunderland. Sheridan had been relieved of his duties as Tyrconnell’s secretary on 20 January 1688 (John Miller, ‘Sheridan, Thomas’, ODNB). 48 The meeting between the St George brothers and Sheridan took place between 28 October and 4 November (HMC, Stuart MSS., vol. 6, pp. 50–1). 49 George Churchill was a captain in the Royal Dragoons as well as a post captain in the Royal Navy. 50 Francis Newport (1619–1708), created 1st Earl of Bradford in 1694. Newport was Treasurer of the Royal Household from 1672 until dismissed by James II in 1687 for failing to support the proposed repeal of the Test Acts and Penal Laws. He was a strong supporter of both Dutch intervention and the accession of William and Mary (Victor Stater, ‘Newport, Francis, 1st Earl of Bradford’, ODNB; HTP, vol. 3, pp. 136–7). 51 James Kendal (1647–1708) was commissioned cornet in the Royal Horse Guards, 5 January 1675. He was appointed lieutenant colonel of Lord Morpeth’s Horse, a

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220 Notes wartime levy, 1678–9, and promoted to captain in the Coldstream Guards, 7 June 1680 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 179, 190, 274; vol. 2, p. 21). A Tory, he was returned MP for West Looe in 1685 on the Trelawney interest. Although initially a court supporter, by the second session in November Kendall had grown antagonistic to James’s apparent creeping Catholicization of the army and voted in favour of the address against Catholic officers. A close associate of the equivocating Earl of Rochester, he was dismissed from the army and deserted to William in 1688 (HTP, vol. 2, pp. 673–4). As a reward for his support in 1688–9, Kendall was appointed Governor-General of Barbados. He was replaced by a Whig, Francis Russell, in 1693. When Rochester became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1703, Kendall joined the Irish Treasury Commission. He died in 1708 leaving to his housekeeper an estate worth £40,000 (Webb, Governors-General, p. 471). 52 HMC, Stuart MSS., vol. 6, pp. 50–1. 53 4th Viscount Fitzhardinge from 1690. 54 Succeeded as 4th Duke of Hamilton in 1698. 55 Macpherson, Original Papers, vol. 1, p. 158. 56 Berwick, Memoirs, vol. 1, pp. 27–8. 57 Berwick, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 29; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, pp. 338–9; London Gazette, no. 2400, 15–17 November 1688. 58 Herbert, ‘Correspondence of Admiral Herbert during the Revolution’, p. 528; Foxcroft, Supplement to Burnet’s History of my own Time, pp. 298n. 1, 530–1. 59 Portland MSS. Pw A 2212, November 1688. 60 Mackintosh, History of the Revolution, vol. 2, p. 211. 61 The lord lieutenant of Gloucestershire, the Duke of Beaufort, was one of the few to make a serious effort to intercept defectors. 62 Wood, Life and Times of Anthony Wood, vol. 1. p. 276, 4 April 1659. 63 Mackintosh, History of the Revolution, vol. 2, pp. 209–10. 64 An Irishman of Scottish parentage, possibly related to the Earls of Caithness. His father was the royalist soldier, Colonel William Stewart (d. 1691), who briefly served in the Restoration army as major of Sir Walter Vane’s wartime battalion, 1667 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 83). His son served in France, 1672–3, possibly in Sir George Hamilton’s regiment of foot. He returned to England as ensign in Lord Vaughan’s Foot, 1673, and was promoted to lieutenant the same year. Between 1674 and 1678, he served in the Anglo-Dutch Brigade. Captain, later major, in Sir Charles Wheeler’s wartime battalion, 1678; returned to the Anglo-Dutch Brigade, 1678–85, and had been promoted to major by 1685; captain in 1st Foot Guards, 15 December 1685; colonel of foot, 1 May 1689; brigadier general by 1691; major general, 1696; lieutenant general, 1703; commander-in-chief in Ireland, 1711 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 211, 246; vol. 2, 63; Dalton, George the First’s Army, vol. 1, pp. 71–80). 65 A William Mayne was commissioned ensign in the Scottish Foot Guards, 9 February 1684, and promoted lieutenant, 1 March 1689. He had left the regiment by 1 October 1691. Almost certainly, he was a relative of Edmund Mayne (1633–1711), lieutenant colonel of the 3rd Troop of the Life Guard, a veteran of the Portuguese and French brigades, and a client of Churchill. The Mayne family originated from either Clackmannanshire or Northumberland (Dalton, Scots Army, part 2, pp. 30, 147; www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690–1715/member/ maine-edmund–1633–1711). 66 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 347. 67 Beddard, Kingdom without a King, pp. 23–4; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 351.

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68 CSPD, 1687–9, no. 1884. On 7 November, Churchill was made lieutenant general and, on the following day, Robert Werden became lieutenant general and Edward Sackville a major general. Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe and Thomas Buchan (c. 1641–1724) were promoted brigadier general on 11 November and Colonel Richard Hamilton major general on 12 November. Not only was James attempting to purchase the loyalty of these gentlemen but the rapid enlargement of the army required additional general officers. 69 Trelawney’s lieutenant colonel was Charles Churchill, John Churchill’s brother and fellow conspirator. 70 Weaver, Royal Scots, p. 43. 71 The office of gold stick in waiting was created in 1678 to provide the sovereign with a personal bodyguard. There were two gold sticks in waiting, later the colonels of the Life Guards and the Royal Horse Guards, who protected the sovereign on alternate days. They were assisted by two silver sticks in waiting, normally the lieutenant colonels of the Household cavalry. 72 An old military rank, largely obsolete by this time. An exempt was a warrant officer in a cavalry regiment who stood between the cornet and the NCOs. Before 1684, the exempts in the Life Guards were also named corporals or brigadiers; after 1685, they were usually referred to as brigadiers.    The son of a Staffordshire clergyman, Cornelius Wood entered the 2nd Troop of the Life Guard as a private gentleman after the failure of his business. Promoted to exempt or brigadier, 15 June 1685; major of Robert Byerley’s Horse, 12 April 1690; lieutenant colonel of Hugh Wyndham’s (d. c. 1706) Horse, 31 January 1692; colonel of a regiment of horse, 1 December 1693; brigadier general, 9 March 1702; major general, 1 January 1704 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, pp. 44, 116; vol. 3, pp. 132, 227, 294; vol. 5, p. 16). 73 The source of this story was a death-bed confession by Sir George Hewett, a conspirator and member of the Princess Anne’s household. Hewett succeeded Sir John Talbot as colonel of a regiment of horse on 31 December 1688, was created Viscount Hewett in the Irish peerage in 1689 but contracted fever while attending the Dundalk camp and died in Chester during December 1689 (Macpherson, Original Papers, vol. 1, pp. 162, 280–4; Berwick, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 31). See also, Ward, Historical Essay on the real Character and Amount of the Precedent of the Revolution of 1688, vol. 1, pp. 270–3; CSPD, 1687–9, no. 1986. 74 Clarendon, State Letters of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, vol. 2, p. 254. 75 Beatson, Political Index, vol. 2, p. 226. 76 Foxcroft, Supplement to Burnet’s History of my own Time, pp. 530–2; CSPD, 1687–9, no. 1996. 77 Webb, Lord Churchill’s Coup, pp. 144–56; Glozier, Scottish Soldiers in France, pp. 225, 227; HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, p. 219; HMC, Stuart MSS., vol. 6, p. 50; HMC, 7th Report, Appendix, p. 418a; Hatton Correspondence, vol. 2, pp. 113–14; HMC, Hastings MSS., vol. 2, p. 198; HMC, Hamilton (Supplementary) MSS., p. 111; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 1, pp. 480, 483, 489; Macpherson, Original Papers, vol. 1, pp. 162–3; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 362.

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Chapter Nine   1 It is unclear who first coined the expression ‘Glorious Revolution’. It may have been John Hampden MP (1653–96), in evidence before a House of Lords committee in the autumn of 1689, or Rev. Samuel Rosewell in November 1706 (Schwoerer, Revolution of 1688–89, p. 3; Hertzler, ‘Who dubbed it “The Glorious Revolution”?’, pp. 583–4).  2 HPT, vol. 2, pp. 673–4; vol. 3, p. 590.  3 HPT, vol. 2, pp. 690–1; Horwitz, Parliament, Policy and Politics, pp. 329, 349–50; Grey, Debates, vol. 9, passim; CTB, vol. 9, p. 330. The royal bedchamber was a department of the household. There were nine gentlemen, ten grooms and six pages. Kirke’s new position entitled him to grace and favour accommodation in the Palace of Whitehall. While some of the gentlemen and grooms actually waited on the king, Kirke’s and Trelawney’s appointments were purely honorific (Chamberlayne, Angliae Notitia, p. 127).  4 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 477; Glozier, Schomberg, pp. 135–6.   5 A separate centre of Protestant resistance had developed around Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, amid the waterways, lakes and marshes of the valley of the River Erne.   6 A committee of the Privy Council, established early in 1689 to advise William on the government of Ireland following Tyrconnell’s seizure of power in Dublin on behalf of James II. A key and expert member was the Ulsterman Sir John Skeffington, 2nd Viscount Massereene (d. 1695) (Horwitz, Parliament, Policy and Politics, p. 34; Foster/ Massereene Papers, p. 18).  7 CSPD, 1689–90, pp. 16–17, 8 March 1689, Shrewsbury to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lundy, Governor of Londonderry. Cunningham first appeared in English army lists as major of the battalion of Thomas Tufton, 6th Earl of Thanet (1644–1729), on 27 July 1685 and assumed command of Henry Corn[e]wall’s Foot on 31 December 1688. Solomon Richards is not present in any army register until commissioned colonel on 27 September 1688 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, pp. 7, 169, 170; Chester (ed.), Registers of St. Peter, Westminster, p. 229). See also, Witherow, Derry and Enniskillen in the Year 1689, pp. 369–72.  8 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, p. 7.  9 Gillespie, Narrative of the most remarkable Events, pp. 164–7. 10 Hanmer, Correspondence, pp. 3–4. 11 Charles Talbot, 12th Earl and 1st Duke of Shrewsbury (1660–1718), secretary of state for the southern department. 12 CSPD, 1687–9, no. 2102; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 85–6. 13 Childs, British Army of William III, p. 27; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 460. 14 Colonel William Stewart, 1st Viscount Mountjoy (c. 1650–92). Not to be confused with Kirke’s friend and client, Captain, Colonel from 1 May, William Stewart (1643–1726). 15 Zachariah Tiffin was major of Cunningham’s on secondment from Charles Trelawney’s battalion. He had served in France during the 1670s; captain and adjutant of Monmouth’s Foot in England, 1678–9; captain in Plymouth’s Foot (2nd Tangier Regiment) in Tangier, 1680–3; major of Charles Trelawney’s, 1684; acting lieutenant colonel of Trelawney’s, 1 December 1688; major of Cunningham’s/Stewart’s, 1689; colonel of the Royal Enniskillen Fusiliers, 20 June 1689; brigadier general, 1696; left

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the army, 1702 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 207–8, 222, 256, 269, 323; vol. 2, pp. 27, 135; vol. 3, pp. 8, 122, 375; vol. 4, p. 159; Drenth, Regimental List, p. 36; Letter Book, f. 382). Every effort was made to ensure that all units, new and old, enjoyed the service of an experienced, competent and reliable major. 16 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, pp. 42, 99–100, 105, 132; Webb, History of the Service of the 17th (Leicestershire) Regiment, pp. 5–6. 17 HMC, Buccleuch (Montagu House) MSS., vol. 2, part 1, p. 396. 18 Herbert, Graf Heinrich Trajektin von Solms-Braunfels, p. 102. 19 CSPD, 1689–90, p. 81; PC 6/2. Trelawney, who had been promoted brigadier general on 6 March, did not travel to Ireland. 20 Wolfran Corn[e]wall, related to Colonel Henry Corn[e]wall, was also an army officer who had probably served in France during the 1670s and was associated with Kirke. Ensign in the 2nd battalion of Monmouth’s Foot, 1678; ensign in 2nd Tangier Regiment (Trelawney), 1681; cornet in the Royal Horse Guards, 1685; lieutenant in the Royal Horse Guards, 1687; army and navy conspirator, 1688; captain RN of HMS Swallow, 1688–9; captain in the Royal Horse Guards, 1690; captain of the King’s Troop in the Royal Horse Guards, 1693. During the spring and summer of 1689, Cornwall allegedly charged Irish Protestant refugees £4 per head for passage to England (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 256, 281, 323; vol. 2, pp. 96, 120; Powley, Naval Side, p. 268; Torrington, Memoirs, pp. 27–8). 21 QRWS 1/8/2/5, Kirke to William Blathwayt, 13 April 1689; HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 210, Nottingham to Admiral Herbert, 30 April 1689; PC 6/2; HMC, Finch MSS., vol. 2, p. 204. Throughout, the situation of Londonderry was far more critical and tense than that of Enniskillen where the defenders were never besieged and always enjoyed freedom of movement by land and water plus the advantage of interior lines. 22 WO 4/1, f. 68; WO 5/5, f. 250. Out of a total of 39 commissions in St George’s battalion, 13 were changed between 1 May and 1 November 1689. Hanmer’s was subjected to six alterations, all dated 22 March. Between its inception on 29 September 1688 and October 1689, all the company captains in Stewart’s were replaced. However, they were of generally poor quality and the battalion was thus described by the inspectors at the Dundalk camp on 18 October 1689: ‘Colonel good but his officers not of the best.’ For comparison, Kirke’s enrolled only one new officer before the end of April 1689 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, p. 170; vol. 3, pp. 48, 51, 57, 108). 23 CSPD, 1689–90, p. 441; Japikse (ed.), Correspondentie, Welbeck Abbey, vol. 1, pp. 62–3; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, pp. 130, 146–7. An exact Account of the Duke of Schomberg’s happy Voyage, p. 2, incorrectly lists St George’s as a component of Schomberg’s corps of reinforcements in 1689. 24 Sallies by the Londonderry garrison had killed Lieutenant General François de Maumont on 21 April and mortally wounded Major General Claude Costaing, Marquis de Pusignan, on 25 April. He died on 30 April (Macrory, Siege of Derry, pp. 228–34). 25 Culmore Fort stood on the west bank guarding the point where Lough Foyle narrowed into the River Foyle. 26 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 1–3. This was an official journal, delivered to William in Whitehall at the conclusion of the Londonderry operation. 27 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 3–8. 28 Schomberg’s corps, which had a paper strength of 10,920 men, included Kirke’s brigade of 1,910.

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224 Notes 29 HMC, Finch MSS., vol. 2, p. 204; CSPD, 1689–90, pp. 101, 107–8. 30 HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 213, Rooke to Nottingham, 1 June 1689, aboard HMS Deptford; London Gazette, no. 2459; Bellingham, Diary, p. 65. 31 D’Alton, Illustrations historical and genealogical of King James’s Irish Army List, 1689, pp. 256–63, 374–7; O’Callaghan, History of the Irish Brigades in the Service of France, pp. 84–7. Both knew Kirke through service in France during the 1670s and the English army under James II. 32 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 14, 22. 33 The construction of a boom had begun during the last week of May. The work was supervised by the French engineer, Jean-Bernard-Louis Desjean, Baron de Pointis (1645–1705) (Gébler, Siege of Derry, pp. 204–5, 220). 34 Even if the cannon could have been brought to bear, it would have been most unwise to fire when the ship was aground because the resultant recoil would have caused serious, structural damage. When afloat, the shock from a broadside was largely absorbed by the water surrounding the hull. 35 Boyce was later shot in the stomach. 36 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 8–13. 37 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, p. 15; Powley, Naval Side, pp. 218–24; Walker, True Account of the Siege of London-Derry, p. 26; Mackenzie, Narrative of the Siege of London-Derry, p. 38; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 113–17. 38 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, p. 12; Powley, Naval Side, pp. 226–8; HMC, Hamilton MSS., pp. 184–5. 39 HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 228. 40 Wickham was court-martialled on 30 April 1694 for surrendering HMS Diamond (4th rate, 50 guns) to the French in 1693. He was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment and fined £1,000 (ADM 1/5354/27). 41 HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, pp. 219–20. 42 Ash, ‘Journal’, pp. 76–7. 43 The distance from the centre of Londonderry to Culmore was just over three miles and about nine miles to the fleet anchorage at Redcastle. 44 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 114–15. Roche, possibly a seaman injured during the Battle of Bantry Bay, 11 May 1689, never received 3,000 guineas or any other sum. After the war he petitioned for compensation, his story being considerably enlarged in his application. He was granted ‘the ferries in Ireland’, worth £80 per annum, in recompense for injuries suffered and subsequent damage to his health caused by ‘lying so long in the water’, plus the estates of James Everard in County Waterford from the Irish Forfeitures (CSPD, 1693, p. 66, 15 March 1693; CSPD, 1694–5, p. 177; Simms, Williamite Confiscation, pp. 89–90, 115). For a fuller account of the adventures of Roche and Cromie, see, Gillespie, Narrative of the most remarkable Events, pp. 169–71; Sheane, Great Siege, pp. 120–1; Gébler, Siege of Derry, pp. 239–40; MSS. Carte 181, ff. 222, 224–6. 45 The Roman Catholic Howard had raised a volunteer, hostilities-only troop of horse on 1 July 1685 during the Monmouth emergency. Ambassador to Rome, 8 June to November 1688 (Simms, Jacobite Ireland, p. 63; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 16, 18; Bell, Handlist of British Diplomatic Representatives, pp. 169, 271). 46 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, p. 20. 47 HMC, Frankland-Russell-Astley MSS., pp. 72–3; Childs, Williamite Wars, p. 119; Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 21–2.

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Chapter Ten  1 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 7–8, 27, 34–5. The pre-dating of these commissions ensured that the recipients received additional seniority.   2 Unless regularly reinforced, a military detachment is a perpetually diminishing asset. Kirke’s brigade would have been continually losing men to sickness, accident and, occasionally, enemy action.   3 This William Stewart was possibly a relative of Colonel William Stewart. CTP, vol. 1, no. 11; Hanna, ‘The Break of Killyleagh’, pp. 184–7.   4 The lieutenant’s name is unknown. He may or may not have been a Jacobite sympathizer but the episode illustrates the difficulties with which the Williamite forces in Ireland, both by land and sea, had to contend.  5 Clark, Anthony Hamilton, p. 93. In an effort to sustain Londonderry, Governor Hamilton had led the Enniskillen forces north on 10 June with the intention of ‘beating up’ the Jacobite troops on the east bank of the River Foyle. Although the expedition only reached Omagh before having to turn back, news of this and the possible potential for a similar but better supported and resourced operation probably influenced Kirke in devising the Inch-Enniskillen strategy (Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 105–7). The French had correctly deduced Kirke’s revised plan by 5 July (D’Avaux, Négociations, p. 310).   6 Possibly the Ven. Thomas Brown, Archdeacon of Derby (d. 1689).  7 Powley, Naval Side, p. 233; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 80–3; D’Avaux, Négociations, p. 235; Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 22–4.   8 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, p. 24.   9 A protection was a written guarantee issued by an occupying military power safeguarding the holder from gratuitous requisition, violence and plunder. 10 The upper classes ate two main meals: dinner, around noon, and supper, which could be taken at any time during the evening. 11 An Anglicisation of the Dutch, ‘vlieboot’ or ‘fluyt’; a two-masted, flat-bottomed coaster of between 150 and 400 tons. 12 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 24–5. 13 Third son of Robert Echlin of Ardquin, County Down. Lieutenant in Mountjoy’s Foot in Ireland, 1685; dismissed in Tyrconnell’s purge, 1 March 1686; captain in Cunningham’s (Stewart’s) Foot, 1689; lieutenant colonel of the dragoon regiment of his uncle, Sir Albert Conyngham (d. 1691), 20 June 1689; colonel of this regiment, 1691–1715; brigadier, 1703; major general, 1704; lieutenant general, 1707 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 35, 108, 183; vol. 4, p. 61; vol. 5, pp. 16–17, 159; Drenth, Regimental List of Half-Pay Officers, p. 8; Dalton, Irish Army Lists, pp. 151, 154; ‘Echlin, Robert’, www.historyofparliamentonline.org). 14 The Royal Navy navigated from out-of-date Dutch ‘waggoner’ charts. Captain Greenville Collins (d. 1694), Great Britain’s Coasting Pilot (London, 1693) had yet to be published and, in any event, his charts did not cover Ireland, except Belfast Lough, Dublin Bay, Cork and Kinsale. A typical example of the generalized and small scale charts in use can be found at Mount & Page, Chart of the North-West Coast of Ireland from Lough Swilly to Slyne Head. See also Barritt, Eyes of Admiralty, pp. 32–5. 15 The ford has been replaced by a permanent causeway. 16 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 26–7. 17 A light, unfortified encampment.

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Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 27–8. Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 29–30. About 150 yards. A particular Account from Collonel Kirke of the State of London-Derry and Inniskilling, p. 1. Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, p. 31. Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 32–4. HMC, Le Fleming MSS., p. 249; CTB, 1557–1696, pp. 473–4. Ryan, Biographica Hibernia, vol. 1, pp. 363–6, says that Caldwell sailed 40 leagues from Donegal in an open boat to meet Kirke in Lough Foyle but other sources state that he travelled in company aboard HMS Bonaventure. 25 William Wolseley was the fifth and youngest son of Sir Robert Wolseley, 1st Bt of Wolseley, Staffordshire (1587–1646) and his wife Mary, née Wroughton (b. c. 1608). He served in the same regiment, commanded by three different colonels, until 1689: captain-lieutenant of the Marquis of Worcester’s Foot, 1667 and 1673; lieutenant in Worcester’s independent garrison company in Chepstow Castle, 1679; captain in the Duke of Beaufort’s Foot, 1685; major in Montgomery’s Foot, 1688; lieutenant colonel of Hanmer’s Foot, May 1689; colonel of the Enniskillen Horse, 20 July 1689; brigadier, 1693. Wolseley was a firm Protestant who publicly tossed the mayor of Scarborough in a blanket for caning an Anglican minister who had refused to read aloud in church the 2nd Declaration of Indulgence during June 1688 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 81, 136, 259; vol. 2, pp. xxvi–vii, 32, 37, 141; vol. 3, pp. 27, 344). 26 Lieutenant in Kirke’s battalion in Tangier, 1681; captain-lieutenant, 1681; lieutenant colonel of Wolseley’s Enniskillen Horse, 20 July 1689. (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 282; vol. 2, pp. 25, 132; vol. 3, p. 27). 27 Wolseley became colonel, Berry the lieutenant colonel and Stone the major of the Enniskillen Horse. Wynn was promoted colonel of the Enniskillen Dragoons and Tiffin colonel of one of the three Enniskillen foot battalions. Echlin was made lieutenant colonel of Sir Albert Conyngham’s (d. 1691) Enniskillen Dragoons but appears to have remained with his company in Stewart’s until the end of the Londonderry campaign. All commissions were dated 20 June but activated from 20 July 1689 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 27, 34, 35, 122). The other two Enniskillen infantry battalions were continued under the command of Governor Gustavus Hamilton and Colonel Thomas Lloyd (d. 1690). Hamilton was succeeded by Abraham Creighton (d. 1705), 13 July 1691, and Lloyd by Lord George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney from 1696 (c. 1666–1737), on 1 March 1690 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 7, 121, 155). 28 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 138–9. 29 Gillespie, Narrative of the most remarkable Events, pp. 139–40. 30 D’Avaux, Négociations, pp. 256, 310–11. 31 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 34–5; London Gazette, no. 2473. 32 The latter section of the road from Ray to Rathmullan ran along the shore and was in direct observation from Inch Island and the vessels in Lough Swilly. 33 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 35–7. 34 Kirke was correct in this assessment. Schomberg’s expeditionary force was indeed assembling in Cheshire and Lancashire but would not sail until 12 August (Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 130–1, 148–9). 35 HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, pp. 233–4; HMC, Hamilton MSS., pp. 185–6, George Walker and John Michelburne to Kirke, 19 July 1689, Londonderry, in answer to Kirke’s letter of 16 July 1689.

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36 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 38–9. 37 Hart’s disobedience did not damage his career. He was promoted to captain in St George’s Foot on 17 January 1690. He had left the regiment by 20 August 1695 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 146). 38 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 39–40; Childs, Williamite Wars, p. 131. 39 HMC, Hamilton MSS., vol. 6, pp. 184–6; Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 40–6. 40 There was no ship of this name in the Royal Navy in 1689. HMS St George (1st rate, 96 guns) was not present. This George was possibly an armed merchantman. 41 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 46–7. 42 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 133–5; Histoire de la Révolution d’Irlande, pp. 26–9.

Chapter Eleven   1 Lieutenant in George Wingfield’s company in Monmouth’s Foot in England, 1678; lieutenant in Tangier, 1679; lieutenant in 1st Tangier Regiment, 1680–4; 1st lieutenant of grenadier company in Kirke’s in England, 1684–8; captain, 1688–9; major of Kirke’s, 1689; lieutenant colonel of Selwyn’s, 1692; fought at Landen in 1693 and the siege of Namur, 1695; brevet colonel, 1702; left the regiment in 1707 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 207, 222, 302, 320; vol. 2, pp. 25, 132; vol. 3, pp. 107, 242–3).   2 The account of events on Inch has been based on Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, passim, and HMC, Le Fleming MSS., pp. 255–8, ‘An abstract of what passage [sic] at the Isle of Inch from Sunday July the 7 to Friday August 2, [16]89’. A shortened version was published in the London Gazette, no. 2478, 8–12 August 1689. Withers was rewarded on 1 July with a colonel’s brevet and promoted adjutant general of the foot in Ireland, 20 October 1689 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 102).   3 The arms, ammunition and accoutrements sent by Kirke to Enniskillen in late July had recently arrived in Ballyshannon and Wolseley was anxious to prevent their capture by Sarsfield.  4 London Gazette, no. 2481, 19–22 August 1689; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 138–46; Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 52–4; Histoire de la Révolution d’Irelande, pp. 30–5.  5 Childs, Williamite Wars, p. 146.   6 Michelburne was an English Protestant born in Horsted Keynes, Sussex. He served in the ranks in the Royal English Regiment in France during the 1670s, reaching the rank of sergeant, before purchasing a lieutenant’s commission in Monmouth’s Foot in England during 1678. He was appointed lieutenant in Plymouth’s Foot in 1680 and served in Tangier until 1684, where he came to the attention of Kirke and Robert Lundy. On return from Tangier, he secured Lundy’s patronage to transfer into Viscount Mountjoy’s Foot in Ireland as 1st lieutenant of grenadiers and was one of the few Protestant officers to survive Tyrconnell’s purge. He was made major of Clotworthy Skeffington’s Ulster volunteer regiment, 5 February 1689, and retreated with the remnants of the Ulster Association forces into Londonderry. He was appointed colonel of one of the eight militia battalions in the city by Governor Henry Baker (commission dated 19 April 1689) and, following Baker’s death on 30 June, was made military governor in tandem with Walker who served as civil governor. Michelburne lost his wife and children during the siege. Promoted to colonel of a regular battalion on the Irish establishment, an amalgamation of Skeffington’s and Crofton’s Londonderry regiments, by Kirke on 7 August 1689. Saw action at the siege

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228 Notes of Sligo, 1691 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 208, 253, 269; vol. 3, pp. 83, 398; Dalton, Irish Army Lists, p. 151; C. I. McGrath, ‘Michelburne, John’, ODNB; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 347–64).   7 Piers Wauchope, ‘Walker, George’, ODNB; Macrory, Siege of Derry, pp. 318–20; HMC, Hamilton MSS., p. 186, 4 August 1689; Gillespie, Narrative of the most remarkable Events, pp. 151–2. The Address professed ‘due acknowledgements … to the indefatigable care of Major General Kirke, for our unexpected relief by sea in spite of all the opposition of our industrious but bloody and implacable enemies; which relief was not less wonderfully, than seasonably, conveyed to us … at the very nick of time …’   8 Robert White was buried in Londonderry on 11 September 1689.   9 Thomas Lance was buried on 9 September 1689. His battalion was then disbanded and the soldiers drafted into the remaining three Londonderry regiments. 10 St John was replaced as lieutenant colonel of Kirke’s by Henry Rowe; captain in 1st Tangier Regiment, 1680; captain in Kirke’s battalion, 1684; lieutenant colonel of Kirke’s, 1689; colonel of an Irish battalion, 1692–5 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 272, 302, 320; vol. 2, p. 25). Richard Billing was advanced to major. Billing had first been commissioned as a junior lieutenant in Monmouth’s Foot in England during 1678 and his company went to Tangier in 1679. Lieutenant in Kirke’s 1st Tangier Regiment, 1680–4; 1st lieutenant of the grenadier company in Kirke’s, 1684–7; captain, 1688–9; major, 1689; lieutenant colonel, 1692; brevet colonel, 1702; left the army during 1707 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 207, 255, 302, 320; vol. 2, pp. 25, 132; vol. 3, pp. 107, 242–3). 11 Colonel of a volunteer battalion during the siege of Londonderry until dismissed by Kirke. Granted three months’ pay on 27 February 1690 ‘to enable [him] to return into Ireland’. Captain in Viscount Mountjoy’s Foot in Ireland, 1694; half-pay, 1697–1702 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 168, 391, 398). 12 Son of Gideon Murray, of Philiphaugh, Selkirk, who settled in Ulster in 1648. Colonel of a volunteer regiment of horse during the siege of Londonderry until sacked by Kirke in August. Granted three months’ pay, worth £108, on 27 February 1690 ‘to enable [him] to return into Ireland’. Commanded the Ulster militia, 1691; lieutenant colonel of Viscount Charlemont’s battalion of foot in Ireland, 1694; half-pay 1697 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 168, 392; Piers Wauchope, ‘Murray, Adam’, ODNB). 13 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 7. 14 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 136–8; Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, p. 55, 11 August 1689; Ash, ‘Journal’, pp. 102–4; Graham, History of Ireland, p. 3; Gillespie, Narrative of the most remarkable Events, pp. 149–51. 15 MSS. Carte 181, Nairn Papers, f. 238, Schomberg to Kirke, 3 July 1689. 16 On 16 July, Jean-Antoine de Mesmes, Comte d’Avaux (1640–1709), the French ambassador to the court of James II in Ireland, wrote from Dublin to Louis XIV stating that a packet boat carrying letters from Schomberg to Kirke had been captured (D’Avaux, Négociations, pp. 319–21). As early as 5 July, the Franco-Irish had correctly pieced together Kirke’s Inch-Enniskillen strategy by using intercepts. The result was the plan to launch Sarsfield, Berwick and MacCarthy in a three-pronged attack on Enniskillen to inhibit co-operation with Kirke against Londonderry (D’Avaux, Négociations, pp. 309–11). 17 Bellingham, Diary, p. 74. 18 CSPD, 1689–90, p. 199, Schomberg to William III, 26 July 1689, Chester. Schomberg’s prejudice against British officers seems to have stemmed from his experience as

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commander of the English expeditionary force in 1673 and observation of their conduct during the Glorious Revolution. Conversely, when he was leading the British Brigade in Portugal between 1663 and 1668 Schomberg had formed a very favourable impression of the professionalism and determination of both officers and men. Capricieux/capricious bears a number of subtle meanings: Schomberg probably meant that Kirke was wilful, inconsistent and always liable to change his mind. 19 Bellingham, Diary, p. 76; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 147–8. 20 Portland MSS. Pw A 1126, Earl of Portland to Schomberg, 21 August 1689. 21 Schomberg was evidently very poorly informed about the state of affairs in Ulster because Carrickfergus was a strongly held Jacobite garrison. 22 London Gazette, no. 2483, 26–9 August 1689; HMC, Hamilton MSS., p. 186; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 148–51, 158–9; D’Avaux, Négociations, pp. 475–6; Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 3, appendix, part 2, pp. 24–5. 23 The loyalty of the three so-called ‘Huguenot regiments’ was certainly a matter of grave concern to Schomberg. Although the officers were Huguenots, many of the rank-and-file were Roman Catholics and runaways from other armies. A mass desertion by over 400 ‘Huguenots’ was planned for 21 September to coincide with an advance by James’s army towards Dundalk. The scheme was discovered in time and over 150 soldiers were dismissed (Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 165–7). 24 HMC, Le Fleming MSS., p. 265, George Holmes to William Fleming, 16 November 1689, Strabane. Schomberg blamed everyone but himself, a point fully appreciated by both Solms and William. William’s response was to sack Schomberg, take personal command of the 1690 campaign and hire a large corps of Danish mercenaries. See Portland MSS. Pw A 1163/1–3, Solms to Portland, 16 September 1689. 25 Arni, Hospital Care, pp. 61–2; Childs, Williamite Wars, p. 179. 26 Henry Rowe. 27 Richard Billing. 28 Captain Stafford Fairborne RN (c. 1666–1742), captain of HMS Phoenix, and Captain John Leake RN (1656–1720), captain of HMS Dartmouth. 29 The unusually high number of joint army and navy captains in this battalion probably reflected the close relationship between Admiral Arthur Herbert and Kirke. 30 Walton, History of the British Standing Army, pp. 79–80; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 107. 31 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 147–89. 32 Garrisons were not encouraged to ‘break out’. The importance of a siege lay in the capture or defence of the fortress: the actual soldiers were of little significance. Should a garrison ‘break out’ then the town would have been automatically lost and many casualties caused among the defenders. The same result could be achieved, without the additional casualties, by a formal capitulation. 33 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, p. 250. 34 HMC, Buccleuch (Monatagu House) MSS., vol. 2, part 1, pp. 393–6, information by Sir John Fenwick, August 1696. 35 Garrett, Triumphs of Providence, pp. 250–3. 36 The Anglo-Dutch fleet was commanded by Admiral Edward Russell, 1st Earl of Orford (1652–1727), confirmed Whig and one of the ‘Immortal Seven’, who was conspicuously loyal to the dual monarchy. See Aubrey, Defeat of James Stuart’s Armada. 37 HMC, Finch MSS., vol. 2, p. 254; HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 254; Story, Impartial History, p. 24; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, pp. 259, 266. On 18 October 1689, the inspectors had described Ingoldsby’s battalion thus: ‘Colonel ill and incapable, as

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230 Notes are almost all the other officers, who are usually absent, and are so greedy of money that the soldiers can scarce get paid, very badly clothed and without shirts; as bad a regiment as possible, except Drogheda’s (Henry Moore, 3rd Earl of Drogheda (d. 1714)), which is worse’ (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 112, 116). 38 Probably John Rayley (Rayly, Railey), a cordwainer or draper, of 13A, Bow Church Yard, Soper Lane, which abutted Cheapside. He was a Common Councilman of the City of London, 1677–83, 1689–94, 1699, and his politics were almost certainly Whig (Keen and Harding (eds), Historical Gazetteer of London, pp. 256–60; Woodhead, Rulers of London, p. 134). 39 It is more than likely that Kirke’s soldiers brought with them from Londonderry the typhus bacillus that emasculated Schomberg’s corps. 40 CSPD, 1691–2, pp. 44–6. 41 Roger Morrice spells Crofton as ‘Grafton’ but this is incorrect: there was no Grafton in the army by July 1689. The Duke of Grafton had relinquished his commissions as colonel of the 1st Foot Guards and governor of Portsmouth in March 1689 and did not serve again (Simms, Jacobite Ireland, p. 118; J. D. Davies, ‘Fitzroy, Henry, first Duke of Grafton’, ODNB). Richard Crofton was awarded £100 from the English Treasury on 17 October 1689 ‘for contingent services in Ireland’. He was in England during February 1690 and was granted three months’ pay, worth £108, on 27 February 1690 ‘to enable [him] to return into Ireland’. He was first commissioned ensign in John, Lord Berkeley’s company of foot in Ireland, 1662; captain in Thomas Fairfax’s battalion in Ireland, 1685; dismissed by Tyrconnell, 1686; major in the Ulster Association’s volunteer forces, 1689; promoted colonel of a militia regiment defending Londonderry, 1689; sacked by Kirke, August 1689; captain in Viscount Charlemont’s Foot, 1694; half-pay, 1697 (CTB, 1702, p. 536; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 168, 392, 398; Dalton, Irish Army, pp. 34, 153). 42 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, pp. 381–2, 398. 43 Childs, ‘Schomberg, Meinhard’, ODNB; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, p. 447; Bellingham, Diary, pp. 80, 85, 87, 91, 92. 44 Commanded by his sons Hugh (d. 1710) and Charles. 45 CTP, 1557–1696, pp. 473–4, petition from Sir James Caldwell to the Lords of the Treasury, 7 December 1695; Cunningham, History of Castle Caldwell, pp. 32–3. It is worth repeating that the perpetrator of these outrages against a neighbour was Tiffin’s, an Enniskillen battalion. 46 John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, Bagshawe Papers, B3/2/38–39. A printed version can be found in Cunningham and Whalley (eds), ‘Queries against Major General Kirke’, pp. 208–16. 47 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 149–50, 199. 48 Wolseley’s purge of the Enniskillen regiments was not as severe as that carried out by Kirke in Londonderry but he had demobilized Caldwell’s own battalion and the two troops of horse commanded by his sons. To make matters worse, Richard Wolesley, Colonel William’s nephew, was made senior captain of the Enniskillen Horse on 20 July 1689 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 27, 120–1). 49 A Particular Account from Collonel Kirke, p. 1. This sentence might read, ‘a brusque, domineering, agitated, nervous man in a fine, blue, laced coat who goes backwards and forwards without arousing suspicion’. 50 Dover had been captain of the 4th Troop of the Life Guard in the English army between 1686 and 1688 before following James first to France and then Ireland where he was made a commissioner of the Irish Treasury. He fell out with the French who

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blamed him for failing to provide the financial resources necessary to support the army’s logistics. Dover knew both Kirke and Tyrconnell very well having been a comember of the Duke of York’s inner circle of advisors and swordsmen (John Miller, ‘Jermyn, Henry’, ODNB; Callow, Making of King James II, pp. 70, 72, 106, 122). 51 D’Avaux, Négociations, pp. 534–5; Mulloy (ed.), Franco-Irish Correspondence, no. 1032, 10 August 1690; HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 297; Portland MSS. Pw A 694, 695; D’Alton, King James’s Irish Army List, pp. 17–18. 52 Clarke, Life of James II, vol. 2, pp. 367–8; D’Avaux, Négociations, pp. 375–6, D’Avaux to Louis XIV, 4/14 August 1689, Dublin. The ‘other side of the hill’ usually produces unexpected explanations and perspectives. 53 Childs, Army of William III, pp. 73–7, 224–6; Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 3, pp. 54–135.

Chapter Twelve  1 Wolseley, A Copy, p. 1; Wolseley, A further Account from Colonel Wolseley, p. 1; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 189–91; Clarke, Life of James II, vol. 2, p. 285; London Gazette, nos. 2539, 2541; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 121, says that Kirke designed the operation and led the Williamite corps at the second Battle of Cavan (14 February 1690) but the official account printed in the London Gazette is very clear that Kirke was not present, although his battalion provided half the infantry involved. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Echlin (Enniskillen Dragoons) and Major Richard Billing (Kirke’s) commanded under the overall theatre direction of Wolseley.  2 Great and good News both from Scotland and Ireland, pp. 1–2.   3 On the Danish corps in Ireland see, Danaher and Simms (eds), Danish Force in Ireland, and Galster, Danish Troops.  4 Lenihan, 1690: the Battle of the Boyne, pp. 82, 172; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 208–9.  5 Childs, Williamite Wars, p. 208.   6 A signatory of the Invitation to William of Orange, 30 June 1688, and one of the principal conspirators; colonel of the 1st Foot Guards, 16 March 1689; lord justice of Ireland in tandem with Thomas Coningsby, September 1690; secretary of state for the north, December 1690; created 1st Earl of Romney, 14 May 1694 (David Hosford, ‘Sidney, Henry’, ODNB; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 214).  7 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 207–9, 219–20; Lenihan, 1690: Battle of the Boyne, pp. 147–207; Story, True and impartial History, pp. 82, 96; Kirke, Letter from MajorGeneral Kirke, p. 1.   8 The inspectors at the Dundalk camp on 18 October 1689 had accused Lisburn of indolence, living in an ‘extravagant style’ and being too fond of the bottle. His battalion was run by the highly efficient lieutenant colonel, Richard Coote (d. 1703), and major, Thomas Allen. Coote succeeded Lisburn as colonel of this battalion on 1 February 1692 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 75, 115, 123, 270).   9 Probably fought in France until 1674 when he joined the Anglo-Dutch Brigade; captain in Henry Sydney’s Foot in England, 1678, but returned to the Netherlands in 1679 remaining until 1685; captain in Sir Edward Hales’s Foot in England, 1685; lieutenant colonel, 31 December 1688; colonel of a regiment of foot, previously Henry Wharton’s, 1 November 1689; died on active service in Jamaica, 1702 (Dalton,

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232 Notes Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 218; vol. 2, pp. 35, 144; vol. 3, pp. 6, 53; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 5, p. 213). 10 HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, pp. 379, 387. 11 I.e., flags furled in their leather carrying cases. For the varying degrees of honourable surrender permitted to fortress garrisons see Wright, ‘Sieges and Customs of War’. 12 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 237–9. 13 The Foxon family of County Clare. See Fitzgerald and McGregor, History, Topography and Antiquities of the County and City of Limerick, vol. 2, pp. xiv, 321. Sir Samuel’s son, also Samuel (d. 1692), was a captain in the battalion of John Cutts before transferring into the 1st Foot Guards as captain, 18 December 1690 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 136–7, 166). 14 HMC, 10th Report, Appendix, Part V, MSS. of the Earl of Fingall, ‘A Light to the Blind’, p. 142; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 244–7. 15 A particular Account of Major General Kirk’s beating the Irish out of their Bullworks and Fort, pp. 1–2; HMC, Le Fleming MSS., pp. 291–2, John Copley to Colonel William Fleming, 14 September 1690. 16 It was common practice during sieges to detach the grenadier companies from all infantry battalions and combine them into an elite unit capable of conducting particularly hazardous and important operations. 17 The gorge, or throat, of an outwork faced towards the town or fortress. It was open and undefended to enable either easy reinforcement or quick withdrawal of the garrison. Following capture, pioneers excavated a simple ditch and piled the spoil to form an earthen rampart, reinforced by woolsacks and fascines, across the gorge thus creating a new front against counter-attack and fire from the main works. 18 HMC, Le Fleming MSS., p. 292; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 252–3; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 2, pp. 99–100; HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, pp. 425–7. 19 Infantry units garrisoning siege trenches were frequently rotated, usually daily. A brigade or wing commander, such as Kirke, commanded a sector of the siege lines when his formation was on duty. 20 Banagher was one of the few permanent crossings of the middle Shannon. The stone bridge was completed in 1685. 21 Birr, whose modern development dates from 1622, was a very small, sparsely inhabited village consisting of a triangular green with dwellings on two sides. The castle lay to the west. South of the town ran the Birr River which the Banagher road crossed at Racalier Bridge (Taylor and Skinner, Maps of the Roads of Ireland, p. 87). 22 Solms had been instructed by William to assume the defensive over the winter. He was to concentrate on preventing the Irish from raiding across the Shannon and giving maximum support to Marlborough’s attack on Cork and Kinsale (Portland MSS. Pw A 1164, 8 September 1690, William’s instructions to Solms. Also, Pw A 1168). 23 Son of Very Rev. Dr Alexander Conyngham of Mount Charles, County Donegal (d. 1660), Dean of Raphoe (1630–60). Sir Albert’s portrait was painted by Kneller and presently hangs in Springhill House (Ballydrum), County Armagh. 24 Promoted to lieutenant, 27 July 1694 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 375). 25 Promoted to captain, 1 December 1693 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 336). 26 This mistake did not blight his career. Promoted captain in Leveson’s Dragoons, now commanded by Thomas, 5th Baron Fairfax of Cameron (1657–1710), 1694; major, 1699; dead or retired, 1704 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 358; vol. 5, p. 37).

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27 Mulloy (ed.), Franco-Irish Correspondence, no. 1062; Wauchope, Patrick Sarsfield, pp. 154–63; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 262–4, 282; HMC, 10th Report, Appendix, Part V, p. 145; Cooke, Early History of Birr, pp. 81–7, 393–5; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 149–50. 28 Galster, Danish Troops, p. 43. 29 HMC, Leyborne-Popham MSS., ‘Autobiography of Dr. George Clarke’, pp. 276–7. Subsequently, Marlborough enjoyed tense relations with the Duke of Württemberg during the Cork-Kinsale operation (Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 274–6). 30 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 162, 283. Kirke thus became senior to Lanier, who was not advanced to ‘lieutenant general of the forces’ until 23 January 1692. Douglas, despite being commissioned into the Scottish army, remained the ranking lieutenant general of the forces, his appointment dating from 26 October 1685 (Dalton, Scots Army, part 1, p. 80). Other notable British promotions in 1690 included Thomas Talmash to ‘major general of horse and foot’ and Hugh Mackay to ‘lieutenant general over all the forces’. A ‘lieutenant general over all the forces’ was senior to a lieutenant general of horse, who in turn out-ranked a lieutenant general of foot.    Kirke was not promoted on merit but as part of a public relations exercise by William to assuage growing xenophobia concerning his overt partiality for Dutch and German soldiers. 31 Taylor and Skinner, Maps of the Roads of Ireland, pp. 67–8. 32 A relatively new, stone structure built in 1667. 33 Third son of Sir John Edgeworth of Edgeworthstown, County Longford (1638–c. 1700). Ensign in Sir Thomas Newcomen’s Foot in the Irish army, 1685; probably sacked during Tyrconnell’s purge; captain in 2nd Foot Guards, 1693; fought at siege of Namur, 1695; retired, 1703 (Dalton, Irish Army, p. 151; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 75, 239, 308). 34 Third son of William Caulfield, 5th Baron and 1st Viscount Charlemont (1624–71). Gentleman private in the Irish Foot Guards, 1677; ensign in Irish Foot Guards, 1679; captain in 1680 and serving in Tangier; resigned commission, 1685; major of Drogheda’s Foot, 1689; lieutenant colonel of John Courthope’s battalion, 1694; half-pay, 1697; lieutenant colonel of the battalion of Pierce Butler, 4th Viscount Ikerrin (c. 1679–1710), 1704, which was reduced in Spain, 1705 (Dalton, Irish Army, pp. 109, 126, 135, 143, 150; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 73; vol. 4, p. 250; vol. 5, p. 245). 35 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 287–93; HMC, Le Fleming MSS., p. 316. 36 HMC, Leyborne-Popham MSS., ‘Autobiography of Dr. George Clarke’, p. 278. 37 Following William’s departure for England in September 1690, the civil government of Ireland was entrusted to two lord justices. The initial appointees were Thomas Coningsby (1657–1729) and Henry Sydney. Sir Charles Porter (1631–96) replaced the latter in December 1690. 38 Following the capture of Dublin in 1690, Douglas had been ordered to seize Athlone with a strong detachment comprising three cavalry and two dragoon regiments plus ten battalions: five were Enniskillen units and two from Londonderry. He departed Finglas on 9 July but achieved nothing except to cut a swath of destruction through the Irish Midlands as his soldiers, particularly the Ulstermen, mercilessly plundered and robbed the local inhabitants regardless of previously issued protections (Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 232–6; NLI MS. 4166, ‘Journal of Brigadier Robert Stearne, 1678–1702’, pp. 10–11; CSPD, 1690–1, no. 1345, Nottingham to Douglas, 1 November 1690). 39 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 154–5; ‘Journal of Robert Stearne’, pp. 10–12.

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234 Notes 40 D’Auvergne, History of the Campaign in Flanders for the Year 1691, p. 102; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 2, pp. 224, 239, 252, 292; CSPD, 1690–1, pp. 352, 354. 41 Lieutenant General of Infantry Hendrik von Delwig, Erfheer van Weitersdorff (1620–96). Born in Livonia, he entered the service of the king of Poland, first as a page and then a life guardsman. After a spell in the French army under Turenne and Condé, he became commandant of Hamburg. Delwig entered Dutch service in 1676 and remained until 1691 when he returned to the governorship of Hamburg (Biema, ‘Eenige bizonderheden over den slag bij Fleurus’, p. 67). 42 London Gazette, no. 2685, 3–6 August 1691; Auvergne, History of the Campaign in Flanders for the Year 1691, pp. 88–92, 102; Walton, British Standing Army, p. 186. The only permanent tactical and administrative formations within a contemporary army were infantry battalions and cavalry and dragoon regiments. Before a force took the field, the battalions and regiments were organized into discrete brigades of infantry and cavalry (dragoons performing as light cavalry in the line of battle), which varied in size from three to nine units, each led by a brigadier-general. The whole army was then divided into two corps, named the first and second lines, under a full general or field marshal. Each brigade was assigned to either the first or second line depending upon its seniority and position in the order of precedence, the right of the first line being reserved for the oldest and most prestigious and thus seriatim. Each line was split into three divisions – a right and left wing of cavalry and the infantry of the centre – commanded by a lieutenant general. Major generals led ad hoc groupings of brigades from within the lines. Lieutenant generals and major generals often directed independent detachments operating away from the main army (Childs, Nine Years War, p. 71). 43 London Gazette, no. 2686, 6–10 August 1691; Childs, Nine Years’ War, pp. 168–70. 44 Notes & Queries, 4th Series, vol. 8, pp. 471–2; Childs, Nine Years’ War, pp. 172–4; Churchill, Marlborough, vol. 1, pp. 350–1; London Gazette, nos. 2698, 2699, 2700. 45 Lives of the Two Illustrious Generals, p. 30. 46 2 Macc. 9.9; Porter, Greatest Benefit, pp. 26–7. 47 London Gazette, no. 2709, 26–9 October 1691; Chester (ed.), Marriage, Baptismal and Burial Registers of the Collegiate Church or Abbey of St. Peter, Westminster, p. 357. Neither is there a record of Kirke’s burial in St Margaret’s, Westminster (see Ward (ed.), Register of St. Margaret’s Westminster). 48 London Gazette, no. 2710; Wilson, Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, Thomas Wilson D. D., vol. 6, p. 372. Thomas Wilson (1663–1755) was bishop of Sodor and Man from 1697 until his death. 49 George Kirke was either a nephew or cousin. Lieutenant in Edward Villiers’s Foot, a wartime unit, 1678; ensign in Kirke’s battalion in Tangier, 1683; lieutenant of the grenadier company, 1684; captain of the grenadier company in Kirke’s, 1687; captain in the Royal Horse Guards, 30 April 1689; duelled with and killed Conway Seymour, 1700, but was pardoned; major of the Royal Horse Guards, 1702; died 13 January 1704 and was buried in Westminster Abbey (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 210, 303, 320; vol. 2, pp. 25, 109; vol. 3, pp. 21, 351; vol. 4, p. 267; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 1, p. 252; Snyder (ed.), Marlborough-Godolphin Correspondence, vol. 1, p. 265n.; CSPD, 1700–2, 30 May 1700). 50 CTP, 1557–1696, pp. 214, 237; CTB, 1689–1692, p. 1623; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 191. 51 Served for some years in the Dutch army prior to becoming a captain in the 1st Foot Guards, 1681; army conspirator who, with Robert Hunter (1664–1734), escorted

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Princess Anne from Whitehall to Nottingham on 25 November 1688; brevet colonel of foot, 1689; governor of Gravesend and Tilbury, 1690; succeeded as colonel of Kirke’s battalion, 18 December 1691; brigadier general, 1695; appointed governor of Jamaica, 1701, and accordingly transferred to the colonelcy of a more junior regiment (ex-Sir Henry Bellasise); major general, 1702; died in Jamaica, 6 April 1702. Buried at Matson, Gloucestershire. Married Albinia Betenson (1657–1737), daughter of Sir Edward Betenson, 1st Bt (1602–79), in Westminster Abbey on 26 May 1681; three sons and three daughters. Lord Ailesbury described him in 1689 as of ‘little merit and service’ (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 287, 315; vol. 2, pp. 19, 114, 129; vol. 3, pp. 102, 128, 192; vol. 4, pp. 112, 217, 250; vol. 5, p. 16; Ailesbury, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 245; Webb, Governors-General, pp. 480–1, 483). 52 Auvergne, Campaign in Flanders for the Year 1691, p. 161; HMC, 4th Report, Appendix, p. 281; An exact List of all their Majesties’ Forces, p. 1; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 2, p. 299. 53 CTP, 1557–1696, p. 524, 30 June 1696. 54 CSPD, 1691–2, p. 104; HMC, House of Lords MSS., 1692–3, p. 171; HMC, House of Lords MSS., 1693, p. 92. 55 Hobhouse (ed.), Survey of London: Volume 42: Kensington Square to Earl’s Court, pp. 1–4. 56 CTB, 1693–4, p. 41; CTB, 1696–7, pp. 190, 197, 378; CTB, 1697–8, pp. 287, 388–9. 57 Montagu & Norman (eds), Survey of London: Volume 13, St. Margaret’s Westminster, Part 2, Whitehall 1, pp. 236–48. 58 Gater and Wheeler (eds), Survey of London: Volume 16, St. Martin-in-the-Fields 1: Charing Cross, pp. 82–6; Chester (ed.), Registers of St. Peter, Westminster, p. 357. 59 Ward (ed.), Register of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, Part 2, p. 45; Maclagan, ‘The Family of Dormer’, pp. 90–101; Malcolm, Londinium redivivum, vol. 1, pp. 105–6. 60 CO 279/32, f. 364. 61 Dalton, ‘Child Commissions in the Army,’ p. 421; Letter Book, f. 92; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 323; vol. 2, pp. 27, 135, 207. 62 CTP, 1702–7, 30 December 1703. 63 CSPD, 1691–2, no. 783. 64 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 107, 242; vol. 5, p. 52; vol. 6, pp. 65, 194, 363; Snyder (ed.), Marlborough-Godolphin Correspondence, vol. 2, pp. 808–9, 812; Drenth, Regimental List, p. 24.

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Preface Although chiefly remembered for acts of gratuitous cruelty following Monmouth’s Rebellion in 1685 and suspected treason during the relief of Londonderry four years later, Percy Kirke (c. 1647–91) was also closely involved in some of the most significant contemporary political events. Following a military apprenticeship in Louis XIV’s army during the 1670s, between 1681 and 1683 he became the penultimate governor of the English colony of Tangier. He fought at Sedgemoor in 1685, the last pitched battle in England, before directing the opening stages of the subsequent police action that chastised Somerset and Dorset. James II’s pro-Catholic policies steadily weakened Kirke’s loyalty to the crown culminating in active membership of the conspiracy that assisted William of Orange’s successful invasion of England in 1688. Thereafter, guilt, chronic indecision or self-interest inhibited his ability to express and deliver wholehearted commitment to the new régime. After rescuing Londonderry, Kirke worked in Ireland throughout 1689 and 1690 fighting at the battle of the Boyne and the first siege of Limerick. Persistent insubordination over the winter of 1690–1 resulted in transfer to Flanders where he served with the Confederate army for a few weeks before succumbing to typhus at about 44 years of age. There are insufficient sources from which to construct a full biography – virtually nothing is known of Kirke’s childhood and adolescence and his adult life can be but patchily reconstructed – but enough to merit a book about him, the shape of which reflects the asymmetry of the documentation; Kirke plays the leading role where there is abundance but retreats into the distance or even beneath the horizon when information becomes either scarce or unavailable. Resulting lacunae have been filled with background and contexts necessary to understand Kirke’s career, conduct and professional relationships. The book is very detailed but a man’s life is the sum of everyday, often trivial events. Kirke was one of the ‘swordsmen’, prominent during the half century between the First Bishops’ War and the Glorious Revolution, mostly younger sons of gentry and aristocrats without great expectations obliged to earn their corn as mercenaries and auxiliaries in various European armies. However, the long decade of civil wars stretching from 1639 to 1651, during which they formed the backbones of every competing army within the British Isles, followed by the continuation of the New Model Army until 1660 and the ensuing establishment of standing armies in England, Scotland and Ireland after the restoration of Charles II, allowed many to remain and follow their chosen occupations in Great Britain. The enlargement of the king’s personal army during the 1680s, particularly James II’s use of soldiers to pressurize Anglican England, further enhanced their prospects and status and they proved more than willing to act as the sovereign’s bully-boys in advancing arbitrary military government, aggressive centralization, and the subordination of Canterbury to Rome.

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xiv Preface This trend towards martial rule was abruptly ended by the Glorious Revolution. Thereafter, the century of war with France between 1689 and 1815 witnessed the evolution of the regular army into an accepted and acceptable national institution and the occupation of army officer into a respectable profession. John Childs University of Leeds 7 July 2013

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Prologue Kirke and Lorna Doone

(From Blackmore, Lorna Doone, pp. 618–27)

‘What, my lambs, my lambs!’ he cried, smiting with the flat of his sword; ‘is this how you waste my time and my purse, when you ought to be catching a hundred prisoners, worth ten pounds apiece to me? Who is this young fellow we have here? Speak up, sirrah; what art thou, and how much will thy good mother pay for thee?’ ‘My mother will pay naught for me,’ I answered; while the lambs fell back, and glowered at one another: ‘so please your worship, I am no rebel; but an honest farmer, and well-proved of loyalty.’ ‘Ha, ha; a farmer art thou? Those fellows always pay the best. Good farmer, come to yon barren tree; thou shalt make it fruitful.’ Colonel Kirke made a sign to his men, and before I could think of resistance, stout new ropes were flung around me; and with three men on either side I was led along very painfully. And now I saw, and repented deeply of my careless folly, in stopping with those boon-companions, instead of being far away. But the newness of their manners to me, and their mode of regarding the world (differing so much from mine own), as well as the flavour of their tobacco, had made me quite forget my duty to the farm and to myself. Yet methought they would be tender to me, after all our speeches: how then was I disappointed, when the men who had drunk my beer, drew on those grievous ropes, twice as hard as the men I had been at strife with! Yet this may have been from no ill will; but simply that having fallen under suspicion of laxity, they were compelled, in self-defence, now to be over-zealous. Nevertheless, however pure and godly might be their motives, I beheld myself in a grievous case, and likely to get the worst of it. For the face of the Colonel was hard and stern as a block of bogwood oak; and though the men might pity me and think me unjustly executed, yet they must obey their orders, or themselves be put to death. Therefore I addressed myself to the Colonel, in a most ingratiating manner; begging him not to sully the glory of his victory, and dwelling upon my pure innocence, and even good service to our lord the King. But Colonel Kirke only gave command that I should be smitten in the mouth; which office Bob, whom I had flung so hard out of the linhay, performed with great zeal and efficiency. But being aware of the coming smack, I thrust forth a pair of teeth; upon which the knuckles of my good friend made a melancholy shipwreck. It is not in my power to tell half the thoughts that moved me, when we came to the fatal tree, and saw two men hanging there already, as innocent perhaps as I was,

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xvi Prologue and henceforth entirely harmless. Though ordered by the Colonel to look steadfastly upon them, I could not bear to do so; upon which he called me a paltry coward, and promised my breeches to any man who would spit upon my countenance. This vile thing Bob, being angered perhaps by the smarting wound of his knuckles, bravely stepped forward to do for me, trusting no doubt to the rope I was led with. But, unluckily as it proved for him, my right arm was free for a moment; and therewith I dealt him such a blow, that he never spake again. For this thing I have often grieved; but the provocation was very sore to the pride of a young man; and I trust that God has forgiven me. At the sound and sight of that bitter stroke, the other men drew back; and Colonel Kirke, now black in the face with fury and vexation, gave orders for to shoot me, and cast me into the ditch hard by. The men raised their pieces, and pointed at me, waiting for the word to fire; and I, being quite overcome by the hurry of these events, and quite unprepared to die yet, could only think all upside down about Lorna, and my mother, and wonder what each would say to it. I spread my hands before my eyes, not being so brave as some men; and hoping, in some foolish way, to cover my heart with my elbows. I heard the breath of all around, as if my skull were a sounding-board; and knew even how the different men were fingering their triggers. And a cold sweat broke all over me, as the Colonel, prolonging his enjoyment, began slowly to say, ‘Fire.’ But while he was yet dwelling on the ‘F,’ the hoofs of a horse dashed out on the road, and horse and horseman flung themselves betwixt me and the gun muzzles. So narrowly was I saved that one man could not check his trigger: his musket went off, and the ball struck the horse on the withers, and scared him exceedingly. He began to lash out with his heels all around, and the Colonel was glad to keep clear of him; and the men made excuse to lower their guns, not really wishing to shoot me. ‘How now, Captain Stickles?’ cried Kirke, the more angry because he had shown his cowardice; ‘dare you, sir, to come betwixt me and my lawful prisoner?’ ‘Nay, hearken one moment, Colonel,’ replied my old friend Jeremy; and his damaged voice was the sweetest sound I had heard for many a day; ‘for your own sake, hearken.’ He looked so full of momentous tidings, that Colonel Kirke made a sign to his men not to shoot me till further orders; and then he went aside with Stickles, so that in spite of all my anxiety I could not catch what passed between them. But I fancied that the name of the Lord Chief-Justice Jeffreys was spoken more than once, and with emphasis and deference. ‘Then I leave him in your hands, Captain Stickles,’ said Kirke at last, so that all might hear him; and though the news was good for me, the smile of baffled malice made his dark face look most hideous; ‘and I shall hold you answerable for the custody of this prisoner.’ ‘Colonel Kirke, I will answer for him,’ Master Stickles replied, with a grave bow, and one hand on his breast: ‘John Ridd, you are my prisoner. Follow me, John Ridd.’ Upon that, those precious lambs flocked away, leaving the rope still around me; and some were glad, and some were sorry, not to see me swinging. Being free of my arms again, I touched my hat to Colonel Kirke, as became his rank and experience; but he did not condescend to return my short salutation, having espied in the distance a prisoner, out of whom he might make money.

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Prologue

xvii

I wrung the hand of Jeremy Stickles, for his truth and goodness; and he almost wept (for since his wound he had been a weakened man) as he answered, ‘Turn for turn, John. You saved my life from the Doones; and by the mercy of God, I have saved you from a far worse company. Let your sister Annie know it.’

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‘That lustful tribe of Kirkes’

Percy Kirke was born into a family of professional courtiers. His paternal grandfather, George Kirke (d. 1630), was a member of the entourage of James VI of Scotland (1567–1625). Kirke came south in 1603 when his master became James I of England and secured the lucrative and influential positions of gentleman of the king’s robes and groom of the royal bedchamber, offices that were renewed on the accession of Charles I (1600–49) in 1625.1 Kirke’s eldest son, also George (c. 1600–75), was almost certainly born in Scotland. Through his paternal ‘interest’ he was made groom of the bedchamber to Charles, Prince of Wales, in 1621 and retained this place after his succession. In 1630, he inherited his father’s office of gentleman of the king’s robes. Three years earlier, in 1627, the younger George had married Anne Killigrew (c. 1607–41), the eldest daughter of the courtier and diplomat Sir Robert Killigrew (c. 1579–1633) by his wife, Mary Woodhouse (c. 1590–1650), a niece of Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626). Anne, exceptionally well connected in both court and intellectual circles, was sister to the playwrights William (c. 1606–95) and Thomas Killigrew (1612–83) and Henry Killigrew (1613–1700), author and Anglican chaplain to James, Duke of York (1633–1701). As a wedding present, Charles I gave the couple an 80-year lease on the royal manor of Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire at an annual rent of £24 5s. Although the estate was sold to the City of London the following year, the tenancy remained in Kirke’s possession until 1650.2 A son, Charles (1633–74), was born to George and Anne in 1633 and christened on 4 September at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster, but a second boy, George, delivered on 27 January 1635 at Sunbury, near Hampton Court, failed to survive infancy. An unnamed baby daughter was buried in Westminster Abbey on 23 May 1640. Anne, whose portrait was twice painted by Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), was appointed dresser to Queen Henrietta Maria (1609–69) in 1637.3 On 8 July 1641, the queen’s barge collided with heavy driftwood and capsized while ‘shooting’ the arches of London Bridge. The occupants, excluding the queen who was not on board, were hurled into the water; all except Anne were rescued.4 She was buried in Westminster Abbey. Her niece, Anne Killigrew (1660–85), the poetess, painter and maid of honour to Mary Beatrice of Modena, Duchess of York (1658–1718),5 later composed an undistinguished and teleological memorial verse, ‘On my Aunt Mrs. A. K., Drown’d under London Bridge in the Queen’s Bardge, Anno 1641’.

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General Percy Kirke and the Later Stuart Army

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So noble was her aire, so great her meen, She seem’d a friend, not servant to the queen. To sin, if known, she never did give way, Vice could not storm her, could it not betray. When angry Heav’n extinguisht her fair light, It seem’d to say, Nought’s precious in my sight; And I in waves this paragon have drown’d, The nation next, and king I will confound.6

Grasping and unscrupulous, George Kirke searched constantly and assiduously for opportunities to make money. The Board of Green Cloth7 complained about his business practices in 1632 following a claim for the reimbursement of £5,000, supposedly spent on the king’s robes, against which he refused to produce any supporting receipts or invoices. From about 1629 he was involved with several projects to drain and reclaim wetlands and fens. Together with his father-in-law, Sir Robert Killigrew, and Sir John Heydon (c. 1588–1653), the mathematician and lieutenant of the Ordnance Office, Kirke was concerned in the reclamation of marshes in Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Essex, Sussex and Carmarthen. From 1635 he took a particular and personal interest in the Holland Fen project, near Boston in Lincolnshire. The aggressive manner in which the scheme was driven forward regardless of consequent infringement of the legal rights and damage to the economic well-being of the local people provoked riots in 1636. The disturbances were suppressed by armed force and the ringleaders imprisoned in Lincoln. Despite the considerable investment, Kirke failed to realize a profit and in 1639 the king revoked his claim to parts of Holland Fen and granted him 2,000 acres elsewhere in compensation. This was a timely escape from his commitment because further disorders occurred in 1640 and, in the following year, rioters seized large stores of grain from the new tenants. Taking advantage of the chaotic state of the land market after the Restoration, in 1661 Kirke tried, unsuccessfully, to regain the earlier grants on Holland Fen.8 Having witnessed his father’s financial embarrassment and the increasing unwillingness of parliament to grant taxation to the crown, from early in his reign Charles I tried to raise revenue through extra-parliamentary instruments beginning with the Forced Loan of 1626. From 1630 the ancient ‘forest laws’ were reactivated. Over the previous 300 years, some landowners had encroached without permission on areas once designated royal forests while others – charcoal burners, timber merchants, farmers, coal miners and poachers – had illegally exploited these resources. The trespassers were heavily fined. Charles was also determined to return some of the royal forests – Gillingham in Dorset, Braydon in Wiltshire and the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire – to profitable cultivation. Kirke and Sir James Fullerton (c. 1556–1630), a fellow Scot and first gentlemen of the royal bedchamber, leased the Gillingham lands with licence to ‘depark’, enclose and farm. On Fullerton’s death in 1630, Kirke inherited all the concessions. Again, Kirke’s speculation proved both troublesome and unproductive. The forest dwellers protested vigorously at the violation of their ancient rights of common and pulled down the new fences as fast as they could be erected. Official messengers from the Privy Council were seized, flogged

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‘That lustful tribe of Kirkes’

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and their orders burned while local militiamen rescued the few rioters apprehended. The high sheriff of Dorset called in soldiers during 1638 but found the rioters well armed and organized holding their positions beneath banners proclaiming ‘here we were born and here we stay’. Eighty rioters were eventually fined by Star Chamber but serious disturbances were again reported in 1640.9 Disappointed in the anticipated income from Gillingham Forest, George Kirke obtained monopoly rights over the supply of clay used in the manufacture of tobacco pipes and, in 1631, dabbled in the ‘Company of Merchants Trading to Guinea’, a slaving operation established in 1618. During 1633, he sought to squeeze financial advantage from the unsuccessful attempt to drain the Fleet Lagoon behind Chesil Beach but was again frustrated. In 1634 an endeavour to acquire the post of ‘sayer10 of threads’ in Ireland failed; in partial recompense the lord deputy, Thomas, 1st Viscount Wentworth (1593–1641), promised to favour any of Kirke’s subsequent attempts to acquire monetary interests in Ireland. In 1638, George Kirke described himself as ‘his Majesty’s ancientest servant’ and, in 1642, was awarded the additional appointment of keeper of Whitehall Palace at an annual salary of £186. Despite setbacks, Kirke had grown reasonably affluent by 1640 and was able to loan Charles £2,500 in 1646 on the security of an annuity of £500 p.a. payable to his second wife in the event of his death. On 5 June 1633, he purchased the lease on Kirke House, of which he was already the sitting tenant, ‘next the timberyard adjoining Spring Garden(s), close by Charing Cross’, for the sum of £45 although, as a court official, Kirke also enjoyed grace-and-favour lodgings in Whitehall. The property was rebuilt between 1632 and 1635.11 Kirke continued at the king’s side during the first Civil War (1642–6), attending the court in Oxford from 1643. In Christ Church Cathedral on 26 February 1646, he married the beautiful Mary Townshend (1626–1702), daughter of the Norfolk poet and composer of court masques, Aurelian Townshend (c. 1583–c. 1649).12 The king himself gave away the bride and settled on her a jointure of £500. George and Mary Kirke produced four children who reached adulthood: Philip (c. 1646/7–87); Percy (c. 1647–91); Diana (1648–1719); and Mary (c. 1649/50–1718). The Kirkes remained loyal and physically close to Charles I, even after his capture by parliament; while a prisoner in Hampton Court, Charles borrowed from Mary a portrait of the queen. Mary was later described as ‘a beautiful wanton whose reputation did not improve with the years’. About this time she was having an affair with Lord Francis Villiers (1629–48), brother of George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1628–87). At the opening of the second Civil War in 1648, Villiers provided a splendid and lavish entertainment in Mary’s honour and presented her with a gift of plate worth £1,000. When he was killed in action on 7 July 1648, a lock of her hair was discovered ‘sew’d in a piece of ribbon that hung next to his skin’.13 Following the termination of this conflict, Charles’s rather loose imprisonment was tightened into close confinement but George Kirke’s devotion did not waver and he waited on his sovereign upon the scaffold on 30 January 1649. Throughout the Commonwealth and Interregnum, George Kirke lived quietly in London. In 1643 the Sequestration Committee had assessed his estate at £500, an indication of comfortable prosperity rather than great riches. In October 1645,

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General Percy Kirke and the Later Stuart Army

the Committee for Compounding included George Kirke ‘of Nonsuch, Surrey and Charing Cross’ in a list of ‘notables’ who were all declared to be Roman Catholic. It is most improbable that Kirke was Roman Catholic: certainly neither his wife nor the majority of his children displayed such tendencies and the accusation was probably part of a general denunciation of all those closely associated with Charles’s court. As punishment for his delinquency, Kirke House and all his goods were sequestered during 1645 for £50 p.a. to Edmund Sheffield, 2nd Earl of Mulgrave (1611–58), and Mr John Lisle, but the sequestration fine was discharged within two years. Having lost all his royal appointments on Charles’s death, Kirke was forced to sell the lease of Sheriff Hutton manor to William, 2nd Baron Maynard (1623–99), in 1650. However, Kirke’s finances appeared surprisingly buoyant; he continued to live in Kirke House, paying rent to the Sheffield family, and refurbished the property between 1648 and 1652 in a very grand style, temporarily residing at 5 Chandos Street during the alterations.14 This suggests that either Kirke had other sources of income, or had salted away sizeable sums before the civil wars, but his circumstances deteriorated significantly during the later 1650s. Kirke’s impeccable loyalty was rewarded by reappointment as a groom of the bedchamber at the Restoration in 1660 and keeper of Whitehall Palace, now worth £500 p.a., in 1664.15 His finances, however, were much embarrassed resulting in temporary imprisonment for a debt of £4,000, incurred in purchasing clothes for Charles I and the non-repayment of the royal loan of £2,500. He petitioned Charles II (1630–85) for some arrears of rent in order to alleviate his condition.16 Probably because of ill health or old age, Kirke resigned the keepership of Whitehall Palace in favour of his eldest son, Charles, on 24 March 1674. George Kirke died intestate on 6 April 1675 and was buried on 26 May at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster. His widow, Mary, clearly enjoyed royal favour in her own right. She successfully claimed the sinecure office of Volary Keeper17 at Whitehall in 1663, which entitled her to lodgings within the palace, on condition that her husband surrendered some of his rooms. Her widowhood was eased by an annual royal pension of £250, the £500 annuity triggered by the crown’s failure to repay George’s loan of £2,500, and the marriage jointure of £500 settled upon her by Charles I.18 Inheriting the morals and striking good looks of their grandmother and mother, both daughters vigorously exploited their physical charms within the Restoration court becoming involved in numerous scandals and affairs. The elder, Diana, had been given a christening present of £2,000 by Charles I to be held in trust until her 16th birthday in 1664.19 Between 1665 and 1670, Sir Peter Lely (1618–80) painted her portrait: she chose a risqué and provocative pose with left breast and nipple exposed. Following a public spat with her predecessor, the actress Hester Davenport, better known as Roxalana (1642–1717), Diana became the public mistress of Aubrey de Vere, 20th Earl of Oxford (1627–1703). Oxford had inherited the title, but little else, from his father in 1632 and had been obliged to seek a living as a professional soldier in the Dutch army. He married on 18 June 1647 the ten-year-old Anne Bayning (1637–59), daughter and co-heiress with her sister Penelope of Paul, 2nd Viscount Bayning of Sudbury, Suffolk (1616–38), a man of huge wealth. Anne’s riches20 temporarily solved Oxford’s pecuniary problems allowing a return to England and active involvement in royalist

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conspiracies against the Commonwealth. After his restoration, Charles II recognized Oxford’s faithfulness with the colonelcy of the Royal Horse Guards (the Blues) in 1661 plus appointments as a gentleman of the bedchamber and privy councillor. Following Anne Bayning’s death in 1659, Oxford squandered much of his late wife’s inheritance in a dissipated and feckless way of life, egregious even by contemporary standards.21 ‘Haughty Di’ Kirke and Oxford were married on 1 January 1673: despite this public and legal event, the jilted Hester Davenport continued to style herself ‘Countess of Oxford’ for the rest of her life.22 The motive for Oxford’s marriage could not have been money: Diana was no pauper – she had her £2,000 from Charles I but was not awaiting a great fortune – so the match may have been inspired by love, lust or pregnancy. There were two daughters from the union: Lady Mary de Vere (d. 1725) and Lady Diana de Vere (d. 1742). On 17 April 1694 Lady Diana married Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans (1670–1726), an illegitimate son of Charles II and Nell (Eleanor) Gwyn (c. 1651–87). The marriage produced eight sons. Now Duchess of St Albans, Lady Diana became first lady of the bedchamber and lady of the stole to Caroline, Princess of Wales (Wilhelmine Caroline of Ansbach-Bayreuth (1683–1737), Queen of England from 1727), but resigned her offices in 1717. Her mother, Diana de Vere née Kirke, Dowager Countess of Oxford, died on 7 April 1719 and was buried in Westminster Abbey on 16 April. The Dowager Duchess of St Albans inherited what little remained from the ancient de Vere legacy after her sister’s death in 1725.23 Charles Sackville’s poem ‘A faithful Catalogue of our most eminent Ninnies’ ridiculed the conduct of ‘that lustful tribe of Kirkes’; the younger daughter, Mary or ‘Moll’, was sarcastically singled out as the family’s ‘glory’.24 A maid of honour to the Duchess of York between December 1673 and 1675, she conducted near-simultaneous affairs with James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch (1649–85), Charles II’s oldest and favourite natural son;25 Charles’s brother and heir, James, Duke of York; and John Sheffield, 3rd Earl of Mulgrave (1647–1721), colonel of the Holland infantry regiment.26 Having contracted gravidity, possibly via Mulgrave, and Roman Catholicism, certainly from the Duke and Duchess of York, Mary resolved to withdraw unobtrusively to a French convent for her confinement but labour was premature and arrangements could not be made in time. Delivery occurred secretly in St James’s Palace but the baby lived for only a few hours. The teenaged Duchess of York affected an appropriate display of outrage and promptly dismissed Mary from both her employment and lodgings. The homeless girl was obliged to seek refuge in her recently widowed mother’s apartment in Whitehall. On 4 July 1675, her brother, Percy, accused Mulgrave of having ‘abused and debauched his sister’ and challenged him to a duel. Kirke’s intemperate action was motivated by far more than a desire to re-burnish his sister’s tawdry reputation. Not only had Mulgrave’s father profited from the Kirkes’ misfortunes during the 1650s but considerable animus still simmered between life-long royalists and former parliamentarians. Despite Mulgrave’s strong denial of carnal relations, honour had to be satisfied. Mulgrave was seconded by Charles, 2nd Earl of Middleton (c. 1649–1719), lieutenant colonel of the Holland Regiment, and Kirke by Captain Charles Godfrey (c. 1648–1715) of the 1st Foot (Grenadier) Guards. The contest ended when Kirke seriously injured Mulgrave in the shoulder.27 On 30 August Mary sailed for France and belatedly entered a convent but her penance was

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both brief and insincere. Suitors continued to be entertained and she was soon sharing the bed of Sir Thomas Vernon, 2nd Bt of Hodnet, Shropshire (d. 1683), a teller of the Exchequer: they married in London on 30 June 1677. Three children were born but, after Vernon’s death, Mary drifted back into promiscuity and ended her days in Greenwich in distressed circumstances.28 Whereas the two Kirke daughters were minor horizontales, the three sons turned to the profession of arms. Although principally a career soldier, from 1671 the eldest, Charles, also enjoyed a sinecure as under housekeeper of Whitehall Palace, a result of his father’s patronage. Also in that year Charles was commissioned cornet in the light horse regiment of Sir Henry Jones (d. 1673), which served in the French army, receiving promotion to lieutenant early in 1673. Following a brief furlough in England, during which he was appointed cornet in the Royal Horse Guards (8 July 1673), he returned to France as a captain in the Royal English regiment of foot, commanded by the Duke of Monmouth.29 While in France, on 24 March 1674 Charles succeeded his father as keeper of Whitehall Palace but was badly wounded at the Battle of Entzheim (Waldheim) on 4 October 1674 and succumbed to his injuries shortly afterwards.30 The second son, Philip, disparagingly known at court as ‘beardless Phil’ and satirized by Sackville as ‘poor Philip Kirke, fobbed off for a fool’,31 also possessed the family’s rather relaxed morals.32 He was appointed under-keeper of Whitehall Palace on 6 November 1674 in succession to his late half-brother, Charles, and was advanced to keeper in 1680 when Charles, 1st Baron Gerard of Brandon and 1st Earl of Macclesfield from 1679 (c. 1618–94), who had succeeded to the office, was dismissed for Whiggish indiscretions committed during the Exclusion Crisis (1678–81). Philip also joined the army. In 1678 he was listed as a captain in the Royal English Regiment in France but returned to England early that year and was commissioned captain in the newly raised 2nd battalion of the Holland Regiment. His company was sent to Tangier in 1680 as part of the ‘King’s Battalion’ of reinforcements commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Edward Sackville (c. 1640–1714) of the 1st Foot Guards. After the effective strength of his company had been considerably reduced through disease and action against the Moors, it was incorporated later that year into the 2nd Tangier Regiment, commanded by his younger brother, Percy. In company with many officers of the English standing army who continued to be promoted on the home establishment during official absences on active service abroad, Philip was advanced to captain in the 1st Foot Guards on 24 January 1683. When Tangier was evacuated in 1684 and the garrison returned to England, Philip became lieutenant colonel of the Queen’s Foot, the new title of the 2nd Tangier Regiment. He continued in this rank until his death in 1687. Percy then assumed the ‘family fiefdom’ of keeper of Whitehall Palace on 6 September, now reputedly paying £600 p.a.33 Apart from these bare facts nothing more has been discovered about either the history or dynamics of this family. They were all courtiers, both males and females, who were unwavering in their loyalty to the crown even in the dark days when monarchy was in abeyance. After the Restoration, they sought and received rewards in the form of perquisites, opportunities and court appointments. That a contemporary described them as a ‘tribe’ suggests a considerable degree of inner adhesion and solidarity. Percy Kirke’s duel with Lord Mulgrave in the interests of his younger sister’s reputation again

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indicates a family prepared to defend itself against those who had wronged it morally, financially and politically. A clan such as the Kirkes was readily recognizable in Restoration England and had much in common with other courtier-military families – for example the Churchills, Trelawneys, Darcys, Oglethorpes, Maynes, Littletons, Middletons and Sackvilles – that had made considerable sacrifices in order to support Charles I during the Civil Wars and his son during the Interregnum in return for modest compensation when Charles II came into his own again.

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2

Beginnings

The standing army – soldiers retained during both peace and war – has a very long history, its modern European incarnation emerging during the final stages of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48). Between about 1640 and 1700, most west European ruling princes acquired permanent armed forces to enhance their stature, protect the country, and suppress dissent, rebellion and opposition. Command was entrusted to politically emasculated aristocracies, whose former authority and independence had been abraded by powerful, centralizing monarchies to such an extent that they were grateful to perform military service in return for the conditional retention of status and limited privileges. Some – Weimar, Mainz and Würzburg – were mere ‘household’ or ‘court’ armies, their duties almost exclusively ceremonial. Next in scale were ‘garrison armies’, found for instance in Lippe, the Papal States, Württemberg and Parma. Billeted across the country in order to overawe the population, they were sufficient to man fortresses in wartime but too weak for major offensive action although serviceable within confederations. Their senior relatives were ‘marching armies’, containing enough soldiers both to provide home defence and engage in effective campaigning. Austria, Bavaria, Brandenburg-Prussia, Denmark-Norway, Electoral Saxony, France, Hesse-Cassel, Münster, Portugal, Russia, Savoy-Piedmont and Spain were all the proud possessors of these prestigious institutions. There were four major exceptions: Poland combined an aristocratic feudal levy with a small, professional ‘royal army’; Sweden pioneered a highly effective territorial organization; the Dutch Republic maintained a state army, or ‘soldiery of the Generality’, but each of the seven constituent provinces retained a considerable influence over finance and personnel; and England. Although enjoying an extensive prerogative, Charles II did not have absolute control over his army. He was forbidden to raise revenue without the consent of parliament, which thus acquired some influence over military affairs.1 After being invited to return to his three kingdoms in 1660, Charles was determined to create an armed force sufficient to protect his throne during unstable times. He briefly considered retaining Cromwell’s New Model Army of 40,000 or raising 22,000 men in Scotland who could also be deployed in Ireland and England but Charles inherited the debts of both his father and the Commonwealth and had insufficient money for a lavish martial establishment. He had also to consider the national

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hatred of standing armies and military government, itself a product of the civil wars and Interregnum, a sentiment echoed by the newly elected Cavalier Parliament when it demanded the abolition of the New Model and refused to fund a replacement. The old army in England and Scotland was disbanded between August and Christmas 1660 and the Cromwellian and royalist remnants in Dunkirk and Fort Mardyke were dispatched to Tangier and Bombay, sold into the French army or demobilized in situ. Fortunately, an oversight in the Disbandment Act2 allowed Charles to maintain a personal English standing army provided that it was paid from the privy purse. Accordingly, he caused an establishment to be drawn up comprising two infantry regiments, two of cavalry and several garrisons, at an estimated annual charge of £118,529, a sum just affordable from within his annual revenues. As soon as the bulk of the New Model had been dissolved, on 23 November 1660, Colonel John ‘Jack’ Russell (c. 1620–87), the third son of Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford (c. 1587–1641), and a veteran royalist soldier and plotter, was commissioned colonel of an infantry battalion, subsequently known as the 1st Foot or Grenadier Guards, comprising 1,200 men in 12 companies. Before the regiment had been fully recruited, on 6 January 1661 Thomas Venner (c. 1608–61), a cooper and enthusiastic Fifth Monarchist, led about 50 brethren in a desperate demonstration within the City of London.3 The fanatics proved more than a match for the trained bands and only the intervention of Russell’s guards and some mounted troops restored order. Charles seized the occasion to launch the planned, small standing army, the ‘Guards and Garrisons’, around the cadre of the 1st Foot Guards. On 14 February 1661, the New Model foot battalion of General George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle (1608–70), was disbanded on Tower Hill but immediately re-engaged as the 2nd or ‘Coldstream’ Regiment of Foot Guards with Albemarle as colonel. His cavalry unit, previously Cromwell’s Life Guard,4 was also disbanded and promptly re-employed as the nucleus of a mounted regiment, the Royal Horse Guards. Lord Oxford was commissioned colonel. A Life Guard of 500 men was also raised, divided into three troops: the King’s Own under Lord Brandon (200 troopers); the Duke of York’s (Sir Charles Berkeley (c. 1630–65)), (150 men); and Albemarle’s (Sir Philip Howard (d. 1686)) (150 men).5 The initial establishment cost £189,724 11s 4d p. a., a considerable increase on the earlier estimate, consuming 17 per cent of Charles’s nominal annual income of £1,200,000 but nearly 25 per cent of his actual receipts of about £800,000. Albemarle was appointed captain-general. A small Scottish army was also founded, comprising three infantry battalions and one cavalry regiment, paid from the Edinburgh treasury.6 An army of about 7,500 soldiers, mostly Cromwellian veterans, was formed in Ireland but it was poorly organized; with the exception of the Irish Foot Guards, raised in 1662, the infantry was not formally regimented until 1672.7 Thereafter, shortage of money and political sensitivity permitted only a slow and spasmodic expansion. The Lord High Admiral’s Foot, otherwise known as the Duke of York’s Maritime Regiment, was added in 1664, principally for marine service.8 The 1st Foot Guards acquired a second battalion on 16 March 1665 and the Holland regiment of foot (3rd Foot, later the Buffs, Colonel Robert Sydney (d. 1668), 3rd son of Robert, 2nd Earl of Leicester (1595–1677)), was created in June 1665 to provide places for the

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many British officers of the Anglo-Dutch Brigade who obeyed the order recalling them into England. When the Scottish mercenary regiment of Lord George Douglas, 1st Earl of Dumbarton after 1675 (c. 1636–92), returned from France in 1678, where it had served since 1633,9 it was renamed the 1st Foot, or Royal Scots, and kept temporarily as insurance during the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis before joining the permanent English army. The Royal Dragoons (Colonel John, 1st Baron Churchill, later 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722)), were levied in 1683 to harass Dissenters. The 1st and 2nd Tangier Regiments joined the English establishment in 1684 as the Queen’s Foot (Colonel Percy Kirke) and the Duchess of York’s Foot (Colonel Charles Trelawney (1653–1731)). In February 1685, the standing army numbered 8,865 soldiers. Charles tried to avoid foreign entanglements that might have resulted in expensive wars but on three occasions he had to seek parliamentary assistance for a temporary military expansion. Although the Second (1665–7) and Third (1672–4) Anglo-Dutch Wars were primarily naval contests, a rapid enlargement of the land forces was required in 1667 when invasion threatened after the Netherlanders had attacked Sheerness, insulted the English fleet in the Medway and assaulted Landguard Fort.10 All the additional levies, with the exception of the Holland Regiment, were demobilized after the signature of the Treaty of Breda. Similarly, another mass disbandment followed the considerable augmentation in 1672 and 1673 for a ‘descent’ on Walcheren Island. Finally, 12,000 men were raised to fight alongside the Dutch and Spanish against the French in the Low Countries in 1678. Apart from Royal Scots, all were broken in 1679. The officers were drawn almost exclusively from the aristocracy and landed gentry. During the earlier part of the reign, those with royalist pedigrees were preferred although a number of ‘reformed’ ex-Cromwellians secured commissions through the Albemarle/Coldstream connection. The great martial offices – captains of the Life Guards, colonels of the Royal Horse Guards and Foot Guards – were awarded to wellconnected peers and gentlemen but subalterns and field officers were mostly younger sons, unlikely to inherit and obliged to make their own ways in the world.11 Many of the new officers had lost money and estates through loyalty to Charles I and the receipt of a commission both recognized past constancy and provided a useful source of income and influence. Between one and two per cent were Roman Catholic.12 In 1665, there were 210 commissioned officers in the six marching regiments plus 134 with the garrison companies: by 1684 these totals had increased to 463 and 150 respectively. Naturally, the wartime levies caused pro tem inflation: 796 in 1667; 491 in 1673; and 925 in 1678. Officers were promoted via a mixture of venality, seniority, dead men’s shoes, sponsorship and, occasionally, merit. Once a young man had purchased an ensign or cornet’s commission in a standing regiment, subsequent steps were mostly governed by the ladder of precedence. For instance, when a lieutenant colonel left a battalion a choreographed series of trades lifted the major to be lieutenant colonel, the senior captain to major, the eldest lieutenant to junior captain, the leading ensign to youngest lieutenant and all other officers moved up one rung. At the end of his career, an officer usually sold his place to help finance his old age.13 Despite the low esteem in which the military was held, vacancies in the Guards and Garrisons occurred with sufficient infrequency to keep commission costs relatively high. In 1680 Philip Darcy14 paid Sir

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Henry Fitzjames (d. 1686) £2,000 for a cornet’s commission in the 3rd Troop of the Life Guards, commanded by Louis de Duras, 2nd Earl of Feversham (1641–1709). The highest known outlay, £5,100, was given in 1681 to John Russell by Charles II to buy the colonelcy of the 1st Foot Guards for his natural son, Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Grafton (1663–90).15 Because the market was of uncertain legality, most bargains appear to have been verbal leaving scant documentary trace. There are, however, fragments of evidence which indicate the general level of prices. A captaincy in the foot guards fetched between £2,600 and £3,000; £1,600 in the line cavalry; and £750 in the dragoons. A foot guard lieutenant paid around £800 for his commission compared to £1,100 in the Royal Horse Guards. To enter the army as an infantry ensign, a young man needed to find an initial sum of between £400 and £600.16 Cheaper arrangements applied in temporary wartime units where the crown directly commissioned the colonel, lieutenant colonel and major, and, sometimes, the captains, leaving the colonel to appoint the lieutenants and ensigns. After meeting the secretary at war’s standard fee, a prospective subaltern then negotiated a settlement with the colonel. Generals and garrison governors were army ranks appointed directly by the crown without purchase although various fees and douceurs were involved. Nevertheless, these gentlemen always retained their regimental appointments and normally held three permanent commissions simultaneously: two regimental, field officer and company captain, and one general to the army. Full pay, plus all allowances, was received for each. In common with most government and church appointments, commissions in the Guards and Garrisons were ‘freeholds’, marketable properties owned by the officeholder. A commission was thus a financial investment that conferred status, prestige and influence in addition to a respectable salary and profits from false musters and a host of allowances and perquisites. Army commissions appeared expensive – a middling family could live comfortably on £50 per annum – but were broadly equivalent to the cost of mercantile apprenticeships especially when the extra value and kudos of a freehold was taken into account. Daniel Defoe reported that an apprenticeship to a Levant merchant might command up to £300, while more mundane traders could ask between £150 and £200. A seven-year apprenticeship, the standard term, to a London shopkeeper required a fee of between £50 and £100, and lesser occupations pro rata. In comparison, the price of an ensign’s or cornet’s commission in a standing regiment, and even more so in a wartime unit, was neither comparatively pricey nor the practice unusual. Junior commissions, often bought for teenage boys, were effectively military apprenticeships and represented down-payments on potentially profitable careers.17 In the absence of long wars and bloody battles, there were four ways to circumvent the sclerosis induced by purchase. A young man blessed with deep pockets and influential backers could buy accelerated promotion either by jumping the queue within his own unit or transferring into another. A temporary, brevet rank might be awarded for outstanding service. Although the recipient was addressed by his higher title, the appointment was not a freehold because it was conferred by warrant rather than royal commission. Brevets possessed several advantages for an impecunious government. A captain advanced to major, for example, received no pay additional to that earned in

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his substantive rank. Secondly, a brevet was an army appointment and did not affect an officer’s regimental seniority. So a captain breveted major continued to hold his regimental captaincy and place on the ladder of precedence but, by virtue of the brevet, fulfilled a role in the army at large, perhaps as a brigade major, leaving his company in the care of a lieutenant. A third method was ‘temporary rank’, normally introduced during a wartime expansion. Officers from the standing regiments were promoted field officers within ‘duration’ units, usually captains elevated to majors and lieutenant colonels, while retaining their substantive ranks in the Guards and Garrisons. Because temporary rank was commissioned, pay was awarded for all positions held enabling officers to enjoy double earnings and emoluments. When the wartime creation was disbanded, the officer reverted to his substantive rank. Finally, for both commissioned officers in the Guards and Garrisons and those unable to acquire positions in Britain, a spell with a foreign army was a proven method of gaining experience and attracting attention and patronage. The date of George and Mary Kirke’s wedding suggests that Percy was born either in late 1647 or early 1648. No information has been discovered about his upbringing and schooling. His early years were probably divided between a country residence in West Byfleet, Surrey, Kirke House and his father’s Whitehall lodgings. He was heir to most of his parents’ worst characteristics – avarice, unscrupulousness and loose morals. In particular, Percy took after his father in the ruthless pursuit of self-interest, a trait that might have become engrained during childhood when watching his family struggle to maintain dignity and finances amid the most adverse circumstances. Unfortunately, he inherited few of their virtues. Although always a monarchist and member of the Church of England, he did not display George Kirke’s high sense of personal duty and honour that had bound him to Charles I until death. Neither were the literary and cultural abilities of his maternal grandfather evident, although the army and the arts were not unfamiliar companions.18 During 1665 he petitioned the crown for the renewal, in his own name, of an annuity worth one pound sterling a day that his father had purchased for £2,000 ‘before the rebellion’ from Sir Charles Howard (1583–1665) of Croglin Low Hall, Cumbria.19 The outcome is unknown. On 7 July 1666, at the relatively advanced age of 18 or 19, he received an ensign’s commission in Captain Thomas Bromley’s (d. 1672) company in the Duke of York’s Maritime Regiment.20 The effective commander was the veteran royalist Colonel Sir Chichester Wray, 3rd Bt of Trebeigh, St Ives, Cornwall (c. 1628–68). Wray’s predecessor had been Sir William Killigrew, 1st Bt (1605–65), a professional soldier who had befriended Charles II during his exile.21 Without contacts and patronage, aspirations to highly competitive places in Restoration government institutions were usually stillborn: the fact that Colonel Killigrew, who never married, was an uncle of George Kirke’s first wife, Anne, probably helped to launch Percy’s military career. Kirke must also have been the recipient of York’s blessing and support, probably a reflection of and reward for George Kirke’s devoted service. It is most likely that Kirke’s commission was relatively inexpensive because Bromley’s was one of a pair of wartime companies22 added to the regiment on 5 July 1666. Kirke’s father probably negotiated a price with Colonel Wray before offering the customary fee to the secretary at war. Because there was neither an out-going officer

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requiring compensation nor guarantee that the new company would be retained after the war ended, the deal was probably concluded for about £100. Kirke’s luck held and his company was transferred to the permanent establishment in 1667; entry into the regular army had been very economical. Probably benefiting from his sister Diana’s amorous activities and marriage, on 9 September 1670 Kirke bought the cornetcy of Lord Oxford’s own troop in the Royal Horse Guards from Edwin Sandys23 who moved up by purchasing the lieutenancy in Captain Sir Henry Jones’s troop. Although cushioned by the sale of his ensigncy in the Admiral’s to Edmund Wilson, this upward shift must have involved a disbursement in the region of £300-£400.24 The passage of the first Test Act in 1673 required York to resign all ministerial and state positions. Prima facie, this might have adversely affected those who relied upon his benefaction but he continued to exercise considerable unofficial, backstairs power over the granting of army and navy commissions. Besides, Kirke also enjoyed the insurance of Lord Oxford’s favour. Excitement was in short supply for those well-connected young gentlemen who secured commissions. A handful of infantry companies acted as marines aboard the Royal Navy during the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars, there were occasional riots to control, and Scottish covenanters and Irish bandits to chase but the British armies did not participate in any serious fighting for 25 years. Military life was painfully dull. Lieutenant Talbot Lascelles, adjutant of the recently raised infantry battalion of Lord Huntingdon, had the misfortune to be quartered in Carlisle over the winter of 1686. He could find neither ‘a man fit for conversation’ nor a woman who could be described as ‘diverting; a nasty town which cannot produce a sheet of gilt paper.’25 Bored young officers frequently sought permission to leave their commands with senior NCOs and gravitate to London: once ensconced in the capital, they did not hurry to return to duty. The other predictable outcome was a plague of ‘high jinks’ and boisterous misbehaviour that damaged civil-military relations and increased the army’s unpopularity. Officers who sought a stage on which to advertise their fighting prowess had two options: secure a posting to remote Tangier, where the garrison was constantly at odds with the Moroccans but conditions were penitential, or a mercenary contract with a foreign power either as an officially seconded individual or member of a government-sanctioned detachment. Lieutenant Ferdinand Littleton, 5th son of Sir Thomas Littleton, 2nd Bt (c. 1619–81), of the Royal Horse Guards, took a captaincy in Sir Henry Jones’s regiment of light horse in France in 1671. His elder brother, Colonel Sir Charles Littleton, remarked that ‘it will be the easier, it’s likely, to get it [promotion] at home after he has had it abroad, rebus sic stantibus’.26 So it proved. On returning to England in 1673, he was advanced to captain in the ‘Blues’.27 This easy interchange between foreign and domestic service produced a close-knit, high-quality caucus, all ‘very good men’,28 that was to assume considerable political significance during the reign of James II. The main destinations were the Irish and English units on contract to the Spanish crown, the Anglo-Dutch Brigade, and France.29 A private clause in the Treaty of Dover of 1672 committed Charles to lend 6,000 auxiliary troops to reinforce the French army during the coming war with the Dutch.30 Lord Roscommon, a close associate of the Duke of York, visited Louis in July 1671 to make the arrangements. Douglas’s Scottish regiment, numbering about 800 men, was

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reassigned within the French army to form the basis of the new British Brigade which was then filled by a mixture of specially raised units and temporary transfers from the home armies. In 1671 Roscommon recruited a corps of 1,664 soldiers in Ireland while the Duke of Monmouth levied the similarly sized Royal English Regiment: both were articulated into 16 companies fighting as two battalions commanded by their lieutenant colonels and majors. Roscommon’s subsequently lost so many men to disease, desertion and battle that it was disbanded in Lorraine in the autumn of 1672 and its survivors drafted into the Irish infantry regiment of Sir George Hamilton (d. 1676) of 1,500 men which had also been raised during 1671. In 1672, the Royal English was reinforced by a third battalion, drawn entirely from the standing army in England, consisting of 824 rankers under the leadership of temporary Lieutenant Colonel Bevil Skelton (c. 1641–96), a captain in the 1st Foot Guards. The cavalry consisted of an independent troop composed of 100 volunteers from the Life Guard led by Lord Feversham, which arrived in France on 10 February 1673, plus Colonel Sir Henry Jones’s31 regiment of light horse (505 troopers). The British Brigade in France was no more than a title of convenience because each unit was tactically discrete and available for individual deployment. Monmouth, the nominal commander-in-chief, spent most of his time hovering around the travelling court of Louis XIV endeavouring to create a favourable impression.32 The Third Anglo-Dutch War was a component of the much wider Franco-Dutch conflict, 1672–8, which began as a contest between France, England and the Dutch Republic but soon involved Spain, Sweden-Finland, Denmark-Norway, the Holy Roman Emperor, Brandenburg-Prussia, and several smaller German states.33 Nearly half the 120,000 men in the French army participated in the opening campaign: Marshal Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne (1611–75), assembled 23,000 soldiers near Charleroi; the Army of the Ardennes of about 32,000 under Marshal Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (1621–86) gathered in Lorraine; 34 and the generous garrisons of the fortresses along the frontier with the Spanish Netherlands constituted an operational reserve. Although nominally in command, Louis depended upon the professional expertise of Condé and, in particular, Turenne, while Ingénieur du Roi, Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633–1709), managed all matters relating to sieges. As Turenne started along the valley of the River Sambre, Condé left his cantonments around Nancy and marched down the River Meuse [Maas]. The two corps, including the British Brigade, joined at Visé on 9 May before sweeping through the Electorate of Cologne and advancing north along the Rhine, Condé on the right bank and Turenne and the king on the left. The weak Dutch army, commanded by Prince William III of Orange-Nassau (1650–1702), captain-general of the United Provinces, was outflanked and overwhelmed. Within a few weeks it had been driven back into the maritime provinces of Zealand and Holland. In desperation, the sluices were opened and a ‘Water Line’ created. Its logistics badly overstretched, the French army lost momentum and halted before the floods. On 22 July, Louis XIV recognized that the lightning campaign was over and returned to St Germain-en-Laye. The Dutch, however, were not entirely alone. Frederick William of Brandenburg Prussia (1640–88), the ‘Great Elector’, mobilized his army and allied with Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I (1658–1705) to defend the empire against French aggression.35

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Louis was obliged to revise his plans. Thwarted before the Water Line, he now had to counter possible action by Imperial-Brandenburg forces along the Middle Rhine. In addition, his agents had detected signs of increasing restiveness in Brussels, the capital of the Spanish Netherlands. Lieutenant General François-Henri de Montmorency, Duke of Luxembourg (1628–95), commanding the French infantry facing the Water Line, was ordered to remain on the defensive in Utrecht and wait for winter when the inundations might freeze and permit an assault. Meanwhile, Turenne assembled a highly mobile detachment containing 25,000 mounted troops but only 18,000 foot. When the French army divided on 24 July, Jones’s Light Horse, Douglas’s Scots and Hamilton’s Irish accompanied Turenne. The Royal English initially remained with Luxembourg in Utrecht before going into garrison in Dunkirk, Amiens, Lille and, finally, at the end of August, Oudenarde.36 Turenne marched south to Coblenz to observe the gathering Imperial-Brandenburg corps led by the Italian veteran, Count Raimondo Montecuccoli (c. 1608–80). Turenne first cleared his communications between the Rhine and Lorraine by besieging and capturing Trier (15–28 August) and then countered Montecuccoli’s tentative November offensive, driving the feeble Imperial-Brandenburg through Westphalia and over the Ruhr.37 In February 1673 Cornet Percy Kirke secured secondment from the ‘Blues’ to the second battalion of the Royal English in the rank of lieutenant. Maastricht was the French objective in 1673. Protocol required that this task was entrusted to the main army led by the king, although the siege was actually conducted by Vauban; Condé commanded the corps in Utrecht and Turenne’s detachment covered the Middle Rhine and Moselle. After advancing rapidly along the Meuse, Louis’s army attacked Maastricht on 6 June. Several British officers were released from regimental duty and allowed to attend the siege, the talk of Europe throughout June, as volunteers.38 As a mark of respect to his ally, Louis XIV awarded Monmouth the honorary rank of lieutenant general in the French army and admitted him to the rota of senior officers who commanded daily in the trenches. Monmouth’s preferment presented his gaggle of swells, gallants and clients with the opportunity to perform heroic deeds under the critical gaze of Europe’s martial elite.39 A chance for the British volunteers to show their mettle occurred on 24 June when Monmouth was duty officer. The trenches were deemed sufficiently close for an attack to be launched on the counterscarp, always the most difficult and dangerous operation during a siege, the equivalent of ‘going over the top’ during the First World War: an assaulting force had to leave subterranean safety and charge uphill across the bare incline of the glacis to reach the counterscarp, exposed all the while to the garrison’s frontal and enfilade fire and the probability of pre-positioned mines exploding beneath their feet. In addition to a diversionary assault on Wyck, Maastricht’s suburb on the right bank of the Meuse, three simultaneous attacks were organized, two of them deceptions. The Marquis de Montbrun (d. 1693)40 commanded the real attack against the counterscarp before the Brussels Gate. Charles de Montsaulnin, Comte de Montal (1621–96), led Montbrun’s left-hand column and Monmouth the right. He had under command the King’s infantry regiment and the Musquetiers du Roi led by their captain-lieutenant, Charles de Batz-Castelmore, Comte d’Artagnan (c. 1615–73), subsequently immortalized and heavily fictionalized by Alexander Dumas. Not

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wishing to miss any of the action, the British volunteers, Kirke among them, assembled with Monmouth’s vanguard. Watched by Louis from an adjacent hillock, Montbrun’s men formed up in the places d’armes within the trenches and, at the firing of five signal cannon, marched rapidly up the exposed slope of the glacis through a hail of grenades and musketry. Despite the defenders springing two, ineffectual mines, the attackers hurried on until they reached the counterscarp where Churchill planted the royal standard on the parapet. Although this was the intended extent of the operation, Monmouth noticed that the defence was in some disorder and advanced further to occupy a demi-lune, or ravelin, covering the Brussels Gate. His party fought off three counter-attacks before spending the night consolidating the lodgement by raising earthworks facing into the town and excavating a communication trench from the demi-lune back to the counterscarp. At daybreak, Monmouth handed over to a relief and went back to camp with his British volunteers. They were resting in their tents and Monmouth was about to go to dinner when the dull sound of an exploding mine accompanied by heavy firing announced that Spanish auxiliaries, led in person by the city governor, Major General Jacques de Fariaux, Vicomte de Maulde (1627–95), a very seasoned French professional in Dutch service, had retaken the demi-lune. Acting on his own initiative, Monmouth ordered d’Artagnan’s company of the Musquetiers du Roi to counter-attack. D’Artagnan soon encountered the scratch garrison falling back towards the counterscarp via the new communication trench. He tried to rally them but they were reluctant to return because Fariaux was already well-lodged in the demi-lune. Realizing the urgency of the situation, Monmouth gathered as many British volunteers as were available and hurried forward. Monmouth, Churchill, Kirke, Captain Charles O’Brien (d. 1673) of the Royal English, 12 Life Guardsmen, and several others charged over the open ground and, working their way through the labyrinthine fortifications, took the occupants of the demi-lune in the rear. Confused and demoralized, the Spanish troops began to falter before abandoning the post completely when they noticed D’Artagnan’s musketeers hurrying to Monmouth’s support. Through his impetuous but prompt and decisive actions, Monmouth had considerably hastened the course of the siege. Casualties were numerous. Sir Henry Jones had died on the previous evening; Churchill was slightly wounded; O’Brien fatally injured in the thigh; and d’Artagnan was killed, shot through the neck.41 Satisfied that he had conducted a vigorous and honourable defence, shortly afterwards Fariaux beat a parley and surrendered Maastricht on 30 June.42 Monmouth was rewarded with cash, diamonds and a jewel-encrusted sword. Regarded previously as little more than a playboy, Maastricht created the extravagant myth of a brave and capable soldier. After the excitement, Kirke and the surviving British officers returned to their regiments. In August 1674, Monmouth, in full uniform and assisted by the Duke of York, employed large sections of the English standing army to recreate his heroic, Maastrichtian deeds on the terrace of Windsor Castle for the amusement of his adoring father.43 The Treaty of Westminster ended the war between England and the Dutch Republic on 19 January 1674. Feversham’s Life Guard detachment and three of the eight companies in Skelton’s battalion of the Royal English returned home but the majority of the brigade continued in France. The remaining five companies

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of Skelton’s were amalgamated with some of the reinforcements which had been sent from England during the previous year and this revamped third battalion was placed under the command of temporary lieutenant colonel John Churchill, then a substantive captain in the Admiral’s Regiment, on 3 April. Douglas’s, Hamilton’s, the Royal English and Monmouth’s (previously Jones’s) Horse44 were assigned to Turenne’s army in Alsace and Lorraine. The master practitioner of the positional art was charged with preventing a large German-Imperial army from intervening in either the Spanish Netherlands or newly-captured Franche-Comté. Led by Duke Charles IV of Lorraine (1604–75) and the Italian, General Count Aeneas Caprara (1631–1701), the Imperial army had already crossed the Rhine via the bridge at Kehl and was standing close to Strasbourg. Caprara sent Lorraine south with a detachment to threaten FrancheComté but Turenne blocked this movement forcing Lorraine to turn back. Seeking to ‘make war pay for war’, whenever possible Turenne operated on the right bank of the Rhine to subsist his troops at the enemy’s expense. This required mobility in order to gather supplies from a wide area so he took 6,000 cavalry and only 1,500 infantry, leaving the remainder of the foot to occupy the key fortresses in Alsace-Lorraine. Turenne departed from Hagenau in June, crossed the Rhine via a bridge of boats at Philippsburg, whence he drew another four infantry battalions, and went in search of Caprara who was known to be marching north to effect a junction with Bournonville’s corps. Covering 160 kilometres in five days, Turenne overhauled Caprara’s 7,000 cavalry and 2,000 infantry and forced them to accept action at Sintzheim on 16 June. Turenne drove off the Imperialists after a running engagement, both sides losing about 2,000 men. Although there is no mention of any specific roles played or great deeds done by the British, Lieutenant Colonel John Churchill was present as a gentleman volunteer. All three battalions of the Royal English, including Lieutenant Kirke, were in garrison in Alsace-Lorraine. However, one or more of Douglas’s Scottish battalions took part in both the preliminary reconnaissance and battle.45 Turenne had insufficient strength to exploit his success and, after demonstrating before the Imperial headquarters at Heidelberg, recrossed the Rhine to Neustadt. After absorbing reinforcements, early in July he returned to the right bank and marched towards Heidelberg, seeking to force Bournonville to battle but he refused to be drawn and retired north of the River Main. Remaining on the east bank of the Rhine and helped by the garrison of Philippsburg, Turenne’s soldiers plundered the countryside and levied heavy contributions, the peasants retaliating by attacking isolated parties of marauders. This ‘First Devastation of the Palatinate’ continued for the rest of the summer until, on 1 September, Bournonville crossed the Rhine at Mainz with 30,000 men and 30 cannon and encamped near Spires, threatening Alsace and Lorraine, before building a bridge of boats over the Rhine six miles south of Philippsburg, which he planned to besiege. Turenne withdrew over the Rhine and concentrated 25,000 men between Wissembourg and Landau, confident that Bournonville would be unable to feed so many troops on the left bank of the Rhine. As anticipated, on 20 September Bournonville withdrew. He then marched south along the right bank, crossed the Rhine at Kehl and took position around Entzheim46 to the west of Strasbourg thus separating Turenne from sustaining forces in Upper Alsace and Franche-Comté. Obliged to respond, Turenne moved to the village Wanzenau to reconnoitre Bournonville’s camp.

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His front covered by the River Breusch and expecting the arrival of the Elector of Brandenburg with 20,000 reinforcements, Bournonville felt secure. Turenne had to risk battle in order to reopen communications with Upper Alsace and FrancheComté, protect the fortresses of Saverne and Hagenau and forestall a junction between Bournonville and the elector. Bournonville had drawn up his 36,000 men and 50 field guns in an orthodox deployment of infantry sandwiched between two wings of cavalry. The left flank lay behind the ‘little wood’; the fortified village of Entzheim along with hedgerows, walls, orchards and vineyards protected the centre; and his right rested upon the ‘great wood’ and swampy ground close to the River Ill. Such a physically strong position was essential because the quality of his troops, drawn from several German states, was uneven – some were hastily raised militia, wanting uniforms and modern weaponry – and the army consequently lacked internal cohesion. As Turenne advanced, he sent forward Brigadier Lord Douglas with 1,500 British foot47 and some dragoons to occupy the village of Holtzheim. Douglas reported that the Imperialists had neglected to block all the crossing points over the Breusch and their line of battle was far enough withdrawn from the river bank to enable the French to cross and deploy. In addition, Bournonville had failed to occupy the ‘little wood’. During the night of 3–4 October, Turenne quietly forded the river and formed line of battle with his right resting on the ‘little wood’ and his left on the village of Lingelsheim. The dawn of 4 October was shrouded in a thick mist48 that soon developed into continuous heavy rain. At 09:00, Turenne attacked with 10,000 horse, 12,000 infantry and 30 cannon. The first battalion of the Royal English was attached to Douglas’s brigade and stood among the infantry of Turenne’s centre where it saw little action and suffered slight damage. The second and third battalions, the former containing Lieutenant Percy Kirke and the latter commanded by Churchill, along with Hamilton’s Irish regiment, were engaged in the fight for the ‘little wood’: it was taken and retaken twice before a renewed deluge brought a temporary halt to the fighting. When the downpour eased, the British advanced for a third time and finally secured the position. On the French left, three squadrons of Monmouth’s cavalry regiment counter-charged the Imperialists who were attacking Turenne’s left and centre, gaining success and glory but suffering very heavy casualties. As darkness fell, the security of both Bournonville’s flanks was endangered and he withdrew during the night over the Ill to his old camp at Illkirch. Turenne also retired, recrossing the Breusch so that his soldiers, exhausted after 40 hours marching and fighting in the wet, could be reunited with their supply trains and tents. According to Bournonville, Entzheim was ‘one of the longest, most obstinate and artilleryzed that have ever been seen’, the French firing 2,500 cannon balls during the day. Approximately ten per cent of those engaged became casualties, Bournonville losing about 3,500 men and Turenne around 3,000, mostly among the infantry units on the right, which included the second and third battalions of the Royal English, and the cavalry of the left, incorporating Monmouth’s Horse. Seven out of 22 officers in Churchill’s third battalion of the Royal English were killed and two injured. Two captains from the 1st battalion lost their lives and two were wounded. Only three officers in Monmouth’s horse remained fit for duty. Percy Kirke received three wounds and his courage and conduct further enhanced a combat record already established

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at Maastricht. His half-brother Charles, a captain in Monmouth’s Horse, suffered a broken arm, which turned mortally septic. The Duke of York’s crony, Feversham, acting as an aide-de-camp to his uncle, Turenne, was impressed describing Kirke ‘as one of the bravest lads in the world and is much esteemed, as is also his brother [Charles]’. To recuperate from his injuries and levy replacements for the regiment, Kirke was allowed a furlough in England. On 4 October he was promoted lieutenant of Captain Edwin Sandys’s troop in the Royal Horse Guards but he was soon back in France, his pass dated 2 November 1674.49 Kirke returned again to England in July 1675 to settle family affairs following his father’s death during which interval he fought the duel with Lord Mulgrave. He returned to France in the spring of 1676. Kirke was thus absent from the Royal English at the battles of Turckheim, 27 December 1674; Nieder Sasbach on 27 July 1675, where Turenne was killed by a cannonball;50 Altenheim Bridge (1 August 1675), when Montecuccoli forced the remains of the dispirited French army, now commanded by Turenne’s nephew, Guy Alphonse de Durfort, Duc de Lorge (1630–1702), back over the Rhine; the siege of Trier and the battle of Konz-Saarbruck on 11 August.51 For the remainder of the war, the second battalion of the Royal English remained a component of the French army in Alsace and Lorraine and Kirke appears to have served continuously. Because of English unofficial involvement in the Franco-Dutch War, a lack of trust developed between William of Orange and the king of England. Between 1675 and 1677, Charles was increasingly pressurized by the Dutch, Spanish and the ‘country’ movement within his own parliament to recall the soldiers. Charles eventually bowed before this nagging insistence by agreeing to the marriage of William of Orange and Princess Mary (1662–94), the Duke of York’s elder daughter by Anne Hyde (1637–71), on 4 November and signing a treaty with the Dutch Republic on 31 December, which was ratified by the States General on 20 February 1678. The parties sought to restore a general peace to Europe on the basis of France surrendering Charleroi, Courtrai, Ath, Oudenarde, Condé, Cambrai, Aire and St Omer. If necessary, this arrangement would be enforced militarily. In readiness for such intervention, Ostend was temporarily ceded to England to serve as an advance base for an expeditionary force which would fight alongside the Dutch and Spanish in the Low Countries until France agreed to the proposed terms. The Anglo-Dutch treaty also required the British troops to leave France. Between 8 and 12 January 1678, Ralph Montagu, the ambassador in Paris, was instructed by Charles to request the brigade’s return.52 Louis and Louvois had no wish to lose battle-hardened cannon-fodder and made the mechanics of extradition as difficult and awkward as possible. They decided to disband the regiments far from the Channel coast in the expectation that the soldiers would not even attempt the journey home but re-enlist in French formations. There was even some hope expressed that the men would disobey orders en masse, continue in their formed regiments, and swear oaths of allegiance to the king of France. Louvois ordered Dumbarton’s53 into deepest Dauphiné where it was broken and the men forbidden even to begin their long journeys to Scotland until 30 days after the English entry into the war on the Dutch side.54 Sir George Hamilton’s Regiment, now commanded by Thomas Dongan, 2nd Earl of Limerick after 1698

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(1634–1715), was also disbanded in 1678. A considerable number of the demobilized Irishmen did choose to remain in France and were swept into a new French regiment of foot under the command of Colonel Richard Hamilton (d. 1717), Sir George’s fifth son.55 The first officers and men stepped ashore from the Dover-Calais packet boat at 23:00 on 11 February and a steady trickle continued until the end of September. The last to arrive were Dumbarton’s Scots, most with no money, not many clothes and even fewer personal possessions. Instead of a future devoted to crime, begging and vagabondage, the customary fate of the discarded soldier, prospects were unusually bright. Dumbarton’s was destined to join the permanent English establishment and recruitment was under way for the Flanders corps: most of the ex-French veterans, both officers and men, were able to find positions. For those unsuccessful, there was always the Anglo-Dutch Brigade, which had been reformed in 1674.56 As further reward for his outstanding service in France, Kirke had been raised to captain lieutenant of the Royal Horse Guards on 7 March 1675. He had returned to England by mid-February 1678. Not only had Kirke experienced battles and sieges, learned about the modern art of war, suffered wounds and demonstrated considerable personal courage but he had secured a new patron, Feversham, reinforcing his association with the Duke of York. On 19 February 1678, Feversham levied the King’s Own Regiment of Dragoons and Kirke was seconded from the Royal Horse Guards ‘three ranks up’ to serve as temporary lieutenant colonel.57

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Promotion

The corollary of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty was a formal military alliance, initialled at Westminster on 2 March and confirmed by the States General in The Hague at the end of the month. England, however, ratified neither instrument allowing Charles to quieten the popular clamour for separation from France while evading formal commitment to the Netherlands. Charles was strongly disinclined to become involved in hostilities because he was still receiving French financial subsidies and privately wished to resume an agreement with Louis. However, when Parliament reassembled early in 1678 it felt sufficiently reassured about the direction of foreign policy to vote £1,000,000 to provide an army corps for the anticipated conflict. Nevertheless, Charles continued to prevaricate, anxious lest overly warlike gestures might offend his Gallic paymaster.1 Parliament retaliated by obstructing all money bills until concerns over religion had been assuaged and some guarantee proffered that the new regiments were actually intended to fight the French. The response of the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne, 1st Earl of Danby (1632–1712), was to award commissions in the expeditionary force to several members of parliament thus reinforcing the court vote and allaying fears that the king was creating an enlarged standing army with which to rule absolutely, ‘for what hazard could there be from an army commanded by men of estates’.2 Meanwhile, Danby and York wrote to the Prince of Orange urging him to negotiate a settlement while explaining that England could not declare war while there remained a possibility that William and Louis might conclude a separate peace. William ignored this casuistry and insisted on the delivery of the troops. Pressed by both the Dutch and the country faction in parliament, Charles eventually dispatched soldiers to Flanders. Immediately after the wedding of William and Mary, the secretary of state, Sir Joseph Williamson (1633–1701), had started contingency planning. Thirteen additional independent garrison companies were to be raised and each of the existing 29 expanded from 60 to 100 men. The Royal Horse Guards were to be augmented from six to eight troops, each of 80 riders, and 20 independent cavalry troops were to be recruited. Four regiments of horse, three of dragoons and 15 battalions of infantry would be created on a ‘hostilities only’ basis. Every battalion would receive a grenadier company, a fad imported from France.3 Altogether, 30,000 extra soldiers

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would be required, some of whom were already available. Enough had returned from the Royal English to form the cadre of Monmouth’s foot regiment, its twin battalions commanded by Lieutenant Colonels Justin MacCarthy and the Yorkshireman, Roger Langley,4 a substantive captain in the 1st Foot Guards. The smattering of Douglas’s Scots who found their way back to England arrived too late to participate in the expansion. Instead, they were incorporated into a new, regular, two-battalion infantry regiment, the 1st or Royal Regiment of Foot – more commonly known as the Royal Scots – which first mustered in Hertfordshire on 1 September 1678 under Colonel Lord James Douglas (d. 1681), Dumbarton’s younger brother.5 Most of the regiments had completed to full strength by 10 March 1678 and were cantoned in the Home Counties. Colonel John Churchill, appointed envoy to the Prince of Orange, informed the States General that the English expeditionary force would consist of 17 infantry battalions, ten squadrons of cavalry, ten of dragoons and an artillery train containing 20 field guns: a grand total of 17,860 men. It was expected to have assembled in Bruges by the end of May. Monmouth was appointed commander-in-chief, assisted by lieutenant generals Lord Feversham, who was second-in-command, and Lord Gerard of Brandon, and major generals Lord Alington, Edward Villiers (d. 1689) and Thomas Dongan. Colonel George Legge, 1st Baron Dartmouth after 1682 (c. 1647–91), lieutenant general of the Ordnance, directed the artillery. Sir Palmes Fairborne (1644–80), who was on extended furlough from Tangier, was appointed commissary of the victuals. Feversham’s Dragoons were included in the corps. Kirke was the effective commander because the colonel was fully occupied with his general duties. John Churchill sailed to Bruges with a detachment comprising seven 1st Foot Guards’ companies, four out of the Coldstream Guards and eight from the Holland Regiment. Meanwhile, the eight-company 2nd battalion of the 1st Foot Guards, under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas, 2nd Baron Howard of Escrick (d. 1678), landed at Ostend on 8 March. These advance parties prepared for the influx of the main body by marking and laying out encampments and storing medical supplies, ammunition and field equipment. Charles reviewed the majority of the newly-raised troops on Hounslow Heath on 22 June and found the cavalry and dragoons ‘indifferently mounted’ but, despite the many novice officers, most of the infantry appeared, fit, well-accoutred and adequately drilled.6 The soldiers crossed to Ostend, Nieuport and Antwerp during July, the regular regiments going into garrison in Ostend to form a solid reserve and the ‘duration’ units manning the advanced base at Bruges. To avoid diplomatic embarrassment, Charles instructed Feversham and the hot-headed Monmouth to avoid any injudicious manoeuvre that might be construed by the French as an offensive act. The Duke of Luxembourg opened the 1678 campaign by feinting towards Ostend and Bruges but there was no danger that he would attack the green British troops, tempted though he might have been, because Charles had not formally declared war on France. Accordingly, Luxembourg veered away, unmolested by the British, in search of William of Orange’s main Hispano-Dutch field army. Apart from mounting guard, parading, training and falling ill, there was little to occupy the British. By the time that Monmouth arrived on 30 July, the unhealthy, malarial polders had created a lengthy sick list, many units already reduced by 25 per cent.

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Despite his father’s entreaties to exercise extreme circumspection, Monmouth was anxious to enhance the reputation gained before Maastricht in 1673. While Kirke and the bulk of the mounted troops stayed in Ostend, eight battalions from Bruges travelled towards William’s camp at Enghien, south of Brussels. Starting on 1 August, they journeyed by water up the North Sea coast, down the estuary of the Scheldt and along the River Senne. Monmouth went overland ahead of his men, reaching Brussels on 3 August. The next morning, at Brain-le-Comte, he joined William’s army which was en route to launch a surprise attack on Luxembourg’s position at the Abbey of St Dennis, whence he was covering the siege of Mons. Although some of the preliminaries of the Peace of Nijmegen had been signed on 1 August, William’s eagerness to mend his martial reputation – badly damaged at Seneffe in 1674 and the second siege of Maastricht in 1676 – and Luxembourg’s determination to defend his own ensured that a major battle occurred on 4–5 August. Monmouth and his personal entourage played an active role and he was nearly captured when rallying a broken squadron of Spanish cavalry. His disciple, Sir Thomas Armstrong, was thrice wounded. However, apart from Monmouth and his volunteers, the only British troops engaged were those from the Anglo-Dutch Brigade commanded by Thomas Butler, 6th Earl of Ossory (1634–80). A truce followed the indecisive action and the war was already over when the British battalions marched into William’s camp on 13 August. Despite Monmouth’s impulsiveness, Charles’s duplicity had been masterly. He had satisfied his Protestant subjects’ pro-Dutch sentiments but avoided fighting the French enabling the flow of Louis’s money and influence to continue. With sickness spreading rapidly throughout the expeditionary force, Charles ordered it back to England for demobilization. Unfortunately, the winter of 1678–9 was one of the coldest of the ‘mini Ice Age’. Without having fired a shot in anger, the corps lost between a quarter and one half of its strength. Most of the ‘hostilities only’ troops, including Feversham’s Dragoons, were duly disbanded and the army reduced to its pre-war size, except for the Royal Scots.7 Although his unit had merely performed occupation duties at Ostend, Kirke’s efficiency must have impressed his superiors because he was allowed to purchase a captaincy in the Royal Horse Guards on 10 May 1679.8 The covenanters of south-west Scotland had rebelled during 1666 against the provocative tactics of the Edinburgh government led by John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale (1616–82). Despite some initial successes, they had been crushed by General Thomas Dalyell of the Binns (c. 1615–85), who had fought in Charles II’s army at Worcester in 1651 before taking employment in Russia and Poland, at the Battle of Rullion Green, in the Pentland Hills near Penicuik, on 28 November.9 A period of intense persecution ensued but the covenanting flame was not extinguished nor the Pentland Rising forgotten. Following the murder of James Sharp, Archbishop of St Andrews (1618–79), on 3 May 1679 another grass-roots movement began to stir in the wake of heavy government repression. In readiness for the anticipated outburst, Charles ordered units of the Irish army to concentrate at Belfast ready to embark for Scotland, called out the militia of Cumberland and Westmorland, and alerted the garrisons of Carlisle and Berwick-on-Tweed. A mass rally on Whitekirke Hill, on the coast opposite the Bass Rock, renewed the covenanters’ determination and shook the confidence of Lauderdale’s administration, which decided that the Scottish army

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was too small to deal with a significant uprising. It requested reinforcements from Whitehall and permission to augment the Scottish establishment, both of which were promptly granted. Beating orders were issued on 23 September 1678 to raise a battalion of infantry under Charles Erskine, 21st Earl of Mar (1650–89), later known as the Scots Fusiliers, three troops of horse and three of dragoons plus two Highland companies. Monmouth, now captain-general of the English army, ordered Sir Lionel Walden’s (1620–98) foot battalion, raised for the Flanders expedition, to reinforce the Scottish army but the instruction was never executed: Walden’s was disbanded except for two companies sent to strengthen the Irish army. The garrisons of Carlisle and Berwick-on-Tweed were directed to liaise with and assist the northern militias, which were ‘not much conversant in military matters’, but no English forces were to enter Scotland unless it became clear that the Scottish army was unable to hold its own.10 Not until 1679 did matters reach a critical point. The Privy Council met in Whitehall on 9 June and resolved to raise extra English forces to help Lauderdale, ‘although most were against it’ on account of the expense,11 huge costs having been recently incurred on the Flanders expedition. At least there was no difficulty in filling the rolls from among the recently disbanded soldiers. It was decided to recruit three regiments of cavalry, three of foot, 11 companies of dragoons and three troops of horse grenadiers, a total of 5,520 men. Only a minority of these units was actually created: Monmouth’s Horse, re-raised on 11 June 1679 under Colonel Lord Brandon; Feversham’s regiment of dragoons, with Captain Percy Kirke again seconded from the Royal Horse Guards as temporary lieutenant colonel;12 and three troops of horse grenadiers, one attached to each of the troops of the Life Guard.13 Monmouth was appointed ‘General of all the Forces in Scotland’. The emergency measures were unnecessary. After defeating 150 regular dragoons under Captain John Graham of Claverhouse (c. 1648–89) at the ‘Battle’ of Drumclog (1 June 1679) and occupying Glasgow, the 6,000strong covenanting army lost impetus and direction. On 22 June at Bothwell Bridge on the River Clyde, it was routed by about 3,000 regular troops commanded by Monmouth. The rebellion was over.14 Kirke had played little part except to patrol the Anglo-Scottish border with four troops of cavalry and three from Feversham’s Dragoons.15 When Monmouth left Edinburgh for London on 6 July his career was at its zenith but the fall of this ‘great Trojan Hector’16 was swift. On 1 November 1679, Charles informed the Scottish Privy Council that Monmouth had been dismissed as captaingeneral of both the English and Scottish armies, his place north of the border being assigned to Thomas Dalyell.17 In England, no successor was named and overall command reverted to the principal secretary of state. On 24 November, Monmouth surrendered the captaincy of the Life Guards to his old friend and associate, Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle (1653–88), who had remained steadfast to the king throughout the Exclusion Crisis. In 1682 Albemarle also succeeded Monmouth as chancellor of the University of Oxford, a post of considerable significance in the Tory pantheon because Oxford had been both Charles I’s headquarters during the first Civil War and his son’s choice of venue for the parliament in March 1681 at which the Exclusionists had been routed. So dangerous was the political predicament caused by the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis between 1678 and 1681 that Charles looked to the army to underpin his throne

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and consequently demanded unwavering and unquestioning fidelity from its officers. Although Monmouth had not been commissioned captain-general of the English army until April 1678, his influence had been growing since his return from France in 1673. Until his death in 1670, day-to-day military administration had been left in Albemarle’s competent and politically safe hands. The Secret Treaty of Dover raised the possibility of the army being employed domestically to enforce religious change making it essential to replace Monck with another political neutral who could command the respect of the soldiery. No suitable candidate appeared, although William, 1st Earl of Craven (c. 1608–97), was considered,18 so the running of the army was assigned to a committee or, in contemporary parlance, ‘put into commission’. This council of colonels, chaired by York, considered ‘military affairs and the well ordering of the forces … unregulated since my Lord General’s death’.19 High sounding words but an army cannot be led by a committee, especially one so unwieldy and internally discordant. The result was that both executive command and routine administration fell on to the desk of Lord Arlington,20 the principal secretary of state. Under the spasmodically watchful eye of the king, who reserved the right to sign all important military documents, Arlington ran the army from 1671 until 1674 and his successor, Sir Joseph Williamson, continued as virtual commander-in-chief and chief of staff until 1678. With the exception of York, who retained a powerful influence over both army and navy appointments despite losing all his official positions following the passage of the first Test Act in 1673, none of the leading soldiers could challenge the dominance of the politicians: Craven and Oxford were Privy Councillors but removed from the real centres of power, and Prince Rupert was old and ineffective. So weak was the army’s higher command that General Herman von Schomberg (1615–90), a German Protestant in French service, was imported to command the Blackheath army and Zealand expedition in 1673.21 The Third AngloDutch War was managed without a soldier in the government while the preparations and planning for the Flanders Expedition of 1678 were entirely Williamson’s work.22 Following his heroics before Maastricht, Monmouth was popularly viewed as the head of the army but he was never granted Monck’s title of Lord General and at no time did he approach the extent of his authority. Although Monmouth was the apple of his father’s eye, paternal pride was not allowed to over-rule common sense. Nevertheless, Monmouth acquired some limited powers. In 1674, Charles gave instructions that all orders relating to the army should first be examined by Monmouth before receiving royal approval and signature by a secretary of state. In 1676 Monmouth gained the right to order ‘removals of quarters, the reliefs of any of our established troops or companies, and the sending of all convoys needful for our services’ but these were mundane matters. The nearest he came to outright command was to be commissioned captain general of the Flanders Expedition of 1678 and the Scottish forces in 1679 but all his orders, except tactical and operational instructions issued in the field, had to be countersigned by the secretary at war and endorsed by the king. Thus, the principal secretary of state continued to drive the army. Administration was delegated to his junior, the secretary at war, who was little more than a specialist clerk until William Blathwayt (c. 1650–1717) purchased the post in 1683 and developed its potential.23 Another sign of Monmouth’s inferior position was his inability to dominate military patronage and pack the army with his acolytes. He appears to have acquired

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sufficient informal authority to exercise the right of first refusal over commissions up to and including the rank of captain but York nominated field and general officers. Therefore, when Monmouth attached himself to the cause of Exclusion, the lack of personal support among the upper military echelons meant that his dismissal created no serious repercussions for the smooth functioning of the army. Monmouth’s relatively few followers, and others who openly avowed Exclusion, were deprived of their commissions between 1679 and 1682. His comrade Sir Thomas Armstrong, MP for Stafford, voted for the first Exclusion Bill in the House of Commons. He was exiled from court in August 1679 although allowed to his sell his lieutenancy in the King’s Troop of the Life Guard to Edward Griffin (d. 1710),24 a life-long Yorkist. Some of the displaced sought positions in the Anglo-Dutch Brigade and other European armies. The 1st Foot Guards were purged to ensure that all officers were true devotees of the Church of England and believers in the doctrines of passive obedience and the divine right of kings. Several changes of personnel eradicated the last vestiges of the Good Old Cause from the Coldstream Guards. So thorough was the cleansing that when York returned to London from exile in Brussels and Scotland, his martial friends felt confident enough to arrange a welcoming ‘military feast’ at the premises of the Artillery Company on Bishopsgate. Between 21 and 28 March 1681, Charles attended parliament in Oxford and had sufficient faith and trust to rely upon the army’s protection while on the road and resident in the city. Equally important, the safety of London and Westminster was entrusted to Lord Craven commanding elements of the standing army including ten of the 12 companies of the Coldstream Guards, now shorn of its remaining Cromwellian associations. Craven was authorized to suppress disorder by any ‘act[s] of hostility permitted by the usages of war’. In the aftermath of the political defeat of the Exclusionist movement at Oxford and the subsequent removal of Whigs from national and local government, a further combing through guards’ commissions was conducted during 1682.25 Between 1681 and 1685, Charles’s main concern was to ensure his brother’s unhindered accession. An essential pre-condition was the modernization of the army officer corps, a task rendered much easier by Monmouth’s departure and the concomitant purges. The old cavalier whose father had fought for Charles I or, in some cases, had himself served in the royalist armies, was now out-moded. Not only was his military knowledge dated but his inflexible belief in the Anglican monopoly of office and the centrality of parliament was inappropriate in an army now umbilically attached to a more muscular monarchy. York sought to replace these relics with the new species of professional officers, trained in France and Tangier, apparently apolitical and dependent for advancement upon the goodwill of the royal brothers. Many of the remaining old royalists were transferred from the marching regiments into less important garrisons, distant independent companies and the colonies. The key commissions in the standing army were awarded to the coming men, such as John Lanier, John Coy, Theophilus Oglethorpe, John and George Churchill, the Trelawney brothers, Edmund Mayne, Feversham, and Percy Kirke. The attempt by the House of Commons during the Exclusion Crisis to interfere with the legitimate succession and curtail the monarchy’s prerogative had also caused Charles to begin adjusting his relationship with parliament: it would not be allowed to meet again until the franchise

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had been sufficiently manipulated to guarantee that a reliable electorate returned members attuned to the king’s interest, a long and unsuccessful process that would occupy nearly a decade. These changes were greatly assisted by improving royal finances. An upturn in the overseas trading cycle meant that the original crown revenue of £1,200,000 p.a. was more or less realized while stringent economies in household expenditure initiated by Danby during the 1670s had resulted in total annual income closer to £1,400,000 between 1681 and 1685. In addition, France continued to provide modest subsidies. Charles’s preparations for his brother’s accession involved a degree of severity and harshness. The dissenters, always associated with Whiggery, were harassed and persecuted: the more extreme the sect, the greater the level of repression, the gauche and contrary Quakers suffering especially hard treatment. Healthier finances allowed the returning Tangier garrison to be added to the regular establishment. Charles began the construction of a palace near Winchester, close to the important naval and military base at Portsmouth, far from Whiggish London. Unpleasant memories of the decisive role played by the City rabble in driving his father from Whitehall in 1642 were probably instrumental in the choice of southern Hampshire, although Louis XIV’s removal to Versailles in 1682 to avoid the baying mobs of Paris was also influential. Yet, this all fell far short of absolutism; an ageing and ailing Charles sought security and ease plus some reasonable assurance that his dynasty would endure, at least for the time being.26 Late in 1684, Charles asked Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723), surveyor-general of the royal buildings, how soon his new house at Winchester might be ready because he felt that the sea air would be better for his health than the climate at Windsor. Wren replied, ‘In two years’, but Charles pressed him to say that it might be done in one. ‘Yes’, said Wren, ‘but not so well, nor without great confusion, charge and inconvenience.’ ‘Well’, said the king, ‘if it is possible to be done in one year, I will have it so; for a year is a great deal in my life.’27 As Charles spent more time among his race horses and maturing mistresses, York assumed a greater role in the daily affairs of government. In June 1684, the old-style, Protestant royalist, Thomas Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond[e] (1610–88), was replaced as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by the new-model loyalist, Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester (c. 1642–1711). His authority, however, was emasculated, all military powers being transferred to the lieutenant general of Ireland, Arthur Forbes, 1st Earl of Granard (1623–95), who was charged with issuing Irish military commissions subject to supervision by the principal secretary of state in Whitehall. Charles justified this policy by explaining that the Irish officer corps was still replete with Old Cromwellians and thus insufficiently reliable. He intended to retire these gentlemen and give their places to dependable, dependent and deserving Roman Catholics. Acting on the advice of one of his swordsman friends, Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell (1630–91), York stood firmly behind this initiative. Talbot’s counsel, however, was partial, wrong-headed and heavily coloured by his own agenda.28 Many thought this development a rehearsal for the Catholicization that York might introduce into England when he became king. Kirke had sufficiently impressed Monmouth in Flanders and during the Bothwell Bridge campaign to deserve his promotion. He was fortunate that after losing two

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patrons he still enjoyed the support of a pair of loyal, court Tories, Oxford and Feversham, the latter leading directly to York.29 Kirke, already a proven, tested, professional soldier whose first allegiance was to Charles and his brother, perfectly fitted the requirements of the changing times.

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4

Governor of Tangier

Tangier, a Portuguese colony since 1471, was ceded to England in 1661 as part of Queen Catherine of Braganza’s dowry. The Earl of Peterborough, an impecunious old royalist soldier who had converted to Roman Catholicism, was appointed captain-general from 6 September 1661. He reached Tangier Bay on 29 January 1662 accompanied by an ad hoc battalion of 1,000 infantry, comprising mostly troops disbanded recently from the English New Model. Three additional foot regiments, totalling 2,000 men, sailed directly from Dunkirk.1 Unhappy at the prospect of rule by heretics, much of the Portuguese population volunteered for repatriation leaving the town largely bereft of civilian inhabitants, a lacuna subsequently filled partially by a smattering of military and merchant families. Located on the northern coast of Morocco or Barbary, Tangier was ideally situated both as a refuge for commercial shipping passing into and out of the Mediterranean and a base from which the Royal Navy could dominate the Straits of Gibraltar and frighten the local corsairs. Although lying 12 miles east of Cape Spartel, Tangier suffered Atlantic weather and the small harbour required a major extension to the existing breakwater, or mole, in order to accommodate ocean-going vessels. This ruinously expensive construction stretched the capabilities of contemporary civil engineering and the project remained unfinished when the station was evacuated in 1684.2 The town was pleasant and spacious, the climate temperate and the small hinterland fertile but the political state of northwest Africa gave cause for concern. In 1664, Moulay r-Rshid (reigned 1664–72) – the English called him the ‘Great Tafiletta’ because he hailed from the date-growing region of Tafilalt south of the Atlas Mountains – defeated and killed in battle his brother Mohammed, ruler of the northern provinces. This created a seemingly unified kingdom under the Alaouite dynasty but in practice Morocco remained a federation of sparring warlords. The regional chieftain whom the English first encountered was Abn Allah Ghailan (usually ‘Gayland’ or ‘Guyland’). Fortunately, Ghailan, initially a supporter of Mohammed, was frequently distracted by squabbles with another local worthy, the ‘Saint of Sallee’, ruler of the pirate base of Salé (Sali, Saly). Spanish (Ceuta, Mâmora and Larache) and Portuguese (Mazagan or El Jadida) garrisons around the Moroccan coast further complicated the situation because Portugal had separated from Spain in 1640 and was still fighting for her independence, with assistance from

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English and French auxiliaries. France, to enable co-operation between her Atlantic and Mediterranean fleets,3 and the Dutch Republic, in order to facilitate trade with Italy and the Levant, also sought to influence regional politics. The Tangier garrison, whose numbers throughout the 22 years of English occupation rarely exceeded 1,500 men and often sank below 1,000, was an unholy and impossible mixture of ex-New Modellers, old royalists and Irish Roman Catholics. There was never enough money – the entire annual charge, ranging between £32,000 and £43,000, had to be found from the king’s personal revenue – rendering the colony perpetually short of provisions, equipment, arms, ammunition and recruits. Parliament refused to help because it regarded the colony as a ‘nursery of papists’ where de facto religious toleration was necessarily condoned and a reserve of trained troops that the crown might repatriate at any moment to initiate government by the sword. Despite the fact that the garrison was fully occupied with its own survival, these fears were not entirely groundless although the British mercenary groupings in France and the United Provinces were more immediate and obvious threats. There was talk in 1664 of redeploying the Portuguese Brigade to Tangier in order to defeat Ghailan and conquer a viable hinterland, including Salé, but nothing came of the suggestion until 1668 when the Treaty of Lisbon finally recognized Portugal’s independence. Four hundred survivors then went to reinforce Tangier only to find the governor, Henry Norwood (c. 1614–89), incensed at their arrival because he had insufficient provisions and accommodation. The remaining 600 were disbanded in England. Tangier had failed to thrive during two centuries of Portuguese occupation largely because it was encircled by dominating high ground. From the mid-1660s to the early 1670s the English garrison constructed two concentric arcs of redoubts and small forts, respectively 400 and 800 yards from the main enceinte, linked by palisades and communication trenches. This defensive scheme, a development of the inherited outworks, was designed between 1663 and 1665 by Sir Bernard de Gomme (1620–85), the royal engineer, but it was too close to the city and failed to alleviate the disadvantage of the enclosing hills.4 From the outset, Tangier came under attack from Ghailan’s forces.5 Apart from a short period between 1663 and 1664 when Andrew Rutherford, 1st Earl of Teviot (d. 1664), was in command, the garrison stood on the defensive. However, following his death at the Battle of Jew’s Hill on 4 May 1664, pressure gradually slackened as Ghailan became embroiled in civil war within Morocco.6 By 1669 he had been driven into exile in Algeria and his provinces taken over by a chieftain appointed directly by Moulay r-Rshid. Tangier thereafter suffered sporadic alarms and an undeclared war of ‘posts and ambuscades’ rumbled on until 7 January 1678 when it intensified into a closer blockade. On 25 March 1680, Omar, Alcaid of Alcazar, the provincial chief of North Barbary, was ordered by Sultan Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif (reigned 1672–1727) to reduce the size of the English hinterland to that which had been formerly held by the Portuguese. At the head of 7,000 men, on the following day he opened the ‘Great Siege’ (26 March to 14 May 1680) of Forts Charles, Henrietta and Giles, more commonly known as Devil’s Drop, which guarded the right-hand sector of the outer perimeter. Governor William O’Brien, 2nd Earl of Inchiquin (c. 1640–92), who had held office since 1674, made no effective response except to increase his alcohol consumption: the beleaguered

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forts were not reinforced and neither diversionary operations nor sallies attempted. Inchiquin could not be shaken from his stupor despite the arrival of the nine-vessel squadron of Vice Admiral Arthur Herbert (1648–1716) carrying a reinforcement of 250 men plus the highly experienced and effective deputy-governor, Sir Palmes Fairborne, who had served in Tangier since 1662 and was returning from a lengthy leave in England. On 14 May, the garrisons of Forts Charles and Henrietta tried to break through the Moroccan encirclement but few men succeeded in reaching the safety of the town. A catastrophic defeat was compounded when Devil’s Drop fell later that day. In desperation, Inchiquin agreed a four-month truce with the Alcaid Omar but at the humiliating cost of surrendering both Pole Fort and Norwood Redoubt, thereby presenting the attackers with a salient through the centre of both the first and second defensive lines, and promising neither to repair existing nor construct any new fortifications. With the majority of the outer works now in enemy hands and those few remaining to the garrison overlooked, outflanked, isolated and damaged, Tangier’s security depended upon the dilapidated town walls. Fairborne informed Charles that unless 500 cavalry and 4,000 infantry were provided immediately, all the buildings should be blown up and the place evacuated.7 At the height of the Exclusion Crisis, when Francophobia was rabid, concern was expressed that Charles might be tempted to sell Tangier to Louis XIV. A bill was accordingly introduced into the House of Commons annexing Tangier to the imperial crown of England, a development prima facie attractive to the king because the full cost would have been transferred to parliament. Although the bill was lost at the dissolution on 18 January 1681, Charles, who was committed to the propagation of English foreign trade and the enhancement of his own international prestige, had already decided to reinforce the colony according to Fairborne’s blueprint despite Lord Sunderland8 whispering in his ear that it ought to be abandoned unless parliament could be persuaded to meet the entire charge. Although he could ill-afford to weaken the English standing army amid the domestic instability created by the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis, the British Isles were replete with available, unemployed veterans from the returned French Brigade and recent disbandments following the Flanders and Scottish expeditions. During March 1680 the business of organizing reinforcements started in Ireland where the crown could operate both expeditiously, quietly and with few legal constraints. Lord Lieutenant Ormond arranged the embarkation of four English companies9 at Kinsale.10 This detachment reached Tangier on 4 April 1680 in time to assist during the latter stages of the critical period. The 12, Roman Catholic companies of the Royal Scots, under the command of Major James Halkett (d. 1684),11 were ordered to assemble in Munster within four days’ march of Cork.12 Halkett reported that only with great difficulty could the men be persuaded to leave their billets because they were owed 12 months’ pay. However, having reached the harbour, Halkett was informed that there was no longer any need for undue haste because a six-month truce had been agreed at Tangier. Halkett’s 740 soldiers then received their arrears plus an advance of three months, leading to a considerable reduction in the rate of desertion. They sailed aboard HMS Ruby (4th rate, 66 guns), Phoenix (4th rate, 42 guns), Garland and Guernsey (5th rates, 30 guns) on 15 or 16 July and made a quick

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passage, arriving on 1 August.13 Halkett brought the welcome but inaccurate news that the well-regarded Earl of Ossory was coming to take command. The four English companies that had already arrived from Kinsale were added to the 12 from the Royal Scots forming, under Halkett, a composite regiment of 16 companies divided into two battalions. It was a powerful and experienced unit, most of the officers and soldiers having fought in the French army during the 1670s. As soon as news of the Great Siege began to circulate in England Charles exploited the opportunity to soften opinion by licensing publication of numerous official and privately printed pamphlets celebrating the defenders’ heroism and emphasizing the national advantages to be gained from Tangier’s retention.14 By July he felt able to announce openly his intention to augment the garrison to 4,000 infantry and 500 or 600 cavalry. Inchiquin was sacked and Ossory appointed governor, a position he was glad to accept because he needed the salary and perquisites to meet heavy debts. This also suited York who, it was rumoured, had nominated Ossory to rid himself of a rival for dominance over the armed forces. Unfortunately, Ossory contracted typhus on 26 July and died in London four days later. No replacement was made leaving Lieutenant Governor Fairborne in overall command. The next reinforcement was the ‘King’s Battalion’ comprising 600 regulars drawn from the English standing army15 led by temporary Lieutenant Colonel Edward Sackville,16 which landed at Tangier on 2 July. Beating orders were issued on 13 July for raising a new regiment of foot (Plymouth’s; the 2nd Tangier Regiment; Charles Trelawney’s; Queen’s Regiment; ultimately 4th Foot) consisting of 16 companies each of 65 men besides officers. It was recruited in Devon and Cornwall close to the embarkation ports of Plymouth and Falmouth. Charles’s illegitimate son by Catherine Pegge (d. 1678), Charles Fitzcharles, 1st Earl of Plymouth (c. 1657–80), who had picked up a modicum of military know-how in the Dutch army during 1677 and 1678, was commissioned colonel and Captain Percy Kirke was seconded from the Royal Horse Guards as temporary lieutenant colonel. Neither played any part in organizing the unit because, anxious not to miss the action, they had travelled to Tangier with Sackville’s battalion in the company of several gentleman volunteers, including Lord Mulgrave and Richard, 1st Baron Lumley, 1st Earl of Scarborough from 1689 (1650–1721).17 Tangier had suffered from a shortage of cavalry since 1662 because it was difficult and expensive to acquire suitably acclimatized mounts: accordingly, the hilly, broken ground was deemed unsuitable for mounted action. Peterborough had originally raised three troops of horse, about 150 men, but there were only 100 riders in 1665 and 30 by 1668. Contrary to official reasoning, horsemen were invaluable for scouting and reconnaissance, uncovering ambushes, foraging, skirmishing and patrolling.18 To improve the situation, it was decided to enrol six new troops. Reports of peace with the Moors reached England before three of these troops had set sail and their embarkation was cancelled. The remaining three, mounted on old horses purchased from the Life Guards, reached Tangier in late September 1680. In conjunction with the resident troop and 200 auxiliary Spanish horsemen, they proved most effective during the operations in late October. Sackville and Halkett brought impetus, competence and energy, training their regiments daily and maintaining tight discipline. Fairborne was so encouraged that he

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ordered the Governor’s or 1st Tangier Regiment,19 which Inchiquin had allowed to fall into slack and idle ways, to be similarly exercised. When the four-month truce expired on 15 September 1680, the Alcaid Omar promptly began a desultory bombardment. Fairborne summoned a council of war. Rather than await attack, which had proved consistently unsuccessful in the past, the meeting resolved to act offensively. Placing Halkett’s large regiment plus the King’s Battalion and 600 seamen from Admiral Herbert’s squadron, commanded by temporary Major Charles Barclay (Royal Scots), in the first line with the 1st Tangier Regiment in support, Fairborne sallied with nearly the entire garrison at 05:00 on 20 September. The objective was to regain Pole Fort and its surrounding entrenchments, the key post governing the lower slopes of the high ground to the town’s left centre. Kirke, Plymouth, the other volunteers and 200 picked regulars formed the vanguard under temporary Major Thomas Talmash. Taken by surprise, the Moors offered scant resistance and Pole Fort and its surroundings were quickly reoccupied. On the cold, wet night of 20–1 September, Talmash’s volunteers and the King’s Battalion bivouacked in the empty, roofless and severely damaged Pole Fort. Exhausted and parched after a hard day in the field, Plymouth drank some contaminated, casual water and died from dysentery on 17 October: Kirke assumed acting command of Plymouth’s unit, subsequently renamed the 2nd Tangier Regiment. On 22 September, Lieutenant Edward Fitzpatrick (d. 1696, Holland Regiment), leading detachments from the King’s Battalion and the 1st Tangier Regiment, extended the lodgement. All the officers, including Kirke, ‘behaved themselves like brave and gallant men’.20 However, Kirke’s brother Philip, then a captain in the Holland Regiment and King’s Battalion, along with Sackville, Talmash, Halkett, Fortrey, Lieutenant James Bridgeman (d. 1692) (King’s Battalion and Coldstream Guards) and Lieutenant Edward Fitzpatrick merited individual praise. Major Martin Beckman (c. 1635–1702), the chief engineer at Tangier, supervised the immediate repair of Pole Fort. Throughout October, work continued on recovering and renovating the old fortifications. In response to an ominous increase in Moorish aggression, Fairborne reconnoitred in person on 24 October but was ambushed, shot and mortally wounded when venturing too close to enemy positions. Sackville, now senior officer, convened a council of war on the following day. It resolved to launch a pre-emptive sally by the whole garrison, which had been reduced by over 50 per cent to just 1,500 effective men in six infantry battalions and seven cavalry troops, plus Barclay’s 600 seamen and other ad hoc detachments. At 15:00 on 27 October the garrison exited the town as quietly as possible and deployed into line of battle beyond the walls. First, the naval corps feinted towards some Moorish batteries close to the eastern shore, while a motley collection of cart horses and Tangier militia undertook a second diversion to the west. The Moors responded as expected, bleeding their centre to strengthen the flanks. On a pre­arranged signal, the 150-strong garrison of Pole Fort sallied to their front and assaulted the Moorish lines while the main force hurried forward to reinforce the thrust. Covered by infantry, the engineers levelled the Moorish siege trenches to prepare a path for the cavalry. The Spanish and Tangier Horse then passed through, drove the Moors from the field and pursued them into their own camp. Barely conscious, Fairborne was carried in a chair on to the ramparts of the Upper Castle to witness the final charge. This man of initiative, courage, skill and capacity, Tangier’s single firm anchor since

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Teviot’s death in 1664, died soon after receiving news of victory.21 The Moroccans had habitually mutilated any British dead and wounded left on previous battlefields but, to the officers’ shame and embarrassment, barbarity was reciprocated on this occasion. Prior to the action the Moors had numbered around 3,000 men, 500 of whom became casualties. The recapture of Pole Fort and this ‘day of the great sally’ were the only significant successes gained by the Tangier garrison since Teviot’s time and demonstrated that British discipline and firepower were usually decisive in the open field. For too long they had allowed their opponents to dictate tactics.22 Shortly afterwards, the Alcaid sent a curt note complaining that the attack had contravened recent agreements and was nothing less than cold-blooded murder. A fuller letter to the same effect was delivered on the next day, this time addressed to Herbert who, naturally, showed it to Sackville. Halkett deduced that the Moors were thoroughly rattled and advocated a series of offensives to recover all the ground lost since 25 March. He was thus horrified to read Sackville’s draft reply. First, he committed the cardinal sin of admitting that the garrison had also suffered severely in the recent fighting. Secondly, he intimated that a diplomatic solution was preferable to renewed fighting telling the Alcaid that he had been fully empowered by King Charles to negotiate a peace agreement. Herbert advised strongly against mentioning either the garrison’s weakness or the desirability of peace but, nevertheless, the letter was dispatched unaltered. The result was predictable: the following morning dawned to reveal the Alcaid’s forces drawn up before the lines seemingly brimful of confidence. Sackville summoned a council of war to discuss a cessation of arms, arguing that peace at almost any price was in the best interests of all parties. Knowing that an ambassador from the Court of St James’s to the Sultan of Morocco at Meknès (Mequinez) was expected any day on board a convoy that was also carrying Plymouth’s, now Kirke’s, regiment of infantry and 200 recruits for the Royal Scots, Halkett and most of the other senior officers recommended that Sackville await their arrival before responding to the Alcaid. In the meantime, work should continue on restoring Pole Fort and the lines. Initially, only Henry Sheres (c. 1641–1710), surveyor general of Tangier, backed Sackville. Nevertheless, the acting governor ignored the council’s recommendations and sent a Mr Beacher, ‘who is no soldier’,23 to discuss terms. The Alcaid entertained no debate and told the envoy that his master could accept one of three options: war; an extension of the current truce for two months; or a peace lasting six months. The uncompromising attitude of the Moors confirmed Sackville’s reasoning that a period of quiet was imperative: the garrison had suffered substantial casualties – between 600 and 700 soldiers had been killed in the fighting between 20 September and 27 October – half the remaining troops were sick, fresh provisions were in short supply and Herbert needed to careen and refit his vessels. Even though Kirke’s regiment was in transit, it would have been impossible to put Tangier into an effective state of defence within two months. Indeed, so great was the damage to the outer fortifications that proper repairs and modernization were unachievable within any of the proffered time limits. The proposed non-military conditions were not ungenerous allowing freedom of trade and facilities for fishing, wood-cutting, foraging, hunting and stone-quarrying. Also the Moors agreed to bring to Tangier’s market every month 100 head of cattle, 200 sheep, 1,000 fowls plus quantities of fruit. In return, the Alcaid

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demanded an annual tribute of muskets, gunpowder and cloth and insisted that no new fortifications should be built beyond the town walls. Sackville, supported by Sheres and Kirke, therefore accepted a six-month treaty subject to confirmation by the ambassador. A more heroic stance would have risked defeat and the total loss of the colony. On 1 November 1680, Talmash sailed to Cadiz before setting out overland to bring an account of proceedings to Whitehall. Halkett and his supporters were highly critical of Sackville accusing him of misunderstanding the nature of the country and the enemy. His conduct also caused the garrison officers to split into ‘peace’ and ‘war’ factions at a time when common purpose was essential.24 Sackville, however, remained adamant: the garrison was too weak to fight another series of battles and Tangier had so few friends in Whitehall that it was unrealistic to expect further reinforcement.25 He had also acquired a high regard for the Moroccan soldiers: ‘vigilant, hardy, patient and laborious’, lacking only European standards of discipline. Peace was the only rational policy. In his first independent command, Sackville had emerged as an effective and pragmatic leader and his approach probably influenced Kirke’s subsequent governorship. He showed self-assurance, had the strength of character to risk unpopularity by discounting the opinions of the majority of his colleagues and acted promptly and decisively. Having come from England with Sackville, Kirke was also cognizant of the discussions concerning Tangier’s future. This, and the fact that both he and Sackville were clients of the Duke of York, persuaded him to back the acting governor. Kirke thus revealed a fine sense of the importance of military subordination as well as a shrewd analysis of character, circumstance and self-interest. The convoy carrying Kirke’s regiment and Major Sir James Lesley,26 the ambassador to Meknès, arrived early in December. Lesley had already undertaken some diplomatic missions to Morocco and had been knighted to improve his status but the Moors were to be insulted at the choice of a man from such lowly social origins. Initially, Lesley was annoyed to discover that Sackville had usurped his authority by agreeing to a treaty which limited the future construction of fortifications: the Tangier Committee in London27 had impressed upon him the necessity for additional and more distant fortifications now that the Moors had learned, mainly from Christian renegades, the techniques of modern siege warfare. Sackville countered by arguing that it would be impossible to conquer and hold any additional ground. Thereafter, Lesley regarded Sackville, Sheres and Kirke with deep suspicion.28 At the initial meeting with the Alcaid Omar and his counsellors, Lesley requested that more land be granted to the colony for the erection of additional fortifications but, having been recently reinforced by Sultan Moulay Ismail and equipped with the insight volunteered in Sackville’s letter, the Alcaid replied that this would result in a renewal of hostilities, which he knew was beyond the garrison’s capabilities. Reluctantly, Lesley confirmed the six-month truce. In the meantime he prepared his equipage, complete with an arsenal of suitable bribes and gifts, for the journey to Meknès to negotiate a definitive treaty. These arrangements took an inexplicably long time and the sultan deliberately allowed his impatience to become public leading the Alcaid to suggest to Sackville that a senior officer might accompany him to Meknès as an envoy from Ambassador Lesley to explain the delay and apologize to Moulay

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Ismail. Sackville approached Lieutenant Colonel Kirke. In January 1681 he set off in company with the Alcaid through a country largely unknown to the English who had seen little more of Morocco than the view from Peterborough Tower. Kirke, whose letters revealed an open mind allied to a deep, non-judgemental interest in all that he witnessed, was very pleasantly surprised. Initially at least, he was quite charmed by the courtesy and civility of the people, although he soon found the numerous, eloquent, verbose speeches rather trying, and enjoyed hunting boar, antelope, hare and partridge.29 After a wait at Alcazar (Ksar el Kebir) in the hope that Lesley might catch up, the Alcaid decided not to test further his master’s tolerance and took Kirke forward to Meknès, situated in the northern foothills of the Atlas Mountains, where they arrived around 26 February. Meknès, the ‘Versailles of this kingdom’, was largely Moulay Ismail’s creation and its orange groves, aqueducts, canals and cool pavements of painted tiles impressed Kirke. Equally stirring was the 25-mile circuit of modern defensive walls. After receiving the colonel with great pomp in the palace garden, the sultan offered four years of peace. Kirke was then taken to watch Moroccan military units exercising on an adjacent plain. Most Christians regarded Moulay Ismail as a vicious, blood-thirsty, tyrannical, capricious thug and slavemaster whose rule relied upon murder, terror and sadistic violence. By Moroccan standards, however, his government was remarkably progressive because he had successfully suppressed the powers and independence of regional warlords and achieved a semblance of centralization. Life and private property were probably more secure than in any previous era. He maintained a standing army, principally consisting of black mercenaries from the Sudan, charged with subduing internal opposition, smiting the infidel in the form of the English, Spanish and Portuguese garrisons clinging to the Mediterranean coast and bickering with his neighbour, the Dey of Algeria. In general he hated and despised Europeans but feigned an instant liking for Kirke, subjecting him to aggressively effusive flattery. Although this shallow harmony lubricated subsequent negotiations, the well-informed sultan could afford to be courteous because he knew of the strong anti-Tangier rumblings in Whitehall and realized that if he waited beneath the tree the ripe fruit would soon fall into his hands. Thus the real purpose of the discussions and subsequent treaty was not the future of Tangier, which would revert to Morocco in any case, but the acquisition of ‘contraband’ in the form of English muskets, cannon and military-strength gunpowder required for the sultan’s current conflicts against Algeria; his nephew Moulay Hamet, governor of the southerly province of Sous; and the Spanish garrison at Mâmora. Initially the worldly Kirke’s head was slightly turned by the sultan’s munificence but he quickly realized that he was acting in a pantomime. Nevertheless, when writing to Sackville and Lesley in Tangier, Kirke usually described the sultan in generous terms because all mails were intercepted. By 10 March 1681 Moulay Ismail was preparing to enter the field with his army to fight Moulay Hamet and let it be known that he was tired of waiting for Lesley. Kirke promptly informed Sackville that if the ambassador had not arrived in Meknès within 13 days then the sultan would have gone, further straining his already fragile confidence in English good faith. In the meantime, Kirke and his companions30 were allowed to undertake a three-day visit to the old capital of Fez (Fes), escorted by the

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Alcaid. The city was declining from its former grandeur and the fabric somewhat decayed but he was much taken by the canals and orange groves and the famous stables built to accommodate 200 horses in an interior cooled by a roof 50 feet high and tanks of water beneath the floor. Returning to Meknès, Kirke had a further interview with the sultan who invited him to convert to Islam, ‘saying that he loved him and would be his friend for I had done that never Christian had done before, which was to trust him and for that reason he swore there never should be bullet shot against Tangier so long as I was in it’.31 This incident was to grow in later retelling. Before leaving Tangier on 9 March, Lesley received last-minute instructions from Whitehall to insist upon the right to fortify the walls, maintain the ditch, re-occupy some of the lost ground and reconstruct damaged fortifications although the final point might be conceded in extremis. He also carried a memorandum from the mayor and corporation of Tangier requesting improved arrangements for trade and fishing. Lesley reached Meknès on 20 March. He was received politely by Moulay Ismail who promptly departed on campaign leaving the Alcaid Omar to conduct detailed negotiations. Doubtless following his master’s directions, the Alcaid had concealed from Kirke his deep hatred of the English but did not dissemble before Lesley. The recapture of Tangier had long been a personal obsession and he regarded the continued English occupation as an affront to his dignity and status. A clever, devious and ‘subtle’ man, he outclassed the combined diplomatic skills of Lesley and Kirke whose room for manoeuvre was constrained by knowledge that the Whitehall government could not sustain an uncompromising and high-handed stance. Consequently they could gain neither concessions on fortification nor progress towards securing a maritime peace between England and the pirate bases along the Moroccan coast. All that the Alcaid would grant, albeit reluctantly, was peace for four years. As was customary in diplomacy with Muslim states, the return of Christian slaves was also discussed.32 Among the 2,500 non-Muslim captives held by the sultan, mostly employed on his numerous construction projects in Meknès, were 130 English, including 70 soldiers from the Tangier garrison. The Alcaid demanded 200 pieces-of-eight for each, well beyond the cash reserves carried by Lesley and Kirke. They were obliged to leave Meknès empty-handed although correspondence about the release of these slaves continued for several months. When the requested sums were eventually offered, the Alcaid replied that the English had clearly misunderstood because the price per head was 200 ducats.33 The fact that a peace treaty of any description was signed on 29 March 1681 probably owed something to the superficially friendly relationship that had developed between Kirke and the sultan. The sole source of comfort was Moulay Ismail’s agreement to send an ambassador to England equipped with plenary powers to arrange a peace by sea and amend any articles in the Meknès Treaty that were unacceptable to Charles. Kirke returned to Tangier to report to Sackville and await the Moroccan ambassador’s arrival. His health failing, Sackville sailed to England during the spring of 1681. He had performed well in Tangier and was rewarded, on 1 March 1682, by promotion to lieutenant colonel of the Coldstream Guards. Kirke became acting governor. There was no competition for the now-unprestigious governorship because the Whitehall administration was quickly losing confidence in the colony’s long-term viability.

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General Percy Kirke and the Later Stuart Army

Charles and his ministers desired a governor prepared to pursue an inexpensive, considered policy towards the Moors founded on diplomacy, restraint, realism and tact rather than a firebrand likely to plunge them into costly and unsustainable war. As the leader of the ‘peace faction’ among the garrison officers, Kirke was an ideal sitting candidate. Accordingly, he was confirmed as governor on 26 January 1682, news of which had reached him before 3 April.34 He retained the post until relieved on 14 September 1683 by Lord Dartmouth, the commander of the evacuation task force. In addition to the governor’s basic salary of £1,500 p.a., Kirke received £365 as colonel of an infantry battalion and company captain therein, plus, for a few months, £255 10s as a troop commander in the Royal Horse Guards.35 On 19 April 1682, Kirke was transferred from the colonelcy of the 2nd Tangier Regiment to that of the 1st, or Old, Tangier Regiment, a command he retained for the rest of his life. Within three years, he had risen through three ranks. His friend, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Trelawney (1653–1731), was promoted to full colonel and took charge of the 2nd Tangier Regiment on 23 April 1682.36 Lesley’s commission expired on return to Tangier and he reverted to his role as major of Kirke’s regiment. Full responsibility for relations with the Moors now rested with the new commander-in-chief who was greatly assisted by the fact that he had travelled within Morocco, witnessed the system of government at first hand and met both the sultan and his principal lieutenants. A reading of Kirke’s official dispatches to the Tangier Committee in Whitehall and the secretary of state, Sir Leoline (Llewellyn) Jenkins (1625–85), leaves the impression that Kirke harboured a certain admiration for the unscrupulous, untrustworthy, manipulative and two-faced Moorish leaders. Kirke was sufficiently cynical to sympathize with their self-interested motives and appreciated that the Moors were not bound by the rules and constraints of European diplomacy. This resourceful, intelligent and quick-witted man rather enjoyed the exchanges of mutual deviousness and was rarely outmanoeuvred in the incessant contests of wits. No doubt he sought and took advice from among the merchants, traders, municipal authorities and more experienced garrison officers but ultimately he relied upon his own judgement. There was no useful guidance from England because the mail, either by sea or overland via Spain and France, took between four weeks and three months in either direction obliging the governor to act alone: letters from the Tangier Committee and Secretary Jenkins were usually only of historical interest. Communications were so insecure that all packets were sent in duplicate or triplicate and occasionally repeated in the next posting. When the committee did issue definite instructions, Kirke frequently complained that the members did not fully comprehend the nuances of the situation and the man-on-the-spot required freedom of action amid constantly changing circumstances. Indeed, the tone of some of Kirke’s letters to the Tangier Committee verged on contemptuous, sneering at its corporate ignorance.37 Part of the problem was the unfriendliness of the long-serving committee secretary, John Creed (d. 1701), a closet non-conformist. On more than one occasion, Kirke accused him either of withholding important information from the committee or wilfully misrepresenting his point of view.38 As a counter-balance to Creed, Kirke tried energetically but only partially successfully to engage the interest of Lord Dartmouth, created Master General of the Ordnance Office on 28 January 1682.39

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There was much to occupy a colonial governor. Every aspect of military and civilian life came within his purview, ranging from the administration of justice to the maintenance of the fabric. The man who emerges from the Letter Book40 was painstaking, hard-working, precise and diligent but also touchy, prickly and deeply concerned about how his actions might be interpreted in London: the latter was always a difficulty for soldiers, politicians and officials stranded in remote stations. Although he and Lesley had failed to secure a formal agreement to release all the English slaves, once safely back in Tangier Kirke sent a messenger, bearing a gift of guns, to remind the sultan of a promise he had made to free at least some captives. Graciously, Moulay Ismail ordered that the nominated slaves should travel to Tangier along with 20 Portuguese captives for whose release Queen Catherine had sent a sum of money from her privy purse.41 As the slaves were assembling at Meknès, a suspiciously convenient rumour started that English ships were carrying ammunition to Moulay Hamet in Sous. Nothing would convince the sultan that these vessels were operating entirely independently of the English government and, in a manufactured rage, an art form in which he excelled, he returned the captives to their chains. By now, Kirke had put aside the need to flatter Moulay Ismail and expressed himself more directly. He wrote to Whitehall suggesting that only a letter from Charles stating categorically that no English ships would henceforth convey any military supplies to the sultan’s enemies might serve to free some of the English slaves. Even then, continued Kirke, the most solemn promises from Meknès were regularly ignored or reversed ‘upon the slightest of pretences, whenever our weakness shall afford them hope of success.’42 The sultan, however, expected to redeem his captives from Tangier at a price of two cows apiece and was furious when the English government refused. Another obstacle arose when both the sultan and the Alcaid pretended dissatisfaction with their presents. Some of the bales of fine English woollen cloth had been damaged in transit while five of the guns bearing the Tower mark of the Board of Ordnance burst upon firing through being overloaded with a double charge of strong, battle powder, itself a gift from Kirke. Six small ‘Galway’ horses were received with derision.43 Kirke’s principal task was to maintain peace with the Moroccans. On 28 November 1681, Ambassador Alcaid Mohammed Ohadu,44 ‘Ben Hadu’ to the English, and his 20-strong retinue crossed the sand hills to the gates of Tangier escorted by the new Alcaid of Alcazar, Ali Benabdula, brother of the late Omar. Kirke rode out beyond Fountain Fort to greet them, preceded by four troops of horse, 50 grenadiers from the Royal Scots, 30 gunners in brand new uniforms and 30 negroes in ‘painted coats’. Kirke’s personal entourage comprised 20 gentlemen ‘well mounted’ and alongside the governor’s horse marched six of the tallest men in the garrison carrying ‘long fusils’. After halting within musket-shot of Ohadu’s party, they were treated to a display of Moroccan horsemanship; the ambassador and his suite were then escorted towards the town. Pole Fort fired a salute as they passed and, when entering through Catherine Port, a volley thundered from Peterborough Tower. The mayor and corporation then paraded in their ceremonial robes while the recorder made a speech of welcome. All the streets were lined with soldiers and the garrison’s guns fired even more salutes. The party dismounted in the courtyard of the Upper Castle and the Moors then climbed the stairs between two rows of dismounted troopers. Leading them to a large, open

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gallery, Kirke revealed the famous view, which, it was said, on a moonlit night was one of the wonders of the world. As they gazed on the town full of soldiers, the bay, the hinterland, the ships riding at anchor within the mole and across the straits to Spain, three volleys rang out from each regiment drawn up on the parade ground adjacent to the castle. Then the garrison officers were introduced to the ambassador and the day ended with a firework display.45 Ohadu remained in Tangier for a fortnight before sailing aboard the frigate HMS Hampshire (4th rate, 46 guns), escorted by the Algerian prize, the Golden Horse.46 Lesley accompanied the ambassador to England where, with six additional commissioners, he was to conduct the negotiations. Kirke was concerned about what would happen when this exotic personage began to charm the credulous ministers in Whitehall and sent an express letter warning that the ‘pompous and liberal’ promises of the Moroccans were not to be relied upon and any draft treaty should be sent to Tangier for his perusal.47 Bribes, wrote Kirke, should be given as a matter of course but hysteria, outbursts of temper and other theatricalities were best ignored. Ideally, he added, all negotiations ought to take place in secret away from any audience. The Moors did not understand the rules of European diplomacy and their principal objective was the acquisition of ‘contraband’ in the form of munitions, which the ambassador would also try to purchase on the open market.48 A treaty was signed on 23 March 1682 but it represented no advance on the agreement made by Kirke and Lesley in 1681. Ohadu had a thoroughly enjoyable time and not until 23 July did he reluctantly drag himself away. Kirke subsequently objected strongly to these ‘Whitehall Treaties’ cavilling particularly at the clause allowing 30 Moroccans to remain in Tangier, effectively legally appointed spies. He was even more displeased to discover that the Moroccans had gained the right to buy from English merchants and factors in Tangier whatever munitions they wished. Charles granted Ohadu the release of all Moorish captives in Tangier, in the hope that this would encourage Moulay Ismail to reciprocate: it had no effect because he insisted that a further 400 Moorish captives were hidden in Tangier and until they were liberated nothing could be done about the English prisoners. All these proceedings were ultimately rendered redundant because, when Ohadu reported to the sultan, he refused to ratify any of the treaties.49 Tangier thus continued to enjoy a truce de facto but not a peace de jure. In Kirke’s view, hostilities might reignite at any moment and he requested more ammunition and stores from England.50 Kirke was of the opinion that the sultan’s deliberate awkwardness was simply a device intended to oblige Charles to send another embassy to Meknès so that he might be indulged by an orgy of presents. Hold out, he counselled, even if it risked war because to give in would highlight England’s weakness. Charles accepted Kirke’s advice and, instead of another embassy, wrote a letter in Arabic delivered to the sultan by the hand of Kirke’s aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Nicholson, who was instructed to bribe the principal ministers to lend their support to the ratification of the treaties. When the sultan read the epistle he flew into a furious temper, probably, observed Kirke, because for the first time he had been able to read for himself a letter from England. Previously, correspondence had been in English or Spanish and ‘translated’ into Arabic by Jews or renegades who had carefully edited the texts. The sultan did not care for the raw contents, which clearly showed that his estimation of his own importance in European

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affairs was a vain delusion. His reply, in Arabic and emblazoned in gold, was a list of studied insults to the effect that Charles was an old woman and a slave to his parliaments. At the same time, Ohadu wrote to Whitehall warning Charles that unless he sent cartloads of gifts and bribes the sultan would appear before Tangier with 600,000 men, a preposterous figure well in excess of Morocco’s entire population.51 The diplomatic campaign failed because the English had not offered bribes of sufficient size and value whereas other states demonstrated a much surer grasp and comprehension of the game. The Dutch purchased a treaty of peace and commerce from Moulay Ismail during 1682 at the price of 600 quintals of gunpowder52 and a richly appointed state coach. Similarly, a French envoy hovered around the court in Meknès offering considerable douceurs if the Moroccans participated in a joint attack on Tangier. These developments alarmed Kirke who asked Whitehall for a cipher to encode his correspondence, which was routinely opened en route through France. England’s government furthered weakened its influence and credibility in Meknès by persisting in futile attempts to secure a peace treaty at sea to protect her merchant vessels from Moroccan pirates. Even though the corsair dens technically answered to Moulay Ismail’s jurisdiction, he was powerless to influence their activities and English nagging merely caused annoyance and embarrassment.53 The Spanish fortress of Mâmora capitulated early in May 1681 after a prolonged and heroic defence. On his journey back to Cadiz, the governor was received by Kirke. Moroccan assurance commensurately increased and pressure on Tangier steadily tightened although the Alcaid continued to allow the garrison to forage up to three miles from the walls and trade English cloth, gunpowder and muskets for cattle, straw, poultry and fruit. Simultaneously, a second enemy threatened when bubonic plague swept along the North African coast before crossing the sea to Cadiz but Tangier was protected by strict quarantine.54 A series of niggling disputes about the interpretation of the peace agreement always stopped short of hostilities – the English were very slow to make deliveries of muskets and gunpowder inviting the Moors to interfere with the garrison’s free purchase of straw and cattle on the open market. War nearly broke out when Kirke harboured a prince of the Moroccan royal house who had quarrelled with the sultan. The governor hoped to exchange him for English slaves but the danger of renewed hostilities so worried the Tangier Committee that Kirke was ordered to surrender his guest.55 Yet certain civilities were observed in this strange demi-monde between Christian interloper and Muslim Morocco, Kirke sending a regimental surgeon to treat the Alcaid Omar in his final illness.56 All the redoubts on the outer ring of fortifications had been lost during 1680 leaving just the inner enceinte running from Cambridge Fort, through Pole Fort to Whitehall and Whitby. The town walls, ditch, Upper Castle and Peterborough Tower were dilapidated and, in some places, actually collapsing but only essential repairs were affordable.57 Nevertheless, Kirke tried to improve both the fabric and defences. Pepys later commented that, since Teviot’s death in 1664, all subsequent governors ‘have minded nothing [except] to make themselves rich but Dr. Lawrence tells me that as to the public buildings for the real benefit of the place, this man Kirke has done more in his time than all of them put together’.58 Kirke complained to Legge about the lamentable state of the heavy cannon. Some had burst during the Great

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Siege and those remaining were ‘the worst that ever were in any garrison – the worst gunners that ever man saw and the master-gunner not fit to command anything’.59 A second, ineffectual plea for better guns followed on 30 June 1681. Kirke remarked on 10 December 1681 that only ten out of the 33 gunners could distinguish between a cannon and its carriage. Like all his predecessors, Kirke bemoaned the lack of cavalry. Unfortunately English horses fared badly in Tangier and many died although Kirke observed that most were very old when they arrived. By July 1681, only 80 beasts were still alive and Kirke advocated buying Spanish remounts, which were cheaper and better acclimatized.60 In August 1681, Charles Nedby (d. c. 1687), Thomas Langston and John Coy, the troop captains, proposed spending £2,000 to purchase Spanish horses in order to bring each troop up to 50 soldiers. Kirke considered this inadequate and requested a minimum force of 200 but Charles decided to maintain but a single troop of Spanish mercenaries. Kirke had to admit defeat and, with considerable misgivings, on 25 January 1683 accepted the decision of the Tangier Committee not to recruit the Tangier Horse.61 Accordingly Nedby’s, Coy’s and Langston’s troops returned to England in the autumn of 1683 and were incorporated into the newly raised Royal Regiment of Dragoons on 22, 23 and 24 November.62 Another problem was the town’s diminishing water supply. In 1662, the outgoing Portuguese governor, Luis de Almeida, had handed Lord Peterborough a book containing details of local hydrology. When he quitted the government in December, Peterborough took it with him and all subsequent attempts at recovery were unsuccessful. Gradually the known courses either dried up or were diverted by the Moors – occasional outbreaks of disease were usually blamed on enemy interference with the streams – and, by 1680, the town was largely dependent upon a highly vulnerable spring at Fountain Fort. During 1682, Kirke tapped the memories of some of the older Portuguese residents thereby unearthing an ancient water course and re-opening 50 wells. Nevertheless, he reported on 16 November 1682 that supplies remained uncertain and there was heavy dependence upon tanks that could only be replenished during the rainy season. Prolonged drought could jeopardize the English occupation.63 Despite a compromised inheritance, Kirke proved one of the better governors of Tangier. He was much concerned about ill discipline within the garrison and cashiered several officers for drunkenness and disobedience. A particular bête noire was the considerable number of garrison officers who had secured extended furloughs in England instead of attending to their colonial duties. Annoyingly, they drew their pay regularly but left debts in Tangier unpaid while their comrades in North Africa were constantly in arrears varying between six and 12 months. Kirke’s barrage of complaint had some effect and the majority of the absentees returned on 2 March 1683.64 The soldiers were gathered from billets scattered across the town into new barracks created within the Upper Castle; additional magazines were constructed; and repairs carried out to the town walls although the base of Peterborough Tower was impossibly damaged. When the arrears of pay became so exaggerated that the economy of the whole colony was threatened, Kirke requisitioned money from the agent of the farmers of the Irish revenues in order to pay his troops and re-establish some municipal liquidity, an action subsequently condoned by the Tangier Committee.65 Kirke also strove to improve the health of the soldiers by appointing a cook to each

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company, attempting to discover additional funds for the hospital and retiring old soldiers to England where he suggested they be allocated to static, garrison companies. Indeed, Kirke demonstrated a degree of care and consideration for the common soldier rare among his contemporaries.66 However, not all of Kirke’s energies were consumed in selfless devotion to royal service. Every opportunity to promote the military careers of the sons of his clients and patrons was exploited and he saw no reason to ignore opportunities to benefit financially from office. He offered personally to farm some of the Tangier port revenues on behalf of the crown, guaranteeing to do so for a lower rent and higher yield than the current contractors. Similarly he always claimed a percentage from the sale of prize vessels captured from the Moors and brought into Tangier.67 Apart from water shortage and failure to reach an enduring settlement with the Moroccans, there were a number of other reasons why Tangier was untenable. Disease, alcoholism, accident and enemy action rapidly attrited the garrison – between December 1682 and December 1683, the number of soldiers fell by one-third from 3,411 to 2,29968 – while the terms of the truce prevented the garrison from constructing any new fortifications or reoccupying those lost in 1680. In a memorandum to Sunderland, written on 29 October 1680, Engineer Martin Beckman estimated that refortification would cost between two and three million pounds sterling and thereafter require a garrison of 8–10,000 men.69 A later survey, conducted after the decision to evacuate had been taken, raised the estimate to a conveniently ludicrous sum of £4,798,561 16s 6d, more than thrice Charles’s annual revenue. To complete the vicious circle, the wielding of a single pickaxe beyond the town walls would trigger an immediate Moorish assault that would probably overwhelm Kirke’s soldiers. Charles could ill-afford the injury to his prestige consequent upon the loss of a colony through military defeat. Tangier had proved a very disappointing experiment and there was nothing to suggest that further expenditure was worthwhile. Despite having been declared a free city in 1668 and granted a charter vesting the civil government in the hands of a mayor and corporation instead of the army, Tangier’s economy had failed to prosper. The mole was still unfinished and the harbour consequently remained inadequate for both merchant shipping and the Royal Navy: the ‘Straits Squadron’ much preferred the superior facilities at Lisbon, Cadiz, Port Mahon and Valletta and Admiral Herbert strongly advocated the abandonment of Tangier and the acquisition of Gibraltar. Tangier was supposed to be a provisioning station for shipping but, apart from some market-gardening, agriculture had not flourished because the garrison failed to capture a hinterland. The colony was incapable of feeding itself, let alone visiting ships, the majority of foodstuffs having to be imported directly from England and Iberia or via a very restricted trade with the local tribes. The only question was how to dispose of Tangier without damaging Charles’s reputation. The failure of Ohadu’s embassy marked the end of realistic prospects for Tangier’s survival and York, Rochester and Sunderland whispered in the royal ear that the addition of the garrison to the standing army in England would do much to improve the king’s security. So much money would be saved by evacuating Tangier – the annual cost was then £42,338 12s 3d70 – that these troops could be readily supported on the English establishment without increasing the total military budget.71 This

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argument, initially advanced by Sunderland, was most persuasive and Charles decided early in 1683 to abandon Tangier: rumours of an impending evacuation reached Kirke before 28 July via the local merchants, always much better informed than the military.72 The garrison would return to England and nothing of use would be left to the Moroccans, French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutchmen, pirates or whoever else eventually occupied the city. When he heard of the plan, the Count of Castelo Melhor, the Portuguese ambassador to the Court of St James’s and confidante of Catherine of Braganza,73 offered to buy back the town largely to comfort the queen who was deeply hurt that her gift to England was being treated in such a cavalier manner. Castelo Melhor’s intervention caused Charles to pause but Portugal, which had also failed to profit from the occupation of Tangier, could afford neither the asking price nor the necessary defensive resources.

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Enter Pepys

Once decided, Charles was impatient for the business to be executed. Dartmouth was appointed admiral of the fleet, captain-general, commander-in-chief and governor of Tangier and his instructions were ready before the end of July 1683. The town was to be completely cleared of inhabitants – there were about 600 civilians, 361 of whom were soldiers’ wives and children, and 2,830 assorted military personnel – and every building razed. First, the garrison was to be paid its arrears and all debts settled. After receiving appropriate compensation for any economic deprivation, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Jewish and Moroccan inhabitants were to be shipped either to their native countries or ‘such convenient place as they shall desire’. Next, English, Irish and Scottish non-combatants would embark while ‘old, lame and sick soldiers’ would be conveyed to the hospital ketch,1 HMS Unity (6 guns). Once these people had departed, any ‘serviceable’ stores were to be loaded on to the men-of-war before every installation, public building, fortification and house was ‘fully demolished’, the mole ‘absolutely destroyed’ and the harbour rendered ‘unuseful’. Finally, the soldiers were to be mustered, the four companies of miners reduced into one and any resultant supernumeraries drafted to fill the ranks of the Royal Scots, the King’s Battalion and the two Tangier regiments (Kirke’s and Trelawney’s). The garrison was then to be brought home and landed at various designated locations. The commander-in-chief was enjoined to keep his orders confidential and tell no-one except Samuel Pepys, who was let into the secret on 13 August 1683 while the fleet lay anchored at Spithead, and Kirke on arrival at Tangier.2 A small team of specialists embarked on the flagship, HMS Grafton (3rd rate, 70 guns, Flag Captain Sir William Booth), to assist Dartmouth: Dr Thomas Ken (1637– 1711), Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1685, senior chaplain to the fleet and expedition; Dr William Trumbull (1639–1716), whose wife, Elizabeth Cotterell (d. 1704), was a cousin of Dartmouth, judge advocate; Dr Thomas Lawrence, both Dartmouth’s personal physician and overall medical superintendent who had practised in Tangier for over 20 years;3 Henry Sheres, the surveyor-general of Tangier and a client of Pepys, charged with overseeing the demolitions, particularly the destruction of the mole; and Major Martin Beckman, a Swedish artillery and explosives expert who had worked in England since 1660 and assisted de Gomme in the fortification of Tangier

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in 1664.4 The final member was Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), sometime clerk of the acts to the Navy Board and secretary to the Admiralty from 1685, who had been a member of the Tangier Committee since its inception in 1662 and treasurer between 1665 and 1679. Pepys acted as Dartmouth’s chief of staff with special responsibility for calculating and assigning compensation to inhabitants who might incur financial loss.5 The expedition, comprising nine men-of-war6 and 12 merchantmen, three loaded with stores, sailed on 19 August and, following a stormy passage, reached Tangier Bay around 09:30 on Friday 14 September.7 A merchant ship had given Kirke notice of Dartmouth’s approach enabling the squadron to be greeted by a suitably massive salute from all the town’s cannon. Despite his intimate association with Tangerine affairs, Pepys had never visited the colony although he had seen numerous pictorial and cartographic representations by, inter alia, the engraver, Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–77); John Seller (c. 1632–97), compiler and publisher of The English Pilot (London, 1671); and Dartmouth’s protégé, Ensign, later Captain, Thomas Phillips (d. 1693), a military engineer and graphic artist.8 He should not, therefore, have been shocked by his first glimpse of the colony yet, we found here the Alcaid with his army camped near the town. But Lord! How could ever anybody think this place fit to be kept at this charge that by its being overlooked by so many hills can never be secured against an enemy?9

This disingenuous over-reaction was perhaps to be expected since, at Dartmouth’s request, Pepys had spent the outward voyage composing a memorandum, for later public consumption, explaining the reasons for the evacuation without mentioning the real motive: money. After a while, the governor was rowed out to the flagship and Dartmouth informed him privately of the expedition’s intent and his consequent demotion: he received the news ‘collectedly … and very cheerfully’. The senior land and sea officers then gathered for dinner in the great cabin of the Grafton during which Kirke disclosed that rumours of evacuation had been circulating for some time. Afterwards, Kirke, Pepys and Trumbull discussed with Dartmouth the implementation plan that had been drawn up by Beckman during the voyage.10 Pepys found Kirke ‘very forward in all appearance in the matter, and offered several things towards the expediting of it, on which we agreed and resolved for the putting them in practice’. Thereafter, Kirke was obedient and co-operative except in one instance when he seemed to forget that he was no longer governor and trespassed on Dartmouth’s authority.11 To a thunderous reception from the garrison cannon, Dartmouth stepped ashore on Monday 17 September: unauthorized saluting was thereafter forbidden in order to conserve gunpowder for demolitions. Dartmouth now formally assumed the governorship, Kirke reverting to colonel of the 1st Tangier Regiment although he continued as senior officer commanding the garrison.12 Dartmouth and his party were conducted in considerable pomp to dinner in the castle. After the meal, they called upon Mrs Mary Kirke: ‘mightily changed’, observed Pepys rather sourly. On Tuesday 18 September, Pepys, Dartmouth and Kirke rode out of the town to view the lines and fortifications. Again, Pepys pretended astonishment at the extent to which the town

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and its principal water supply were dominated by high ground in possession of the Moors.13 Pepys’s second encounter with Mrs Kirke, ‘a lady I have long admired for her beauty, but she is mightily altered’, occurred in church on Sunday 23 September. Pepys noted that ‘they do tell stories of her on her part, while her husband minds pleasure of the same kind on his’. After divine service, Pepys escorted her to a sedan chair and asked what she thought of Tangier. Tolerable, she replied, especially as the end was in sight. Clearly, concluded Pepys, if Kirke had divulged the secret to his wife it must be common knowledge throughout the town.14 On Sunday 30 September, Dr Ken preached in the parish church in ‘reproof of the vices of this town’. Pepys wondered how the garrison officers would react but they appeared unconcerned. At evensong Pepys had the pleasure of meeting Mrs Kirke again, ‘better dressed than before, but yet short of what I have known her’.15 As well as being able to observe from their lofty positions virtually every movement below, the Moroccans knew of both the mission and its purpose. As soon as Dartmouth came ashore generous bribes were dispatched to the Alcaid to reduce the likelihood of a resumption of significant hostilities. Even so, Dartmouth felt that a demonstration of the garrison’s ‘overwhelming’ strength might dissuade the Alcaid from exploiting the evacuation. Accordingly, a grand parade was scheduled for 28 September, the soldiers reinforced for the occasion by 1,000 seamen under Vice Admiral Berry, 400 of them temporarily sporting the new red coats brought over for the ragged soldiers of the Royal Scots and the 2nd Tangier Regiment. To complete the deceit, eight flags were also borrowed from the navy. Over 4,000 men took part, drawn up just outside the walls in a thin red line that reached from the Upper Castle to the beach beyond Cambridge Fort. In response, the Alcaid flaunted his own army, which Pepys estimated at no more than 2,500. Dartmouth and the Alcaid met on horseback and, following an exchange of flowery vacuities, talked for 30 minutes in the course of which they agreed to open negotiations for a new treaty. Kirke came forward to shake the Alcaid’s hand. After the customary exchange of displays of Moorish horsemanship and volleys from the ramparts, the 1st Tangier Regiment marched off to the parade ground in the shadow of Peterborough Tower, a movement which, for a while, gave the impression that Tangier was ringed with troops. The ruse may have had some effect because the Moroccan forces remained quiet throughout the next six months but there was no need for them to interfere.16 Dartmouth conferred with Kirke, Trumbull and Pepys during the evening about how to handle the Alcaid. Dartmouth had decided, correctly, that the Alcaid already knew the objective of the expedition so trying to hide it by conducting yet more diplomacy was pointless and a waste of precious time: better to press on with the demolitions as quickly as possible. Pepys advocated opening negotiations because, he observed gloomily and accurately, the work might take between four and six months, a long period during which the Moroccans could meddle whenever they wished. Dartmouth replied, ‘very short’, that he had found a means by which the demolitions might be accomplished in a fortnight. Kirke immediately supported him saying, ‘God damn him, he would do it all in a fortnight or he would be contented to be hanged’, adding that his main concern was shortage of water and whether the seasonal rains would arrive on schedule.17 From that point onwards, although the Alcaid tried to

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provoke the English into opening negotiations, Dartmouth and Kirke ignored all overtures and refused to risk more lives by sending envoys to the sultan taking the view that the umbrella of the fleet’s cannon and manpower rendered harmless all the forces in Barbary. Until the autumn of 1683, the historical record contains some information about Kirke’s professional progress but none concerning his character and personal life. When Pepys disembarked from the Grafton, drought turned to deluge: Tangier may have furthered Kirke’s career but it demolished his reputation. Kirke and Pepys certainly knew each other, their separate social circles often overlapping, and had recently exchanged a few letters concerning matters of patronage.18 Following the meeting on 14 September, when Kirke had impressed with his energy and willingness to co-operate, closer acquaintance caused Pepys’s opinion to curdle. Although delighted to return to public office, the rough passage to Tangier had been miserable. Not only had Pepys been horribly seasick but, after giving much time and effort to improving the selection, education and professional standards of Royal Naval officers, he was especially disheartened to discover that his work had been largely undone within four years of laying down the seals as secretary of the Admiralty. First impressions of Tangier further depressed him – a squalid, claustrophobic little town where, every night, his sleep was ruined by swarms of mosquitoes and midges – as did the prospect of performing the daunting task of adjudicating on claims for compensation. Dartmouth was already showing himself a pusillanimous and uninterested leader, more concerned about his political position in London than the task in hand. Pepys soon came to despise his colleague and Dartmouth’s client, William Trumbull, a spineless, cowardly man who complained constantly. Finally, he caught a heavy cold. Concerned about the expedition, his face swollen from mosquito bites, and feeling thoroughly wretched, he settled at his table before dinner on 24 October 1683 to ‘set down several things that I had heard of Kirke that vex me to see so great a villain in his place’.19 Further observations were added at intervals until he left Tangier on 6 December for a three-week holiday in Spain. The man who had begun the first and most famous diary in 166020 was 26 years of age, a debonair, fashionable man-abouttown. He was 51 in 1683, changed by the cares of high office and the grave threat to his career and life during the Exclusion Crisis into a sober, straight-laced, censorious widower, more akin to his friend John Evelyn than his former self.21 He had grown pompous and even more self-aware while his earlier predilection towards patronization and condescension had fully matured.22 Thrust suddenly into the tiny, incestuous world of Tangier, Pepys was appalled by everything around him: the town, its inhabitants, the climate, the food and, above all, Governor Kirke. The first diary had demonstrated on many occasions that Pepys was happy to record uncorroborated gossip, although he usually acknowledged the fact. However, for whatever reasons, Pepys seemingly catalogued every scrap of adverse information about Kirke without drawing any clear distinction between the credible and the incredible, facts, lies, tittletattle, rumour and hearsay. Prima facie, observer and observed appeared irreconcilable opposites. One was a cultivated creative administrator and civil servant, although capable of deceit and hypocrisy, and the other a blunt professional soldier unqualified in the art of

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dissembling who frequently spoke before thinking. According to Pepys, ‘God damn me!’ prefaced every Kirkeian utterance, a quirk noted by another witness, Martin Lister-Killigrew (c. 1666–c. 1745), an ensign in his battalion, who commented on his outrageous, passionate behaviour, which was so habitual to him that it was become even his constant one though it very seldom went beyond words … When his regiment was out on a field day he would curse, swear and threaten like a madman, declaring and swearing he would have the men whipped, hanged and otherwise punished so that a bystander who had not known him would have thought that a quarter of the regiment was to have undergone punishment. And after having behaved in this manner for four hours he would go out of the field and not a single man punished, ordered to be punished or any court-martial called to try any man and this was his constant practice.23

Dartmouth also remarked upon this trait. While strolling on the quarterdeck of the Grafton on the evening of his arrival in Tangier Bay, he remarked to Pepys that ‘it was as well we were come, for the Governor and the Alcaid would have broken out into a rupture within these ten days, Kirke did carry himself so hot in all his business’.24 Indeed, but Dartmouth overlooked the fact that, despite endless provocation and Kirke’s superficially blustering manner, the truce had been maintained for over two years and the Alcaid and sultan very successfully managed. After his initial intemperate outbursts, the governor usually reflected before acting and then did so in a surprisingly calm, shrewd, cool, clever and diplomatic manner. As he grew older, Kirke tended towards indecision rather than over-hasty reaction. Yet, Pepys and Kirke shared several similarities. Kirke had married Mary Howard (d. 1707), eldest daughter of George Howard, 4th Earl of Suffolk (c. 1625–91), sometime master of the horse to the Duke of York and a member of his inner circle, and his second wife, Catherine (d. 1710), daughter of John Alleyne of Moggerhanger, Bedfordshire.25 The exact date of the wedding in 1678 is unknown but it probably occurred between Kirke’s return from France in mid-February and departure for Flanders in the third week of June. Their first child was christened on 21 August 1679. We have observed how Pepys commented thrice in the ‘Tangier Journal’ upon Mrs Kirke’s dress and looks. Had Pepys once approached Mary Howard and been rebuffed? Had he earlier crossed swords with Kirke in an affair of the heart? Was he jealous of Kirke for having secured this beauty? The first Diary reveals a man with a voracious sexual appetite. Pepys would travel halfway across London for a glimpse of Barbara Castlemaine, Charles’s mistress, and was reduced to adolescent quivering at the sight of her underwear dancing on the washing line. ‘God forgive me, I do still see that my nature is not to be quite conquered, but will still esteem pleasure above all things’, he had confessed in 1666, ‘[but] music and women I cannot give way to, whatever my business is’.26 He described graphically his illicit sexual encounters in a juvenile concoction of six European languages in order to baffle his wife should she ever find and decode his short-hand scribbles. By 1683, testosterone production had diminished: since 1670 he had been living openly with his housekeeper, Mary Skinner – some thought she was the second Mrs Pepys – who remained his lifelong companion. Secondly, we know from the first Diary that Pepys had, on occasion,

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exploited his professional position to procure women, including the wives of close colleagues. Kirke, 35 or 36 years of age in 1683, was, according to Pepys’s testimony, greedy for women but, instead of concealing his lust in private declarations of guilt written in ersatz Esperanto, indulged in public, childish boasting. Indeed, according to Ensign Lister-Killigrew, Kirke’s sex drive put that of the younger Pepys to shame. He lay with a woman, other than his wife, on two or three occasions per week ‘as it was his custom continually to have common prostitutes to pass the night with him’.27 Pepys may have recognized exaggerated aspects of his own earlier self and hated Kirke for it. Perhaps he was envious of someone more youthful and virile. However, an historian is constrained by evidence but even a non-psychologist can discern a recently scrubbed pot calling the kettle black. Pepys’s loathing extended to include Kirke’s friend and patron, Admiral Herbert, ‘one of the worst and most injudicious of men’,28 and many of the senior officers of the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean squadron, gentlemen who had acquired commissions and promotions through interest and sponsorship rather than via the Pepysianapproved route of seamanship, hard work and ability. Herbert, Matthew Aylmer, George Byng (1663–1733),29 John Graydon (d. 1726), Thomas Hopson (c. 1643–1717), David Mitchell (c. 1650–1710), George Rooke (c. 1650–1709), and, to a lesser extent, Cloudesley Shovell (c. 1650–1707) and Francis Wheler or Wheeler (c. 1656–94), were the very antithesis of the naval meritocracy that Pepys sought to inculcate. Herbert could not even name the various ropes on a ship and saw no reason to keep a log, no doubt because it would have revealed how little time he spent at sea.30 Even worse, they were mostly Whigs – although Herbert trimmed his sails to the prevailing political breeze31 – and disciples of Shaftesbury,32 members of the same gang that had nearly ruined Pepys during the Exclusion Crisis. In turn, they scorned him as an interfering civilian, a technocrat, supporter of Tory absolutism and closet Roman Catholic, who navigated a desk rather than a ship. Most of the captains on the Mediterranean station ignored Pepys’s rules and instructions about carrying private cargoes for profit on board the King’s ships.33 In addition, Herbert had ‘persecuted’ Pepys’s rather lacklustre brother-in-law, Balthazar (‘Balty’) St Michel, for whom Pepys had acquired the office of storekeeper and muster-master at Tangier in 1681.34 Pepys was happy to list some lurid tales that bathed Herbert in the worst possible light. According to Pepys’s friend and client, William Hewer (1652–1715), treasurer of the Tangier Committee, Herbert had a ‘settled house’ in Tangier where he stayed for three-fifths of the year instead of putting to sea. Here he held court, maintained a harem of mistresses, and was waited on hand and foot by his fawning captains and Governor Kirke, who all arrived one whole hour before his rising in order to comb his wig, brush his clothes, and attend to his every need, ‘as the king is served’. Needless to say, his persistent lewdness led to the contraction of venereal disease and much of his time was spent taking the ‘mercury cure’.35 He was irreverent, disrespectful to the clergy – he referred to his chaplain in public as ‘Ballocks’ – and flouted all the naval regulations concerning the use of the king’s ships to conduct personal trade. In 1682, Herbert captured a number of Muslim slaves who he subsequently allowed to starve. ‘Of all the worst men living’, concluded Pepys, ‘Herbert is the only man that I do not know to have any one virtue to compound for all his vices.’36

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Whereas Pepys sprinkled Herbert with ice cold water, Kirke was drenched. Because his character has been subsequently defined by Pepys’s anecdotes, the full, picaresque, appetite-whetting record of accusation must be produced.37 First, Kirke appeared out of control, beyond the writ of Whitehall and did much as he pleased. Being a professional soldier,38 he unsurprisingly favoured war over peace: Mr. Sheres gives me a note that shows how much it is [in] a prince’s interest to make it his officers’ interest to serve his. Kirke replying to Haslewood, the chaplain to Herbert, upon wishing him good success in his government by having a steady peace with the Moors, says he, ‘Do you know so little as to think that peace will do my business? That will undo me’.39 The Recorder40 tells me of Kirke’s saying to him in public court, ‘God damn the Law’, and to the jury, God damn their consciences, he would make them stretch their consciences. And would say that the Recorder was his dog. So that he has lived, he tells me, a most miserable life but found it best to bear it. But he has often thought that God would send some judgement or other upon the place for its iniquity.41

Kirke was ultra vires in exercising arbitrary power and employing ‘cruel and unusual punishments’. Captain Silver42 told my lord in my hearing what a company of people of the king’s subjects were in chains, and how long the chains were, when my lord [Dartmouth] came hither and commanded them to be set at liberty. And that it was this tyrannical severity of Kirke’s that made so many desert the place and run to the Moors. And he says there have been 30 or 40 men in these chains at a time, and men put into them upon the score of getting their daughters and wives to come to him to look after their husbands and fathers where he found them pretty, only to debauch … Silver has got me one of the very chains from the Marshal of the town who has a great many of them that the king’s soldiers used to carry and be made to work in. He says that he has certainly been told that Kirke used to receive money on both sides of cases in difference in law, and he that gave most should carry the cause. And where the Recorder has sometimes told him that such or such a thing was not according to the law of England, he has openly said in court that it was then according to the law of Tangier.43

Kirke was immoral and depraved, ‘a very brute’ according to Dr Lawrence, encouraging similar behaviour among both soldiers and civilians. Kirke himself told, publicly at table, how there was one wench, her name (as I remember) Joyce, that … was banished the town for her lewdness, and all this by the time she was sixteen years old, a mighty pretty creature; and of another wench called Dover …. ‘Five Finger’, the Moorish secretary, did at table with us whisper in my lord’s ear a health of his own accord in English (the only word above two or three that he could speak of English), which my lord laughing at, told the table (who seemed

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desirous to know) that it was a health to a … and said, ‘I warrant you the Governor taught you this?’, and the fellow said, ‘So he did’.44 Kirke told publicly at table at supper (Dr. Lawrence the physician being there) among other vicious stories, how the Doctor did get a black wench with child … The prettiest Moor, he said she was, that ever he saw and that the Doctor would not let him have anything to do with her.45 No going by a door almost but you hear people swearing and damning, and the women as much as the men. Insomuch that Captain Silver, a sober officer of my lord’s belonging to the Ordnance, did say he was quite ashamed of what he had heard himself in their house, worse a thousand times than the worst place he ever was in, in London.46 Mr. Sheres did tell W. Hewer and me of a story of Kirke’s giving liberty to a wench of his, either to sell drink or to be mustered as a man in the musters, upon condition that she should set up the sign …47 The Governor is said to have got his wife’s sister with child, and that she is now gone over to Spain to be brought to bed. And that while he is with his whores at his little bathing house which he has furnished with a jade a-purpose for that use there, his wife, whom he keeps in by awe, sends for her gallants and plays the jade by herself at home.48 The greatest part, if not the whole, use of the hospital … is for rogues and jades that have the pox. And yet it is a base thing what is said of Colonel Norwood49 that he took the revenue of the hospital to his own use.50 It is plain (from what I heard from the jade at the Bagno51) that the women of the town are, generally speaking, whores, and think it no extraordinary thing at all, both mothers and daughters being so publicly to one another’s knowledge, as to call one another so, commonly.52 The Governor told us publicly at table of a foot jade, a bawd here in town … formerly a servant of my lord’s uncle Washington,53 that he went to … and the beastly discourse about it, between her and him.54

A Mrs Collier, née Roberts, was Kirke’s principal mistress in Tangier. She was the wife of either temporary Captain Henry Collier (d. 1693), a lieutenant in the 1st Foot Guards from 1669–85 who served in Tangier as a member of the King’s Battalion, or Captain Charles Collier of Kirke’s battalion. The former was more likely because Henry Collier killed Lieutenant Thomas Church in a duel in Tangier during 1680 and was pardoned, presumably by Kirke, which may have provided the opportunity for the theft of his wife. Previously, Collier had been quartermaster of an independent troop of horse in 1667 and temporary major of Edward Villiers’s Foot in 1678. He was promoted captain of the grenadier company in Kirke’s battalion, 27 July 1685, and killed at the Battle of Landen or Neerwinden in 1693. Charles Collier was mentioned as a captain in Kirke’s battalion on 22 March 1682 and a gentleman of this name commanded an independent company of foot in October-November 1688.55

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Gibs [sic] tells me that Kirke has built a house for Mrs. Collier [out] of the King’s stores and [by the king’s] workmen, himself being employed in it. That it was nine months in doing, that has cost the king £1,000 or £1,200, and she now lies in it. The like of the Bagno, built for the like use at the king’s cost.56 The business of women’s corruption in this place is so notorious [that] Erlisman’s57 wife did get her husband himself to speak to my lord that she might go along in the same ship with Colonel Trelawney, whose mistress she is publicly famous for being; and Mrs. Collier the like, whose mistress she also is in the second place, after Kirke had done with her. And Kirke himself, or her husband, or both, have made it their request that she might also go along with Trelawney.58 I heard Kirke, with my own ears, walking with him and others to the mole Oct. 19th to see the effect of the two first bombs blown in the arches there with so little effect, ask the young Controller (Erlisman) whether he had had a whore yet since he came into the town, and he must do it quickly or they would all be gone on board the ships and that he would help him to a little one of his own size, and this openly.59

Some of the stories, though, were literally incredible. Mr. Gargrave tells me of most foul acts done by Kirke in public, lying with a woman in the market-place, and making another woman be taken from her husband out of her bed … And always taken by him and his myrmidons to defame women that would not yield to their invitations. And that Mr Dummer60 can tell me as many stories of this kind as anybody.61

Corruption and extortion were common. October 23rd. Walking up and down the mole and town walls this morning with my lord and Governor, Robert, the town apothecary, came to Kirke and told him of bad wine now selling to the soldiers at 3d or 1½d a quart, so sour that it would kill the men. Kirke presently moved my lord and he yielded that it should be staved and presently, of his own accord, Kirke went himself to see it done and presently came again to us and brought with him in his hand a bottle of white wine crying, God damn him, it was vinegar, and gave it my lord to taste, as I also did and others. I doing it very well and carefully and was troubled to see the owner of it, Mr. Cranborow (a modest man that keeps a house of entertainment) come silently with tears in his eyes, begging my lord to excuse it, for the wine was good wine and sold so cheap, as was said, only to get something for it, he not knowing how to send it away, and therefore desired he might not be undone, while Kirke all the while ranted in the sight of my lord and called him dog and that all the merchants in the town were rogues like him that would poison the men. My lord calmly bade the man dispose of what he had otherwise and not sell it to the soldiers. ‘Nay, God damn him’, says Kirke, ‘he must gather it up then from the ground, for I have staved it.’ However, the man (whether he had any more that was not staved or not, I know not) withdrew himself weeping and without complaint, to the making my heart ache. And when the man was gone, I whispered to my lord

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that I did not find the wine so sour as Kirke represented it, and my lord concurred with me. And the man being gone, did say openly to Kirke in the hearing of the company, ‘Now we are by ourselves, I must needs say that the wine is not so bad as you make it, and I believe it is better than you give your soldiers at other times’, to which he answered, God damn, but it was not. I said and I said truly, that I had drunk worse a hundred times in some of the best inland market towns in England. And Mr. Session,62 my lord’s servant, among others being by and saying the same thing or to the same purpose. Kirke swore, God damn him, he wished that he might never drink better wine as long as he lived, and other words very sharp [i.e. sarcastic]. Upon which Session answered (and so did I) that he had often drank worse. However, the thing went off without any more, my lord having in his good nature told the owner that there should be no more wine of his staved, but bid him sell no more to the soldiers of it, and yielded to a motion of Kirke’s for a proclamation to be made by beat of drum (telling my lord it was not necessary, nor usual here, to have some things done in writing) to forbid the selling of any more white wine, he saying that … Warren the merchant was selling the like wine a tother side the way [i.e. in another establishment across the street] where this man was, or some such words. But my opinion is that if the man did sue him in England for it, he might have remedy against Kirke, and he had no written order from my lord, and it will be hard to prove that he had any verbal one. Nor had he, but only my lord’s yielding to a motion of his own that he should go and stave it, being such sour stuff, as he described it … By and by (this is not all) for there came to my lord while he was at dinner Alderman Rothe63 in a great fright and confusion for [seeking] my lord’s protection against soldiers that were just now got into his house and cellar and staved all his wine, not only white wine, which was good, the same that he drank himself in his own family, but Canary and Muscatella, to the value of above £50. And then came out stories from others of soldiers breaking into houses last night and robbing them, and beating people, and snatching away people’s hats off their heads in the streets, particularly Controller Erlisman’s, and another Mr. Fist64 I think, our clerk. Upon which I did advise my lord to enquire and punish it, for otherwise the reproach will be laid in England upon him. And he did presently give de Paz65 order to have a proclamation prepared and published presently to make it death to any soldier to do any such thing, which was done accordingly, and within half an hour I met de Paz coming by the church with an Italian merchant going to my lord to complain of his being abused in his goods in the same manner since this proclamation, and that he had secured two of the men. Upon which I afterward did hear my lord upon the mole speak very high to the Governor and other officers upon it and declared he would have a courtmartial tomorrow to try these men and either punish them or their officers, Kirke not seeming at all concerned for the riots, but rather excusing them. Captain Pursell66 tells me that Cranborow, before mentioned, is undone by it.67 Captain Pursell told me that he knew very well the wine that Kirke staved and stood upon the man’s chest68 in the cellar when the wine about the room was too high for him to stand on the ground, and that the wine was better wine than

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my lord has at his own table, or did give him and rest of the officers when he entertained them the other day. In short, he says the man bought it of Alderman Rothe, that it is as good wine as is usually drunk in this town, and that the master was providing for the sending of it out, but that the man is undone, there being as much as cost him 500 dollars,69 and that all the good the Governor did in it, was to make all his soldiers that could come hither drunk.70 And pretty strange it is that though the outrages in breaking open cellars and staving of wine and particularly Alderman Rothe’s was done at noonday, and a court-martial called the next day to try some of them, yet nobody durst come to prove it, so the court-martial acquitted them.71 And Sheres today called me aside upon the mole on purpose to tell me that Kirke owes £1,500 among the inhabitants of the town, who can get no money of[f] him but curses and, ‘God damn me, why did you trust me?’ Nor dare they complain for fear of his employing some or other to do them mischief, as Sheres says he has done to two men that have been killed by his order, as is generally believed. And one a sergeant that he caused to be tied to a post and then beaten by himself as long as he could do it, and then by another, and all for bidding a servant of his go to his mistress, Mrs. Collier. And to show how little he makes of drunkenness (though he will beat a fellow for having a dirty face or band) I have seen a soldier reel upon him as he has been walking with me in the street as drunk as a dog, and at this busy time too when everybody that is not upon the guard is at work. And he has only laughed at him and cry, ‘God damn me, the fellow has got a good morning’s draught already’, and so let him go without one word of reprehension.72

In common with nearly all commissioned officers in the Restoration armed forces, conducting false musters was routine. My lord do also tell me of 900 false musters (I think that was the number) in 2,700 men, but this I will enquire after more certainly.73

Kirke consistently abused his extensive powers over both military and civilian patronage. And Dr. Ken at supper did tell my lord and the company, Mr Hughes74 the minister of the parish being by, how Kirke has put a fellow, one Roberts, upon the parish to be their reader, who will swear, drink and talk bawdily, as freely as any man in the town. And now would put him upon Shovell,75 to be his chaplain in the James Galley, but Dr. Ken proposes and desires my lord to put in one Mercer,76 the school master of the town, for several reasons, and among the rest, this of keeping out Roberts. And what at last is the reason of Kirke’s appearing thus before him, but because he is brother to Mrs. Collier, his whore.77

On Friday 26 October, Dartmouth asked Pepys to examine the petition of John Mings who complained of having been beaten and locked in the guard room. When his wife came to visit, she was raped and then taken to York Castle where further sexual assaults allegedly occurred. In the meantime, his house was burgled. Captain Charles Fox (2nd

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Tangier Regiment or Trelawney’s) admitted to Pepys that three soldiers had sexual intercourse with Mrs Mings in the guardhouse before he and Ensign Charles Carrol (Trelawney’s) had taken her to his apartment in York Castle where ‘they lay together that night’. Fox also confessed that Mings had been detained in the guard room for no good reason and subsequently released without charge. Dartmouth informed Kirke of what had taken place. When questioned by Kirke, Purcell, the captain of the guard, denied any knowledge. He then tackled Fox who started to retract his earlier statement claiming that he had no cause to sleep with another woman because he had a wife of his own. ‘Yes’, replied Kirke, ‘and a handsome one but that is no argument, for I have a wife too and yet I lie with other women.’ Clearly uneasy at the direction of the questioning, Dartmouth told him that there was no need to let everybody know. ‘Why, my lord’, said Kirke, ‘I don’t pretend to be a saint.’ However, there was nothing further to be done because the Mings had already left for Lisbon along with the bulk of the Portuguese inhabitants. Pepys believed parts of their petition but concluded that Mrs Mings was obviously ‘a light woman’ and her husband ‘an idle fellow, yet there was too much confessed to show the bestiality of this place’.78 Kirke ignored instructions from England. De Paz tells me of Kirke’s having banished the Jews without, or rather contrary to express order from England, and only because of their denying him, or standing in the way of his private profits. And that he made a poor Jew and his wife that came out of Spain to avoid the Inquisition, be carried back to Spain swearing, God damn him, they should be burned, and they were carried into the Inquisition and burned.79

The ready availability of cheap alcohol had been the curse of Tangier since the very beginnings of English occupation, the bored soldiery effectively imprisoned, without prospect of escape or release, lacking even the consolation of a decent supply of women, or vice versa. Two previous governors, John, 1st Earl of Middleton (c. 1608–74), and one-eyed Lord Inchiquin, had been egregious dipsomaniacs. There is no evidence that Kirke himself was a drunkard but he evidently tolerated the condition in others, including soldiers, and apparently took no measures to control or eradicate the epidemic. Dartmouth, accompanied by Pepys, toured the sentry and guard posts on the night of 23 October. On approaching the mole, they found the officer of the guard below the church intoxicated and his colleague at the entrance to the mole asleep in bed. To make matters worse, all the sentries freely gave away both passwords – Edinburgh and Dublin – when they should have challenged with one and accepted the other in reply.80 As a further instance of the good government of the town, my lord going out this night Oct. 24th (as he did the last) to see the mole and pass guard, his own guard that was to guard himself in his quarters, when he came out of doors, were, instead of being in the street, housed and a-drinking and their officer too with them. And the foremost of them that came to wait on my lord was drunk so as not [to know] how to hold his tongue, nor well to go. My lord found it and caused him to be laid by the heels and gave severe threats to the captain (Wingfield,81 I think) and so we went on.82

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Provisions were short so Dartmouth ordered that the soldiers be given the value of their meat ration in cash and left to feed themselves but ‘they turned it all into drink, insomuch that they were presently all drunk, none could be got to work. And so my lord was forced to send for live cattle from the Moors and cause the soldiers to be fed with fresh meat.’83 Kirke explained that when the soldiers received meat on Mondays, most sold it immediately to shop keepers and traders using the proceeds to buy drink, which they consumed within three days. The subsequent four-day fast cost many lives. Kirke was of the opinion that brandy had killed far more men than the Moors.84 At every opportunity, Kirke sought to exploit his position for personal gain and profit. It is strange how Kirke turned everything to his own benefit, nothing being sold in the town but by him or his license, and with profit to him. He buying all the cattle of the Moors at 9 pieces-of-eight a head and selling them to the butchers at 12, ready money, and they selling them after him to the people as dear as they could. And this in the case of wax, even against an express Order in Council given in the case within a year, as they tell me.85 Kirke’s accounts most extravagant, and yet all vouched by the Mayor and Controller of the town, they being all his creatures or awed by him.86 I am told by W. Hewer of another particular roguery of Kirke’s in making Forgeon87 pay him, since we come, £100 to be eased of a bond of £200 he had given for the not selling of a parcel of brandy here, even after my lord had given him … leave to sell it here.88

Sheres heard a story on 19 November about a Tunisian ship’s captain who had recently brought a prize into Tangier, seeking to sell it. Dartmouth granted Kirke the right to purchase the vessel but the master demanded 1,500 dollars and Kirke would only offer 600. In pique, Kirke placed both ships under an embargo refusing to allow provisions to go aboard, which quickly reduced the crews to a diet of bread and water. He then deployed armed guards, thereby using the king’s troops on his personal business. Richard Senhouse, the pratique master of Tangier,89 queried the matter with Kirke only to be told to mind his own business. Senhouse dared not approach Dartmouth directly for fear of Kirke’s reaction so he asked Sheres to intercede without mentioning the source of his information. Before walking to the harbour to release the Tunisian captain, Dartmouth reminded Kirke that it was expressly forbidden for royal governors to interest themselves in private commerce.90 Pepys summarized his findings. The tyranny and vice of Kirke in his way is stupendous, as by infinite stories appears. And his exactions upon poor merchants and letting nothing be sold that comes in but after he had had the refusal of it; but this do enough show how it comes to pass that the King was never yet told of the foolishness of the place that he has long spent money upon, because the doing of it would have put an end to the benefits which governors did one after another make of the place, and then their dependence upon their interest at Court to justify anything they did, though

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quite contrary to express instructions (as in Kirke’s proceedings in this business of monopolising of trade) they were under no restraint, but did whatever they saw good … Here they lived also under all the vicious liberties they pleased, there being nobody lived easily that controlled them here, or durst complain (to no purpose too) of them, at home. And this did not escape even Mr. Sheres himself, who had his mistress too, and but for his own profit could and would have made this known ten years ago, which he says we now see, and therefore owns to us as much as anybody.91

In other words, Kirke, Herbert, Aylmer and their associates – including Sheres and Atkins – as well as previous admirals of the Mediterranean squadron and governors had been able to act much as they pleased because there was scant danger of either discovery or retribution. In a political and military system that depended upon patronage and nepotism, juniors imperilled their own careers by uncovering their superiors’ misdemeanours. After listening to Pepys’s tales of multiple misdeeds, the situation was neatly summed up by Dartmouth, Master of the Ordnance, commander of the expedition, governor of Tangier and peer of the realm. Lord Dartmouth do give me plain instance of the effect of Court interest to the prejudice of the King’s service in everything, in his answering me to several things wherein I told him of Kirke’s unjust proceedings towards the King and the subjects too in his making profit of everything to the oppressing of everybody else and contempt of the King’s orders for the improvement of the place. His answer was: ‘What would you have me do? I come not here to stay, and for me to oppose and cross him for so little a time is to little purpose to the King or the subjects, but a great deal to me, to the drawing of enemies about my ears at home, more than I have, by all Kirke’s friends’.92

Apart from personal distaste, abuse of trust lay at the root of Pepys’s aversion to Kirke, Herbert and the ‘Tangerines’. They had exploited every opportunity provided by independent commands far from Whitehall’s supervision to line their own pockets while disregarding the king’s laws and instructions.93 The Tangerines would, no doubt, have explained that they were simply combining private enterprise with public duty, a practice enshrined within the concept of ‘English liberties’. Their freehold commissions embodied the ‘right’ to extract as much pecuniary gain and personal advantage as possible.94 Kirke also argued, with some justification, that it was inappropriate to apply ‘London values’ and the niceties of the English legal process within a set of exposed, dangerous, vulnerable and filthy barracks clinging to the coast of North Africa on the very edge of the distant Christian-Muslim divide: only Kirke’s idiosyncratic version of martial law was likely to be effective. Religious conflict in the Mediterranean might have diminished somewhat from the intensity prevalent in the sixteenth century yet 1683 is principally remembered for the Ottoman Turkish invasion of Austria and the subsequent siege of Vienna. Capture for the soldiers and sailors of either side at Tangier meant slavery. Tangier was not unique and its baser characteristics were replicated in the British West Indian sugar colonies, especially Barbados, Jamaica and the Leeward Islands. They stood along the militarized Caribbean frontier under constant

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pressure from France, Spain, the Dutch and buccaneers, their multi-racial, polyglot populations comprising criminals, bankrupts, runaways, slaves, pirates, chancers and the dispossessed. They too lay beyond Whitehall’s effective jurisdiction and shallow, local laws were frequently replaced by militarized government, which often became corrupt.95 Even in England, a garrison commander enjoyed considerable autonomy but in a faraway station like Tangier he was a virtual viceroy taking decisions without reference to any higher authority. Kirke was probably right that a measure of independence and operational freedom was essential but, according to Pepys, he exceeded acceptable boundaries.96 Pepys observed an arbitrary and capricious man, partial, subjective and inconsistent in enforcing discipline, one minute laughing at misdemeanours, imposing draconian punishments the next. His attitude to superiors was equally unpredictable; anxious to please and quick to obey on some occasions, at other times scornful and dismissive. He was only constant in favouring his own interests and those of his cronies and associates. Kirke was a bully but, unusually for that genus, one who was also personally brave and courageous. However, nearly all the evidence quoted above derives from an acerbic and disapproving Pepys. While he hinted that corroboration might be provided by Edward Dummer and some of the naval captains in the Straits Squadron, none is extant. Conviction on the unsupported testimony of a single witness is unsafe, especially when the official record allows a less pejorative interpretation of Kirke’s conduct. Defending Kirke against Pepys’s indictment is difficult but some hesitant mitigation can be attempted. Drinking to excess was a contemporary social problem, whether in England or a remote garrison. Gambling and its corollary, debt, was another widespread menace. Because there were few victorious battles in Tangier the men lacked the opportunity to acquire plunder and were thus dependent on their basic pay, which was habitually months in arrears. Destitution was the result. Throughout the English occupation, desperation occasionally drove some soldiers to desert to the Moroccans. Kirke thus inherited a deeply flawed command but significant reform was impossible without a complete change in personnel, ethos, mission and resources. Dartmouth, the new governor, sat on his hands offering the pathetic explanation that it was too late to do anything because the colony was being evacuated and, anyway, he did not wish to offend anybody. Finally, Pepys made no attempt to discriminate but noted down all that he heard. He reported yarns that he knew were untrue. For instance, he falsely accused Francis Wheler and Anthony Hastings of being promoted captain without having first served as lieutenants.97 Although this calls into question the verity of some of the wilder accusations, it cannot invalidate the majority. Kirke may have been no better and no worse than most of his predecessors but it was his misfortune to be observed by a hostile critic with a mania for the written record. One wonders how well Peterborough, Teviot, Norwood, Middleton, Inchiquin and Fairborne would have fared under similar scrutiny. Although Pepys’s ‘Journal towards Tangier’ was a semi-official record, the ‘notes’ were private and both remained unpublished during his lifetime: the former was first printed in 184198 and the latter not until 1935. Charles was never presented with a formal list of accusations against Kirke and the Tangerines. No-one was brought to account or suffered although Herbert’s wings were slightly clipped later in 1684 over

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the business of the starved slaves but he soon recovered to become Rear Admiral of England and Groom of the Bedchamber to James II.99 The Tangier Papers indicate that Pepys shared his opinion of Kirke with several people while in Tangier. On his return, he enjoyed a number of lengthy conversations with Charles and York during which the subject of Kirke must have been raised. Pepys’s indictment spread very widely very quickly because, by the time that the expedition had returned to England, Kirke had already acquired a reputation as an uncouth, immoral, vile-tempered man whose rough, ‘soldierly’ language affronted decency. Kirke must have known about Pepys’s observations but there is no evidence of any response. Had the diatribes been slanderous, Kirke would surely have issued a challenge, which suggests that Pepys was reinforcing common knowledge. Kirke’s ill character even crossed the Atlantic during 1684 and there must have been several sources aside from Pepys: Dummer, Dartmouth, Trumbull, Lawrence, Hewer and Ken are all possibilities. Some, rather charitably, suggested that he had learned his myriad bad habits from close contact with the Moors but they could teach him little. Pepys’s dossier did not affect Kirke’s subsequent career and he seemed to revel in the resultant notoriety. He was not held responsible for Tangier’s demise, which passed into history without a scapegoat. Indeed, being labelled a brutal, apolitical, godless, insensitive, irreligious soldier further endeared him to his patron, York. When James succeeded to the throne and required the backing of the army to help in his attempt to re-catholicize the kingdom, unprincipled ‘swordsmen’ like Kirke, Herbert, Edmund Andros (1637–1714), John Graham of Claverhouse, Charles Trelawney and Richard Talbot were just what he thought he needed.100 As the Moors pressed closer and closer – Dartmouth felt obliged to warn them not to advance into the ruins until all demolitions had been completed − on 5 February 1684 the garrison was rowed company by company to the waiting ships and the last mines were sprung, the most spectacular bringing down Peterborough Tower. Dartmouth then fired the final charge, beneath Whitehall Fort, before retiring to his flagship. By midnight on 6 February Tangier belonged to Morocco.101 Percy and Mary Kirke, along with seven companies from the 1st battalion of the 1st Tangier Regiment, boarded HMS Montagu102 while the remaining company under Captain John Giles embarked in the yacht, HMS Ann. Six companies of the 2nd battalion (Lieutenant Colonel Marmaduke Boynton (d. 1684))103 sailed in HMS Centurion (4th rate, 48 guns); Captain Francis Chantrell’s company was put into the ketch, HMS Deptford (10 guns); Captain James Guy’s company was in HMS Dragon (4th rate, 38 guns); and the regiment’s grenadier company (Captain William Mathews) embarked on the Grafton. In total, there were 751 officers and men plus 30 wives and children. The regiment’s horses were carried by the merchantman, Speedy. The Grafton reached Plymouth on 30 March and, despite bad weather, all Dartmouth’s ships had made landfall by the end of April. The Montagu put into Falmouth on 2 April. HMS Greyhound (6th rate, 16 guns) arrived at Plymouth six days later carrying 38 released slaves. Dartmouth brought home 2,830 soldiers plus 170 male and 191 female civilians. The competent execution of the evacuation partially disguised a major, national defeat. Tangier subsequently declined in importance: ‘from [that] time it has been only a poor Moorish fishing port.’104

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The entire Tangier garrison was incorporated into the Guards and Garrisons. The Whigs were appalled at this addition to royal power but could do nothing except grumble privately amid the columns and cubicles of the Royal Exchange.105 The King’s Battalion marched to London whence the companies rejoined their parent regiments. The single troop of Tangier Horse also made for the capital while the Company of Miners returned to the Tower and the command of the Ordnance Office. The initial plan had allocated the Royal Scots to Ireland but this was changed and the 1st battalion quartered in Rochester and the 2nd in Winchester (six companies) and Southampton (two companies). Trelawney’s (2nd Tangier Regiment now the Duchess of York’s) garrisoned the Royal Citadel in Plymouth. Kirke’s regiment, renamed the Queen’s (Queen Dowager’s after 1685), deployed the 1st battalion (eight companies) to Pendennis Castle to labour on improving the fortifications while the 2nd battalion (eight companies) joined Trelawney’s at Plymouth. Having been raised in the West Country, the deployment was a homecoming for the survivors.106 The governor of Pendennis, John, 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice (1649–98), had been ordered to arrange accommodation for Kirke, his men and their wives and families at a maximum cost of 3d per person per day. The rooms were ‘so out of repair’ that Kirke was ‘forced to bring his wife to London.’ Doubtless the need to be close to court and the fountains of patronage was also a factor.107 By tradition, the Queen’s soon acquired the nickname ‘Kirke’s Lambs’ either because a paschal lamb was depicted on its colours or Kirke referred to them by this epithet after the Battle of Sedgemoor in 1685. However, the nomenclature was not contemporary but appears to have developed from the Whig histories and literature published after 1688. It is possible that the name arose from the regiment’s temporary retention of the Tangier tropical uniform, white or pale grey coats and breeches tailored from undyed cloth, following its return to England. The story of the paschal lamb is questionable. In 1684, the regimental standard was ‘a red cross, bordered white, and rays as the Admiral’s (i.e. rays of the sun similar to the flag of the Lord High Admiral’s Regiment), in a green field, with his Majesty’s royal cipher in the centre’. Unfortunately, Brooks’s List does not describe the uniform of Kirke’s regiment, although it does for most of the other units but, two years later, Kirke’s was clad in red coats with green facings, green breeches and white stockings. Later, the regiment did adopt the lamb as its badge but the first recorded reference to the regiment as ‘lambs’ did not occur until 1702 in a poem by John Pomfret, ‘Cruelty and Lust: an Epistolary Essay’, in Miscellany Poems on Several Occasions, written in 1699.108 Kirke received orders on 27 April to reduce his regiment into a single battalion of ten, 50-man, line companies and one of grenadiers. Those retained belonged to Kirke, Lieutenant Colonel Boynton, Major Sir James Lesley and Captains John Giles, Thomas St John, Brent Ely, Henry Rowe, George Wingfield, Thomas Barber (Barbour), Charles Wingfield and William Mathews (grenadier company).109 The unit was so understrength that most of the demobilized soldiers were reassigned to complete the ranks of the survivor companies. Before the reorganization was complete, on 27 June Kirke was instructed to restore four companies – those of Captains George Talbot, Francis Chantrell, James Guy and John Burgess – and recruit them up to 60 men apiece. Together with Boynton’s own company, these supernumerary companies were then

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detached from the battalion and ordered to ready themselves for departure to Ireland under Boynton’s leadership. Boynton, however, died in November 1684 and Kirke’s brother, Philip, was promoted to the lieutenant colonelcy and led the companies to Ireland. Prima facie, this appears to have been an attempt by Charles to ‘lose’ extra troops in Ireland and charge them to the Dublin treasury. Also on 27 June, Kirke was ordered to disband Captain Zouch Tate’s company and use the men to fill the battalion’s still-numerous vacancies. The regiment now comprised only ten weak companies but on 11 August was restored to 11 by the addition of Burgess’s company, which was transferred from the half-battalion destined for Ireland.110 Kirke’s services were promptly recognized. First, on 25 August 1684, he was appointed groom of the royal bedchamber at a salary of £500 p.a., a sinecure often bestowed in acknowledgement of particular services to the crown: no doubt to the king’s relief, Kirke was not actually required to wait on the royal person.111 Secondly, an opportunity arose in North America. The New England Confederation, comprising Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and Maine, had resisted attempts by the Restoration government to reform its charters and constitutions. A hotbed of religious radicalism and Commonwealth political principles, New England was one of the few remaining sanctuaries for English and Scottish political and religious refugees.112 As part of the crackdown on Whigs and non-conformists following the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, the charter of the colony of Massachusetts was revoked and the Lords of Trade and Plantations created a Dominion of New England consisting of Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York, Connecticut and Maine. Other factors also drove this new policy. New England’s white population numbered no more than 70,000 yet was governed by seven separate, bickering jurisdictions, each with its own budget and administration. The advent of the Dominion would bring unified government, improved defence against Indian aggression and substantial economies. The scheme enjoyed support in New England as well as Whitehall. As usual with colonial affairs, that which appeared attractive from reading a map in London lost much of its charm and practicality when subjected to North American geography and climate. Nevertheless, the attempt was made and Charles decided that Kirke, hard, ruthless, insensitive yet obedient, was the ideal leader. Joseph Dudley (1647–1720) was made president of an acting council of the Dominion of New England on 23 October 1684 pending the appointment of a permanent governor. On 11 November 1684, Kirke was nominated governordesignate and his draft commission had been prepared by 12 December.113 Edward Randolph (1632–1703), Charles II’s principal counsellor on the affairs of the North American colonies whose report in 1681 had been instrumental in the decision to launch the Dominion, was then asked for advice. A man like Kirke, ‘short-tempered, rough-spoken and dissolute’, would be inappropriate, he replied, and urged that an alternative be found. On a separate occasion, Randolph wrote that the Dominion would be stillborn if its people were ‘condemned to that misery to have Colonel Kirke to be their Governor’: he himself would ‘rather have £100 a year in New England under a quiet prudent Governor than £500 under Kirke’.114 Kirke’s commission, which had not been fully processed, lapsed when Charles died on 5 February 1685.

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James II did not renew it because he wanted to employ Kirke in England and ordered Dudley’s interim council to continue until another suitable candidate could be found. Sir Matthias Vincent (c. 1645–87), who had made a fortune in Bengal, was initially proposed but his health was deteriorating. Sir Edmund Andros, ‘a man of ordinary parts … great instability and impertinence’ but a client and kinsman-by-marriage of the Earl of Craven, was commissioned governor on 3 June 1686 reaching Boston on 19 December. Andros, who had successfully but harshly governed the colony of New York in the Duke of York’s interest between 1674 and 1683 before becoming lieutenant colonel of the horse regiment of Robert Leke, 3rd Earl of Scarsdale (1654–1707), on 30 July 1685, proved to be a slightly more polished version of the man he had replaced.115

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Monmouth’s Rebellion

Kirke spent the winter of 1684–5 at his Whitehall address while his battalion remained in Pendennis and Plymouth until the spring. On 17 April 1685 the colonel’s own company, led by Captain-Lieutenant William Berry,1 and those of Captains St John, George Wingfield and Charles Wingfield were ordered to London. Setting out 11 days later, they first marched to Truro, then around the southern edge of Dartmoor to Exeter before proceeding through Axminster, Salisbury, Andover, Basingstoke and Staines reaching their destination on 29 May, a daily average of ten miles. Major Sir James Lesley’s company accompanied them as far as Saltash whence it branched off to Plymouth to relieve Captain Mathews’s grenadier company, which then joined the other four companies on their way to London. The half-battalion was first billeted in Staines and Egham before moving to Chelsea and Kensington. Thus, on 8 June, five of Kirke’s 11 companies were stationed in Plymouth, one in Pendennis (Captain Barber) and five on the outskirts of Westminster. Lieutenant Colonel Philip Kirke and the four supernumerary companies continued in Ireland.2 During the Exclusion Crisis, Monmouth had been vigorously promoted as the Protestant successor in place of his Roman Catholic uncle, York. Spoiled and indulged by his father, Monmouth had his head turned further by the adulation received during stage-managed ‘progresses’ through the south-west of England in 1680 and Lancashire and Cheshire two years later. After the Oxford Parliament of 1681, some of the more extreme Whigs took the movement underground and began plotting the assassination of Charles and York. Monmouth gravitated towards these wild men and was sucked on to the fringes of the Rye House Plot in 1683.3 For a time his father provided protection from the consequences of such intemperance but he was obliged to flee to the Netherlands late in January 1684 when subpoenaed to appear as a witness in the trial of his friend and co-conspirator, Richard Hampden (c. 1631–95). Charles secretly furnished money to enable Monmouth to live quietly in Brussels with his mistress, Lady Henrietta Wentworth (1660–86), while preparing the ground for eventual pardon but the king’s death and James II’s smooth, peaceful accession abruptly altered the situation. Previously welcomed and fêted in The Hague by William of Orange, overnight he was transformed into a rival for the English throne and banished from court. Most of his income disappeared leaving a choice between becoming a full-time

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mercenary, sponging off Lady Wentworth’s fortune or returning home to contest the crown.4 Heavily influenced by English and Scottish religious and political exiles in the Netherlands, Monmouth picked the most extravagant course. Preparations for his invasion of England coincided with the intention of Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll (1629–85), to raise insurrection in Scotland. Although the two expeditions were separate, it was recognized that mounting them simultaneously would be mutually beneficial and some co-ordination meetings were held.5 Already under sentence of death, Argyll sought political rehabilitation and the recovery of his forfeited estates. Although strongly opposed to Catholicism, he did not seek to depose the king: indeed, he supported absolute monarchy, provided that it favoured his interests. On the other hand, the English plotters aimed to oust James and insert Monmouth as a puppet ruler thereby restoring the dominance of Protestantism and parliament. At the beginning of May 1685, Argyll sailed from the Netherlands with 300 men in three ships. They stopped long enough in the Orkneys for a warning to reach the government in Edinburgh, which was already expecting trouble because spies in the Netherlands had ensured that James was well informed about Argyll’s and Monmouth’s plans, before landing at Tobermory on the Isle of Mull on 11 May. Recruits were not forthcoming from the Campbell lands in the western Highlands, which had been ravaged and cowed in 1684 by 1,000 soldiers under John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl (1631–1703), and Argyll led just 600 men ashore on 20 May at Campbeltown, Kintyre. Further attempts to levy significant forces were unsuccessful and Argyll was very meagrely attended when captured trying to cross the Clyde at Inchinnan. He was executed in Edinburgh on 30 June 1685. William of Orange could easily have prevented Monmouth’s departure but was disinclined to interfere with a competitor’s self-destruction.6 Monmouth was allowed to slip away from Amsterdam in a barge on 24 May and sail north through the Zuider Zee to the Texel where he boarded a Dutch warship, the Helderenberg (5th rate, 32 guns, Captain Cornwall Brackley), which, together with two small tenders, had been chartered at a cost in excess of £5,000. Also on board were Anthony Buyse, a mercenary from Brandenburg; an experienced Dutch gunner; about 80 English and Scottish supporters; 1,460 suits of armour; 100 muskets and bandoliers of cartridges; 500 pikes; 500 swords; 250 barrels of gunpowder; assorted carbines and pistols; and four light field guns.7 Some of Monmouth’s principal companions possessed useful military experience: Abraham Holmes (d. 1685) had served with distinction as a lieutenant colonel in Monck’s Scottish army in 1659;8 Robert Perrot (d. 1685) had been a lieutenant in the New Model; while Captain John Foulkes (d. c. 1693) and Ensign James Fox (d. 1691) held active commissions in the Anglo-Dutch Brigade. On the other hand, Ford, 2nd Baron Grey of Wark (c. 1655–1701), the cavalry commander, had only used weapons in duels and the captaincy claimed by Abraham Annesley (d. 1685) was imaginary. Robert ‘the Plotter’ Ferguson (d. 1714) and Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (c. 1653–1716) were more adept at subversion than soldiering. The greatest martial aptitude was to be displayed by two Bristolian novices, Nathaniel Wade (1646– 1718), a lawyer, and Joseph Tyley (Tily). From the Texel, the ships headed towards the south west of England, selected because it boasted a rich tradition of religious dissent;

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a decline in the woollen industry had created much unemployment and social unrest; and Monmouth had been very well received during his ‘progress’ in 1680. After a frustrating passage against contrary winds, the squadron made a landfall at Lyme Regis on 11 June. The main party went ashore in the evening and raised Monmouth’s standard on the Church Cliff. A prolix declaration, composed by Ferguson, was then read before the bemused townspeople gathered in the market place. Inter alia, it asserted that James had murdered the Earl of Essex and Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey (1621–78); poisoned his own brother; helped to burn London in 1666; and was a traitor for proselytizing Roman Catholicism. It also stated that Monmouth was Charles II’s legitimate heir. The royalist mayor of Lyme, Gregory Alford (1620–97), was unpersuaded by this nonsense but alarmed at the speed with which the charismatic and dashing duke was attracting volunteers: 1,000 infantry and 150 cavalry had gathered by dusk on 12 June. After scribbling an express letter to Whitehall, Alford rode through Honiton to Exeter to alert Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle (1653–88), the commander of the Devon militia, who in turn notified Colonel Francis Luttrell of Dunster Castle (1659–90), leader of the Somerset trained bands. Meanwhile, two customs officials at Lyme, Samuel Dassell and Anthony Thorold, rode directly to Westminster to present an account of Monmouth’s landing and disquietingly favourable reception. Travelling day and night, they reached Whitehall at 04:00 on Saturday 13 June. James was roused from his bed and listened attentively before rewarding them with £20. Parliament, already in session, quickly passed a bill of attainder, thereby convicting Monmouth of high treason without the necessity for a subsequent trial, and voted emergency taxation to meet the unexpected costs. Military preparations were immediately put in hand but James was hesitant about employing the regulars. Although Whigs had been purged between 1680 and 1684, the army’s loyalty remained untested. Most senior officers had served under Monmouth in France, Flanders or Scotland and many had been his clients. In the event, nearly all proved reliable because most were pragmatists and could see very clearly that there was scant prospect of the bid for the crown succeeding and their interests were better served by allegiance to the king. Besides, a victorious campaign would yield rich pickings, rewards and promotions. It was an entirely expedient display of loyalty that thoroughly deceived James for the remainder of his reign. Nevertheless, the king was uneasy and initially placed his faith in the county militias, despite their baleful performance against the Dutch landings in Essex and Kent during 1667, stiffened by only a small detachment of standing troops. In a belated attempt to improve efficiency, James followed the example set by Charles I of appointing professional officers to advise the militia colonels. Sir Edmund Andros and Sir William Stapleton (d. 1686), who had just returned to England after governing the Leeward Islands since 1671, assisted Albemarle in putting the Devon and Somerset trained bands through some emergency training but time was too short. James intended the militias of Devon, Dorset and Somerset to squeeze Monmouth against the Channel coast but this scheme was quickly overtaken by events. The Dorset militia ran away rather than skirmish with Lord Grey at Bridport on 14 June, then, in company with its Somerset counterpart, disintegrated before Monmouth’s march towards Taunton, throwing

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away uniforms and weapons which were eagerly snatched by the under-equipped rebels. Even more worrying, many of these deserters promptly joined the insurrection. These depressing tidings had yet to reach London when at midday on 13 June Blathwayt organized a small, mixed detachment from the standing army to bolster the militia and harass the rebels. Two troops of the Royal Dragoons (Lieutenant Colonel Edward Hyde, Viscount Cornbury (1661–1723), and Captain John Coy), which were quartered in Chichester, were instructed to ride to Salisbury.9 Brigadier John Churchill, James’s most trusted ‘swordsman’, was ordered to leave London that evening at the head of four troops of the Royal Horse Guards; two from his own regiment, the Royal Dragoons – Churchill’s own, led by Captain-Lieutenant Thomas Hussey, and Captain Charles Nedby’s – and the five companies of the Queen Dowager’s infantry,10 conveniently billeted in Chelsea and Kensington, under Kirke. The horsemen formed an advance party and were scheduled to reach Salisbury on Sunday 14 June to rendezvous with Cornbury and Coy.11 Churchill was then to ride south-west to shadow the rebels and support the militias which, at this stage, were still expected to carry the weight of the campaign. The junction was effected in Salisbury on 14 June and, later that day, the eight troops set out through Blandford and Dorchester, reaching Bridport on 17 June having covered 120 miles in four days. Kirke’s infantry was left to make what speed it could. Churchill was now positioned in the rear of Monmouth’s army, which was advancing north towards Taunton. On arrival in Bridport, he received several reports of the militia’s appalling performance and immediately wrote an express to Whitehall informing the king, bluntly, that the original strategy had already died and a new plan was urgently required based upon the deployment of the standing army: unless sufficient regulars were promptly dispatched from London, the whole of the west would be forfeit. James was reported to be under considerable strain as he reassessed the situation.12 James knew that Monmouth had arrived in Dorset without an army and assumed that it would take time before he could accumulate sufficient forces to act offensively. Although somewhat suprised by the choice of Torbay – a landing in north-west England had been anticipated because it was home to some of Monmouth’s most ardent supporters, notably Lord Gerard of Brandon and his son, Charles Gerard (c. 1659–1701), and Henry Booth, 2nd Baron Delamere (1652–94) – James appreciated that Monmouth had thereby placed himself at a considerable strategic disadvantage. The royal garrisons in Plymouth and Pendennis would prevent any attempt to build a solid base in Cornwall and west Devon ensuring that Monmouth would have to face east. Although London was obviously the ultimate destination, his interim target was likely to be Bristol, the second city, where he might acquire a port, money and recruits. Once established there he would be able to choose whether to advance north along the Severn valley towards Cheshire in order to gather additional strength or directly on London via the Thames corridor. Should the first option be chosen, he would move via the flood plain between the River Severn and the Cotswold escarpment, aiming for Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Worcester and Kidderminster. The route from Bristol to London was more problematic for an amateur army lacking well-developed logistics. Monmouth was unlikely to attempt to cross the Cotswolds and would probably march to Bath and Bradford-on-Avon before skirting the northern edge of Salisbury

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Plain towards Chippenham, Marlborough, Hungerford and Newbury. Because his followers were not yet armed, organized and trained, military orthodoxy suggested that Monmouth would seek to avoid a major confrontation during the early stages of the campaign. This analysis of Monmouth’s likely strategy informed the revised royal response. While Churchill’s detachment harried and observed the rebels, a strong corps from the standing army would assemble behind the River Avon between Bristol and Bath whence it could menace the flank of both Monmouth’s possible axes of advance, effectively trapping him in the south-western peninsula. When in place, the regulars would assume responsibility for all major operations relegating the militia to the occupation of territory vacated by the rebels plus general police and security duties. The rationale behind this approach was enhanced when, on 20 June, Monmouth’s naval lifeline and escape route was severed. HMS Saudadoes (6th rate, 16 guns, Captain Richard Trevanion RN13) sailed into Lyme Bay and seized his two remaining ships, the Helderenberg having already departed for Spain via Cornwall. Trevanion landed and captured 40 barrels of gunpowder and a good deal of cavalry armour leaving Monmouth’s horsemen poorly accoutred for the remainder of the campaign.14 James’s plan, however, was compromised by two major difficulties; it was defensive and reactive, presenting the initiative to Monmouth, and there were not enough troops for its effective execution. Although the English standing army contained 7,472 soldiers in marching regiments and 1,393 in independent garrison companies, only a minority was available to form a field corps because provision had to be made to meet several contingencies. London, a centre of religious and political dissent, was potentially volatile requiring a sufficient garrison in Whitehall, the Tower of London, the Savoy and surrounding villages. In addition, the major ports and Anglo-Scottish border counties needed protection. All independent, garrison companies had to remain in situ and at full strength in order to secure their localities, especially those at Chester, Carlisle and Berwick because it was known that Monmouth hoped to raise men and resources in the north-west. Once these eventualities had been covered, about 3,000 English soldiers remained to form the detachment with which to oppose a rebel force that, at the height of its popularity between 21 and 24 June, amounted to around 8,000 men. Assistance could not be drawn from Scotland because of the possibility of a concomitant covenanter uprising. James asked the Scottish Privy Council to send into the borders and Dumfries and Galloway five companies from the Scottish Foot Guards under their Lieutenant Colonel, John Winraham (d. 1687); five companies from the foot battalion of Charles Erskine, 21st Earl of Mar (1650–89), led by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Buchan (d. 1720), a very experienced professional soldier who had served in both France and the Anglo-Dutch Brigade; four troops, commanded by John Graham of Claverhouse, from the King’s Scottish regiment of horse; and two troops, directed by Lieutenant Colonel Lord Charles Murray (1661–1710), from the King’s Scottish regiment of dragoons. Dumbarton assumed overall field command. The 1,000 English soldiers who had been stationed in Ireland in order to save money, including Kirke’s four companies, were ordered to sail to Chester but did not arrive until 8 July, by which time the emergency was over. They were quickly returned.15

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Blathwayt immediately set about augmenting the under-strength English standing army. Beating orders were issued to raise nine new regiments of cavalry, two of dragoons and nine battalions of infantry but none would be ready in time to make any contribution and James had to depend upon the existing establishment. There was no option but to turn to the nearest major reserve, the undependable Anglo-Dutch Brigade, replete with numerous political and religious exiles as well as Whigs who had been dismissed from the British establishments. James asked William of Orange on 22 May for the return of the three Scots regiments and, on 17 June, for the three English battalions. William readily complied, happy to contribute to Monmouth’s destruction, and kindly offered to command the brigade himself but James rejected this insult, angry at the slight to his martial capacity – James fancied himself a warrior-king − and worried at the prospect of the simultaneous presence of two unwanted Protestant claimants to the throne.16 The Scottish regiments were originally intended for the suppression of Argyll but his rebellion had collapsed before the troops embarked so they were diverted to England, landing at Gravesend on 30 June. Before they marched across London to Hounslow Heath, James reviewed them on Blackheath on 3 July and was most impressed by their appearance and drill.17 On 5 July they began their journey to join the army in the west but had only reached Bagshot in Surrey when news reached them of the victory at Sedgemoor. They retraced their steps to London and, on 27 July, were ordered to embark for the Netherlands. The three English regiments, commanded by Sir Henry Bellasise (1648–1717), did not come ashore until 8 July, too late to serve any useful purpose. Several soldiers took the opportunity to run from their colours so the troops were encamped close to the capital under the watchful eyes of the London garrison until boarding ship on 24 July. In an effort to extend his future control over the brigade, James then proposed the appointment of the Irish Roman Catholic, Nicholas Taafe, 2nd Earl of Carlingford (d. 1690), as commander. William refused, reminding James that this had been tried once before, in 1679, when Charles had advanced the candidacy of Lord Dumbarton. The episode merely served to damage the newfound but short-lived goodwill between the houses of Stuart and Orange. On 18 June, while Monmouth was entering Taunton to a rapturous reception, Churchill rode from Bridport to Axminster. He progressed to Chard on 19 June where he received instructions implementing the amended strategy: he was told to transfer to the north and interpose his troops between the rebels and Bristol. Once this manoeuvre had been completed, he was to destroy Keynsham Bridge over the River Avon before guarding the Bath-Bristol line until the main body came into position. Churchill was also told that Feversham had been appointed to lead the army in the west, an unpleasant pill sweetened only slightly by promotion to major general.18 Until the new commander-in-chief arrived, Churchill was to direct all royal troops in the theatre. Feversham’s army was hastily assembled from units close-at-hand. It comprised seven companies of the 1st battalion of the 1st Foot Guards, commanded by Colonel the Duke of Grafton; six companies from the 2nd battalion under Major William Eaton (d. 1688); six companies of the 2nd Foot Guards led by Lieutenant Colonel Edward Sackville; 150 Life Guardsmen headed by Lieutenant Colonel Theophilus

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Oglethorpe; 60 horse grenadiers of the Life Guard, 20 from each troop;19 and Major Sir Francis Compton (c. 1629–1716) with the remaining four troops of the Royal Horse Guards (200 men).20 The soldiers left London on 20 June, Feversham travelling ahead with the Life Guard and the horse grenadiers leaving Grafton in charge of the main body. London and Whitehall were protected by the impeccably royalist Lieutenant Colonel John Strode (d. 1686), commanding the City trained bands and the remaining 12 companies of the 1st Foot Guards. Richard Ridge, the Ordnance Office storekeeper at Portsmouth, was directed to prepare a train of eight field guns.21 Escorted by five companies from the Queen Consort’s regiment of foot (the old 2nd Tangier Regiment, Colonel Charles Trelawney) under Lieutenant Colonel Charles Churchill (1656–1714), John Churchill’s youngest brother, it was ordered to march to Chippenham where it would receive directions from Feversham. The column had reached Salisbury by Friday 19 June. In addition, the Ordnance Office was instructed to make up from its stores in the Tower of London a train of 16 brass cannon, sufficient ammunition to provide each gun with 40 round and 15 case shot, plus tents and spare weapons. The heavier pieces were towed by seven or eight horses and even the lighter required six.22 This caravan, led by Sir Phineas Pett (1646–90), left London on the evening of 21 June,23 protected by five companies of the Royal Scots led by Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Douglas.24 Henry Sheres, the former surveyor-general of Tangier, commanded the Portsmouth train and would assume responsibility for all the artillery once both contingents had combined. Sheres was assisted by Quartermaster Edward Dummer, Fireworker James English25 and Bombardier Daniel Moody.26 Altogether, Feversham would ultimately be served by 24 cannon and about 120 wagons. Feversham reached Maidenhead on 20 June. Early the following morning, Oglethorpe went ahead with 50 men from the 3rd Troop of the Life Guard and the 60 horse grenadiers, via Andover and Warminster, to locate the enemy. Feversham reached Newbury on the evening of 21 June and Chippenham the next day. On 23 June, he rode through the Kingswood coal mining district27 and entered Bristol at noon. During the afternoon he inspected the city’s defences in company with Henry Somerset, 1st Duke of Beaufort (1629–1700), the self-styled ‘Defender of Bristol’, and Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset (1662–1748), the county’s lord lieutenant. Grafton and the infantry, although a considerable distance behind, followed the same road as far as Chippenham where they turned south-west towards Bath.28 The artillery made surprisingly rapid progress, no doubt aided by the very dry conditions: the Portsmouth train trundled into Dorchester on 21 June, Sherborne the next day and encountered Churchill at Somerton on 23 June.29 Kirke’s five companies had left their billets on 13 June, arriving in Oxford on 17 June accompanied by 60 mounted volunteers. A traveller reported passing them in Dorchester on Saturday 20 June. While Churchill’s men attended divine service at St Mary’s parish church in Chard, Kirke marched hard throughout Sunday 21 June and met them in the evening. Looking around the village and noticing numerous militia officers, Kirke made it very clear that he would not accept orders from ‘civilians’.30 Monmouth’s intelligence was adequate because the local people were generally sympathetic but he was less well informed about wider developments despite his cavalry

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vedettes reaching north on to the Somerset Levels, south into the Blackdown Hills and eastwards towards Langport. Not until his men encountered one of Churchill’s patrols issuing from Chard did he become aware of the presence of regulars. At Ashill, south-east of Taunton on the edge of the Blackdowns, on 19 June a party of between 18 and 20 horsemen skirmished with 24 Royal Horse Guards commanded by Lieutenant Philip Monoux (d. 1685).31 Four rebels were killed and the remainder retired to Taunton. Monoux was mortally wounded by a shot to the head and Quartermaster Walter Chetwind32 led the squad back to Chard.33 Closely observed by Churchill’s scouts, Monmouth’s column trudged out of Taunton along the Glastonbury road on 21 June. Keeping well to the east, Churchill and Kirke moved from Chard to Langport on 22 June whence a patrol of 20 Royal Horse Guards clashed with a larger rebel detachment. Churchill then shifted his centre of operations to Somerton. Acting on local intelligence, some troopers visited the village of Long Sutton, south-east of Langport, and terror marched before them, for we could hear their horses grind the ground under their feet almost a mile before they came. And it was reported there were six houses to be burned, of which my friend, Sarah Hurd’s, was one. There being a Papist in the parish, a base wicked fellow, who owed her money and was thought to be a very ill instrument by informing, so that she was in great danger but, through the Lord’s mercy, was preserved. For when they came to the cross near her house they enquired for Captain (Reginald) Tucker’s, who was out with the duke, and went and ransacked his house, cutting and tearing the beds, hangings and furniture, shaking out the feathers and taking away the bed-sticks and what else they could; letting out the beer, wine and cider about the cellar; setting fire to a barn that joined the dwelling house to set that on fire also but being a stone-tiled house it did not burn that easily; and so making what spoil and carrying away what they would or could, they returned to Somerton.34

A little later, on 28 or 29 June, the village enjoyed the additional pleasure of entertaining the Wiltshire militia commanded by Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke (c. 1656–1733), who ‘made dreadful work in the parish, taking several prisoners and threatening to hang some to the terror and affrighting of the inhabitants’. Whiting’s friend had to billet four militia troopers who were ‘pretty civil’ excepting a thoroughly obnoxious ensign. After Sedgemoor, Long Sutton acted as a base from which local gentry and militia searched for rebels. As Monmouth’s column approached Glastonbury, one of Churchill’s groups from Somerton skirmished with rebel outposts; again the royalists had the advantage. Churchill’s modus operandi was to locate his main body in a convenient village − Chard, Langport, Somerton − never more than a few miles from Monmouth’s line of march, whence parties attacked enemy piquets, ‘beat up’ patrols and cut off stragglers. These minor actions were performed by fast-moving cavalry and dragoons but Kirke’s infantry provided a solid platform and succour in the event of a serious reverse. There were plenty of contemporary examples of cavalrymen taking musketeers as pillion riders and this device may have been employed to increase the troopers’ hitting power. Having observed the rebels as far as Glastonbury, Churchill then abandoned his

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close reconnaissance in obedience to James’s instructions to interpose his command between Monmouth and Bristol. He drew in his nagging patrols and veered away through Wells to Pensford35 before camping on the left bank of the Avon in order to cover Keynsham Bridge, which the local militia was ordered to demolish. Contact with the rebels was thereby lost but Monmouth could not fully profit from his invisibility because he was undecided about whether to attack Bristol or advance directly on either London or Cheshire. Because both strategic options would be more easily accomplished after the Avon had been crossed, the early capture of Keynsham Bridge was essential. His soldiers reached Glastonbury on 22 June, the day on which a two-year drought ended in a downpour that continued, more or less, for the remainder of the campaign, then to Shepton Mallet (23 June), Pensford (24 June) and Keynsham (25 June). James was now certain that Monmouth was aiming for Bristol but Feversham thought London, via Bath, Chippenham and Marlborough, the more likely objective. Although he recognized that the acquisition of Bristol would greatly enhance Monmouth’s prospects and accordingly moved Churchill’s 200 cavalry and Kirke’s 250 infantry into the city on 23 June, thereby completely exposing Keynsham Bridge, to reinforce Beaufort’s militia garrison he had insufficient troops to cover all possibilities and no reserves: it would be a week before the three Scottish battalions of the Anglo-Dutch Brigade landed at Gravesend. Should Monmouth cross the Avon and either outflank or break his fragile line, the route to the capital would be undefended. His consistent and principal concern, therefore, was to ensure that the royal army always stood between Monmouth and London. The pivotal point, the ‘central position’, was Bath, soon to be occupied by Grafton’s infantry, whence he could react to any of Monmouth’s likely manoeuvres. The magnet of Bristol proved Monmouth’s undoing. In his rear, Lyme Regis and Taunton had been re-occupied by Albemarle’s militia. Unless he ignored Bristol and marched directly towards either Cheshire or London he would find himself in a large pocket virtually surrounded by royal troops and militia. Fortunately, neither Churchill nor Feversham knew where he was. Unusually for such an enterprising officer, when he had ridden north towards the Avon Churchill had neglected to leave a cavalry detachment to shadow the rebel army. Local intelligence suggested that Monmouth was at Glastonbury, two days’ march from Keynsham, giving Feversham ample time to deploy his forces. Actually, Monmouth was at Shepton Mallet, one march closer, and advanced to Pensford on 24 June.36 The royal general was also unaware that the militia had only partially executed instructions to destroy Keynsham Bridge. It was imperative to locate the enemy as quickly as possible and Feversham waited anxiously for the return of his scouts. In order to scour eastern Somerset, Oglethorpe had split his detachment into a number of small squads, which were instructed to reassemble in Bristol once their patrols had been completed. In the early hours of 24 June, his own party came across the rebel encampment at Shepton Mallet. Oglethorpe carried orders to report to Feversham in Bristol as soon as he made contact with the enemy but one of his troopers, described as an inexperienced recruit, had misunderstood and thought the meeting place was Bath. Oglethorpe gathered his men − he appears to have left no-one to observe Shepton Mallet and thus failed to spot Monmouth’s advance to Pensford later that day − and made for Bath to collect the

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errant soldier before continuing to Bristol. It appears bizarre that Oglethorpe should have relegated his vital tactical duties to the recovery of a single soldier but it was a most fortunate reversal of priorities: had he ridden straight to Bristol from Shepton Mallet he would have missed Feversham who had gone to Bath earlier on 24 June. The commander-in-chief was visibly agitated by the information that Monmouth was a day’s march closer than assumed although he saw no reason to alter the earlier analysis that the target was London via the road from Wells through Shepton Mallet, Norton St Philip,37 Trowbridge, Devizes, Marlborough and Hungerford. Oglethorpe was immediately sent out again, reinforced by 40 fresh horsemen and Captain Talbot’s militia troop, to base himself at Norton St Philip and report all enemy movements. During the afternoon, Feversham himself rode out to Norton St Philip where he learned only that Monmouth had declared himself king. He returned to Bath to spend a restless evening, the enemy close and his own army still dispersed: Grafton’s column was on the Chippenham-Bath road; Churchill and Kirke lay on the outskirts of Bristol; Sheres and the Portsmouth train had last reported from Somerton; and the Tower artillery was still on the march. To make matters worse, he did not know Monmouth’s exact whereabouts because neither Oglethorpe nor Churchill had demonstrated sufficient common sense to maintain permanent contact. Oglethorpe had first reconnoitred from Norton St Philip towards Shepton Mallet expecting to discover Monmouth along the Wells road but found nothing. As it grew dark, he decided to turn his tired men north on the assumption that Monmouth was actually making for Bristol rather than London. His hunch proved correct and he stumbled across the rebels’ camp at Pensford, much closer to Bristol than expected, and immediately dispatched an express messenger who reached Bath at midnight on 24 June. Because he believed that the militia had demolished Keynsham Bridge, Feversham deduced that Monmouth was going to remain on the left bank and attack the west side of Bristol. With all available cavalry – one troop of the Royal Horse Guards and two from the Royal Dragoons plus elements of the Wiltshire militia – Feversham conducted an overnight, forced march reaching Bristol at daybreak on 25 June where he joined Churchill and Kirke. Beaufort immediately placed the city garrison on full alert and, between 04:00 and 05:00, he and Feversham drew up both militia and regulars in a meadow south of the city along the Wells road. All adjacent ditches were filled and hedges flattened to create clear fields of fire and manoeuvre. Monmouth planned to feint towards Bristol from the south-west by sending Grey’s cavalry up the Wells road from Pensford. If all went well, Feversham and Beaufort would be sufficiently distracted to enable Monmouth’s infantry to cross Keynsham Bridge undisturbed prior either to attacking the eastern side of Bristol38 or pressing on towards Gloucester. The rebel army repaired the bridge during the night of 24–5 June, Captain Joseph Tily preventing elements of the Gloucestershire militia cavalry from interrupting the work.39 Early on 25 June, Grey’s horsemen approached the suburbs of Bristol stretching along the Wells road in enough strength to engage the defenders’ full attention: at 10:00 the rebel infantry began to pass Keynsham Bridge. On reaching the far side they assembled in Sydenham Mead, an open field which offered no shelter from the drenching ‘June monsoon’. At this point, Monmouth should have

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completed the crossing, torn down the bridge and started a forced march towards either the east side of Bristol or north along the Severn valley. Instead, he allowed his soaked, cold and dispirited foot soldiers to recross the Avon back into Keynsham to seek protection from the vile weather. Monmouth intended this to be only a short postponement: after dark, a drier and more cheerful soldiery would return over the Avon and undertake that most difficult of operations, a night march in the presence of the enemy, utilizing the local knowledge provided by the many Bristolians among the ranks. It was Monmouth’s most unhappy military decision. Although the maintenance of morale was more difficult in an amateur than a professional army, he unknowingly sacrificed the considerable advantage gained by the negligence of Churchill and Oglethorpe. Having spent the day successfully bamboozling Feversham and Beaufort, Grey’s cavalry came back to the main force during the evening and took station with Monmouth in Sydenham Mead where they awaited the return of the infantry from Keynsham. Oglethorpe again came to Feversham’s rescue. From Bath, he took 80 men – 20 from Captain Sir Charles Wyndham’s40 troop of the Royal Horse Guards, Captain John Parker’s 20 horse grenadiers from the 1st Troop of the Life Guard, and Captain Talbot’s militia troop of 40 − on a wide sweep into Somerset. At Pensford, he bumped into the Portsmouth artillery train. Sheres reported that there had been no sign of enemy activity since the column had left Somerton. Obviously, Monmouth must be towards the north so Oglethorpe turned towards Bristol; luckily, two weary Royal Horse Guardsmen happened upon the main force sheltering in Keynsham from the downpour. Sending Parker’s reinforced horse grenadiers ‘to beat up the quarters’, Oglethorpe waited at the entrance to the village with the remainder of Wyndham’s and Talbot’s troops ready to intercept escapees. Parker charged down the main street at the head of 30 achieving total surprise. Monmouth heard the commotion, gathered some of Grey’s horsemen from Sydenham Mead and rode over the bridge to relieve his foot soldiers in Keynsham. This movement was spotted by Oglethorpe who detached Wyndham’s troop to attack Monmouth’s party before it could interfere with Parker. Wyndham lost his way leaving Parker, already under heavy pressure, isolated. Rather than accepting a minor tactical defeat as the price for having located Monmouth’s army, Oglethorpe decided that boldness might save a deteriorating situation. Without hesitation, he attacked with 20 Life Guards and four volunteers. They cut their way through some rebel infantry and 200 cavalry, linked up with Parker and Wyndham and galloped from the trap.41 Having taken ten casualties – two dead, four wounded and four taken prisoner – and inflicted between 15 and 30 on the rebels, Oglethorpe withdrew north to Bristol in search of Feversham. Two of the volunteers were among the injured: the Scottish peer, Captain Charles Livingstone, 2nd Earl of Newburgh (d. 1694), who suffered a flesh wound in the side; and Patrick Sarsfield, later 1st Earl of Lucan (d. 1693), slashed on the hand. Throughout the remainder of the evening and early part of the night, Monmouth’s cavalry in Sydenham Mead and infantry in Keynsham remained alert. Oglethorpe’s encounter action, his third stroke of good fortune in two days, was strategically decisive. Interrogation of the royalist prisoners revealed that the king’s army, apparently numbering 4,000 men, was nearby. Monmouth was alarmed: he had not realized that

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Feversham’s corps was so close and thought that he was dealing only with Churchill’s and Kirke’s detachment, of which Oglethorpe formed the advance guard, plus some militia. Having experienced a reverse and knowing that his whereabouts had been discovered, Monmouth abandoned the night march towards Bristol even though both his strategic options depended upon it. There was no coherent, alternative plan. Briefly, he reconsidered by-passing Bristol before moving north along the Severn valley towards Cheshire to team up with a projected rising by Delamere and the Gerards but he had received no definite news from that quarter. Besides, Churchill’s very active cavalry would worry and delay a march beyond Bristol allowing the royal infantry to come up and force a battle. Instead, Monmouth decided to journey towards the Somerset-Wiltshire border where he had been assured that a ‘considerable body of horse’, some suggested 500, under Captain Benjamin Adlam (d. 1685)42 was waiting to join him. This delusion was probably the result of Chinese whispers concerning a small rising of about 100 inhabitants of the New Forest – the only manifestation of support for Monmouth outside the West Country – that had disturbed the neighbourhood for a short while until suppressed by the Hampshire militia. Monmouth may not have subjected the situation to this degree of analysis; although capable of acting bravely and decisively in the hurly burly of battle, his intellect was lightweight. The decision to march towards Wiltshire was taken in a very great hurry, close to panic, causing his men to abandon in Keynsham 15 pairs of expensive riding boots, some horses and weapons, and tables laid ready for supper. After bringing the infantry over the bridge, Monmouth left at midnight on 25–6 June marching south along the east bank of the Avon. Monmouth drew up his army on a hill near Bath, a small town enclosed within medieval walls,43 and sent a trumpeter to demand its surrender. Although devoid of regular troops, its garrison of 500 militia and city trained bands gave the mayor sufficient confidence to reject the summons. On his own initiative, a single rebel soldier then approached the walls and repeated the offer; he was shot dead.44 Monmouth pressed on towards Frome halting five miles beyond Bath at Norton St Philip. During the march, no recruits had appeared but a perturbing number of men deserted. He intended 26 June as a rest day before moving again on the morning of 27 June. Monmouth made his customary sound dispositions to guard against a surprise attack: headquarters were established in the Old House, now the George Inn, the four field guns positioned by the market cross outside the front door and the men ordered to bivouac in two fields along the southern fringe of the village. When informed by Oglethorpe of Monmouth’s departure south from Keynsham, Feversham ordered all available regulars and militia to concentrate at Bath with a view to forcing a decisive action. He spent the morning of 26 June travelling along the west bank of the Avon to Bath, about one day’s march behind Monmouth. Churchill and Kirke were directed to cease patrolling south of Bristol and attend the rendezvous as quickly as possible. Grafton and 2,000 foot guards reached Bath that evening. They had outstripped the artillery train from the Tower and its attendant five companies of the Royal Scots, which had been seriously delayed by the ill condition of the roads. Also overdue was the heavier artillery from Portsmouth with its accompanying detachment from Trelawney’s Foot. Regardless of the field guns, the two escorting

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parties numbered ten companies, which would have increased Feversham’s infantry strength by 500 men. Nevertheless, he now had around 2,200 infantry, 500 cavalry and 3,000 militia. After reporting that the rebels had left Keynsham at midnight on 25 June, Oglethorpe’s scouts had lost touch in the hours of darkness. More patrols during the night of 26–7 June failed to find any trace despite the rebels being only five miles away at Norton St Philip. Feversham, however, was certain that Monmouth lay to the south and at dawn on 27 June drew up his units in a meadow outside Bath. All the dragoons, most of the cavalry and 500 musketeers were formed into a vanguard commanded by Grafton and Kirke, Feversham following with the main body of foot. They had moved only a short distance when a scouting party rode in and reported indications that the rebels were in the vicinity of Norton St Philip. Dissatisfied at such vagueness and probably angry, Feversham ordered Grafton and Kirke to hurry forward and reconnoitre in force towards Norton St Philip. They advanced as quickly as possible and, when in sight of the village, spotted what looked to be enemy activity. Messengers were immediately dispatched to Feversham. Again, frustrated by the imprecision, Feversham urged Kirke and Grafton to go on until they came under fire: only then could he be sure of the whereabouts of the rebel main force. Feversham still believed that Monmouth was aiming for London so he anticipated that his opponent would turn east at Norton St Philip and proceed along the road towards Trowbridge, Devizes and Marlborough. He also anticipated that Monmouth would be decamping at that hour in the morning, in which case his men would be disordered and vulnerable to sudden attack. Feversham was a cautious, methodical, systematic and professional commanderin-chief45 who refused to take needless risks with James’s only army. Napoleon reckoned that a successful offensive required a minimum arithmetical advantage of three to one: throughout the campaign, the royal army was numerically inferior to the rebels who had already proved themselves formidable at Bridport. Feversham consistently misread Monmouth’s strategic intentions which, in any event, were impossible to divine after Keynsham Bridge because there was no rational objective. Nevertheless, the royal forces were always well-balanced and able to respond to most eventualities. However, Feversham could have made a better choice of principal operational subordinate at the coming battle outside Norton St Philip: Grafton was not the ideal leader of the vanguard, a position that required considerable experience married to thoroughness. Deeply jealous of the military success enjoyed during the 1670s by Monmouth, his half-brother, he was desperate to achieve equivalent martial glory. When aged 17, his father, Charles II,46 had bought him the colonelcy of the 1st Foot Guards but during the intervening four years he had learned little about the practicalities of land warfare. Grafton outranked Kirke, both socially and militarily; the latter’s role was to act as a knowledgeable chief of staff ready to offer advice if and when asked.47 Left to his own devices, Kirke would almost certainly have proceeded in a more orthodox manner. Grafton and Kirke marched very fast and soon came under desultory, long-range musketry. The main body of Monmouth’s diminishing army was indeed breaking camp, although most of the troops had yet to leave the camping ground and only the advance guard had started to move down the road – south to Frome rather than

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east to Trowbridge. The rearguard remained strongly posted on the north side of Norton. Monmouth was present throughout but Major Nathaniel Wade directed the engagement. The village stood at the intersection of the west-east road from Wells to Trowbridge, thence to London via Marlborough, and the north-south route between Bath and Salisbury. Before the latter was turnpiked in the eighteenth century, it followed the route of the modern B3110 until just south of Sands Farm and White Cross whence it curved, first south-west then south, to intersect the modern Chever’s (originally Chiver’s) Lane and enter the village along what is now North Street. For a distance of about 400 yards above the junction with Chever’s Lane, the Bath road was lined by thick hedges – one source says ‘walls’48 – with further hedges abutting at right angles. At a point referred to as ‘the head of the lane’, the road cleared these enclosures and bisected an unfenced, ploughed field. North Street was such an obvious route into Norton that Wade blocked it with a barricade, probably sited at the modern crossroads with Chever’s Lane, manned by 50 musketeers under Captain John Vincent. More were positioned behind the hedges on the right-hand side of the lane for a distance of some 50 yards in advance of the barricade.49 An alley, along which reinforcements could be quickly channelled, ran back through the courtyard of the Old House into the fields where the main army had bivouacked.50 Royalist patrols had unwittingly disturbed the rebels on several occasions during the night so in the morning they were alert and ready. Grafton and Kirke’s forlorn hope comprised the grenadier company (45 men) of the 1st battalion of the 1st Foot Guards – the elite company of the elite infantry regiment – led by their regular commander, Captain Francis Hawley (c. 1653–92).51 Grafton wanted to charge forward as soon as the grenadiers reached the head of the lane but Kirke was wary and advised a thorough preliminary inspection of the enemy’s dispositions. Had this been done, Wade’s barricade and enfilading positions would have been uncovered and a more circumspect plan adopted. However, Grafton ignored this counsel and ordered Hawley to advance straight down the lane and rode close behind, urging the men forward. Kirke stayed in the rear muttering, cursing and roundly damning pig-ignorant, aristocratic playboys, perhaps pondering his own desperate quest for military glory when he had participated in Monmouth’s daredevil escapade at Maastricht in 1673. Since then, active service had taught the virtues of reconnaissance, caution and patience. The textbook solution to disengaging hard-pressed troops is to mount a limited counterattack with fresh units, so Kirke appropriately arranged his available cavalry and dragoons and brought forward the remaining infantry as supports on which Grafton and Hawley could retire when the inevitable occurred.52 Left alone, an old hand like Hawley would probably have pushed scouting groups slowly forward along either side of the road to probe and unhinge the rebel deployment before committing his main body but he was harried and rushed by Grafton who was both his regimental and tactical commander. Consequently, against his better judgement, the baby-faced Hawley was hurried into a trap. Wade’s men waited until the guardsmen had advanced far enough down the lane to make retreat extremely difficult before opening a fusillade from behind the barricade and hedges. Taken completely by surprise, the grenadiers reacted as soldiers in such situations usually do: they halted, temporarily lost discipline, bunched up and began to take casualties.

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Grafton’s horse was shot from under him – a quartermaster graciously offered his mount but Grafton, realizing that he would make a huge target in a small space, had the good sense to refuse – and the surviving soldiers took cover. Kirke moved to the head of the lane and ordered his infantry and mounted troops to give covering fire. Hearing the noise, Feversham galloped forward to investigate. Unimpressed with the worsening situation, he took control. Wade, or possibly Monmouth, then passed additional infantry along the alley leading from the campsite into the fields to the east of the Bath road. These reinforcements worked forward, periodically dropping-off small parties behind the hedges bordering the lane while some crossed the track. Hawley and Grafton were surrounded, although the western side of the road was but sparsely occupied. This movement took some time allowing Feversham, or Kirke, to order Captain John Vaughan, with 20 horse grenadiers from the 3rd Troop of the Life Guard, to move to the head of the lane while Captain John Parker took the 20 horse grenadiers of the 1st Troop of the Life Guard through the fields on the right to attack the flank and rear of the barricade. In close country, it was always good practice to support cavalry with additional infantry firepower and Parker’s and Vaughan’s troopers were followed closely by a musketeer company from the Coldstream Guards under Captain Dudley Bard-Rupert (1667–86), an illegitimate son of Prince Rupert. The combined efforts of Parker, Vaughan and Bard-Rupert temporarily quietened rebel fire so Wade instructed Lieutenant Colonel Abraham Holmes to regain the initiative with soldiers from the Green Regiment. Steadily, over the course of the next hour, Holmes leap-frogged his men from hedge to hedge along both sides of the lane and forced the horse grenadiers53 and Bard-Rupert’s infantry back to the north. Feversham responded by deploying Kirke’s 500 infantry in line of battle on a slight rise in the centre of the ploughed field to act as a backstop before ordering Churchill to secure the head of the lane and the hedges to each side with dismounted Royal Dragoons and musketeers. Despite coming under pressure from Holmes’s foot, Hawley’s grenadiers, the horse grenadiers and Bard-Rupert’s Coldstreamers managed to cut a path to the head of the lane, their retirement sustained by Churchill’s party. Riding a borrowed horse, a red-faced and embarrassed Grafton passed close to Kirke, whose withering stare can be imagined, on his way to report to Feversham. He was told, very firmly, that such hare-brained escapades could only be done once in a lifetime. Feversham then drew up his cavalry beside Kirke’s foot soldiers across the ploughed field and ordered Churchill to disengage and withdraw his dragoons and infantry on to this support. As Churchill’s men retired, small parties of rebels occupied the head of the lane and the hedges bordering the ploughed field. Fortunately for Churchill and Feversham, Holmes and Wade were unable to exploit the retreat because the narrow tracks and paths prevented large numbers of reinforcements reaching the front. Unhindered, the crestfallen vanguard filtered back through the intervals in the main royalist line as quickly and discreetly as possible in order not to damage morale. Monmouth brought up two of his light field cannon to the head of the lane and, an hour later, the remaining pair came into action from some rising ground towards the right. By this time the royalist main body had arrived and Feversham deployed some artillery towards the left54 which began counter-battery fire at a range of about

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a quarter of a mile. The half-hearted cannonade continued throughout the afternoon but few casualties resulted. For a while it seemed that a general engagement might ensue but Grafton’s performance dampened Feversham’s enthusiasm. He briefly considered camping in the ploughed field but continuous rain made this impractical. Monmouth knew that the sole chance of overall glory lay in defeating the royal army. The success just achieved was encouraging and showed that, given the right tactical conditions, the rebels could acquit themselves effectively. During the early afternoon, Monmouth dithered, unable to decide whether to force a battle. First, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Venner (b. 1641) persuaded him to fall back. Then Wade and other senior officers vigorously opposed this conclusion and Monmouth accordingly changed his mind. Around 15:00, rebel soldiers began to cut passages through the hedges fronting the ploughed field in readiness for an attack but the rain intensified, extinguishing the musketeers’ matches and turning the ground into a quagmire. At 16:00, Feversham ordered his soaked, cold, tired and hungry troops to retreat north-east to Bradford-on-Avon where they might seek shelter. The army filed off in excellent order, the enemy making no response. Feversham found dry quarters in the mansion of John Hall (d. 1711) but many of his men were not so fortunate: the tents, travelling with the heavy artillery, had yet to arrive. The royalists lost about 100 men killed, wounded and taken prisoner while Monmouth suffered between 20 and 25 casualties. The skirmish was instructive. Feversham’s decision to march his whole army to Norton St Philip, despite the absence of definite intelligence of Monmouth’s presence, was a risk based on logical deductions gleaned from patrol reports and his belief that Monmouth was making for London. Grafton had shown himself unprepared for senior command. Kirke had acted sensibly and professionally, advising Grafton against impetuosity before making the appropriate preparations for his rescue. However, his independent authority was short-lived and, following Feversham’s arrival, he appears to have taken no more major decisions. Some authors suggest that Churchill ordered the flanking manoeuvres made by Vaughan and Parker but it seems that Feversham was responsible. It is generally accepted that the army first to leave a battlefield thereby admits defeat. By this criterion, Monmouth had gained victory but no operational benefit. As usual with amateur armies, Monmouth’s had shown that it could fight well from prepared, defensive positions. It was a lesson that Monmouth failed to note: indeed, his tactics at Sedgemoor were the complete opposite and played to his army’s weaknesses rather than strengths. The impact on the royal army’s confidence is difficult to assess. The sight of the leading company of the Grenadier Guards hacking its way out of a trap was probably mitigated by the fact that this part of the action was not witnessed by the main body which was still marching towards Norton St Philip. It was but a minor setback. Much more important was the fact that Feversham’s army was now concentrated and he had seen that it would stand and fight: any lingering doubts about political reliability had been dispelled.55 To reinforce that loyalty, on 4 July Kirke and Edward Sackville were appointed brigadiers-general and Hugh Mackay of Scourie (d. 1692), commander of the six regiments of the Anglo-Dutch Brigade, was promoted major general in the Scottish army.

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Monmouth watched Feversham quit the field before allowing his men to stand down. Leaving the campfires burning to give the impression that their positions were still occupied, just before midnight the rebels commenced a night march through mud and rain to Frome, which the leading elements reached at 08:00 on 28 June. Oglethorpe, commanding 100 troopers,56 remained in contact ensuring that the rebels would not be ‘lost’ for a fourth time and more cavalry patrolled all main roads towards both Bristol and London. Feversham did not hasten to pursue. In the first place, he was awaiting the arrival of the artillery, its escorting infantry, and the tents, which would increase tactical flexibility by allowing the troops to bivouac in the open. Secondly, he needed to form a clearer picture of Monmouth’s strategic intentions. Thirdly, a more extended campaign would further weaken Monmouth’s army through desertions, disillusionment and waning optimism. Accordingly, the royalists stayed at Bradfordon-Avon throughout Sunday 28 June, cleaning their weapons, repairing equipment and resting. Discipline in Monmouth’s host had started to falter at Norton St Philip and deteriorated seriously during the two-day halt at Frome: houses were plundered indiscriminately and 2,000 men deserted. Spirits sank lower when news arrived of Argyll’s defeat and capture and the duke considered abandoning the adventure and escaping to the Netherlands but Grey persuaded him to think again. They had come so far, he said, that it was pointless to stop – they would probably all be hanged in any event – but now that they had beaten the king’s army there was a good chance of ultimate success. Although there was now no immediate hope of linking-up with any supporters in Wiltshire, risings in London and Cheshire remained possible. Should the under-strength royal army be forced to disperse to deal with these threats, then the rebels might yet be able advance on the capital. Monmouth, a mercurial man whose mood could change several times within 60 minutes, was revitalized. In a bizarre scene reminiscent of small boys devising schemes from a den in the attic, dreams turned to Ireland where hearsay intelligence told how Stephen Moore of Clonmel had promised to lead a rebellion of retired Cromwellian army officers, many of whom had settled in Counties Tipperary and Kilkenny, with the aim of seizing Cork, Kinsale and Limerick. To assist Moore, Lieutenant Colonel Venner and Major Robert Parsons were given £400 from the war chest by Paymaster Richard Goodenough (d. 1687) in order to travel to Amsterdam to buy arms and ammunition, which would then be shipped to Carrickfergus on Belfast Lough, safe amid the Ulster Protestants, under the supervision of the pilot who had earlier navigated the Helderenberg. An even more ridiculous ploy involved blowing up the magazine in Dublin Castle. Buoyed up by these fantasies, to support either of which there was not one iota of hard evidence, Monmouth prepared to march on London by the very difficult road along the southern edge of Salisbury Plain via Warminster, Amesbury and Andover. In reality, there was no alternative: a march for Bristol and Cheshire would expose the army’s right flank to attack by Feversham from Bradford-on-Avon and a move towards the west or south would serve no strategic purpose. On the afternoon of Sunday 28 June the industrious Oglethorpe noticed supply wagons trundling out of Frome towards Warminster.57 When Feversham was informed he drew the correct conclusion that, at last, Monmouth was making for London.

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Accordingly, early on the morning of Monday 29 June, the royal army shifted to Westbury, within four miles of Warminster, whence Feversham expected to intercept the rebels on Tuesday 30 June. Orders were dispatched to Sheres, who had already passed Marlborough, to bring the artillery train through Devizes to Westbury to link-up with the army prior to the anticipated battle. Later on Monday 29 June, rebel patrols identified Feversham’s troops in Westbury and informed Monmouth, who had not yet departed from Frome. A march on London was now out of the question. Instead, he decided to turn back into Somerset where a Quaker named Thomas Plaice, a serge maker from Edington, was supposed to have raised thousands of ‘clubmen’ in the adjacent ‘Levels’, the stretch of fen and marsh between the Polden and Quantock hills. The supply wagons were recalled to Frome and, on Tuesday 30 June, the rebels marched west for Shepton Mallet. Local support was noticeably diminishing: the mayor of Taunton politely asked them not to revisit his town and the rate of desertion increased as more and more soldiers took advantage of James’s offer of clemency. At Shepton Mallet, billets and provisions had to be seized by force. Indeed, the supply situation was desperate and when Monmouth heard that a royalist wagon, en route from London to join Kirke’s regiment, had been left in Wells guarded by only a small party of dragoons he altered the route of the whole army in order to seize it. Reaching Wells during the morning of 1 July, the cart, loaded with £210 9s in cash plus arms and ammunition worth c. £200, was duly taken.58 Some rebels revealed their continued attachment to the ‘Old Cause’ by taking the opportunity to deface monuments in Wells cathedral while the more practical stripped lead from the roof to mould bullets. Kirke was furious at the loss which he blamed on Sheres: apparently the wagon had been abandoned because its horses had been commandeered to tow the artillery. Sheres was outraged denouncing Kirke’s accusation as ‘the greatest falsehood in the world’ and put it down to his loathing of the artillery and Sheres in particular. Monmouth marched on to the Levels during Friday 2 July and camped about Westonzoyland where he found Plaice accompanied by just 160 ‘clubmen’ rather than the anticipated thousands. At midday on Friday 3 July, he trudged into Bridgwater from the south: simultaneously, the garrison of 300 Devonshire militia fled to the north. Protected by Trelawney’s infantry, Sheres’s Portsmouth train reached Westbury on 29 June. The royal army marched for Frome on 30 June to be joined during the day by the final significant reinforcement when Lieutenant Colonel Douglas rode up at the head of the five companies of the Royal Scots escorting Pett’s Tower wagon train, bearing the tents, field equipment, ammunition, spare weapons and 18 field guns. Sheres hoped that the burden on civilians of having to provide nightly billets for the soldiers, which was fast making the king’s army ‘greater enemies’ to the local population ‘than the rebels’, would thus be eased: that night the troops were able to camp at ‘the upper end of ’ Frome. James had instructed Feversham to ensure that his men paid in full for all fodder, lodging and provisions but the reality was different. Already treating Somerset as enemy territory, the royal soldiers plundered at random. In plain English, I have seen too much violence and wickedness practised to be fond of this trade, and trust we may soon put a period to the business, for what

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we every day practise among these poor people cannot be supported by any man of the least morality.

In Frome that evening, Sheres, who had suffered a severe bruise and felt unable to leave his lodging, sent his quartermaster to receive the next day’s orders from Feversham’s adjutant general, Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Robert Ramsay, a Roman Catholic veteran from the French Brigade.59 Just as the quartermaster reached the adjutant’s tent, Kirke, not a man to ignore an opportunity for revenge, happened to pass by and whispered in Ramsay’s ear that Sheres ought to have come in person. The quartermaster relayed this exchange to Sheres who, on the following day, confronted Ramsay and told him that he was guilty of disrespect towards the artillery and, besides, Feversham had earlier excused his non-attendance.60 Sheres informed Feversham who seemed surprised but promised to correct matters. The aside to Ramsay was typical of Kirke who always favoured indirect, underhand, snide methods to achieve his ends. Kirke’s subsequently obstructive attitude towards the artillery, a largely civilian organization and a nest of enemies from Tangier days, was revealed in a letter from Sheres to Dartmouth written in the camp near Somerton on 4 July. Sheres complained that because of the wet weather, the muddy roads and the hilly country, the artillery usually reached the overnight halt at least three hours behind the main body only to find that the chief quartermaster, Captain William Culliford,61 one of Kirke’s ‘creatures’, had reserved for them either the worst billets or the least attractive parts of the camping grounds.62 Feversham allowed his men to rest at Frome in their canvas luxury all day on 1 July before following in Monmouth’s tracks as far as Shepton Mallet (2 July). He then shifted the axis of advance further south to cover any possible rebel movement towards Exeter and Cornwall. The royal army entered Glastonbury on 3 July and then moved around the southern extremity of the Polden Hills to Somerton on 4 July. Here Feversham heard from spies that Monmouth had entered Bridgwater, barricaded the bridge over the wide River Parrett, and positioned two cannon at the market cross on the Cornhill, one in the ruined castle and another at the South Gate. It looked as though he was preparing to make a stand so warrants were issued to all the local parish constables and tithingmen63 to bring provisions to the royal camp while proclamations forbade anyone, upon pain of death, to convey supplies to the rebels. Two parties of cavalry trotted out from Somerton, one of 100 troopers and the other of 30, and patrolled all day within sight of Bridgwater. The smaller group, led by Captain John Coy (Royal Dragoons), approached within half-a-mile of the town and clashed with a larger body of rebel horse. Coy’s mount was shot but neither side suffered any serious casualties. Feversham rode forward on to the King’s Sedgemoor, ‘a watry, splashy’ expanse of fenland to the east of the Parrett,64 to examine the general topography plus the defensive potential and billeting capacity offered by the local villages. He intended to bring his army on to the marshes during the next day to assume positions from which to observe developments in Bridgwater.65 Because Somerton was two marches from Bridgwater, Monmouth gained a short breathing space. In the absence of the promised ‘clubmen’, he again changed strategy: he would strike once more for Keynsham Bridge and Bristol before moving up the Severn Valley to join supporters in Cheshire despite an absence of news from that

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quarter. His weary infantry would not be able to march quickly so he needed to delay the royal army sufficiently to give them a decent start. By making obvious and ostentatious preparations to fortify Bridgwater, he sought to convince Feversham that he intended to stay and fight. The royalists would then be obliged to bring up heavy artillery and prepare for a siege. In the meantime, Monmouth’s army would slip away at night along the Bristol road, through Axbridge on the edge of the Mendips, stealing several days’ marches. To assist the new approach, Major John Manley (c. 1622–99) and his son, Isaac, were sent to London to prod Major John Wildman (c. 1622–93), the principal metropolitan contact, into initiating a rising sufficient to distract and unbalance the royal forces.66 On hearing about Monmouth’s military engineering from some unenthusiastic inhabitants who had seen much of their town destroyed during the siege of 1645, Feversham drew the anticipated and hoped-for conclusions although he thought it more likely that Monmouth intended to abandon his army in Bridgwater, either to endure a siege or take advantage of James’s offer of clemency, while he escaped north under cover of darkness to the Bristol Channel and took ship. Having conducted all previous movements on established roads, Feversham did not expect the rebels to depart from this practice by travelling cross-country. However, their successful march from Keynsham to Norton St Philip on 25–6 June certainly raised the possibility of future nocturnal operations. As his troops marched on to the Levels on 5 July, Feversham was not dogmatically attached to his analyses and remained receptive to other interpretations. Initially, he planned to camp at Middlezoy, situated on rising ground that allowed an uninterrupted panorama all the way to Bridgwater. However, a reconnaissance by Lieutenant Colonel Ramsay found that the lie of the land and direction of the rhines, or man-made drainage channels, rendered Westonzoyland more practicable.67 Although occupying a lower contour than Middlezoy, Westonzoyland was still sufficiently elevated above the surrounding marshes to command a view towards Bridgwater, three miles distant, and offered a well-drained camp site. Feversham had not ruled out the possibility of coming under attack so he adopted a defensive deployment although, in his view, any offensive would be a diversion to cover Monmouth’s bolt to the north: neither he nor Churchill anticipated a decisive battle. The chosen ground lay just to the north of Westonzoyland, its front protected by the Bussex Rhine, which was about six feet deep and steep sided. According to Edward Dummer, the rhine was dry ‘but in some places mirey’ whereas Monmouth’s later ‘Relation of the Fight’ said that the royalist army ‘lay all along by a little pool of water’.68 When in the presence of the enemy, armies always camped in fighting order so that, on an alarm, the men could fall out of bed directly into battle formation. The tents of the five infantry battalions were pitched in a line, 50 yards deep, far enough back from the rhine’s edge to allow adequate space for deployment. Markers were placed to indicate the assembly position of each company. Captain Coy’s troop of the Royal Dragoons was sent south to secure the important crossing of the River Parrett at Burrow Bridge. The Wiltshire militia was left in reserve at Middlezoy and Othery. The cavalry and dragoons had worked hard during the previous week so it seemed best to allow as many as possible to rest in the villages on the night of 5–6 July. As was customary, the oldest unit present – the five companies of the Royal Scots (Archibald Douglas) − occupied the position of honour on the right of the line, the

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other formations taking station to its left in order of seniority: seven companies from the 1st battalion of the 1st Foot Guards, led by Grafton; six companies from the 2nd battalion under Major Eaton; six companies from the 2nd Foot Guards (Sackville); five companies from Kirke’s; and finally the five companies of Trelawney’s (Charles Churchill), their flank resting on the Bridgwater-Westonzoyland road at the point where it crossed the Bussex Rhine. The cavalry comprised 150 Life Guards, now commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Edward Villiers (d. 1694); the composite troop of Horse Grenadiers of the Life Guard (Captains John Parker and Thomas Gay); seven troops from the Royal Horse Guards under Major Sir Francis Compton; and four troops of the Royal Dragoons led by Lieutenant Colonel Lord Cornbury. The total strength amounted to 34 infantry companies (c. 2,100 soldiers) and 14 troops of horse and dragoons (c. 700 men).69 There were 21 cannon, a mixture of field and battalion guns – two 12-pounders; nine nine-pounders; four six-pounders; four threepounders; and two two-pounders – directed by Henry Sheres. Feversham’s deputy, Churchill, commanded the infantry.70 Monmouth had about 2,900 foot organized into five regiments: the Red or Duke’s under Wade (800 men); the Blue led by Richard Bovett (d. 1685, sometimes given as Basset or Buffett) (600); the Green, Abraham Holmes (600); the Yellow commanded by Edward Matthews (d. 1697) (500); and the White, John Foulkes (400). Grey’s cavalry regiment numbered about 600 troopers. In addition there were four light field pieces. Weapons were in short supply and 1,000 infantry were ‘scythemen’, wielding straightened sickle blades fastened to long poles.71 The two sides were thus roughly equal in number but the King’s army was far superior in training, weaponry and articulation. The rebels’ baggage train was already loading and at least part of the army was under notice to march for Axbridge when, at about 15:00 on the afternoon of Sunday 5 July, Richard Godfrey,72 who lived between Chedzoy and Sutton Mallet, hurried into Bridgwater searching for Monmouth. He had been grazing his cattle on the marshes and had clearly seen the royal army take up positions behind the Bussex Rhine. A later account said that Godfrey was merely a messenger from his master, a farmer, who had examined Feversham’s dispositions through a telescope from the tower of Chedzoy parish church.73 Monmouth and his senior officers climbed the spire of St Mary’s, Bridgwater, and surveyed the area around Westonzoyland through a ‘perspective glass’. A conference ensued. The position appeared to be unprotected by earthworks indicating that the royal commander did not expect to be attacked. It might be possible to take them unawares if the rebels could execute a night march along the Bristol road before turning south, skirting Chedzoy, and then advancing directly across the marshes. Godfrey was sent back to discover more detailed information. On his return he confirmed that there were no fortifications: he mentioned the Bussex Rhine but said it was an insignificant obstacle that could be easily crossed at two fords, or ‘plungeons’ – the ‘lower’ (western) and ‘upper’ (eastern) – which he used regularly when herding cattle. Godfrey was positive that he could find the route in the dark. Even for a well-trained, professional army, a night attack is always a hazardous enterprise but Monmouth had little to lose. Victory over James’s sole field force would open the road to London, supporters would rally once more to his standard and the promised risings in Cheshire and London might actually occur. The

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plan certainly offered better prospects than a hectic gallop through the barren Welsh marches towards Cheshire. No overt preparations could be made for battle and all talk of imminent action was forbidden: spies were everywhere and some might, at that very moment, be spilling the beans to Feversham. Word was spread that the rebel army was about to carry out the original plan of heading for Axbridge, Keynsham and Bristol. Fortuitously, the initial trigger for both the smoke-screen and the actual operation involved making preparations for movement and then exiting Bridgwater along the Bristol road after sunset. On the afternoon of Sunday 5 July, Feversham learned that Monmouth had paraded his men through Bridgwater before assembly in Castle Field just to the north of the town. He was also informed that Monmouth’s baggage was being loaded. Prima facie, it looked as though the rebels were leaving Bridgwater, presumably heading either east to Wells or north to Bristol. If there was to be a surprise attack on his camp, then it would most likely be a cavalry diversion to cover the start of this major manoeuvre. Churchill fully supported his superior’s reading of the situation. Feversham rode forward during the misty evening to supervise the positioning of the sentries and vedettes, which consumed one-eighth of the total strength. A ‘grand guard’ of 40 horsemen from the 2nd or Queen’s Troop of the Life Guard commanded by the quartermaster, Captain William Upcott, was placed east of Penzoy Farm along the Bridgwater-Westonzoyland road. He was under orders to send regular patrols towards Bridgwater as far as the Taunton intersection. On Upcott’s right, a party of 50 musketeers covered ‘a middle but narrow way’ from Bridgwater into the moor. These musketeers also acted as a support to Upcott who was instructed to retire upon them if he should come under pressure. With three troops (c. 150 men) Oglethorpe climbed Position or Knowle Hill on the edge of the Poldens, about 230 feet above sea level, above the T-junction where the road from Bridgwater forked to either Bristol or Wells. It appears that Feversham ordered him to wait on the hill until the rebels came into view and then shadow their march, always ensuring that headquarters were fully informed. Oglethorpe, who seemed conspicuously lacking in common sense and nous, acted in strict accordance with these orders and did not use his initiative to investigate towards Bridgwater. Two troops of the Royal Horse Guards and one from the Royal Dragoons (50 men each), under Major Sir Francis Compton, were posted to the right of the camp ‘against a way that goes from Chedzoy towards Bridgwater’, almost certainly the modern Chedzoy Lane. On Compton’s left, sentries, small patrols and an ‘advance party’ screened the front of the infantry camp. The remaining cavalry and dragoons lodged in Westonzoyland where they slept in their clothes with mounts saddled and bridled. Feversham stayed in the field throughout the evening, watching and listening. He reached as far as Chedzoy whence a messenger was sent to Oglethorpe to enquire whether he had heard or seen anything but the reply was negative. Reasonably satisfied, he returned to Westonzoyland at 00:45 on Monday 6 July and entered Weston Court where his camp bed had been set up in the parlour. Kirke had commandeered the vicarage and most of the other senior officers were quartered in the village except Grafton who slept amidst his men. Short of ordering the army to spend the whole night under arms, it is hard to see what more could have been done to gain intelligence of the rebels’ movements and protect against surprise attack.

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Guided by Godfrey, who had been rewarded with the dukely sum of one guinea, the 3,500-strong column left Bridgwater at dusk – sometime between 22:00 and 23:00 – the infantry in the van, Grey’s cavalry following and 42 baggage, provision and ammunition wagons to the rear. They marched in silence along the causeway74 that carried the old Bristol road over the marshes towards the village of Knowle. At the head of Chedzoy Lane, the cavalry and three of the field guns passed through the infantry to lead the column. Half-a-mile short of Knowle – Feversham was probably in Chedzoy at this time awaiting word from Oglethorpe – the rebels turned south down Bradney Lane to the eponymous hamlet. In the mists drifting up from the marshes, they were invisible to Oglethorpe on Knowle Hill. Having circled around the north and east of Bradney village, where known royalists lived who might have raised the alarm, they reached Peazey Farm whence Godfrey took them on to the open moor, two-and-ahalf miles from the royal lines. Monmouth intended to open his attack by having Grey’s horsemen swing out to the left, cross the Bussex Rhine at the Upper Plungeon and charge into the royalist rear while the infantry came in against their right front: Monmouth understood the rhine to be readily passable for men on foot but cavalry required the easier passages at the established fords. Feversham was woken at 01:15 by Sir Hugh Middleton75 who ushered in one of Oglethorpe’s troopers. He reported that, because no rebels had been seen from Knowle Hill, Oglethorpe intended to lead his men down to the road and advance towards Bridgwater until contact was established. By the time this messenger had reached Weston Court, the three troops had already descended and trotted towards Bridgwater passing the junction with Bradney Lane a few minutes after the tail of Monmouth’s column had turned off the main road and vanished into the darkness: the rebel rearguard clearly heard the hoof beats. Monmouth’s progress, however, had not gone unnoticed. Two countrymen observed the troops march as far as Bradney before telling a ‘watch’ party of eight vigilantes gathered by the cross in Chedzoy, another royalist village. However, no-one thought to inform Compton’s patrols, which must have been very close to Chedzoy Lane. Monmouth continued across the moor and the first rhine, the Black Ditch, was negotiated without incident.76 A little further on, one mile from the royal army, the Langmoor Rhine intercepted the rebels’ path. The most practicable plungeon lay close to the Langmoor Stone but Godfrey missed the landmark and the soldiers waited in some perturbation until he had recovered his bearings. Grey’s cavalry crossed first before swinging out to the left to make for the Upper Plungeon on the Bussex Rhine. Just as the infantry rearguard was clearing Langmoor Plungeon a sudden loud noise was heard. It may have been a shout or cry or the discharge of a gun. A possible suspect was Captain of Horse John Hucker (d. 1685), a non-conformist and serge maker from Taunton who owned Athelney Farm.77 According to the story, he was riding in the front ranks of Grey’s cavalry and, in a fit of pique caused by Monmouth’s refusal to appoint him governor of his home town, treacherously fired a pistol. A solitary sentry from the Royal Horse Guards heard the disturbance and trotted forward until he could discern Grey’s leading horsemen. He then raised the alarm by firing one of his two handguns, wheeled his mount around and galloped to find Compton. Although the sound was inaudible in Feversham’s camp – a contemporary pistol or musket discharged with a fizzing, whizzing thud rather than a loud bang – it sounded clear

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enough to Monmouth who realized that he needed to hurry. It was later reported that he had wanted to shoot Hucker on the spot but ‘feared to make more noise’. He would also have found it extremely difficult because Hucker immediately rode off into the night, hoping that his treachery might be rewarded by a royal pardon.78 Tales of conspiracy and betrayal always abound in doomed rebellions and Hucker was a convenient scapegoat. Whether he deliberately, or accidentally, fired a pistol or another nervous, frightened man jerked a trigger cannot be known for certain. A dialect poem mentioned that Hucker rode ‘a kicking mare’ and her ill-behaviour may have caused the disturbance.79 Perhaps a solder simply stumbled in the dark and cursed loudly. As soon as Compton’s scout raced up to report the presence of the enemy, another trooper was sent haring over the moor to the Bussex Rhine where he rode along the northern rim shouting, at least 20 times, ‘beat the drums, the enemy is come. For the Lord’s sake, beat the drums.’ It was customary for the drummers – most drill orders were delivered by tap of drum (infantry and dragoons) or call of trumpet (cavalry) – of all regiments in camp to be located in the same place to receive and then relay orders to their respective units. Feversham’s drummers were fast asleep.80 In desperation, the messenger scrabbled through the Bussex Rhine, seized a drum and started beating loudly until they eventually stirred. Meanwhile, Compton moved in the direction indicated by his scout and, in the mist and darkness, ran into elements of the left flank of Grey’s cavalry. It was not immediately clear to Compton that these shadowy figures were rebels because other patrols, parties of militia and vigilantes were known to be abroad. The two sides tried to assess each other but the uncertainty was quickly ended when one of the royal troopers accidentally discharged his carbine upon which the rebels returned fire and Compton was shot in the chest: Captain Edwin Sandys (Royal Horse Guards) assumed command. As the rebel horsemen retired on their main body, Grey or Monmouth ordered forward a larger party to investigate the disturbance. It rode straight towards Sandys who, initially, thought they were militia but rapidly discovered his mistake. He charged and broke them but kept his men in hand and withdrew towards the Upper Plungeon. Sandys and several troopers were injured. According to the writer of an account of Monmouth’s Rebellion, who was not present at Sedgemoor, one of the company commanders of the Royal Scots had predicted a nocturnal attack and carefully marked out the ground between the tents and the Bussex Rhine on which his men were to take station in an emergency. Indeed, this gentleman was so certain that he had been tempted to invite wagers but the tale is not supported by reliable evidence.81 As the drummers rattled out the call to arms, the soldiers scrambled from the tents, grabbed their weapons from the stands and fell into line of battle. Grafton was the first senior officer to respond, staggering from his tent clad in his night gown. There was great haste but no confusion. Feversham jumped out of bed as soon as he heard the first trumpet and rode directly to the camp where he found the infantry already deployed into line: he gave strict instructions that no man was to cross the rhine until ordered. The militia foot came forward from Middlezoy and formed up, three ranks deep, in the rear of Feversham’s line.82 If Grey’s horsemen could have moved rapidly through the Bussex Rhine and charged vigorously into the right flank and rear of Feversham‘s foot, victory was

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possible but too much was expected from the least impressive section of Monmouth’s army. The cavalrymen trotted forward but, disorientated by the darkness and Sandys’s charge, failed to locate the Upper Plungeon. Instead, they reached the edge of the Bussex Rhine opposite the lines of the Royal Scots. They were challenged and a rebel replied that they were the Duke of Albemarle’s militia. The cavalry then split into two parties of roughly equal strength: one turned left and made for the Upper Plungeon but the other, led by Grey, seemed uncertain of what to do and milled around in front of the Royal Scots. Captain Charles Barclay shouted a second challenge and, on receiving the reply that they were Monmouth’s men, ordered his musketeers to open fire. ‘Disordered’ by the volleys, Grey’s section drifted westwards parallel to the royal line before hurrying north-east over the fens towards the Langmoor Rhine. The failure of the horsemen either to surprise or disorientate Feversham’s troops transferred the entire weight of battle on to Monmouth’s infantry. The Langmoor Plungeon was narrow, a ‘defile’ in military terminology, and only a few men had been able to cross at a time. Consequently, Wade’s infantry column became distended and reorganization into approximate battle formation consumed precious time. Wade then led his men towards the banks of the Bussex Rhine, dragging the three light field guns, apparently guided through the darkness by the lighted matches of the Royal Scots’ musketeers, the only one of Feversham’s infantry units that had not yet switched to flintlocks. This story is probably apocryphal because matches emitted only a feeble glow, all but invisible in the rising mist. More likely, Wade marched to the sound of Barclay’s volleys, which would have brought him to a point opposite the Royal Scots. The relatively few rebel foot equipped with firearms – most had swords, pikes and scythes, deadly weapons in close combat but useless at a distance – then stood and engaged the royalists but the range was excessive and, as is usual with untried soldiers, their aim was generally too high. The three field guns, which came into action 116 paces from the rhine, were far more efficacious, causing much damage to the Royal Scots and the right and centre of the 1st battalion of the 1st Foot Guards. However, the royal line did not waver and, by occasionally returning fire, bought Feversham time to prepare a counter-attack. Matthews’s battalion came up on Wade’s right but the rebel foot could not be cajoled to advance closer and halted some 30 to 40 yards from the edge of the rhine. Monmouth led forward additional infantry but instead of extending to the right they bunched around Wade and Matthews leaving the royalist left wing and left centre unengaged. After about 90 minutes, the undisciplined firing exhausted available ammunition. Replenishment was impossible because the powder wagons, plus the remaining field gun, were standing near Peazey Farm awaiting orders to proceed towards Axbridge. Having observed the approaching dark shadows of the rebel infantry, Feversham ordered the horse grenadier contingents of Captains Parker and Vaughan, the King’s Troop of the Life Guard led by Lieutenant Colonel Villiers and Captain Charles Adderley’s troop of the Royal Horse Guards, to pass the Lower Plungeon and draw up in line of battle on the open moor in order to guard the ford and anchor the left flank. Feversham then rode back into the camp and ran into Oglethorpe who made a brief report describing how he had descended from Knowle Hill, ridden along the causeway towards Bridgwater and had nearly reached the town when he heard the

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commotion from the south. Immediately, he had turned left down the BridgwaterWestonzoyland road and hastened to the sound of the guns. Oglethorpe concluded by delivering the now blindingly obvious and redundant news that the rebels were no longer in Bridgwater. While trotting down the Bridgwater-Westonzoyland road, Oglethorpe had gathered in all the cavalry and infantry out-guards – principally Upcott’s detachment of the Life Guards and the 50 supporting musketeers – and brought them to the camp. Feversham immediately led Oglethorpe’s party around the rear of the infantry tents. Near the centre of the camp, Feversham encountered a troop of militia horse under a Colonel Orpe, which he added to the detachment before proceeding to the Upper Plungeon. Here he found Sandys with the two troops of the Royal Horse Guards (Sandys’s and Compton’s, now commanded by Lieutenant David Lloyd) and one from the Royal Dragoons, that had earlier clashed with Grey’s mounted vanguard. Feversham ordered more troops of the Royal Horse Guards to join them: Captains Walter Littleton, Sir Charles Wyndham, the King’s Troop led by Lieutenant William Wind and Henry Cornwall’s commanded by Lieutenant Rowland Selby. Feversham marched this force through the Upper Plungeon and arranged them in line of battle on the north bank of the Bussex Rhine thus securing the army’s right flank. He then returned to Oglethorpe and ordered him to take his ad hoc force even further east and deploy across the rhine. When in position, he was to attack any rebels who came into view and thus block a possible turning movement. Grey’s portion of the cavalry regiment, having turned right instead of left at the Bussex Rhine, was already an irrelevance but the remaining 300 under Captain John Jones, a cabinet maker from London, had located the Upper Plungeon and were trying to reorganize before attempting to cross. Indeed, a few horsemen did actually venture on to the south bank but the majority appears to have shifted further and further to the left, away from the Upper Plungeon and closer to Oglethorpe. As soon as he had crossed the Bussex Rhine, Oglethorpe formed up his men in squadrons with infantry supports in the intervals and charged into Jones’s confused ranks, sweeping most from the field and away to the east. Having disposed of Jones’s cavalry, Oglethorpe recovered his men and stood beyond the Bussex Rhine awaiting further orders. Oglethorpe’s intervention was timely because the Royal Scots, who had endured most of the rebels’ musketry and cannon fire and lost all but four of their officers, were beginning to look over their shoulders. At this critical juncture, the royalist heavy guns arrived to provide fire support. The first three, pulled by the Bishop of Winchester’s carriage horses, unlimbered on the right of the Royal Scots and immediately began to cause casualties among the mass of Monmouth’s infantry. Reassured that their flank was now covered by cavalry and seeing the artillery beginning to hurt the rebels, the Royal Scots steadied. A little later, three more guns were positioned between the royalist infantry battalions. Additional succour for the foot was provided by John Churchill who ordered one troop of his Royal Dragoons, probably dismounted, to cross the Bussex Rhine at a point between the Lower Plungeon and the left of Trelawney’s battalion while two more troops, under Lieutenant Colonel Lord Cornbury,83 took station between the right of the Royal Scots and the Upper Plungeon. Because the rebel infantry was bunched opposite the centre and right of the royalist line, the left wing – Kirke’s half-battalion and the five companies from Trelawney’s

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– was unengaged. In his role as infantry supremo, Churchill ordered them to form column, pass behind the three battalions of guards and take station on the right of the Royal Scots to reinforce Cornbury. Feversham had similar thoughts and had already instructed Sackville to draw the Coldstream Guards from the centre of the line to the right of the Royal Scots. However, when he saw Churchill leading forward Kirke’s and Trelawney’s, he countermanded the order to Sackville who remained in his original position. This episode has been used by some commentators to compare the supposedly incompetent Feversham with the visionary Churchill but both made the appropriate tactical decision virtually simultaneously. Feversham prevented confusion by cancelling his own order to Sackville when he saw that Churchill had the matter in hand. A more pompous, vain man might well have stood on his dignity thereby jeopardizing the safety of the army. Having rearranged and balanced his dispositions, a noticeable slackening in the rebels’ musketry and cannon fire indicated to Feversham that the moment was propitious to counter-attack. First, the cavalry at the Lower Plungeon advanced deeper into the moor while Oglethorpe brought his men to join Sandys at the Upper Plungeon. Both flanking detachments then moved a short distance forward before turning into the flanks of Monmouth’s infantry. Almost simultaneously, the foot clambered through the Bussex Rhine, paused to dress their ranks and then drove into the rebel front. For an hour, although pressed on three sides and losing their three field guns to Littleton’s troop of the Royal Horse Guards, they stood firm, pikes and scythes proving highly effective at close quarters.84 Monmouth, accompanied by Grey who had returned to the field minus his men, realized that the battle was lost and made off towards the Poldens: once news of their leader’s desertion spread, the army disintegrated. As is usual in such cases, the haemorrhaging began in the rear before the contagion seeped towards the troops actually engaged. Fearful of being attacked in the dark by its own side, the royalist infantry remained in position leaving the cavalry to pursue the enemy over the Langmoor Rhine into the fields around and beyond Chedzoy; between 200 and 400 rebels died in the fighting near the Bussex Rhine and many more during the chase. By sunrise Monmouth’s army had been completely dispersed. Only Wade, the hero of the battle, escaped with about 150 of his Taunton men and entered Bridgwater where he was joined by three troops of horse, still intact after their earlier flight across the moor: together they headed west hoping to find ship in Ilfracombe.85 Monmouth, in company with Grey, Buyse and Dr William Oliver (d. c. 1716), reached the Polden Hills. He abandoned all plans of crossing the Bristol Channel or making for Cheshire and decided upon Poole in Dorset where he hoped to find a vessel that would spirit him away to the Netherlands and the arms of Lady Wentworth: he was captured near Ringwood in Hampshire. At the head of some cavalry and dragoons, Feversham and Churchill rode into Bridgwater at daybreak.86 The remainder of 6 July was spent mopping-up in the immediate vicinity of the battlefield. Twenty-two rebels were hanged while troops stripped and buried corpses near the Bussex Rhine: 174 bodies were slung into a single pit. Later, on 13 July, Kirke ordered the constable of Chedzoy to conscript 12 labourers and six ploughs to throw up a mound over the grave.87 Those who were cut down further afield during the rout were mostly interred by the local people. The

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immediate total of known rebel dead was 1,384 but corpses continued to be discovered in the corn fields during the subsequent harvest.88 The Wiltshire militia, now in its element, corralled 238 fit and wounded prisoners – quickly rising to 500 – into St Mary’s church in Westonzoyland, where they were systematically pillaged. The good weather had returned and 6 July was very hot, adding greatly to the discomfort of both prisoners packed into the church and the many wounded still lying in the open. An exact account of rebel casualties will never be known because Monmouth did not keep written records. Initially, Feversham estimated his own casualties at 50 dead and 200 wounded. Most had occurred in the Royal Scots, which suffered a casualty rate of about 20 per cent, losing 30 killed and 77 wounded. At least 110 royalist wounded were sent into Bridgwater to be treated by regimental surgeons and many remained there for up to three months before they were well enough to travel. No more than a handful of Kirke’s men were injured and none died: James Barnes, John Rosse, James Resin and John Pawling later received ten marks each from the Chelsea Hospital out-pension fund for wounds suffered at Sedgemoor.89 Oglethorpe rode post haste bearing victory dispatches for the king, a service for which he was knighted, and Feversham’s quickly assembled army was then equally rapidly dispersed.90 The majority stayed at Westonzoyland throughout 6 July but, in the evening, Captain Parker with his Life Guard Horse Grenadiers rode to Axbridge to intercept the rebels’ baggage train. Early on the morning of 7 July, two rebels – the Dutch master gunner and a ‘yellow coat’ deserter from the militia91 – were hauled from Westonzoyland church and hanged in front of the whole army. Feversham then broke camp and began the journey back to London, taking along the majority of the prisoners from St Mary’s, Westonzoyland. At Glastonbury, six rebels were hanged outside the White Hart Inn, their bodies immediately stripped naked.92 That evening the army reached Wells where it stayed throughout 8 July: the prisoners were confined in the city gaol and the cathedral cloisters and there left to await trial.93 Feversham received orders from the king on 9 July to return to London with the horse and foot guards and deploy the remainder of the troops as he saw fit ‘leaving what horse, foot or dragoons may be requisite with Colonel Kirke at Bridgwater or Taunton’.94 Feversham’s infantry marched en masse to Frome on 10 July and camped while the cavalry rode to Warminster. On 11 July, the Royal Scots moved to Devizes to join the London-bound train of artillery while the three Guards battalions trudged to Warminster. Churchill, Feversham and Grafton left the column at Warminster and rode to London leaving Lieutenant Colonel Sackville in overall command. He took the army to Amesbury on 12 July whence the Portsmouth train of artillery struck out for the south during the afternoon.95 Despite its substandard fighting performance, the militia had proved useful. By hovering on the fringes of operations it had inhibited many from joining the insurrection – London and Cheshire remained passive largely because of the militia’s pre-emptive detention of potential rebels – and, most importantly, prevented Monmouth from occupying territory. Consequently, Monmouth failed to secure either a hinterland or any measure of territorial consolidation whence he might have drawn support and resources: the rebellion only existed in the ever-shifting space occupied by its own soldiers. After Sedgemoor the militia helped regular troops subject the West Country to virtual military

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occupation treating ‘all that were believed to be ill affected to the king with great rudeness and violence’. Under the guise of hunting rebels, the gentleman officers of the Dorset and Somerset militia grasped opportunities to settle religious and political scores.96 Monmouth’s volunteers had achieved more than might reasonably have been expected. Their discipline during the approach march across the Levels was exemplary and the infantry managed to deploy into a vague line of battle in the confusion before the Bussex Rhine. When counter-attacked, although many must have realized that defeat was inevitable, they defended themselves stoutly with their home-made weapons. Monmouth had achieved the not inconsiderable feat of conducting two effective night operations and proved himself an efficient tactical leader. On the battlefield, until the final flight, he had displayed courage and resolution. Unfortunately, his strategic purpose was never fixed and the one chance of seizing a possibly decisive advantage, at Keynsham Bridge, was missed. The royal army had demonstrated a high level of military competence. Feversham, so often damned because he was not John Churchill, had directed the campaign calmly, coolly and successfully and was rewarded by appointment to the Order of the Garter. Surprised in a position chosen more for its views towards Bridgwater than its defensive potential, the royal troops had deployed quickly in the darkness and remained steady despite Monmouth’s cannonade. As James and Feversham commented afterwards, fortunately they were mostly ‘old’ troops, many of whom had seen service in France and Tangier: in similar circumstances, ‘new’ troops might well have panicked. Under fire, Feversham had proceeded to adjust the deployment of the soldiers and patiently waited until all preparations had been made before launching a perfectly timed counter-stroke. Kirke, presumably, was roused from his slumbers in the Westonzoyland vicarage before hurrying to take command of his men. He would have been expected to remain mounted at the head of the battalion inspiring the soldiers by an example of nerve and coolness despite making a large and tempting mark for enemy musketeers. When ordered by Churchill, he would have led the half-battalion across the rear of Grafton’s Guards to take station on their immediate right. No doubt, when he received the instruction to advance, Kirke accompanied his soldiers over the Bussex Rhine. Whereas no source mentions Kirke during the battle, although it was noted that his battalion and that of Trelawney had performed ‘good service’, his role in the aftermath attracted excessive attention.97

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The terrible Colonel Kirke

Many were hanged in cold blood by the cruel, inhuman, bloody wretch, Colonel Kirke, the shame of mankind; and some were hung in chains naked, to the terror and shame of the country.1

The unpleasant business of cleansing Somerset required a senior officer in receipt of the king’s trust. Choice was limited because many of the army units had been led by captains, majors and lieutenant colonels, men of insufficient rank. Those most qualified – Grafton, Feversham, Churchill and Sackville – had no desire to tarnish their good names and hurried away to London. Similarly, James appreciated the wisdom of distancing himself from any sordid retribution so guards’ officers, such as Oglethorpe or Eaton, were not considered. Kirke, previously besmirched by Pepys, met all the criteria and had already been earmarked. Additionally, the recent elevation to brigadier2 gave him field authority over formations other than his own battalion. Feversham, who had closely observed Kirke in France, Flanders, Scotland and the recent campaign, knew that he was rarely troubled by scruples and would execute any task, however distasteful, whereas Sackville and Dartmouth could vouch for his obedience and support for superiors. In the aftermath of previous, unsuccessful rebellions against the crown, it had been normal for ‘misguided’ followers to enjoy mercy, only the ringleaders suffering the ultimate penalty. The greatest insurgence of all, the English Civil Wars and resultant Interregnum, was settled in 1660 by an Act of Indemnity and Oblivion that called to final account only the 59 signatories of Charles I’s death warrant plus a few closely associated with the royal trial and execution. However, in the interim many had died or chosen exile and just 12 men were hanged and 19 sentenced to life imprisonment. The humiliation caused by attempts to exclude him from the succession followed by an armed revolt against his kingship did not incline James towards leniency and ‘he violated the unspoken etiquette of victory’ by inverting the customary procedures.3 Monmouth, of course, was beheaded but most of his principal lieutenants – Goodenough, Grey, Wade, Foulkes, Matthews, Ferguson, Fox, Tily and Fletcher – evaded punishment, either by escape or turning King’s Evidence, leaving the junior leaders and rank-andfile to bear the weight of royal revenge. About a week before Sedgemoor, James sought

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legal advice. Lawyers consulted precedents created by previous insurrections and quickly agreed a unanimous recommendation: anyone who had continued to fight for Monmouth knowing that he had proclaimed himself king4 was guilty of treason and could be executed without trial. This conclusion informed both Sunderland’s orders to Feversham on 1 July5 and Feversham’s written instructions for Kirke, presented to him early on 7 July. You are immediately to order two gibbets to be erected at Weston[zoyland], the place of battle, where twenty of the most notorious rebels are to be hanged of which four must be hanged in chains. And at Bridgwater you must likewise cause a gibbet to be erected to hang ten more in the marketplace and, with the Mayor of Taunton (who brings you this), you must send a sufficient guard of Captain Bertie’s Militia6 as may be able to settle that town and secure as many prisoners as the mayor knows to have been in the rebels’ army out of which you are immediately to cause twenty of the most notorious to be hanged in the marketplace of that town, and if there be anything else that you shall think fit to be done in those several places I leave to your discretion.7

In summary, Kirke was to hang 50 rebels and given carte blanche to take further necessary measures. Following the departure of the main army from Westonzoyland on the morning of 7 July, Kirke became satrap in the west commanding his own five infantry companies plus Trelawney’s five, two troops of the Royal Dragoons8 and various units from the Somerset, Wiltshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Devon and Oxfordshire militias. The first part of Feversham’s directive was promptly carried out. During the late morning and afternoon of 7 July, Kirke caused the requisite 20 rebels to be hanged in and around Westonzoyland, four in chains. The historian, John Oldmixon (c. 1672–1742), then a boy of 12 or 13 years of age, recalled ‘a range of gibbets so decorated to good length’ stretching across the Levels beside the Westonzoyland-Bridgwater road.9 Because of a hiatus in the municipal burial registers between 23 May and 19 July, there is no record of ten hangings in Bridgwater but it is safe to assume that these took place on 8 July.10 Kirke then combined the prisoners remaining in the parish churches of Westonzoyland and Chedzoy with more recently arrested fugitives and marched them all to Taunton on 9 July.11 A gallows was erected on the Cornhill, also known locally as the ‘Island’, soon after his arrival from which nine Taunton men were hanged.12 Ten more were dispatched the next day. Thus, between 7 and 10 July, Kirke certainly hanged 39 prisoners, four in chains, while the inclusion of the ‘Bridgwater ten’ brings the total to 49. A recent study, however, concludes that Kirke definitely committed about 41 exemplary executions out of 54 performed by the military in Somerset,13 a discrepancy explained by uncertainty about events in Bridgwater and the addition of the Dutch gunner and the ‘yellow coat’ deserter to Kirke’s list instead of attributing them more properly to Feversham.14 Having completed the first part of his orders, Kirke wrote to Sunderland on 11 July seeking guidance about how to proceed against the rebels remaining in his care: he was told, on 14 July, to cease all reprisals and hold them to await trial at the coming assizes.15 To ensure that this instruction had reached Kirke and been clearly understood, it was repeated on 21 July with a postscript stating that James was pleased with his conduct.16

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Kirke then looked to the second section of Feversham’s directive and decided that additional action was essential. Radiating from the headquarters in Taunton, where most of the troops were billeted, and an outpost in Bridgwater commanded by Kirke’s close associate, Lieutenant Henry Withers (c. 1650–1729),17 infantry and dragoons scoured Somerset, assisted by the militia.18 According to Gilbert Burnet, The army was kept for some time in the western counties where both officers and soldiers lived as in an enemy’s country and treated all that were believed to be ill-affected to the king with great rudeness and violence.19

The standard device for harassing civilians, already well developed in France and Scotland, was the ‘dragonade’ whereby small parties of regular troops – originally dragoons – lodged in a malefactor’s dwelling, gratuitously plundering his possessions and physically abusing his person and family until the fault had been rectified. In England, the tactic was often camouflaged beneath the euphemism, ‘taking’ or ‘seizing free quarter’. As we have seen, Churchill’s troopers and the army in general had disrespected civilians from the moment of entry into the West Country and Kirke continued in the same vein, subjecting Somerset to extreme martial vigour. It is possible that Kirke tried to ensure that his men reserved the roughest treatment for rebels and abetters – he hanged a group of fugitives caught plundering loyalists’ houses20 – but other accounts suggest that such careful distinctions between guilty and innocent were infrequent. Around 15 or 16 July, Kirke asked Blathwayt for advice about what course to follow with soldiers who ‘plunder and murder’. He replied on 21 July that any man who offended against a civilian should be delivered to the magistrates and proceeded against according to the ‘common and statute law’.21 Company officers, however, were disinclined to surrender their men to civil justice so no prosecutions resulted and the marauding continued. On 25 July, Sunderland informed Kirke that the Mayor of Bridgwater had complained about his troops having seized free quarter from local householders. Sunderland asked him to observe the king’s order requiring soldiers to pay for all they consumed but this reminder was almost certainly ignored.22 Booty was a legitimate perquisite for contemporary soldiers leading Kirke and his men to expect some material benefit from the campaign. Frustratingly, the peasants, weavers and Mendip miners yielded no worthwhile plunder. Instead Kirke began to sell bogus ‘official pardons’ to some desperate, wealthy prisoners, which effectively meant that they would be allowed to escape. He also assured three captives that, in return for a suitable fee, he might be able to intercede on their behalf. Having already started this private enterprise, on 20 July and 22 July he tested the government’s reaction by enquiring politely of Sunderland whether his ‘royal amnesties’ might be given retrospective sanction. Sunderland’s response on 25 July refused Kirke permission to issue any private and premature pardons, thereby allowing rebels to avoid the full weight of justice, but urged him to bide his time pointing out that the coming assizes would produce plentiful opportunities to excuse the convicted from punishment in return for financial considerations. Kirke, an impatient man, disregarded Sunderland’s admonition and friendly counsel and persisted with his illicit trade even though it verged on lèse-majesté.23 Three days later (28 July), Sunderland sent an express repeating the royal embargo but again Kirke neglected to mend his

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ways.24 Exasperated, Sunderland recalled him to London to explain his disobedience. On 13 August Kirke left Taunton for the capital where he confessed his sins and was mildly rebuked.25 There is no evidence that he returned to the West Country, Major Sir James Lesley assuming command until the end of August. That is the extent of reliable historical evidence concerning Kirke’s post-Sedgemoor activities in Somerset. The bulk of the prisoners was later tried en masse by a special commission presided over by Lord Chief Justice Sir George Jeffreys, 1st Baron of Wem (1645–89), and four colleagues.26 Most of the 1,381 men convicted were condemned to death of whom about 200 were actually killed. The remainder had their sentences commuted to transportation to the West Indies, where they were joined by many who had earlier confessed their guilt. Although James had authorized the exemplary executions committed by, inter alia, Feversham and Kirke, he was more ambivalent about the ‘dragonades’. As the French had discovered during their ‘ravaging of the Palatinate’ in 1674, giving soldiers temporary license to misbehave corroded military discipline. Thus the twin needs of maintaining martial efficiency and quieting any stirrings of public concern obliged James to make some gestures towards restraining the army’s worst excesses. Accordingly, a royal proclamation was issued on 25 August. Soldiers were prohibited from quartering in private houses without first obtaining the owners’ consent; all bills and accounts were to be settled promptly; poaching was forbidden; and civilians must neither be threatened with nor subjected to violence.27 Nevertheless, James privately connived at the intemperance of the Somerset garrison, which was allowed to persist with its questionable practices despite the issue on 10 March 1686 of a general pardon to all who had been in rebellion. Roger Morrice noted on 23 January 1686 that the Privy Council had received ‘very many complaints … of abuses committed by the soldiers in the west &c. in their quarters for beating of men, prostituting of women, wasting their provisions for men and beasts’. Late in June 1686, ‘some persons’ brought an action against soldiers ‘that did slander them causelessly in the time of the rebellion, or take away their goods &c’. Lord Chancellor Jeffreys dismissed these representations saying that the troops had acted ‘with a good intention and for the king’s service [and although] there were some illegality in it, they must not be destroyed for their good affection &c’. Further instances of soldiers persecuting dissenters occurred until the spring of 1687 when the publication of the first Declaration of Indulgence finally heralded a change in policy.28 In his self-serving Memoirs, composed during exile in France, James placed all the blame upon Kirke, by then conveniently dead. He had deliberately exceeded his instructions and subjected the West Country to egregious atrocity in order to blacken the royal reputation.29 James was right to be concerned about public attitudes. Hot from campaign and battle, it was to be expected that the army would spontaneously vent its anger. In London on 15 July, Narcissus Luttrell reported without comment that Kirke’s men had hanged ‘many rebels at Taunton, Frome, Wells and other places; some say above one hundred’.30 Immediate passions, however, had cooled by the time that Jeffreys’s show trials passed sentences of death and transportation on Monmouth’s lowliest followers. A few significant men possessed the moral courage to protest.31 Peter Mews (1619–1706), Bishop of Winchester from 1684, had attended Feversham’s army during the campaign and his carriage horses had towed three royal field guns into position

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at Sedgemoor. Mews was an advocate of the Anglican doctrine of passive obedience towards the monarchy and abhorred revolt yet urged the king to show compassion towards Monmouth’s ordinary followers. Bishop Thomas Ken of Bath and Wells tried to prevent Feversham conducting random and gratuitous cruelties before unsuccessfully appealing to James to adopt a gentler approach. He later devoted much time to visiting and praying with the condemned. Ken was supported by Sir Thomas Cutler of Lechlade, Gloucestershire (d. c. 1711), the militia commander in Wells.32 A gentleman of the royal bedchamber and a loyal court Tory, Thomas Bruce, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury (1656–1741), complained to the king about the severe treatment of the West Country. On receiving rather offhand replies he was sufficiently moved to tell his sovereign that, ‘Your Majesty ought to turn out the Justice [Jeffreys] and Mr. Percy Kirke, and that will show the world your true abhorrence’.33 The majority, however, accepted that rebellion was high treason and capital punishment the corollary. Although the recent civil wars had left a residual horror of armed strife and military government, most people regarded the ruthlessness as essential. Colonel Sir Charles Littleton, writing from Taunton on 7 October to Christopher, 1st Viscount Hatton (c. 1632–1706), thought that the army’s conduct had been very severe, ‘such as I have scarce known practised at any time in our former civil wars and which I cannot but believe that we shall hear more of when the Parliament meets … the country looks, as one passes, like a shambles’. Yet, despite his evident disgust at the rotting heads and limbs – mostly the work of Jeffreys and the law – he questioned neither procedure nor punishment. Those who have suffered here were so far from deserving any pity, at least most of ’em and those of the best fashion … that they showed no show of repentance as if they died in an ill cause but justified their treason and gloried in it.34

When Parliament reassembled on 9 November 1685 there was no adverse comment and many were relieved that Sedgemoor had finally killed the Exclusionist movement and ended any threat of civil war, a sentiment eloquently expressed in the House of Commons by Sir Edward Seymour, 4th Bt (1634–1708), a Country Tory from Devon. This last rebellion has contributed to our future peace and those engaged in it have sung their penitential psalms and their punishment rejoiced at by all good men.35

By August 1687, the West Country had been sufficiently cowed for James to risk a tour of inspection. Passing through the lanes and small villages he was distressed to see and smell rotting heads and tarred quarters still impaled on gates, walls and railings. He ordered them taken down and buried.36 Although there was general acquiescence in the chastisement, the executioner cannot expect popularity. According to Ensign Martin Lister-Killigrew, ‘a violent and universal hatred’ of Kirke ‘prevailed over all the West country’.37 During mid-November 1687, when James’s successful attack upon the freeholds of 25 fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, was nearing completion, the newly elected college president and Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Parker (1640–88), invited the vice chancellor of the university, Gilbert Ironside (c. 1631–1701), to dinner with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.38 He declined, remarking that, unlike Colonel Kirke, he did not care

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‘to dine under the gallows’.39 However, no critical comment about Kirke appeared in print until after James’s flight into exile in December 1688, when the Whigs hastened to justify the Dutch conquest of the throne and subsequent Glorious Revolution by a combination of adroitly malleable legal arguments and anti-Stuart propaganda.40 Whig journalists quickly appreciated that the Bloody Assizes, which had not been forgotten, represented an irresistibly obvious example of arbitrary, cruel, Roman Catholic absolutism.41 Jeffreys, who expired in gaol during April 1689, was selected as the principal handmaiden of Stuart evil, partly on the grounds that it is always easier, less dangerous and cheaper to libel the dead than the living. An Impartial History of the Life and Death of George, Lord Jeffreys, published early in 1689 and penned by the London bookseller John Dunton (1659–1732) under the nom de plume James Bent, depicted the ex-lord chancellor as a cruel, vindictive, court lackey. Kirke’s name occurred only once in a factual sentence stating that he succeeded Feversham as commander-in-chief in the west.42 Later in 1689, this biography was incorporated into the third edition of a martyrology dedicated to those who had suffered for their advocacy of Whiggish Protestantism between 1678 and 1689: again, Kirke merited a single reference to the effect that he had been Feversham’s successor.43 The authorship of these three martyrologies was shared between Dunton, alias Bent; John Tutchin (1661–1707), who disguised himself beneath the pseudonym Thomas Pitts; and the hero of the Exclusion Crisis and professional liar, Titus Oates (1649–1705), although the last of these was so discredited and distrusted that his name was omitted from the publications. The martyrologies sold very well and late in 1691 Dunton decided to exploit the lucrative market by issuing a revised and enlarged edition. More information was needed so he placed an advertisement in his own journal, The Athenian Mercury, on 9 January 1692, inviting reminiscences concerning recent events in the West Country. Some correspondence resulted and Tutchin-Pitts was appointed to collate and edit the extra material leading to the publication of A New Martyrology in 1693.44 It contained 533 pages, plus a 70-leaf appendix reprinting The Life and Death of George, Lord Jeffreys.45 A fifth and final version appeared in 1705 entitled The Western Martyrology. This was virtually identical to the 1693 printing except for a new concluding paragraph46 and the vainglorious addition of the ‘Life and Trial of Mr. John Tutchin’.47 The legend of the ‘Terrible Colonel Kirke’ first materialized in A New Martyrology and was repeated and developed in The Western Martyrology. One of the communications sent to Dunton in 1692–3 enclosed ‘An Impartial Account of Kirke’s Cruelties, with other Barbarities in the West. Sent to the Compiler of this History by one that was an Eye and Ear-Witness to all the Matter of Fact.’ It was undated and unsigned. This seems to have been the source for all the subsequent pejorative stories about Kirke’s activities in Somerset. John Tutchin originated from Lymington in Hampshire and may have served in Monmouth’s army, possibly masquerading as a surgeon, but avoided immediate retribution by changing his name to Thomas Pitts. Unfortunately, his tongue was over-active and he was arrested for spreading false rumours to the effect that the whole of Hampshire had risen for Monmouth, rebel soldiers had been spotted outside Christchurch and Argyll had defeated the Scottish army and entered the

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home counties. He was tried before Jeffreys in Dorchester. According to Tutchin’s own account, he was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, fined 100 marks and ordered to be whipped through the streets of the West Country market towns during each year of his incarceration, a punishment so cruel and unusual that he petitioned the king to be hanged instead. As Tory commentators took pleasure in pointing out, Tutchin did not once feel a whip and had been released from prison within 12 months, bought out by his mother, in time to be married on 30 September 1686. After the Glorious Revolution he was set to work by influential Whig friends as a propagandist and journalist. For a short time he also held a minor position in the Victualling Office but quickly tired of such drudgery and ensured his own dismissal by making false accusations against his superiors.48 Tutchin’s martyrologies offer no references and it is highly improbable that he either checked or sought corroboration for information received. It is unlikely that he saw any of the events described but depended upon stories heard and half-remembered from fellow captives while in gaol plus written evidence received post–1692: the fact that he was imprisoned in Dorchester whereas Kirke operated around Taunton makes it even more implausible that Tutchin could have been an eye-witness. The inaccuracies that marred many of the biographies in The New Martyrology – several of the ‘dying speeches’ were entirely fictitious – and the author’s later reputation for treating facts imaginatively49 further undermine the integrity of his productions but, whatever their scholarly shortcomings, they were highly influential – the 1693 edition sold over 6,000 copies – and allowed a wide audience to read of Kirke’s misdeeds. Despite Tutchin’s untrustworthiness, a historian cannot entirely dismiss the 1693 and 1705 printings of the Martyrology because the author was close to the rebellion, probably heard many tales from participants while the letters to Dunton must have provided a modicum of factual framework. None of the anecdotes, however, can be convincingly substantiated.50 Tutchin described how Kirke rode into Taunton on 9 July at the head of a column that included two carts packed with wounded rebels, their injuries untreated, and ‘a great drove of [prisoners on] foot, chained two and two together’, guarded by ‘grenadiers’ armed with naked swords and bayonets. Kirke ordered the immediate hanging of 19 rebels on the Cornhill without allowing any to speak with their families. A great bonfire was started so that, en route to the gallows, the condemned had to pass the conflagration that would consume their entrails. As ‘they were executing, Kirke caused the pipes to play, drums and trumpets to sound, that the spectators might not hear the cries and groans of dying men, nor the cries of their friends’. The corpses were taken down and hacked open with a cleaver until the Cornhill was ‘ankle deep’ in blood. As the heart of each victim was hurled on to the fire, Kirke yelled, ‘here is the heart of a traitor’. The bodies were then quartered and each part boiled in salt and dipped in pitch before distribution ‘all about the town’. Kirke thrice hanged one man from the inn sign of the White Hart.51 On the first two occasions, he was lowered after a short while and asked if he would repent but replied that, given the opportunity, he would re-enlist in the same cause. Despairing of ever achieving contrition, Kirke finally hanged him ‘in chains, and so he was until King William came to the deliverance of this nation from Popery and slavery’. Tutchin then cites another episode that was either an oblique reference to Kirke selling pardons or a garbled version of the ‘white

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lady’ incident discussed below: Kirke spared a condemned man on the intercession of a gentleman, replacing him with a prisoner from Crewkerne. Kirke was also accused of allowing hundreds of prisoners to perish from disease caused by the insanitary conditions in the various temporary prisons in Bridgwater, Wells and Taunton.52 White Kennett (1660–1728), Bishop of Peterborough from 1718, elaborated upon Tutchin’s narrative. Kennett was the first to declare, without referring to any evidence, that Kirke and a ‘body of troops’ escorted Jeffreys on the Western Assizes. Kirke, ‘a soldier of fortune, a man of boldness and lewdness’,53 hanged 90 [sic] wounded men in Taunton, without allowing their relatives to talk with them beforehand, to an accompaniment of ‘pipes playing, drums beating, trumpets sounding and all other military pomp and joy’. Perhaps the inflation of Tutchin’s ‘19’ condemned men to ‘90’ was a slip of the pen or a typographical error but the addition of the words ‘wounded’ and ‘pomp and joy’ suggests otherwise. At ‘another town’ – we are told neither when nor where – he invited his regimental officers to dinner ‘near the place of execution’. At each of three toasts – to the king, queen and Lord Jeffreys – he ordered ten prisoners to be ‘turned off ’. Kirke’s later explanation that he had simply obeyed orders was not good enough, thundered Kennett, anticipating the Nuremberg judgement by over two centuries. The bishop then introduced a new episode. Kirke persuaded a ‘poor maiden’ to prostitute herself in return for her brother’s life but, on looking out of the bedroom window in the morning, she saw him swinging ‘from the sign post of the same house … presenting the credulous, abused damsel with that barbarous spectacle of treachery and cruelty.’54 The Prebendary of Louth, Laurence Echard (c. 1672–1730), took pride in the impartiality of his scholarship but unquestioningly followed Kennett by repeating that Kirke ‘with a considerable body of troops’ accompanied Jeffreys on his circuit. Indeed, he promoted Kirke to Jeffreys’s ‘warlike assistant, a bold and loose soldier of fortune … charged with acting a principal part in these unhappy tragedies’. Nineteen wounded prisoners were hanged in Taunton and Kennett’s story of the young woman’s deflowering was repeated. Echard also copied the story of the ten hangings per toast and added detail, although he does not say whence, to the episode of the man hanged three times from the sign of the White Hart. He appeared ‘a brave, stout man’ and some of Kirke’s officers interceded for his life, which Kirke was willing to grant provided that he acknowledged his fault, When he refused they offered him freedom in return for saying, ‘God bless King James’. Again he declined and was finally dispatched.55 The Huguenot, Abel Boyer (c. 1667–1729), made his political stance abundantly clear by stating that ‘wise and good princes content themselves upon such occasions with punishing the ring leaders and some few of their adherents’ whereas James responded with a ‘barbarity not to be paralleled in the reigns of Nero, Caligula and the most celebrated of tyrants’. Boyer was otherwise thoroughly orthodox: Kirke and his troops accompanied the judges through the West Country: 90 wounded men were hanged in Taunton; ten hangings accompanied each toast at the dinner; and Kirke took advantage of a young woman in exchange for her brother’s life.56 Gilbert Burnet (1643–1715), Bishop of Salisbury from 1689, also denigrated the brigadier but exercised a measure of caution. A draft of the History of his own Time said that,

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I have been told they were above twenty whom he thus murdered and to add to the barbarity of this fact, which was never before practised in England, he did it at the door of the room in which he received an entertainment.57

However, the first printed edition of 1724 was more measured, the number hanged reduced from ‘20’ to ‘several’. Some days [after Sedgemoor] he [Kirke] ordered several of the prisoners to be hanged up at Taunton, without so much as the form of law, he and his company looking on from an entertainment they were at. At every new health another new prisoner was hanged up. And they were so brutal that, observing the shaking of the legs of those whom they hanged, it was said among them they were dancing; and upon that music was called for. This was both so illegal and so inhuman, that it might have been expected that some notice would have been taken of it. But Kirke was only chid for it. And it was said that he had particular order for some military executions; so that he could only be chid for the manner of it.58

It is possible, although there is no surviving proof, that some of Kirke’s officers held a dinner in Taunton at the end of August to mark their transfer to Plymouth. Even if such an event occurred, Kirke had long been in London. Burnet seems to have brazed aspects of Tutchin’s account of the Taunton hangings on to an unidentified, undated and possibly fictional regimental celebration. Neither Burnet nor Kennett were eye-witnesses – the former had fled to the Dutch Republic in May 1685 while the latter was busy translating Pliny in the study of his vicarage at Ambrosden, near Bicester.59 Paul de Rapin de Thoyras (1661–1725), another Huguenot refugee, was understandably hostile towards Roman Catholic monarchs, their military servants and ‘dragonades’. Kirke and Jeffreys were ‘two cruel and merciless tigers that delighted in blood … it was not possible for the king to find in the whole kingdom two men more destitute of religion, honour and humanity’. Kirke accompanied Jeffreys on his circuit ‘with a body of troops to keep the people in awe’. Rapin also recited the now-familiar details: the 19 victims in Taunton; ten hangings to each toast; and the forced prostitution of a maiden to save the life of her father, although he weakens the credibility of this tale by admitting that other authors, citing Kennett and Echard, claimed that the victim was her brother.60 By the time that David Hume (1711–76) published the second volume of his History of England in 1756, the story of Kirke in Somerset was close to its finished form. Kirke, a soldier of fortune who had long served at Tangiers, and had contracted with his habitudes with the Moors an inhumanity less known in European and in free countries. At his first entry into Bridgwater he hanged 19 without the least enquiry into the merits of their cause. As if to make sport with death, he ordered a certain number to be executed while he and his company should drink to the king’s health, or to the queen’s, or to Judge Jeffreys’s. Observing their feet to shake in the agonies of death, he cried that he would give them music to their dancing and he immediately commanded the drums to beat and the trumpets to sound.

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By way of experiment he ordered one man to be hung up three times questioning him at every interval whether he repented of his crime but the man, obstinately asserting that, notwithstanding all the past, he would still willingly engage in the same cause, Kirke ordered him to be hung in chains. One story commonly told of him is memorable for the treachery as well as the barbarity which attended it. A young maid pleaded for the life of her brother and flung herself at Kirke’s feet armed with all the charms that beauty and innocence, bathed in tears, could bestow upon her. The tyrant was inflamed with desire, not softened into love or clemency. He promised to grant her request provided that she, in her turn, would be equally compliant to him. The maid yielded to the conditions but after she had passed the night with him, the wanton savage, next morning, showed her from the window, the darling object for whom she had sacrificed her virtue, hanged on a gibbet which he had secretly ordered to be there erected for his execution. Rage and despair and indignation took possession of her mind and deprived her forever of her senses. All the inhabitants of that country, innocent as well as guilty, were exposed to the ravages of this barbarian. The soldiery were let loose to live on free quarter and his own regiment, instructed by his example and encouraged by his exhortations, distinguished themselves in a more particular manner by their outrages. By way of pleasantry, he used to denominate them as ‘his lambs’, an appellation which was long remembered with horror in the west of England.61

Sir John Dalrymple (1704–71), although among the first historians to adopt a more empirical method, failed to investigate the provenance of the legends surrounding Kirke and his account is copied, almost verbatim, from Hume.62 Monmouth’s Rebellion, and Jeffreys and Kirke in particular, were meat and drink to Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–59). Aware of Pepys’s demolition, Macaulay argued a priori to establish the certainty of Kirke’s misbehaviour in Somerset. He said nothing new but at least named his sources: Tutchin, Burnet, Narcissus Luttrell, Locke63 and Toulmin.64 Charles James Fox, who concluded his History of the early Part of the Reign James II at the death of Monmouth, did not mention Kirke65 while the Roman Catholic historians, John Lingard (1771–1851) and Malcolm V. Hay (1881–1962), passed quickly over the whole business but these were exceptions amid an oppressively Whig historiography.66 Two modern studies of the military in James’s reign have accepted the established view without seeing the need for further investigation.67 Kirke’s apotheosis was completed by appearances in both drama and fiction. Tom Taylor’s A Sheep in Wolf ’s Clothing starred Kirke, ‘a thieving, murdering, blood-sucking villain’, and John Churchill as themselves in a one-act play set in post-Sedgemoor Somerset. It closely adhered to the Tutchin scenario although good naturally triumphed over evil.68 Likewise, George Parker’s Tom Balch relied upon tradition for its depiction of Kirke ‘as a vile fellow … of savage and bloody disposition’ whose regiment committed numerous barbarities. John Ridd, the hero of R. D. Blackmore’s novel Lorna Doone, was captured by Kirke’s ‘lambs’ during the confusion in the aftermath of Sedgemoor and was assumed, wrongly, to be a rebel. Kirke offered to sell him his life but Ridd refused. At the last possible moment, when about to be shot and thrown into a ditch, Ridd was rescued by his guardian angel, Captain Jeremy Stickles.69 Later, Evelyn Everett-Green cooked a well-spiced

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melodramatic soup with ingredients taken from Savage’s edition of Toulmin, Tutchin’s Martyrology and a novelist’s imagination.70 Only J. G. Muddiman has attempted to defend Kirke but he went to the opposite extreme of trying to exonerate him entirely by raising the possibility of mistaken identity. Basing his argument on the fact that contemporaries always referred to ‘Colonel Kirke’, Muddiman first suggested that Kirke’s brother, Philip, lieutenant colonel of the Queen Dowager’s Foot, may have been the guilty party but he was in Ireland throughout the Sedgemoor campaign. Even more preposterously, Muddiman then suggested that the guilty party was Charles Kirke, dead since 1674.71 Kirke cannot and should not be absolved. He disobeyed orders, exploited the local situation to his own advantage and set the tone for the military occupation of the West Country but although smoke is the product of fire it can emanate from any source between a snuffed candle and the bombing of Hamburg. As Sir James Mackintosh pointed out, Kirke received the blame for the activities of several other people, an attribution made easier by the reputation gained in Tangier.72 Kirke and his regiment did not attend the ‘Bloody Assizes’ and supervise the resultant judicial executions. After hearing cases in Winchester between 25 and 27 August, Jeffreys began his ‘Western Campaign’ at Salisbury on 3 September before transferring to Dorchester on 5 September, Exeter on 12 September, Taunton on 18 September and Wells on 23 September. Kirke and his soldiers had already departed the area. Kirke rode for London on 13 August and, at the end of the month, his seven companies received marching orders to quit Somerset for Plymouth where they arrived before 11 September, indicating that they must have exited Taunton around the beginning of the month. However, the five companies of Trelawney’s did stay in Somerset and were reinforced by the other six, which had set out from Portsmouth on 1 September led by the colonel in person, reaching Taunton on 10 September.73 The reassembled regiment camped on a piece of ground to the west of Taunton Castle, known thereafter as ‘Tangier’.74 Almost certainly, elements from Trelawney’s battalion stood guard outside the court in Taunton and maintained public order during the consequent executions. In other places, this duty was probably performed by the militia. Jeffreys and his colleagues were escorted between the various assize towns by detachments from the Royal Dragoons, which had been handily pre-positioned.75 John Churchill’s own troop, led now by Captain-Lieutenant Francis Langston, and John Coy’s were already at Salisbury guarding prisoners while Cornbury’s shifted from Taunton to Wells on 11 August for the same purpose, its place in Taunton being assumed by Captain George Churchill’s troop.76 Two newly raised troops – Francis Russell77 and Edward Leigh (d. 1704)78 – reinforced their colleagues in the West Country during August. Trelawney’s continued to serve as the Taunton and district garrison late into September before shifting to Bristol, a ‘factious town’ whose loyalty had been equivocal during the rebellion.79 Until departing in May 1686, the soldiers subjected the city to a regime of ‘insolence, rapacity and debauchery’.80 Littleton’s battalion, which replaced Trelawney’s in Somerset, persisted with the agenda of suppression. The same, vicious policies were enacted by the Royal Scots, which took over from Littleton’s around mid-October. However, the trio of well-connected commanding officers – Charles Trelawney,81 Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Douglas and the old court stalwart, Sir

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Charles Littleton – did not acquire subsequent reputations as inhumane monsters, probably because they merely continued a modus operandi previously established by Kirke and Lesley, were not involved in the exemplary hangings, and were still alive during the 1690s.82 The Royal Dragoons, led by Colonel Lord Cornbury from 1 August 1685 following John Churchill’s promotion to the captaincy of the 3rd Troop of the Life Guard, were equally culpable. Having helped to escort Jeffreys around the West Country, the regiment attended the grand parade in Hyde Park on 15 October before returning to winter quarters in Devon at Honiton, Barnstaple, Bideford, Ottery St Mary, South Molton and Tiverton. They were ordered to patrol the roads to keep them clear of robbers and highwaymen, a routine duty for mounted troops, and took every opportunity to hunt for rebels and harass suspects. Discipline quickly deteriorated leading to the seizure of free quarter and the pillaging of both royalists and those ill-disposed to the crown. Colonel John Grenville, 1st Earl of Bath (1628–1701), blamed the indiscipline on the absence of all the field officers and most company captains, leaving in charge lieutenants, cornets and NCOs. Matters came to a head when some Royal Dragoons broke into the house of the noted loyalist William Byrd of Colyton and stole lace valued at £325. Lord Bath, his nephew Captain Sir Bevil Grenville (1665–1706) and the Duke of Albemarle complained to James and Cornbury was ordered to Devon to bring his men under control. Discipline improved and, in January 1686, two drummers and two hautbois [oboe] players from William Strother’s troop were handed over to the civil authorities to face trial for having committed ‘disorders’. The Royal Dragoons continued to occupy Devon until early June 1686 when they marched for London to participate in the camp on Hounslow Heath.83 The majority of the lurid anti-Kirke anecdotes concerned his activities in Taunton, or Bridgwater according to Hume, on 9 and 10 July. The opening of Tutchin’s description is most likely accurate but exaggerated: the rebels probably did stumble into Taunton roped together – Adam Wheeler mentioned that the majority of the prisoners in Westonzoyland and Chedzoy were tied or ‘pinnacled’ to one another – we know that the wounded had received no medical attention;84 Captain William Mathews’s grenadier company arrayed in its distinctive headgear was present; and the actual number hanged was 19 rather than the 20 desired by Feversham. Kirke almost certainly ordered drums to roll and trumpets, fifes and hautbois to play as loudly as possible because, at both military and civil hangings, it was the standard method of drowning the various ‘cries and groans’ uttered by victims and their relatives. The remainder, however, is prurient fantasy. Kirke hanged but did not mutilate his victims. The full judicial punishment for treason – hanging, drawing and quartering – could only be inflicted by a criminal law court hence dripping cleavers, tubs of bubbling pitch, kettles of boiling brine and braziers ready to consume intestines and genitals were reserved for Jeffreys’s sanguinary affairs. Ergo, Kirke did not shout ‘here is the heart of a traitor’ as bodily organs were tossed on to the fire. Indeed, there was no bonfire because, deliberately or carelessly, Tutchin confused the executions ordered by Jeffreys, which stretched into September, with the earlier, exemplary hangings conducted by Kirke. Finally, the executions took place over two days, not one, and all gibbetted remains were removed after August 1687.

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Feversham told Kirke to hang 20 men in Taunton but historians have variously recorded the total killed as 19, 20, 90 and ‘several’. Oldmixon additionally insisted that all were wounded and it is more than possible that some of the condemned carried injuries. In the first edition of The History of the Town of Taunton, published in 1791, the Reverend Joshua Toulmin (1740–1815), historian and non-conformist minister, repeated Tutchin’s stories against Kirke but undermined Kennett’s tale about the young lady offering herself in return for her brother’s life thus laying claim to the distinction of becoming the first author to show Kirke in a slightly less glaring light.85 A new edition was published in 1822, edited and greatly expanded by the antiquary and journalist, James Savage (1767–1845). He continued and broadened Toulmin’s revisionism by suggesting a solution to the conundrum of the exact number of Kirke’s Taunton victims. Apparently, there was a municipal tradition that a woman dressed in white might beg for the life of a condemned man on the morning of his dispatch. On 9 July, when Kirke was arranging the hanging of the first batch, the wife of one of the prisoners prevailed upon Mrs Elizabeth Rowe, ‘a lady of great and most amiable character and for which she was deservedly famous all over the west’, to don a white dress and plead with the colonel for her husband’s life. The prisoners were already standing in the cart beneath the gallows with ropes about their necks when Mrs Rowe found Kirke, along with some of his officers, on a balcony overlooking the scene.86 Without any argument, Kirke immediately acceded to her request and instructed the dim-witted Lieutenant Bush to tell the executioner to cut the man down, wrongly assuming that Bush had heard his conversation with Mrs Rowe and thus knew the name of the individual in question. Bush scuttled downstairs and shouted to the executioner ‘you must cut him down’. Surprised and confused, the hangman replied, ‘Cut him down! Which him, for there are 20?’ One of the unfortunates, his head already in a noose, was evidently well-versed in local traditions and had noticed the scene on the balcony and caught the words, ‘cut him down’. Demonstrating the veracity of Dr Johnson’s remark that when a man knows he is to be hanged it concentrates his mind wonderfully, he indicated to Bush that he was the chosen one. Knowing no better, Bush then said to the hangman, ‘this is the man’. He was promptly released and disappeared into the crowd faster than George Smiley leaving the intended object of mercy to his fate.87 This episode can be largely upheld through the positive identification of some of the dramatis personae. Martin Lister-Killigrew of Staffordshire, a sometime officer in Kirke’s battalion, had described this incident to his relative-by-marriage, John Merrill88 of Poland Street, London. Merrill later recounted it in a letter dated 12 March 1759, addressed to the writer Tobias Smollett (1721–71), which was subsequently printed in the Sun, a London daily newspaper, on Saturday 3 September 1796.89 ListerKilligrew, a kinsman of John Churchill, was born ‘Lister’ but changed his surname on marrying Ann Killigrew (c. 1668–1727), younger daughter of Sir Peter Killigrew, 2nd Bt (c. 1634–1705) of Arwenack House, Falmouth, Cornwall, on 23 February 1689. Following the deaths of two brothers, George (1664–87), killed in a duel at Penryn, and Peter (b. and d. 1680), and the unsuccessful and short marriage between her elder sister Frances (1665–1736) and Richard Erisey, Ann Killigrew became sole heir to her father’s estates, which she inherited in 1705.90 In such circumstances, it was common

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for the husband of the female heir to adopt her family surname. There were no surviving children of the union.91 Lister-Killigrew had arrived in Tangier aboard HMS Woolwich on 30 August 1682 among the retinue of the returning Moroccan ambassador. Kirke had evidently been asked – probably by John Churchill − to sponsor his military career and, on 20 September 1682, duly recommended Lister-Killigrew for a junior ensign’s place in his own regiment and the commission was confirmed in England on 1 October 1683. He held the same rank, although in the more senior company of Captain George Wingfield, when the regiment returned to England in 1684. Wingfield’s company was among those from Kirke’s regiment that served during the Sedgemoor campaign and its aftermath so it is almost certain that Lister-Killigrew was present in Taunton on 9 July. He was still an ensign when he resigned from the army early in 1689 around the time of his wedding. Although no Lieutenant Bush is listed in Kirke’s regiment in 1685, one James Bush was quartermaster of Trelawney’s. He had initially been appointed to this rank in Kirke’s 1st Tangier Regiment on 3 February 1681, switching into Trelawney’s 2nd Tangier Regiment in the following year: transfers of personnel between the two Tangier formations were common. He remained in that post until the end of James’s reign. A vital member of the regiment, the quartermaster would have accompanied Lieutenant Colonel Charles Churchill throughout the Sedgemoor campaign to arrange billets and provisions for the half-battalion. We do not know which infantry companies were in Taunton on 9 July but it must be assumed that probably four from Kirke’s (Withers’s company was based in Bridgwater) and five of Trelawney’s were present and therefore Bush would have attended on Kirke as a member of his staff. He may not have been very bright but this has never impeded an officer’s progress within the British army: Bush was raised to captain-lieutenant of Trelawney’s on 1 February 1690 and captain on 6 March 1691, a commission renewed in 1702 (William Seymour’s Foot). On 1 March 1704, he rose to the rank of major and was appointed lieutenant colonel on 1 February 1707.92 The majority opinion among the eighteenth-century Whig historians was that Kirke hanged 19 rebels in Taunton: Mrs Rowe might indeed have been responsible for saving one life out of the 20 executions ordered.93 Lister-Killigrew’s oral testimony, as recorded by Merrill, contains nearly all the basic ingredients found in most of the anti-Kirke anecdotes: a gathering of officers in a room with a balcony or gallery overlooking the place of execution; a band playing; someone pleading with Kirke for the life of a condemned man; executions carried out in front of Kirke’s entourage; and a rather insouciant attitude towards the whole business by those in authority. It is not known when Lister-Killigrew told Merrill the story and it could have occurred at any time between 1685 and c. 1745. It thus remains yet another second-hand source but possesses a degree of verisimilitude and supports some aspects of the broad outline of Tutchin’s account. It was probably the parent of various malformed offspring. Absent was the man thrice-hanged from the sign of the White Hart but no provenance for that alleged affair has yet been discovered. Merrill asked Lister-Killigrew whether there could be any veracity in the tale of Kirke forcing a young woman to prostitute herself in return for a brother’s life. He replied that he had no evidence but it was impossible to be certain because Kirke

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regularly slept with a different female, usually a whore, every night.94 It seems that Kirke was slotted into a modern version of a very old story presented in verse form, although scarcely better than doggerel, by the Reverend John Pomfret (1667–1702), ‘Cruelty and Lust: an Epistolary Essay’, completed in 1699 and published in 1702.95 It tells of a ‘brave, betrayed, unhappy’ man, ‘Charion’, who, though ‘unused to arms’, chose to follow Monmouth. He escaped from Sedgemoor – lost, of course, through treachery – but was soon captured by Kirke, alias ‘Neronior’ or ‘Nero’.96 Neronior’s fame no doubt has reached your ears, Whose cruelty has caused a sea of tears, Filled each lamenting town with funeral sighs, Deploring widows’ shrieks and orphans’ cries. At every health the horrid monster quaffed, Ten wretches died, and as they died, he laughed, Till tired with acting devil he was led, Drunk with excess of wine, and blood, to bed.

Charion’s friends managed to secure a three-day reprieve. His wife then ventured to Kirke’s tent and, upon her knees, begged for his life: Kirke told her to come back at ten o’clock that evening. She duly returned, passing through scenes of gore and horror that might have temporarily sobered Edgar Allan Poe. After much persuasion, she finally agreed to sleep with Kirke on condition that her husband’s life was spared but, in the morning, the tent flaps were tied back to reveal the man dangling by the neck from a nearby tree. Interestingly, Pomfret refers to the woman being guarded during the night by Kirke’s ‘lambs’. There is no known documentary evidence that Pomfret could have used unless there was some seed ripe for literary germination among the letters collected by Dunton. Pomfret’s confection was probably an amalgam of two known constituents: first, he had clearly digested Tutchin’s 1693 edition of the Martyrology; the second was traditional. Since the fifteenth century remarkably similar variants of the same basic theme had circulated in England, Burgundy and France usually as propaganda aimed at those under some degree of political disfavour.97 Pomfret probably moulded, employing great latitude and imagination, the essence of this ancient template around the characters of Kirke and Mrs Rowe. Again, elements from Martin Lister-Killigrew’s letter reappear in Pomfret’s poem: a lady pleading for the life of one of the condemned and Kirke’s indifference. Pomfret’s defenders suggest that he relied upon undisclosed oral testimony but, at best, that is bad journalism and, at worst, the last refuge of the unscrupulous pseudo-historian. It says little for Kennett’s scholarship that he uncritically accepted a third-rate poem as sound historical evidence. Pomfret’s verse also illustrates how widespread the image of the bloodthirsty Kirke had become by 1699: the 1693 edition of the Martyrology had indeed enjoyed an extensive readership. ‘History always has acoustical dead spots, places where the whole tune cannot be heard.’98 Kirke left few recorded sounds in Somerset. Nearly all subsequent anti-Kirke stories relating to alleged excesses in Taunton appear to have emanated from the letter sent to Dunton in 1692. We know little about the activities of Kirke’s battalion between 10 July, when the exemplary executions ended, and its departure from

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Somerset at the end of August. Tutchin’s martyrologies only deal with the exemplary executions, the Bloody Assizes and the consequent hangings: they do not extend to the military occupation of Somerset. Snippets of information have survived to suggest that Kirke, followed by Lesley, Trelawney, Littleton, Douglas and the Royal Dragoons, acted viciously towards those suspected of sympathy for Monmouth, the families of convicted rebels and others whose loyalty to a Roman Catholic monarch was less than steadfast. With the king’s connivance, soldiers plundered and pillaged, murdered, raped and performed dragonades on the innocent as well as the guilty.99 No officer was subsequently prosecuted and although the military scourging of Somerset produced no promotions, careers did not suffer. Because Kirke was the first royal avenger, his name has been associated ever after with atrocities and incidents for which he was not wholly responsible although he established procedures, approaches and practices that were, apparently, closely followed by his successors in the west. When news of the relief of Londonderry in 1689 reached Taunton, the corporation funded an evening of public boozing and merriment to toast the success of Major General Kirke but ‘nothing is more fluctuating than popular resentment or applause and present joy obliterates, for a time, the remembrance of past injuries’.100 An historian is left with a fairly clear impression of what happened but insufficient evidence to make a definite judgement. The fact that neither contemporary nor historian has ever challenged Kirke’s evil reputation suggests strongly that it was probably not much exaggerated. However, although Monmouth’s Rebellion became a major inspiration for Somerset folklore, most subsequent local traditions and legends relate to the ‘Duking Days’ of the campaign itself – there is a long, dialect poem describing Sedgemoor − and the ensuing Bloody Assizes rather than the army’s ‘mopping up’.101

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The Inglorious Revolution

Has there ever been a biographer who did not dream of writing, ‘Jesus of Nazareth used to lift his left eyebrow when he was thinking?’1

Kirke’s salary from his three commissions − brigadier, regimental colonel and company captain – amounted to £912 p.a., which was probably doubled by various allowances, the sale of commissions and assorted perquisites. He also enjoyed an additional £600 a year after succeeding his brother Philip as housekeeper of Whitehall Palace on 24 October 1687. By 1688, his total annual earnings were about £2,900, a significant income at a time when a person of quality could live very comfortably on £500. An indication of his prosperity occurred on 9 August 1684. Near Penkridge Church in Staffordshire, his grooms were robbed of two horses, complete with saddles and holsters, ‘two cases of pistols made by Trewlock, and a gun made by John Cozens’.2 In keeping with a gentleman of wealth and standing, Kirke rented at least two properties but he does not appear to have purchased an estate. Since 1679, he had lived in a modest house adjacent to the Old Bowling Green within Whitehall Palace, which was completely rebuilt following an extension of the lease to 41 years in 1682, and this remained his principal dwelling until the end of his life. He was also the long-term tenant of a country residence near West Byfleet, Surrey.3 He seems to have been a hoarder rather than a spender, a choice possibly forced upon him by the numerous financial demands borne by a colonel-proprietor. In the first place, he almost certainly had significant debts. Although his father had probably purchased his ensign’s commission in the Lord High Admiral’s Regiment in 1666, thereafter some of his domestic promotions were most likely funded by borrowing. In particular, the transfer into the prestigious Royal Horse Guards in 1670 and subsequent promotions therein would have been expensive. On the other hand, the rise from captain in the Blues to commander of his own regiment was both rapid and cheap. Temporary promotions in 1678 and 1679 led to appointment as lieutenant colonel of Plymouth’s war-time levy for Tangier; Plymouth’s death resulted in a full colonelcy; and Tangier’s evacuation brought his colonial battalion on to the standing English establishment. Each of these steps involved fees to the secretary at war and incidental charges but these were trifling compared to the very large sums that would

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have been required to buy such a ladder of preferment within the older regiments. Once he had achieved a colonelcy, outgoings increased substantially. A regimental commander was expected to make loans to his men when pay fell into arrears, a frequent occurrence; meet the costs of recruiting his own company; finance the supply of uniform and accoutrements; furnish advances to clothing contractors; appoint and pay a regimental agent; and maintain appearances. A colonel might realize a profit over a long period but short-term cash flow was a constant problem. Moreover, court salaries often remained unpaid for months, sometimes years, while army accounting was so laggardly that a senior officer never knew his exact financial situation.4 Additionally, deputies had to be engaged to perform his official court duties. Although much of Kirke’s wealth was thus more theoretical than actual, by 1685 he felt sufficiently important to sit for his portrait in the fashionable studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller. The result was a thoroughly conventional, three-quarter length study. Kirke stands in half-armour between a segment of a tree trunk sprouting two branches – perhaps he then had two living children – and a simplified representation of the walls of Tangier and Peterborough Tower topped by the flag of St George stretched taut in a stiff breeze.5 Kneller’s sitters were normally placed before a simple backcloth to concentrate attention on the subject: no doubt Kirke requested a more elaborate setting to celebrate his governorship, which he evidently regarded as his principal military achievement to date. His right hand grips a baton of command and the left rests on a plumed helmet. An ornate sash and simple sword belt encircle his midriff. Kirke’s round, plump face is enveloped by a full periwig, his double chin nestling into a lace cravat. Two small and carefully sculpted tufts of facial hair – more affectation than moustache – decorate the upper lip. The torso appears ample although the steel carapace makes difficult an accurate assessment of physique. In the knowledge of his alleged activities in Tangier and Somerset it is almost impossible to examine the image dispassionately. The expression might bear either the faint, condescending smile of a self-important, haughty man or the turned, sneering lip of a vicious thug.6 Presumably, the painter succeeded in producing the image that the purchaser wished to present. The canvas is undated but was probably painted between Kirke’s return from Tangier in 1684 and his departure for Ireland on 30 May 1689. The picture would have cost between £30 and £50.7 Clues to Kirke’s religious and political attitudes can be gleaned from a few, hearsay anecdotes. John Foulkes, the leader of Monmouth’s White Regiment, escaped from Sedgemoor to the Netherlands and was excluded from James’s general pardon. He returned to England with William of Orange in 1688 and was commissioned lieutenant colonel of the infantry battalion of Sir John Guise, 2nd Bt (c. 1654–95), on 12 November 1688, succeeding as colonel on 20 September 1689.8 According to Oldmixon, while campaigning together in Ireland, Foulkes admonished Kirke for his earlier brutality. In uncharacteristically measured tones, Kirke admitted that the West Country had been badly treated but excused himself on the grounds that he had simply acted as a good, obedient soldier who had faithfully carried out the instructions of his superior officer. Indeed, he had exercised considerable restraint in view of the overall circumstances and the licence implied by Feversham’s order.9 Kirke had hovered on the fringes of James’s inner circle for over ten years and was fairly well acquainted with royal strengths and weaknesses. There is no doubt

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that he and John Churchill were among several beneficiaries of one of James’s most glaring faults of character: an inability to appreciate that loyalty had its price and even personal favourites were capable of treachery. ‘Those the king loved’, said Lord Ailesbury, ‘had no faults.’10 Not until exiled in St Germain-en-Laye did James begin to question the actions and attitudes of some of his ‘friends’. Despite receiving James’s private support for his conduct in Somerset, this royal vote of confidence was not entirely reciprocated: as early as mid-July 1685, Kirke was showing concern about how the new king might employ the considerable political, financial and military power gained by the victory at Sedgemoor. Before departing from Bridgwater for Taunton early on 9 July 1685, he shook hands with Mr Francis Harvey, the owner of Bridgwater Castle,11 who had proved very friendly and helpful, saying, ‘I believe it will not be long before I see you again’. This Delphic utterance was apparently clarified by Kirke’s hand gestures which Harvey understood to mean that another crisis was likely to occur in the near future when they might well find themselves on opposite sides.12 If the story has any credence, and it may have been nothing more than an instance of ex post facto intuition, then Kirke’s attachment to James was conditional. A second incident further illustrated Kirke’s anxiety about royal intentions. During 1686, James interviewed members of parliament and office holders – a process known as ‘closeting’ – in a largely fruitless effort to persuade them to support the projected repeal of the Elizabethan Penal laws and the Test Acts of 1673 and 1678, the legal machinery through which members of the Church of England maintained a monopoly over public life. Colonel Kirke was closeted by King James and … the king, after he had told him a great many things, spoke plain unto him, and told him that he would have to change his religion. Upon which the colonel began to smile, and answered him thus – ‘Oh, your majesty has spoke too late. Your majesty knows that I was concerned at Tangier and, being oftentimes with the Emperor of Morocco about the late king’s affairs, he oft desired the same thing of me and I passed my word to him that if ever I changed by religion I would turn Mahometan.’

The antiquary, Abraham de la Pryme (1671–1704), heard this story in 1693 when a pensioner at St John’s College, Cambridge, from a man who had been Kirke’s servant throughout the 1680s. In March 1687, a time when James was exploiting every opportunity to replace Protestant senior officers with Roman Catholics, there were unfounded rumours that Kirke and his brother-in-law, Lord Oxford, had been removed from their commissions.13 Like the overwhelming majority of his military colleagues, Kirke was an Anglican-Tory, and thus wedded to the supremacy of the Church of England and passive obedience to the crown. Although some had concluded from the business in Somerset that Kirke had become an unquestioning servant of an increasingly authoritarian monarch, he remained consistent to his political principles and a resolute opponent of absolute and military government. During the diplomatic mission to Meknès in 1681, Kirke had visited the Moroccan court on one of ‘their great days’ when subjects were allowed to petition the sultan. Unpredictable royal reaction made the exercise extremely hazardous but, nevertheless, a very brave, foolhardy group took

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advantage of the occasion. Moulay Ismail flew into a rage at their impertinence and drew his sword, killing some and wounding several. The survivors cowered before the royal guards and seemed petrified at the prospect of arrest. Kirke enquired after the reason for this reluctance, which appeared preferable to instant death or mutilation by the emperor’s scimitar, to be told that they would all be thrown over a wall on the other side of which were sharp hooks ‘to catch them to hang till they died’. After telling the tale, Kirke asked his listeners a rhetorical question: had this altered their views on ‘arbitrary government’?14 From the hard-won and deceptively stable political platform created by his brother in the wake of the Exclusion Crisis and the Oxford Parliament, James assured his own downfall by attempting the formal re-introduction of the Roman Catholic religion into each of his three kingdoms. We cannot but heartily wish … that all the people of our dominions were members of the Catholic Church. Yet we humbly thank Almighty God it is, and hath of long time been, our constant sense and opinion that conscience ought not to be constrained, nor people forced in matters of mere religion.15

Despite the wording, most Anglicans understood that the policy of religious toleration was a fundamental attack on their Church. Some non-conformists were initially agnostic because they stood to benefit from the terms of this Declaration of Indulgence but the majority came to suspect that all versions of Protestantism were potentially endangered. To begin with, the Church of England did not see the need for an urgent response. James was a relatively old man – 51 on his accession – whose brother had died aged 54. Contemporaries thought that longevity was determined by parentage so James was not expected to live for much longer and his impractical ideas would disappear into his coffin. Precipitate action was thus both unwarranted and injudicious because mutiny against the sovereign might well result in another civil war while the fate of Monmouth’s supporters acted as a powerful deterrent. Unfortunately, the doctrine of unripe time had the opposite effect on James who, utilizing the power and popularity created by Monmouth’s adventure, began to hurry forward. Should persuasion fail to advance the unpopular quest for religious toleration, James was prepared to use the army. Accordingly, he ensured that it was both numerically strong; managed by dependable, professional, apolitical, swordsmen officers; and disassociated from the ethos and interests of the Anglican-Tories. Well-funded by the first session of parliament in June 1685, he retained the additional troops recruited to deal with Monmouth’s Rebellion and added them to the regular establishment: by 31 December 1685, the English army numbered 19,778 men. Although both officers and men remained overwhelmingly Protestant, James took advantage of the emergency to commission a number of Roman Catholics, including many Irishmen. Despite loud protests from parliament during its November sitting, James allowed their engagement to continue beyond the permitted three months by exercising his prerogative power to dispense them from the legal requirement of taking the ‘Test’ and swearing the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance. The overall numbers involved were small and out of all proportion to the political noise created. In December 1685, from 1,350 available commissions in the English army, 141 (9.5 per cent) were held by Roman Catholics. By

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November 1687, this ratio had fallen slightly to 8.6 per cent and, 12 months later, even though the total commissions had increased to 1,869, just 11 per cent was in Roman Catholic ownership. ‘Scarcely 1,000 in 20,000’ of the rank-and-file were Roman Catholic. Until the emergency of October-November 1688, it was difficult to discern any interest in spiritual matters within the army although a deep and serious rift had developed along national lines as early as January 1686 between the English Protestant officers and the minority of Roman Catholics, who were mainly Irish.16 The army is of no religion … at all but rages with atheism, infidelity and sensuality. But they are well paid (and armies never mutiny till pay fails and consequently discipline) and therefore strictly disciplined [and] never scarcely speak of the Protestant religion nor the Church but when they are drunk &c.17

The new 1685 infantry regiments, amounting to some 6,000 soldiers, had assembled on Hounslow Heath by 22 August to undertake basic training and acquire a sense of corporate identity prior to dispersal into winter quarters. James also wished to inspect and congratulate Feversham’s victorious corps. On 11 September, Kirke’s battalion received orders to march from Plymouth to Kingston-upon-Thames, where it arrived on 2 October.18 New instructions were issued on 8 October for the regiment to move to Rochester. The nominated route passed through Brentford (11 October) and Hyde Park on the following day (12 October) where the battalion joined the 1st and 2nd Foot Guards, four companies of the Royal Scots and Lord Dover’s new regiment of cavalry in a sovereign’s parade. The three dragoon regiments – the Royals; the Queen’s (Duke of Somerset); and Colonel John Berkeley, 4th Viscount Fitzhardinge from 1690 (1650–1712) – marched past the king in Hyde Park on Thursday 15 October. James was pleased with the appearance and performance of his soldiers. Kirke’s then proceeded to winter quarters in Rochester and Chatham. Almost certainly the colonel retired to his Whitehall house.19 For the time being, Kirke’s disquiet about the direction and likely outcome of James’s monarchy remained private. He was a career soldier whose prospects depended on the goodwill of the king. Provided that he performed his duties satisfactorily, he would continue to flourish. On 16 February 1686, Kirke received orders to send to Portsmouth the companies of Major Sir James Lesley and Captains Brent Ely, George Wingfield, Thomas Barber and John Giles. They were scheduled to arrive on 27 February and prepare for embarkation to Ireland but this directive was promptly rescinded and replaced by another instructing them to go to Kingston-upon-Thames. In the meantime, the other six companies had stayed at Rochester, Sittingbourne and Milstead until 21 April when they also were ordered to Kingston. The complete regiment lodged there until removal to Hounslow Heath. James did not invent the concept of a training camp attended by the sovereign. Charles had reviewed his enlarged forces on Hounslow Heath in 1678 and, once the returning Tangier garrison had been absorbed, the marching army gathered on Blackheath during October 1684 for a major review, the main purpose of which was to remind the fractious City of London of the king’s augmented military power.20 James decided to revive the practice and a summer army camp was held on Hounslow Heath in 1686, 1687 and 1688. An expanse of scrubland, owned by James’s supporter

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and co-religionist John, 1st Baron Bellasise (1615–89), was rented for £42 p.a. It was a significant location on the Bristol highway, close to London and Windsor Castle as well as convenient for the Great North Road and the way to Portsmouth.21 Although a few semi-permanent buildings were erected, including a clapper-board, three-storey hospital, most accommodation was under canvas.22 There were two ‘church tents’, one Anglican and the other Roman Catholic. The camp was scheduled to open on 20 May 1686 but heavy rain caused a five-day postponement. Regiments came and went throughout the summer but, at its maximum extent, 10,144 infantry and cavalry occupied ‘lines’ stretching for three miles. Along with his three co-brigadiers − Sir John Fenwick (c. 1644–97), Sir John Lanier and Edward Sackville − Kirke was obliged to live on site. James revelled in military companionship and spent as much time as possible amid his soldiers inducing a costly rivalry among the colonels over whose tent was the most richly caparisoned and who could waste the greatest sum of money on royal entertainment. It was rumoured that Marmaduke, 2nd Baron Langdale (1661–1703), resigned as commander of an infantry battalion early in 1687 because he was ‘utterly unable to comport with the expense of the camp’.23 These assemblies quickly achieved a result opposite to that intended; instead of overawing London, they became fashionable attractions for its citizens. Traders, gamblers, prostitutes and other low forms of life found a ready market among the soldiery turning the heath into more of a funfair than an encampment.24 Even more worrying, scurrilous pamphlets started to appear questioning what the ‘great James’ was intending to do with all this ‘martial pomp’.25 The Camp in all its Splendour now is seen, And has been graced by both the King and Queen, Nobles, and those of meanest rank, resort, To view those Tents of war, great Mars’s Court.26

The most influential was A Humble and Hearty Address to all the English Protestants in this Present Army, by the Anglican clergyman Samuel Johnson (1649–1703), which appealed to the Protestant majority in the army not to allow itself to be used to advance Roman Catholicism. Protestant swords, said Johnson, were being employed by the Papists because they had none of their own. Johnson was already in prison for writing ‘Julian the Apostate’, so publication was organized by the Whig pamphleteer and activist, Hugh Speke (1656–c. 1724). Johnson was whipped from Newgate to Tyburn and ordered to stand thrice in the pillory.27 To the relief of neighbouring villagers, whose vegetable gardens and orchards had been stripped bare by marauding soldiers, the camp broke up earlier than planned because of wet weather and all units had departed for winter quarters by 11 August.28 Kirke’s left on 9 August and proceeded to Bristol, arriving 11 days later, one company continuing across the Severn to garrison Chepstow Castle. Dowager Queen Catherine visited Bath at the beginning of September and Kirke’s battalion protected the royal person. Leaving his battalion in Bristol, Kirke returned to London for the winter. On Tuesday 2 November, Kirke and his great friend, Admiral Arthur Herbert, were strolling near the playhouse in Covent Garden. An empty coach belonging to William Cavendish, 4th Earl of Devonshire (1641–1707), a quarrelsome Whig who was

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persona non grata at court, was standing at the roadside. Just as Herbert and Kirke passed, the coachman ‘lifted his hand to whip the horses’ and accidentally flicked the gentlemen. They hauled him to the ground and administered a severe beating. Kirke appears to have been the more energetic because, when Devonshire heard of the affray, he issued a private challenge to Kirke but ignored Herbert. The king persuaded him to withdraw and allow Lord Chamberlain Mulgrave to settle the matter amicably. Devonshire agreed but made the increasingly relevant point that appropriate satisfaction was essential otherwise the military would be above the law and any private person would run the risk of random assault by a soldier.29 Leaving Bristol on 16 March 1687 Kirke’s battalion tramped to Pendennis Castle, guardian of Falmouth roadstead. The soldiers exploited the remoteness of the station to organize a racket, modelled on those practised in Tangier, whereby the masters of selected in-bound merchant vessels were harassed and only allowed to enter harbour on payment of a ‘tax’. Failure to comply resulted in the ship being ‘detained’. Complaints were received in Westminster and Kirke was ordered to stamp out these ‘molestations’. Such behaviour was not unique in James’s army and there were numerous reports of high-handed misbehaviour by the military.30 From Pendennis, Kirke’s attended the Hounslow summer camp before returning to Bristol for the winter. The garrison independent companies of Captains Lord Gainsborough from Portsmouth and Francis Godolphin31 from the Scilly Isles were permanently attached to the battalion during June 1687. One sergeant, a drummer and an additional ten men were added to each company on 1 July. Sir James Lesley became lieutenant colonel in place of the deceased Philip Kirke32 on 19 September and, in turn, he was replaced by the senior captain, Thomas St John. Queen Mary came to Bath in the autumn to take the waters in the hope of starting a pregnancy that might produce a male heir, where she was necessarily joined by the king. Again, Kirke’s men provided the royal bodyguards. On 14 March 1688 the regiment marched for Plymouth where it arrived a fortnight later: two companies were then detached to garrison Pendennis and the Isle of Wight. During May, the battalion, now comprising 13 companies, each of 60 men (780), gathered in Southwark and Tower Hamlets before shifting to Rochester, Strood, Chatham and Sheerness on 27 September where it continued until early November.33 James’s religious policy offended nearly every sector of English society: even the majority of Roman Catholics shied away, fearful of vengeance at the inevitable Protestant succession. Not only would the return of Roman Catholicism undermine the pillars of the English state and culture – the Church of England, education, land-ownership, inheritance, the legal system, parliament, local government, all encompassed in the collective noun, ‘Anglicanism’ – but also allow the tentacles of central government to infiltrate the sanctity and independence of vested, local interests. Above all, Catholicization robbed freeholders of their property: Church of England ministers were deprived of their benefices; fellows of Oxford colleges lost their places; elections to parliament and privilege therein were compromised; and gentry and aristocratic families which had run local government as virtual fiefdoms were usurped by Roman Catholics and middle class, urban non-conformists. It was horribly reminiscent of Cromwell’s ‘revolution’. Tensions were particularly prevalent in the army. In endeavouring to construct an officer corps around a core of swordsmen,

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James failed to appreciate the strain that was thereby placed on their allegiance. It was James’s attack on the freehold of military commissions that changed the attitude of several from a passive, unenthusiastic fidelity to active hostility. The first indicator of the set of the tide occurred in the wake of the second, and final, parliamentary session during November 1685. On Monday 16 November, the House of Commons formally addressed the king requesting the dismissal of recently appointed Roman Catholic officers. Three days later, the House of Lords debated the paragraph in the king’s speech dealing with the same issue resulting in a ‘very warm’ discussion. James was present in the chamber ‘and was much concerned at the plainness which they said was used in this debate’. Furious at the affront to his dignity and prerogative, James prorogued parliament on 20 November.34 Shortly afterwards, 16 officers, both peers and commoners, who had voted in favour of the address were summarily ejected from their commissions. From December 1685 to the summer of 1688, between 40 and 50 officers were cashiered for making known their opposition to royal policies. No compensation was provided by the crown although they were allowed to sell to their replacements. This assault on the inviolability of property rendered most Anglican officers very uncomfortable.35 They accepted that a commission might be forfeit for misdemeanour or abuse of authority but to be stripped of place because the crown ignored the rules of parliamentary privilege smacked of arbitrary government. England was ruled by a consensus between crown and landed elite. The king patronized the social and landed elite with employment, titles, emoluments and perquisites while allowing the leading county families to exercise political power and influence in the shires. In return, they managed the machinery of local government and the lower levels of the judiciary, elected members to and served in parliament, supported and maintained the Church of England, consented to be taxed, commanded the militia and offered unqualified allegiance. James fell from power because he failed to ‘oblige’ his natural supporters. Roger Morrice neatly summarized the situation. The putting out of the court and the camp [i.e. the armed forces] all those that will not declare [i.e. in favour of repealing the Test Acts and Penal Laws] will have a manifest, universal inconveniency in it, for the ancient nobility and gentry of England have a great aversion to trades as blemishing their family and therefore have no other way to maintain their younger sons, uncles, nephews &c. but by the court, the camp, church or the law. And if this resolution hold none must have any place or preferment in the court, camp or in the church nor any countenance in the profession of the law but such as turn papists and this will greatly disoblige all the Tory hierarchical party throughout all parts of the kingdom who count it a great honour that they have a son, an uncle or a nephew at court &c. that [they] can apply to on all occasions, and indeed there are but few such families but have a kinsman therein and there is scarcely any one act that could so universally disoblige any sort of men.36

Events in Ireland compounded the unease. Between 1685 and 1688 the Earl of Tyrconnell, the lieutenant general and lord deputy, developed and intensified the policy begun in the last years of Charles’s reign of supplanting ‘old Cromwellians’ and

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other Protestants in the Irish army with Roman Catholics. In 1685, the Hibernian establishment allowed for 8,238 other ranks and 406 commissioned officers: by mid–1688, approximately 350 Protestant officers, nearly all of whom had bought their commissions, and 7,000 soldiers had been cashiered.37 Even in those cases where they were allowed to ‘sell out’, few Irish replacements possessed the means to offer anything approaching full market value. Although the Irish purge, which also extended deeply into local and central government and the judiciary, was mainly concerned with religious and tribal politics, an incident occurred in Portsmouth during February 1688 which suggested that it might be a trial-run for what was planned in England.38 The failure of the ‘closeting campaign’ and the lukewarm response to the first Declaration of Indulgence persuaded James that religious toleration could not be achieved solely through use of the royal prerogative. If liberty of conscience was to become permanent, rather than a pro tem reform likely to shrivel upon his death, the only solution was the parliamentary repeal of the Test Acts and Elizabethan Penal Laws. Once these obstacles had been removed, reasoned James, Englishmen would quickly realize the material benefits to be gained from toleration while their naturally Roman Catholic hearts, shackled by those arch criminals Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell, would at last be freed. However, fundamental changes of this magnitude could never be countenanced by an Anglican-Tory House of Commons so James decided to alter the membership by manipulating the franchise. During 1687 and early 1688 every lord lieutenant − the shire lieutenancies and commissions of peace having already been suitably cleansed − was ordered to repair to his county and put three questions to all deputy lieutenants, sheriffs, justices of the peace, mayors and members of corporations, government officials and anyone else who might influence a parliamentary election. The latter category included garrison governors and the army officers under their command. 1 If in case he shall be chosen Knight of the Shire or Burgess of a Town, when the king shall think fit to call a parliament, whether he will be for the taking off the Penal [Laws] and the Tests? 2 Whether he will assist and contribute to the election of such members [of parliament] as shall be for taking off the Penal Laws and the Tests? 3 Whether he will support the king’s Declaration for the Liberty of Conscience by living friendly with those of all persuasions, as subjects of the same prince and good Christians ought to do?39 Berwick tendered the three questions to the officers of the two battalions in his government of Portsmouth but results were most displeasing, despite threats that wrong answers might lead to loss of commissions. Responses nationally were equally disappointing. Like Berwick’s colleagues, few objected to the third question but most, except some Roman Catholics and dissenters, answered numbers one and two in the negative. James increased the pressure, sending ‘regulators’ into the counties and boroughs to recommend parliamentary candidates who favoured repeal and produce lists of electors who might vote for them. As James alienated his natural supporters, the general European political situation developed in such a way that the internal condition of England became of central

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concern to France and the Dutch Republic. The Peace of Nijmegen of 1678 represented but a stage in the long struggle between France and the United Provinces. International tensions had been increasing since the Truce of Ratisbon in 1684 and, by early 1688, the Dutch knew that conflict with Louis XIV would soon recommence. James possessed a large army, an efficient navy and a powerful economy: England’s stance in the coming war would be critical. The States General inclined to the view that James would ally with France thus tipping the military balance, particularly at sea where the Dutch navy would be heavily outnumbered by a combined Anglo-French fleet and the geographical location of the British Isles would seriously impair strategic and commercial freedom. Interference in English affairs had been under consideration since April 1687 but, by the following spring, the dangers of inaction had become so pressing that the States General decided to invade England in order to ensure her neutrality in the coming conflict or, even better, force her to participate in an antiFrench alliance.40 The invasion fleet and army were placed under the command of the Statholder of the United Provinces, William of Orange, who also acted as the chief executive of the expedition and all aspects of its preparation.41 It was a dangerous strategy and the fact that the States General was prepared to gamble almost its entire military resources demonstrates the importance placed upon England’s potential. Because William and his advisors believed, or chose to believe, the deliberately exaggerated analysis of the state of England presented in the famous Invitation of the ‘Immortal Seven’ on 30 June 1688, they thought that their ends could be achieved through a combination of political pressure and persuasion, backed by the threat of military force. Apparently, said the Invitation, England was so riven with hatred for James that the nation would quickly rally to the invaders enabling them to dictate terms to an isolated and despised monarch. Indeed, without an ‘intervention’, as William chose to call it, the English would rise against James, overthrow him and establish a republic thereby negating his wife’s claim to the throne. To prevent this, the Dutch needed to seize the initiative in order to influence English developments. There was, however, a danger that ‘intervention’ might result in a fourth Anglo-Dutch war thus diverting assets from the continent leaving Louis XIV free to attack the Spanish Netherlands and, possibly, the United Provinces themselves, in a repetition of the terrible ‘Rampjaar’ of 1672. Accordingly, William sought to neutralize the England’s navy and army. William justified invasion on the grounds that he was protecting English property and liberties as well as Princess Mary’s inheritance, which had recently been overtaken by the birth of a son, James Francis Edward Stuart, the ‘Old Pretender’ (1688–1766), to James and Mary on 10 June 1688. The first point was debatable and the second irrelevant because the child was not expected to survive – all Queen Mary’s previous pregnancies had resulted in either miscarriages or short-lived babies. Should Prince James thrive, against all the odds, then word was already on the street that he was not the product of the royal couple but a miller’s son smuggled into the queen’s bed in an over-sized warming pan. Nevertheless, although James was a victim of Dutch ambition he also contributed greatly to his own defeat by squandering the popularity and support generated by his smooth accession and victory at Sedgemoor. His attack on Anglicanism, coupled with grave suspicions that he intended to introduce a

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more absolute and militarized style of government, rendered the Dutch arguments plausible. To begin with, James, who possessed an exaggerated sense of family loyalty, could not imagine that his daughter and son-in-law would behave so faithlessly and refused to accept concrete evidence of the imminence of an amphibious assault. When the realization finally dawned, James back-pedalled as fast as possible undoing within a few weeks all the progress made towards toleration during the previous two-and-ahalf years but the disingenuousness of this string of concessions was blatant. By the time that William landed in England, nearly all the arguments employed to justify the intervention had been countered by James’s volte-face. Nevertheless, the Dutch were not deflected from their purpose. To undermine the English armed forces’ and political classes’ natural sense of duty towards James when under attack by a country with which they had been at war on three occasions since 1652, William encouraged the foundation of linked conspiratorial groups in the army, navy, Princess Anne of Denmark’s court, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Cheshire. The focal point was the Treason Club, a loose collection of relatively youthful army officers and would-be politicians, both Whig and Tory, which met at the seedy Rose Tavern in Russell Street, Covent Garden. The unofficial president was Lieutenant Colonel Richard Savage, Viscount Colchester (c. 1654–1712, 4th Earl Rivers from 1694), of the 4th Troop of the Life Guard, previously a captain in the Royal English Regiment in France and ‘one of the greatest rakes in England in his younger days’. Illustrating the unimportance of pure, as opposed to applied, religion in the crisis of 1688 was the delicious irony that Colchester had been happily married to Penelope Downes (d. 1686), a fervent Lancastrian papist, and his cousin and heir, John Savage, 5th Earl Rivers (1665–1737), was a Roman Catholic priest.42 The second element in the developing conspiracy was the informal free masonry of the ‘Tangerines’, the Protestant army and navy officers who had served in Tangier and the Mediterranean squadron. Kirke and Colonel Charles Trelawney, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Langston, Admiral Arthur Herbert, Captain Matthew Aylmer RN and Lieutenant George Byng RN were the recognized principals. Kirke was an important liaison between all the army and navy elements because he was a member of the Treason Club, a Tangerine, and a close associate of Herbert. In addition, his battalion was quartered conveniently close to the capital during the autumn of 1688.43 He represented the army conspirators at a meeting in London during October attended by the Duke of Ormond, Aylmer and Byng, the coordinator in the Royal Navy.44 The wide dispersal of the army in garrisons and billets militated against the various conspirators making extensive personal contact until the Hounslow camp opened on 28 June 1688. Not only were conditions for ‘caballing’ suddenly excellent but London was nearby. James then made matters worse by canvassing the officers of the infantry battalion of Edward Henry Lee, 1st Earl of Lichfield (1663–1716), about their views on the proposed repeal of the Penal Laws and Test Acts and asking Lord Dumbarton to compile a list of all the Roman Catholic officers and soldiers in the army. The result was the foundation of a third conspiratorial grouping, the Association of Protestant Officers, led by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Langston (Princess Anne’s regiment of horse), a Tangerine and member of the Treason Club. Langston disseminated

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unfounded stories that the king was on the point of removing all Protestants from the English army as a prelude to introducing the mass into every parish and had hired a Roman Catholic tailor to furnish William of Orange with a bespoke, poisoned waistcoat. In addition, the real mother of the suppositious Prince of Wales was safe in Dutch custody. Through bluster, wheedling, intimidation and constant reminders about the situation in Ireland, he succeeded in convincing several. Such hectic, rash activity was essential because the army conspirators had insufficient time to enable their propaganda to penetrate deeply into their colleagues’ psyches. Their major successes occurred among the already-inclined. Scant effort was made to proselytize the rank-and-file, which consequently retained its natural conservatism and fealty to the crown despite the fact that most were solidly Protestant, a fact demonstrated by their enthusiastic reaction to the news of the acquittal of the Seven Bishops on the morning of 30 June.45 Although personal grudges against the king impelled several ex-officers to join the conspiracy, the majority of those involved were still active and in receipt of crown patronage. However, they were mainly professionals substantially reliant upon their service salaries and perquisites. If Langston was correct and a purge of the English army was imminent – and there existed enough circumstantial evidence to sustain this interpretation – then their positions were extremely awkward. Should they decide to stand aside during a Dutch invasion then both William and James might well despise them and their livelihoods would suffer. Should they remain faithful to the king and he was defeated, either politically, military or both, then their prospects would evaporate leaving little alternative employment except foreign service. Should they join William prematurely only for him to be beaten, then they would hang. All options were risky. In the event, a few resolved to support William actively through conspiracy; many remained temporarily loyal but prepared to desert at the most propitious moment; a sizeable body waited upon events ready to reach an accommodation with the victor; and some provided James with unquestioning support throughout and subsequently fought for him in Scotland and Ireland, while others were more equivocal but eventually reverted to loyalism in disgust at the political compromise achieved by the Glorious Revolution. In eighteenth-century parlance, the conspirators were ‘playing the reversionary interest’, seeking the patronage of the next king in expectation of the incumbent’s pending removal. It is possible that William made tempting offers of future promotions and cash rewards to the main military plotters but, if this was the case, no evidence has survived. Indeed, there is little concrete information about the army conspiracy. No schemer was sufficiently stupid to write letters or memoranda and the fullest account was not composed until 1713.46 Through the agency of several civilians and Anglo-Dutch officers who carried messages across the North Sea while engaged on legitimate recruiting expeditions, the plotters were able to satisfy William that large segments of the English army would desert as soon as he landed and the Royal Navy would not interdict the passage of the invasion armada. Despite firm intelligence of Dutch preparations and surprisingly detailed knowledge of the plotting in England – both Feversham and Thomas Sheridan (1646–1712) compiled lists of principals and advised their immediate arrest – James remained passive. He appears to have reasoned that the disaffection of a

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handful of officers would not imperil the allegiance of the majority. This was to prove an accurate analysis: initially, it was not the army that failed but the king. James had five principal reasons for thinking his position relatively secure. In the first place, he augmented the English standing army to 34,320 men and ordered sizeable contingents from Ireland and Scotland, giving him a force over three times the size of the corps available to William. Secondly, it seemed inconceivable that the enormous fleet could evade the Royal Navy. Thirdly, it was impossible to launch an operation across the North Sea and English Channel amid the winter gales. He convinced himself that William could not sail until the late spring-early summer of 1689 by which time the Netherlands would be at war with France and the invasion would have to be cancelled to enable the Dutch army to redeploy in defence of its own frontiers. Fourthly, when called upon to support the royal assault on Anglicanism, the swordsmen had shown little hesitation in favouring king above society. Fifthly, his army had proved totally loyal during Monmouth’s invasion and, since then, most of the senior officers involved had been well rewarded while those of questionable conviction had been purged. The conspiracy also stretched into Ireland. The leaders were the joint champions of Irish Protestantism, Captain Sir Oliver St George, 1st Bt (d. 1695) (Queen’s Dragoons), and his brother, Sir George St George (1640–1713), a cavalry captain cashiered by Tyrconnell in 1686. Following Sunderland’s dismissal from his offices on 27 October 1688, they took the opportunity to organize a meeting in London with Thomas Sheridan, first commissioner of the Irish revenue and Tyrconnell’s recently dismissed chief secretary, who was known to harbour doubts about the policy of Catholicity, to persuade him to engage with the Prince of Orange’s interest.47 Sir George explained that he was going to Salisbury with the king as a volunteer whence he intended to steal away to join the Prince of Orange.48 James’s cause, he said, was already ruined and he pressed Sheridan to come with him and ‘his fortune should be made’. Very indiscreetly, he proceeded to name many of the English conspirators already committed to declare for and then desert to William: Prince George of Denmark (1653–1708), husband of Princess Anne; the Duke of Ormond; John, Lord Churchill, and his two younger brothers, Captain George Churchill RN (c. 1654–1710)49 and Lieutenant Colonel Charles Churchill of the Queen’s Foot (Trelawney’s); Henry Compton, the Bishop of London; Lord Sunderland; Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, his son and heir Colonel Lord Cornbury, and his brother Laurence, 1st Earl of Rochester (c. 1642–1711); Francis Newport;50 Kirke; Charles Trelawney; Brigadier Sir John Lanier (Queen’s Horse) and Captain James Kendall of the Coldstream Guards.51 With the exceptions of Sunderland, Ormond, Clarendon and Rochester, whose inclusion was understandable, it was an accurate catalogue which Sheridan faithfully relayed to James but, as we have seen, he did nothing.52 Because the location of the landing was uncertain – Dutch disinformation suggested that the Holderness coast of East Yorkshire was most likely – Dartmouth assembled his vessels in an anchorage between the Gunfleet Sands and the Essex coast, ideally placed should the invasion fleet head for Yorkshire or East Anglia but useless if it sailed south along the Channel. Whether Dartmouth’s choice of station was influenced by conspiratorial captains or a misreading of the strategic situation, or both, remains unclear. Whatever the reason, James’s powerful and expensive navy

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took no part in the campaign. In the interval between William’s first, abortive sailing on 19 October, when James’s predictions about the fate of big ships in autumnal storms came close to realization, and the second, successful attempt on 1 November, the king held a series of meetings with senior officers at the London house of Brigadier Robert Werden (c. 1621–90). Everyone present was, or pretended to be, thoroughly bemused about William’s intentions but opinion generally favoured a deployment towards the North Sea coast. Brigadier Lanier, colonel of the Queen’s Horse, was ordered to Ipswich with a brigade of four mounted regiments – Princess Anne of Denmark’s Dragoons (Colonel John Berkeley (d. 1712)),53 the Queen’s Dragoons (Colonel Alexander Cannon), and the cavalry regiments of Colonels Richard Hamilton and James Hamilton, Earl of Arran (1658–1712)54 – in order to cover Languard Fort and Harwich, where the Dutch had landed in 1667. A second brigade comprising a further three mounted regiments (Henry Mordaunt, 2nd Earl of Peterborough (c. 1623–97)); Sir John Fenwick; and Lanier’s Queen’s Horse) stood in reserve at Colchester. Should William come ashore in the south or west, Lanier was to retire on London: if in Yorkshire, he was to advance to Newark; should East Anglia prove the target, he was to stay put. These plans were finalized on 28 October. Captain Thomas Pownall later told Cornet Timothy Ryorden [Riordan] (both Queen’s Dragoons) that, had William landed anywhere on the east coast, Lanier would have arrested Lord Arran, Colonel Hamilton and Lieutenant Colonel Hugh O’Connor (Peterborough’s Horse) before deserting with ten other officers.55 Express messages poured into Whitehall throughout Sunday 4 November allowing James to plot the Dutch progress. As soon as it was clear that they had passed the Thames estuary and were heading along the English Channel, Lanier’s seven mounted regiments were recalled and routed via London to Salisbury, which had been designated as the concentration-point for the main army in the event of a landing in the south or south-west. Lanier galloped ahead of his two brigades reaching London in time to attend a final cabal of the army conspirators, including Kirke, at the Rose Tavern that evening. It was agreed that, on arrival at Salisbury, Langston would co-ordinate the defection of Princess Anne’s regiment of horse (Langston), the Royal Horse Guards (Lieutenant Colonel Sir Francis Compton) and the Royal Dragoons (Cornbury). Churchill undertook to arrange a convincing scenario whereby the selected units could march out of Salisbury without arousing suspicion. On 5 November, James received news that William had come ashore earlier that day at Brixham in Torbay. Feversham was again appointed commander-in-chief but he was not expected in Salisbury before 15 November and the young Duke of Berwick was ordered to leave his government in Portsmouth and take interim charge of the gathering forces. Until then, Cornbury was ranking colonel. The window of opportunity was narrow but widened slightly by Blathwayt who deliberately delayed the dispatch of James’s directive to Berwick.56 Most of the mounted regiments had come into the concentration area by 9 November when Langston, Cornbury, Sir Francis Compton ‘and some few others of their truly associating officers’ held a secret conclave. It was decided to proceed with the plan agreed in London on 4 November: Langston, Compton and Cornbury would desert to William on the following night. Cornbury ordered the three regiments to form a brigade under his leadership and issued notice of movement.

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Meanwhile, Churchill and Blathwayt had orchestrated the delivery of fake marching orders. From 22:00 on the evening of 10 November, the adjutants and quartermasters of all the cavalry regiments at Salisbury – the staff officers charged with organizing march routes, billets and provisions – gathered to await the post, which eventually appeared at midnight. Langston, by prior arrangement the duty officer, opened Blathwayt’s packet in full view of all those around him and promptly informed Cornbury that the secretary at war had ordered him, in the king’s name, to take the Royal Horse Guards, the Royal Dragoons and Princess Anne’s Horse and advance quickly to the west in order to gain intelligence of William’s movements, ascertain his numerical strength and ‘beat up’ a Dutch advanced post reported to be near Honiton. It was the cavalry’s function to make contact with enemy outposts and reconnoitre in force so no-one had reason to question these instructions although the astute might have wondered about why those particular regiments had been chosen. At 05:00 on 11 November, Cornbury led 1,150 cavalrymen away from Salisbury. They passed quickly through Blandford and Dorchester, scarcely pausing for rest or refreshment. By the time the vanguard clattered into Axminster, having covered about 50 miles in less than 24 hours, the column was thinly stretched. Both the unexplained speed and Cornbury’s failure to observe routine security procedures aroused some officers’ suspicions. As Cornbury drew out a detachment to ride from Axminster and attack the Dutch vanguard in Honiton, ten miles to the west, his Roman Catholic, Irish major, Robert Clifford, demanded sight of his orders. Cornbury immediately panicked and galloped away towards Honiton accompanied by a small number of troopers, while the bulk of the regiment meekly followed Clifford back to Salisbury. His reward was the colonelcy of the Royal Dragoons but he was sacked in December. Langston was more successful in retaining his men’s confidence and took them through the enemy lines. There was no joyous welcome, however, and they found themselves virtually prisoners-of-war; some subsequently managed to escape. The Royal Horse Guards formed the rearguard and once more it was the major, always the crux of any regiment, who acted decisively. Having grown increasingly wary, Major Walter Littleton (d. 1688) challenged Sir Francis Compton whose resolution instantly evaporated. He turned the regiment about and tamely led most of his men back to Salisbury. The material fruits of the desertion amounted to Cornbury plus a small number of officers and perhaps 100 troopers out of the Royal Dragoons; the great majority of Langston’s regiment; and Cornet Hatton Compton, a nephew of the Bishop of London, and between 30 and 50 troopers from the Royal Horse Guards. Berwick, who had arrived in Salisbury by this time, went forward to Warminster to watch the brigade’s return: by his account only about 50 riders and a dozen officers were absent from the Royal Horse Guards and Royal Dragoons.57 The confusion of the night and Sir Francis Compton’s want of head or heart, together with the vigour of some popish officers among them, put all in so much disorder that the greater part, after they had marched above sixty miles to come and join us, wheeled about.58

William had evidently expected much more; Colonel Thomas Talmash’s battalion of the Anglo-Dutch Brigade had occupied Honiton in order to receive Cornbury’s

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deserters and had reserved sufficient billets in surrounding villages for all three regiments.59 The conspiracy had not proved strong enough to overcome the natural attachment of the majority of the army to its sovereign. However, the impact was out of all proportion to its size.60 As the troopers trickled back into Salisbury they were promptly ‘forgiven’ by Feversham but the camp was alive with hearsay, rumour and uncertainty. A number of smaller-scale defections, mainly organized through the Treason Club, had already taken place. Lieutenant John Livesey (d. 1718) of the Royal Fusiliers was arrested on 11 November on suspicion of plotting to abscond and, on the following day John, 3rd Baron Lovelace (c. 1640–93), left Woodstock with 50 ‘well-appointed’ men. That night they encountered some Gloucestershire militia cavalry61 and, after a short, fierce engagement, Lovelace and several of his acolytes were apprehended and imprisoned in Gloucester Castle. Among the first army officers to desert successfully was Cornet Charles Burrington of the newly raised cavalry regiment of the Roman Catholic Colonel George Holman (1632–98), ‘a melancholy and bigoted convert’,62 who rode into Exeter on 12 November.63 Lord Colchester, accompanied by some officers of the 4th Troop of the Life Guard, plus Thomas Wharton, William Jephson (c. 1647–91), Charles Godfrey, Sir Scrope Howe (1648–1713) and Captain Hon. Henry Wharton (1657–89) of Lichfield’s Foot slipped through the royalist screen, avoided meandering detachments from the Gloucestershire militia and gained Exeter on 13 November. Three days later, James Bertie, 1st Earl of Abingdon (1653–99), was observed exiting Oxford evidently on his way west. Considering the distances involved, the evil state of the roads, the winter weather, and the omnipresence of regular and militia patrols, it is remarkable that the army conspirators managed to achieve so much so quickly. When news of the defections reached Whitehall James was put into ‘great disorder’ and resolved immediately to take personal control at Salisbury. Before departing, he summoned the officers still in the capital to an audience where he offered to accept the resignations of all who did not wish to fight the invaders but everyone present ‘promised fidelity’. He would have been better advised to remain in London and leave operational command to Feversham because he was wallowing in self-pity and defeatism; his sole declared intention on arrival at Salisbury was to ‘restrain … the army from deserting’. There was no mention of leadership, aggression, attack or recovering the initiative. When James’s carriage rumbled out of Whitehall on 17 November heading for Salisbury via Windsor, his fate had already been determined. Probably around 7 or 8 November, a secret caucus had taken place at Cornet Hatton Compton’s lodgings in St Alban’s Street attended by Compton himself; his uncle, Henry, Bishop of London; John Churchill; Kirke; Kirke’s client, Captain William Stewart (1643–1726)64 of the 1st Foot Guards; Dr William Sheridan (1635–1711), Bishop of Kilamore and Ardagh in Ireland; and ‘others’. They decided that, at an opportune moment, James should be arrested and delivered to the Prince of Orange. This would be best achieved when it was the turn of Ensign William Mayne65 to do duty as the king’s ‘staff officer in waiting’. Should the plan encounter unforeseen difficulties then Churchill was to shoot or stab the king. As his coach rolled into Salisbury on 19 November, James was in a highly nervous state. He proceeded to ride up and down Castle Street, physically starting at the

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sound of a trumpet, exhausted by incessant nose bleeds and insomnia. James’s distrait appearance and behaviour undermined what little remained of the army’s self-belief. Most soldiers were willing, indeed anxious, to fight the invader but instead of leading them forward James wasted his time surveying defensive locations on Salisbury Plain.66 Everyone in the camp began to look over his shoulder and started to distrust his neighbour. Feversham advised the king to arrest Churchill, Kirke and Grafton, transport them to Portsmouth, and have them shot, always presuming that a court martial would confirm their guilt. However, when confronted they professed loyalty. Realizing that a few token arrests might seriously compromise the army’s command structure while doing nothing to retrieve the overall situation, James had little option but to accept their protestations. Having failed to steel the king to act, Feversham too joined the chorus of senior officers endeavouring to dissuade him from trying to fight on the grounds that the army was now disjointed and incapable of a positive response. If James’s greatest fear was of being captured by William and suffering the fate of his father, they insisted that advancing westwards and engaging in battle would guarantee such an outcome. Better, suggested Feversham, Dumbarton, Grafton, Oglethorpe, Churchill, Kirke and others, to fall back to protect London before dispatching envoys to discover what terms William was prepared to offer. Something might still be saved. News arrived that the Dutch forces had left Exeter on 21 November and were marching east. James summoned a council of war the next day at which retreat was counselled by every attendee except Churchill, who tried to shame him into making a general movement towards the west.67 Having accepted the majority decision, Churchill continued to argue that, at the very least, James should go as far as Warminster in order to inspect Kirke’s brigade thereby raising morale, encouraging the troops and showing William that he did not lack determination. Probably to his great surprise, James concurred. Orders were issued on 23 November for the army to retire towards London via the Thames Valley whence James would follow after calling upon Kirke’s men. Kirke, who had been promoted to major general on 8 November,68 returned to Warminster where he commanded two infantry battalions – his own and that of his friend and co-conspirator, Charles Trelawney69 – the Queen’s Dragoons, and a division of Churchill’s 3rd Troop of the Life Guard commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Mayne. There is a single reference to the presence of both battalions of the Royal Scots but, almost certainly, this is incorrect.70 The brigade acted as an advance guard covering the army’s assembly at Salisbury and a rearguard should it retire on London but the main purpose of its advanced location was to facilitate desertion, further circumstantial evidence of Blathwayt’s important role. On 23 November, as the army broke camp, James made ready to visit Warminster. He was to be attended in the regal carriage by John Churchill, gold stick in waiting that day,71 and escorted by a detachment from the 2nd Troop of the Life Guard under Lieutenant Colonel Sir George Hewett, 2nd Bt of Pishobury Park, Hertfordshire (1652–89), assisted by Exempt Cornelius Wood (d. 1712).72 Once the royal party reached Warminster, Kirke’s brigade was to desert immediately taking the royal person with them. Somehow the Queen’s Dragoons would have to be separated from the brigade and left behind because its revolutionary credentials were unconfirmed; the future Jacobite, Colonel

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Alexander Cannon, was a declared loyalist while the sympathies of Lieutenant Colonel Richard Leveson (1655–99) were unknown, although he was to defect a couple of days later. Should Lord Dumbarton, Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Sarsfield of the 4th Troop of the Life Guard or any other Roman Catholic officer try to interfere then Lanier, who seems to have found his way to Warminster despite his regiment being at Salisbury, Hewett and ‘little Wood’ were resolved to shoot the king. If they failed, or missed, Churchill, who was armed with a pocket pistol and a dagger, was to do the deed ‘for there was no other way of saving themselves after attempting the king’. William was apparently informed of this plan and accordingly instructed Colonel Talmash to take 800 dragoons and 400 cavalry towards Warminster to provide support and assistance in the event of complications.73 As he was about to enter his coach, James was saved from utter humiliation by the onset of another nasal haemorrhage. The trip to Warminster was abandoned and he remained in Salisbury until 24 November when he began the dismal journey back to Whitehall. Perhaps frightened that he was on the verge of being uncovered, Churchill, accompanied by Grafton and Cornet John, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton (d. 1697), of the 3rd Troop of the Life Guard, deserted to William at midnight on 23 November. When Lord Clarendon met Churchill in London on Monday 3 December, he told him that the king was firmly of the opinion that the attempt to entice him to Warminster had been an obvious ploy to deliver him into the hands of the Prince of Orange. Churchill, whose buoyancy and effrontery had evidently returned, ‘denied it with many protestations saying that he would never be ungrateful to the king; that he would venture his life in defence of his person’ and he had only deserted when it was clear that ‘our religion and country were in danger of being destroyed’.74 Ignorant of the cancellation of the royal visitation, Kirke, Trelawney and Charles Churchill fretted throughout the night of 23–24 November. Orders from Feversham arrived in the morning directing Kirke to retire first on Devizes and then Hungerford and Reading ‘making what haste you can’. The original abduction scheme was obviously dead but Kirke was still expected to deliver the desertion of his command. So he returned Feversham ‘frivolous excuses’ about why he could not immediately comply and played for time, dithering and dallying until the immediate and best opportunity had vanished. Why he did so is unknown. Perhaps, like Francis Compton, his nerve failed at the critical moment. More likely, because James was by no means terminally beaten and a negotiated settlement seemed the most likely outcome, Kirke was unsure about which side to favour. Only after the king had re-entered Whitehall and his mental state was clear for all to see did a Dutch triumph appear inevitable. Kirke’s prime interest was himself and judging on 24 November whether to desert or remain loyal was ticklish. Twelve hours after the receipt of Feversham’s order, he chose the latter course and turned his brigade towards Devizes. In the meantime, many of his subordinates acted with greater assurance: Lieutenant Francis Rogers (3rd Troop of Horse Grenadiers), Captain Sir Oliver St George, and ‘two or three other captains of the Queen’s regiment (Queen’s Dragoons) with some few of the common men’ sneaked away during 24 November. Two hundred soldiers from Charles Trelawney’s battalion, including the colonel, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Churchill, all the captains except Major Zachariah Tiffin (d. 1702)75 and Charles Fox,

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five or six lieutenants and as many ensigns, headed west from Warminster. Kirke’s own battalion also started to disintegrate. On the night of 24–25 November, Prince George of Denmark made his way through William’s lines. However, the extended prevarication had finally convinced James of Kirke’s profound disloyalty. Lord Middleton, the principal secretary of state, wrote to Feversham on 26 November requiring Kirke’s arrest.76 Accordingly, Lord Dumbarton, one of the few senior officers whose allegiance to James remained unequivocal, was ordered to take two squadrons of horse, hurry towards Warminster and apprehend Kirke. He was easily taken, ambling along the Devizes road in front of a diminished brigade, and immediately dispatched, under guard, towards London. Blathwayt sent an order to Lieutenant General Lord Craven, the commander-in-chief in London, to dispatch 20 troopers under two commissioned officers to Colebrook on 28 November. They were to take into custody the person of Percy Kirke and conduct him to his own home in London, where he was to be placed under house arrest but without the imposition of any additional restraint. He was allowed to send his baggage and horses to his country residence in West Byfleet. The embarrassment was short-lived. What remained of James’s Privy Council examined Kirke on 7 December ‘but nothing being positive against him, he was discharged’: it is always foolish to make unnecessary enemies in uncertain times. Whether he then remained quietly in London or rode out along the Hungerford road to join the advancing Dutch army is unknown but his ordeal ended when William and his second-in-command, Field Marshal Frederick Herman von Schomberg, entered London in a calash on 18 December.77

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William had not anticipated that his father-in-law would suffer a psychological breakdown and flee to France. Consequently, the resultant coup d’état was significantly more productive than envisaged: within four months, the Prince of Orange had progressed from Statholder of the United Provinces to sovereign of three kingdoms. In truth, the ‘new monarchy’ was held jointly with Queen Mary and rested upon parliamentary approval rather than divine right but it still represented a massive personal triumph. Additionally, England declared war against France on 7 May 1689; the Roman Catholic threat was removed; the Stuart proclivity towards absolute government halted; Mary’s dynastic inheritance secured; while the sheer speed of the undertaking, the under-performance of the conspirators and the absence of any serious fighting left William with very few political debts. It qualifies as one of the most effective and economical military campaigns. The country paid a high price for this Glorious Revolution. Because William and Mary’s accession had been sought by very few among the political nation, a substantial section was notably unenthusiastic about the new arrangement.1 Oaths of allegiance sworn to James could be dissolved only by the king’s death, not act of parliament, and while just a minority allowed their disgruntlement to degenerate into active Jacobitism, many either came to terms with the greatest reluctance and distaste or refused to serve the new regime. Not until the succession of James’s younger daughter, Anne, in 1702 were these scruples somewhat assuaged. In Scotland and Ireland, where allegiance to James was more deeply ingrained, civil wars broke out between supporters of the old order and the new. James continued to be a great nuisance. By placing himself under French protection, he was forced to co-operate with Louis XIV. Instead of a quiet retirement in the sepulchral gloom of the palace of St Germainen-Laye devoted to prayer, repentance and reflection upon an iniquitous life which had culminated in failure to return England to the true church, he allowed himself to be bullied into travelling to Ireland to begin the long business of trying to regain his three crowns. Kirke quickly forgot his recent discomfiture and made known his support for William and Mary. He found himself, by default, in a very advantageous position because the English army was suddenly bereft of senior officers. Lieutenant generals

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Feversham, Craven, Robert Werden and Dumbarton; Major General Edward Sackville; Brigadiers Sir John Fenwick and Thomas Buchan; and Adjutant General of the Foot Robert Ramsay and Adjutant General of the Horse Charles Orby (c. 1640–1716) all resigned. Only Kirke and John Churchill remained in post. Faute de mieux, Kirke’s commissions as major general and regimental colonel were confirmed and, for a while, he was deputy to Churchill, the de facto commander-in-chief of the English army. In further recognition of services partially rendered, Kirke’s appointment as a groom of the bedchamber at a salary of £500 per annum was continued. He then decided to enter politics and was returned unopposed as Court Tory member of the Convention Parliament for West Looe, Cornwall, in the general election of January 1689.2 His constituency was a pocket borough, comprising a single street and a few, scattered cottages, under the control of Sir Jonathan Trelawney, Bishop of Winchester. No doubt, Kirke’s candidature arose from his close association with Sir Jonathan’s brother, Colonel Charles Trelawney, MP for East Looe, who also became a groom of the bedchamber.3 Despite nomination to the committees to consider the suspension of habeus corpus and the first mutiny bill, there is no record that Kirke ever spoke or voted although he attended the house regularly until recalled to active service. His term in parliament was very short: he did not stand at the general election of February 1690 and he and James Kendall were replaced in West Looe by Jonathan Trelawney (1648–1705) and Edward Seymour (1663–1740). Louis XIV had stood aside in 1688 confident that William’s intervention would engulf England in a civil war sufficiently intense to consume all its energies and draw in the Dutch Republic. Internal strife did indeed occur but in Scotland and Ireland where its impact was to be debilitating rather than catastrophic. Fearful that the corollary of a Jacobite conquest of Ireland would be a French-supported invasion of England, in mid-January 1689 William acted on the advice of Lord Portland that Ireland would have to be secured before the full weight of the British armed forces could be committed to the Low Countries. The Ulster Protestants would therefore be reinforced by regular troops and the Duke of Schomberg offered to take personal command but William thought him too old for such a rigorous field appointment: it was rumoured that Kirke would go in his place. Instead, on 20 February 1689, Schomberg was given overall suzerainty of the Irish theatre4 and his first task was to arrange the dispatch of 10,920 existing soldiers under the Dutch lieutenant general, Count Hendrik Trajectinus von Solms (1636–93). They would be strengthened by a further 13,260 new recruits who were expected to be ready by 1 May. This schedule proved over-optimistic because the English army required considerable reorganization before it could be enlarged to meet the simultaneous demands for troops from Scotland and the Low Countries, as well as Ireland. In March, William’s apprehension was realized. While Tyrconnell headed the government in Dublin, Richard Hamilton, hastily over-promoted to lieutenant general, marched north on 8 March at the head of the Catholicized and augmented Irish army to squash the Ulster Protestants. He quickly broke the feeble, disorganized volunteer militias and drove the remnants through Coleraine into Londonderry. On 12 March, a French convoy from Brest, bearing money and materiel, disembarked ex-King James at Kinsale.5 A meeting of the Irish Committee6 in Hampton Court during the evening of 1 March heard that the situation across the North Channel was deteriorating rapidly.

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Ireland might already have been lost by the time that Solms’s corps would be complete so the members determined upon emergency action. A detachment would travel to Londonderry to bolster the defences and secure a viable beach-head into which supports could be later inserted. The brigade was to consist of the battalions of Colonel John Cunningham and the Irish Protestant, Colonel Solomon Richards (d. 1691), both of which were conveniently stationed near the north-west ports.7 Cunningham’s was a ‘Monmouth’ regiment raised in June-July 1685 by Colonel Henry Cornwall while Richards’s battalion was one of James’s emergency creations dating from 29 September 1688. Cunningham, who had been erroneously listed as a Roman Catholic in 1685,8 assumed command as senior colonel. He received his orders on 12 March but was not ready to sail until 10 April.9 Well before Richards’s departure, on 18 March Churchill informed the Irish Committee that William had resolved to send two more battalions, those of Kirke and the Welshman Sir John Hanmer, 3rd Bt (d. 1701), an experienced soldier first commissioned captain in 1672 who had taken over the colonelcy of the Duke of Beaufort’s foot, another ‘Monmouth’ regiment raised in June 1685, on 31 December 1688.10 Kirke was appointed to command the four battalions. On 20 March, Kirke’s and Hanmer’s regiments received orders to concentrate in the LiverpoolOrmskirk-Hoylake-Preston area and await further instructions but it would take the best part of a month before assembly was complete. The loyalty and martial effectiveness of the remains of James II’s army that had survived the debacle of its partial disbandment at Uxbridge on 10 December 1688 could not be guaranteed. On 20 December 1688, Churchill, who was elevated to the Earldom of Marlborough on 9 April 1689, and Kirke were given joint responsibility for ‘remodelling’ and purging the officer corps of Jacobites, Roman Catholics and other malcontents. While his brigade was gathering in Lancashire, Kirke inspected the garrisons in the north of England, concentrating particularly on Newcastle upon Tyne and Berwick-on-Tweed. Secretary of State Shrewsbury11 fully empowered him both to reform the standing forces and arrest anyone suspected of harbouring ill designs against the new government.12 Kirke’s employment may have been an indication of William’s trust but it may equally have reflected Kirke’s encyclopedic knowledge of army personnel and a lack of alternative candidates. The corollary was appointment on 10 May 1689 to serve alongside the Duke of Schomberg, the Earl of Devonshire, Richard, Baron Lumley, Thomas Wharton, William Harbord (1635–92), Sir John Lanier and Charles Trelawney on the ‘Commission for Reforming the Abuses in the Army’. Disbanding, cashiering and reorganizing, this body investigated all aspects of the English Army in an effort to make it both politically and militarily serviceable to the new government. Kirke, however, never took his place because of absence in Ulster.13 Cunningham’s brigade sailed into Lough Foyle on 15 April to find the Londonderry forces streaming back to the city following a heavy defeat around Clady Bridge on the River Finn. Cunningham summoned a council of war on 16 April attended by all senior army and naval officers plus representatives from Londonderry, including the governor, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lundy (Viscount Mountjoy’s14 Foot). Despite strong objections from Solomon Richards and Major Zachariah Tiffin,15 Cunningham and Lundy, the latter thoroughly demoralized having witnessed the collapse of

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Protestant resistance throughout Ulster, persuaded their colleagues that the city could not be held in the face of Hamilton’s Franco-Jacobite army. Cunningham decided to return to England forthwith without disembarking the soldiers. In the fevered atmosphere, Cunningham, Richards and Lundy were accused of treachery but the reality was more prosaic. Both battalions had reportedly been in ‘great disorder’ when they mustered in Cheshire and their ranks were half-empty. If this was accurate, and there are accounts of several other regiments being seriously under-strength at this time, then Cunningham’s brigade amounted to about 800 men instead of the establishment figure of 1,560. Richards’s battalion, in particular, was described as a nest of ‘Whigs and fanatics’. On the voyage to Lough Foyle, Cunningham’s had grown mutinous and the disembarkation of either battalion would probably have injured rather than helped Londonderry’s defence. Cunningham sailed from Lough Foyle on 19 April leaving Londonderry formally besieged. The brigade reached Liverpool on 23 April. Cunningham and Richards were sacked on 1 May for cowardice in the presence of the enemy and, along with Lundy, temporarily imprisoned. A later enquiry absolved Richards but he was never re-employed.16 Their pusillanimous behaviour strengthened William’s view that British army officers were politicking, treacherous time-servers more concerned with career than duty, an opinion endorsed by Solms and Schomberg who had already told John Churchill to his face that never before had he encountered a lieutenant general who had quit his post in mid-campaign. Yet the smarmy, oily Churchill remained a key figure – ‘he can do what he pleases with most of those who served in King James’s time’17 – having managed the army conspiracy to which many colleagues attributed the continuation of their careers. William regarded very few of James’s old officers as sufficiently trustworthy to hold independent commands while those blessed with the requisite professional skills to direct major operations were even scarcer. Nevertheless, he had no option but to launch the Irish campaign with English troops commanded by such unpromising material because the preferable Dutchmen, German mercenaries and members of the Anglo-Dutch Brigade, mostly veterans known personally by William, were too precious to be spared from the main theatre in the Spanish Netherlands. The rapid expansion of the British forces during the first six months of 1689 created a considerable demand for regimental colonels, brigadiers and major generals requiring William to re-employ nearly all James’s higher-ranking echelons, with the obvious exception of those who had either resigned or were fighting with the Jacobites in Ireland and Scotland. It was a risk because several had just deserted one master and might do so again, especially if James became king of Erin. Kirke had acquired considerable experience of active service and senior command in France, Tangier, Norton St Philip and Sedgemoor. Such priceless qualifications were possessed by only two others still serving − Churchill and Major General Hugh Mackay − but the former was earmarked to lead the British corps in Flanders while the latter was engaged to fight Viscount Dundee in Scotland. Schomberg, who had taken over the executive Irish command after Solms had been posted to direct the Dutch forces in England, ordered Kirke on 28 April 1689 to cease his inspections, repair to Liverpool, organize the Londonderry brigade and take it into Ulster. He would follow as quickly as possible with 10,000 men.18 Kirke’s authority extended over the entire expedition

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− regular army, navy, militia plus local volunteer forces − thus avoiding the perils of divided leadership that wrecked so many contemporary amphibious expeditions. He was to be assisted by his friend, Brigadier Charles Trelawney, who acted as senior staff officer at Liverpool.19 Kirke’s definitive orders were dated 29 April 1689. He was to occupy and defend Londonderry. Once the troops and stores had been disembarked, the convoy escorts, HMS Swallow (4th rate, 40 guns, Captain Wolfran Cornwall RN),20 Jersey (4th rate, 48 guns, Captain John Beverley RN) and Bonaventure (4th rate, 42 guns, Captain Thomas Hopson RN), were to cruise in the North Channel to intercept any Jacobite attempts to send Irish soldiers into Scotland but Kirke was given permission to retain these warships should he find ‘any other occasion of our service absolutely necessary for the said convoy to be employed in’. William Harbord, paymaster to the forces in Ireland, would provide £5,000 sterling in cash to meet ‘the necessary subsistence of our said regiments and for answering such uses as shall be requisite on this occasion’. Lastly, we leave to your discretion the best means of defending the said town and of preserving the said regiments in your retreat from thence in case of necessity, not doubting of your courage, care and fidelity in a matter of so great importance in our service.

Should he find that the city had already fallen he was to bring the brigade back to Chester or Liverpool and billet the soldiers in the adjacent area. Two merchantmen were to sail from Topsham Roads, near Exeter, loaded with 5,000 firearms, 400 barrels of gunpowder, 3,000 bandoliers, 38,000 pounds of lead, 40,000 pounds of match, 500 hand grenades and other stores. Captain Hopson in the Bonaventure was to bring these ships to Chester or Liverpool where they would join the convoy.21 In short, unless he found that Londonderry had already capitulated, he was expected to use his initiative. Originally, Kirke’s brigade was to comprise four battalions: his own, Hanmer’s, and those of Cunningham and Richards, commanded respectively since 1 May by Colonels William Stewart and Sir George St George. While efforts were made to ensure the allegiance of the officers in the two latter units – Blathwayt instructed Trelawney to inspect St George’s after its return from Lough Foyle, dismiss any suspect officers and then fill the vacancies with the colonel’s nominees – time was short and Trelawney made little headway because St George was unable to contact the friends and relatives in Ireland whom he wished to commission. Consequently, the battalion remained in England and was not deemed ready to take the field until the spring of 1690; Kirke thus led only three battalions. Some of the more egregiously disloyal were successfully replaced in Stewart’s but adjustments were incomplete at the time of sailing and the majority of the old officers were necessarily retained.22 Not only were the politics of some of these gentlemen ambiguous but their morale was understandably low and their gloomy accounts of the situation in Ulster affected Kirke’s thinking. According to the establishment, the three battalions should have totalled 2,340 men but only 1,910 were mustered prior to embarkation. Indeed, the force may have been much smaller: Roger Morrice reported that just 900 men went aboard the transports but this estimate is almost certainly too low and the higher figure is probably more accurate. Even so, without significant additional assistance the brigade was too small to persuade

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the Irish to lift the siege while its anorexia explains much about Kirke’s subsequent conduct of the campaign.23 Reports from Ulster were unreliable and scarce. Mr John Stevens, an envoy from the Irish Committee, arrived in Liverpool on 30 April to discover the true state of affairs. He embarked that afternoon in a small vessel of 20 tons. Kirke and Trelawney rode into Liverpool on 5 May and initiated a series of meetings to arrange the embarkation of the three battalions: orders for provisions were placed with local brewers and bakers in both Liverpool and Chester. Stevens returned to Liverpool on 8 May with the news that Londonderry was still in Protestant hands; indeed, the garrison had recently beaten the besieging Jacobites on several occasions and killed a French general.24 On receipt of this information, Kirke summoned a conference that resolved to send Captain Jacob Richards (c. 1664–1701), third engineer of the Ordnance Office, to reconnoitre. He was given a staff of four Huguenot technicians – Lieutenant Colonels Isaac de Dompierre, Thomas de la Barte, Monsieur de Mainvilliers and Monsieur Sundini [or, Lundini] – plus some specialist gunners and miners, escorted by a lieutenant and 40 line infantry. Kirke presented Richards with written instructions on 10 May: 1 To sail within cannon-shot of Culmore Fort25 and remain there until reliable intelligence about the state of the water approaches to Londonderry had been gained: had any batteries been raised to command the river; had the channel been choked by either sunken block-ships or a chain? When satisfied that the passage was clear, Richards was to proceed upriver past Culmore and assess the condition of Londonderry and its defences. If required he was to offer advice to the defenders on how they might improve their fortifications. 2 However, if unable to pass Culmore safely, then he was to remain either in Lough Foyle or cruise off the Ulster coast to observe the enemy’s movements. 3 In either event, he was to send a ketch to Kirke bearing a full report.26 Richards and his party embarked on the Edward and James, a merchant ketch from Liverpool, at 15:00 on Sunday 12 May. Anchoring in the Mersey overnight, on the morning of 13 May they transferred into the frigate HMS Greyhound (Captain Thomas Gwilliam RN), which had just sailed round from Hoylake accompanied by the ketch HMS Kingfisher (4 guns, Captain Edward Boyce RN). Seriously delayed by calms, storms, adverse winds and awkward tides the Greyhound and the Kingfisher did not reach Cushendun Bay off the east coast of County Antrim until Wednesday 29 May where they encountered Captain George Rooke RN in HMS Deptford (4th rate, 54 guns) who was patrolling the North Channel in company with another frigate and a yacht. He told Richards that Captain Thomas Lee [or Leigh] RN was cruising off Lough Foyle in HMS Portland (4th rate, 50 guns) and would render assistance. Early on the morning of 31 May the Greyhound and the Kingfisher weathered Magilligan Point. They proceeded slowly up Lough Foyle during Saturday 1 June, past Greencastle to Redcastle where they had to anchor for a further six days in the face of ‘contrary winds with great storms of rain and hail’. Several local people, many of whom had received protections from the Jacobites, rowed out to relay intelligence that the Londonderry garrison had made a number of successful sallies and seemed in good heart.27

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Trelawney found shipping in short supply along the Lancashire coast resulting in preparations taking much longer than expected. Kirke received a testy letter from Lord Shrewsbury on 13 May conveying the king’s surprise that he was still in England. He added a rather vaguely worded postscript that was seriously to affect many of Kirke’s subsequent decisions: ‘there is a considerable body of men ordered immediately to follow, in case you can get time enough to save the town.’ In other words, Schomberg’s corps of 8,380 men28 would follow but only if Londonderry was safe: until that was achieved, implied Shrewsbury, Schomberg would remain in England because there would be no safe beach-head into which to disembark.29 At last, packed aboard 24 transports under the escort of three warships, HMS Swallow, the headquarters vessel, Bonaventure and Dartmouth (5th rate, 36 guns, Captain Sir John Leake RN (1656–1720)), the expedition finally raised anchors and set sail from Hoylake at 15:30 on 30 May 1689. The convoy reached Ramsey Bay on the Isle of Man at 12:00 on 1 June and anchored until noon on 5 June. Early on Friday 7 June it entered Red Bay, north of Garron Point, on the east coast of County Antrim, to rendezvous with Rooke’s squadron.30 Under the reinforced escort, the ships passed between Rathlin Island and the Antrim coast reaching Inishowen Head on the evening of Tuesday 11 June. Between Thursday 13 and Saturday 15 June, when the convoy finally entered Lough Foyle, occurred the first, probably innocent, incident which was later cited as evidence of Kirke’s uncertain loyalties. Colonel of Jacobite dragoons, Walter, 2nd Viscount Dongan (c. 1664–90), and his lieutenant colonel, Francis Carroll (d. 1693),31 sent several compliments to Kirke offering him any ‘refreshments’ that he might desire. On Monday 1 July, Kirke received from Dongan ‘a very fine and large salmon’ but such pleasantries between combatants acquainted with one another were common in contemporary warfare.32 Inside the lough, the Greyhound had anchored within three miles of Culmore Fort on Friday 7 June. Local Protestants continued to volunteer intelligence, mostly to the effect that the Jacobites had established gun batteries along the River Foyle and a boom had been stretched from bank-to-bank at Brookhall: some said it was only a chain, others that it had been strengthened by cables and timber.33 Sunken blockships were also mentioned. Two people braved harassment by Jacobite dragoons to row out to the ships to say that Culmore Fort had been abandoned. Richards disbelieved this and, following consultation with his colleagues and gaining Captain Gwilliam’s agreement, decided to execute the first part of his orders by sailing to within cannon-shot of Culmore. Around 16:00, Richards watched through his telescope at long range as the Jacobites pulled down a house near Culmore and loaded the rubble into a large boat, which he considered sufficient evidence to support the notion of blockships. Richards was not an army officer and does not appear to have considered landing the infantry detachment to conduct a closer examination of the Inishowen peninsula, Culmore and the banks of the Foyle. With the ship cleared for action and the seamen’s hammocks stacked into a bulwark protecting those on the quarterdeck from small shot, shrapnel and splinters, at 08:00 on Saturday 8 June Gwilliam approached Culmore on a north-westerly wind. The absence of fire initially inclined Richards to think that the redoubt had indeed been evacuated but through his telescope he could see the garrison massed on the

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ramparts energetically heaving a large piece to bear on the Greyhound. After an opening broadside, Gwilliam anchored and exchanged fire for three quarters of an hour. Richards climbed to the maintop whence he could see a line of small boats and ‘something’ stretched across the river from Charles Fort to just above Brookhall: it was obviously a boom. Also in view were horses towing a large object, probably a field gun to form part of a battery to cover the boom. Knowing that their ships were too light to break through any form of artificial obstacle, Richards and Gwilliam decided to return to their previous anchorage above Culmore and then send away the Kingfisher with a report for Kirke. It would, however, be some time before that account, consisting almost entirely of unfounded assumptions, reached the expedition commander. Just as the anchor came free, the wind shifted two points to the north driving the Greyhound ashore on the river’s east bank. Despite desperate attempts to warp clear, the tide ebbed and there was no hope of freeing the vessel until the next flood. By midday the Jacobites had dragged forward 11 cannon to form two batteries on the west bank of the Foyle and opened fire into the ship’s exposed starboard side. Three or four battalions of foot marched to the waterside but neither musketeer nor gun was conveyed to the east bank of the Foyle to bring the Greyhound under close attack. High and dry and heeling so much that no guns could be used,34 Richards ordered the lieutenant and his 40 infantrymen from the Kingfisher into the Greyhound. In company with 80 seamen, their musketry defended the ship to such effect that the Jacobites did not consider an assault. However, despite the long range, the enemy artillery did considerable damage, the Greyhound taking 17 shot below the waterline and over 50 in her upper works, spars and rigging. Only two men were killed but 15 were wounded, including Gwilliam. Slowly, the Greyhound began to right herself on the incoming tide. Armaments and provisions were thrown overboard to lighten the ship but the pumps could not keep pace with the ingress. Captain Boyce, who had come across from the Kingfisher to take command from Gwilliam,35 summoned all the warrant officers to ask their opinion of the ship’s prospects. They agreed that the vessel should be abandoned and set on fire and, accordingly, Richards and all those who were not members of the crew left in boats for the Kingfisher. Just as they cast off, the wind shifted to south-south-east. The sailors immediately hauled home the sheets, brought in the anchor and the Greyhound got under way but made too much water and had to be beached within half-an-hour. Still, the ship was now in safer surroundings and all the major shot holes had been plugged within two tides. Richards lost nearly all his personal goods and equipment, valued at £300, either damaged by gunfire or plundered by the Greyhound’s crew after he had left for the Kingfisher. Even the injured Gwilliam’s money was stolen. Richards and the Huguenot engineers transferred into the Portland, which arrived in Lough Foyle during the day, to await Kirke’s arrival. In the confusion and muddle, Richards’s written report was left on board the Kingfisher. At midday on Sunday 9 June the ‘very leaky’ Greyhound set forth for Scotland in company with the faithful Kingfisher. The voyage was beset by gales that worked the seams to such an extent that the Greyhound was in danger of foundering but she reached the shelter of the Isle of Arran on the following day before creeping to Greenock for repairs. These were quickly completed and the Greyhound and Kingfisher

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left the Clyde for Carrickfergus where they expected to meet Kirke’s convoy but found the roadstead deserted except for two merchantmen from Bristol carrying provisions to Londonderry. The warships then turned for Lough Foyle but were driven north by gales, seeking shelter in Laggan Bay on the west coast of the Isle of Islay. Here they met the yacht, HMS Henrietta (Captain Ralph Sanders RN), escorting two Norwegian merchantmen. Sanders informed them that Kirke was en route to Lough Foyle. In improving weather, the duo set off south-west from Islay and finally encountered Kirke and Rooke off Inishowen Head late on the evening of 11 June. They anchored for the night in 25 fathoms of water.36 Early next morning (12 June), the Kingfisher carried Richards’s written report across to the Swallow. Later that day, Richards and his French assistants were rowed from the Portland to the flagship to deliver a more detailed, oral amplification, which inclined Kirke to think that Londonderry could not be rescued solely by naval action. However, he thought it prudent to seek a second opinion. After a short voyage from Islay where he had been collecting water for the fleet, now anchored off Redcastle, Captain Leake brought the Dartmouth into Lough Foyle on 15 June. On the following morning (16 June), Leake was ordered forward to reconnoitre. He returned during the afternoon having reached to within one mile of Culmore. His report tended to support Richards’s findings and the fact that the Dartmouth had grounded for an hour at low tide confirmed the existence of a sand bar off Culmore emphasizing the danger posed to shipping by the narrow channel of the River Foyle. That evening Kirke summoned all the fleet’s sailing masters and asked for volunteers to navigate the Swallow, or any 4th rate ship, over the bar. No-one responded with enthusiasm or confidence but several said that they were prepared to do their best. The next two days (17 and 18 June) were spent sounding the shoal, which was found to be covered by 17½ feet at high water, and in discussions about how best to tackle the boom. During the evening of 18 June orders were given for all colonels, lieutenant colonels and sea captains to assemble for a council of war at 08:00 on 19 June in the Swallow’s great cabin.37 After reviewing all the extant information, the meeting decided that an attempt to rescue Londonderry by naval action alone was inadvisable because the actual and potential Irish defences along the River Foyle, including the boom, appeared too strong and the navigation too hazardous. Indeed, the loss of a ship or ships might well provide the Irish army with sufficient cannon and stores to mount a major assault on Londonderry, something which Kirke understood had yet to occur. As important was the fact that the government of Londonderry had made no apparent effort to contact Kirke leading to the conclusion that the town was ‘not extremely pressed by the enemy or want[ed] of ammunition or provisions of mouth’. The council therefore determined that the troops should remain on board the transports and the fleet continue in the lough until reinforcements arrived from England enabling an overland relief. The decision would be reviewed if it became known that Londonderry’s situation was deteriorating. A paper to these effects was signed that same day by all present and forwarded to Schomberg in England on 21 June. Kirke also wrote to William, 3rd Duke of Hamilton (1634–94), president of the Convention of Estates and virtual vice-regent in Scotland, on 19 June stating, rather vaguely, that he would seize the first opportunity to ‘get into Derry’.38 Shrewsbury’s letter of 13 May had said that

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Schomberg’s reinforcements, which Kirke predicted would actually number about 6,000, would follow him to Ireland as quickly as possible provided that Londonderry had been secured. Kirke was guilty of not reading the missive closely. His proposed strategy was predicated on the assumption that Schomberg would set sail in the near future provided that Londonderry was still holding out. In the event, this subtle distinction mattered little because the relief force was very slow to assemble at Chester and arrived after the campaign had been resolved.39 Although very short of troops, Kirke received a considerable naval reinforcement. Rooke reported on 20 June that the Swallow, Dartmouth, Greyhound, Henrietta yacht and Kingfisher had been placed under Kirke’s personal command while he intended to lie at the mouth of Lough Foyle with the Bonaventure, Portland and Antelope (4th rate, 40 guns, Captain Henry Wickham RN40) ready to render immediate help and would remain on station ‘till the major general has effected something within’.41 Kirke came aboard the Dartmouth, which lay in the van of the fleet’s anchorage, during the evening of 20 June to observe the enemy’s activities. He and Richards climbed into the maintop from where they could easily see the water rippling along the boom and its supporting line of boats lying bow-to-stern. Firing was seen from the walls of Londonderry and the Jacobites threw in seven or eight bombs but Richards observed no subsequent fires. It all added to the illusion that the besieged town was not suffering undue strain. During Friday 21 June, Richards reported that several small parties of Jacobite cavalry had been spotted in the Inishowen hills, almost certainly observing Kirke’s movements. Conversations with local Protestants suggested that, because Kirke had arrived with such a large squadron, the Jacobites had considered lifting the siege but their doubts had dissolved on ascertaining his real strength. A small excursion ashore on Sunday 23 June successfully replenished the expedition’s water casks despite unwanted attention from some dragoons. Following the first sighting of the ships in Lough Foyle on 13 June,42 the Governor of Londonderry, Henry Baker (d. 1689), had tried to communicate with Kirke on five occasions but every mission had been intercepted by the enemy. Each message conveyed the information that the town was in extremis but there was nothing to stop supply ships sailing down the river because Culmore Fort was armed with only a few light field guns and nearly all the cannon that Richards and Leake had seen, or thought they had seen, lining the river bank had since been redeployed in order to intensify the bombardment on the city’s western walls. However, Baker failed to mention that, even from the cathedral steeple, the prospect downriver was often hazy and indistinct.43 There had been some contact between besieged and potential relievers. Signal guns had been fired and flags frantically waved from the cathedral spire to which the fleet had replied but, in the absence of a mutual code, both sides misunderstood what was being said: the city was actually trying to convey its desperation whereas the sailors believed there was no need for urgent action. To establish better contact, Kirke called for volunteers to try to reach the city, offering the colossal sum of 3,000 guineas to anyone who succeeded. Two ‘spies’ came forward. One returned on Saturday 22 June having been unable to pierce the enemy screen; his companion had been captured and hanged. On Tuesday 25 June, two more brave men, James Roche, an Irishman, and a Scotsman named James Cromie or

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Cromy, were landed on the south shore of Lough Foyle. They slipped down the east bank of the river before Roche swam across to the town. He delivered Kirke’s message and four rounds were fired from light cannon situated high on the cathedral as an agreed indicator that Roche had carried out his mission. Cromie did not fare so well. A non-swimmer, he was captured while searching for a boat and ‘turned’. He ‘agreed’ to carry into the city, and there verify, a text composed by the Jacobites in place of the original. Hamilton’s soldiers then hung out a white flag, the international sign of a wish to parley, and sent in Cromie with his fake letter. It explained that the defenders had been misinformed about Kirke: his expedition was weak, he was thoroughly confused about what to do and the city should hope for nothing, a message so accurate that it suggests the presence of an effective Franco-Irish spy network within Kirke’s command. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Blair asked Cromie why his message varied so much from that of Roche, to which he replied honestly that ‘he was in the enemy’s camp, Roche within the walls of Derry’. Carrying three letters that would have given Kirke a very realistic picture of the state of the city, Roche tried to return but was forced back by sentries along the riverside. One positive result of Roche’s courage was the establishment of an agreed method of signalling between the cathedral and the fleet but it proved so crude that it served only to exacerbate mutual misinterpretations and misconceptions. For instance, on the morning of Saturday 29 June, the fleet saw an unusually large flag fluttering from an extra long flag-staff on the cathedral spire. It was hoisted and lowered four times and two guns fired but ‘we understand not’.44 Kirke probably felt isolated and increasingly anxious. Unable to communicate effectively with Londonderry, he was dependent upon snippets of hearsay relayed by local Protestants on Inishowen. One informant lived at the ‘parson’s house’ above Whitecastle, close to the Swallow’s anchorage. To indicate that letters had been placed beneath a certain stone on the beach, the man and his wife paraded up and down the strand wearing white mantles. After a decent interval, a boat was sent to retrieve the message. On Thursday 27 June, Thomas, Baron Howard of Worksop (1659–89), second son of Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk, and a cousin of Mrs Mary Kirke, and another gentleman sent a note to the Swallow asking if they might come aboard. Howard was a devoted Jacobite who had followed James first to St Germain-en-Laye and thence to Ireland.45 Kirke welcomed them and provided very civil entertainment, joking that dinner was probably the first square meal they had enjoyed since ‘the Lord knows when’. They stayed until the evening, complaining much about the arrogant behaviour of the French. No doubt both sides gleaned some useful pieces of information but the incident became another tessera in the mosaic of Kirke’s supposed treachery.46 A second swimmer returned to the Swallow to report the banks of the Foyle lined with musketeers and cannon, compounding Kirke’s unease about a purely naval intervention. This heroic and athletic man also brought a message from Baker stating that Londonderry had sufficient provisions to endure for two more months as well as advising Kirke to ‘hold off ’ and gather reinforcements before attempting a land operation, unless he had specific instructions ‘to come in’. Baker also dangled the enticing prospect of 10,000 Scots-Irish volunteers ready to support a landing force. Kirke thus felt reassured that the garrison was capable of extended resistance.

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However, this optimism was brought into question on 2 July when a Mr Hagason contacted Captain Henry Withers and informed him that, despite the garrison still conducting effective sallies, the town was weary of the siege ‘for there was nothing but hunger and slaughter in it’. Because Baker’s positive news supported Kirke’s opinion, scant heed was paid to Hagason’s contradiction: the last fortnight in June had clearly demonstrated the old adage that intelligence normally reinforces existing prejudices.47

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Inching forward

As soon as Leake had corroborated Richards’s opinion about the impracticality of an attack by water, Kirke adopted an alternative plan, which involved a major contribution from Ulster. The first task was to re-equip and augment the Enniskillen forces, improve their leadership and regularize the command structure. Blank commissions, upgrading six of his senior officers to take charge of the Enniskilleners, were completed and signed on 20 June but not issued until the viability of the new approach had been fully appraised.1 A second essential preliminary was the disembarkation of the brigade into a well-protected shore base from which the intended operations could be mounted and supported. This had become a matter of some urgency because provisions were running low and the soldiers could not be marooned on the ships for much longer without losing combat efficiency and falling sick.2 Landing three battalions in the presence of a superior enemy, however, was dangerous unless a safe beach-head could be discovered. A suitable site was unlikely to be found on the enemy-controlled mainland so an off-shore location was sought. Kirke had already been advised of a likely place by Captain Rooke, an expert coastal pilot; a local resident, William Stewart; and ‘Captain’ Henry Hunter, the man responsible for the Ards Rebellion in April 1689 who had escaped to Scotland via the Isle of Man following his defeat at the Break of Killyleagh on 30 April.3 Early on 23 June, Captain Hopson sailed the Bonaventure out of Lough Foyle in company with the Greyhound and Kingfisher. They anchored overnight in Culdaff Bay, entered Lough Swilly on 24 June and approached their objective, Inch Island. Shortly afterwards, several Protestants came out in small boats to inform Hopson that a Jacobite quartermaster was already busy gathering provisions from the fertile island which was ‘abounding in all sorts of grain’. Hopson sent ashore his lieutenant, guided by one of the informants, who went straight to the quartermaster’s lodgings. The officer then behaved most bizarrely. Instead of arresting the man, he merely confiscated his papers plus £5 (Irish) in cash before allowing him to go free. Upon stepping outside the astonished guide told the lieutenant, very firmly, that he ought to have apprehended the quartermaster. Reacting as though such an elementary thought had never entered his head, the officer returned to the house but the quartermaster had fled, reportedly carrying a considerable sum of money. The lieutenant was ultimately cashiered.4 The

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quartermaster’s papers, however, yielded valuable intelligence. Letters from several Jacobite generals urged the quartermaster to send provisions quickly because both their men and horses were close to starvation. In addition, he had been instructed to preserve the provisions available from Inch for as long as possible because the besiegers were largely dependent on the island for food and fodder. Clearly, the occupation of Inch would have a major impact upon the maintenance of the Jacobite army as well as keeping Kirke’s own soldiers fit and active. Some local people added that a base on Inch would serve as a refuge and rallying point for Protestants and several hundred might thus be encouraged to volunteer. Either the Bonaventure or Kingfisher had brought this news to Lough Foyle before 1 July. Assembling in the Swallow’s great cabin after dinner on Tuesday 2 July, a council of war considered Hopson’s assessment of Inch’s potential. It was better-situated than Lough Foyle for the establishment and maintenance of communications with Enniskillen while the fleet could deliver all necessary provisions and rapidly lift and reposition the troops as required. Once the necessary reorganization of the Enniskillen forces had been effected, Kirke would be able to attack from Inch into the rear of the Irish perimeter around Londonderry while Governor Gustavus Hamilton (d. 1691) of Enniskillen launched a simultaneous assault from the south.5 Given what Kirke knew of the situation this Inch-Enniskillen strategy appeared prudent and sensible even though the arrangements for its implementation would take some time. To deflect this potential criticism, Kirke argued that the presence of a substantial force on Inch would distract the Jacobites from the siege thus easing the pressure on Londonderry. Colonel William Stewart, Kirke’s second-in-command, was instructed to occupy Inch with 600 soldiers, comprising companies from each battalion, establish a depot and make contact with Enniskillen. As soon as the Greyhound returned from Lough Swilly, Stewart’s expeditionary force would embark. Meanwhile, HMS Bonaventure sailed from Lough Foyle to Killybegs whence Archdeacon Brown6 wrote to Governor Hamilton explaining the Inch-Enniskillen strategy and enquiring after the condition of the garrison and what form of immediate assistance would be most helpful. Along with a supply of ammunition, the letter was dispatched to Enniskillen where it was received on 4 July.7 Early on the morning of 3 July, Kirke heard that General Conrad von Rosen (1628–1715), a Baltic German in French service who bore the title Maréchal d’Irlande and was the real director of Londonderry’s besiegers, had herded hundreds of Protestants under the walls of the city on 1 and 2 July in an effort to force the garrison to capitulate. In retaliation, Kirke ordered two boatloads of infantry to land near the ‘parson’s house’ on the Inishowen shore close to the quarters of some Irish dragoons. They plundered the billets and brought off 40 poor Protestants who were subsequently resettled in Scotland. This small action caused the Jacobites to reconsider their earlier impression of Kirke’s strength.8 The Inch-Enniskillen strategy was predicated on intelligence indicating that Londonderry was capable of prolonged resistance. There were, however, snippets of information suggesting that the situation was more urgent. While waiting for the Greyhound’s return, Kirke fretted and grew increasingly uneasy until 4 July when a Mr Hamilton, one of several Protestant gentry who continued to live under Jacobite protections9 on their estates around Lough Foyle, came aboard the Swallow to dine

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with Kirke and his senior officers.10 He described the failure of Rosen’s rough tactics but, far more important from Kirke’s point of view, said that the garrison had rejected generous surrender terms because they had sufficient provisions to last for another month ‘before which time they were well assured to be delivered; if not, that they would live on dogs and cats sooner than ever trust to their [i.e. Jacobite] offers and promises’. Londonderry was not yet desperate, Hamilton insisted, and morale was high. It was music to Kirke’s ears fully vindicating the new, methodical strategy. That evening the Greyhound worked into Lough Foyle. Kirke asked Richards to accompany the detachment in order to secure the landing beaches and fortify the island. Richards immediately transferred to the Greyhound which then dropped down from the fleet off Greencastle to the transport anchorage closer to Culmore to supervise the embarkation of the soldiers on board a flyboat11 and the Kingfisher. The merchantman, Antelope, sailed for Liverpool to fetch provisions and deliver dispatches.12 Early on the morning of Saturday 6 July, the Greyhound, Kingfisher and the flyboat returned to Greencastle to join the Deptford and Portland. While waiting for the tide, a boy came aboard the Greyhound to report that he had seen 40 ships in Lough Swilly. This was widely disbelieved and many thought that the lad had become disorientated in the Inishowen hills and mistaken Lough Foyle for Lough Swilly. Nevertheless, the Henrietta yacht went to investigate. Towards noon on Sunday 7 July, the Greyhound, Deptford, Portland, Kingfisher and the flyboat began to tack out of Lough Foyle but were unable to weather Malin Head and sheltered overnight in Culdaff Bay. Strong unfavourable tides prevented progress on Monday 8 July although the Henrietta returned to announce that Lough Swilly was entirely clear of shipping. Easterly winds permitted the squadron to enter Lough Swilly on 9 July and anchor off Rathmullan. Several people came to the water’s edge to welcome the visitors and a longboat was dispatched to bring some on board. They informed Stewart that, about six miles from Rathmullan, was a large herd of cattle protected only by unarmed civilians; 40 or 50 soldiers would be enough to seize the beasts and surprise a nearby Jacobite detachment comprising a cornet and 12 dragoons. Sixty musketeers, commanded by three officers from Stewart’s Foot − Captain Robert Echlin (c. 1657–c. 1724),13 Lieutenant James Biggott and Lieutenant Thomas Hart (d. 1694) − went ashore at midnight. During the evening, Richards and Stewart discussed how best to fortify the island and what resources might be required. They agreed that Richards, at the head of a detachment of between 200 and 300 men supported by light artillery, would land on the southern shore the following morning to reconnoitre in force. Lying on a north-west to south-east axis, Inch Island is three-and-a-half miles long and two miles wide covering an area of 6,350 acres. The south-eastern section is undulating and fertile but the western portion rises to a substantial, steep-sloped summit of 870 feet: it resembles a miniature version of the Isle of Arran in the Firth of Clyde. The shoreline is punctuated by small inlets and sandy coves. As the crow flies, Inch is only five miles from Londonderry across the narrow neck of the Inishowen peninsula but Jacobite siege lines, camps and patrols rendered direct communication impossible. The only reliable means of contact between the fleet anchorage in Lough Foyle and Inch was by sea. A voyage from west to east could usually be accomplished within 24 hours but the reverse journey, nearly always against the prevailing winds,

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could take three or four times as long. In either direction, rounding Malin Head was a major undertaking.14 At around 06:00 on 10 July, the Greyhound came to anchor below Burt Castle, which stood on the mainland dominating the narrow southern channel between Inch and Inishowen. During the short period of slack water that followed high tide at 10:00, Richards was rowed to the beach. Because the majority of the ships’ boats were busy ferrying the cattle captured by Echlin’s party – later that day the Kingfisher conveyed much-needed fresh beef to the fleet in Lough Foyle – Richards’s escort amounted to an ensign and 20 men, ten per cent of the numbers promised the previous evening. They marched just under one mile to the strand at the eastern end of the island to view the ford where, at low tide and in calm weather, it was possible to wade the 400 yards to the mainland.15 He staked out the ground plan of a redoubt to guard the head of the ford and sent a message to Stewart requesting field guns, tools and soldiers to serve as labourers. The ebb set in at 11:00 eventually allowing several poor Protestants to splash through the narrows dragging a few thin cattle. Behind them some Jacobite dragoons could be seen trotting towards the shoreline with the obvious intention of interrupting the migration. Richards grew alarmed because he had too few soldiers to oppose them should they decide to cross. He dispatched a messenger to Captain Henry Collier (Kirke’s battalion) aboard the Greyhound requesting immediate assistance. Already the dragoons had been reinforced and a party of horsemen had begun, cautiously, to ride into the sea: should they reach the island and then occupy it in force, Richards would have to retire aboard the Greyhound leaving Kirke’s strategy in ruins. Collier responded promptly with the few troops he had available. Lacking any defensive or flanking positions, Collier and Richards tackled the dragoons frontally. Leaving some of their men on the beach to sustain a withdrawal, they marched 30 musketeers to the centre of the ford and formed two ranks. The dragoons came on until two volleys halted their progress. They loitered for a while, just beyond effective range, before suddenly wheeling about and retreating to the mainland. Shortly after, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas St John (Kirke’s Foot), Stewart’s second-in-command, who had witnessed the action from the rising ground in the centre of the island, hurried up with 200 men: the dragoons must have spotted his advance and taken fright. Richards, who was greatly relieved, could find no other explanation for the unforced withdrawal of 40 cavalry when faced by a mere 30 infantry standing thigh-deep in water.16 Kirke had ordered Stewart not to proceed if he found that the intelligence was not borne out by reality and securing the island proved impractical. In effect, this boiled down to assessing the defensibility of the crossing, which proved a much broader passageway than earlier information had indicated. Stewart reached the head of the ford around 16:00 with four field guns, tools and labourers. After examining the ground he announced that he had insufficient men and guns to make a tenable defence. Some discussion ensued among the senior officers about whether to stay or return. Stewart, heavily influenced by St John ‘who pretends to be an engineer’, remained unconvinced of the enterprise’s feasibility and carped about Richards’s proposed ground plans for the earthworks, which he considered ambitiously large for the available garrison. The determining factor was the sudden and unexpected arrival of several hundred homeless, displaced Protestants, who slogged through the water

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encumbered by families and livestock; having crossed the Red Sea, these Israelites could not be abandoned. Stewart then reluctantly acquiesced in Richards’s designs and 109 men – ‘for we had not tools to work more’ – toiled through the evening excavating the first redoubt. The Jacobites established a ‘flying camp’17 close to the shore to observe developments; Stewart responded by bringing up a pair of cannon which opened a periodic, harassing fire. Richards wanted the men to keep digging and the guns to continue firing throughout the night but Stewart and St John withdrew all the soldiers and gunners at midnight to a camp on the far side of the island where the warships rode in deep water and could provide artillery cover. Neither patrols nor sentries were posted at the ford. After the last man had disappeared into the gloom, Richards, who was angry and frustrated, was rowed across to the Greyhound, at anchor half a mile distant. There were several false alarms during the night, mostly caused by the newly arrived refugees who imagined that the Jacobites had invaded.18 Stewart and St John returned to the ford at 05:00 on 11 July and work restarted to finish the first redoubt and begin the second. Richards persuaded an unenthusiastic Stewart to land four more guns which were arranged into a battery on some rising ground whence parties of Jacobite cavalry that patrolled the beach from time to time could be taken under fire. Inexplicably, on the approach of low tide, these cannon were moved to a new position under the protection of the Greyhound’s broadside while the labourers and covering soldiers again withdrew all the way to the far side of the island, followed by the gaggle of Protestant civilians taunting them with accusations of pusillanimity and cowardice. As soon as the tide began to flood, the troops traipsed back resuming work at 18:00. They continued until 01:00 on 12 July when heavy rain set in and they again retreated to the distant encampment. Richards regarded all this dancing back and forth – the hike took well over one hour in each direction – as thoroughly unnecessary serving merely to tire the men and reduce the time available for construction. Once he had retired to the Greyhound, a man came aboard claiming to have been in the Jacobite camp where he had overheard that an attack on the unfinished fortifications was planned for later that morning. A message was sent to Stewart asking him to order more guns ashore to reinforce the battery and bring all available forces to the head of the ford. To suffer defeat at this stage, wrote Richards, would force the troops back into their ships and probably result in Londonderry’s fall.19 On reaching the building site at 06:00 on Friday 12 July, Richards expected to encounter intense activity but it was empty. Stewart had failed to respond. Furious, Richards gathered 40 refugees and set them to work at 11:00 on the second redoubt. Still without a single soldier present, one hour before low water Richards drew the civilians off to safer positions and retired to the Greyhound for dinner. At about 14:00 the anticipated attack began. Two troops of Irish horse advanced warily into the ford, looking to left and right as if expecting an ambush, before halting halfway over: behind, three supporting troops of cavalry and dragoons waited on the beach. Deserters later said that General von Rosen himself was present. Along with 24 seamen, Richards, Gwilliam and Collier slipped ashore. Out of the enemy’s sight, the sailors heaved the four field guns out of the battery and into the first redoubt. By this time the Jacobites had resumed their careful advance and were taken completely by surprise when the cannon opened fire at ‘a long musket shot’.20 One salvo was enough

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to stop them; a second sent them scurrying back to the beach. Two troopers were killed and Rosen reportedly suffered a leg injury from stone splinters thrown up by ricocheting cannon balls.21 An hour later, the tide coming in, Stewart made a very belated appearance with 300 soldiers. While marching over the hills he had observed the afternoon’s events and realized that, had the Irish horsemen reached the island, they would have been quickly reinforced and very difficult to remove, a debacle for which he would have been entirely responsible. Knowing Kirke’s views about ‘civilians’, he may also have reflected that a crucial victory had been gained by sailors led by an Ordnance Office engineer. Much chastened, he allowed Richards to revert to the original plan of fortification, shifted the main camp to the head of the ford, drew all cannon ashore into a single battery and agreed to round-the-clock working. At about 15:00, Richards divided the four field guns between the two redoubts as a temporary measure until an eight-cannon battery could be constructed. By midnight the second redoubt was tenable and the remainder of the soldiers marched forward into the new camp. At low water, between 01:00 and 02:00, all the soldiers stopped work and stood to arms in case the Jacobites made another attempt. During the day three messengers were sent overland to inform Londonderry that Inch had been successfully occupied.22 During Saturday 13 July, two more guns were landed from the Greyhound and work continued on the battery, which Richards intended to link to the redoubts by a pair of communication trenches but, ‘others pretending to be better engineers than I, were against it and ordered otherwise though contrary to my opinion, and made their men work according to their fancies contrary to all rule and method of defence’. Richards washed his hands of any consequences by publicly repudiating this interference. As on the previous day, at low water all the men stood to arms. At about 15:00 two of the three messengers sent into Londonderry returned. Their reports tallied – a necessary security check − and one brought a letter from Governor George Walker (1645–90) asking why a relief attempt had not yet been made. Provisions were running very short, he said, and the city could not endure for more than a fortnight. The Jacobites had offered generous terms and, if there was no rescue within 14 days, would have to be accepted. In the evening the Greyhound fired 13 guns as a signal to Kirke in Lough Foyle that a base had been established. Intelligence was received that the Jacobites intended to cross the channel and attack at daybreak from the right and left simultaneously thus out-flanking the redoubts and battery. St John, who commanded the fortifications, proposed the excavation of two ‘traverses’, equipped with musketry positions at each end, on either side running down to the low water mark. Richards, now in very high dudgeon, thought these positions useless as they neither complemented nor were supported by any of the existing works. Two extra guns were dragged into the central battery on Sunday 14 July making a total of eight – six three-pounders and two six-pounders.23 Captain Hopson in the Bonaventure arrived back in Lough Foyle from his voyage to Killybegs on 12 July carrying two delegates, John Rider and Rev. Andrew Hamilton (d. c. 1691), appointed by Governor Hamilton to liaise with Kirke. Also on board were some Donegal and Fermanagh gentry, most notably Sir James Caldwell, 1st Bt of Wellsborough (1630–1717), the proprietor of Castle Caldwell and the town of Belleek.

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Kirke quizzed them closely and in great detail.24 During these discussions, Caldwell casually mentioned that a further 8,000 infantry and 1,200 cavalry might be raised over and above the forces already in Enniskillen. Kirke, no doubt, heard what he wanted to hear and appears to have carried forward the erroneous impression that these levies were already in existence and would soon join Stewart on Inch: he almost certainly assumed that these were the 10,000 Scots-Irish referred to earlier by Governor Baker. To enable the Enniskilleners to play their part in the intended strategy, Kirke provided significant quantities of arms, accoutrements and ammunition. He also activated the commissions signed on 20 June, awarding field promotions to some first-class officers: Lieutenant Colonel William Wolseley (c. 1640–97) of Hanmer’s25; Major Zachariah Tiffin and Captains Charles Stone, Robert Echlin and James Wynn (c. 1645–95) from Stewart’s; and Captain William Berry26 (Kirke’s).27 Kirke proved an excellent judge of military potential. All the chosen officers made a significant contribution to the victory at Newtownbutler on 31 July and subsequently enjoyed distinguished careers. Bewigged and apparelled in scarlet and gold lace, Wolseley did not appear a natural leader of the wild, proud and self-sufficient Enniskilleners who normally fought in their shirtsleeves but he quickly earned their trust and respect and proved an outstanding leader. The task of Wolseley and his colleagues was to reorganize the Enniskillen irregulars along army lines before leading them in the projected joint operation against the siege works around Londonderry but, as usual, the plan did not survive the first contact with the enemy. Rider, Hamilton and Wolseley’s party left Lough Foyle on 24 July, disembarking at Ballyshannon on 26 July and reaching Enniskillen on 28 July.28 Rider and Hamilton reported to Governor Hamilton that Kirke had been most friendly and helpful, a point deemed worthy of remark, was obviously loyal to the Williamite cause and anxious to sustain Enniskillen. Kirke’s letter to Governor Walker on 13 July, which was sewn into a cloth button on a small boy’s coat, neatly summarized the situation. I have received yours by the way of Inch. I wrote to you Sunday last [7 July], that I would endeavour by all means imaginable for your relief, and find[ing] it impossible by the river, which made me send a party to Inch, where I am going myself, to try if I can to beat off their camp, or divert them, so that they shall not press you. I have sent officers, ammunition, arms, &c. to Enniskillen, who have 3000 foot, 1500 horse and a regiment of dragoons, that has promised to come to their relief, and at the same time, I will attack the enemy by Inch. I expect 6000 men from England every minute; they have been shipped these eight days. I have stores and victuals for you, and am resolved to relieve you. England and Scotland are in good posture, and all things very well settled. Be good husbands of your victuals, and by God’s help, we shall overcome these barbarous people. Let me hear from you as often as you can, and the messenger shall have what reward he will. I have several of the enemy, who have deserted to me, who all assure me they can’t stay long. I hear from Enniskillen, the Duke of Berwick is beaten; I pray God it be true, for then nothing can hinder their joining you or me.29

Next, he dispatched the Bonaventure to Lough Swilly to inform Stewart of the latest developments. She reached Inch on the following day (14 July) but, unknown to either

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Stewart or Kirke, events had already rendered the information out-of-date. The Duke of Berwick attacked Enniskillen down the Omagh road on 13 July in the opening tine of a three-pronged offensive: later, Patrick Sarsfield’s corps was to come in from the west via Bundoran and Ballyshannon while Justin MacCarthy moved from Cavan along the River Erne. Berwick enjoyed the advantage in a running fight between Cornagrade House and Enniskillen Mill but was unable to exploit his advantage because, in the midst of the action, he learned of Stewart’s occupation of Inch. Accordingly, he drew back to the north to cover the southern flank of the troops besieging Londonderry. He had reached Omagh by 15 July and Letterkenny on 17 July. So, instead of preparing the Enniskillen forces for their role in the prospective joint attack on the Jacobites around Londonderry, no sooner had Wolseley and his colleagues reached Enniskillen than they had to react immediately against the near-simultaneous menace posed Sarsfield, MacCarthy and, to a lesser extent, Berwick.30 Stewart was also the victim of false, as opposed to dated, intelligence. He was told that Berwick had been defeated at Enniskillen, a French fleet had anchored in Carrickfergus Roads and the boom across the Foyle had been broken. All this he passed to Kirke who was able to discount it having formed a different appreciation of the situation in the Erne valley. Although still ignorant of the triple assault, he remained sufficiently confident to continue with the Inch-Enniskillen strategy. All the land forces would be concentrated on Inch and most of the ships brought to Lough Swilly, leaving only two men-of-war to observe developments in Lough Foyle. On 15 July a message was dispatched to Captain Rooke to bring the Portland and Bonaventure back to Lough Foyle in order to convoy the transports to Lough Swilly. Kirke’s fleet sailed from Lough Foyle later that day. Throughout 16 and 17 July, the vessels struggled against wind and tide.31 On 17 July, more solid intelligence arrived on Inch to the effect that Berwick was withdrawing from before Enniskillen towards Rathmullan via Letterkenny and Rathmelton with a view to destabilizing Stewart’s position. At noon on 18 July, several troops of horse were observed riding along the coast road from Ray to Rathmullan and a warning was sent to Captain Echlin, the town commander.32 This was a very serious development. The Jacobites already controlled the Inishowen side of Lough Swilly but if they captured Rathmullan and occupied the western shore then the deployments of both Stewart and the Royal Navy would become untenable. During the afternoon of 18 July, Stewart crossed to Rathmullan and ordered Echlin to send all cattle and civilians to Inch because Berwick was expected to attack. Reinforcements arrived under a Captain Cunningham giving Echlin a total of 120 men. The streets had already been barricaded; the strong, stone houses loop-holed; and the garrison assumed positions for all-round defence. Berwick duly appeared with between 1,500 and 1,800 troops later that day and launched an immediate assault but was unable to break into the town. After an engagement lasting about two hours, Berwick fired some of the buildings before retiring with the loss of between 150 and 240 men. Captain Cunningham was killed and an ensign wounded. During the night, Echlin withdrew the Rathmullan detachment to Inch bringing off ‘all they could’.33 Next morning (19 July), the evacuation of Rathmullan continued and some poor people who had sought sanctuary in the woods during the battle, plus about 100 cattle, were shipped to Inch. The discharge of 13 guns at noon on 19 July announced the arrival of Kirke’s fleet in Lough Swilly. Stewart replied with nine guns and, a little later, Captain Henry

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Withers came up in a boat to confirm Kirke’s presence. Kirke went ashore on the following morning (Saturday 20 July) having ordered all his troops to disembark and encamp. To his disappointment he encountered not 10,000 Scots-Irish volunteers but hordes of frightened Protestant civilians. Stewart had already formed about 1,000 of the more able-bodied males into ten companies of irregulars but the majority were women, children and old people — Richards indicates a number as high as 11,000 — huddled together beneath the protection of the cannon and earthworks. Kirke then inspected the fortifications and appeared pleased. In turn, he informed Stewart that reinforcements were assembling in Chester, Liverpool and Whitehaven and would be dispatched shortly.34 The remainder of the day was spent enlarging the camp – huts were constructed on 21 and 22 July − and landing provisions and ammunition, the latter housed in a purpose-built magazine. At about 17:00 a messenger was rowed out to the Swallow bearing a letter from Governors Walker and John Michelburne (1648–1721) of Londonderry. The city, they wrote, was in very great distress and had victuals for only five more days. Already, 5,000 people had been lost to starvation and disease and the remaining soldiers were so weak they could scarcely stand guard. Favourable terms offered by the enemy had been rejected and the Jacobites had vowed to spare neither women nor children if they were forced to carry the city by assault. The letter ended by blaming Kirke for any impending catastrophe. A great many admire [i.e. wonder] [that] such a fleet as yours should lie so long before us and send us no victuals, whereas the wind presented fair many times … There came two battering guns here last night which plies [sic] us all day and broke our curtains [i.e. curtain wall] and shattered our gates. The enemy’s guns are brought up from Culmore and that boom which is across the river is broke so that a small ship with provisions might easily pass up hither without hazard. The enemy’s regiment of fusiliers are marched up to Dublin and ‘tis certain their regiment of guards marches in a day or two: the rest of their army consists [for the] most part of rabble.35

Although the governors’ letter was mendacious – the boom had not been broken and the better elements of the Jacobite army had not left for Dublin – the reported state of the city and the threat that he would be held responsible for its fall spurred Kirke into a third change of plan. He now knew that Schomberg’s reinforcements could not arrive in time; Caldwell’s 10,000 Scots-Irish did not exist; nothing could be expected from Enniskillen for the foreseeable future because of the developing pressure from Sarsfield and MacCarthy; while his earlier interpretation of the condition of Londonderry had been grossly over-optimistic. His own brigade was not strong enough to relieve Londonderry without help from Enniskillen, although he might have remembered a lesson from Tangier and mobilized some of the seamen as auxiliaries, so he reverted to the original strategy of relying upon the Royal Navy to attempt the passage of the River Foyle. Taking great care to ensure absolute secrecy, Kirke ordered three merchant ships – the Mountjoy of Londonderry (Captain Michael Browning), the Phoenix of Coleraine (Captain Andrew Douglas) and the Jerusalem (Captain Pepwell) – to load provisions, embark 40 musketeers apiece and anchor close

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to HMS Swallow, which was lying off Rathmullan. That night, 20 July, the Swallow escorted the three victualling ships back to Lough Foyle. On Sunday 21 July, the four vessels rendezvoused with HMS Portland and anchored by Greencastle. Meanwhile, Inch was subjected to increasing pressure. Intelligence was received that the Jacobites intended to attack from ‘over against Captain Sweetman’s’ and opposite Burt Castle where the channel narrowed significantly in two places and was so shallow that vessels lay aground at low tide. Two ships embarked 25 musketeers apiece and took up positions whence they could each enfilade the likely crossing points with a ten-cannon broadside. At midnight on 22 July, heavy gunfire was heard from a north-westerly direction. At first it was thought to originate from a party of 30 men commanded by Lieutenant Thomas Hart which was ashore on Inishowen gathering corn and cattle. Others said the shooting appeared to come from Captain Sweetman’s post. Shortly after, flames were seen in Rathmullan as the Jacobites burned what remained of the town: the shooting originated from a guard ship trying to drive them off. The spring tides were at their lowest on 23 July and the ford was dry from side to side: all available troops were drawn into the fortifications in expectation of an attack but nothing materialized. Between 20 and 24 July, the earthworks were completed and two additional four-gun batteries raised. Jacobite horsemen were seen occasionally on the mainland beach but turned away when subjected to cannon fire.36 Stewart sent out several parties to capture cattle and 1,000 head had been herded on to the island by 28 July. Lieutenant Hart returned from Inishowen on 23 July where he had thoughtfully plundered some of his wife’s relations but omitted to bring back any cattle or corn.37 Captain Echlin was then ordered to the same place with 50 men but was too late: earlier that morning enemy dragoons had carried away 100 loads of grain. Echlin brought back the little that remained, about 100 bushels. In the evening, the Jacobites fired several villages on the Inishowen side, which experienced soldiers read as a sign that they were about to withdraw. This was corroborated by intelligence stating that the Jacobites had retired from the trenches before Londonderry and were standing about one-and-a-half miles distant from the town walls. However, on 24 July several parties of Jacobite cavalry appeared on the Inishowen hills as though they intended to attack at low tide but closer examination revealed the opposite: when the tide began to flood, they retired again suggesting that they were guarding the flank of a retreat against possible interference from Inch. The day’s evidence suggested to Stewart and his officers that something significant had or was about to happen in Lough Foyle. Optimism was further increased on Thursday 25 July when, between 05:00 and 06:00, heavy cannon fire and musketry erupted from the direction of Londonderry and it was hoped, because the wind had been favourable, that Kirke’s ships had broken the boom and were running up the river. They were mistaken: the gunfire was generated by the ‘Battle of the Cows’ when the Londonderry garrison sallied in an unsuccessful attempt to capture some cattle grazing close behind the siege lines.38 Although he had appeared satisfied with the defensive measures on Inch, during the voyage back to Lough Foyle Kirke’s fragile self-confidence wavered and he entertained second thoughts about the revised strategy. His entire land force was no longer flexibly deployed on the ships but bottled up on a small island while Schomberg’s reinforcements were probably several weeks away. Berwick had already attacked and

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burned Rathmullan and this might well have been preparatory to a full-scale attack on Inch. Kirke was back where he had started and, should the Mountjoy, Phoenix and Jerusalem fail, Londonderry would probably succumb. The Irish army would then deal quickly with Inch because the defence would be seriously hampered by the swarms of refugees; it was overlooked by the high ground on Inishowen, especially the looming presence of Burt Castle; and, should the Irish redeploy their siege cannon, Richards’s unreveted earthworks would soon crumble. If that happened, the dominos would tumble: Londonderry; Enniskillen; Ireland; England; the Grand Alliance; and last, but by no means least, Kirke. Much depended upon one man who found it increasingly difficult to make up his mind during a crisis. Operational mobility had to be regained. From his cabin on the Swallow at anchor in Lough Foyle on Monday 22 July, he wrote to Stewart that Inch must be evacuated and the soldiers re-embarked as soon as transports arrived. Since I have left you I have had time to consider our island and find it not tenable, if ever the enemy brings cannon against us. I should be very loath to be beat out of it in confusion, therefore I think the best way is to be in readiness to make a handsome retreat in case we are pushed.

He proceeded to lecture Stewart on detailed evacuation procedures. The priority was to embark the brigade because the men were suffering from the shortage of shelter and provisions on the island. Next to go on board should be 400 of Stewart’s new volunteer levies raised from among the Protestant refugees ‘that are used to live upon oatmeal’, their withdrawal covered by small rearguards of regulars. Some military presence was to be left in and around Inch so that it would continue to distract Jacobite attention from the siege. To this effect, 600 of the new levies were to remain: 180 in the fortifications at the head of the ford, supported by a camp of 300, plus 120 on the mainland based at Burt Castle to guard the ford’s landward terminus. Two hundred regulars were to garrison Rathmullan, relieved weekly, while a further 100 were to be stationed along the track between the eastern and western positions on Inch, and 50 more put aboard the ships protecting the ford and narrows. The rest of the brigade was to embark on the transports. Around 08:00 on 25 July, the merchantman, James of Derry, entered Lough Swilly bearing these orders. Stewart promptly sought Richards’s advice. After a quick perusal, he replied that, if the instructions were followed, Inch would be lost, thousands of poor Protestants exposed to ‘the mercy of a cruel enemy’ and the position in Lough Swilly rendered unsustainable. Stewart agreed and summoned a council of war, which Richards was invited to address. Point by point, he demolished Kirke’s analysis. The new levies would panic as soon as they came under enemy pressure and what was to happen to the 12,000 refugees? Should the Jacobites advance across the ford, how could 300 untrained levies hold the attack? Encumbered by eight cannon, they would have to retreat across the island to the embarkation beach on the western side assisted by just the 100 regulars. The only guaranteed outcome was a massacre. Whether the men ate oatmeal or biscuit was irrelevant, continued Richards, because provisions of all types were running short: those on the island were well aware that the Irish were burning and devastating the western and central areas of Inishowen to inhibit the gathering

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of supplies. Although Richards did not mention Cunningham’s earlier expedition, he implied that Kirke, too, would be accused of running away without having achieved anything. On the other hand, Richards thought that Kirke had greatly over-estimated the threats to Inch. Berwick would not feel able to attack while Enniskillen still offered resistance. There was also little prospect of the Jacobites dragging heavy cannon across the Inishowen hills from Londonderry. Additionally, the tides were now entering a more favourable phase. If Inch was to be abandoned then it would be better to do so completely and immediately but what then would become of the refugees? The council decided to stand firm and a record of this insubordination reached Kirke on 29 July. By then, it no longer mattered and the whole business was quietly laid to rest.39 The interests of Kirke, Stewart and Richards would not have been served by advertising the debate and subsequent disobedience. On the morning of 22 July, Kirke asked Captain Lee in the Portland to request support from Captain Rooke, whose squadron was cruising in Belfast Lough. Rooke accordingly brought the Dartmouth and Deptford into Lough Foyle on 25 July and Kirke ordered the three victuallers to proceed up-river to anchor off Culmore ready to attempt the boom on the first fair wind. On Inch, Friday 26 July was devoted to linking the two redoubts with a communication trench. In the evening all the remaining guns were brought ashore and the ships’ carpenters were instructed to report to Richards on the following morning in order to construct platforms for the artillery. The garrison also learned that the Jacobites had placed a guard of 12 dragoons at the point on the Inishowen shore where Protestants usually waited to be ferried to Inch. A lieutenant and 30 musketeers rowed over under cover of darkness to prepare an ambush for these dragoons but were discovered during their landing, fired on and obliged to withdraw. A Dr Leslie crossed to Inishowen with 15 musketeers to gather intelligence and bring off refugees. Work on the gun platforms commenced early in the morning of Saturday 27 July and all eight guns were properly mounted by nightfall. Two small vessels were also ordered ‘to lay dry’ to the right and left of the ford, into which were placed three cannon and 40 musketeers armed with hand grenades. Twenty-two guns now guarded the crossing, besides the more distant armaments of the George,40 Greyhound and Kingfisher. Dr Leslie returned in the evening to report a major sally at Londonderry (the Battle for the Cows, 25 July), Berwick’s continuing presence at Catlefinn with 2,000 horse and Jacobite apprehensions that the rear of their positions around Londonderry was about to be attacked from Enniskillen.41 During the early hours of Sunday 28 July, it was intimated to Stewart that Jacobite cavalry would attack across the ford when the tide was lowest. At the expected hour, four or five horsemen rode boldly into the water, probably a bait to draw the defenders from their fortifications. Meanwhile, two troops of ‘nimble’ horse had assembled out-of-sight behind a low hill but Stewart had been made aware of their presence. First, two cannon shot drove off the intrepid advance guard while subsequent long-range, indirect gunfire dispersed the two, waiting troops. At around 16:00, a man was seen running through the ford pursued by some Jacobite horsemen. A sergeant and two files of musketeers went to assist but before they could intervene the runner was overtaken by the leading rider who fired his carbine, missed and then drew his sabre. The man defended himself with a stout stick until the musketeers came within range. The trooper then retired. This messenger

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had left Londonderry eight days before and reported that provisions remained for only a week, great numbers of both the garrison and townspeople were dying from hunger while the Jacobite soldiers in the siege trenches were mostly sick from fluxes and fevers. The discharge of several guns was heard between 20:00 and 21:00; possibly, it was thought, the relief attempt was underway because the wind blew from the right quarter. Monday 29 July was quiet. A captain and 60 men landed on Inishowen intending to surprise a Jacobite guard post half a mile from the shore. Early on the morning of 30 July, several people came to Inch from the Jacobite camp before Londonderry and swore that they had seen two provision ships going up the Foyle on the evening of Sunday 28 July and that a warship had bombarded Culmore Fort. The news proved accurate. While HMS Dartmouth engaged Culmore, at 21:00 on the evening of Sunday 28 July the boom had been broken by the crew of the Mountjoy’s longboat, captained by the bosun’s mate of the Swallow. Slowly, the Mountjoy and the Phoenix, followed later by the Jerusalem, had then made their way along the river, whose banks were very weakly defended, reaching the Ship Quay at 22:00. The siege was over.42

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‘Un homme capricieux’

Confirmation of the relief reached Inch during the evening of 30 July via a deserter from Berwick’s camp at Castlefinn. When informed by his officers that the blockade was about to be lifted, this man had flown into a rage, flung his hat on the ground and shouted, ‘the rogues have broken the siege and we are all undone’; he then ran from his colours. More importantly, he added that Richard Hamilton was withdrawing south covered by a mounted rearguard charged with burning and stripping the countryside. That night, several fires were seen near Letterkenny. During the evening, Captain Richard Billing (Kirke’s Foot)1 and 60 musketeers went ashore near Burt Castle. They marched a mile inland intending to surprise an Irish outpost and secure the retreat of some Protestant families along with their cattle and possessions but found that the enemy had vanished. At dawn on 31 July, several parties of Jacobite horsemen were observed torching nearby farms and dwellings. Meanwhile, after watching the Mountjoy and the Phoenix break through the boom, Kirke had sailed for Inch and entered Lough Swilly at about 10:00 on 31 July. The reunion with Stewart and Richards could have been very awkward but everyone ignored the recent insubordination and Kirke graciously accepted their congratulations. He was then brought up-to-date with the latest intelligence which clearly indicated that the Irish army was retreating after destroying all habitations within a ten-mile radius of Londonderry. The customary Jacobite vedettes were absent from the hilltops of Inishowen at daybreak on 1 August enabling several local people to wade through the ford at low tide without having to run the usual gauntlet of Irish cavalry. They too said that most of the enemy had departed. A deputation arrived from Londonderry before noon and presented Kirke with a complimentary letter from Governors Michelburne and Walker. The delegates informed him that the enemy had withdrawn completely from Inishowen thus opening the land route between Inch and Londonderry. This was ratified later that morning when an officer came from the city with news that some parties from the garrison had followed the Irish army at a distance and watched it cross the River Finn at Clady. Early in the afternoon, another messenger brought Kirke a more detailed account of the relief and also reported that the Irish had burned their camp and destroyed Culmore Fort as well as Redcastle and all buildings along both banks of the Foyle. Confident that it was now safe to leave Inch, Kirke sent one of his

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‘spies’ with a letter informing the governors that he intended to march the brigade to Londonderry at the next spring tide, when the ford would be sufficiently dry to allow the passage of a large body of infantry and its associated equipment. On Friday 2 August, Stewart and Richards, escorted by a small infantry detachment, left for Londonderry to inspect its fortifications, survey a suitable camp site, and supervise the levelling of the besiegers’ trenches and earthworks. Richards returned on the following day (Saturday 3 August). Most of the buildings, he said, bore little evidence of siege, at least by continental standards, although the population had clearly suffered greatly having subsisted for five weeks on a diet of horses, dogs, cats and vermin. No more than 100 people had been lost through military action but over 6,000 had succumbed to starvation and disease. However, 4,000 able, fighting men remained who, if thoroughly reorganized, might contribute to the coming campaign. Because of the danger of epidemic, he recommended that a camp should be established on Windmill Hill outside the walls. He also took the opportunity to present Kirke with a précis of his official journal, ‘An Abstract of what passed at the Isle of Inch, from Sunday July 7 to Friday August 2, 1689’. This document was taken aboard the Dartmouth, which then sailed for Liverpool conveying Captain Henry Withers with dispatches to king and parliament.2 Early on Sunday 4 August an advance party of 72 men traversed the Inishowen peninsula to stake-out the camping ground on Windmill Hill and erect huts in readiness for the main force. At about 12:00, attended by his senior officers, Kirke rode to Londonderry and was received outside the gates by the governors. They offered him the city keys, sword and mace but Kirke courteously returned them indicating that he was content for Walker and Michelburne to continue in office. Kirke then made a ceremonial entry to the thunderous accompaniment of cannon on the ramparts and three, weak cheers from the surviving garrison and what remained of the civilian population. The governors treated Kirke to the best dinner available: small sour beer, milk, water and a little brandy. Having ordered Richards to remain and oversee all necessary arrangements, at about 18:00 Kirke was preparing to return to Inch when three horsemen trotted up bearing letters from the governor of Enniskillen announcing Wolseley’s dismemberment of Justin MacCarthy’s army at Newtownbutler on 31 July. Kirke promptly scribbled a congratulatory note to which he appended a postscript suggesting that Wolseley might now consider striking into the right flank of Richard Hamilton’s retiring columns. Wolseley quickly replied that he was fully occupied in sorting out his forces after the battle and was more concerned about the threat to Ballyshannon posed by Sarsfield’s corps at Bundoran3 and a renewal of Berwick’s offensive. Having received intelligence during the night of 4–5 August that Berwick had razed Strabane prior to withdrawing in concert with Richard Hamilton,4 Kirke already knew that Enniskillen was safe from attack via Omagh although he was ignorant of Sarsfield’s movements around Bundoran. He was extremely annoyed by Wolseley’s unco-operative attitude. However, he kept his feelings private and vetoed Wolseley’s proposal to move north to meet Berwick on the grounds that another substantial operation would overtax the horses ‘which is the best flower in our garden’. Instead, and contradictorily, he then asked Wolseley to send 500 cavalry and 200 dragoons to Londonderry to support an advance by Kirke’s brigade through Coleraine

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into County Antrim but Wolseley objected that he could not spare the troops because of the continuing menace from Sarsfield and the large number of prisoners that he had to guard. Uncertain about the accuracy of Kirke’s information, he ordered Lieutenant William Charlton to take a cavalry patrol to clarify the locations of both Hamilton and Berwick. Charlton rode away to the east on 3 August and had reached Castlecaulfield before finding Hamilton’s columns, partially obscured by billows of smoke from burning farms and villages, trudging towards Dublin via Dungannon and Charlemont Fort. After Charlton had reported, Wolseley appears to have dropped his objections and fallen in with his superior’s instructions. Sublimated jealousy informed this series of orders, propositions and refusals, Wolseley having just won a major battle that far outshone the dilatory relief of Londonderry. Kirke, no doubt, regarded Newtownbutler as a triumph achieved by his protégé enacting his strategy under his theatre command. Schomberg’s subsequent arrival put an end to further schemes for independent campaigning.5 On 5 August, Kirke dined with Walker, Michelburne and several civic officials aboard the Swallow at anchor in Lough Swilly. During the meal Walker indicated a wish to return to full-time ministry in his Church of Ireland parish at Donoghmore, County Tyrone. Walker’s resignation was accepted and Kirke promptly appointed his client, Michelburne, sole governor.6 As compensation, Kirke asked Walker to convey a loyal address to William signed by 144 officers, clergy and ‘other gentlemen’ of Londonderry. Many citizens expressed reservations about both the choice of envoy, Walker’s earlier conduct having aroused suspicions, and the document’s unwarranted compliments to Kirke but no-one was disposed, at this juncture, to cause disquiet by protesting publicly.7 Having thus ensured his influence over the city, Kirke issued a proclamation ordering all people not listed in a recognized military unit who had taken refuge in the town during the siege to return home leaving behind their goods and chattels, unless specifically instructed to the contrary. This was very poorly received because most of these ‘homes’ were smoking ruins and the meagre ‘goods and chattels’ represented sole worldly possessions. Considerable numbers of cattle, belonging to both neighbouring Protestants and the Jacobite army, were driven in from the countryside and herded close to the city. It was impossible to establish legal title so Michelburne supervised their sale ‘at a good rate’ to local butchers and merchants, the proceeds lining the pockets of Kirke and his fellow officers. Less controversially, the burial of any corpse within the walls was forbidden. The following day (6 August) all the heavy baggage was loaded on to the transports and the fleet sailed forthwith to Lough Foyle, where it arrived on Saturday 10 August. Leaving a garrison of 150 fit men commanded by Captain Thomas Barber (Kirke’s Foot) on Inch to care for and protect the numerous sick soldiers, Kirke rode for Londonderry at the head of his brigade on the morning of Wednesday 7 August. They arrived early in the afternoon but did not march through the streets – the risk from infectious disease was too high – instead proceeding around the walls to Windmill Hill. Their progress was saluted by both cannon fire and musketry from the ramparts as well as three hearty and rather undeserved hurrahs from a full parade of the citizen-soldiers, which Kirke later subjected to a rigorous inspection. After dinner Kirke instructed Richards to mount five guns at Culmore and eight more along

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Ship Quay to protect against a possible French assault. He also held a council of war with his field officers which, after considering the cleansing of the city, turned to the serious business of how best to reorganize the local forces in the light of what they had witnessed during that afternoon’s review. A more charitable spirit might have smiled indulgently upon the ranks of emaciated, ragged heroes whose morale was especially high following rumours that the major general was about to distribute largesse amounting to £2,000 sterling. Kirke had seen only a disorganized, ramshackle, undisciplined, amateur militia in need of comprehensive and rapid restructuring. Accordingly, the eight infantry battalions and single regiment of cavalry were immediately demobilized and disarmed, an action that created enormous resentment. The more promising men were re-engaged and allocated to four, new, regular battalions, commanded by three Londonderry officers − Michelburne; Robert White, who died in September 16898 and was replaced by John Caulfield during October; and Thomas Lance (d. 1689)9 − and one regular, Kirke’s lieutenant colonel, Thomas St John.10 Richard Crofton, Hugh Hamill,11 Henry Monroe, and Adam Murray (d. 1706)12 lost their colonelcies, George Walker having already resigned. The ex-members of Murray’s old cavalry regiment, long since dismounted, were so incensed at this treatment that they refused to comply with orders to join St John’s new battalion and departed in high dudgeon taking with them their swords and pistols. In retaliation, Kirke seized the regimental saddles and horse furniture, which had been carefully husbanded throughout the siege. The commissions of the successful colonels all bore the date ‘4 August’, suggesting that Kirke had prepared these changes well in advance, probably late in the evening of his first visit to Londonderry.13 The new regiments were entered on to the Irish establishment ensuring lower rates of pay than comparable English units. Kirke appointed the field officers and captains allowing the men to elect their own lieutenants, ensigns and NCOs. Having beggared themselves to raise and support soldiers in Ulster’s defence, many volunteer officers faced discharge without recompense or thanks while others who had done little of note received lucrative, war-duration commissions. To compound the perceived injustice, men were removed from their home companies and drafted into the new units while captains whose companies were under strength were informed that their units would be disbanded unless the rolls were immediately filled. Although Ulster required every available Protestant soldier, Kirke knew that many of the Londonderry troops were utterly unsuitable for field service while his views on the competence of militias had already been made clear during the Sedgemoor campaign. Besides, the city required a full complement of tradesmen, labourers and merchants in order to rebuild its economy and infrastructure. There could be only one Williamite army in Ireland answering to a single chain of command and Kirke could not allow the continuation of alternative military organizations. Having already sent Wolseley to Enniskillen to transfer martial authority from the amateurs to the professionals, Kirke did the same in Londonderry, replacing the local, independent, ad hoc arrangements with a proper hierarchy. Any commander-in-chief would have acted similarly but Kirke went about the task tactlessly, arbitrarily and insensitively. The brusque dismissal of the efforts and sacrifices of Londonderry’s defenders and refusal

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to offer any quid pro quo, however meagre and disingenuous, created considerable and enduring bad feeling. To make matters worse, Kirke replaced the local sentries on the main gates by his own men equipped with instructions to disarm anyone who left the city, a great insult to those who had been so recently carrying the Protestant cause with little help from the regular army. Weak and sick militiamen were not allowed extra subsistence from the stores but ejected beyond the walls to beg in the ravaged countryside. To any complainant Kirke took some pleasure in pointing out the new gallows standing on the ravelin. Despite these measures, Kirke remained deeply dissatisfied with the discipline and motivation of the Londonderry troops ‘for here in garrison we find it a hard matter to make them rendezvous and do duty’.14 Nevertheless, disharmony was put to one side on 8 August when all united in a day of thanksgiving characterized by ‘a great deal of joy and merrymaking’. Based in Whitehall, Schomberg had been unable to influence the campaign. Having received Kirke’s letter giving details of the council of war held on 19 June, Schomberg had replied on 29 June, adding a postscript four days later. I have received your letter of the 19th instant from on board the Swallow in Derry Lough, and have laid it before his Majesty together with the opinion of the council of war of the same date in reference to your relieving the town of Londonderry. Whereupon his Majesty has commanded me to signify his pleasure to you, that in as much as the result of the council of war for the not undertaking or attempting to go further is no otherways grounded than upon supposition that it is uncertain whether the boom and chain that are said to be laid cross the river can be broken, or the boats that are reported to be sunk passed over, you do therefore use all means to know the truth of these things by sending intelligent persons to view the places, and to get the best light they can of the matter, and to consult for that purpose the sea officers whether it may not be possible to break the boom and chain and to pass with the ships, and that you attempt the doing of it for the relief of the town. His Majesty’s further directions being that if the passage be found altogether impossible then you take care to inform his Majesty what number of men, horse and foot, may be sufficient to secure a post where you propose or anywhere else, and that in the meantime you remain where you are, and use your best endeavours to get a true information of the condition of the town and what quantity of provisions of war or of victuals may be wanted there, whereof you are to return me an account by all opportunities and of what may be fit to be further done for the relief of the town, which is a matter of so great consequence. [P. S.] Whitehall, July 3 1689. Since the writing of this letter his Majesty has resolved to send a considerable reinforcement of horse and foot to your assistance, which will speedily find you either in Derry Lough or at London Derry. Your letter of the 12th last month came safe to my hands and was communicated to his Majesty 15

This letter, the significance of which has subsequently been grossly overstated, could not have reached Lough Foyle before 10 July. It had scant impact upon the conduct of operations. In the first place, Schomberg had been misled by Kirke’s minutes of the

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resolutions of the council of war held on 19 June. In that letter, Kirke had said that the expedition would wait in Lough Foyle until reinforcements arrived and omitted all mention of the Inch-Enniskillen strategy because, at the time of writing, it may not have been formalized. By the time that Schomberg’s response reached Kirke, the Inch-Enniskillen strategy was in hand thus satisfying Schomberg’s request for the establishment of a safe ‘post’ ready for the reception of his reinforcing corps as well as providing a feasible scheme to relieve the city. Secondly, Kirke had already largely fulfilled all Schomberg’s other instructions by conducting two hydrographical reconnaissance missions and consulting senior Royal Naval officers before concluding that the riparian defences were too strong. Thus, the order did not suddenly jolt Kirke into action because its stipulations had already been met and his ultimate decision to abandon the Inch-Enniskillen strategy and revert to a purely naval attack was based solely upon realization of the gravity of Londonderry’s situation. The only useful part of Schomberg’s letter was the announcement that a ‘considerable reinforcement’ was on the way, although it failed to indicate a timetable: at least it clarified the ambiguity in Shrewsbury’s earlier epistle. It is possible that a duplicate of Schomberg’s letter was captured by the French. Indeed, communications between England and Ireland were so insecure that the Franco-Jacobites used the information contained within intercepts to adjust their dispositions to bring increased pressure to bear on Enniskillen.16 Kirke certainly replied – a letter to Schomberg passed through Preston on 24 July17 − but evidently he did not include sufficiently detailed information to satisfy the commander-in-chief. Why, wondered Schomberg, had Kirke not sent a warship with further letters and information? He was thus reduced to guessing Kirke’s intentions. Most probably, he mused, having decided not to force a direct relief, Kirke was trying to capture a potential landing place into which the reinforcing corps could be inserted but he could not be sure. Schomberg was further hindered by a lack of confidence in the professional abilities and political morals of nearly all British officers: Kirke, ‘qui est un homme capricieux’, he held in the lowest regard.18 Reliable news about the lifting of the siege and the victory at Newtownbutler had reached Lancashire by 1 August and London three days later permitting Schomberg a clearer picture. Now that Ulster seemed secure, ill-conceived schemes to land on the west coast of Ireland were abandoned19 and he decided to sail to either Carrickfergus or Strangford where he would be within relatively easy reach of Wolseley in Enniskillen and Kirke at Londonderry and close enough to Dublin to undertake an offensive in what remained of the campaigning season.20 Even so, Schomberg was not certain exactly where the Royal Navy would be able to put him ashore. He wrote to the Duke of Hamilton on 12 August saying that he hoped to effect a landing in the north of Ireland and Carrickfergus21 was preferred. Schomberg’s troops took ship at Hoylake on 8 August reaching Bangor Bay five days later (13 August). On landing, one of Schomberg’s first acts was to order Kirke to march his brigade south to Belfast Lough, leaving Michelburne and the four new Londonderry regiments to garrison both the city and the Laggan. Schomberg was very short of mounted troops and asked Kirke to send Wolseley with 500 Enniskillen cavalry and 200 dragoons (Lieutenant Colonel William Berry). Kirke allowed Wolseley to draw ahead with the mounted troops, which met Schomberg on 20 August while he was on the road from Belfast to besiege

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Carrickfergus. Kirke’s infantry first occupied Coleraine, where the Irish garrison offered no resistance and failed to burn the bridge over the River Bann, before turning south for Belfast. They did not link-up with Schomberg’s main force until 8 September, the second day of the camp at Dundalk. On the march, Captain Henry Withers returned from England bearing a letter of thanks from Shrewsbury to Kirke.22 It was the apogee of his career. Schomberg’s corps took Carrickfergus on 28 August before marching south to Dundalk on the road to Dublin. It went no further. The soldiers remained encamped on waterlogged ground just over one mile north of Dundalk village from 7 September to 9 November. In a series of coldly received dispatches, Schomberg informed William of the many reasons that had caused momentum to evaporate: the commissariat was corrupt and supplies did not arrive in sufficient time or quantity; the weather was appalling; most of the British troops were raw and inexperienced lacking the field crafts necessary for survival; James’s army, which Schomberg assumed was numerically stronger, had moved north to Ardee and blocked the route south; and because the loyalty of his troops could not be guaranteed, he dared not press forward. The last of these was confirmed when a conspiracy was uncovered among the three Huguenot infantry regiments that would have resulted in mass desertions timed to coincide with an enemy advance on 21 September.23 Utterly dejected, depressed and overwhelmed by the disaster, Schomberg was reduced to indecisiveness and inactivity: ‘there is little done, only many men dead’.24 Between 1,600 and 1,700 soldiers died from disease and exposure. Schomberg’s force lost a further 3,762 troops in the Belfast ‘hospital’ between 1 November 1689 and 1 May 1690 and many more succumbed or were permanently maimed by disease, gangrene and frostbite when in billets during the winter of 1689–90.25 Some battalions shrunk to 100 men, others to 50; over half the expedition was forfeit. Schomberg’s shivering, rotting battalions were inspected on 18 October. In Kirke’s there are some fine men … but the clothing is very bad. Many still left on the sick list on the island of Inch and many dead both there and here. The lieutenant colonel,26 major27 and some captains seem to be pretty good officers but the subalterns are mostly young and not all gentlemen. Two captains28 are rarely with the regiment being captains of vessels. The regiment complains of irregular payments and that they are twenty weeks in arrears [of pay].

Captain William Webster (d. 1690), a third company commander with a joint commission in the Royal Navy, was marked on the return as ‘sick’.29 The 13 companies should have comprised 780 men and 42 officers (39 line and three staff). Actually present were Kirke and eight captains, including the lieutenant colonel and major; 11 fit lieutenants and two sick; eight ensigns on duty and four unwell; 36 sergeants; 18 drummers; and 394 privates. A further 189 rankers were in poor health and 34 had recently died either at Inch or Dundalk.30 Although at only half-strength, Kirke’s battalion was in better condition than most of the other English units in the camp and could plead in mitigation that it had been campaigning since May. Kirke was one of four brigade commanders present throughout the Dundalk episode, although he lodged in a nearby house rather than suffering the rigours of a leaky tent or makeshift

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hut. As a major general, he was allowed a personal escort comprising an ensign, sergeant and 20 men. When the camp broke up into winter quarters on 9 November, Kirke’s battalion, led by Lieutenant Colonel Rowe, was initially allocated cantonments in County Antrim but moved to western Ulster early in 1690 where it came under Wolseley’s headquarters at Belturbet. Kirke’s own post lay in Counties Down and Armagh along the eastern sector of the ‘frontier’ between the Jacobite and Williamite forces that ran from Rostrevor, through Newry and Castleblaney, to Belturbet. The main body of the army rested well to the rear of this advanced line: Schomberg’s headquarters were in Lisburn. Kirke supervised active patrolling throughout his district, paying particular attention to the Moyry Pass through Slieve Gullion, the only feasible direct route between Newry and Dundalk, which the Jacobites held in some strength supported by cavalry at Ardee.31 Kirke’s personal success at Londonderry and reflected glory from Wolseley’s victory at Newtownbutler glowed even more brightly when measured against the debacle presided over by the great Marshal Schomberg. For two months Kirke had held in his hands both the continuation of English rule in Ireland and the fate of the Williamite regime. Cautious and methodical by nature and disinclined to take risks, Kirke was aware of the enormous responsibility and had proceeded carefully. An analysis of the Londonderry campaign must bear in mind five, very important points. First, Kirke was bombarded with contradictory intelligence, which he was unable to evaluate with confidence because he knew little of the local people, politics and geography and lacked reliable, trustworthy, objective advisors. His half-hearted second-in-command, William Stewart, although of Scots-Irish descent, was more hindrance than help. Secondly, Kirke was heavily outnumbered, probably by as much as four or five to one. By 28 July he had lost many of his original 1,900 men to sickness, accident, desertion and enemy action whereas Richard Hamilton commanded between 6,000 and 7,000 soldiers and fought with the advantage of interior lines and strong defensive positions. In addition, two out of Kirke’s three battalions contained officers and men whose politics were questionable. Thirdly, the failure of Cunningham and Richards was a constant companion to his thoughts. Fourthly, he possessed no mounted troops, a lacuna that he hoped to fill by linking-up with the Enniskilleners who boasted very effective light cavalry. Fifthly, his orders allowed complete discretion unless he found that Londonderry had already fallen in which case he was to return to the Mersey. Kirke had planned initially to rely upon the navy to force a passage of the Foyle but was quickly dissuaded by Richards’s initial, hurried, slapdash reconnaissance and the grounding of the Greyhound and Dartmouth. Kirke was consequently awkwardly placed. He could neither afford to sacrifice precious warships on Lough Foyle’s sandbanks – vessels of the Royal Navy, and shipping in general, were in short supply and wrecks would have impeded the channel performing a useful service for the enemy – nor come back to England without having landed his men, although he probably appreciated all too clearly why Cunningham had taken that option. However, the troops could not be left long on board the cramped, unhealthy transport ships without epidemics breaking out, which would have emasculated an already feeble force. The enemy occupied the whole Inishowen peninsula so the brigade could not land on the western bank of Lough Foyle while the eastern shore was operationally

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irrelevant. Persuaded by the balance of intelligence and the fumbling attempts to establish communications that the city was not in extremis and its endurance could be measured in weeks rather than days, Kirke decided to establish a strong base on Inch Island whence he could improve the health of the soldiery and await the arrival of both reinforcements and Schomberg, who would relieve him of the burden of command, while diverting Jacobite troops away from the siege works. Simultaneously, he put measures in place to mount an offensive against the siege ring in conjunction with the Enniskilleners. However, he was always uneasy about committing the troops to Inch because tactical flexibility was thereby sacrificed, a major land engagement rendered more likely and there was a constant danger that the Jacobites might occupy both shores of Lough Swilly in sufficient strength to ensnare the brigade on the island and force its re-embarkation. Without British control of Lough Swilly, Schomberg’s corps would be unable to land. Only when subsequently convinced that his earlier presumptions about the city’s stamina and the imminence of the arrival of reinforcements were wrong did he revert to a purely naval assault. At the same time, he decided to re-float his troops in order to regain operational elasticity, a decision that was disobeyed by Stewart and Richards. By nature, Kirke was a conserver not a consumer of resources, an advocate of the principle of the ‘force in being’, of deterrence rather than action. He also lacked self-assurance and rarely acted from total conviction. Fortunately, the twin threats from Enniskillen and Stewart in Lough Swilly had forced Richard Hamilton to weaken his defences along both banks of the River Foyle in order to reinforce Inishowen and garrison Strabane, Lifford, Clady, Castlefinn, Newtown Stewart, Castlederg and Omagh to form a barrier against the Enniskilleners. Consequently, the Royal Navy, in the form of a few sailors manning a rowing boat, succeeded in breaking the boom. The simplicity with which the siege was lifted made Kirke’s earlier caution and dilatoriness appear unnecessary and silly, providing ample circumstantial evidence for those disposed to interpret his management as politically ambivalent or even treacherous. Prima facie, Kirke’s conduct was reasonable, sensible, judicious, successful and effectively married resources to objectives but to those so-minded it stank of irresolution, the rotten fruit of ambiguous loyalties. Kirke’s sins were mostly those of omission. His spasmodic contact with Schomberg has already been noted, although he sent a number of letters to the Duke of Hamilton in Holyrood Palace. Kirke failed to reconnoitre in order to ascertain Jacobite strength and dispositions; his reliance upon reports from civilians, refugees, deserters and, almost certainly, Jacobite agents, provided neither trustworthy nor expert military-grade information. Absence of cavalry, no doubt, was a contributory factor but there was no reason why a schedule of strong foot patrols could not have been established while horses might have been captured on the mainland or even provided by the numerous Protestant sympathizers around Lough Foyle, particularly on the east bank towards Limavady. A passive, unadventurous commander, Kirke was content to wait upon events instead of trying to seize the initiative. This is not to suggest that he was naturally a subordinate incapable of autonomous command but he was not dynamic and proved more effective in lessexposed roles. At Tangier, he had inherited a weak position from which his political masters had expected little. Called upon to react to Moorish provocations, he had

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generally managed satisfactorily and demonstrated some diplomatic capacity as well as political adroitness and cunning but before Londonderry he was required to impose himself upon a purely military situation and fared less well. Although a good fortress governor he proved a vacillating field commander. When matters became critical – at Warminster in 1688 and over the Inch-Enniskillen strategy in 1689 – he lacked sureness in his own judgement and was plagued by doubts and second thoughts. He made no use of the Londonderry garrison, which began with 7,000 men reducing to 4,000, still well over twice the size of his brigade, largely through failure to establish effective communications with the city. The garrison remained aggressive throughout the siege, launching a sally three days before the relief, and nearly all its attacks on Hamilton’s rather abject soldiery were victorious establishing clear morale ascendancy. The ring would probably have shattered had Kirke and the garrison attacked simultaneously but lack of reconnaissance left him unaware of the true state of Hamilton’s army and he had no sure way of talking with Londonderry. Anyway, that was not the practice of contemporary warfare. Nothing was ever expected from a besieged garrison whose task was to defend and maintain.32 A mobile relieving force rarely attempted to break through the surrounding trenches. Instead it sought either to harass the besiegers’ lines of communication or render their position strategically untenable by alternative operations. Sometimes it was possible to raise a siege by running in supplies and reinforcements. Only co-operation with Enniskillen offered any hope of putting such pressure on the Jacobites. On the other hand, Kirke committed two acts of commission that suggested possible collusion with the enemy: the acceptance of the gift of salmon and entertainment of two Jacobites aboard the Swallow but both can be explained by mutual acquaintance and the military customs of the age. A senior colonel from Schomberg’s corps in Ireland returned to London on leave in November 1689. This ‘prudent man and a good observer’ offered his frank opinion to ‘just two people’, who obviously displayed less discretion than their informant. In reference to the Irish campaign during the second half of 1689, he said that Schomberg and many of his officers did not lack the will to fight but the army was ‘so universally, totally alienated from King William and so many of them entirely in King James’s interest that they would certainly revolt to him upon the first opportunity’. In addition, the majority of soldiers were irreligious, debauched and unmotivated, a criticism that could have been levelled at any contemporary army. Schomberg was not therefore prepared to endanger three kingdoms by risking such a force in battle.33 Kirke was most certainly one of those whose commitment was doubtful. According to information extracted from Sir John Fenwick in the aftermath of the 1696 Assassination Plot, Kirke, Brigadier Edmund Mayne ‘and some other inferior officers’ had promised the exiled Stuart court at St Germain-en-Laye that they would desert to the Jacobites from the army in Ireland ‘but none performed’.34 Although Fenwick’s ‘confessions’ should be treated with caution, he had no reason to defend the dead so these allegations may have contained substance.35 The still-pliable loyalties of many English army officers were illustrated by their behaviour during the spring of 1692 when a Franco-Irish army gathered in the Cotentin Peninsula ready to invade southern England and reinstate James II. An anonymous letter addressed to Lord Portland on 1 May 1692 intimated that a considerable number, whose Jacobite

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credentials had been vouched for by John Churchill, were ‘already engaged’ to serve King James. The list included Lanier, Langston, Trelawney, Coy, John Hales, Tiffin, Richard Brewer, Charles Churchill and Lewis and Rupert Billingsley. Kirke had died the previous year but, had he been alive, his name would probably have appeared on this roll of Tangerines, Rose Taverners and old Protestant comrades from France. Their motivation was the logical corollary of the provocations behind the desertion in 1688: they felt ignored and sidelined by the new regime, which had rewarded them insufficiently, and saw their prospects of promotion blocked by William’s understandable preference for Dutchmen and Germans. A number of arrests were made, including Mayne and John Churchill, but all were later released after the destruction of the French fleet during the five-day engagement between La Pointe de Barfleur and Cape de Hague (Hogue) (19–24 May) occasioned the abandonment of the project.36 A further instance of Kirke’s suspected disloyalty to the dual monarchy occurred at the Dundalk camp on 24 September 1689 when he quarrelled with Colonel Sir Henry Ingoldsby, 1st Bt (1623–1701), an old Cromwellian and devout Williamite. Schomberg referred their disagreement, which some thought so serious ‘that they cannot both remain in the same service’, to a council of war for adjudication. The substance of the dispute was an assertion by Ingoldsby that Londonderry could and should have been relieved much sooner ‘and with a great deal more to that purpose but it came to nothing and no more was talked of ’. The friction was exacerbated by a clash between flexible, Tory principles and unyielding Whiggism as well as professional jealousy caused by the fact that Ingoldsby had badly neglected the welfare of his battalion while at Dundalk. Ingoldsby, ‘a person of that courage and gallantry that he will never retract or deny what he has seen’, failed to prove his point and resigned his colonelcy.37 Further accusations concerning the strength of Kirke’s attachment to William and Mary appeared in a letter from Dublin addressed to John Rayley, ‘merchant in New Queen Street near Cheapside’.38 According to his anonymous correspondent, the campaign towards Dublin had been progressing well and it looked as though the war might finish within the year until Kirke arrived in Dundalk.39 He promptly insinuated himself with Schomberg’s third son, Count Meinhard Schomberg (1641–1719), as a means of indirectly influencing the general. It was said that he thereby strongly encouraged Schomberg’s passivity and supported the decision to halt at Dundalk. Apparently, Kirke was also responsible for dissuading Schomberg from accepting an offer made by the Protestant gentry of Ulster to raise 6,000 local troops. Kirke’s ‘creatures … who are all of as debauched principles as himself ’ received preference and promotion. The principal enemies of the Williamites, said the writer, were Kirke and the Huguenots: ‘the first, in all probability, is a pensioner of France, for no man living can be more for King James’s interest than he, as appears by all his actions, and the insolence of the other is insupportable, and their daily going to the Irish, makes it plain they did not come here for our assistance, but ruin.’ Finally, the writer suggested that Lieutenant General James Douglas (d. 1691), then serving on Schomberg’s staff, might be recalled from Ireland to appear before parliament where he could give an account of Kirke’s misdemeanours.40 Another set of accusations was noted by Roger Morrice. Several Londonderry volunteer officers who had been sacked by Kirke in August 1689, among them Colonels

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Richard Crofton, Hugh Hamill, Adam Murray and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Blair, came to London during the winter of 1689–90 and to present their narratives of the relief. Crofton,41 who had suffered the double indignity of being purged by Tyrconnell in 1686 and dismissed by Kirke three years later, said that the river passage to the city was open and safe for between five and seven weeks following Kirke’s arrival in Lough Foyle. There was no boom and few cannon or musketeers along the shore. The Londonderry garrison heard gunfire from Kirke’s ships and assumed he was firing on the enemy but later discovered that they were salutes to welcome on board the Duke of Berwick, Lord Thomas Howard ‘and other(s) of King James’s army that came out to him often and sometimes … feasted on board his ship’. After the relief, Crofton asked Kirke for 300 men to follow the retreating Jacobite army and save the country from pillage and destruction. Kirke declined and the resultant damage amounted to between £50,000 and £100,000. Following the relief, there were sufficient local Irish Protestant forces and potential officers to have defeated the Jacobite army without the need for intervention from England but Kirke refused to commission them. Kirke had no respect for Schomberg but sought to influence him by flattering and courting Count Meinhard and ‘within two or three days got an uncontrollable interest’. Finally, Kirke’s carriage has been so arbitrary and brutish that most of the colonels and other officers resolve to quit their commissions if he be continued their chief commander … Very many colonels and officers have come up with much matter and with a full resolution to accuse Major General Kirke of defeating, or betraying his Majesty. Divers Enniskillen men talking to the same purpose and making some reflections upon him that they could prove him guilty of those heinous crimes. [Instead] these men are imprisoned and fourteen of their best troops broken.42

Neither Rayley’s informant nor Crofton produced any evidence while the former’s suggestion that James Douglas could reveal more was never tested. However, what little is known suggests that most of the information was wrong, partial or hearsay. Kirke was not responsible for the decision to camp at Dundalk nor had he any part in selecting the ground. Thereafter, Schomberg was solely responsible for his own timorousness. A boom did stretch across the Foyle, covered by both artillery and musketry. Berwick was not entertained by Kirke and there are only two recorded instances of personal contact with Jacobite officers. It is harder to comment on the allegations concerning Count Meinhard. He was certainly in Ireland between August and early November 1689, long enough to have come under Kirke’s influence. He then travelled to Berlin, presumably to resign his commissions as general of cavalry and colonel of dragoons in the Brandenburg army, before returning to England early in 1690.43 The root cause of most of these allegations, however, was the tactless, brusque treatment of the defenders of Londonderry and Enniskillen. Greater awareness and consideration would have produced many fewer enemies. Sir James Caldwell, the principal Protestant landowner in western County Fermanagh, listed additional charges. He had raised and maintained at his own expense an infantry battalion and two troops of horse,44 which garrisoned the town of Donegal and extended the defence of Enniskillen by holding the line of the River Erne between the lower lough and Ballyshannon. During July he had travelled to

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Lough Foyle with the Enniskillen delegation to ask Kirke for arms, ammunition and equipment for his soldiers. The mission was successful, Caldwell receiving from Kirke a field commission as colonel, dated on 20 July. Following the relief of Londonderry and the Battle of Newtownbutler, Caldwell’s infantry regiment was one of those disbanded by Wolseley, the colonel receiving not one penny in compensation. This insult was exacerbated when Zachariah Tiffin’s Enniskillen battalion (the Royal Enniskillen Fusiliers or 27th Foot) was billeted in Donegal, Ballyshannon and Belleek during the winter of 1689–90. Despite Caldwell’s financial and personal sacrifices in the Williamite cause, Tiffin’s men seized free quarter on his Bloomfield and Caldwell estates causing considerable destruction; damaged the town of Belleek of which he was sole proprietor; pulled down the Blennerhassett family’s profitable iron works at Castle Hassett near Kesh, in which Caldwell had a financial interest; and spoiled several mills. Tiffin took full advantage of Caldwell’s stable of horses while the soldiers made free with his cattle. Losses amounted to nearly £6,000 and Caldwell later sought compensation from the Irish Forfeitures. These experiences left a very sour aftertaste and, when in London around November 1689, Caldwell compiled a dossier of 30 complaints about Kirke and his subordinates, supported by the names of potential witnesses.45 Caldwell accused Kirke of financial corruption, debauchery and atheism; permitting the seizure of cattle and provisions from the Franco-Irish camp before Londonderry following the lifting of the siege; ‘embezzlement of the rebels’ goods’; and insensitive treatment of the defenders of Protestant Ulster, a particularly sore point with Caldwell. He further alleged that, in return for a pardon received from James II during July 1689 – a paper copy of this crucial document was apparently awaiting him in Dublin – Kirke had deliberately procrastinated before Londonderry. During the siege Kirke also fraternized with the enemy in the person of Lord Thomas Howard of Worksop aboard HMS Swallow. Supposedly, Howard provided a direct link with James, a channel through which Kirke co-ordinated his delay in bringing relief to Londonderry. Kirke corresponded with other acquaintances in the Irish forces and King James himself. Governor John Michelburne, Kirke’s client whose loyalty during the siege had been questioned, was a further medium of communication with the Irish. Subsequently Kirke conspired with Governor George Walker ‘to make false representation of persons and things of the siege of Londonderry for their advantage’.46 Kirke was never called to answer these charges because they were neither registered with a magistrate nor sworn before a court of law but remained among Caldwell’s personal and estate papers. It might have been that the named witnesses were reluctant to take matters further but, more probably, the list was an act of personal catharsis, a private rage against the iniquities of Kirke, Tiffin and the British army in general, which Caldwell knew would not stand the test of formal legal proceedings. Several of the allegations related to Tiffin’s Enniskillen battalion, which had never been under Kirke’s direct command. Following the victory at Newtownbutler, Tiffin’s had marched to garrison Ballyshannon, the colonel assuming the title of governor. From there it had moved to reinforce Schomberg at Dundalk but, when the camp broke up into winter quarters, returned to Ballyshannon where it came under the authority of Wolseley’s headquarters in Belturbet. The regiment was still in the Ballyshannon region in April

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1690.47 Even if the document had become a formal deposition, the government would probably have laid it aside because a considerable number of soldiers, sailors and politicians were known to be in close touch and active correspondence with the exiled court in St Germain-en-Laye. Caldwell’s charge sheet mixed facts with the possible and the impossible. Innuendo about atheism, or irreligion, constantly dogged Kirke, probably with considerable justification. He did form an alliance with Michelburne, whose total loyalty to the Williamite cause had indeed been questioned during the siege. Kirke and Michelburne did seize and sell for their own profit cattle and personal property to which they had not established legal title. Kirke most certainly displayed a crass lack of consideration in demobilizing and reorganizing the Londonderry forces and Wolseley was equally heavy-handed in Enniskillen.48 Kirke and Governor George Walker’s official dispatch to William narrating the relief of Londonderry certainly exaggerated the roles played by both. Lord Thomas Howard was entertained aboard HMS Swallow. Heralds, messengers and spies had linked Enniskillen, Londonderry, the Irish army and Kirke’s forces. Kirke admitted that he had received intelligence from Londonderry ‘by means of a brace, float fellow in a fine blue coat, all laced, that passes to and fro unsuspected’.49 Kirke did write from the Dundalk camp to James II at Ardee during October 1689 but, disappointingly, the letter concerned a suitable prisoner exchange for Justin MacCarthy, captured earlier at Newtownbutler. He also corresponded with the Roman Catholic Jacobite, Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of Dover (c. 1636–1708), but there was no suggestion of clandestine double-dealing.50 Dover had forfeited the confidence of the French and sought to leave Ireland. The first contact occurred on 19 June 1690, Kirke receiving a letter the opening of which neatly summed up recent events: ‘you will be much surprized to receive a letter from me; but after the many revolutions we have seen in our time, nothing is to be wondered at.’ He proceeded to ask Kirke to use his interest with Schomberg, ‘to obtain a pass for my Lady Dover, myself, and the little vessel we shall go in, and those few servants specified in the within note, to go and stay at Ostend, till such time as I may otherwise dispose of myself ’. The second, to much the same effect, followed in August 1690. Dover similarly approached Tyrconnell and King William but none would agree to advance his application.51 It is hard to conceive that James pre-committed himself to pardon Kirke simply because he had, supposedly, delayed the relief of Londonderry. Indeed, James’s memoirs revealed anger with Kirke for rebelling against a bountiful master and deliberately committing atrocities in Somerset in order to blacken the royal character. In any event, such a pardon would have been to no purpose because Kirke did relieve Londonderry and resupply Enniskillen. French sources make no mention of possible treachery. Indeed, Irish and French generals interpreted Kirke’s approach as masterfully deliberate and rational Fabian tactics. Knowing full well their own weaknesses, they took the view that he could have forced the boom at any time so he must have intended to wait until Londonderry had drawn its last breath in order to ruin the Irish army by obliging it to hold its exposed positions for as long as possible.52 Although he had demonstrated commitment to Anglican Tory principles, Kirke, like most of the human race, was basically motivated by self-interest. Fearful that William and Mary might suffer defeat in the European war and lose their thrones in

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a French-dominated peace settlement, he may have sought some vague reinsurance from St Germain-en-Laye but that merely placed him in the company of many, many others, both Whig and Tory, including such luminaries as John Churchill and Sidney Godolphin (1645–1712). We are left with suspicion, hearsay and suggestion: clouds of smoke but no obvious seat of fire. Kirke was an unpopular bully who created animosity wherever he went but there is not a scintilla of solid evidence concerning active disloyalty to William and Mary.53 The two years that remained to him were professionally anticlimactic. Although continuing to attract controversy, thereafter he served as a general officer within the allied army, first in Ireland and then in the Spanish Netherlands. He never again enjoyed independent command, although he was frequently entrusted with the leadership of detachments operating at a distance from the main body.

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Elements from Kirke’s battalion, commanded by Major Billing, fought under Wolseley at the two battles of Cavan (11 and 14 February 1690).1 Early in March 1690, Kirke led a detachment of about 1,000 men, comprising 600 cavalry and an under-strength infantry battalion, in a raid against Dundalk. The party made its way quietly through the mountains and by evening was close to the objective. While most of the soldiers made camp in a wood, a party of dragoons drove 30 oxen to within a mile of the town before releasing them to graze. Scouts were instructed to report any movement from the garrison. Overnight, the animals meandered into some rich pastures and, at daybreak ‘as their custom is’, began ‘to roar’. Thus alerted to their presence, the hungry Irish looked with relish upon such ‘a prey’. A detail of 300 cavalry and 200 foot left the town, news of which was promptly relayed by Kirke’s patrols. His men formed up and advanced through the trees in silence until flanking the road along which the Jacobites would travel. Ninety minutes later, the Dundalk party entered the meadow, corralled the oxen, and turned for home. The ambush was so unexpected and successful that the Irish were incapable of organized resistance and pursued to the edge of Dundalk, losing a number of men. One captain was killed but Kirke’s casualties were otherwise light and all the precious oxen retrieved.2 King William landed at Carrickfergus on 14 June having already resolved to demote Schomberg and take personal control of the 1690 campaign. He planned a quick, direct operation to capture Dublin in the expectation that James would fight for his capital. Should all go well, the Jacobite army would be defeated, James captured or driven into exile and the war brought to a rapid conclusion. Kirke was continued in command of the advanced positions and, during April, mustered and inspected all the infantry in company with Lieutenant General Ferdinand Wilhelm, Duke of Württemberg-Neustadt (1659–1701), the leader of the newly arrived Danish corps.3 Kirke was reminded of the crucial importance of the Moyry Pass, one of the roads along which the army might travel on its southward march. Accordingly, he organized frequent patrols and reconnaissance parties, which were so effective that the Jacobites had decided to abandon the passages of Slieve Gullion and fall back from Dundalk before the Williamite army began its forward movement. Their retirement to Ardee on 22 June was covered by a particularly sharp rearguard action.4 William’s

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army concentrated at Newry, Kirke bringing in the more easterly regiments, and the advance began on 25 June.5 There is no mention of a specific role played by Kirke but he probably headed a brigade of three or four battalions, including his own regiment which had rejoined the main army from Belturbet. The march to the River Boyne, behind which the Jacobite army had taken positions to defend the approaches to Dublin, was undisturbed. William summoned a council of war between 20:00 and 21:00 on 30 June to discuss the coming battle. Schomberg, supported by Kirke, Colonel Henry, 1st Viscount Sydney (Sidney) of Sheppey (1641– 1704),6 and most of the other senior British officers, advocated turning the enemy’s left while demonstrating before the centre at Oldbridge. Solms thought the enemy so weak and demoralized that a crude frontal assault through the fords around Oldbridge would be sufficient. William compromised between the two views. Major General Count Meinhard von Schomberg would lead a diversionary flanking movement around the enemy’s left, crossing the river at Bridge of Slane or Rosnaree, and William would attack Oldbridge when the enemy centre showed signs of response. Kirke commanded an infantry column comprising the battalions of Hanmer, Count Henry of Nassau-Dillenburg (1662–1701) and the Brandenburg Regiment, which waded through the river 200 yards to the east of the main thrust across the Oldbridge ford made by the three battalions of the Dutch Blue Guards and two Huguenot units. Kirke, who was rather conservative in technical matters, watched the Netherlanders and their French supports reach the far bank where their disciplined musketry drove off three cavalry assaults. He later remarked that the thoroughly up-to-date Dutch battalions, equipped entirely with the latest flintlock muskets and plug bayonets, would have greatly benefited from a few old-fashioned pikemen. Soon after reaching dry land, Hanmer’s battalion, in the van of Kirke’s column, brushed with some 40 Irish horsemen, the side wash from the cavalry counter-attack against the Dutch Blue Guards and the Huguenots. The engagement was too fleeting to create disorder but momentum was temporarily lost and quivers ran through the ranks. Balance was quickly restored and Kirke’s men were not involved in any further significant action. Consequently, casualties among his brigade were correspondingly light: during the muster at Finglas on 8 July, Nassau’s regiment numbered 652 and the Brandenburgers 631. The hardest hit had been Hanmer’s, which totalled 593. From his vantage point to the east, Kirke watched Schomberg charge into the mêlée around Oldbridge and tumble from his horse: in his opinion, shot through the neck by his own men. Kirke then handed control of his column to Brigadier Hanmer and assumed the role of an unattached, roving general officer, moving from place to place on the battlefield in response to local crises. Sydney acted similarly. The victory at the Boyne suggested that the war would soon be over, probably before the end of 1690. Consequently, some of the more half-hearted British officers, including Kirke, began to show greater enthusiasm for the Williamite cause. The physical presence of the king also quietened rumours of disloyalty.7 The victory at the Boyne and the peaceful occupation of Dublin was followed by a steady advance towards Limerick, led by the cavalry. On 20 July the Williamite infantry encamped at Carrick-on-Suir and a trumpeter was sent on the following day to demand the surrender of Waterford. The governor, Colonel Michael ‘Brute’ Burke,

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was agreeable provided that he might be allowed the ‘full honours of war’. William took great exception to such arrogance, which he knew was simply a delaying tactic in order to give the thoroughly disorganized Jacobite army sufficient time to occupy Limerick and secure the line of the River Shannon. He replied that he would only accept capitulation on the same terms as those that had been offered to Drogheda: the garrison might leave with their weapons and baggage but no quarter would be granted if the attackers were obliged to discharge their cannon. Again Burke equivocated. His patience exhausted, William detached Kirke with 14 guns and a brigade of four battalions: his own; Colonel Adam Loftus, 1st Viscount Lisburn (d. 1691);8 Richard Brewer9 (d. 1702); and a Huguenot battalion under Colonel François du Cambon (d. 1693).10 The approaches to Waterford had already been stripped of cover in readiness for a siege: the suburbs had been razed, the hedges broken, the ditches filled and the gardens levelled. However, as soon as Kirke’s artillery train came into view, Burke sent three commissioners to negotiate a settlement. A formal agreement was signed on 23 July and, on the next day, 1,400 defenders marched out in silence, without beat of drum, carrying their weapons but with standards cased.11 Kirke took formal possession of the city on 25 July. Duncannon Fort, a coastal battery commanding the sea entrance to Waterford, surrendered within 24 hours.12 During 9 August the Williamite army slowly worked its way through the close, enclosed country between Caherconlish and Limerick, Kirke acting as deputy to Württemberg, the commander of the left wing. By 17:00, it was encamped within cannon-shot of the city. William decided immediately to seize a Shannon crossing to provide the option of operating in County Clare should Limerick’s defenders prove obdurate. That evening, a party of dragoons reconnoitred the ford at Annaghbeg, three miles upstream from the city, but found the current fast, the bottom stony and the pass guarded by six battalions of infantry, two regiments of dragoons and three of cavalry, all strongly positioned in and around the house of Sir Samuel Foxon (Foxton)13 and behind adjacent riparian hedges and walls. Early next morning (10 August), the Dutch Major General Godard van Reede-Ginckel (1644–1703), usually reduced to Ginkel by the English, led eight squadrons of cavalry and dragoons, accompanied by a brigade of three infantry battalions under Kirke, to Annaghbeg, anticipating a stiff fight. It was usually difficult to ford the Shannon even at the height of summer but the water level in 1690 was abnormally low and the horsemen rode through without difficulty while the foot soldiers waded waist-deep. There was no opposition, the defenders having decamped during the night. On hearing of the successful passage, William hurried to Annaghbeg arriving at 08:00 and ordered Kirke to guard the ford, placing one battalion on the County Clare side and two on the Munster bank, supported by some field guns and a small body of horsemen. Disturbed by the ease with which the barrier of the Shannon had been breached, the Irish command assumed that Ginkel’s reconnaissance in force was actually the precursor to a major incursion into County Clare and ordered the destruction of the forage within a ten-mile radius and shifted the cavalry camp to Sixmilebridge, north-west of Limerick. That night, Ginkel withdrew to the south bank leaving Kirke’s infantry and guns to defend the ford.14 Sarsfield’s surprise attack on the Williamite siege train at Ballyneety on 12 August delayed the formal opening of the siege until the evening of Sunday 17 August. When

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the survivors from the disaster straggled into the main camp, William’s soldiers were incensed by tales of Sarsfield having sanctioned the murder of many unarmed waggoners, women and children. During that first night 300 yards of trench were excavated and, in the small hours of 18 August, Kirke and Hanmer were ordered to attack a pair of redoubts and a small fort that flanked the right of the sap. Taken by surprise, the defenders cried out for mercy but Kirke ordered his men to give them ‘Waggoners’ Quarter’ with the butt ends of their muskets and between 60 and 80 Irish died within the fort. The action was concluded within an hour and all three posts successfully occupied. Kirke’s ‘brutality’ was widely regarded as just retribution for the Ballyneety massacre.15 By 20 August the heads of the trenches were within 30 yards of the Yellow Fort, a V-shaped redoubt or flèche, situated to the right of St John’s Gate. William ordered an assault. The initial attack by a composite force of 120 picked grenadiers16 and 100 Dutch fusiliers failed to break in but a second attempt led by the Huguenot, Colonel Pierre Belcastel (d. 1710), succeeded in forcing an entrance and driving out the garrison. However, while the Huguenot soldiers and pioneers laboured to secure the gorge17 of the redoubt, Colonel Dominick Sarsfield, 4th Viscount Kilmallock (d. 1710), conducted four battalions and three cavalry squadrons out of St John’s Gate in a wellorganized and co-ordinated counter-attack. Kirke, who was commanding the infantry force supporting the soldiers in the Yellow Fort, ordered forward the Danish Guards and the battalion of John Cutts, seconded by 50 cavalrymen under Major Cornelius Wood of Robert Byerley’s (1660–1714) Horse. Kilmallock’s infantry advanced until very close to the fort but vigorous musketry from the adjacent trenches and Kirke’s battalions, drawn up in line of battle, slowed their momentum. Wood then countercharged pushing the Irish horsemen back towards St John’s Gate but the Williamite cavalry was thus carried beyond the range of the covering fire provided by Kirke’s infantry. Temporarily isolated and unsupported, they took some casualties from the musketeers ranged along the city walls before Wood was able to disengage. The fighting gradually subsided. The Williamite foot lost 58 killed and 140 wounded and the horse suffered 21 dead and 52 injured. Sixty-four valuable mounts were destroyed and 57 seriously hurt.18 Kirke was not involved in the unsuccessful general assault on the breach during 27 August because it was not his turn to command a sector of the works.19 This was the final major action of the siege, which was abandoned on 30 August because of incessant rains that flooded the trenches and rendered movement virtually impossible. The failure to capture Limerick and William’s subsequent departure for England persuaded Kirke that his earlier optimism about victory in Ireland may have been premature. William’s army entered winter quarters. Kirke oversaw eight battalions billeted in Counties Longford, Westmeath, the King’s County (Offaly) and the Queen’s County (Laois). Ten squadrons of horse and dragoons, under Sir John Lanier, were accommodated across the same region. On 15 September, the Duke of Berwick, seconded by Patrick Sarsfield, led 14 regiments of horse, dragoons and infantry, totalling about 7,000 men, plus three field guns over the Shannon at Banagher Bridge,20 intending to seize quarters and foraging grounds on the Leinster side and bridgeheads from which to launch a spring offensive. Berwick planned to establish a camp on the east bank of

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the Shannon three miles from Banagher Bridge whence a strong detachment would advance to besiege Birr Castle, a fortified manor house belonging to an Englishman, Sir Lawrence Parsons, 1st Bt (d. 1698), sheriff of King’s County. It should not have been a challenging operation because the building was brick-built, lacked either moat or ditch and was garrisoned by a single company of 80 men from Tiffin’s Enniskillen battalion commanded by Captain John Corry, assisted by a few armed townsmen. The only other nearby edifice possessing any military significance was the church in Birr (Parsonstown) village.21 Lieutenant General Solms, temporarily commanding the army in Ireland during the hiatus between the departure of William for England on 29 August and the appointment of Ginkel later in September, received advance notice of Berwick’s intentions.22 Kirke was ordered on 13 September to gather seven battalions out of winter quarters – his own; Hanmer; Edward Brabazon, 4th Earl of Meath (1638–1707); Cutts; Lisburn; Thomas Erle (c. 1650–1720); and Lord Drogheda – and march to Birr. Close support was to be provided by Lanier leading four cavalry regiments (his own; the Royal Horse Guards; Langston; and Byerley) and a detachment from the Enniskillen dragoon regiment of Sir Albert Conyngham (d. 1691)23 while Lieutenant General Douglas, stationed at Portlaoise (Maryborough), was instructed to make additional forces available. Berwick’s cavalry scouts were observed on Burkeshill, within a quarter-of-a-mile of Birr, during the morning of 16 September causing the Williamite outposts to scurry back to the castle. Corry told Ensign Henry Ball24 to take 20 musketeers into Birr church, barricade the building and post marksmen in the steeple. Lieutenant Richard Newstead25 was sent down the lane towards Burkeshill with a patrol of 20 men to discover more precise information. Ensign Hamilton and the remaining 40 infantry remained inside the castle with Corry. As the Protestant inhabitants rushed for the relative safety of the stronghold, Newstead held a shouted conversation with Captain Richard Oxburgh, commanding the Jacobite advance guard, who informed him that Berwick and Sarsfield, plus a train of artillery, were advancing to capture Birr. As soon as he spotted the approach of the Irish main body, Newstead withdrew to join Corry. Berwick deployed into line of battle on Burkeshill before sending cavalry to encircle the town. All livestock were seized and some soldiers began to plunder and burn houses. When certain that the defence was confined to the castle and church, Berwick moved forward and summoned Corry to surrender. Even though he knew that the fortifications could not withstand a siege, the red flag of defiance was hoisted in response. Sarsfield attacked with 160 infantry and the three cannon, Berwick standing off with the remainder to counter the expected Williamite relief column. Berwick’s light artillery could make no impression on the walls and its effectiveness was further reduced during the afternoon when one of the barrels burst. News then arrived that Lanier and Kirke were approaching. Discouraged by the unexpectedly fierce resistance – the Jacobites had suffered a number of casualties from musketry – and now faced with the prospect of a significant counter-attack, Berwick ordered Sarsfield to break off the action and fall back on the main camp which covered the line of retreat to Banagher Bridge. At the head of the relief column rode Colonel John Coy with 300 horsemen and dragoons: five or six hours behind came Lanier with the remainder of the mounted

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troops while Kirke’s infantry brought up the rear. Douglas’s reinforcements, billeted in and around Portlaoise, had further to travel around the southern edge of Slieve Bloom via Mountrath and Roscrea. By hard marching, Kirke joined Lanier three miles short of Birr on 16 September where they received information that Berwick commanded a large force and the castle was already under attack. Kirke and Lanier conferred and concluded that their combined strength was insufficient, so a courier was dispatched to Douglas to ask him to hurry his soldiers to Roscrea, 11 miles south of Birr. Leaving Lanier to shadow Berwick, Kirke took some of his infantry back towards Roscrea in order to escort the anticipated reinforcements. Actually, elements from Douglas’s cavalry had already reached Roscrea after a forced march and joined Kirke during the morning of 17 September on the Birr-Roscrea road. Accordingly, Kirke turned about and his detachment camped one mile south of Birr, closely observed from higher ground by Berwick’s pickets. Kirke assembled all his grenadiers who advanced in open formation through a bog to drive them away. The following day, Kirke moved through Birr to encamp one mile to the north. A patrol led by Lieutenant Henry Kelly of Leveson’s Dragoons reconnoitred Berwick’s position but blundered into an ambush and the entire party was captured: Kelly was later exchanged.26 In a textbook manoeuvre – first blind the enemy by driving in his scouts and vedettes, then move – Berwick deployed a cavalry screen to deflect Kirke’s outposts before decamping during the night of 18–19 September. Confident that his retreat was not threatened, Berwick recrossed the Shannon at Banagher during 19 September. Kirke had failed to read the signs of battle correctly and was thoroughly deceived, allowing Berwick to conduct an unhurried retreat. From the Irish point of view, the withdrawal was the highpoint of the operation. Subsequently, many French and Jacobite officers were extremely critical of the conduct of Berwick and Sarsfield, pointing out that their escape had only been possible because Kirke and Lanier had demonstrated a total lack of aggression. Realizing that he had been hoodwinked, Kirke advanced to Banagher only to find the bridge very well protected by a castle, known as Fort Falkland, and additional earthworks. His force returned to Birr and set about transforming it into a forward, frontier post sufficiently strong to deter further enemy interest. Between 700 and 800 infantry excavated simple, earthwork fortifications around what was left of the town and, within the new enceinte, filled in the ditches and felled the hedges, orchards and trees, bundling the timber into fascines. Even part of the sessions-house was demolished. Lord Lisburn was ordered to burn all buildings beyond the new fortifications, including those between Birr and Racalier Bridge, to forestall their occupation by the enemy and create clear fields of defensive fire. Finally, Kirke arrested all Roman Catholics and locked them in the market house for three or four days until they agreed to release on condition that they did not leave the area. Throughout the occupation, because of a shortage of bread and provisions, Kirke’s troops plundered the local Irish, regardless of the fact that many had previously been issued with protections. The militarization of Birr was complete by early October and the detachment returned to winter quarters leaving in place a garrison comprising three companies of infantry and one troop of militia horse under a governor, Henry Collier, the senior captain of Kirke’s Foot. In support, Kirke placed six companies from Drogheda’s battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Peter Bristow (d. 1703),

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in Kilcormac Castle, ten miles to the north-east. Lord Nottingham in Whitehall soon received complaints about Kirke’s disregard of protections. In a letter dated 1 November, Kirke and Lanier were instructed to present their cases for examination and both later received formal reprimands.27 During William’s personal leadership of the army in Ireland the British general officers had been cowed into obeying orders and attending to their duties. When Solms took over as pro tem commander-in-chief, their zeal for the Williamite cause lost its intensity and they began to slip back into their old ways, the first symptom of which was a series of petty disputes between British and foreign general officers. From the sodden trenches before Limerick, the army had marched to Tipperary where a council of war was held to determine the location and distribution of winter quarters. It was customary for all officers present to sign the resolutions in order of seniority. Kirke and Lanier protested vehemently that Major General Julius Ernst von Tettau (1644–1711), a German in the Norwegian-Danish service,28 had put his hand to the paper before them on the grounds that he was senior. Kirke and Lanier insisted on placing their names above Tettau because they were British which gave them precedence above those in the same rank in auxiliary corps. Although Dr George Clarke (1661–1736), the secretary at war to the army in Ireland, was ill in his tent, Kirke and Lanier took the trouble to let him know what they had done and asked him to inform their spiritual leader, Marlborough, as soon as he arrived in Ireland with the multinational expedition to capture Cork and Kinsale so that ‘he might not give up the point that they had carried’.29 When Ginkel replaced Solms, his promotion was deeply resented by the British generals who were firmly of the opinion that one from their number should have been appointed. The reaction of some was to sulk and campaign half-heartedly. This lack of commitment was abundantly demonstrated during a series of winter offensives launched at William’s behest to pressurize the Irish into opening peace negotiations. Although he knew that little could be achieved by campaigning during the close season, except to ruin the army, against his better judgement Ginkel complied and developed five co-ordinated operations, known collectively as ‘the expedition’. There were three declared objectives: secure bridgeheads over the Shannon to facilitate a major attack into Connaught during the spring; deny the Irish access to foraging grounds in the Midlands; and spoil the agricultural resources of County Kerry whence Limerick was supplied. Kirke, promoted to ‘lieutenant general over all the forces’ on Christmas Eve,30 and Lanier were to concentrate 6,000 men at Mullingar and march west to seize a Shannon crossing; Douglas was ordered to attack Sligo via Jamestown with 8,000 troops drawn from Cavan and Belturbet; and Tettau was to lead a large raid into County Kerry. To cover these operations and distract the Jacobites, Ginkel and Württemberg would advance towards Kilmallock, as if to threaten Limerick, while the militia would take the field throughout Williamite-controlled areas to suppress the ‘rapparees’, native Irish guerrillas and irregulars. Because news of Kirke’s promotion had not yet crossed the Irish Sea, Lanier remained the ranking officer and commanded the attack from Mullingar towards the Shannon. In an early application of the principle of auftragstaktik, Ginkel provided Lanier with a broad directive and left him to work out the details. On Christmas Day

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1690, Lanier summoned his three senior commanders – Kirke, Brigadier Edward Villiers (d. 1694) and Colonel Lord Lisburn – to a conference in Mullingar, having first sought their views in writing as a basis for discussion. Lisburn strongly advocated an attempt on Lanesborough Bridge, where the Shannon broadened into Lough Ree, but Lanier was equally vehemently opposed. He was certain that Sarsfield was already on the left bank of the Shannon in some strength, probably having used the bridges at either Banagher or Athlone, and was busy deploying along the east shore of Lough Ree thus menacing the left flank of an advance towards Lanesborough from Mullingar. This information proved uncorroborated and, when pressed, Lanier admitted that he did not actually know Sarsfield’s exact whereabouts. He was aware, however, that as the road from Mullingar through Ballymahon to Lanesborough approached the Shannon it ran for over six miles on a causeway through an extensive raised bog.31 A movement against Lanesborough, he argued, would entail marching in a thin, extended column along a single road with an uncovered flank presented towards the enemy. Should Lanesborough be reached, the attackers would occupy a narrow salient which would be difficult to reinforce or support, especially in the inclement winter weather when water levels in rivers and marshes were high. Kirke’s opinion is unknown. The meeting broke up without agreement but Lisburn was authorized to lead a strong reconnaissance towards Athlone to try to locate Sarsfield. At 23:00 on 27 December, Lisburn took 300 infantry and 200 mounted troops from the forward base at Streamstown and, despite the cold, mud and bad roads, came within sight of Athlone at midday on 28 December. Returning to Mullingar on 29 December, he reported to Lanier and Kirke that only 20 hostile horsemen had been encountered in the whole region which, according to Lanier’s earlier statement at the Mullingar conference, was supposed to be firmly under Irish control. Lisburn confirmed the presence of a small Irish bridgehead over the Shannon at Lanesborough in the form of a sod fort but, otherwise, the countryside between Mullingar and the Shannon appeared clear of the enemy. He was correct: Sarsfield was still in Connaught. Reassured that the operation could now proceed with reasonable safety, Lanier gave his approval for the movement on Lanesborough Bridge. Accompanied by Lanier, on 30 December Lisburn led out a column comprising about 1,000 infantry – his own and Richard Brewer’s battalions plus some companies from Kirke’s – escorted by 300 cavalry and dragoons and followed by a train of artillery, engineering equipment and rowing boats, which soon lagged far behind. Lisburn drove his men hard even though the weather was appalling and the state of the tracks so bad that the foot soldiers were reduced to marching in single file and the horsemen had to dismount. By the evening of 31 December, the column had reached the beginning of the causeway. Well informed of Lisburn’s movements by sympathetic local inhabitants, Sarsfield had ordered rapparees to break the carriageway, which they had done in 13 places, each interruption defended by barricades. Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Richards, now chief engineer attached to the artillery in Ireland, assured Lanier that 300 men would be sufficient to carry out repairs. A drill was devised in which Brewer’s advance guard drove off the light Irish forces manning the road blocks and kept them at a distance while Richards’s pioneers set to work. In this way the column made slow but steady progress towards Lanesborough. The Irish eventually

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realized that further resistance was futile and drew back with their cattle through Lanesborough into Connaught after demolishing the small fort on the Leinster side and smashing the Shannon bridge.32 By 12:00 on 1 January 1691, Brewer had occupied Lanesborough village and the ruined fort. Although only a few, small, scattered parties of Irish troops could be seen on the Connaught side, Brewer was unable to exploit the opportunity to cross the river because he had insufficient infantry while the specially prepared boats were caught up with the artillery at the rear of the horribly distended column. Lanier arrived in Lanesborough later that day to assess the situation. On 2 January he rode back along the Mullingar road to hasten the boats and cannon and sent a courier to Kirke asking him to dispatch reinforcements. However, when eventually he encountered the artillery train struggling to make headway through snow and glutinous mud, Lanier’s self-assurance was undermined. Sensing that nothing could come from the operation except blame, recriminations and the loss of valuable guns, horses and scarce infantry, he ordered the artillery and boats to turn round and retrace their steps to Mullingar. Lanier’s official explanation for his decision, which he later provided to Ginkel, stated that it would have proved impossible to supply and support a force at Lanesborough throughout the remainder of the winter while the hand tools for the construction of the necessary defensive earthworks were unavailable. A messenger was sent to Lisburn and Brewer telling them to withdraw. Either because he distrusted Lanier or felt that he had a personal stake in the success of an operation that he had favoured so forcefully, Lisburn disobeyed and turned his attention to passing the river. Ignoring a second order to retire, Lisburn instructed Richards to build an earthwork at the eastern end of the ruined bridge from which a crossing might be covered. When completed, it was occupied by 100 men and one field gun under Captain Henry Edgeworth (d. 1720)33 of Lisburn’s Foot. Lisburn was now isolated at the tip of a long salient, his flanks totally unprotected although frequent patrols had, as yet, detected no significant enemy activity. Compounding his insubordination and tactical misjudgements, Lisburn held his main force two miles back from the bridge in a small hamlet leaving Edgeworth unsupported and vulnerable to sudden attack. Brigadier Robert Clifford arrived at the west end of Lanesborough Bridge with three infantry regiments on 4 January. For the next few days, Irish outposts and Edgeworth’s men traded a bizarre mixture of insults, desultory gunfire, short-lived truces, jokes and toasts. The English officers failed to read the situation; Clifford’s appearance at Lanesborough was designed to pin Lisburn in position while Sarsfield crossed the Shannon at Athlone on 5 January and marched via Ballymore to cut the Mullingar road at Ballymahon, east of the bog. However, while preparing to execute this manoeuvre Sarsfield heard that Douglas at the head of a large corps was approaching Jamestown, 20 miles north of Lanesborough. Sarsfield promptly reassessed priorities and decided that Douglas posed a far more serious threat. Accordingly, he marched north along the right bank of the Shannon and Lisburn was saved from acute embarrassment. On 8 January Brigadier Villiers brought a final and peremptory order from Lanier to retire. Having endured a week in the slush and snow, Lisburn’s frozen, soaked and half-starved men set off for Mullingar on 9 January. In the meantime, Kirke had drawn out 300 infantry from the battalions of Drogheda,

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Hanmer and Lord George Hamilton into a detachment commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Peter Bristow and Major Toby Caulfield (c. 1664–1718)34 (Drogheda’s Foot), to march from Birr to reinforce Lisburn at Lanesborough. Because Jacobite raids and rapparee activity had made the east bank of the Shannon thoroughly insecure, they were routed wide to the east through Daingean (Philipstown), Mullingar and Longford. However, they had scarcely left Birr before coming under a five-hour attack from 1,500 Irish soldiers and rapparees sheltering in Slieve Bloom. Not only were Bristow and Caulfield at a severe numerical disadvantage but they possessed only 30 mounted men whereas the Irish deployed three troops. At the cost of one captain, six soldiers, all the baggage and the abandonment of the planned march, the column fought its way to Colonel Robert Byerley’s garrison at Mountmellick. The organization of Bristow and Caulfield’s detachment appears to have been the extent of Kirke’s part in the inglorious attempt to seize a bridgehead at Lanesborough. Despite acting as Lanier’s deputy commander, during the actual operation he appears to have remained in Mullingar supervising the rear areas and watching the worryingly open spaces to the south of the Lanesborough road. Even Villiers, junior in rank to Kirke, enjoyed a higher profile. With the exception of Tettau’s raid, which had some impact on communications between Limerick and County Kerry and destroyed stockpiles of provisions, the other major elements of ‘the expedition’ also failed to prosper. Douglas was held up before Jamestown and forced to retreat with the loss of 100 men killed and many captured. Ginkel and Württemberg made some progress into County Limerick but turned back to Tipperary in the face of bad weather.35 Lisburn was largely exonerated, despite his gross disobedience and serious errors, because he had made a valiant effort to execute his mission. The blame fell upon Lanier with whom Villiers and Lisburn both exchanged sharp words concerning his irresolute conduct. Brigadier Robert Stearne (d. 1732), then a captain in Lord Meath’s battalion, said that Lanier was already in bad odour with William because he was regarded as the officer most at fault for the Ballyneety episode. Apparently, William had received credible intelligence of Sarsfield’s intentions the day before the raid and ordered Lanier to take a strong detachment to Cullen to meet the artillery train and escort it to Limerick. Lanier, however, ‘mistook’ his orders and did not leave the camp until the next morning by which time it was too late: he was severely censured. Perhaps Lanier viewed the Lanesborough Bridge operation as a chance to rebuild his credibility but it achieved the opposite effect. The dismal business also brought to a head the continual disagreements between Kirke and Lanier on one side and Douglas on the other. This state of affairs was common knowledge throughout the army and George Clarke was worried lest their rows ended in physical violence. Douglas, it must be said, was a most difficult colleague and heartily disliked by nearly everyone. He was arrogant, haughty, ultra-sensitive and found fault with everything unless he had been endlessly consulted. Served by such an ill-matched trio, Ginkel was unlikely to enjoy a productive summer campaign.36 From Dublin, the Lords Justices37 pointed out forcibly that the war would drag on endlessly if its execution depended upon Douglas and Lanier: a change in command was urgently required. Kirke was not as bad, they said, but he was a close friend and associate of Lanier and had done little to achieve a more positive outcome before Lanesborough. Besides, Kirke had allowed himself to

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be outmanoeuvred by Berwick at Birr thus sacrificing a rare opportunity to bring an Irish field corps to battle. Above all, at a time when William was attempting to foster better relations with the Jacobites in order to conclude the war through concession and diplomacy tempered by military pressure, Kirke, Lanier and Douglas persistently destabilized these initiatives by allowing their men to plunder and maraud.38 Ginkel intended to open the 1691 campaign by advancing from the main base at Mullingar to capture Athlone. Correctly divining his intentions, the Jacobites advanced across the Shannon in strength during February to occupy and fortify Ballymore. A party from Ballymore then surprised and captured Carn Castle, which lay within seven miles of Mullingar, and massacred the garrison. Mullingar itself appeared in danger of attack. Despite having expressed doubts about the proposed 1691 strategy, Kirke was entrusted with a detachment to retake Carn Castle in order to clear the road ready for the intended spring offensive towards Ballymore and Athlone. His field guns proved too underpowered to endanger the castle’s fabric and the Jacobites only agreed to surrender when engineers started to tunnel beneath the walls. In retaliation for the earlier atrocity, Kirke hanged the governor. Before Carn had been retaken, Lord Justice Thomas Coningsby had written to Ginkel on 17 February stressing the importance of taking Ballymore as a preliminary to the intended siege of Athlone. Unless Ballymore was first captured, he wrote, it would be impossible to employ Mullingar as the main base while forward positions at Streamstown and Mearescourt, gained during the winter, would become untenable and have to be abandoned. Yet, he continued, ‘though all this is evident it is impossible to persuade the general officers’, especially Kirke, ‘to go about this matter’ and concluded by again recommending a change in command. Lord Sydney, writing on 3 March, endorsed Coningsby’s view.39 Because of the outcry in England about his discrimination against British officers, William felt unable to dismiss the three generals. Instead, on 29 April, before the opening of summer operations in Ireland, Kirke and Lanier were recalled into England prior to taking up new appointments with the Confederate army in the Spanish Netherlands where they would enjoy less influence, less independence and do less damage. Shortly afterwards, Douglas was also transferred to Flanders. He fell seriously ill within a few days of joining the Confederate camp at Gerpinnes and was carried into Namur where he died. His remains were buried temporarily in Maastricht before removal to Edinburgh. Kirke came to London on 31 May 1691 and his equipage was dispatched to Flanders on 24 June.40 He entered the Confederates’ camp at Cour-surHeure, south-west of Namur, on the morning of Sunday 30 July. He assumed two positions. First, in company with Lieutenant General von Delwig,41 he led the second line of infantry, a multi-national force comprising 26 English, Scottish, Brandenburg and Dutch battalions, grouped into five, large brigades: he was thus the equivalent of a modern division commander. When two general officers of the same rank shared a position, it was customary for the command to alternate daily. Should a battle or major engagement occur, then the general who was supernumerary joined the staff of the commanding general. Secondly, Kirke became deputy commander to Marlborough of all the British troops within the Confederate army.42 Kirke’s appearance at the camp coincided with an advance from Cour-sur-Heure to seize the small fortified town of Beaumont. As William’s troops cleared the woods

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and forests and moved into the valley of the River Hantes, they discovered the Duke of Luxembourg’s whole army drawn up in line of battle. Unable to attack because of the lateness of the hour, the Confederates bivouacked in the open fields – William supped in a barn – but a dawn reconnaissance revealed the strength of the French deployment and, following a few exchanges of cannon fire, they returned to Cour-surHeure.43 During the engagement at Leuze on 9 September 1691, when Luxembourg attacked the Confederate rearguard as it was decamping, Kirke commanded the second line of infantry. Although Marlborough turned back the first line of foot to assist the rearguard as it came under pressure, it was not drawn into the action which was fought almost entirely by cavalry, including the English Life Guards, except for a single brigade of Dutch foot in support of the mounted troops.44 Kirke’s second line was not involved. It was probably this episode that brought forth the extraordinary appreciation from General Charles-Henri de Lorraine, Prince of Vaudémont (1649– 1723), the commander-in-chief of the army of the Spanish Netherlands, when asked by William for his opinion of the British generals. ‘Kirke’, he replied, ‘has fire, Lanier thought, Mackay skill and Colchester bravery; but there is something inexpressible in the Earl of Marlborough.’45 Cynics might suggest five possible reasons for these observations: Vaudémont knew none of them very well; he was trying to please William; was being sarcastic; perhaps Kirke had conducted himself very well before Beaumont and Leuze and looked a man with a bright future; or, most probably, the remarks were apocryphal. Waldeck’s army went into camp at Ninove on 18 September where it remained for a month. During that time Kirke contracted typhus, or camp fever, and was carried to Brussels for medical treatment. He endured great pain and distress, ‘so that the worms rose up out of the body of this wicked man, and while he lived in sorrow and pain, his flesh fell away, and the filthiness of his smell was noisome to all his army’.46 Dispatches from Brussels, dated 21 October, reported that, ‘on Sunday last [Thursday 15 October] died Lieutenant General Kirke, who had lain ill for some time; his body is carried to Breda’. The corpse was returned to England and supposedly interred in Westminster Abbey, although there is no record of this burial in the registers.47 Most bloody persecutors have died this death … as smitten of God in their secret parts. Thus died Herod the Great, who murdered the infants; thus died Galerius Maximianus, the author of the tenth and great persecution; and thus died Philip II, king of Spain. And let me add what I was told by an officer of great veracity thus died General Kirk, who had most barbarously put to death so many people in the West; who, though they did indeed rebel against their sovereign, yet very many of them, as the two hundred men which followed Absalom, went and knew nothing, and should not have been used after so barbarous a manner.48

After living daily with Lieutenant General Percy Kirke for over five years, it is hard not to sympathize with Bishop Wilson’s ex post facto judgement, founded though it was as much on Whig propaganda as fact. On 20 January 1692, 64 horses, a coach, one calash and other effects belonging to Kirke were returned to England. Captain George Kirke (d. 1704),49 (Royal Horse Guards) organized the transport and met the costs.50 Kirke’s most prized possession,

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his infantry battalion, passed to Colonel William Selwyn (1655–1702),51 a client of Marlborough.52 In common with most senior army officers, he left his financial affairs in disarray. According to Lord Ranelagh, the paymaster-general of the army, at the time of his death Kirke owed £1,000 to his regiment. He had recently received £1,965 from which to issue pay but this money had not been distributed leaving his officers to remunerate the men from their own pockets. They were eventually reimbursed from the Treasury.53 Kirke’s widow, Mary, who had been in receipt of her husband’s salary and emoluments as housekeeper of Whitehall Palace since 1689 during his absence in Ireland and Flanders, received £250 from the Secret Service Money on 18 January 1692, a gift of £325 in September 1692 and a further present of £50 from the exchequer in 1693.54 She lived comfortably in Young Street, off Kensington Square, a fashionable district laid out in 1685. By 1693, she had moved to No. 9, Kensington Square, and was still resident in 1697.55 In recognition of her late husband’s services, the rent was paid by the Treasury.56 Mary leased the house near the Old Bowling Green to King William for £100 p.a.57 She also retained the tenancy on Kirke House which her heirs eventually sold to Erasmus Lewis in 1723. Mary died in 1707 and was buried in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, on 28 February. Her surname was still given as Kirke so it must be assumed that she did not remarry.58 Very little is known about Kirke’s children. A daughter, Diana, was christened at St Margaret’s, Westminster, on 21 August 1679. She married John Dormer of Rousham in Oxfordshire (d. 1719) by whom she had one child, also named Diana (1712–43).59 There is mention of a second daughter, Mary, in a list of civilian personnel returning from Tangier in 1684 but no further details have been discovered.60 The other, known surviving child was his son, Percy (1683–1741). It has been assumed that he benefited hugely from his father’s eminence in the army and was entered on the books of Charles Trelawney’s Foot (Duchess of York’s) as an ensign at the age of one but this is questionable. There seems to have been some confusion with a second Percy Kirke, probably a cousin, who was granted a field commission as ensign in Captain Charles Fox’s company in Trelawney’s battalion at Tangier early in December 1681, three years before Kirke’s son was born, an appointment confirmed in Westminster early in the following year. On 1 December 1688, this Percy Kirke was promoted to lieutenant.61 Early in 1689, Kirke’s son Percy, now about five or six years of age, was first gazetted as a company captain in his father’s battalion although he was noted as absent ‘sick’ by the inspectors at Dundalk Camp on 18 October 1689. After his father’s death, young Percy inherited the family fiefdom of housekeeper of Whitehall Palace.62 Although obviously living at home with his mother, he continued to be listed as a captain in his father’s old regiment, now Selwyn’s, throughout the Nine Years’ War.63 This battalion survived the general demobilization following the Peace of Rijswijk in 1697. At the age of 19, Kirke became an active, serving captain in his father’s old battalion (now Colonel Sir Henry Bellasise’s) and participated in the Vigo expedition in 1702. On 23 July 1707, he was promoted lieutenant colonel of the same regiment (Colonel David Colyear, 1st Earl of Portmore (c. 1657–1730)), which he commanded in Spain and Portugal during the colonel’s detachment as a general officer. At Lerida, on 7 June 1707, he was awarded a brevet as colonel of foot but was wounded and taken prisoner

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during the Battle of Almanza. In 1710 he purchased the colonelcy from Portmore and led the battalion on Major General John ‘Jack’ Hill’s (d. 1735) Quebec expedition in 1711. He was eventually promoted to lieutenant general in 1739 and died, unmarried, in 1741.64 He was buried in Westminster Abbey and his niece, Diana Dormer, raised an elaborate monument. The work of Flemish specialist in monumental sculpture, Peter Scheemakers (1691–1781), it comprised a bust in armour between two winged putti and various military trophies. The inscription reads: Near this place lies interred the body of the Honourable Percy Kirk Esquire, Lieutenant General of His Majesty’s armies, who died 1 January 1741, aged 57. He was son to the Honourable Percy Kirk Esquire, Lieutenant General in the reign of King James II, by the Lady Mary, daughter to George Howard, Earl of Suffolk. In the same grave lies the body of Diana Dormer, daughter to John Dormer of Rousham in Oxfordshire Esquire, by Diana, sister to the first mentioned Lieutenant General Kirk, who, being left sole heiress by her uncle, ordered this monument to be erected to his memory. Death snatching her away before she could see her grateful intentions executed, she died 22 February, aged 32.

Sir John Lanier was mortally wounded at the Battle of Steenkirk on 3 August 1692.

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Notes Chapter One   1 Two secondary sources claim that George Kirke was MP for Clitheroe, Lancashire, in the 1626 Parliament but this is incorrect. William Kirke, from a prominent Lancashire family, was elected alongside Sir Ralph Assheton, 1st Bt of Great Leaver, Whalley, Malham (1579–1644) (Browne Willis, Notitia Parliamentaria, pp. 232, 245).   2 Page (ed.), History of the County of York North Riding, vol. 2, pp. 182–7, 196–202.   3 The second portrait dated from 1637 or 1638 to mark her appointment as the Queen’s dresser and was later engraved by Isaac Becket (1653–1719). See HMC, 15th Report, Somerset, Ailesbury and Puleston MSS., Appendix, Part 7, p. 183.   4 This was relatively unusual. ‘Shooting the bridge’ was so dangerous that most people travelling by water disembarked and re-embarked above and below the bridge. Only during ‘slack water’ immediately following high or low tide was it relatively safe for a boat to risk passing through the arches (Pepys, Diary, vol. 10, p. 235; Pierce, Old London Bridge, pp. 180–1).   5 Duchess of York from 1673 on her marriage to James, Duke of York, and Queen of England, 1685–8.  6 Poems by Mrs. Anne Killigrew, p. 77.   7 The Board of Green Cloth supervised the financial management and travel arrangements of the royal household.  8 Lindley, Fenland Riots and the English Revolution, pp. 46–7, 54, 89, 224–5; Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers, vol. 1, p. 184.  9 Gregg, King Charles I, pp. 225–6. 10 I.e., ‘assayer’, one who tests. 11 CTB, 1676–9, pp. 612–13. There were over 1,500 rooms within the complex of Whitehall Palace. Gater and Wheeler (eds), Survey of London: Volume 16: St. Martinin-the-Fields I: Charing Cross, pp. 71–81. 12 See Parry, Golden Age Restor’d; Bright (ed.), Poems from Sir Kenhelm Digby’s Papers, pp. 17–20. 13 Ludlow, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 198. 14 Gater and Wheeler (eds), Survey of London: Volume 16, St. Martin-in-the-Fields I: Charing Cross, pp. 82–6; Sheppard (ed.), Survey of London: Volume 36, Covent Garden, pp. 263–5. 15 Aylmer, King’s Servants, pp. 142, 317, 347; HMC, 6th Report, Appendix, p. 540a. 16 Page (ed.), History of the County of York North Riding, pp. 182–7. 17 Keeper of the Royal Aviary. 18 The short account of the life of George Kirke is heavily indebted to Philip Lewin, ‘Kirke, George’, ODNB. 19 In effect this was a crown dowry: later, Charles II regularized the payment of royal dowries, each worth £2,000, to all the queen’s maids of honour who left office to enter advantageous marriages. See Harris, A Passion for Government, p. 16; Harris, Transformations of Love, pp. 106–12.

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190 Notes 20 Anne’s grandfather, Paul, 1st Viscount Bayning (1588–1629), left £153,000 in money plus extensive landed estates in Suffolk and Essex (Ian W. Archer, ‘Bayning, Paul’, ODNB). 21 See Pepys, Diary, vol. 3, p. 86; vol. 4, p. 136; vol. 5, p. 166. 22 Davenport and Oxford performed a ‘mock marriage’ in either 1662 or 1663 but the poor girl harboured the illusion ever after that the union was legal. Mock marriages between the pampered and bored young men and women in the Restoration court were quite popular during the 1660s. See V. E. Chancellor, ‘Davenport, Hester’, ODNB; D’Aulnoy, Memoirs, pp. 428–32. 23 Hamilton, Memoirs of the Court of Charles II by Count Grammont, p. 358; Hatton, George I, p. 390; Jonathan Spain, ‘Beauclerk, Charles’, ODNB; Chester (ed.), Marriage, Baptismal and Burial Registers of the Collegiate Church or Abbey of St. Peter, Westminster, p. 295. 24 Sackville, Poems on Several Occasions, pp. 21–39. Mary Kirke’s portrait, in a mildly provocative pose, was painted by Sir Peter Lely between about 1680 and 1684. A mezzotint is in the possession of the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG D39235). 25 Harris, Transformations of Love, p. 220. Monmouth’s mother was the Welsh prostitute, Lucy Walter (c. 1630–58). 26 Mulgrave, whose arrogance had earned him the nickname ‘Haughty’, boasted that he was ‘the terror of husbands’. In 1682 he even made a pass at Princess, later Queen, Anne (1665–1714), for which indiscretion he suffered a short banishment in Tangier (Somerset, Queen Anne, pp. 37–8; Gregg, Queen Anne, pp. 27–8). ‘The Duke of Monmouth, being jealous of Lord Mulgrave’s courting his newest mistress, Moll Kirke, watched his coming late thence four or five nights ago and made the guards keep him among them all night’ (HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 27). 27 Godfrey, a comrade of Kirke in the Royal English Regiment in France until 1674, was cashiered from the 1st Foot Guards in 1681 because of his Exclusionist and pro-Monmouth leanings. He was a seasoned duellist and later acted as principal second in the many affairs of honour fought by his great friend Thomas, Earl Wharton (1648–1715) (HPT, vol. 2, pp. 402–3; Childs, The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution, p. 155; Carswell, Old Cause, pp. 44–8; Bulstrode, Collection of Autograph Letters and Historical Papers formed by Alfred Morrison, vol. 7, pp. 304–5; Jones, Middleton, pp. 28–9). 28 Wilson, Court Satires of the Restoration, pp. 257–8; Wilson, Court Wits of the Restoration, p. 26; HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 27; G. E. C., Complete Baronetage, 1649–1664, p. 93; Sheffield, Works of John Sheffield, vol. 2, pp. 33–4, 326; Savile Correspondence, pp. 39, 57. For gossip concerning Mary Kirke’s conduct see D’Aulnoy, Memoirs, pp. 66–293. 29 Monmouth took the rank of colonel-in-chief and directed the regiment in France until 1674, when he was replaced in the field by his lieutenant colonel, Robert Scott, a relative of his wife, Anna Scott, Duchess of Monmouth (1651–1732). When Scott’s ill health obliged him to return to England in November 1676, he was succeeded by Justin Macarty or MacCarthy, 1st Viscount Mountcashel from 1689 (c. 1643–94). 30 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 153; Herbert, ‘Captain Henry Herbert’s Narrative’, pp. 296, 359–60; CSPD, 1673–5, p. 209. 31 Sackville, ‘A faithful Catalogue’, in Poems on Several Occasions, p. 34. 32 Sir Roger Martin, ‘Advice, or a heroic Epistle to Mr. Fr[ancis] Villiers, to an excellent Tune called a Health to Betty’, BL Harleian MSS. 7319, p. 278.

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33 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 201, 304, 315, 331; vol. 2, pp. 25, 91; CSPD, 1673–5, p. 400; CSPD, 1675–6, pp. 151, 192; CSPD, 1678, p. 492; CSPD, 1683, p. 27; CSPD, 1684–5, p. 247; CSPD, 1685, p. 349; CSPD, 1690–1, p. 25.

Chapter Two   1 See Childs, Armies and Warfare in Europe, 1648–1789; Childs, Warfare in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 86–109; Carsten, Princes and Parliaments in Germany; P. H. Wilson, German Armies; Störkel, ‘The Defenders of Mayence in 1792’; Nimwegen, Dutch Army, p. 323. See Hartmann, The King my Brother, p. 131.   2 12 CII c. 15 (Raithby (ed.), Statutes of the Realm, vol. 5, pp. 238–41).  3 Hamilton, Grenadier Guards, vol. 1, pp. 41–3; Rogers, Fifth Monarchy Men, pp. 78–95.   4 Firth and Davies, Regimental History of Cromwell’s Army, pp. 52–7.  5 Ogilby, Entertainment of Charles II; Evelyn, Diary, 23 April 1661.   6 12 CII c. 15 (Raithby (ed.), Statutes of the Realm, vol. 5, pp. 238–41); Lee, ‘Government and Politics in Scotland, 1661–1681’, pp. 37–8, 155; Fissel, Bishops’ Wars, pp. 15, 22, 37.   7 On the Restoration armies in general see Childs, Army of Charles II; Walton, History of the British Standing Army, 1660–1700; Manning, Apprenticeship in Arms, pp. 264 passim; Beckett, ‘The Irish Forces, 1660–1685’, pp. 41–53; Miller, Swords for Hire, pp. 210–11; Firth and Davies, Regimental History of Cromwell’s Army, pp. 625–70; Dalton, Irish Army, pp. xii–xiii, 53; Dalton, Scots Army, part 1, pp. 1–87.   8 This regiment, later Prince George of Denmark’s, was commanded by Colonel Sir Charles Littleton (c. 1629–1716). It was disbanded on 28 February 1689.  9 Miller, Swords for Hire, pp. 207–11. 10 See Rogers, Dutch in the Medway. 11 In 1665, 65 per cent of the regular officers had either fought for Charles I or accompanied Charles II into exile; 25 per cent were career professionals who had returned from the Anglo-Dutch Brigade and other overseas employments; and ten per cent had a republican background. 12 Miller, Popery and Politics, p. 11; Miller, ‘Catholic Officers in the later Stuart Army’, pp. 35–53. In 1676, Seth Ward (1617–89), Bishop of Salisbury, conducted a survey of his flock. Out of 108,294 inhabitants, 103,671 were ‘conformists’, 3,000 non-conformist, 1,075 ‘separatist’ and 548 Roman Catholic (HMC, Duke of Leeds MSS., p. 18). Thus, in this rural diocese, only 0.6 per cent of the population was Roman Catholic. The ratio was appreciably higher in some urban areas, especially London. 13 Bruce, Purchase, pp. 6–19. 14 Hon. Philip Darcy (1661–94), second son of Conyers Darcy, 2nd Earl of Holderness (1622–92), and his second wife, Lady Frances Howard (c. 1627–70). 15 Bruce, Purchase, p. 15. Charles was anxious to deprive Russell, a convinced Whig, of the command of a key infantry regiment. 16 Walton, History of the British Standing Army, p. 455. 17 Defoe, Great Law of Subordination Consider’d, pp. 9–11. 18 There were several artistic soldiers in Charles II’s army. John Tidcomb (1642–1713) was a literary dilettante and later member of the Kit-Cat Club. John Cutts, 1st Baron of Gowran (c. 1660–1707), published three volumes of poetical works (see

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192 Notes Bibliography). Lord Mulgrave was a critic, memoirist and dramatist while Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon (1637–85), was a poet, author, translator, mercenary and captain of the Band of Gentleman Pensioners, 1676–7. Kirke resembled his colleague, comrade and lifelong friend, John Lanier (d. 1692), who, despite being a nephew of Nicholas Lanier (1588–1666), the great connoisseur and master of the music to Charles I, similarly demonstrated a complete absence of aesthetic inclinations (Wilson, Nicholas Lanier, p. 236). 19 CSPD, 1665–6, p. 153. 20 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 70; CSPD, 1665–6, p. 522. Most young officers received their first commissions as teenagers or, in some instances, while still very young children. 21 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 42, 47, 69, 98; Newman, Royalist Officers in England and Wales, p. 423; HPT, vol. 1, pp. 764–5. The Killigrews of Woolston, Cornwall, and Wrays of Trebeigh became related by marriage in the 1590s (Worthy, Devonshire Wills, pp. 392–3). 22 The other new company was commanded by Captain Hercules Lowe (d. 1677). 23 Probably a son of Sir Thomas Sandys, lieutenant in the King’s Troop of the Life Guard, 1661–8. 24 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 45, 112. Although infantry ensigns and cavalry cornets were equivalent as the most junior commissioned ranks, the latter arm was senior to and more prestigious than the former. Kirke thus achieved de facto promotion. 25 Childs, The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution, p. 39. 26 ‘as things currently stand’. 27 A civil war royalist veteran, Littleton had been promoted from cornet to lieutenant of Lord Frescheville’s troop in the Royal Horse Guards on 27 September 1665 to replace Sir Thomas Carnaby who had been stabbed to death ‘by one Harland’ while in York on 20 September 1665 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 4, 55, 155). 28 National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, Herbert MSS. HM2. 14/7a, ‘The Journal of Henry Herbert, 1672’, p. 83. 29 See Childs, ‘The British Brigade in France’; Atkinson, ‘Charles II’s Regiments in France’; Glozier, Scottish Soldiers in France; Jennings, Wild Geese in Spanish Flanders; Henry, Irish Military Community in Spanish Flanders; Childs, ‘The Scottish Brigade’, pp. 59–62. 30 Hutton, Charles II, pp. 263–6, 270–1, 446–58; Browning (ed.), English Historical Documents, 1660–1714, pp. 863–7. The treaty called for six regiments, each of ten, 100-man companies. The commanding officer was to carry the rank of general in the French army. A codicil to the treaty allowed Charles to send just 4,000 soldiers to France if he was unable to produce the full quota of 6,000 (Hartmann, The King my Brother, p. 316). 31 Jones had been major of John Humphrey’s foot regiment in the New Model, which participated in Cromwell’s ‘Western Design’ during 1655 and 1656 fighting in Barbados and Jamaica, before appointment to the brigade commanded by Sir William Lockhart that campaigned alongside the French army in Flanders from 1657 to 1659. Jones so distinguished himself at the Siege of Dunkirk and the Battle of the Dunes in 1658 that he was created a knight bachelor by Cromwell. At the Restoration he secured the lieutenancy of the troop of Captain Francis, 1st Baron Hawley of Duncannon (1608–84), in the Royal Horse Guards. Jones had risen to captain by 1665 but left England two years later to take a commission as the lieutenant of the Gens d’Armes Anglais in the French army, the first indication that he had converted to Roman Catholicism. Jones bought the Gens d’Armes from its founder, Sir George Hamilton (d. 1676), in 1671 before its expansion into the light horse regiment. Jones

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retained his troop in the Royal Horse Guards throughout. He was killed by a musket ball to the throat while attending Monmouth at the siege of Maastricht in 1673. 32 ‘Captain Henry Herbert’s Narrative’, pp. 317, 325, 329. 33 On the Franco-Dutch War, see Rousset, Histoire de Louvois, vol. 1; Corvisier, Louvois; Ekberg, Failure of Louis XIV’s Dutch War; Sypestein and Bordes, De Verdediging van Nederland in 1672 en 1673; Trevelyan, William the Third and the Defence of Holland; Ten Raa and De Bas (eds), Het Staatsche Leger, vol. 5; Fruin, De Oorlog van 1672; Baxter, William III, pp. 57–159; Robert, Les Campagnes de Turenne en Allemagne. On Scandinavian aspects, see Oakley, War and Peace in the Baltic, 1560–1790, pp. 97–100; Frost, Northern Wars, pp. 192–225. 34 The Duchy of Lorraine had been invaded and occupied by France in 1670. 35 Spielman, Leopold I, pp. 58–9; McKay, Great Elector, pp. 210–14. 36 Glozier, Scottish Soldiers, p. 138. 37 Lynn, Wars of Louis XIV, pp. 117–18; McKay, Great Elector, pp. 206–15; Frost, Northern Wars, pp. 208–11. The Swedish invasion of Brandenburg-Prussia was delayed until 1675 enabling the Great Elector to re-join his Imperial allies during the 1674 campaigning season. 38 The party included Colonel Sir Henry Jones and Captain Edmund Mayne (1633– 1711) of the Light Horse; Lieutenant Percy Kirke, Captain Charles Godfrey and Captain John Churchill from the Royal English; the Duke of Monmouth and his omnipresent henchman, Lieutenant Colonel Sir Thomas Armstrong (c. 1633–84) of the King’s Troop of Life Guards; and William, 3rd Baron Alington of Killard, County Cork (c. 1634–85), ‘a young silly lord’ according to Pepys, but a man of some ambition who had acquired useful martial experience during the recent AustroTurkish War, 1663–4, and the siege of Candia. Alington, colonel of wartime infantry battalions in 1667 and 1678, was created major general on 1 May 1678 but his rank lapsed at the disbandment in 1679 (‘Captain Henry Herbert’s Narrative’, p. 367; SP 78/137, ff. 113 passim; SP 77/42, ff. 150, 179, 204, 214; London Gazette, nos. 792, 793; Pepys, Diary, vol. 8, p. 117; Hartmann, The King my Brother, p. 262; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 80, 212, 235). 39 A ‘siege in form’ had evolved into a well-established but deadly ritual. Like the popular court masques, it followed a familiar script and sequence of acts, a politicomilitary drama played on an alfresco stage: everyone knew the likely course of events, timetable and denouement. It was said that the great Vauban could predict, almost to the day, how long a siege would last. It was a huge advertisement of a monarch’s power and warning of what might happen to those who failed to take heed. Kings, queens, courts and governments attended as spectators – Louis, his ladies and ministers, watched the sieges of Lille in 1667, Maastricht in 1673 and Besançon in 1674, full ceremonial being observed in the tented city – whereas they were not present at battles, unless by accident. Young gentlemen on a Grand Tour looked to widen their horizons by witnessing such an event. 40 See Woodbridge, ‘Two Foster Brothers of D’Artagnan’. Montbrun died in action at the Battle of Marsaglia in 1693 (Bosc, Military History of the late Prince Eugene of Savoy and of the late John, Duke of Marlborough, vol. 2, pp. 2, 25). 41 Bullet wounds to the head and neck were common among troops moving uphill. Also, because both defenders and attackers fought from trenches and breastworks, a high proportion of all wounds inflicted during sieges were to the upper-body. 42 Churchill, Marlborough, vol. 1, pp. 95–8; D’Oyley, Monmouth, pp. 87–9; Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, vol. 1, pp. 120–4; Narrative of the Siege and Surrender of

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194 Notes Maestricht, pp. 8–11; Maurier, Lives of all the Princes of Orange, pp. 235–7; Sheffield, Works, vol. 2, pp. 23–4, 31–2; Perwich, Despatches, pp. 252–3. The Brussels Bastion was subsequently renamed ‘Monmouth Bastion’ to mark this achievement (Carr, Particular Account of the Present Siege of Maastricht, p. 3). 43 Narrative of the Siege and Surrender of Maestricht, pp. 1–12; Evelyn, Diary, vol. 4, 21 August 1674. 44 The effective commander was Lieutenant Colonel John Lanier, who had been a captain in Jones’s Light Horse from 1672–4. He was knighted by Charles II in 1678. 45 Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, vol. 1, p. 136; Churchill, Marlborough, vol. 1, pp. 107–9; Coxe, Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough, vol. 1, p. 5. 46 Entzheim – variously spelled Entsheim, Ensheim or Enzheim – was also known as the Battle of Waldheim or Molsheim. It is now the site of Strasbourg international airport. 47 Douglas’s Scottish regiment was not present at Entzheim. Douglas attended in his capacity as a brigadier-general of Turenne’s army. 48 Morning mist or fog frequently featured in many major battles because most were fought on low-lying ground, close to waterways, in autumn as campaigns reached their denouements. 49 CSPD, 1673–5, no. 3093; Atkinson, ‘Feversham’s Account of the Battle of Entzheim – 1674’; Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, vol. 1, pp. 134–43; SP 29/361, ff. 246–7; SP 44/41, p. 8; SP 78/139, ff. 123, 144; Legrand-Girarde, Turenne en Alsace, pp. 22 passim; Melville, Memoirs, pp. 205–10; Clark, Anthony Hamilton, pp. 52–4. See Rambaut and Vigne, Britain’s Huguenot War Leaders, pp. 1–12; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 176. 50 SP 78/139, ff. 145, 172. The Frenchman’s death was received in England with a surprising measure of regret, probably because of his Protestantism. See The FrenchMan’s Lamentation; A Description of the Funeral Solemnities; A True Relation of the Successes & Advantages obtained by the most Christian King’s Army commanded by the Viscount de Turenne. 51 SP 78/139, ff. 72–90, 139; SP 78/140, ff. 1, 4, 112–55, 139, 142–4, 163; CSPD, 1675–6, pp. 299, 303, 310, 316; Savile Correspondence, p. 42; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 202–4; Childs, ‘The British Brigades in France, 1672–1678’, pp. 395–6; Lynn, Wars of Louis XIV, pp. 144–57. 52 HMC, 9th Report, vol. 2, pp. 389–90, 1 December 1677. 53 Lord George Douglas was created 1st Earl of Dumbarton on 9 March 1675 (M. R. Glozier, ‘Douglas, George’, ODNB). 54 CSPD, 1677–8, p. 593; CSPD, 1678, pp. 204–5. 55 HMC, Ormonde MSS., new series, vol. 7, p. 85. 56 WO 26/4, p. 188; CSPD, 1678, pp. 241, 291, 364, 390, 424, 643, 658; HMC, Ormonde MSS., old series, vol. 1, p. 25. 57 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 182, 204. Theophilus Oglethorpe (1650–1702), a client of Feversham, was commissioned major. Oglethorpe had joined the French army at the age of 18 in 1668; captain in Sir Henry Jones’s/Monmouth’s Light Horse, 1 February 1672–5; captain in the Royal English, 1675–8; major of Feversham’s Dragoons in England, 1678; lieutenant in the 3rd Troop of the Life Guard, 1678; major, 1679; lieutenant colonel, 1680; colonel of the Holland infantry battalion, 1685; brigadier-general, 1688; resigned his commissions after the Glorious Revolution, 1688, and became a minor Jacobite plotter, 1689–98. Took the oaths of allegiance to William III in 1698. A rake and thug, he belied his Christian name (Childs, Nobles, Gentlemen, p. 69; John Childs, ‘Oglethorpe, Sir Theophilus’, ODNB).

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Chapter Three   1 Charles had been receiving subsidies from Louis XIV since 1674. The amounts were modest – no more than £1,200,000 were received over the entire reign – but provided some financial comfort and served as a reminder of his obligations (Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II, pp. 381, 438).  2 Burnet, History of his own Time, vol. 2, p. 123. A total of 41 MPs were army officers in 1678 (Childs, Army of Charles II, pp. 38–9).   3 Grenadiers made their debut in the French army in 1667 (Chartrand, Louis XIV’s Army, pp. 18–19; Gaya, Treatise of the Arms and Engines of War, p. 132). Grenadier units were specifically designed for siege warfare rather than battle.   4 Son, by his first wife, of Sir Roger Langley, 2nd Bt of Sheriff-Hutton (c. 1627–99), high sheriff of Yorkshire, 1663–4. Langley was a client of Monmouth. Ensign in the Royal English in France, 1672; captain by 1675; lieutenant colonel, 1676. Captain in the 1st Foot Guards in England, 1677; temporary lieutenant colonel of the 2nd battalion of Monmouth’s foot in England, 1678–9; dismissed from the Guards, 11 November 1681 (Childs, Nobles, Gentlemen, p. 49).  5 Weaver, Story of the Royal Scots, pp. 32–3.  6 Advice to a Soldier.   7 See Childs, Army of Charles II, pp. 184–95; Childs, ‘Monmouth and the Army in Flanders’, pp. 3–12; SP 44/52, pp. 63–75; BL Add. MSS. 10115, Sir Joseph Williamson’s State Papers, 1677–8, relative to the Preparations for the projected War with France, ff. 81–4.  8 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 261.  9 See HMC, 9th Report, Part 2, p. 235; Dalton, Scots Army, part 1, pp. 17–27; Sidgwick, ‘The Pentland Rising and the Battle of Rullion Green’, pp. 449–52; McLay, ‘The Restoration and the Glorious Revolution’, pp. 302–6. 10 The Cumberland militia did not assemble on a single occasion between 1676 and 1679 (Beckett, Amateur Military Tradition, p. 54). 11 PC 2/68, p. 104; Sidney, Diary, vol. 1, p. 5. 12 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 255, 261. 13 Horse grenadiers were copied from France where they had first appeared in the Maison du Roi in 1676. These three troops joined the regular establishment. 14 McLay, ‘The Restoration and the Glorious Revolution’, pp. 307–11; London Gazette, no. 1419; A further and more particular Account of the total Defeat of the Rebels in Scotland; An exact Relation of the Defeat of the Rebels at Bothwell Bridge; The great Victory obtained by his Majesty’s Army, under the Command of his Grace the Duke of Monmouth, against the Rebels in the West of Scotland; The full and true Account of all the Proceedings in Scotland since the Rebellion began; The last true and new Intelligence from Scotland; A true Account of the great Victory obtained over the Rebels in Scotland; Brownlee, Narrative of the Battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge; Aiton, History of the Rencounter at Drumclog and the Battle at Bothwell Bridge, pp. 51–75; Wilson et al., True and Impartial Relation of the Persecuted Presbyterians in Scotland; Thomson, Martyr Graves of Scotland, pp. 36–55. 15 Feversham’s Dragoons were disbanded, probably later in 1679 after Bothwell Bridge, and reformed on 19 November 1683 as the Royal Dragoons with John Churchill as colonel. On 4 May 1684 the regiment incorporated the three troops of the Tangier Horse (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 255, 301, 324–32; Atkinson, Royal Dragoons, pp. 1–35).

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196 Notes 16 News from Windsor. 17 England’s Lamentation for the Duke of Monmouth’s Departure; Dalton, Scots Army, part 1, p. 60. 18 Craven, a royalist cavalry commander during the first Civil War, was a member of the Privy Council and colonel of the Coldstream Guards. He was a political ally of Prince Rupert. 19 The members were: York (chairman); Monmouth, colonel of the Life Guards; Sir Philip Howard (d. 1686), captain of the Queen’s Troop of Life Guards; Feversham, captain of the Duke of York’s Troop of Life Guards; Oxford, colonel of the Royal Horse Guards; John Russell, colonel of the 1st Foot Guards; Craven, colonel of the Coldstream Guards; Sir Walter Vane (d. 1674), colonel of the Holland Regiment; and Sir Charles Littleton, colonel of the Lord Admiral’s Regiment. 20 Sir Henry Bennet (c. 1618–85), created 1st Baron Arlington in 1665 and 1st Earl of Arlington in 1672. 21 Glozier, Schomberg, pp. 73–86. 22 BL Add. MSS. 10115. 23 The Secretary at War was clerk to the commander-in-chief. Following Monck’s death in 1670, he became a senior clerk in the secretary of state’s office dealing with routine military administration. During Blathwayt’s tenure, the office became more independent but remained subordinate to the secretary of state. See Jacobsen, Blathwayt; Preston, ‘William Blathwayt and the Evolution of a royal, personal Secretariat’. 24 Created 1st Baron Griffin of Braybrooke by James II on 3 December 1688. 25 Childs, ‘The army and the Oxford parliament of 1681’; CSPD, 1680–1, p. 679; CSPD, 1682, p. 7; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 223–90, 292–9; Webb, Lord Churchill’s Coup, pp. 51–78. 26 Charles lacked all confidence in his brother’s political abilities and had been heard to remark that when James came to the throne he would not last four years. This was remarkably prescient: James’s effective reign measured three years and ten months (Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 413). 27 North, Lives of the Norths, vol. 2, p. 207. 28 The Protestant Granard had been appointed in 1680 in succession to the Earl of Ossory. Dalton, Irish Army, p. 135; Kenyon, Sunderland, pp. 100–4; Childs, The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 60–1. 29 Between 1682 and 1685, Feversham acted as York’s military patronage agent.

Chapter Four   1 The three battalions from Dunkirk were commanded by Sir Robert Harley (1626–73) (1,000 men), Colonel Lewis Farrell (500 men) and Colonel John Fitzgerald (500 men) (Newman, Royalist Officers, p. 262; Firth and Davies, Regimental History of Cromwell’s Army, pp. 691–2; HMC, Portland MSS., vol. 3, pp. 224–50).   2 See Cholmley, Memoirs; Cholmley, Short Account of the Progress of the Mole at Tangier; Skempton, Biographical Dictionary of the Civil Engineers, vol. 1, pp. 133–4. Between 1673 and 1676, the building of the mole at Tangier cost £243,897 5s 4½d (Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 58, part 2, p. 619).

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  3 The Canal du Midi was not opened until 1681. However, it was far too narrow and shallow to permit the passage of large warships.   4 See Saunders, Fortress Builder, pp. 86–93.   5 On the history of Tangier under English occupation see Routh, Tangier; Childs, Army of Charles II, pp. 115–51; Le Fevre, ‘Tangier, the Navy and its Connection with the Glorious Revolution of 1688’; Hornstein, Restoration Navy and English Foreign Trade, 1674–1688.  6 Addison, Discourse of Tangier; Brief Relation of the present State of Tangier.  7 Exact Journal of the Siege of Tangier.   8 Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland (1641–1702), principal secretary of state for the south.   9 These four companies had recently returned from France where they had been part of the Royal English Regiment. They were commanded by Captains George Wingfield (d. 1693), Thomas Barber (sometimes Barbour), William Mathews and Charles Wingfield (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 255). 10 The convoy comprised HMS Swan (5th rate, 32 guns), Old James (2nd rate, 60 guns) and Garland (5th rate, 30 guns). Warships were ‘rated’ according to the number of guns carried. 1st rate, 80–90 guns; 2nd rate, 60–79 guns; 3rd rate, 54–64 guns; 4th rate, 43–53 guns; 5th rate, 20–42 guns; 6th rate, 4–19 guns. 11 James Halkett, of the Pitfarran family, Fifeshire, had earlier fought in Tangier as a young cornet in Captain John Fitzgerald’s troop of horse under the governorship of the Earl of Teviot, 1663–4. By 1666 he had returned to Scotland and was commissioned cornet in General Thomas Dalyell’s troop in Lieutenant General William Drummond’s newly raised regiment of horse, August 1666. He resigned this commission in March 1667 and entered the Earl of Dumbarton’s regiment of foot in the French army, where he served for 12 years rising to captain and, by 1679, major. When Dumbarton’s left France it was quartered first in East Anglia before transfer to Ireland in April 1679. Halkett was a brave and valiant leader, well respected by his men. He was knighted in 1681 following his return from Tangier and awarded a pension of £150 p.a. on the Scottish establishment. At the time of his death in October 1684, Halkett was lieutenant colonel of the Royal Scots. His widow was granted an annual pension of £100 in 1684 (Dalton, Scots Army, part 2, pp. 49n. 82; Dalton, Irish Army, pp. 127–8; Halkett, Diary, pp. 3–4; Glozier, Scottish Soldiers, pp. 181–91). 12 Glozier, Scottish Soldiers, pp. 181–2; Bod. Lib. MSS. Carte 256, ff. 257–8, 12 April 1680. The Royal Scots’ four Protestant companies remained in Ireland. 13 MSS. Carte 146, ff. 276–80, 283–5; MSS. Carte 39, ff. 144, 307. 14 Inter alia, The present Interest of Tangier; The Moores baffled being a Discourse concerning Tanger; Devonshire Ballad to the Tune of 1642; An exact Journal of the Siege of Tangier; A faithful Relation of the most remarkable Transactions which have happened at Tangier; Great and bloody News from Tangier; Londons Joy and Tryumph; A particular Narrative of a great Engagement between the Garrison of Tangier, and the Moors; A particular Relation of the late Success of his Majesties Forces at Tangier against the Moors; A true Relation of a great and bloody Fight between the English and the Moors before Tangiere; A short Account of the Progress of the Mole at Tangier; The present Danger of Tangier; His Majesties Message to the Commons in Parliament, relating to Tangier; A Letter from Tangier concerning the Death of Jonas Rowland, the Renegade, and other strange Occurrences since the Embassadors Arival here; The present State of Tangier in a Letter to His Grace, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland; with

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198 Notes the present State of Algiers; A full and true Relation, of the fortunate Victory gained over the Moors by the Garrison of Tangier, upon the 27. of October, 1680; The last Account from Fez; Tangers Rescue; A Discourse touching Tanger in a Letter to a Person of Quality; A Discourse touching Tanger on these Heads; The last Account from Fez. Poets also glorified Tangier. See Beach, ‘Restoration Poetry and the Failure of English Tangier’. 15 The ‘King’s Battalion’ comprised two companies (240 men) from the 1st Foot (Grenadier) Guards led by Sackville and Captain George Bowes; one company (120 men) from the 2nd Foot (Coldstream) Guards under Captain Thomas Talmash (c. 1651–94), who was major of the battalion; 120 men from the Duke of York’s regiment of foot under Captain James Fortrey (d. 1719, later Groom of the Bedchamber to James II); and 120 men from the Earl of Mulgrave’s (the Holland) regiment of foot under Captain Philip Kirke, Percy’s younger brother. 16 Sackville, a captain in the 1st Foot Guards and another veteran from France in the 1670s, was a political refugee from the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis. MP for East Grinstead, he had been dismissed from the House of Commons on 25 March 1679 for publicly questioning both the character of Titus Oates and the veracity of his evidence. Sackville, who converted to Roman Catholicism in 1685, owed his appointment to York’s patronage. He resigned his commission in December 1688 and became a steadfast Jacobite (HPT, vol. 3, pp. 377–8). 17 MSS. Carte 222, f. 226. Both Mulgrave and Lumley had returned to England by 27 July 1680. 18 Letter Book, ff. 7–11, 18–22. 19 As deputy governor, Fairborne was lieutenant colonel of the 1st Tangier Regiment. This regiment became Kirke’s; Queen’s Dowager’s Foot; ultimately 2nd Foot. 20 A particular Relation of the late Success of His Majesty’s Forces at Tangier against the Moors, p. 4; A particular Narrative of a great Engagement between the Garrison of Tangier, and the Moors. 21 Fairborne was appointed governor of Tangier on 10 November 1680, 14 days after his death (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 277–8). 22 Halkett (Hacket), A full and true Relation of the fortunate Victory gained over the Moors by the Garrison of Tangier, pp. 1–4; Halkett, ‘Diary’, pp. 5–19. 23 Frederick Bacher or Beecher, Judge of the Court of Admiralty in Tangier (Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 18). 24 Ross, Tangers Rescu, or, a Relation of the late memorable Passages at Tanger, pp. 4–31; Halkett, ‘Diary’, pp. 20–2. 25 Kenyon, Sunderland, p. 53n. 26 James Lesley was reputedly a common trooper in the Tangier Horse prior to 1664; cornet in the Tangier Horse, 11 August 1664; captain in the Old (1st) Tangier Regiment, 15 December 1674; major of Old Tangier Regiment, 10 November 1680; knighted in 1680; ambassador to the court of Morocco, 1680–1; major of the Queen’s Foot (Old Tangier Regiment), 1684; lieutenant colonel of the Queen’s by November 1687; colonel of his own foot battalion (15th Foot), 31 December 1688. Served with Mackay in Scotland, 1689–91. Cashiered for his role in the surrender of Dixmuyde, 18 July 1695 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 42, 177, 278, 302, 320; vol. 2, pp. 25, 109, 132; vol. 3, p. 144; Hopkins, Glencoe, pp. 144–5, 318–19; Childs, Nine Years’ War, pp. 284–8). 27 Tangier was directly governed and administered by the Tangier Committee, a committee of the Privy Council, chaired initially by the Duke of York.

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28 Halkett, ‘Diary’, pp. 21–2; Letter Book, ff. 11–12. 29 Usually, Kirke employed a secretary but he had to write his own letters during this excursion. They reveal a man literate but uneducated, uneasy with grammar, syntax and spelling. 30 It is unclear who attended Kirke but his aide-de-camp, Francis Nicholson (1655– 1728), then a lieutenant in Kirke’s own battalion, was certainly present. See Webb, ‘Strange Career of Francis Nicholson’, pp. 513–19. 31 Routh, Tangier, p. 207; The last Account from Fez, pp. 1–4. 32 On slavery in Tangier, as practised by both the English garrison and Moroccans, see Aylmer, ‘Slavery under Charles II: the Mediterranean and Tangier’; Colley, Captives, pp. 23–41. Muslim slaves, belonging to both the king and private individuals, were essential to Tangier’s economy. Some were personal servants while others laboured on the mole, repaired buildings and fortifications, and worked as stevedores and porters in the harbour. See Letter Book, ff. 7–22, 33–4, 40–3, 110–14, 162–3, 172–6, 208–16, 221–2, 226–7, 231–2, 316–20. 33 The Venetian gold ducat, one of the principal media of exchange in the Mediterranean basin, was worth five Dutch guilders whereas one silver piece of eight, or dollar, could be exchanged for two Dutch guilders. Letter Book, ff. 98–103. 34 HMC, 10th Report, Appendix, Part 4, p. 175; Letter Book, ff. 141–4. 35 Kirke sold his commission in the Royal Horse Guards to Captain-Lieutenant Henry Corn(e)wall on 15 November 1682 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 299). 36 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 295, 302. 37 Letter Book, ff. 330–2. 38 Letter Book, ff. 271, 417, 424–5. 39 Letter Book, ff. 345, 380–1; Tomlinson, Guns and Government, p. 223. 40 Kirke dictated his official correspondence to a secretary who noted his words in shorthand before transcribing them in consistent spelling but Proustian syntax. Kirke then checked the drafts before copying and transmission. He often used the letter book as an archive. 41 Letter Book, ff. 50–2, 98–103. 42 CO 279/29, ff. 88–9, 23 Feb. 1682, Kirke’s Report to the Tangier Committee; Letter Book, ff. 118–22. 43 Letter Book, ff. 22–5, 30–1, 33–4, 56–60, 66–8, 69–71, 162–7. 44 While in England, Ohadu’s portrait was painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723) and Jan Wyck (c. 1640–1702). He sits on a rearing steed, dressed in flowing red and white robes. His black hair is relatively short beneath a white turban and the beard and moustache carefully and neatly trimmed. In his right hand he grasps a long lance. The picture is in the possession of English Heritage and hangs in Chiswick House, London. 45 Routh, Tangier, pp. 220–1; Franklin, Letter from Tangier, concerning the Death of Jonas Rowland, the Renegade, p. 1; Letter Book, ff. 77–81. 46 Captured 8 August 1681 by Captain William Booth RN (c. 1657–1703) in HMS Adventure (5th rate, 32 guns), with assistance from Captain John Benbow (1653– 1702) in HMS Nonsuch (4th rate, 42 guns). Booth was knighted on 12 November 1682 (J. D. Davies, ‘Booth, Sir William’, ODNB). 47 Letter Book, ff. 90–4, 15 December 1681. 48 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, p. 77, 5 October 1682. 49 A congratulatory Poem; A Letter sent by the Emperor of Morocco and King of Fez to His Majesty of Great Britain; A new Poem.

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200 Notes 50 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, p. 78. 51 Letter Book, ff. 411–12, 21, March 1683. Inaccurate translation bedevilled AngloMoorish relations. Kirke was never certain that his own letters and those he received were reliably rendered into and out of Arabic by translators who were usually merchants with a only working knowledge of colloquial Arabic (Letter Book, ff. 465–6, 488). 52 60,000 lbs. 53 Letter Book, ff. 342–3, 346–9, 357–8. 54 Letter Book, ff. 6–18. For medical provision at Tangier see Arni, Hospital Care and the British Standing Army, 1660–1714, pp. 9–31. 55 Letter Book, ff. 40–6, 47–9, 50–2, 53–60. 56 Routh, Tangier, pp. 198–219; Letter Book, ff. 62–6. 57 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, pp. 78–9. On 8 February 1683, York Castle and Peterborough Tower had been repaired at a cost of £621 (Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 91; Letter Book, ff. 305–8, 310–11). 58 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 91. 59 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, pp. 61–2, Kirke to George Legge, 18 May 1681; Letter Book, ff. 125–30. 60 Letter Book, ff. 5, 7–18. 61 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, pp. 64, 73–4, 79. 62 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 301. 63 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, pp. 78–9; Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 91; Letter Book, f. 309. 64 Letter Book, ff. 66–8, 86–7, 94–8, 125–30, 162–9, 228–31, 255–6, 299, 382. 65 Letter Book, ff. 254–7, 266–7. 66 Letter Book, ff. 2–4, 197–200, 256, 272–6, 277–8, 283, 434–5, 438–9. 67 Letter Book, ff. 206–8, 221–2, 318–19, 483. Unfortunately, Kirke’s dispatches include little more by way of personal information. 68 Letter Book, ff. 296–9; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 1, p. 261. 69 CO 279/26, f. 183. 70 CTB, vol. 7, pp. 1009–11. 71 The annual cost to the government of an 11-company battalion of infantry was c. £12,000. 72 Letter Book, ff. 195–7, 312–13, 451–3. It is possible that the decision to evacuate Tangier was taken in October/early November 1682. Kirke sold his captaincy in the Royal Horse Guards on 15 November 1682. He would not have done so, effectively selling himself out of the standing army, unless sure that his 1st Tangier Regiment was going to be entered on to the permanent establishment on return to England. 73 Luis de Vasconcelos e Sousa, 3rd Count of Castelo Melhor (1636–1720).

Chapter Five    1 The word, ‘ketch’, derived from ‘catch’ or fishing vessel. By the mid-seventeenth century, ketches were used extensively as coasters, especially in the coal trade. A merchant ketch ranged between 40 and 80 feet in length and carried a triangular headsail, a square-rigged main mast mounting mainsail and topsail and a lateen sail on the mizzen mast. The crew numbered, typically, 24 men. Naval ketches were similarly rigged, often with a main topgallant added above the main topsail, but

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larger, up to 120 feet long (Dear and Kemp (eds), Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, p. 302).   2 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, pp. 83–5; Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 3–4, 58–67.   3 Arni, Hospital Care, pp. 22, 27.   4 Pepys, Letters and the Second Diary, pp. 151–2, Pepys to John Evelyn, 7 August 1683, Portsmouth. Beckman was appointed chief engineer of the Ordnance Office in 1685 and knighted in 1686 (Piers Wauchope, ‘Beckman, Martin’, ODNB).    5 Tangier was a crown colony, thus all buildings and land belonged to the king. Compensation was only paid to people who lost personal property and business assets.   6 HMS Grafton (3rd rate, 70 guns, Flag Captain Sir William Booth); Henrietta (3rd rate, 62 guns, Vice Admiral Sir John Berry, second-in-command); Montagu (3rd rate, 52 guns, Captain Henry Killigrew (1652–1712)), a distant kinsman of Kirke by marriage); Oxford (4th rate, 54 guns, Captain Charles Wilde); Woolwich (4th rate, 54 guns, Captain Thomas Fowler); Mary Rose (4th rate, 40 guns, Captain John Ashby); St David (4th rate, 54 guns, Captain George Rooke (c. 1650–1709)); Bonaventure (4th rate, 42 guns, Captain Henry Priestman); and Greyhound (6th rate, 16 guns, Captain Randall MacDonell).    7 ‘Extracts from the Captain’s Log of HMS Grafton’, in Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 269–72.    8 Thomas Phillips was an ensign in a Portsmouth garrison company where Dartmouth had been governor until succeeded in 1682 by Edward Noel, 1st Earl of Gainsborough (1641–89).    9 Samuel Pepys, ‘A Journal towards Tangier begun Monday 30 July, 1683’, in Pepys’s Later Diaries, p. 131.  10 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 67–71, 28 August 1683.  11 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 104.   12 Pepys always referred to Kirke as ‘governor’ throughout the ‘Journal towards Tangier’ and the Tangier Papers.   13 Pepys, ’Journal towards Tangier’, p. 132.   14 Pepys, ‘Journal towards Tangier’, p. 136.   15 Pepys, ‘Journal towards Tangier’, p. 143.   16 ‘Journal towards Tangier’, pp. 140–1; ‘Log of HMS Grafton’, p. 273; HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, pp. 51–2. The parade was the subject of a painting by Dirck Stoop (c. 1610–86), a Dutch painter from Utrecht patronized by Queen Catherine of Braganza, which now hangs in the National Army Museum, Chelsea. It is, however, very inaccurate and Stoop took considerable artistic licence in depicting Tangier’s topography. Clearly he had never visited the town. The author is grateful to Lieutenant General Jonathon Riley for providing a digital copy of this painting.   17 Pepys, ‘Journal towards Tangier’, p. 141.  18 Bryant, Samuel Pepys: the Saviour of the Navy, pp. 14–15n.   19 Pepys, ‘Journal towards Tangier’, p. 157. These notes are to be found in Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 89–104.   20 See, Pepys, Diary.   21 Elizabeth Pepys, née de St Michel (1640–69), had died on 10 November 1669.   22 See, Evelyn, Diary; Pepys, Particular Friends.  23 The Sun, no. 1230, 3 September 1796; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 1, p. 354.   24 Pepys, ‘Journal towards Tangier’, p. 131.   25 Mrs Mary Kirke was permitted to use the title ‘Lady’ from 7 January 1689 when her father succeeded his brother James Howard, 3rd Earl of Suffolk (1619–89), as

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202 Notes 4th Earl of Suffolk (G. E. C., Complete Peerage, vol. 12, pp. 470–1). Before then, she was often called ‘Madam’ rather than the less-elevated ‘Mrs’. Although Mary’s father hovered on the fringes of Restoration politics, her uncle James had exercised some political influence by virtue of being the uncle of Charles II’s long-term mistress, Barbara Palmer, née Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland (c. 1640–1709).  26 Pepys, Diary, vol. 6, p. 191; vol. 3, p. 87; vol. 7, pp. 69–70.  27 The Sun, no. 1230, 3 September 1796.  28 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, p. 48.   29 Following two years’ unhappy naval service as a volunteer, George Byng was awarded a cadetship in the 1st Tangier Regiment by Kirke, a friend of Byng’s maternal uncle, Colonel Johnson. Again benefiting from Kirke’s patronage, Byng transferred back into the navy as a lieutenant in 1684 (John B. Hattendorf, ‘Byng, George’, ODNB).  30 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 113, 225.  31 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 216.   32 Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (1621–83), was the leader of the movement to exclude the Duke of York from the succession to the throne.  33 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 139.   34 ‘Journal towards Tangier’, p. 131. This was less than the whole story. St Michel succeeded Phineas Bowles (1647–1714) as storekeeper at Tangier but Herbert decided to keep most naval stores at Gibraltar, obliging St Michel to move to that port. This ‘disobligement’ may well, in Pepys’s eyes, have constituted ‘persecution’. Moreover, ‘Balty’ had been very active in securing evidence that led to Pepys’s acquittal in June 1680.   35 The ‘sweating tub’, or fumigation cabinet, was a well-recognized method of failing to cure syphilis. The patient, along with some mercury, was enclosed in a wooden box with just his/her head exposed. A fire was lit beneath the cabinet which raised the temperature within and vaporized the mercury so that it could be ingested through the skin and respiratory tract. It was notably unsuccessful and most unpleasant for the patient.  36 Pepys, Tangier Papers, ‘Notes on Tangier’, p. 90. Unfortunately the editor of these ‘Notes’, Edwin Chappell, censored Pepys’s text but enough remains for the meaning to be abundantly clear. Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 89–104, 101, 113, 138,151–2, 168, 216, 224; Bryant, Saviour of the Navy, p. 97; Letter Book, f. 384.  37 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 89–104.   38 Pepys did not comment upon Kirke’s professional capacity although he did observe that, during an excursion along the coast in a rowing boat, he appeared ignorant of the precise extent of Tangier’s territory (Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 166). However, Kirke had ‘weak eyes’ (Letter Book, f. 166) and he may well have been unable to see the landmarks.  39 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 112.   40 J. Hordesnell (Letter Book, f. 384).  41 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 98–9. This was a common justification among members of Dartmouth’s expedition: they were doing God’s work in demolishing Sodom, if not Gomorrah. Pepys dined with Ken on Friday 26 October and conversation turned to the ‘viciousness of this place and its being time for God Almighty to destroy it’ (Pepys, ‘Journal towards Tangier,’ p. 159).   42 Captain Thomas Silver, mate to the Master Gunner of Whitehall and St James’s Park, 1682–1703, and Master Gunner of Whitehall and St James’s Park, 1703–9

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(Tomlinson, Guns and Government, pp. 238–9). He commanded four companies of miners responsible for the demolition of the mole and the town.  43 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 92, 97.  44 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 95, 89.  45 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 89–90.  46 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 90.  47 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 103.  48 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 90.   49 In 1662 Colonel Henry Norwood went from the Dunkirk garrison to Tangier where he was lieutenant governor from February 1664 to October 1669. The accusations of embezzlement were probably true (Firth and Davies, Regimental History of Cromwell’s Army, pp. 697–8; Arni, Hospital Care, pp. 20–1).  50 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 90.   51 A ‘bagno’ or ‘bagnio’ was originally a bath house or Turkish baths but it was also the prison holding Tangier’s Muslim slaves (Letter Book, ff. 111, 162).  52 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 90.   53 Dartmouth’s mother was Elizabeth Washington (c. 1616–88), daughter of Sir William Washington of Packington, Leicestershire (1590–1643).  54 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 90.  55 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 76, 102, 210, 316; vol. 2, pp. 19, 50, 109, 132, 180; vol. 3, pp. 107, 242; Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 92, 96; Letter Book, f. 134.  56 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 92.   57 John Erlisman was Comptroller of Tangier [i.e. general and financial manager of the colony’s civilian administration] and, afterwards, consul at Algiers (CTB, 1681–5, 7 August 1684).  58 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 92–3.  59 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 93.   60 Edmund Dummer (c. 1651–1713), a shipwright and marine engineer who travelled through the Mediterranean in HMS Woolwich (4th rate, 54 guns) during 1682 and 1683. On the outward voyage, his ship had called at Tangier to return Ambassador Ohadu and, on the inward leg, Dummer was diverted to Tangier to assist Dartmouth with the evacuation (Fox, ‘The ingenious Mr. Dummer’, pp. 21–2).  61 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 102–3.   62 Thomas Session.   63 Edward Rothe.   64 Anthony Fist, Henry Sheres’s clerk.   65 A Sephardic Jew and native of Holland, Samuel de Paz was Dartmouth’s Spanish secretary responsible for translation from and into Spanish. He had been seconded to the expedition from his permanent position as translator and copyist in the office of the secretary of state for the north. In February 1688, de Paz was uncovered as a Dutch spy who had been passing English government secrets to either the States General or the Prince of Orange, or both. He fled to the Dutch Republic before he could be arrested (Jones, Charles Middleton, pp. 73, 121–2; Sainty (ed.), Officials of the Secretaries of State, p. 75).   66 Probably Captain James Purcell, a Jacobite colonel in 1689. Purcell had previously served in Thomas Dongan’s regiment in the French Army (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 209).  67 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 93–5.   68 The meaning is unclear. Pepys might mean that Kirke physically stood upon Cranborow while staving the barrels or, more likely, used a piece of furniture.

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204 Notes   69 A piece of eight.  70 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 99.  71 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 97.  72 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 95–6.  73 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 96. Pepys’s brother-in-law, Balthazar St Michel, mustermaster in Tangier, must have connived at these frauds. The figure given by Pepys is massively exaggerated and does not tally with the number of soldiers evacuated to England.   74 Rev. Thomas Hughes, chaplain of the 1st Tangier Regiment, 1683–4; chaplain of Kirke’s Foot, 1684–7. No record of military appointment after 1688 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 303; vol. 2, pp. 57, 132).   75 Cloudesley Shovell.   76 Rev. Dr George Mercer, schoolmaster in Tangier since 1675 (HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, p. 39).  77 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 96.  78 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 97–8.  79 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 97. Kirke was fashionably anti-Semitic, often blaming the Jews for causing and exploiting poor relations with the Moroccans (Letter Book, ff. 40–1, 118–22, 137–40, 153–60, 201–2, 232–45, 299, 325–6, 363, 377–8, 382).  80 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 96–7. Inattentive sentries had come to Kirke’s attention in 1682 (Letter Book, ff. 232–45).   81 Captain George Wingfield (d. 1693) of the 1st Tangier Regiment (Kirke’s).  82 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 97.  83 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 99.  84 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 99–100. This problem long pre-dated Kirke’s governorship and he had commented on it in letters to the Tangier Committee (Letter Book, ff. 56–60, 256).  85 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 100  86 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 100.   87 John Forgeon, alderman of Tangier.  88 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 103   89 A pratique master was the quarantine officer. He inspected every vessel entering a port to ensure that both ship and crew were healthy and did not threaten the town with contagion.  90 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 100–1.  91 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 138–9.  92 Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 164.   93 During Pepys’s 14-year tenure as treasurer of the Tangier Committee, he had handled over £1,200,000 of royal funds. Because government paymasters enjoyed the right to invest for private profit any balances resting in their hands, he made his fortune in the process (Bryant, Saviour of the Navy, pp. 64–80; Tomalin, Samuel Pepys, pp. 145–7; Pepys, Diary, vol. 10, p. 409. See, Clay, Public Finance and Private Wealth).  94 Carswell, Old Cause, pp. 94–5, 191.   95 See, Parker, Sugar Barons; Ward, Trip to Jamaica; Harlow, Christopher Codrington, pp. 210–46.  96 Childs, Army of Charles II, pp. 83–9, 254–5; Pepys, Tangier Papers, p. 93.  97 Pepys, Tangier Papers, pp. 117–18.

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 98 Pepys, Life, Journals and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, Smith (ed.).  99 Bryant, Saviour of the Navy, pp. 97–8. 100 Callow, Making of King James II, pp. 149, 151, 172–3. 101 ‘Log of HMS Grafton’, pp. 285–6; HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, pp. 189–90; HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, pp. 52–4. 102 The companies of Kirke, Major Sir James Lesley, Captains Thomas St John, Thomas Barber, George Wingfield, John Burgess and Charles Wingfield. 103 The companies of Lieutenant Colonel Marmaduke Boynton, Captains Brent Ely, Henry Rowe, George Talbot and Zouch Tate. 104 Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 58, part 2, p. 619. 105 Pepys, Letters and Second Diary, pp. 167–8, Pepys to Dartmouth, 6 April 1684, London. 106 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, p. 103, 12 December 1683; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 1, pp. 249–61. 107 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, pp. 112, 115; CSPD, 1683–4, no. 344. 108 Childs, Army of Charles II, p. 58; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 110; Brooks, General and Compleat List Military, p. 14; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, p. 91. 109 Brooks, General and Complete List Military, p. 4. 110 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 1, pp. 263–4; vol. 2, pp. 2–3; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 302; Dalton, Irish Army, pp. 143–4. 111 CTB, 1681–5, part 2, p. 1262; CSPD, 1684–5, p. 130. The position was renewed under both James II and William & Mary (CTB, 1689–1692, pp. 330, 349–50, 609, 867, 1158). 112 The other asylum was the Dutch Republic where reception depended upon the state of Anglo-Dutch relations. 113 CSPD, 1681–5, pp. 718, 731; Adams, Founding of New England, pp. 407–8. 114 Randolph, Edward Randolph: his Letters and official Papers, vol. 1, pp. 244–7; vol. 4, pp. 3, 6, 18, 29, 40, 88. 115 CSPC, 1681–5, nos. 1928, 1941, 1953, 2026; CSPC, 1685–8, no. 190; CTB, 1681–5, no. 1409; Leach, Arms for Empire, pp. 75–6; Barnes, Dominion of New England, p. 45; Beall, ‘Cotton Mather’s Early “Curiosa Americana” and the Boston Philosophical Society of 1683’, pp. 362–3; Jacobsen, William Blathwayt, pp. 111, 130; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 49, 51, 179–80. See, Andros, Andros Tracts, pp. v–xlix.

Chapter Six   1 The colonel’s company was normally commanded by the battalion’s senior lieutenant who received the honorary title of captain-lieutenant. William Berry (d. 1717) was commissioned lieutenant in Kirke’s regiment on 3 February 1681 and raised to captain-lieutenant on 25 December 1681. He was promoted lieutenant colonel of the Enniskillen Horse (Colonel William Wolseley), 20 July 1689. Berry was on half-pay from 1697 until 1706 when he was commissioned major of the foot battalion of Henry Scott, 1st Earl of Deloraine (1676–1730), Monmouth’s third legitimate son (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 282, 320; vol. 2, pp. 25, 132; vol. 3, p. 27; vol. 5, p. 259).  2 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 5–6; Bowen, Britannia Depicta, pp. 64–5.

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206 Notes   3 The Rye House plotters intended to assassinate both Charles II and York as they returned to London after attending the horse races on Newmarket Heath. The Rye House was situated just north of Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire.  4 Wyndham, Protestant Duke, p. 129.  5 Grey, Secret History, pp. 99–102, 110–11; Greaves, Secrets of the Kingdom, pp. 272–5.  6 Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 2, book 2, appendix to part 1, p. 27.  7 Grey, Secret History, pp. 119–22. A bandolier was a wide belt, slung across the chest, from which one dozen, wooden cylinders were suspended each containing a bullet, wadding and enough gunpowder both to charge and prime a musket. Bandoliers, sometimes known as the ‘12 apostles’, were principally associated with matchlock muskets. The flintlock’s higher rate of fire required soldiers to carry more rounds and so the cartridge box, mounted on a waist-belt, became standard issue.   8 Firth and Davies, Regimental History of Cromwell’s Army, pp. 456, 459, 438, 535–6, 539, 479–80, 540–1.  9 Packe, Historical Record of the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards, pp. 33–4. 10 Kirke’s battalion, formerly the Queen’s, became the Queen Dowager’s after the death of Charles II. 11 Atkinson, Royal Dragoons, p. 40. 12 HMC, Buccleuch & Queensberry (Drumlanrig) MSS., vol. 2, p. 80. 13 Penaluna, Historical Survey of the County of Cornwall, vol. 1, p. 96; Hardy, Chronological List, p. 2. 14 Magdalen College, Cambridge, Pepysian Library No. 2490, Edward Dummer, ‘A Journal of the Proceedings of the Duke of Monmouth’s Invading of England, with the Progress and Issue of the Rebellion attending it. Kept by Mr. Edward Dummer, then serving in the Train of Artillery employed by His Majesty for the Suppression of the Same’. Entry for 20 June 1685. 15 Hamilton, Grenadier Guards, vol. 1, pp. 272, 278; HMC, Buccleuch & Queensberry (Drumlanrig) MSS., vol. 2, p. 81, Whitehall, 26 June 1685, midnight; also p. 84. 16 Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 2, book 2, appendix to part 1, pp. 21–3. 17 HMC, Buccleuch & Queensberry (Drumlanrig) MSS., vol. 2, pp. 78–9; Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 2, book 2, appendix to part 1, pp. 23–4. 18 ‘I see plainly that I am to have the trouble, and that the honour will be another’s’ (Churchill to Clarendon, 4 July 1685, Churchill, Marlborough, vol. 1, p. 212). So began the rift between Churchill and James that was to prove central to the functioning of the machinery of the Glorious Revolution in 1688. 19 A troop of horse grenadiers (50 men) had first been attached to each of the three troops of the Life Guard in 1679. A horse grenadier troop was also added to the 4th Troop of the Life Guard, which was created in 1686 and disbanded in 1689. The 20 horse grenadiers from the 1st Troop of the Life Guard were commanded by Captains John Parker (c. 1651–c. 1719), the future Jacobite, and Thomas Gay; those from the 2nd Troop by Captains Richard Potter and Robert Dixon; and those from the 3rd Troop by Captains Anthony Heyford and John Vaughan. 20 Fifth son of Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl of Northampton (1601–43). He fought for Charles I in the Civil War, was knighted in 1661 and ended his life in the rank of lieutenant general. Henry Compton (c. 1631–1713), his younger brother, became Bishop of London in 1675.

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21 Tomlinson, Guns and Government, pp. 48, 233. The conveyance of these eight guns required 60 wagons and 1,500 horses. 22 Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, p. 165. 23 HMC, Buccleuch & Queensberry (Drumlanrig) MSS., vol. 2, p. 80; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 19. 24 Fourth son of the Hon. Sir William Douglas, 2nd Bt of Glenbervie (d. c. 1660). Archibald Douglas was a veteran of France and Tangier and a younger brother of Colonel Sir Robert Douglas, 3rd Bt of Glenbervie, who was killed at Steenkirk in 1692. 25 Fireworker in the Ordnance Office, 1682–1700, and Firemaster for the Fireships, c. 1692–1700 (Tomlinson, Guns and Government, p. 238). 26 Chief Bombardier of the Ordnance Office, 1686–8 (Tomlinson, Guns and Government, p. 238). 27 Bowen, Britannia Depicta, p. 26. 28 Bowen, Britannia Depicta, pp. 84–6. 29 Dummer, ‘Journal’, 21–23 June 1685. 30 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 22; Fea, King Monmouth, p. 251. 31 Third son of Sir Humphrey Mon(n)oux, 1st Bt of Wootton, Bedfordshire (d. 1676). The surname is sometimes given as ‘Manocks’, probably a phonetic rendition. 32 Sometimes ‘Chetwynd’. Appointed troop quartermaster in the Royal Horse Guards, 12 December 1677; cornet, 1 July 1685. Had left the army by 1689 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 199, 313; vol. 2, pp. 4, 48, 120). 33 Dummer, ‘Journal’, 19 June 1685; HMC, Buccleuch & Queensberry (Drumlanrig) MSS., vol. 2, pp. 79–80. 34 Whiting, Persecution Exposed, pp. 143–4. Some authors have accused Kirke’s infantry of committing this outrage but, although writing about 30 years after the event, Whiting clearly remembered that the culprits were mounted. 35 At Pensford on Friday 26 June, Churchill hanged a feltmaker from Yeovil named Jarvis who had been captured during the earlier skirmish near Glastonbury: he died ‘obstinately and impenitently’ (Dummer, ‘Journal’, 26 June 1685). 36 This state of affairs was far from unusual in seventeenth-century warfare. Maps varied between non-existent and useless and, without plentiful sources of dependable local intelligence, it was surprisingly easy to lose an entire enemy army even when it was nearby. ‘Always remain in contact’, was the golden rule broken by Monmouth, Churchill, Oglethorpe and, to a lesser extent, Feversham. See, Lund, War for the Every Day, pp. 65–100. 37 Also known as Philip’s Norton. 38 Bristol was an ‘open’ or unfortified city. A stretch of the medieval wall still ran across the peninsula formed by the loop of the Avon affording the southern sector some protection but, elsewhere, only a few fragments remained. The last of the civil war fortifications, Prince Rupert’s Fort, had been demolished by 1671 and the site developed as a housing estate. The old castle had been knocked down in 1656 and the area turned ‘into streets and pleasant buildings’ (Millerd, An exact Delineation; Porter, Blast of War, pp. 27–8, 75–8, 128, 135). 39 These Gloucestershire militiamen do not appear to have informed Feversham that Monmouth was in Keynsham preparing to cross the Avon. 40 Charles Wyndham (c. 1638–1706) was the fourth but second surviving son of Sir Edmund Wyndham (c. 1600–81) of Kentsford, Somerset, and a nephew of Colonel Sir Francis Wyndham, 1st Bt (c. 1610–76), defender of Dunster Castle during the Civil War, who helped Charles II to escape from England following the defeat at

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208 Notes Worcester in 1651 (Ollard, Escape of Charles II, pp. 69 passim; HPT, vol. 3, pp. 772–6). 41 Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, vol. 1, pp. 297–8; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 22. 42 The Adlam family came from the Warminster-Westbury region of Wiltshire. A Captain W. Adlam had fought for the Parliamentarians during the first English Civil War. Captain Benjamin Adlam joined Monmouth with a very small troop known as the ‘Wiltshire Horse’, which was incorporated within Grey’s cavalry regiment. He was badly wounded at Sedgemoor and hanged outside Westonzoyland church. Timothy Adlam, a yeoman from West Woodlands in eastern Somerset, adjacent to Westbury, also followed Monmouth (Wigfield, Monmouth Rebels, p. 2). 43 Millerd, An exact Delineation; Ogilby, Britannia Depicta, pp. 66, 69–70; Defoe, Tour, vol. 2, p. 285. In many instances, Defoe simply copied Ogilby’s brief descriptions of various towns and villages. 44 HMC, Ormonde MSS., new series, vol. 7, pp. 343–4. 45 Feversham had led a contingent of guards to fight a blaze in the Middle Temple, London, on 26 January 1679. All the water supplies were frozen and, in sacrilegious desperation, beer was thrown on the flames. Finally, some houses were blown up to create a fire break but debris from one of the collapsing buildings struck Feversham on the head causing a depressed fracture of the skull. His cranium was trepanned with a cylindrical saw and he appeared to make a full recovery. However, those seeking thereafter to find fault insinuated that he had suffered permanent damage to his mental health (Rambaut and Vigne (eds), Britain’s Huguenot War Leaders, p. 2). His entry in the ODNB (Stuart Handley, ‘Duras, Louis’) also disparages his martial abilities. Most of these adverse comments emanate from Burnet, History of his own Time, vol. 3, pp. 49–50. 46 Grafton’s mother was the Countess of Castlemaine, then Charles II’s principal mistress. 47 There was considerable tension between military and social rank at this stage of the British military history. Almost certainly Feversham intended Grafton physically to lead the attack and expected Kirke to provide professional expertise and a measure of common sense. 48 When travelling from Warminster to Bath in 1687, Celia Fiennes noted that on leaving Norton St Philip, ‘a very neate stone built village … you pass a good way between 2 stone walls to the Bath’ (Fiennes, Journeys, p. 44). 49 Species-rich hedgerows, thick with leaves and summer growth, played major roles in many seventeenth-century battles. They could ‘turn’ low-velocity musket and pistol balls and were impassable to mounted troops. Tactically-aware soldiers used hedges and ditches to ‘channel’ attacking troops to the advantage of the defence. Often referred to as ‘breastworks’, they were thus the contemporary equivalent of both minefields and trenches. 50 Gathercole, Norton St. Philip, pp. 11, map B; Foxcroft, ‘Monmouth at Philip’s Norton’, pp. 9–13; Bowen, Britannia Depicta, pp. 67, 70, 86. It has proved difficult to reconstruct the topography of Philip’s Norton, ‘of 4 furlongs extent and good accommodation, has a market on Fridays and 3 fairs annually’, but the description presented is congruent with both contemporary maps and reports of the action. 51 Younger son of Francis, 1st Baron Hawley, royalist cavalry colonel during the first Civil War. Hawley had been a 2nd lieutenant in the Royal English Regiment in the French Brigade between 1675 and 1678; captain in Monmouth’s Foot, 1678; lieutenant in the 1st Foot Guards, 1680; captain in the 1st Foot Guards, 1684;

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lieutenant colonel of Colonel John Berkeley’s Dragoons, 31 December 1688; colonel of Berkeley’s Dragoons, 10 May 1692. He died, intestate, from a grenade burst at the Battle of Steenkirk, 24 July 1692, leaving his wife, Judith Hughes (c. 1658–c. 1735), whom he had married on 21 January 1684, a penniless widow. Through the influence of Hawley’s half- brother, Brigadier Thomas Erle (c. 1650–1720), she secured a pension from William III plus army commissions for her three sons. The eldest was General Henry ‘Hangman’ Hawley (c. 1685–1759). Francis Hawley’s portrait, painted c. 1685, is on loan to the National Army Museum, Chelsea (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 208, 275, 315, 327; vol. 2, pp. 12, 19, 92, 128, 253; vol. 3, pp. 33, 285; A. W. Massie, ‘Hawley, Henry’, ODNB; HPT, vol. 2, pp. 515–16; Dalton, George the First’s Army, vol. 2, p. 41; Notes and Queries, 10th series, vol. 6, pp. 6–7). 52 HMC, Buccleuch & Queensberry (Drumlanrig) MSS., vol. 2, p. 83. 53 Although unmentioned in the sources, the horse grenadiers must have operated on foot throughout. Indeed, the nature of their weapons indicated that the horse grenadiers were dragoons, trained to move on horseback but fight dismounted. 54 These were two or three pounder ‘battalion guns’ that usually travelled with the infantry and were positioned in the intervals between regiments in line (Childs, Nine Years’ War, pp. 86–7). 55 James II noted this expression of loyalty and, three years later, drew entirely the wrong conclusions. 56 Oglethorpe was joined by a volunteer, Peregrine Osborne, Viscount Dunblane (c. 1659–1729), the Earl of Danby’s eldest son (Browning, Danby, vol. 1, p. 372). 57 It may seem slightly odd that Monmouth’s column exiting Frome was headed by the supply train but, knowing that the enemy lay to the north, as a matter of routine, the baggage, artillery and ‘soft’ elements would have been brought to the head of the column and the fighting troops positioned to the rear and left. 58 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 57–8. The total loss, later estimated at £410 9s, devolved on Captain Thomas St John, the convoy commander. He petitioned the Treasury for reimbursement during 1686. See Davies (ed.), ‘Three Letters’, p. 114. 59 Childs, Nobles, Gentlemen, p. 76. 60 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, p. 126, Henry Sheres to Lord Dartmouth, 30 June 1685, Frome. 61 William Culli[y]ford served in the Royal English Regiment in France during the 1670s. Lieutenant in Monmouth’s Foot, 1678; lieutenant to Kirke’s company in Plymouth’s Foot in Tangier, 1680; captain-lieutenant, 27 November 1680; captain, 3 January 1681. He was not commissioned in Kirke’s Foot in England in 1684 but was quartermaster of Feversham’s army during the Sedgemoor campaign, 1685. Captain in the Royal Dragoons, 29 July 1685; major, 1689; lieutenant colonel of Thomas Windsor’s Horse, 1694; lieutenant colonel of Lord Mohun’s Foot, 1702; retired, 1706 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 207, 269, 279, 281; vol. 2, pp. 51, 126; vol. 3, p. 356; Atkinson, Royal Dragoons, p. 58). 62 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, p. 127. 63 A sub-constable. 64 Defoe, Tour, vol. 2, p. 35. 65 Dummer, ‘Journal’, 4 July 1685; HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, p. 127. 66 Grey, Secret History, pp. 123–4. 67 Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax had earlier reached the same conclusion and located their main camp at Westonzoyland during the siege of Bridgewater, 11–23 July 1645 (Green, ‘The Siege of Bridgewater’, pp. 12–25).

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210 Notes 68 Dummer, ‘Journal’, 5 July 1685; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 28. 69 A 15th, John Coy’s troop of the Royal Dragoons, was absent guarding the crossing of the Parrett at Burrow Bridge. 70 HMC, 9th Report, p. 6. 71 Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, p. 160. 72 Richard Godfrey was illegitimate and sometimes known by the surname of his other parent, Newman or Newton. 73 St Mary’s. 74 Roads on causeways were nearly always paved thus enabling much faster marching than was otherwise possible. 75 Sir Hugh Middleton, 1st Bt of Hackney (c. 1658–1702). He had served as a lieutenant in the second battalion of Monmouth’s Foot in 1678, suggesting service in France during the 1670s, and was commissioned captain in Colonel John Berkeley’s Dragoons on 17 July 1685. A loyalist, he left the army after the Glorious Revolution. He was probably serving either as a volunteer or an ADC to Feversham. Middleton was a grandson of Sir Hugh Middleton or Myddleton, 1st Bt (c. 1560–1631), the hydrological entrepreneur (Wotton et al. (eds), Baronetage of England, vol. 2, p. 463). 76 Monmouth, in his later relation of the battle, said that small, portable bridges had been prepared to aid the crossing of the various ditches but these are not mentioned in any other source (Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 28). 77 Where King Alfred had burned the cakes. 78 Hucker was to be disappointed. When tried in Taunton before Jeffreys, he pleaded his treachery in mitigation but Jeffreys informed him that he deserved a ‘double death’: one for rebelling against his sovereign and another for betraying his friends. He was hanged in Taunton on 30 September (Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, part 1, book 2, pp. 189, 200; Wigfield, Monmouth Rebels, p. 90; Muddiman (ed.), Bloody Assizes, pp. 127–9; HMC, Stopford-Sackville MSS., vol. 1, pp. 27–8, letter from Rev. Andrew Paschall, 8 April 1685, Chedzoy). 79 ‘The Battle of Sedgemoor’, in Parker, Tom Balch, p. 140. 80 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 28. 81 Rev. Andrew Paschall (c. 1636–91), vicar of Chedzoy, ‘An Account of the Rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth in a Letter to Dr. James’, in Heywood, A Vindication of Mr. Fox’s History, appendix 4, p. 39. Little, Monmouth Episode, p. 179, and Clifton, Last Popular Rebellion, p. 202, following Paschall, identify this perspicacious and enterprising officer as ‘Captain Mackintosh’ of the Royal Scots. However, the regimental lists for both 1684 and 1685 do not include this name. The only Mackintosh in either the Scottish or English army at this time was Captain Alexander Mackintosh of the Royal Dragoons (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 314; vol. 2, p. 10). This Mackintosh was present with his command at Sedgemoor and, in view of Churchill’s deployment of the dragoons midway through the battle, it is possible that his troop was camped close to the infantry. As we have noted, foot units in camp routinely marked out the ground on which they would deploy in an emergency. 82 Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, p. 162; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 28. 83 Cornbury commanded the four troops of the Royal Dragoons present during the Sedgemoor campaign. Churchill, the regimental colonel, was fully occupied with his role as Feversham’s deputy. 84 Evelyn, Diary, vol. 3, p. 167. 85 Wade was shot and captured at Brendon on Exmoor. He saved his neck by writing a full confession and turning King’s Evidence against Lord Delamere. He was

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pardoned on 26 May 1686 and transferred his allegiance to his benefactor, James II, receiving appointment as town clerk of Bristol in 1688. Dismissed after the Glorious Revolution, Wade appears to have devoted his remaining 20 years to private legal practice. 86 One source says that Feversham did not visit Bridgwater until the afternoon of 6 July. He allowed Colonel James Butler, 7th Earl of Ossory (1665–1745), the honour of being the first to enter the town (Davies (ed.), ‘Three Letters’, pp. 115–16). 87 Fea, King Monmouth, p. 295; Roberts, Life, Progresses and Rebellion of James, Duke of Monmouth, vol. 2, pp. 92–3. 88 Kirke made the tithingmen of Chedzoy responsible for burying rebel corpses subsequently discovered on and around the battlefield (QRWS 1/8/2/5). 89 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 36. A mark was worth 13s 4d. 90 Oglethorpe left Westonzoyland at 05:00 on Monday 6 July and arrived in Whitehall late on the same evening (Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 26). 91 There was a Yellow Regiment in the Hampshire Militia (Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, p. 161). 92 A plaque was subsequently erected on the site of the White Hart Inn to commemorate the six hanged plus another five later executed in Glastonbury following conviction at the Bloody Assizes. 93 Earle, Monmouth’s Rebels, p. 137. 94 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 38. 95 Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, pp. 162–6. 96 Western, English Militia in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 54–7; Clifton, Last Popular Rebellion, pp. 229–30; Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 6–8; Whiting, Persecution Exposed, pp. 144–5; Burnet, History of his own Time, vol. 3, p. 415; Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, pp. 159–66. For some indication of the extent of the militia’s security operations see, Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 16–50. See also, Scott, ‘Military Effectiveness of the West Country Militia’. 97 The above account of Monmouth’s Rebellion makes no claim to originality and, apart from the sources mentioned in the footnotes above, is drawn principally from the following authorities: Little, Monmouth Episode; Clifton, Last Popular Rebellion; Churchill, Marlborough, vol. 1, pp. 203–25; D’Oyley, Monmouth, pp. 275–322; Wigfield, Monmouth Rebels; Earle, Monmouth’s Rebels; Chandler, Sedgemoor, 1685, pp. 31–5, 63–71; HMC, Stopford-Sackville MSS., pp. 1–19; An Account of the most remarkable Fights and Skirmishes between His Majesty’s Forces and the Rebels in the West; An Account of the Defeat of the Rebels in England, p. 2; Tutchin, The Bloody Assizes, or a Complete History of the Life of George, Lord Jefferies, p. 23; HMC, Portland MSS., vol. 2, pp. 157–8.

Chapter Seven   1 Whiting, Persecution Exposed, pp. 301–2.    2 Brigadier-general was an appointment awarded to some regimental colonelscommandant. Recipients were usually called ‘colonel’ rather than ‘brigadier’. It was superseded by the rank of brigadier in 1928.    3 As a final insult to the rebels and their families, the bodies of both judicial and military victims were buried in shallow graves that rapidly developed into public

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212 Notes eyesores and hazards to health. James also ignored the pleas of local landowners that the transportation of numerous tenants and labourers was damaging the local economy (Sankey, Jacobite Prisoners of the 1715 Rebellion, p. xii).    4 Monmouth had proclaimed himself king on 20 June while in Taunton. The proclamation was published on 21 June (HMC, Bath MSS., vol. 2, pp. 170–1).   5 Miller, James II, p. 141.    6 Hon. Henry Bertie (c. 1656–1734) of Chesterton, Oxfordshire, 8th son of Sir Montagu Bertie, 2nd Earl of Lindsey (1608–66), was captain of a troop of horse in the Oxfordshire militia (HPT, vol. 1, p. 643).    7 Timmons, ‘Executions following Monmouth’s Rebellion’, p. 287; Davies (ed.), ‘Three Letters’, p. 116.    8 Initially, these were the troops of Lieutenant Colonel Lord Cornbury and Captain Charles Nedby. Colonel John Churchill’s troop and that of Captain John Coy were guarding rebel prisoners in Salisbury. Churchill returned to London after Sedgemoor. Until 12 June, his troop had been commanded by Captain-Lieutenant Thomas Hussey who was then promoted to a captaincy in the Queen’s Dragoons, a new regiment commanded by the Duke of Somerset: Lieutenant Francis Langston (d. 1723), younger brother of Captain Thomas Langston, was elevated to captain-lieutenant in his stead (Atkinson, Royal Dragoons, pp. 46–7; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, pp. 10, 11; Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, vol. 1, p. 341). Captain Henry Cornwall’s troop of the Royal Horse Guards was detached from Feversham’s army to guard prisoners at Warminster (HMC, Stopford-Sackville MSS., vol. 1, p. 21).   9 Oldmixon, History of England, p. 704. Oldmixon wrote this passage some 40 years after the event so its accuracy of detail cannot be guaranteed. As Dr Johnson remarked, ‘how seldom descriptions correspond with realities: and the reason is that people do not write them till some time after, and then their imagination has added circumstances’ (Boswell, Life of Johnson, pp. 227–8).  10 HMC, Stopford-Sackville MSS., vol. 1, pp. 19–20; Timmons, ‘Executions following Monmouth’s Rebellion’, p. 288.  11 Tutchin, Western Martyrology, p. 216.  12 Toulmin, History of Taunton, p. 179.   13 Timmons, ‘Executions following Monmouth’s Rebellion’, pp. 286–91; Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), pp. 524–6.   14 For this see, Timmons, ‘Executions following Monmouth’s Rebellion’ pp. 286–91; Zook, ‘ “The Bloody Assizes” ’, p. 379; CSPD, 1685, no. 1338; HMC, StopfordSackville MSS., vol. 1, p. 19; HMC, 2nd Report, Appendix, p. 99; Keeton, Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, p. 306. Timmons omits the ten hangings ordered for Bridgewater because there is no evidence that they occurred.  15 CSPD, 1685, no. 1225.  16 CSPD, 1685, no. 1285.  17 CSPD, 1685, no. 1466. Henry Withers probably served in France during the later 1670s; lieutenant in Monmouth’s Foot in England, 1678; ensign in Tangier, 1679; lieutenant in Kirke’s (1st Tangier Regiment), 1683; captain, 1 October 1688; brevet colonel of foot, 1 July 1689; adjutant general of the foot in Ireland, 20 October 1689; major of 1st Foot Guards, 1695; lieutenant colonel, 1695; lieutenant general, 1 January 1707 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 208, 255, 302, 320; vol. 2, p. 183; vol. 3, pp. 102, 107, 242; vol. 4, p. 66; vol. 5, pp. 158–9; Letter Book, f. 13). Withers’s ensign in 1685 was Roger Elliott (c. 1665–1714), a cousin of Kirke.

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  18 On 7 July, Captain Thomas Barber’s company (Kirke’s battalion) at Pendennis was ordered to march to Plymouth, its place there being taken by an independent company commanded by Captain Richard, 1st Baron Arundell of Trerice (d. 1688). At Plymouth, Barber’s company linked-up with that of Major Sir James Lesley and, on 13 July, they set off together for Somerset: the journey would have taken about ten days. Kirke’s infantry strength was thereby increased to 12 companies. Immediately after Sedgemoor, James was anxious to reduce military expenditure as quickly as possible. When Kirke was informed by Blathwayt of the imminent arrival of Barber and Lesley, he was also told that all his companies would be reduced to 60 men each while the weapons and equipment that had been lost in the wagon at Wells on 1 July would have to be made good out of those seized from the rebels (Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 42; HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, p. 128).  19 Burnet, Bishop Burnet’s History of his own Time, vol. 1, p. 647.   20 Muddiman (ed.), Bloody Assizes, p. 23.  21 Whiting, Persecution Exposed, pp. 144–6; Burnet (1857), History of his own Time, p. 415; WO 4/1, ff. 12–13, 21 July 1685; QRWS 1/8/2/4, 21 July 1685, Sunderland to Kirke.  22 CSPD, 1685, no. 1317.  23 CSPD, 1685, no. 1317. Although he cites no authority, Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), p. 549, says that Kirke sold many such ‘pardons’, charging between 20 and 40 pounds sterling apiece, thus allowing many of the more wealthy prisoners to escape. ‘They were not valid in law yet afforded those who purchased them time to settle their affairs and retire to Holland and other places of shelter.’ He was not alone in perfidy. There were several ‘pardon merchants’ and a commission was established in April 1686 to investigate their activities (Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 110).  24 CSPD, 1685, no. 1338.  25 Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, vol. 1, p. 343; Burnet (1857), History of his own Time, p. 415; Roberts, Life, Progresses and Rebellion of James, Duke of Monmouth, vol. 2, p. 182.   26 The other members of the Special Commission were Sir William Montague (d. 1706), Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer; Sir Robert Wright (c. 1634–89), Recorder of Cambridge; Sir Francis Wythens (c. 1635–1704), Justice of the King’s Bench; and Sir Cresswell Levinz (1627–1701), Justice of the Common Pleas. Sir Henry Pollexfen (c. 1632–91) was the principal crown prosecutor.  27 Steele, Royal Proclamations, vol. 1, no. 3815; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 1, pp. 356–7.  28 Childs, The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 83–118; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 91, 109–10, 142, 275.  29 Clarke, Life of James II, vol. 2, pp. 44–5. This opinion was also held by the 2nd Earl of Ailesbury, one of James’s courtiers (Ailesbury, Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 121–3).  30 Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 1, p. 354.  31 Oldmixon, History of England, pp. 704–5.   32 Andrew M. Coleby ‘Mews, Peter’, ODNB; Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 2, book 2, part 1, pp. 203–4; Anderdon, Life of Thomas Ken, vol. 1, pp. 282–3; Mackintosh, Miscellaneous Works, pp. 275–6. Many prisoners were housed in the cloisters of St Andrew’s Cathedral, Wells.  33 Irving, Life of Judge Jeffreys, p. 306.  34 Hatton Correspondence, vol. 2, p. 60.  35 Grey, Debates of the House of Commons, vol. 8, pp. 357–8, 12 November 1685.

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214 Notes  36 Little, Monmouth Episode, pp. 238–9; Clifton, Last Popular Rebellion, pp. 239–41; Turner, James II, pp. 281–4.  37 The Sun, no. 1230, 3 September 1796.   38 As a practising Roman Catholic, James was unable to exercise his office as supreme head of the Church of England. Therefore, the government of the church was entrusted to a Commission for Ecclesiastical Causes that quickly became the instrument through which the king assaulted Anglican political, educational and spiritual monopolies.   39 Bloxam (ed.), Magdalen College and King James II, p. 217.   40 The legal arguments are discussed in Kenyon, Revolution Principles.  41 Turner, James II, pp. 283–5.  42 Dunton, An Impartial History of the Life and Death of George, Lord Jeffreys, p. 26.  43 Tutchin, A New Martyrology, or The Bloody Assizes, now exactly methodised in one Volume. The first martyrology, The Protestant Martyrs, or the Bloody Assizes, was also written by John Tutchin but bears no date of publication. Some authorities have assumed 1688 but it is impossible that James II and his lord chamberlain, the Earl of Mulgrave, would have licensed such sedition. Either it appeared in December 1688 or, more probably, after the appointment of the Earl of Dorset, a moderate Whig and active supporter of the Glorious Revolution, to the office of lord chamberlain on 14 February 1689. The book was reprinted twice in 1689, revised editions following during 1693 and 1705, this under a new title, The Western Martyrology.   44 It has not proved possible to discover these letters. They are not among Dunton’s miscellaneous correspondence housed in the Bodleian Library, MSS. Rawlinson D. 71 and D. 72 (Dunton, Life and Errors, vol. 2, pp. 753–60). Muddiman (ed.), Bloody Assizes, pp. 126–7, 131–6. See Parks, ‘John Dunton and The Works of the Learned’; Bhowmik, ‘Facts and Norms in the Marketplace of Print’.   45 Muddiman (ed.), Bloody Assizes, pp. 8–10; Pitts, A New Martyrology, or, The Bloody Assizes.   46 This paragraph must have been written by Tutchin after 1702 because in it he refers to the Observator, a journal he edited between 1702 and 1710.  47 Tutchin, Western Martyrology, pp. 224–31.  48 Pittis, The True-Born Englishman, pp. 48–51; The Examination Tryal and Condemnation of Rebellion, p. 6.   49 Cobbett and Howell (eds), Complete Collection of State Trials, vol. 14, pp. 1095–1200.   50 Horsley, ‘The Trial of John Tutchin, Author of the “Observator”’; Dunton, Life and Errors, pp. 245, 277; Clifton, Last Popular Rebellion, pp. 235, 268–9; Plomer, Dictionary, pp. 108–10.   51 It might be recalled (Chapter 8) that Feversham had hanged six rebels outside the White Hart Inn at Glastonbury on 7 July and left their naked bodies dangling (Tutchin, Western Martyrology, pp. 228–9).  52 Tutchin, A New Martyrology, pp. 524–6; Tutchin, Western Martyrology, pp. 216–18.   53 This was changed to ‘looseness’ in the 1719 edition, vol. 3, p. 434. See also, A Compleat History of all the Rebellions, Insurrections &c.  54 Kennett, Compleat History of England, vol. 3, p. 438. The story of Kirke taking advantage of a young woman in return for sparing the life of her brother/father/ husband/lover was taken up in a number of subsequent histories: Muddiman (ed.), Bloody Assizes, pp. 22–4, 129–31; Ailesbury, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 123; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 39–40. ‘The Treachery of Colonel Kirke, 1685’ (1799), by Robert Smirke (1753–1845), housed in the National Portrait Gallery, London, No. NPG D3497, is a thoroughly unrealistic depiction of Kirke’s alleged

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rape of the young woman, now identified as an innkeeper’s daughter. Kirke appears in tights resembling the product of a union between a member of the corps de ballet and a medieval troubadour. A print entitled, ‘Colonel Kirke’s brutal Conduct to a Lady who solicited the Life of her Brother’, appeared in 1803 and swathed Kirke in mid-eighteenth-century costume.  55 Echard, History of England, vol. 3, pp. 774–6.  56 Boyer, History of King William III, vol. 1, part 2, pp. 32–4.  57 Foxcroft, Supplement to Burnet’s History of my own Time, p. 168.  58 Burnet, History of his own Time, vol. 1, pp. 647–8.   59 Many subsequent historians have parroted Kennett and Burnet. See Webb, Lord Churchill’s Coup, pp. 96–7; Lustig, Imperial Executive in America, pp. 131–3; Bremer, Congregational Communion, p. 228; Trench, Western Rising, p. 239; Watson, Captain-General and Rebel Chief, pp. 269–70; Little, Monmouth Episode, pp. 203–4; Keen, Revolutions in Romantic Literature, p. 326. Earle, Monmouth’s Rebels, pp. 137–40, is less harsh and makes the point that others were equally culpable.   60 Rapin de Thoyras, History of England, vol. 2, p. 750.  61 Hume, History of England, vol. 8, pp. 224–5.  62 Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 1, part 1, book 2, pp. 198–9.  63 Locke, Western Rebellion.  64 Macaulay, History of England, vol. 2, pp. 624–8.  65 Fox, History of the early Part of the Reign of James II.  66 Lingard, History of England, vol. 14, pp. 75–7; Hay, Enigma of James II, p. 113.  67 Webb, Lord Churchill’s Coup, pp. 98–9; Manning, Apprenticeship in Arms, p. 278. The latter is fancifully inaccurate on this point.   68 It was first performed at the Royal Olympic Theatre, 19 February 1857. A review of an amateur performance at Southsea is in the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, no. 3602, 23 February 1867. In Taylor’s version, Kirke was removed from the command in Somerset for his ’barbarity’ and the agent bearing Sunderland’s order of dismissal was John Churchill.  69 Parker, Tom Balch, pp. 81, 86, 107–8; Blackmore, Lorna Doone, pp. 618–27. See Prologue, ‘Kirke and Lorna Doone’.  70 Everett-Green, In Taunton Town, pp. 381–97.   71 Muddiman (ed.), Bloody Assizes, pp. 22–4. Muddiman’s source, Jeffery (ed.), ‘A List of King James’s Army on Hounslow Heath … 30th June 1686’, pp. 229–32, is in error. Charles Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, p. 91, recognizes the mistake.  72 Mackintosh, Miscellaneous Works, p. 276.   73 WO 5/1, pp. 272–3.  74 Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), p. 542; HMC, Stopford-Sackville MSS., vol. 1, pp. 26–7. It is now the site of the Tangier urban regeneration area.  75 Oldmixon, History of England, p. 705.  76 CSPD, 1685, no. 1466.   77 Son of Hon. Edward Russell (d. 1665) and younger brother of Admiral Edward Russell.   78 Lieutenant Colonel of the Royal Dragoons, 1 July 1689.   79 The infantry regiment of Sir Charles Littleton, known as Prince George of Denmark’s Foot, arrived in Taunton to relieve Trelawney’s on 26 September (HMC, Stopford-Sackville MSS., vol. 1, p. 27). Lancaster, Warrington, Liverpool, Preston, Ormskirk and Wrexham, all strongly Whig in politics and suspected of sympathizing with Monmouth, received lengthy visitations from troops of

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216 Notes dragoons. The ‘honest town of Wigan’ was spared (WO 4/1, p. 23, Blathwayt to Captain Peter Shakerley, Governor of Chester, 28 November 1685).  80 Latimer, Annals of Bristol in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 434–8.   81 Charles Trelawney, a member of an ancient, landed Cornish family, impoverished through its royalism and loyalty to Charles I, was the younger brother of Sir Jonathan Trelawney, 3rd Bt (1650–1721), bishop of Bristol from 8 November 1685.   82 The infantry battalions forming the Somerset garrison, headquartered at Taunton, each served a tour of approximately one month: Kirke’s, Trelawney’s, Littleton’s and, finally, the Royal Scots. Thereafter, a regular military presence was no longer required. This pattern was atypical: the rotation of domestic garrisons usually occurred either every 12 months or, in the case of the guards regiments in and around London, not at all, so this rapid circulation of units into and out of Somerset may have been motivated by the need to mitigate the unsavoury effect of violence and depredation upon military discipline.  83 Atkinson, Royal Dragoons, pp. 47–8, 50–2; Webb, Lord Churchill’s Coup, pp. 97–8.   84 Wheeler, ‘Iter Bellicosum’, pp. 163–5; Little, Monmouth Episode, pp. 186–7.  85 Toulmin, History of Taunton, pp. 164–8; Oldmixon, History of England, p. 704.   86 Kirke and his officers were probably gathered on the first floor of the new Market House, built in 1682, which comprised space for commercial premises on the ground floor and municipal assembly rooms above looking over the Cornhill, or Island. The current Market House on Fore Street, next to the market cross, dates from 1772. There is a local tradition that Kirke lodged in the Three Cups Inn, now the County Hotel (Toulmin, History of Taunton, pp. 180–3). Similar traditions whereby young ladies dressed in white to plead with figures in authority for the lives of condemned persons existed in other parts of the country (Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 268).  87 Boswell, Life of Johnson, p. 849; the Sun, no. 1230, 3 September 1796.   88 John Merrill had been appointed deputy paymaster and solicitor (i.e. regimental agent) to the Coldstream Guards, 4 July 1711 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 6, p. 56; AO 1/60/66; Guy, Oeconomy and Discipline, p. 59).  89 The Sun, no. 1230, 3 September 1796, ‘Story of General Kirk rectified’. The letter was then in the possession of a ‘physician, at Wilmington, in North America’.   90 Technically, Sir Peter Killigrew entailed his estates upon his son-in-law, Martin Lister-Killigrew (Lysons, Magna Britannia, vol. 3, pp. 102).  91 HPT, vol. 2, p. 679; Gilbert, Parochial History of Cornwall, vol. 1, pp. 389–400. Martin Lister-Killigrew supervised the erection of the Killigrew Monument, opposite Arwenack House on the Falmouth waterfront, in 1738. See, Gay, Old Falmouth, pp. 11, 17, 35, 45, 49, 65, 66.  92 Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), pp. 545–8; Letter Book, f. 241; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 282, 302, 320, 323; vol. 2, pp. 25, 27, 132, 135; vol. 3, pp. 139, 193; vol. 5, pp. 56, 126; vol. 6, p. 199. Dalton mistakenly called ‘Lister’ ‘Lester’ throughout the second volume. Toulmin’s revisionism was substantially repeated by Roberts, Life, Progresses and Rebellion of James, Duke of Monmouth, vol. 2, pp. 171–87.   93 Timmons, ‘Executions following Monmouth’s Rebellion’, pp. 288–9; Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), pp. 546–7. Savage does not question that the lady was Mrs Elizabeth Rowe.  94 Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), pp. 164n–5n; the Sun, no. 1230, 3 September 1796.

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  95 Pomfret, ‘Cruelty and Lust: an Epistolary Essay’, in Miscellany Poems on Several Occasions, pp. 166–79.   96 Ronnick, ‘The Phrase “Nerone Neronior”’, pp. 169–70.  97 Toulmin, History of Taunton, pp. 166–7; Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), pp. 541–5. Toulmin’s explanation is repeated verbatim by Macaulay, History of England, vol. 2, pp. 627–8.  98 Saunders, Hawkwood: Diabolical Englishman, p. 222.  99 Mackintosh, Miscellaneous Works, p. 275–7. 100 Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), p. 543. 101 Briggs, ‘Historical Traditions in English Folk-Tales’, pp. 232, 241; Briggs, British Folk-Tales, p. 201; Parker, Tom Balch, pp. 137–44; Tongue, Somerset Folklore, p. 191.

Chapter Eight  1 Binet, H H h H, section 30.  2 London Gazette, no. 1584, 7–11 August 1684.   3 Montagu & Norman (eds), Survey of London: Volume 13, St. Margaret’s Westminster, pp. 236–48; CTB, 1685–9, pp. 1052, 1558; WO 5/4, p. 22. It is probable that he inherited the tenancy of the West Byfleet property from his father who had taken a long lease in order to attend Charles I when at Nonsuch Palace.   4 See Guy, Oeconomy and Discipline, pp. 88–115, 137–61.   5 Guy, ‘The Fall and Rise of the British Army, 1660–1704’, p. 10.   6 The portrait is now in the possession of the Surrey Infantry Museum, Clandon Park, Guildford, Surrey. A peasant in Northern Ireland apparently once complained to Kirke that soldiers had pillaged him of all he had in the world. Then ‘thou art a happy man’, said Kirke, ‘for then they will plunder thee no more’ (London Journal, no. 136, 3 March 1722).  7 Foskett, Samuel Cooper, pp. 48–51; Pepys, Diary, vol. 9, pp. 138, 259, 276–7.  8 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 62; Wigfield, Monmouth Rebels, pp. xv–xviii, 61.  9 Oldmixon, History of England, p. 705: no source cited. See also, Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 39, 41. This story was repeated in Toulmin, History of Taunton, Savage (ed.), pp. 548–9. Boyer, History of King William III, vol. 1, part 2, p. 34, says that, ‘afterwards [Kirke] endeavoured to palliate [these cruelties] by pretending that he did nothing but by express order from the king and his general’, but does not mention a conversation with Foulkes. 10 Cardigan, Life and Loyalties of Thomas Bruce, p. 112. 11 Bridgwater Castle was later demolished and Castle Street built across the site. Dunning and Elrington (eds), Victoria County History. A History of the County of Somerset, vol. 6, pp. 206–7. 12 Oldmixon, History of England, p. 705. 13 Pryme, Diary, p. 30; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 392. 14 CSPD, 1683, pp. 166–7. 15 His Majesty’s Gracious Declaration to all his loving Subjects for Liberty of Conscience, 4 April 1687, in Browning (ed.), English Historical Documents, 1660–1714, pp. 395–7. 16 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 92, 191; Portland MSS. Pw A 2084, November 1685; Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 2–5, 22–3, 119–37. This

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218 Notes antagonism between the Roman Catholic and Protestant officers proved an essential pre-condition for the events of the autumn and winter of 1688. 17 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 191. 18 Organizing marches was the task of the adjutant, Lieutenant William Storton – variously Storeton, Stouton, Stoughton – of Captain Charles Wingfield’s company, a veteran of the Royal English Regiment and Tangier. He worked closely with the quartermaster, William Wallis. 19 CSPD, 1685, no. 1738; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 43–5; Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 37–9. 20 Evelyn, Diary, 29 June 1678. The idea of an annual army encampment on the outskirts of London to express the crown’s military power probably originated with James when Duke of York as a component in ‘an intensification in all three kingdoms of that mildly authoritarian policy adopted by Charles II in 1681 … directed by James, Sunderland and [the Duchess of] Portsmouth’ (Kenyon, Sunderland, p. 107). See Brooks, General and compleat List military. 21 Bowen, Britannia Depicta, p. 23. 22 HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 3, pp. 143–4. An artist’s impression of the hospital is presented in Arni, Hospital Care and the British Standing Army, pp. 110–11. 23 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 377; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, pp. 94, 111, 141. His regiment was given to the Irish Roman Catholic veteran from France, Richard Hamilton, son of Sir George Hamilton and brother of Anthony (Clark, Anthony Hamilton, pp. 44–68). Langdale received the compensatory offices of governor of Hull (4 November 1687) and captain of the grenadier company in the infantry battalion of the Roman Catholic, William Herbert, 1st Viscount Montgomery (c. 1657–1745). 24 Evelyn, Diary, 6 June 1687; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 162, 198, 212–13. Morrice presents the menus served at the tables of Dumbarton and Feversham. See Jeffery, ‘Draught of King James the Second’s Army’. 25 England’s Triumph, or a Poem on the royal Camp at Hounslow-Heath; Evelyn, Diary, 2 June 1686. 26 The valiant Soldiers’ Gallantry, or the Glory of the Camp-Royal on Hounslow-Heath. 27 Johnson, A humble and hearty Address to all the English Protestants in this present Army, in A fifth Collection of Papers relating to the present Juncture of Affairs in England, pp. 12–13; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 298–9. 28 The Royal Encampment, or His Majesty’s Forces on Hounslow-Heath; An exact Prospect of his Majesty’s Forces as they are encamped on Hounslow-Heath, 19 July 1686; Campement de l’Armée de sa Majesté le Roy de la Grande Bretagne a Hounsslaucheats, June 1687. ‘The Grand Review of the Army on Hounslow Heath’, by Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611–93), hangs in the National Army Museum, Chelsea. The painting probably shows the ‘general rendezvous’ when all the forces in the camp paraded before James and Queen Mary on 30 June 1686. James and Mary took the salute from the ‘scaffold’ depicted in the right foreground. See Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 96–8; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 131. 29 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 287. No record of the outcome has been discovered. 30 Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 83–118. 31 A younger son of Sir Francis Godolphin (1605–67) of Breage, Cornwall, and his wife, Dorothy, née Berkeley, and brother of Sidney, 1st Earl Godolphin (1645–1712). 32 Kirke was the executor of his late brother’s will (Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 59). 33 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 63–5.

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34 Reresby, Memoirs, p. 398; Grey, Debates, vol. 8, pp. 353–69. 35 Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 47–50. 36 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 8, 9 April 1687. This passage refers to James dismissing from public office several of those who had declined to give assurances that they would favour the repeal of the Test Acts and Penal Laws. 37 The verb ‘to cashier’ originally meant to dismiss from military office without financial compensation. 38 This was the episode of the ‘Portsmouth Captains’. Colonel James Fitzjames, 1st Duke of Berwick (1670–1734), James II’s illegitimate son by John Churchill’s elder sister, Arabella (1649–1730), ordered each of the 12 company captains in his regiment, then garrisoning Portsmouth, to accept into their ranks a number of Catholic Irishmen. Lieutenant Colonel John Beaumont (c. 1636–1701) and Captains Thomas Paston, Simon Pack, Thomas Orme, William Cooke and John Port refused. They were courtmartialled and cashiered. See Childs, The Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, pp. 151–4. 39 Duckett, Penal Laws and Test Act, vol. 1, p. 10. 40 Portland MSS. Pw A 680. 41 See Cox, King William’s European Joint Venture. 42 HPT, vol. 3, pp. 395–6; John B. Hattendorf, ‘Savage, Richard’, ODNB. 43 Secretary at War William Blathwayt’s part in the army conspiracy has yet to be investigated. Neither his biographer, Gertrude Jacobsen, nor the short entry in the ODNB by Barbara C. Murison, suggests involvement but circumstantial evidence indicates that he played a crucial role by providing false orders, delaying the transmission of instructions and determining the billets and quarters of various key units. 44 Torrington, Memoirs, pp. 27–8. 45 Mazure, Histoire de la Révolution, vol. 2, p. 472. 46 Bod. Lib. MSS. Rawlinson D.148, ‘Letter about the Revolution in the Army in 1688’, 16 October 1713, London. This anonymous letter was probably the work of Ambrose Norton (c. 1646–1723), major of Princess Anne of Denmark’s Horse in 1688, which was effectively commanded by Langston because Colonel Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans (1670–1726), was on secondment to the Imperial army in Hungary. A slightly edited version is printed in Macpherson, Original Papers, vol. 1, pp. 287–96. 47 Sheridan’s ‘Historical Account’, written in 1702 (HMC, Stuart MSS., vol. 6, pp. 1–75), exonerated James from all responsibility for Catholicization in Ireland by blaming Tyrconnell and Sunderland. Sheridan had been relieved of his duties as Tyrconnell’s secretary on 20 January 1688 (John Miller, ‘Sheridan, Thomas’, ODNB). 48 The meeting between the St George brothers and Sheridan took place between 28 October and 4 November (HMC, Stuart MSS., vol. 6, pp. 50–1). 49 George Churchill was a captain in the Royal Dragoons as well as a post captain in the Royal Navy. 50 Francis Newport (1619–1708), created 1st Earl of Bradford in 1694. Newport was Treasurer of the Royal Household from 1672 until dismissed by James II in 1687 for failing to support the proposed repeal of the Test Acts and Penal Laws. He was a strong supporter of both Dutch intervention and the accession of William and Mary (Victor Stater, ‘Newport, Francis, 1st Earl of Bradford’, ODNB; HTP, vol. 3, pp. 136–7). 51 James Kendal (1647–1708) was commissioned cornet in the Royal Horse Guards, 5 January 1675. He was appointed lieutenant colonel of Lord Morpeth’s Horse, a

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220 Notes wartime levy, 1678–9, and promoted to captain in the Coldstream Guards, 7 June 1680 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 179, 190, 274; vol. 2, p. 21). A Tory, he was returned MP for West Looe in 1685 on the Trelawney interest. Although initially a court supporter, by the second session in November Kendall had grown antagonistic to James’s apparent creeping Catholicization of the army and voted in favour of the address against Catholic officers. A close associate of the equivocating Earl of Rochester, he was dismissed from the army and deserted to William in 1688 (HTP, vol. 2, pp. 673–4). As a reward for his support in 1688–9, Kendall was appointed Governor-General of Barbados. He was replaced by a Whig, Francis Russell, in 1693. When Rochester became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1703, Kendall joined the Irish Treasury Commission. He died in 1708 leaving to his housekeeper an estate worth £40,000 (Webb, Governors-General, p. 471). 52 HMC, Stuart MSS., vol. 6, pp. 50–1. 53 4th Viscount Fitzhardinge from 1690. 54 Succeeded as 4th Duke of Hamilton in 1698. 55 Macpherson, Original Papers, vol. 1, p. 158. 56 Berwick, Memoirs, vol. 1, pp. 27–8. 57 Berwick, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 29; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, pp. 338–9; London Gazette, no. 2400, 15–17 November 1688. 58 Herbert, ‘Correspondence of Admiral Herbert during the Revolution’, p. 528; Foxcroft, Supplement to Burnet’s History of my own Time, pp. 298n. 1, 530–1. 59 Portland MSS. Pw A 2212, November 1688. 60 Mackintosh, History of the Revolution, vol. 2, p. 211. 61 The lord lieutenant of Gloucestershire, the Duke of Beaufort, was one of the few to make a serious effort to intercept defectors. 62 Wood, Life and Times of Anthony Wood, vol. 1. p. 276, 4 April 1659. 63 Mackintosh, History of the Revolution, vol. 2, pp. 209–10. 64 An Irishman of Scottish parentage, possibly related to the Earls of Caithness. His father was the royalist soldier, Colonel William Stewart (d. 1691), who briefly served in the Restoration army as major of Sir Walter Vane’s wartime battalion, 1667 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 83). His son served in France, 1672–3, possibly in Sir George Hamilton’s regiment of foot. He returned to England as ensign in Lord Vaughan’s Foot, 1673, and was promoted to lieutenant the same year. Between 1674 and 1678, he served in the Anglo-Dutch Brigade. Captain, later major, in Sir Charles Wheeler’s wartime battalion, 1678; returned to the Anglo-Dutch Brigade, 1678–85, and had been promoted to major by 1685; captain in 1st Foot Guards, 15 December 1685; colonel of foot, 1 May 1689; brigadier general by 1691; major general, 1696; lieutenant general, 1703; commander-in-chief in Ireland, 1711 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 211, 246; vol. 2, 63; Dalton, George the First’s Army, vol. 1, pp. 71–80). 65 A William Mayne was commissioned ensign in the Scottish Foot Guards, 9 February 1684, and promoted lieutenant, 1 March 1689. He had left the regiment by 1 October 1691. Almost certainly, he was a relative of Edmund Mayne (1633–1711), lieutenant colonel of the 3rd Troop of the Life Guard, a veteran of the Portuguese and French brigades, and a client of Churchill. The Mayne family originated from either Clackmannanshire or Northumberland (Dalton, Scots Army, part 2, pp. 30, 147; www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690–1715/member/ maine-edmund–1633–1711). 66 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 347. 67 Beddard, Kingdom without a King, pp. 23–4; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 351.

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68 CSPD, 1687–9, no. 1884. On 7 November, Churchill was made lieutenant general and, on the following day, Robert Werden became lieutenant general and Edward Sackville a major general. Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe and Thomas Buchan (c. 1641–1724) were promoted brigadier general on 11 November and Colonel Richard Hamilton major general on 12 November. Not only was James attempting to purchase the loyalty of these gentlemen but the rapid enlargement of the army required additional general officers. 69 Trelawney’s lieutenant colonel was Charles Churchill, John Churchill’s brother and fellow conspirator. 70 Weaver, Royal Scots, p. 43. 71 The office of gold stick in waiting was created in 1678 to provide the sovereign with a personal bodyguard. There were two gold sticks in waiting, later the colonels of the Life Guards and the Royal Horse Guards, who protected the sovereign on alternate days. They were assisted by two silver sticks in waiting, normally the lieutenant colonels of the Household cavalry. 72 An old military rank, largely obsolete by this time. An exempt was a warrant officer in a cavalry regiment who stood between the cornet and the NCOs. Before 1684, the exempts in the Life Guards were also named corporals or brigadiers; after 1685, they were usually referred to as brigadiers.    The son of a Staffordshire clergyman, Cornelius Wood entered the 2nd Troop of the Life Guard as a private gentleman after the failure of his business. Promoted to exempt or brigadier, 15 June 1685; major of Robert Byerley’s Horse, 12 April 1690; lieutenant colonel of Hugh Wyndham’s (d. c. 1706) Horse, 31 January 1692; colonel of a regiment of horse, 1 December 1693; brigadier general, 9 March 1702; major general, 1 January 1704 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, pp. 44, 116; vol. 3, pp. 132, 227, 294; vol. 5, p. 16). 73 The source of this story was a death-bed confession by Sir George Hewett, a conspirator and member of the Princess Anne’s household. Hewett succeeded Sir John Talbot as colonel of a regiment of horse on 31 December 1688, was created Viscount Hewett in the Irish peerage in 1689 but contracted fever while attending the Dundalk camp and died in Chester during December 1689 (Macpherson, Original Papers, vol. 1, pp. 162, 280–4; Berwick, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 31). See also, Ward, Historical Essay on the real Character and Amount of the Precedent of the Revolution of 1688, vol. 1, pp. 270–3; CSPD, 1687–9, no. 1986. 74 Clarendon, State Letters of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, vol. 2, p. 254. 75 Beatson, Political Index, vol. 2, p. 226. 76 Foxcroft, Supplement to Burnet’s History of my own Time, pp. 530–2; CSPD, 1687–9, no. 1996. 77 Webb, Lord Churchill’s Coup, pp. 144–56; Glozier, Scottish Soldiers in France, pp. 225, 227; HMC, Dartmouth MSS., vol. 1, p. 219; HMC, Stuart MSS., vol. 6, p. 50; HMC, 7th Report, Appendix, p. 418a; Hatton Correspondence, vol. 2, pp. 113–14; HMC, Hastings MSS., vol. 2, p. 198; HMC, Hamilton (Supplementary) MSS., p. 111; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 1, pp. 480, 483, 489; Macpherson, Original Papers, vol. 1, pp. 162–3; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 362.

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Chapter Nine   1 It is unclear who first coined the expression ‘Glorious Revolution’. It may have been John Hampden MP (1653–96), in evidence before a House of Lords committee in the autumn of 1689, or Rev. Samuel Rosewell in November 1706 (Schwoerer, Revolution of 1688–89, p. 3; Hertzler, ‘Who dubbed it “The Glorious Revolution”?’, pp. 583–4).  2 HPT, vol. 2, pp. 673–4; vol. 3, p. 590.  3 HPT, vol. 2, pp. 690–1; Horwitz, Parliament, Policy and Politics, pp. 329, 349–50; Grey, Debates, vol. 9, passim; CTB, vol. 9, p. 330. The royal bedchamber was a department of the household. There were nine gentlemen, ten grooms and six pages. Kirke’s new position entitled him to grace and favour accommodation in the Palace of Whitehall. While some of the gentlemen and grooms actually waited on the king, Kirke’s and Trelawney’s appointments were purely honorific (Chamberlayne, Angliae Notitia, p. 127).  4 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 477; Glozier, Schomberg, pp. 135–6.   5 A separate centre of Protestant resistance had developed around Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, amid the waterways, lakes and marshes of the valley of the River Erne.   6 A committee of the Privy Council, established early in 1689 to advise William on the government of Ireland following Tyrconnell’s seizure of power in Dublin on behalf of James II. A key and expert member was the Ulsterman Sir John Skeffington, 2nd Viscount Massereene (d. 1695) (Horwitz, Parliament, Policy and Politics, p. 34; Foster/ Massereene Papers, p. 18).  7 CSPD, 1689–90, pp. 16–17, 8 March 1689, Shrewsbury to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lundy, Governor of Londonderry. Cunningham first appeared in English army lists as major of the battalion of Thomas Tufton, 6th Earl of Thanet (1644–1729), on 27 July 1685 and assumed command of Henry Corn[e]wall’s Foot on 31 December 1688. Solomon Richards is not present in any army register until commissioned colonel on 27 September 1688 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, pp. 7, 169, 170; Chester (ed.), Registers of St. Peter, Westminster, p. 229). See also, Witherow, Derry and Enniskillen in the Year 1689, pp. 369–72.  8 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, p. 7.  9 Gillespie, Narrative of the most remarkable Events, pp. 164–7. 10 Hanmer, Correspondence, pp. 3–4. 11 Charles Talbot, 12th Earl and 1st Duke of Shrewsbury (1660–1718), secretary of state for the southern department. 12 CSPD, 1687–9, no. 2102; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 85–6. 13 Childs, British Army of William III, p. 27; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 460. 14 Colonel William Stewart, 1st Viscount Mountjoy (c. 1650–92). Not to be confused with Kirke’s friend and client, Captain, Colonel from 1 May, William Stewart (1643–1726). 15 Zachariah Tiffin was major of Cunningham’s on secondment from Charles Trelawney’s battalion. He had served in France during the 1670s; captain and adjutant of Monmouth’s Foot in England, 1678–9; captain in Plymouth’s Foot (2nd Tangier Regiment) in Tangier, 1680–3; major of Charles Trelawney’s, 1684; acting lieutenant colonel of Trelawney’s, 1 December 1688; major of Cunningham’s/Stewart’s, 1689; colonel of the Royal Enniskillen Fusiliers, 20 June 1689; brigadier general, 1696; left

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the army, 1702 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 207–8, 222, 256, 269, 323; vol. 2, pp. 27, 135; vol. 3, pp. 8, 122, 375; vol. 4, p. 159; Drenth, Regimental List, p. 36; Letter Book, f. 382). Every effort was made to ensure that all units, new and old, enjoyed the service of an experienced, competent and reliable major. 16 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, pp. 42, 99–100, 105, 132; Webb, History of the Service of the 17th (Leicestershire) Regiment, pp. 5–6. 17 HMC, Buccleuch (Montagu House) MSS., vol. 2, part 1, p. 396. 18 Herbert, Graf Heinrich Trajektin von Solms-Braunfels, p. 102. 19 CSPD, 1689–90, p. 81; PC 6/2. Trelawney, who had been promoted brigadier general on 6 March, did not travel to Ireland. 20 Wolfran Corn[e]wall, related to Colonel Henry Corn[e]wall, was also an army officer who had probably served in France during the 1670s and was associated with Kirke. Ensign in the 2nd battalion of Monmouth’s Foot, 1678; ensign in 2nd Tangier Regiment (Trelawney), 1681; cornet in the Royal Horse Guards, 1685; lieutenant in the Royal Horse Guards, 1687; army and navy conspirator, 1688; captain RN of HMS Swallow, 1688–9; captain in the Royal Horse Guards, 1690; captain of the King’s Troop in the Royal Horse Guards, 1693. During the spring and summer of 1689, Cornwall allegedly charged Irish Protestant refugees £4 per head for passage to England (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 256, 281, 323; vol. 2, pp. 96, 120; Powley, Naval Side, p. 268; Torrington, Memoirs, pp. 27–8). 21 QRWS 1/8/2/5, Kirke to William Blathwayt, 13 April 1689; HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 210, Nottingham to Admiral Herbert, 30 April 1689; PC 6/2; HMC, Finch MSS., vol. 2, p. 204. Throughout, the situation of Londonderry was far more critical and tense than that of Enniskillen where the defenders were never besieged and always enjoyed freedom of movement by land and water plus the advantage of interior lines. 22 WO 4/1, f. 68; WO 5/5, f. 250. Out of a total of 39 commissions in St George’s battalion, 13 were changed between 1 May and 1 November 1689. Hanmer’s was subjected to six alterations, all dated 22 March. Between its inception on 29 September 1688 and October 1689, all the company captains in Stewart’s were replaced. However, they were of generally poor quality and the battalion was thus described by the inspectors at the Dundalk camp on 18 October 1689: ‘Colonel good but his officers not of the best.’ For comparison, Kirke’s enrolled only one new officer before the end of April 1689 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 2, p. 170; vol. 3, pp. 48, 51, 57, 108). 23 CSPD, 1689–90, p. 441; Japikse (ed.), Correspondentie, Welbeck Abbey, vol. 1, pp. 62–3; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, pp. 130, 146–7. An exact Account of the Duke of Schomberg’s happy Voyage, p. 2, incorrectly lists St George’s as a component of Schomberg’s corps of reinforcements in 1689. 24 Sallies by the Londonderry garrison had killed Lieutenant General François de Maumont on 21 April and mortally wounded Major General Claude Costaing, Marquis de Pusignan, on 25 April. He died on 30 April (Macrory, Siege of Derry, pp. 228–34). 25 Culmore Fort stood on the west bank guarding the point where Lough Foyle narrowed into the River Foyle. 26 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 1–3. This was an official journal, delivered to William in Whitehall at the conclusion of the Londonderry operation. 27 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 3–8. 28 Schomberg’s corps, which had a paper strength of 10,920 men, included Kirke’s brigade of 1,910.

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224 Notes 29 HMC, Finch MSS., vol. 2, p. 204; CSPD, 1689–90, pp. 101, 107–8. 30 HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 213, Rooke to Nottingham, 1 June 1689, aboard HMS Deptford; London Gazette, no. 2459; Bellingham, Diary, p. 65. 31 D’Alton, Illustrations historical and genealogical of King James’s Irish Army List, 1689, pp. 256–63, 374–7; O’Callaghan, History of the Irish Brigades in the Service of France, pp. 84–7. Both knew Kirke through service in France during the 1670s and the English army under James II. 32 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 14, 22. 33 The construction of a boom had begun during the last week of May. The work was supervised by the French engineer, Jean-Bernard-Louis Desjean, Baron de Pointis (1645–1705) (Gébler, Siege of Derry, pp. 204–5, 220). 34 Even if the cannon could have been brought to bear, it would have been most unwise to fire when the ship was aground because the resultant recoil would have caused serious, structural damage. When afloat, the shock from a broadside was largely absorbed by the water surrounding the hull. 35 Boyce was later shot in the stomach. 36 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 8–13. 37 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, p. 15; Powley, Naval Side, pp. 218–24; Walker, True Account of the Siege of London-Derry, p. 26; Mackenzie, Narrative of the Siege of London-Derry, p. 38; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 113–17. 38 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, p. 12; Powley, Naval Side, pp. 226–8; HMC, Hamilton MSS., pp. 184–5. 39 HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 228. 40 Wickham was court-martialled on 30 April 1694 for surrendering HMS Diamond (4th rate, 50 guns) to the French in 1693. He was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment and fined £1,000 (ADM 1/5354/27). 41 HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, pp. 219–20. 42 Ash, ‘Journal’, pp. 76–7. 43 The distance from the centre of Londonderry to Culmore was just over three miles and about nine miles to the fleet anchorage at Redcastle. 44 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 114–15. Roche, possibly a seaman injured during the Battle of Bantry Bay, 11 May 1689, never received 3,000 guineas or any other sum. After the war he petitioned for compensation, his story being considerably enlarged in his application. He was granted ‘the ferries in Ireland’, worth £80 per annum, in recompense for injuries suffered and subsequent damage to his health caused by ‘lying so long in the water’, plus the estates of James Everard in County Waterford from the Irish Forfeitures (CSPD, 1693, p. 66, 15 March 1693; CSPD, 1694–5, p. 177; Simms, Williamite Confiscation, pp. 89–90, 115). For a fuller account of the adventures of Roche and Cromie, see, Gillespie, Narrative of the most remarkable Events, pp. 169–71; Sheane, Great Siege, pp. 120–1; Gébler, Siege of Derry, pp. 239–40; MSS. Carte 181, ff. 222, 224–6. 45 The Roman Catholic Howard had raised a volunteer, hostilities-only troop of horse on 1 July 1685 during the Monmouth emergency. Ambassador to Rome, 8 June to November 1688 (Simms, Jacobite Ireland, p. 63; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 16, 18; Bell, Handlist of British Diplomatic Representatives, pp. 169, 271). 46 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, p. 20. 47 HMC, Frankland-Russell-Astley MSS., pp. 72–3; Childs, Williamite Wars, p. 119; Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 21–2.

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Chapter Ten  1 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 7–8, 27, 34–5. The pre-dating of these commissions ensured that the recipients received additional seniority.   2 Unless regularly reinforced, a military detachment is a perpetually diminishing asset. Kirke’s brigade would have been continually losing men to sickness, accident and, occasionally, enemy action.   3 This William Stewart was possibly a relative of Colonel William Stewart. CTP, vol. 1, no. 11; Hanna, ‘The Break of Killyleagh’, pp. 184–7.   4 The lieutenant’s name is unknown. He may or may not have been a Jacobite sympathizer but the episode illustrates the difficulties with which the Williamite forces in Ireland, both by land and sea, had to contend.  5 Clark, Anthony Hamilton, p. 93. In an effort to sustain Londonderry, Governor Hamilton had led the Enniskillen forces north on 10 June with the intention of ‘beating up’ the Jacobite troops on the east bank of the River Foyle. Although the expedition only reached Omagh before having to turn back, news of this and the possible potential for a similar but better supported and resourced operation probably influenced Kirke in devising the Inch-Enniskillen strategy (Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 105–7). The French had correctly deduced Kirke’s revised plan by 5 July (D’Avaux, Négociations, p. 310).   6 Possibly the Ven. Thomas Brown, Archdeacon of Derby (d. 1689).  7 Powley, Naval Side, p. 233; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 80–3; D’Avaux, Négociations, p. 235; Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 22–4.   8 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, p. 24.   9 A protection was a written guarantee issued by an occupying military power safeguarding the holder from gratuitous requisition, violence and plunder. 10 The upper classes ate two main meals: dinner, around noon, and supper, which could be taken at any time during the evening. 11 An Anglicisation of the Dutch, ‘vlieboot’ or ‘fluyt’; a two-masted, flat-bottomed coaster of between 150 and 400 tons. 12 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 24–5. 13 Third son of Robert Echlin of Ardquin, County Down. Lieutenant in Mountjoy’s Foot in Ireland, 1685; dismissed in Tyrconnell’s purge, 1 March 1686; captain in Cunningham’s (Stewart’s) Foot, 1689; lieutenant colonel of the dragoon regiment of his uncle, Sir Albert Conyngham (d. 1691), 20 June 1689; colonel of this regiment, 1691–1715; brigadier, 1703; major general, 1704; lieutenant general, 1707 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 35, 108, 183; vol. 4, p. 61; vol. 5, pp. 16–17, 159; Drenth, Regimental List of Half-Pay Officers, p. 8; Dalton, Irish Army Lists, pp. 151, 154; ‘Echlin, Robert’, www.historyofparliamentonline.org). 14 The Royal Navy navigated from out-of-date Dutch ‘waggoner’ charts. Captain Greenville Collins (d. 1694), Great Britain’s Coasting Pilot (London, 1693) had yet to be published and, in any event, his charts did not cover Ireland, except Belfast Lough, Dublin Bay, Cork and Kinsale. A typical example of the generalized and small scale charts in use can be found at Mount & Page, Chart of the North-West Coast of Ireland from Lough Swilly to Slyne Head. See also Barritt, Eyes of Admiralty, pp. 32–5. 15 The ford has been replaced by a permanent causeway. 16 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 26–7. 17 A light, unfortified encampment.

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226 Notes 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 27–8. Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 29–30. About 150 yards. A particular Account from Collonel Kirke of the State of London-Derry and Inniskilling, p. 1. Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, p. 31. Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 32–4. HMC, Le Fleming MSS., p. 249; CTB, 1557–1696, pp. 473–4. Ryan, Biographica Hibernia, vol. 1, pp. 363–6, says that Caldwell sailed 40 leagues from Donegal in an open boat to meet Kirke in Lough Foyle but other sources state that he travelled in company aboard HMS Bonaventure. 25 William Wolseley was the fifth and youngest son of Sir Robert Wolseley, 1st Bt of Wolseley, Staffordshire (1587–1646) and his wife Mary, née Wroughton (b. c. 1608). He served in the same regiment, commanded by three different colonels, until 1689: captain-lieutenant of the Marquis of Worcester’s Foot, 1667 and 1673; lieutenant in Worcester’s independent garrison company in Chepstow Castle, 1679; captain in the Duke of Beaufort’s Foot, 1685; major in Montgomery’s Foot, 1688; lieutenant colonel of Hanmer’s Foot, May 1689; colonel of the Enniskillen Horse, 20 July 1689; brigadier, 1693. Wolseley was a firm Protestant who publicly tossed the mayor of Scarborough in a blanket for caning an Anglican minister who had refused to read aloud in church the 2nd Declaration of Indulgence during June 1688 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 81, 136, 259; vol. 2, pp. xxvi–vii, 32, 37, 141; vol. 3, pp. 27, 344). 26 Lieutenant in Kirke’s battalion in Tangier, 1681; captain-lieutenant, 1681; lieutenant colonel of Wolseley’s Enniskillen Horse, 20 July 1689. (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 282; vol. 2, pp. 25, 132; vol. 3, p. 27). 27 Wolseley became colonel, Berry the lieutenant colonel and Stone the major of the Enniskillen Horse. Wynn was promoted colonel of the Enniskillen Dragoons and Tiffin colonel of one of the three Enniskillen foot battalions. Echlin was made lieutenant colonel of Sir Albert Conyngham’s (d. 1691) Enniskillen Dragoons but appears to have remained with his company in Stewart’s until the end of the Londonderry campaign. All commissions were dated 20 June but activated from 20 July 1689 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 27, 34, 35, 122). The other two Enniskillen infantry battalions were continued under the command of Governor Gustavus Hamilton and Colonel Thomas Lloyd (d. 1690). Hamilton was succeeded by Abraham Creighton (d. 1705), 13 July 1691, and Lloyd by Lord George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney from 1696 (c. 1666–1737), on 1 March 1690 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 7, 121, 155). 28 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 138–9. 29 Gillespie, Narrative of the most remarkable Events, pp. 139–40. 30 D’Avaux, Négociations, pp. 256, 310–11. 31 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 34–5; London Gazette, no. 2473. 32 The latter section of the road from Ray to Rathmullan ran along the shore and was in direct observation from Inch Island and the vessels in Lough Swilly. 33 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 35–7. 34 Kirke was correct in this assessment. Schomberg’s expeditionary force was indeed assembling in Cheshire and Lancashire but would not sail until 12 August (Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 130–1, 148–9). 35 HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, pp. 233–4; HMC, Hamilton MSS., pp. 185–6, George Walker and John Michelburne to Kirke, 19 July 1689, Londonderry, in answer to Kirke’s letter of 16 July 1689.

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36 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 38–9. 37 Hart’s disobedience did not damage his career. He was promoted to captain in St George’s Foot on 17 January 1690. He had left the regiment by 20 August 1695 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 146). 38 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 39–40; Childs, Williamite Wars, p. 131. 39 HMC, Hamilton MSS., vol. 6, pp. 184–6; Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 40–6. 40 There was no ship of this name in the Royal Navy in 1689. HMS St George (1st rate, 96 guns) was not present. This George was possibly an armed merchantman. 41 Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 46–7. 42 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 133–5; Histoire de la Révolution d’Irlande, pp. 26–9.

Chapter Eleven   1 Lieutenant in George Wingfield’s company in Monmouth’s Foot in England, 1678; lieutenant in Tangier, 1679; lieutenant in 1st Tangier Regiment, 1680–4; 1st lieutenant of grenadier company in Kirke’s in England, 1684–8; captain, 1688–9; major of Kirke’s, 1689; lieutenant colonel of Selwyn’s, 1692; fought at Landen in 1693 and the siege of Namur, 1695; brevet colonel, 1702; left the regiment in 1707 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 207, 222, 302, 320; vol. 2, pp. 25, 132; vol. 3, pp. 107, 242–3).   2 The account of events on Inch has been based on Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, passim, and HMC, Le Fleming MSS., pp. 255–8, ‘An abstract of what passage [sic] at the Isle of Inch from Sunday July the 7 to Friday August 2, [16]89’. A shortened version was published in the London Gazette, no. 2478, 8–12 August 1689. Withers was rewarded on 1 July with a colonel’s brevet and promoted adjutant general of the foot in Ireland, 20 October 1689 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 102).   3 The arms, ammunition and accoutrements sent by Kirke to Enniskillen in late July had recently arrived in Ballyshannon and Wolseley was anxious to prevent their capture by Sarsfield.  4 London Gazette, no. 2481, 19–22 August 1689; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 138–46; Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, pp. 52–4; Histoire de la Révolution d’Irelande, pp. 30–5.  5 Childs, Williamite Wars, p. 146.   6 Michelburne was an English Protestant born in Horsted Keynes, Sussex. He served in the ranks in the Royal English Regiment in France during the 1670s, reaching the rank of sergeant, before purchasing a lieutenant’s commission in Monmouth’s Foot in England during 1678. He was appointed lieutenant in Plymouth’s Foot in 1680 and served in Tangier until 1684, where he came to the attention of Kirke and Robert Lundy. On return from Tangier, he secured Lundy’s patronage to transfer into Viscount Mountjoy’s Foot in Ireland as 1st lieutenant of grenadiers and was one of the few Protestant officers to survive Tyrconnell’s purge. He was made major of Clotworthy Skeffington’s Ulster volunteer regiment, 5 February 1689, and retreated with the remnants of the Ulster Association forces into Londonderry. He was appointed colonel of one of the eight militia battalions in the city by Governor Henry Baker (commission dated 19 April 1689) and, following Baker’s death on 30 June, was made military governor in tandem with Walker who served as civil governor. Michelburne lost his wife and children during the siege. Promoted to colonel of a regular battalion on the Irish establishment, an amalgamation of Skeffington’s and Crofton’s Londonderry regiments, by Kirke on 7 August 1689. Saw action at the siege

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228 Notes of Sligo, 1691 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 208, 253, 269; vol. 3, pp. 83, 398; Dalton, Irish Army Lists, p. 151; C. I. McGrath, ‘Michelburne, John’, ODNB; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 347–64).   7 Piers Wauchope, ‘Walker, George’, ODNB; Macrory, Siege of Derry, pp. 318–20; HMC, Hamilton MSS., p. 186, 4 August 1689; Gillespie, Narrative of the most remarkable Events, pp. 151–2. The Address professed ‘due acknowledgements … to the indefatigable care of Major General Kirke, for our unexpected relief by sea in spite of all the opposition of our industrious but bloody and implacable enemies; which relief was not less wonderfully, than seasonably, conveyed to us … at the very nick of time …’   8 Robert White was buried in Londonderry on 11 September 1689.   9 Thomas Lance was buried on 9 September 1689. His battalion was then disbanded and the soldiers drafted into the remaining three Londonderry regiments. 10 St John was replaced as lieutenant colonel of Kirke’s by Henry Rowe; captain in 1st Tangier Regiment, 1680; captain in Kirke’s battalion, 1684; lieutenant colonel of Kirke’s, 1689; colonel of an Irish battalion, 1692–5 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 272, 302, 320; vol. 2, p. 25). Richard Billing was advanced to major. Billing had first been commissioned as a junior lieutenant in Monmouth’s Foot in England during 1678 and his company went to Tangier in 1679. Lieutenant in Kirke’s 1st Tangier Regiment, 1680–4; 1st lieutenant of the grenadier company in Kirke’s, 1684–7; captain, 1688–9; major, 1689; lieutenant colonel, 1692; brevet colonel, 1702; left the army during 1707 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 207, 255, 302, 320; vol. 2, pp. 25, 132; vol. 3, pp. 107, 242–3). 11 Colonel of a volunteer battalion during the siege of Londonderry until dismissed by Kirke. Granted three months’ pay on 27 February 1690 ‘to enable [him] to return into Ireland’. Captain in Viscount Mountjoy’s Foot in Ireland, 1694; half-pay, 1697–1702 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 168, 391, 398). 12 Son of Gideon Murray, of Philiphaugh, Selkirk, who settled in Ulster in 1648. Colonel of a volunteer regiment of horse during the siege of Londonderry until sacked by Kirke in August. Granted three months’ pay, worth £108, on 27 February 1690 ‘to enable [him] to return into Ireland’. Commanded the Ulster militia, 1691; lieutenant colonel of Viscount Charlemont’s battalion of foot in Ireland, 1694; half-pay 1697 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 168, 392; Piers Wauchope, ‘Murray, Adam’, ODNB). 13 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 7. 14 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 136–8; Richards, ‘Diary of the Fleet’, p. 55, 11 August 1689; Ash, ‘Journal’, pp. 102–4; Graham, History of Ireland, p. 3; Gillespie, Narrative of the most remarkable Events, pp. 149–51. 15 MSS. Carte 181, Nairn Papers, f. 238, Schomberg to Kirke, 3 July 1689. 16 On 16 July, Jean-Antoine de Mesmes, Comte d’Avaux (1640–1709), the French ambassador to the court of James II in Ireland, wrote from Dublin to Louis XIV stating that a packet boat carrying letters from Schomberg to Kirke had been captured (D’Avaux, Négociations, pp. 319–21). As early as 5 July, the Franco-Irish had correctly pieced together Kirke’s Inch-Enniskillen strategy by using intercepts. The result was the plan to launch Sarsfield, Berwick and MacCarthy in a three-pronged attack on Enniskillen to inhibit co-operation with Kirke against Londonderry (D’Avaux, Négociations, pp. 309–11). 17 Bellingham, Diary, p. 74. 18 CSPD, 1689–90, p. 199, Schomberg to William III, 26 July 1689, Chester. Schomberg’s prejudice against British officers seems to have stemmed from his experience as

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commander of the English expeditionary force in 1673 and observation of their conduct during the Glorious Revolution. Conversely, when he was leading the British Brigade in Portugal between 1663 and 1668 Schomberg had formed a very favourable impression of the professionalism and determination of both officers and men. Capricieux/capricious bears a number of subtle meanings: Schomberg probably meant that Kirke was wilful, inconsistent and always liable to change his mind. 19 Bellingham, Diary, p. 76; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 147–8. 20 Portland MSS. Pw A 1126, Earl of Portland to Schomberg, 21 August 1689. 21 Schomberg was evidently very poorly informed about the state of affairs in Ulster because Carrickfergus was a strongly held Jacobite garrison. 22 London Gazette, no. 2483, 26–9 August 1689; HMC, Hamilton MSS., p. 186; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 148–51, 158–9; D’Avaux, Négociations, pp. 475–6; Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 3, appendix, part 2, pp. 24–5. 23 The loyalty of the three so-called ‘Huguenot regiments’ was certainly a matter of grave concern to Schomberg. Although the officers were Huguenots, many of the rank-and-file were Roman Catholics and runaways from other armies. A mass desertion by over 400 ‘Huguenots’ was planned for 21 September to coincide with an advance by James’s army towards Dundalk. The scheme was discovered in time and over 150 soldiers were dismissed (Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 165–7). 24 HMC, Le Fleming MSS., p. 265, George Holmes to William Fleming, 16 November 1689, Strabane. Schomberg blamed everyone but himself, a point fully appreciated by both Solms and William. William’s response was to sack Schomberg, take personal command of the 1690 campaign and hire a large corps of Danish mercenaries. See Portland MSS. Pw A 1163/1–3, Solms to Portland, 16 September 1689. 25 Arni, Hospital Care, pp. 61–2; Childs, Williamite Wars, p. 179. 26 Henry Rowe. 27 Richard Billing. 28 Captain Stafford Fairborne RN (c. 1666–1742), captain of HMS Phoenix, and Captain John Leake RN (1656–1720), captain of HMS Dartmouth. 29 The unusually high number of joint army and navy captains in this battalion probably reflected the close relationship between Admiral Arthur Herbert and Kirke. 30 Walton, History of the British Standing Army, pp. 79–80; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 107. 31 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 147–89. 32 Garrisons were not encouraged to ‘break out’. The importance of a siege lay in the capture or defence of the fortress: the actual soldiers were of little significance. Should a garrison ‘break out’ then the town would have been automatically lost and many casualties caused among the defenders. The same result could be achieved, without the additional casualties, by a formal capitulation. 33 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, p. 250. 34 HMC, Buccleuch (Monatagu House) MSS., vol. 2, part 1, pp. 393–6, information by Sir John Fenwick, August 1696. 35 Garrett, Triumphs of Providence, pp. 250–3. 36 The Anglo-Dutch fleet was commanded by Admiral Edward Russell, 1st Earl of Orford (1652–1727), confirmed Whig and one of the ‘Immortal Seven’, who was conspicuously loyal to the dual monarchy. See Aubrey, Defeat of James Stuart’s Armada. 37 HMC, Finch MSS., vol. 2, p. 254; HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 254; Story, Impartial History, p. 24; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, pp. 259, 266. On 18 October 1689, the inspectors had described Ingoldsby’s battalion thus: ‘Colonel ill and incapable, as

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230 Notes are almost all the other officers, who are usually absent, and are so greedy of money that the soldiers can scarce get paid, very badly clothed and without shirts; as bad a regiment as possible, except Drogheda’s (Henry Moore, 3rd Earl of Drogheda (d. 1714)), which is worse’ (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 112, 116). 38 Probably John Rayley (Rayly, Railey), a cordwainer or draper, of 13A, Bow Church Yard, Soper Lane, which abutted Cheapside. He was a Common Councilman of the City of London, 1677–83, 1689–94, 1699, and his politics were almost certainly Whig (Keen and Harding (eds), Historical Gazetteer of London, pp. 256–60; Woodhead, Rulers of London, p. 134). 39 It is more than likely that Kirke’s soldiers brought with them from Londonderry the typhus bacillus that emasculated Schomberg’s corps. 40 CSPD, 1691–2, pp. 44–6. 41 Roger Morrice spells Crofton as ‘Grafton’ but this is incorrect: there was no Grafton in the army by July 1689. The Duke of Grafton had relinquished his commissions as colonel of the 1st Foot Guards and governor of Portsmouth in March 1689 and did not serve again (Simms, Jacobite Ireland, p. 118; J. D. Davies, ‘Fitzroy, Henry, first Duke of Grafton’, ODNB). Richard Crofton was awarded £100 from the English Treasury on 17 October 1689 ‘for contingent services in Ireland’. He was in England during February 1690 and was granted three months’ pay, worth £108, on 27 February 1690 ‘to enable [him] to return into Ireland’. He was first commissioned ensign in John, Lord Berkeley’s company of foot in Ireland, 1662; captain in Thomas Fairfax’s battalion in Ireland, 1685; dismissed by Tyrconnell, 1686; major in the Ulster Association’s volunteer forces, 1689; promoted colonel of a militia regiment defending Londonderry, 1689; sacked by Kirke, August 1689; captain in Viscount Charlemont’s Foot, 1694; half-pay, 1697 (CTB, 1702, p. 536; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 168, 392, 398; Dalton, Irish Army, pp. 34, 153). 42 Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, pp. 381–2, 398. 43 Childs, ‘Schomberg, Meinhard’, ODNB; Morrice, Entring Book, vol. 5, p. 447; Bellingham, Diary, pp. 80, 85, 87, 91, 92. 44 Commanded by his sons Hugh (d. 1710) and Charles. 45 CTP, 1557–1696, pp. 473–4, petition from Sir James Caldwell to the Lords of the Treasury, 7 December 1695; Cunningham, History of Castle Caldwell, pp. 32–3. It is worth repeating that the perpetrator of these outrages against a neighbour was Tiffin’s, an Enniskillen battalion. 46 John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, Bagshawe Papers, B3/2/38–39. A printed version can be found in Cunningham and Whalley (eds), ‘Queries against Major General Kirke’, pp. 208–16. 47 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 149–50, 199. 48 Wolseley’s purge of the Enniskillen regiments was not as severe as that carried out by Kirke in Londonderry but he had demobilized Caldwell’s own battalion and the two troops of horse commanded by his sons. To make matters worse, Richard Wolesley, Colonel William’s nephew, was made senior captain of the Enniskillen Horse on 20 July 1689 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 27, 120–1). 49 A Particular Account from Collonel Kirke, p. 1. This sentence might read, ‘a brusque, domineering, agitated, nervous man in a fine, blue, laced coat who goes backwards and forwards without arousing suspicion’. 50 Dover had been captain of the 4th Troop of the Life Guard in the English army between 1686 and 1688 before following James first to France and then Ireland where he was made a commissioner of the Irish Treasury. He fell out with the French who

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blamed him for failing to provide the financial resources necessary to support the army’s logistics. Dover knew both Kirke and Tyrconnell very well having been a comember of the Duke of York’s inner circle of advisors and swordsmen (John Miller, ‘Jermyn, Henry’, ODNB; Callow, Making of King James II, pp. 70, 72, 106, 122). 51 D’Avaux, Négociations, pp. 534–5; Mulloy (ed.), Franco-Irish Correspondence, no. 1032, 10 August 1690; HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, p. 297; Portland MSS. Pw A 694, 695; D’Alton, King James’s Irish Army List, pp. 17–18. 52 Clarke, Life of James II, vol. 2, pp. 367–8; D’Avaux, Négociations, pp. 375–6, D’Avaux to Louis XIV, 4/14 August 1689, Dublin. The ‘other side of the hill’ usually produces unexpected explanations and perspectives. 53 Childs, Army of William III, pp. 73–7, 224–6; Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 3, pp. 54–135.

Chapter Twelve  1 Wolseley, A Copy, p. 1; Wolseley, A further Account from Colonel Wolseley, p. 1; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 189–91; Clarke, Life of James II, vol. 2, p. 285; London Gazette, nos. 2539, 2541; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 121, says that Kirke designed the operation and led the Williamite corps at the second Battle of Cavan (14 February 1690) but the official account printed in the London Gazette is very clear that Kirke was not present, although his battalion provided half the infantry involved. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Echlin (Enniskillen Dragoons) and Major Richard Billing (Kirke’s) commanded under the overall theatre direction of Wolseley.  2 Great and good News both from Scotland and Ireland, pp. 1–2.   3 On the Danish corps in Ireland see, Danaher and Simms (eds), Danish Force in Ireland, and Galster, Danish Troops.  4 Lenihan, 1690: the Battle of the Boyne, pp. 82, 172; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 208–9.  5 Childs, Williamite Wars, p. 208.   6 A signatory of the Invitation to William of Orange, 30 June 1688, and one of the principal conspirators; colonel of the 1st Foot Guards, 16 March 1689; lord justice of Ireland in tandem with Thomas Coningsby, September 1690; secretary of state for the north, December 1690; created 1st Earl of Romney, 14 May 1694 (David Hosford, ‘Sidney, Henry’, ODNB; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 214).  7 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 207–9, 219–20; Lenihan, 1690: Battle of the Boyne, pp. 147–207; Story, True and impartial History, pp. 82, 96; Kirke, Letter from MajorGeneral Kirke, p. 1.   8 The inspectors at the Dundalk camp on 18 October 1689 had accused Lisburn of indolence, living in an ‘extravagant style’ and being too fond of the bottle. His battalion was run by the highly efficient lieutenant colonel, Richard Coote (d. 1703), and major, Thomas Allen. Coote succeeded Lisburn as colonel of this battalion on 1 February 1692 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 75, 115, 123, 270).   9 Probably fought in France until 1674 when he joined the Anglo-Dutch Brigade; captain in Henry Sydney’s Foot in England, 1678, but returned to the Netherlands in 1679 remaining until 1685; captain in Sir Edward Hales’s Foot in England, 1685; lieutenant colonel, 31 December 1688; colonel of a regiment of foot, previously Henry Wharton’s, 1 November 1689; died on active service in Jamaica, 1702 (Dalton,

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232 Notes Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 218; vol. 2, pp. 35, 144; vol. 3, pp. 6, 53; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 5, p. 213). 10 HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, pp. 379, 387. 11 I.e., flags furled in their leather carrying cases. For the varying degrees of honourable surrender permitted to fortress garrisons see Wright, ‘Sieges and Customs of War’. 12 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 237–9. 13 The Foxon family of County Clare. See Fitzgerald and McGregor, History, Topography and Antiquities of the County and City of Limerick, vol. 2, pp. xiv, 321. Sir Samuel’s son, also Samuel (d. 1692), was a captain in the battalion of John Cutts before transferring into the 1st Foot Guards as captain, 18 December 1690 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 136–7, 166). 14 HMC, 10th Report, Appendix, Part V, MSS. of the Earl of Fingall, ‘A Light to the Blind’, p. 142; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 244–7. 15 A particular Account of Major General Kirk’s beating the Irish out of their Bullworks and Fort, pp. 1–2; HMC, Le Fleming MSS., pp. 291–2, John Copley to Colonel William Fleming, 14 September 1690. 16 It was common practice during sieges to detach the grenadier companies from all infantry battalions and combine them into an elite unit capable of conducting particularly hazardous and important operations. 17 The gorge, or throat, of an outwork faced towards the town or fortress. It was open and undefended to enable either easy reinforcement or quick withdrawal of the garrison. Following capture, pioneers excavated a simple ditch and piled the spoil to form an earthen rampart, reinforced by woolsacks and fascines, across the gorge thus creating a new front against counter-attack and fire from the main works. 18 HMC, Le Fleming MSS., p. 292; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 252–3; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 2, pp. 99–100; HMC, Rutland MSS., vol. 1, pp. 425–7. 19 Infantry units garrisoning siege trenches were frequently rotated, usually daily. A brigade or wing commander, such as Kirke, commanded a sector of the siege lines when his formation was on duty. 20 Banagher was one of the few permanent crossings of the middle Shannon. The stone bridge was completed in 1685. 21 Birr, whose modern development dates from 1622, was a very small, sparsely inhabited village consisting of a triangular green with dwellings on two sides. The castle lay to the west. South of the town ran the Birr River which the Banagher road crossed at Racalier Bridge (Taylor and Skinner, Maps of the Roads of Ireland, p. 87). 22 Solms had been instructed by William to assume the defensive over the winter. He was to concentrate on preventing the Irish from raiding across the Shannon and giving maximum support to Marlborough’s attack on Cork and Kinsale (Portland MSS. Pw A 1164, 8 September 1690, William’s instructions to Solms. Also, Pw A 1168). 23 Son of Very Rev. Dr Alexander Conyngham of Mount Charles, County Donegal (d. 1660), Dean of Raphoe (1630–60). Sir Albert’s portrait was painted by Kneller and presently hangs in Springhill House (Ballydrum), County Armagh. 24 Promoted to lieutenant, 27 July 1694 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 375). 25 Promoted to captain, 1 December 1693 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 336). 26 This mistake did not blight his career. Promoted captain in Leveson’s Dragoons, now commanded by Thomas, 5th Baron Fairfax of Cameron (1657–1710), 1694; major, 1699; dead or retired, 1704 (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 358; vol. 5, p. 37).

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27 Mulloy (ed.), Franco-Irish Correspondence, no. 1062; Wauchope, Patrick Sarsfield, pp. 154–63; Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 262–4, 282; HMC, 10th Report, Appendix, Part V, p. 145; Cooke, Early History of Birr, pp. 81–7, 393–5; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 149–50. 28 Galster, Danish Troops, p. 43. 29 HMC, Leyborne-Popham MSS., ‘Autobiography of Dr. George Clarke’, pp. 276–7. Subsequently, Marlborough enjoyed tense relations with the Duke of Württemberg during the Cork-Kinsale operation (Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 274–6). 30 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 162, 283. Kirke thus became senior to Lanier, who was not advanced to ‘lieutenant general of the forces’ until 23 January 1692. Douglas, despite being commissioned into the Scottish army, remained the ranking lieutenant general of the forces, his appointment dating from 26 October 1685 (Dalton, Scots Army, part 1, p. 80). Other notable British promotions in 1690 included Thomas Talmash to ‘major general of horse and foot’ and Hugh Mackay to ‘lieutenant general over all the forces’. A ‘lieutenant general over all the forces’ was senior to a lieutenant general of horse, who in turn out-ranked a lieutenant general of foot.    Kirke was not promoted on merit but as part of a public relations exercise by William to assuage growing xenophobia concerning his overt partiality for Dutch and German soldiers. 31 Taylor and Skinner, Maps of the Roads of Ireland, pp. 67–8. 32 A relatively new, stone structure built in 1667. 33 Third son of Sir John Edgeworth of Edgeworthstown, County Longford (1638–c. 1700). Ensign in Sir Thomas Newcomen’s Foot in the Irish army, 1685; probably sacked during Tyrconnell’s purge; captain in 2nd Foot Guards, 1693; fought at siege of Namur, 1695; retired, 1703 (Dalton, Irish Army, p. 151; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 75, 239, 308). 34 Third son of William Caulfield, 5th Baron and 1st Viscount Charlemont (1624–71). Gentleman private in the Irish Foot Guards, 1677; ensign in Irish Foot Guards, 1679; captain in 1680 and serving in Tangier; resigned commission, 1685; major of Drogheda’s Foot, 1689; lieutenant colonel of John Courthope’s battalion, 1694; half-pay, 1697; lieutenant colonel of the battalion of Pierce Butler, 4th Viscount Ikerrin (c. 1679–1710), 1704, which was reduced in Spain, 1705 (Dalton, Irish Army, pp. 109, 126, 135, 143, 150; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, p. 73; vol. 4, p. 250; vol. 5, p. 245). 35 Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 287–93; HMC, Le Fleming MSS., p. 316. 36 HMC, Leyborne-Popham MSS., ‘Autobiography of Dr. George Clarke’, p. 278. 37 Following William’s departure for England in September 1690, the civil government of Ireland was entrusted to two lord justices. The initial appointees were Thomas Coningsby (1657–1729) and Henry Sydney. Sir Charles Porter (1631–96) replaced the latter in December 1690. 38 Following the capture of Dublin in 1690, Douglas had been ordered to seize Athlone with a strong detachment comprising three cavalry and two dragoon regiments plus ten battalions: five were Enniskillen units and two from Londonderry. He departed Finglas on 9 July but achieved nothing except to cut a swath of destruction through the Irish Midlands as his soldiers, particularly the Ulstermen, mercilessly plundered and robbed the local inhabitants regardless of previously issued protections (Childs, Williamite Wars, pp. 232–6; NLI MS. 4166, ‘Journal of Brigadier Robert Stearne, 1678–1702’, pp. 10–11; CSPD, 1690–1, no. 1345, Nottingham to Douglas, 1 November 1690). 39 Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, pp. 154–5; ‘Journal of Robert Stearne’, pp. 10–12.

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234 Notes 40 D’Auvergne, History of the Campaign in Flanders for the Year 1691, p. 102; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 2, pp. 224, 239, 252, 292; CSPD, 1690–1, pp. 352, 354. 41 Lieutenant General of Infantry Hendrik von Delwig, Erfheer van Weitersdorff (1620–96). Born in Livonia, he entered the service of the king of Poland, first as a page and then a life guardsman. After a spell in the French army under Turenne and Condé, he became commandant of Hamburg. Delwig entered Dutch service in 1676 and remained until 1691 when he returned to the governorship of Hamburg (Biema, ‘Eenige bizonderheden over den slag bij Fleurus’, p. 67). 42 London Gazette, no. 2685, 3–6 August 1691; Auvergne, History of the Campaign in Flanders for the Year 1691, pp. 88–92, 102; Walton, British Standing Army, p. 186. The only permanent tactical and administrative formations within a contemporary army were infantry battalions and cavalry and dragoon regiments. Before a force took the field, the battalions and regiments were organized into discrete brigades of infantry and cavalry (dragoons performing as light cavalry in the line of battle), which varied in size from three to nine units, each led by a brigadier-general. The whole army was then divided into two corps, named the first and second lines, under a full general or field marshal. Each brigade was assigned to either the first or second line depending upon its seniority and position in the order of precedence, the right of the first line being reserved for the oldest and most prestigious and thus seriatim. Each line was split into three divisions – a right and left wing of cavalry and the infantry of the centre – commanded by a lieutenant general. Major generals led ad hoc groupings of brigades from within the lines. Lieutenant generals and major generals often directed independent detachments operating away from the main army (Childs, Nine Years War, p. 71). 43 London Gazette, no. 2686, 6–10 August 1691; Childs, Nine Years’ War, pp. 168–70. 44 Notes & Queries, 4th Series, vol. 8, pp. 471–2; Childs, Nine Years’ War, pp. 172–4; Churchill, Marlborough, vol. 1, pp. 350–1; London Gazette, nos. 2698, 2699, 2700. 45 Lives of the Two Illustrious Generals, p. 30. 46 2 Macc. 9.9; Porter, Greatest Benefit, pp. 26–7. 47 London Gazette, no. 2709, 26–9 October 1691; Chester (ed.), Marriage, Baptismal and Burial Registers of the Collegiate Church or Abbey of St. Peter, Westminster, p. 357. Neither is there a record of Kirke’s burial in St Margaret’s, Westminster (see Ward (ed.), Register of St. Margaret’s Westminster). 48 London Gazette, no. 2710; Wilson, Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, Thomas Wilson D. D., vol. 6, p. 372. Thomas Wilson (1663–1755) was bishop of Sodor and Man from 1697 until his death. 49 George Kirke was either a nephew or cousin. Lieutenant in Edward Villiers’s Foot, a wartime unit, 1678; ensign in Kirke’s battalion in Tangier, 1683; lieutenant of the grenadier company, 1684; captain of the grenadier company in Kirke’s, 1687; captain in the Royal Horse Guards, 30 April 1689; duelled with and killed Conway Seymour, 1700, but was pardoned; major of the Royal Horse Guards, 1702; died 13 January 1704 and was buried in Westminster Abbey (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 210, 303, 320; vol. 2, pp. 25, 109; vol. 3, pp. 21, 351; vol. 4, p. 267; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 1, p. 252; Snyder (ed.), Marlborough-Godolphin Correspondence, vol. 1, p. 265n.; CSPD, 1700–2, 30 May 1700). 50 CTP, 1557–1696, pp. 214, 237; CTB, 1689–1692, p. 1623; Davis, Second Queen’s Royal Regiment, vol. 2, p. 191. 51 Served for some years in the Dutch army prior to becoming a captain in the 1st Foot Guards, 1681; army conspirator who, with Robert Hunter (1664–1734), escorted

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Princess Anne from Whitehall to Nottingham on 25 November 1688; brevet colonel of foot, 1689; governor of Gravesend and Tilbury, 1690; succeeded as colonel of Kirke’s battalion, 18 December 1691; brigadier general, 1695; appointed governor of Jamaica, 1701, and accordingly transferred to the colonelcy of a more junior regiment (ex-Sir Henry Bellasise); major general, 1702; died in Jamaica, 6 April 1702. Buried at Matson, Gloucestershire. Married Albinia Betenson (1657–1737), daughter of Sir Edward Betenson, 1st Bt (1602–79), in Westminster Abbey on 26 May 1681; three sons and three daughters. Lord Ailesbury described him in 1689 as of ‘little merit and service’ (Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, pp. 287, 315; vol. 2, pp. 19, 114, 129; vol. 3, pp. 102, 128, 192; vol. 4, pp. 112, 217, 250; vol. 5, p. 16; Ailesbury, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 245; Webb, Governors-General, pp. 480–1, 483). 52 Auvergne, Campaign in Flanders for the Year 1691, p. 161; HMC, 4th Report, Appendix, p. 281; An exact List of all their Majesties’ Forces, p. 1; Luttrell, Historical Relation, vol. 2, p. 299. 53 CTP, 1557–1696, p. 524, 30 June 1696. 54 CSPD, 1691–2, p. 104; HMC, House of Lords MSS., 1692–3, p. 171; HMC, House of Lords MSS., 1693, p. 92. 55 Hobhouse (ed.), Survey of London: Volume 42: Kensington Square to Earl’s Court, pp. 1–4. 56 CTB, 1693–4, p. 41; CTB, 1696–7, pp. 190, 197, 378; CTB, 1697–8, pp. 287, 388–9. 57 Montagu & Norman (eds), Survey of London: Volume 13, St. Margaret’s Westminster, Part 2, Whitehall 1, pp. 236–48. 58 Gater and Wheeler (eds), Survey of London: Volume 16, St. Martin-in-the-Fields 1: Charing Cross, pp. 82–6; Chester (ed.), Registers of St. Peter, Westminster, p. 357. 59 Ward (ed.), Register of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, Part 2, p. 45; Maclagan, ‘The Family of Dormer’, pp. 90–101; Malcolm, Londinium redivivum, vol. 1, pp. 105–6. 60 CO 279/32, f. 364. 61 Dalton, ‘Child Commissions in the Army,’ p. 421; Letter Book, f. 92; Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 1, p. 323; vol. 2, pp. 27, 135, 207. 62 CTP, 1702–7, 30 December 1703. 63 CSPD, 1691–2, no. 783. 64 Dalton, Army Lists, vol. 3, pp. 107, 242; vol. 5, p. 52; vol. 6, pp. 65, 194, 363; Snyder (ed.), Marlborough-Godolphin Correspondence, vol. 2, pp. 808–9, 812; Drenth, Regimental List, p. 24.

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Tongue, Ruth L. (1965), Somerset Folklore. London: Publications of the Folklore Society, vol. 8. Toulmin, Joshua (1791), The History of the Town of Taunton. Taunton: T. Norris. —(1822), The History of Taunton, in the County of Somerset, John Savage (ed.). Taunton: John Poole. Trench, C. C. (1969), The Western Rising. London: Longmans. Trevelyan, M. C. (1930), William the Third and the Defence of Holland, 1673–1674. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Troost, Wouter (2004), William III, the Stadholder-King: a political Biography. Aldershot: Ashgate. Turner, F. C. (1948), James II. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. Uglow, Jenny (2009), A gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration. London: Faber and Faber. Urban, Sylvanus (1788), The Gentleman’s Magazine, and Historical Chronicle. London: David Henry, vol. 58. Walton, Clifford (1894), History of the British Standing Army, A. D. 1660 to 1700. London: Harrison and Sons. Ward, R. Plumer (1838), An historical Essay on the real Character and Amount of the Precedent of the Revolution of 1688. London: J. Murray. 2 vols. Watson, J. N. P. (1979), Captain-General and Rebel Chief: the Life of James, Duke of Monmouth. London: George Allen and Unwin. Wauchope, Piers (1992), Patrick Sarsfield and the Williamite War. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Weaver, L. (1915), The Story of the Royal Scots (the Lothian Regiment) formerly the First or the Royal Regiment of Foot. London: Country Life. Webb, E. A. H. (1911), A History of the Service of the 17th (the Leicestershire) Regiment. London: Vacher and Sons. Webb, S. S. (1966), ‘The strange Career of Francis Nicholson’. William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 23, 513–48. —(1979), The Governors-General: the English Army and the Definition of Empire, 1569–1681. Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press. —(1989), ‘William Blathwayt, the “never-erring Minister”’, in R. P. Maccubbin and M. Hamilton-Phillips (eds), The Age of William III and Mary II: Power, Politics and Patronage, 1688–1702. Williamsburg VA: College of William and Mary, 65–70. —(1995), Lord Churchill’s Coup: the Anglo-American Empire and the Glorious Revolution reconsidered. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Wendorf, Richard (1990), Biography and Portrait-Painting in Stuart and Georgian England. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Western, J. R. (1965), The English Militia in the eighteenth Century: the Story of a political Issue, 1660–1802. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. —(1972), Monarchy and Revolution: the English State in the 1680s. London: Blandford Press. Wheatley, H. B. (ed.) (1917), Occasional Papers read by Members at Meetings of the Samuel Pepys Club. London: Chiswick Press. 2 vols. Wheeler, James Scott (1999), The Making of a World Power: War and the Military Revolution in seventeenth-Century England. Stroud: Sutton. White-Spunner, Barney (2006), Horse Guards. London: Macmillan. Wigfield, W. McD. (1985), The Monmouth Rebels. Gloucester: Sutton. Williams, David (2012), ‘The flintlock Ordnance Muskets of William III and their Supply’. Arms and Armour, 9, 7–19.

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Index Abingdon, James Bertie, 1st Earl of 128 Adderley, Charles 91 Adlam, Benjamin 78, 208n. 42 Adventure, HMS 199n. 46 Ailesbury, Thomas Bruce, 2nd Earl of 101, 115, 213n. 29 Albemarle, Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of 26, 69, 75 Albemarle, George Monck, 1st Duke of 10, 27 Alford, Gregory 69 Alington, William, 3rd Baron Alington of Killard 24, 193n. 38 Alleyne, Catherine see Suffolk, Countess of Almeida, Luis de 44 Andros, Sir Edmund 62, 65, 69 Anglo-Dutch Brigade 10–11, 14, 21, 25, 28, 68, 71–2, 75, 82, 127, 136 Anglo-Dutch Treaty 20, 23 Anglo-Dutch Wars 11, 14–15, 27, 122 Ann, HMS 62 Annaghbeg 177 Anne, Princess of Denmark and Queen of England 123, 125, 133, 190n. 26 Antelope, HMS 142, 147 Argyll, Archibald Campbell, 8th Earl of 68−9, 72, 83 Armstrong, Sir Thomas 25, 28, 193n. 38 Army, England conspiracy 123−31 establishment 10–14, 21, 23–6, 63–4, 71–2, 116, 136 expansion 10−11, 23−4, 72, 115−17 formation 9−11 Glorious Revolution 113−31 Monmouth’s Rebellion 67−95 officer corps 11−13, 28–9, 119–20, 135, 187 brevet rank 12−13, 187 freeholders 12, 60, 101, 119−20 Parliament 23, 120−1

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patronage 12−14, 27−9 pay 12−13 promotion 11–14 temporary rank 12−13 regiments of cavalry Arran’s 126 Byerley’s 178, 179 Fenwick’s 126 Hamilton, Richard 126 Life Guards 10−12, 15, 17, 26, 28, 34, 72−3, 77, 81, 87−8, 91−2, 94, 108, 123, 128−30, 186 Life Guards, Horse Grenadiers 26, 73, 77, 81, 87, 94, 130, 195n. 13, 202n. 63 Peterborough’s 126 Queen’s 126 Royal Horse Guards (the ‘Blues’) 5, 6, 10−12, 14, 20−1, 23, 25−6, 34, 40, 70, 73−4, 76−7, 87−93, 113, 126−7, 179, 186 see also Oxford, 20th Earl of Tangier Horse 35, 44, 63, 195n. 15 regiments of dragoons Feversham’s 24−6, 194 Princess Anne of Demark’s 126 Queen’s 125−6, 129−30 Royal Dragoons 11, 70, 76, 81, 85−8, 92, 98, 107−8, 112, 126−7, 195n. 15, 212n. 8 regiments of infantry Cutts’s 178 Dumbarton’s see Royal Scots 1st Foot see Royal Scots Foot Guards, 1st (Grenadier) 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 24, 28, 54, 72−3, 79, 80, 82, 87, 91, 128 Foot Guards, 2nd (Coldstream) 24, 28, 35, 72, 81, 87, 93, 117, 125 Holland Regiment 5−6, 10, 11, 15, 24, 35

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262 Index Huguenot regiments 165, 169, 176−8 Kirke’s see Queen’s Regiment Lord High Admiral’s Maritime Regiment 10, 13, 18, 63, 113 Plymouth’s see Trelawney’s Queen’s Regiment (Kirke’s) 34, 36−7, 40, 47−9, 54, 62−3, 66−7, 70−5, 78, 84, 87, 92−4, 100, 107, 109−11, 117−19, 131, 135, 137, 146, 148, 151, 159, 161−2, 165−6, 175−8, 180−2, 186−7 Royal Scots 11, 14, 16, 18−19, 24−5, 33−6, 41, 47, 49, 63, 73, 78, 84, 86, 90−4, 107, 117, 129, 216n. 82 Tangier Regiments see Kirke’s; Trelawney’s Trelawney’s (2nd Tangier Regiment) 6, 11, 34−5, 40, 47, 57−8, 63, 73, 78, 84, 87, 92−3, 98, 107, 110, 125, 130, 187 Roman Catholics in 11, 116−17 Arran, Isle of 140, 147 Arran, James Hamilton, Earl of and 1st Duke of Hamilton 126 Artagnan, Charles de Batz-Castelmore, Comte d’ 16–17 Arundell, John, 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice 63 Arundell, Richard, 1st Baron Arundell of Trerice 213n. 18 Association of Protestant Officers 123−4 Atholl, John Murray, 1st Marquess of 68 Atkins, Samuel 60 Aylmer, Matthew 52, 60, 123 Baker, Henry 142−4, 151, 227n. 6 Ball, Henry 179 Ballyneety 177−8, 184 Banagher Bridge 178−9 Barber, Thomas 63, 67, 117, 161, 197n. 9, 205n. 102, 213n. 18 Barbour see Barber Barclay, Charles 35, 91 Bard-Rupert, Dudley 81 Barnes, James 94 Barte, Thomas de la 138 Bath, John Grenville, 1st Earl of 108 Bayning, Anne 4–5

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Beaufort, Henry Somerset, 1st Duke of 73, 75–7, 135, 220n. 61 Beckman, Martin 35, 45–8 Bedford, Francis Russell, 4th Earl of 10 Belcastel, Pierre 178 Bellasise, Sir Henry 72, 235n. 51 Bellasise, John, 1st Baron Bellasise 118 Berkeley, Sir Charles 10 Berkeley, John see Fitzhardinge Berry, John 49, 201n. 6 Berry, William 67, 164, 205n. 1, 226n. 27 Berwick, James Fitzjames, 1st Duke of 121, 126, 152, 178–80 Beverley, John 137 Biggott, James 147 Billing, Richard 159, 175, 228n. 10, 231n. 1 Billingsley, Rupert 169 Birr 180−1 Castle 179–80 Blackmore, R. D. xv−xvii, 106 Blair, Thomas 143, 170 Blathwayt, William 27, 70, 72, 99, 126–7, 129, 131, 137 Bloody Assizes 98−9, 102, 104, 107, 112, 211n. 92 see also Wem Bonaventure, HMS 137, 139, 142, 145−6, 150−2, 201n. 6, 226n. 24 Booth, Henry see Delamere Booth, Sir William 47, 199n. 46, 201n. 6 Bothwell Bridge, Battle of 26 Bournonville, Alexandre, Comte de Hennin 18−19 Bovett, Richard 87 Boyce, Edward 138, 140 Boyer, Abel 104 Boyne, Battle of the 176 Boynton, Marmaduke 62−4 Brackley, Cornwall 68 Brandon, Charles Gerard, 1st Baron of and 1st Earl of Macclesfield 6, 10, 24, 26, 70 Brandon, Charles Gerard, 2nd Baron of and 2nd Earl of Macclesfield 70 brevet rank 12–13, 187 Brewer, Richard 169, 177, 182−3 Bridge, Richard 73 Bridgeman, James 35 Bridgwater 84−9, 91−4, 104, 110, 115, 211n. 86

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Index executions in 98−9, 105, 108 Bridport 69−70, 72, 79 Bristol 70−3, 75−8, 83, 85−9, 93, 107, 118−19, 141, 207n. 38 Bristow, Peter 180, 184 British Brigade in the French army 14–21 Bruce, Thomas 101 Bruges 24−5 Buchan, Thomas 71, 134, 221n. 68 Burgess, John 63, 205n. 102 Burke, Michael 176–7 Burnet, Gilbert 99, 104–5, 117, 122−4, 213 Burrington, Charles 128 Burt Castle 148, 154−5, 159, Bush, James 109−10 Buyse, Anthony 68, 93 Byerley, Robert 178−9, 184, 221n. 72 Byng, George 52, 123, 202n. 29 Byrd, William of Colyton 108 Caldwell, Sir James 150–1, 170–2 Cambon, François du 177 Cannon, Alexander 126, 129 Caprara, Count Aeneas 18 Carlingford, Nicholas Taafe, 2nd Earl of 72 Carn Castle 185 Caroline of Ansbach-Bayreuth, Princess of Wales 5 Carrickfergus 83, 141, 152, 164−5, 175 Carrol, Charles 58 Carroll, Francis 139 Castelo Melhor, Luis de Vasconcelos e Sousa, 3rd Count of 46, 200n. 73 Castlemaine, Barbara Palmer, Countess of 51 Catherine of Braganza, Queen of England 31, 41, 46, 118 Caulfield, John 162 Caulfield, Toby 184, 233n. 34 Cavan, Battles of 175 Centurion, HMS 62 Chantrell, Francis 62−3 Charles I, King of England 1–7, 11, 13, 26, 69 Charles II, King of England 4–7, 9–14, 20, 23–9, 33–4, 40–6, 64, 67, 72, 79, 117 Charlton, William 161 Chedzoy 87−9, 93, 98, 108, 210n. 78 Chetwind, Walter 74

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263

Churchill, Charles 73, 87, 110, 130 Churchill, family of 7 Churchill, George 107 Churchill, John see Marlborough Civil Wars, English xiii, 4, 7, 10, 97, 101 Clady 135, 159, 167 Clarendon, Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of 130 Clarke, George 181, 184 Claverhouse see Dundee Clifford, Robert 127, 183 Closeting 115, 121 see also Parliament; Regulations; Three Questions Colchester, Richard Savage, Viscount and 4th Earl Rivers 123, 128, 186 see Downes, Penelope Collier, Charles 54 Collier, Henry 54, 148, 180 Collier, née Roberts, Mrs 54–5, 57 commissions, purchase of 11–12, 120 Compton, Sir Francis 127 Compton, Hatton 127−8 Compton, Henry, Bishop of London 125, 128, 206n. 20 Condé, Louis de Bourbon-Condé, Prince de 15–16 Coningsby, Thomas 184−5, 233n. 37 Cornagrade Mill, Battle of 151−2 Cornbury, Edward Hyde, Viscount 125–7 Cornwall, Henry 92, 135, 212n. 8 Cornwall, Wolfran 137, 223n. 20 Corry, John 179 Covenanters 25–6, 71 see Scotland Coy, John 28, 44, 70, 85, 169, 179, 212n. 8 Craven, William, 1st Earl 27−8, 65, 131, 134, 196nn. 18–19 Creed, John 40 Crofton, Richard 162, 169–70 Cromie, James 142−3 Cromwell, Thomas 121 Cromy see Cromie Culliford, William, 85, Culmore Fort 138−41, 147, 153, 156−7, 159, 161 Cunningham, John 135–8, 166 Cutler, Sir Thomas 101 Cutts, John 178−9, 191n. 18, 250 Dalyell of the Binns, Thomas 25−6 Dalrymple, Sir John 106

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264 Index Danby, Thomas Osborne, 1st Earl of 23, 29 Darcy, Philip 11 Dartmouth, George Legge, 1st Baron 24, 40, 43, 47–51, 57–62, 97, 125 Dartmouth, HMS 139, 141−2, 156−7, 160, 166 Dassell, Samuel 69 Davenport, Hester 4−5, 190n. 22 de Vere see Vere Declaration of Indulgence (1687) 100 Defoe, Daniel 12 Delamere, Henry Booth, 2nd Baron 70, 78, 210n. 85 Delwig, Hendrik von, Lieutenant General 185, 234n. 31 Deptford, HMS 62, 138, 147, 156 Devonshire, William Cavendish, 4th Earl and 1st Duke of 118–19, 135 Diamond, HMS 224n. 40 Dompierre, Isaac de 138 Dongan, Thomas see Limerick, 2nd Earl of Dongan, Walter, 2nd Viscount 139 Dormer, Diana (1712–43) 187−8 Dormer, Diana née Kirke 187 Dormer of Rousham, John 187 Dorset, Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of 5−6 Douglas, Andrew 153 Douglas, Archibald 73, 84, 86, 107, 112 Douglas, George see Dumbarton Douglas, James, Lieutenant General (d. 1691) 169–70, 179–85 Douglas, Lord James (d. 1681) 24 Dover, Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of 172, 230n. 50 Dover, Secret Treaty of 14, 27 Downes, Penelope 123 see Colchester Dragon, HMS 62 ‘dragonades’ 99–100, 112 Drogheda, Henry Moore, 3rd Earl of 179, 183, 230n. 37 Drumclog, Battle of 26 Dudley, Joseph 64–5 Dumbarton, George Douglas, 1st Earl of 11, 19, 71−2, 123, 129−31, 134 regiment of see Army, England, regiments of infantry, Royal Scots Dummer, Edward 55, 61, 62, 73, 86, 203n. 60 Dundalk 175 camp at 165−6, 169−71, 187

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Dundee, John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount 26, 62, 71, 136 Dungan see Limerick, 2nd Earl of Dunton, John 102−3, 111, 214n. 44 Dutch Republic 15, 17, 20, 32, 43, 105, 122, 134 army of 9 Glorious Revolution 122−3 see also Anglo-Dutch Wars; FrancoDutch War; Orange Eaton, William 72, 87, 97 Echard, Laurence 104 Echlin, Robert 154, 225n. 13, 226n. 27 Battle of Rathmullan 147, 151–2 Edgeworth, Henry 183, 233n. 33 Ely, Brent 63, 117, 205n. 103 English, James 73 Enniskillen 145−6, 151−3, 160−4, 167−8, 170−2, 179, 222n. 5 Entzheim, Battle of 6, 18−20 Erle, Thomas 179, 209n. 51 Evelyn, John 50 Everett-Green, Evelyn 106–7 Exclusion Crisis 6, 11, 26, 28, 33, 50, 52, 67, 102, 116, 198n. 16 see also Oxford Parliament; Popish Plot Expedition, the 181−5 Fairborne, Sir Palmes 24, 33–5 Fenwick, Sir John 118, 126, 134, 168 Ferguson, Robert 68−9, 97 Feversham, Louis de Duras, 2nd Earl of 12, 15, 20–1, 24, 30, 72–95, 97–8, 101, 109, 124–9 Fitzhardinge, John Berkeley, 4th Viscount 117, 126 Fitzpatrick, Edward 35 Flanders expedition 23−5 Fletcher, Andrew of Saltoun 68, 97 Forest Laws 2–3 Fortrey, James 35, 198n. 15 Foulkes, John 68, 87, 97, 114 Fox, Charles 57−8, 130 Fox, Charles James 106 Fox, James 58, 68, 97 Franco-Dutch War 15, 20 France 32, 40, 43, 51, 61, 69, 71, 95, 97, 99, 111, 122, 125, 133, 136, 169

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Index British Brigade in 14−23 Frederick William, the ‘Great Elector’ of Brandenburg 15 freeholders 12, 60, 101, 119−20 Fullerton, Sir James 2 Garland, HMS 33, 197n. 10 Gay, Thomas 87, 206n. 19 Gens d’Armes Anglais 192n. 31 Gerard see Brandon George of Denmark, Prince 131 Giles, John 63, 117 Gillingham Forest 2–3 Ginkel, Godard van Reede- 177–81, 183–5 Glorious Revolution 102, 124, 133 Godfrey, Charles 5, 128, 190n. 27, 193n. 38 Godfrey, Richard 87, 89 Godolphin, Sidney 173 Gomme, Sir Bernard de 32, 47 Goodenough, Richard 83, 97 Grafton, Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of 12, 72–82, 87–90, 129 Grafton, HMS 47−8, 50−1, 62, 201n. 6 Graham of Claverhouse, John see Dundee Graydon, John 52 Grenville, Sir Bevil 108 Grenville, John see Bath Grey, Ford, 2nd Baron Grey of Wark 68−9, 83, 90−1, 93, 97 Greyhound, HMS 62, 138−40, 142, 145−50, 166, 201n. 6 Guernsey, HMS 33 Guise, Sir John 114 Guy, James 62−3 Gwilliam, Thomas 138–40, 149 Hacket(t), James see Halkett Hales, John 169 Halkett, James 33–7, 197n. 11 Hamill, Hugh 162, 170 Hamilton, Rev. Andrew 150 Hamilton, Lord George see Orkney Hamilton, Sir George (d. 1676) 15, 192n. 31, 218n. 23 Hamilton, Gustavus (d. 1691), Governor of Enniskillen 146, 150−1, 159, 225n. 5, 226n. 27 Hamilton, Richard, Lieutenant General 21, 126, 134, 159−60, 166−7, 218n. 23

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Hamilton, William, 3rd Duke of 141, 164, 167 Hampshire, HMS 42 Hanmer, Sir John 135, 176, 178−9, 184 Harbord, William 135, 137 Hart, Thomas 147, 154 Harvey, Francis 115 Hastings, Anthony 61 Hawley, Francis, 1st Baron 192n. 31 Hawley, Francis (d. 1692) 80–1, 208n. 51 Hay, Malcolm V. 106 Helderenberg 68, 71, 83 Henrietta Maria, Queen of England 1 Henrietta, HMS 201n. 6 Henrietta (yacht), HMS 141−2, 147 Henry VIII, King of England 121 Herbert, Arthur 33, 36, 45, 52–3, 60–2, 118 Herbert, Thomas 74 Hewer, William 52, 54, 59, 62 Hewett, Sir George 129−30, 221n. 73 Hogue, Cap de la, Battle of 169 Holland Fen 2 Hollar, Wenceslaus 48 Holman, George 128 Holmes, Abraham 68, 81, 87 Hopson, Thomas 52, 137, 145–6, 150 Hounslow Heath 24, 72, 108, 117–19, 123 Howard, George see Suffolk, 4th Earl of Howard, Mary see Kirke, Mary Howard, Thomas, 2nd Baron of Escrick 24 Howard, Thomas, Baron of Worksop 143, 170–2 Howe, Sir Scrope, 1st Viscount 128 Hucker, John 89–90 Hume, David 105–8 Hunter, Henry 145 Hussey, Thomas 70, 212n. 8 ‘Immortal Seven’, the 122 Inch-Enniskillen strategy 146, 152, 164, 168, 225n. 5, 228n. 16 Inch Island 147–59, 167 evacuation procedures, proposed 155−6 Protestant refugees on 149, 153, 155−6 topography of 147−8 Inchiquin, William O’Brien, 2nd Earl of 32−5, 58, 61 Ingoldsby, Sir Henry 169 Interregnum 3, 7, 10, 97

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266 Index Ireland xiii, 3, 15, 29, 33−4, 63−4, 67, 120–1, 124−5, 133–85 army 9−10, 71, 171 Lords Justices 184, 233n. 37 Monmouth’s Rebellion 83 Irish Committee 134−5 Ironside, Gilbert 101–2 James of Derry 155 James II, King of England 5, 13–14, 17, 23, 27–30, 34, 37, 62, 65, 67–75, 84, 86, 95, 97–104, 114–31, 133–4, 168, 172, 175 Jeffreys, Sir George see Wem Jephson, William 128 Jersey, HMS 137 Jerusalem 153, 155, 157 Johnson, Rev. Samuel 118 Jones, Sir Henry 6, 17, 192n. 31, 193n. 38 light horse regiment of 6, 14−16, 192n. 31 Jones, John 92 Kelly, Henry 180 Ken, Thomas 47, 49, 57, 62, 101, 202n. 14 Kendall, James 125, 134, 219n. 51 Kennett, White 104–5, 111 Keynsham Bridge 75–8, 85, 95 Killigrew, Ann 109 Killigrew, Anne 1–2, 13 Killigrew, Martin see Lister-Killigrew Killigrew, Sir Peter 109, 216n. 90 Killigrew, Sir William 13 Killyleagh, Break of 145 Kilmallock, Dominick Sarsfield, 4th Viscount 178 Kingfisher, HMS 138, 140−2, 145−8, 156 Kirke, Charles (Percy’s half-brother) 1, 4, 6, 20, 107 Kirke, Diana (Percy’s sister) see Oxford, Countess of Kirke, Diana (Percy’s daughter) see Dormer, Diana Kirke, family 1−7 see also Dormer; St Albans; Townshend; Vere; Vernon Kirke, George (Percy’s grandfather) 1 Kirke, George (Percy’s father) 1–4, 13 Kirke, George (Percy’s nephew or cousin) 186–7

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Kirke, Mary née Townshend, (Percy’s mother) 3–4, 13 Kirke, Mary (Percy’s sister) see Vernon, Lady Kirke, Mary (Percy’s wife) 48–51, 62–3 widowhood 187 Kirke, Percy birth 13 character 13, 50–62, 85, 113–14 children 187–8 court appointments 64, 113, 134, 187 death 186–7 early life 5–6 early military experience 13–21, 24–6, 29–30 embassy to Meknès 37−9 eyesight 202n. 38 family background 1, 3 finances 40, 112−13, 134, 186−7 Glorious Revolution 113−31 Member of Parliament 134 military ability 80−2, 167–8, 202n. 38 Monmouth’s Rebellion 70, 73–85, 88, 93–5 portrait 114 property 113 religious and political attitudes 114–17 responsibility for the reprisals after Sedgemoor 97–105 service in Flanders 185–6 service in Ireland 135–43, 148–85 service in Tangier 34–64 sexual appetite 50−60, 110−11 suspicions of disloyalty to William and Mary 169–73 vilification of 106–12 see also Army, England, regiments of infantry, Queen’s Regiment; Lanier, Sir John; Trelawney, Charles Kirke, Percy the younger (Percy’s son) 187–8 Kirke, Philip (Percy’s brother) 3, 6, 35, 64, 67, 107, 119 Kirke House 3–4, 187 Kirke’s Lambs xv, xvi, 63, 106, 111 Kneller, Sir Godfrey 114, 199n. 44, 232n. 23 Konz-Saarbruck, Battle of 20

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Index Lance, Thomas 162, 228n. 9 Lanesborough Bridge 181−5 Langdale, Marmaduke, 2nd Baron 118 Langley, Roger 24, 195n. 4 Langston, Francis 107, 212n. 8 Langston, Thomas 44, 123–7, 169, 179 Lanier, Sir John 28, 118, 125−6, 130, 135, 169, 178–88, 186 Lascelles, Talbot 14 Lauderdale, John Maitland, 1st Duke of 25−6 Lawrence, Thomas 43, 47, 53−4, 62 Leake, Sir John 139, 141−2, 145, 229n. 28 Lee, Thomas 138, 156 Leigh, Edward 107 Leigh, Thomas see Lee Lesley, Sir James 37–9, 41−2, 63, 100, 108, 112, 117, 119, 198n. 26 Lester see Lister-Killigrew Letterkenny 152, 159 Leuze, Battle of 186 Leveson, Richard 130 Lichfield, Edward Henry Lee, 1st Earl of 123, 128 Limerick 176–8 Limerick, Thomas Dongan, 2nd Earl of 20, 24 Lingard, John 106 Lisburn 166 Lisburn, Richard Loftus, 1st Viscount 177, 179−80, 182−4, 231n. 8 Lister, Martin see Lister-Killigrew Lister-Killigrew, Martin 51–2, 101, 109–11 Littleton, Sir Charles 14, 101, 108, 191n. 8, 196n. 19, 215n. 79 Littleton, Ferdinand 14 Littleton, Walter 92, 127 Livesey, John 128 Lloyd, David 92 Locke, Richard 106 Londonderry 140–3, 146–54, 166–72 regiments 161−3, 233n. 38 Long Sutton 74 Lough Foyle 135−9, 141−3, 145−8, 150−2, 154−6, 161, 163−4, 166−7, 170−1 boom 139, 140−2, 152−4, 156−7, 159, 163, 167, 170, 172, 224n. 33 Lough Swilly 145−7, 151−2, 155, 159, 161, 167

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Louis XIV, King of France 15–17, 20, 25, 29, 122, 133–4 Lovelace, Richard, 3rd Baron 128 Lumley, Richard, 1st Baron 34, 135, 198 Lundini see Sundini Lundy, Robert 135–6 Luttrell, Francis 69 Luxembourg, François-Henri de Montmorency, Duc de 16, 24, 25, 186 Luttrell, Narcissus 100 Lyme Regis 69, 75 Maastricht, siege of (1673) 16–17 Macarty, Justin see Mountcashel MacCarthy see Mountcashel Macaulay, Thomas Babington 106 Macclesfield see Gerard Mackay, Hugh 82, 136, 156, 186 Mackintosh, Sir James 107 Mainvilliers 138 Mâmora 31, 38, 43 Manley, Isaac 86 Manley, John, 86 Mar, Charles Erskine, 21st Earl of 26, 71 Marlborough, John Churchill, 1st Earl of 17–19, 24, 70–8, 81–2, 86–8, 92–5, 99, 106–10, 115, 126–30, 134–6, 168–9, 173, 181, 185–6 martyrologies 102–3, 111–12 Mary of Modena, Duchess of York and Queen of England 1, 5, 119 Mary, Princess of Orange see Orange Mary Rose, HMS 201n. 6 Mathews, William 62−3, 67, 108, 197n. 9 Matthews, Edward 87, 81, 91, 97 Mayne, Edmund 28, 129, 168, 169, 193n. 38, 220n. 65 Mayne, William 128, 220n. 65 Meath, Edward Brabazon, 4th Earl of 179, 184 Meknès 36−9, 41−3, 115 Mequinez see Meknès Merrill, John 109–11 Mews, Peter 100–1 Michelburne, John 153, 159–64, 171–2 Middleton, Charles, 2nd Earl of 5, 131 Middleton, Sir Hugh 89 Middleton, John, 1st Earl of 58, 61 militia 69–70, 94, 162–3 see also Bridport

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268 Index Mings, John (and Mrs Mings) 57–8 Mitchell, David 52 Monck, Christopher see Albemarle, 2nd Duke of Monck, George see Albemarle, 1st Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch, James Scott, 1st Duke of 5–6, 15–19, 24–9, 67−95 Monmouth’s Rebellion 67−112 pardons following 99−100, 103, 213n. 23 Monoux, Philip 74 Monroe, Henry 162 Montagu, HMS 62, 201n. 6 Montagu, Ralph 20 Montecuccoli, Raimondo 16, 20 Moody, Daniel 73 Morocco 31−2, 36−8, 40, 43, 62, 115 see also Moulay Ismail Morrice, Roger 100, 120, 169–70 Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif, Sultan of Morocco 32, 37–43, 115, 116 see also Morocco Mountcashel, Justin MacCarthy, 1st Viscount 24, 152, 172, 190n. 29 Mountjoy of Londonderry 153, 155, 157, 159 Mountjoy, William Stewart, 1st Viscount 222n. 14 Moyry Pass 166, 175, Muddiman, J. G. 107 Mulgrave, Edmund Sheffield, 2nd Earl of 4 Mulgrave, John Sheffield, 3rd Earl of 5–6, 20, 34, 119, 190n. 26 Mullingar 181−5 Murray, Adam 162, 170 Murray, Lord Charles 71 Newburgh, Charles Livingstone, 2nd Earl of 77 Newstead, Richard 179 Nedby, Charles 44, 212n. 8 New England, Dominion of 64–5 New Model Army 9–10, 31, 68 Newport, Francis 125, 219n. 50 Newtownbutler, Battle of 151, 160–1, 164, 166, 171–2 Nicholson, Francis 42, 199n. 30 Nieder Sasbach, Battle of 20 Nonsuch, HMS 199n. 46 Norton St Philip 76–9, 82–3, 86

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action at 179−82 Norwood, Henry 32, 54, 61, 203n. 49 Oates, Titus 102 O’Brien, Charles 17 O’Connor, Hugh 126 Oglethorpe, Theophilus 7, 28, 73–94, 97, 129, 194n. 57 Ohadu, Mohammed 41–5 Old James, HMS 197n. 10 ‘Old Pretender’ see Stuart, James Francis Edward Oldmixon, John 98, 109, 114 Omar, Alcaid 32–43, 48–51 Orange, Princess Mary of 20, 122–3, 133 Orange, Prince William of Orange-Nassau 15, 20, 23–5, 67–8, 72, 122–7, 130–1, 133–6, 169, 175–8, 184–6 see also Dutch Republic; Orange, Princess Mary of Orby, Charles 134 Orkney, Lord George Hamilton, 1st Earl of 184, 226n. 27 Ormond, Thomas Butler, 1st Duke of 29, 33, 123, 125 Ossory, James Butler, 7th Earl of 211n. 86 Ossory, Thomas Butler, 6th Earl of 25, 28, 196n. 28 Oxburgh, Richard 179 Oxford 3, 28, 73, 128 Magdalen College 101−2, 119 University of 26, 119 see also Parker, Samuel Oxford, Aubrey de Vere, 20th Earl of 4–5, 10, 14, 30, 115 see also Oxford, Countess of Oxford, Diana de Vere née Kirke, Countess of (Percy’s sister) 3–6, 14 see also Oxford, 20th Earl of; St Albans; Vere Oxford, HMS 201n. 6 Oxford Parliament 26, 28−9, 64, 67, 116 see also Exclusion Crisis; Parliament; Popish Plot Pardons see Monmouth’s Rebellion, pardons Parker, George, playwright 106 Parker, John 77, 81, 87, 91, 94, 206n. 19 Parker, Samuel, Bishop of Oxford 101 Parliament 9−11, 20, 23, 26, 28, 32−3, 43, 68−9, 116, 133−4

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Index Kirke MP 134 privileges of 120−1 reaction to Monmouth’s Rebellion 101 see also Oxford Parliament Parsons, Robert 83 Pawling, John 94 Paz, Samuel de 56, 58, 203n. 65 Pembroke, Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of 74 Pendennis Castle 63, 67, 70, 119, 213n. 18 Pepys, Samuel 43, 47–62, 97, 106 Perrot, Robert 68 Peterborough, Henry Mordaunt, 2nd Earl of 31, 34, 44, 61, 126 Pett, Phineas 73, 84 Philip’s Norton see Norton St Philip Phillips, Thomas 48 Phoenix, HMS 33, 229n. 28 Phoenix of Coleraine 153, 155, 157, 159 Pitts, see Tutchin Plaice, Thomas 84 Plymouth, Charles Fitzcharles, 1st Earl of 34−5 regiment of see Army, England, regiments of infantry, Trelawney’s Pomfret, John 63, 111 Popish Plot 11, 26, 33, 198n. 16 see also Exclusion Crisis; Oxford Parliament; Parliament Portland, Hans Willem Bentinck, 1st Earl of 134, 168 Portland, HMS 138, 140−2, 147, 152, 154, 156 Pryme, Abraham de la 115 Purcell, James 58, 203n. 66 purchase system see Army, England, promotions Ramsay, Robert 85–6, 134 Randolph, Edward 64 Ranelagh, Richard Jones, 1st Earl of 187 Rapin de Thoyras, Paul de 105 Rathmullan, Battle of 147, 152 Rayley, John 169–70 Regulations, the 121 see also Closeting; Three Questions religious toleration 116, 121, 123 Resin, James 94 Richards, Jacob 138–42, 147−50, 153, 155−6, 159−61, 166−7, 182–3

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Richards, Solomon 135–7, 145–61, 166–7 Ridd, John see Blackmore Rider, John 150 Riordan see Ryorden Rivers, 4th Earl see Colchester Roche, James 142–3 Rochester, Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of 29, 125, 220n. 51 Roman Catholicism 116–21 Romney, Henry Sydney, 1st Earl of 176, 184−5, 233n. 37 Rooke, George 52, 138, 141−2, 145, 152, 156, 201n. 6 Roscommon, Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of 14–15 Rose Tavern 123, 126, 169 Rosen, Conrad von 145−6, 149−50 Rosse, John 94 Roxalana see Davenport, Hester Rowe, Henry 63, 166, 205n. 103, 228n. 10 Rowe, Elizabeth 109–11 Royal English Regiment 15–20 Ruby, HMS 33 Rullion Green, Battle of 25−6 Rupert, Prince of the Rhine 27, 81 Russell, Francis 107, 220 Russell, Francis, 4th Earl of Bedford see Bedford Russell, John 10, 12 Rye House Plot 67, 206n. 3 Ryorden, Timothy 126 Sackville, Charles see Dorset Sackville, Edward 6, 7, 72, 82, 87, 93−4, 97, 118, 134, 198n. 16 Tangier 34−9 St Albans, Diana Beauclerk née de Vere, Duchess of 5 St Albans, Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of 5 St David, HMS 201n. 6 St Dennis, Battle of 25 St George, Sir George 125 St George, Sir Oliver 125, 130 St John, Thomas 63, 67, 119, 148–50, 162 St Michel, Balthazar 52, 201n. 21, 202n. 34, 204n. 73 Salisbury 67, 70, 73, 80, 83, 107, 125−30, 212n. 8 Sanders, Ralph 141

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270 Index Sandys, Edwin 14, 20, 90−3, 192n. 23 Sarsfield, Dominick see Kilmallock Sarsfield, Patrick 77, 130, 152−3, 161, 178−80, 182−3, 228n. 16 Saudadoes, HMS 71 Savage, James 109 Scarsdale, Robert Leke, 3rd Earl of 65 Schomberg, Herman, 1st Duke of 134, 136, 139, 141−2, 161–70, 175–6 Schomberg, Meinhard, Count and 3rd Duke of 169–70, 176 Scotland 68−9, 125, 133, 134, 136−7 army in xiii, 9−10, 71 ‘dragonades’ in 99 see also Argyll; Bothwell Bridge; Covenanters; Drumclog; Rullion Green Sedgemoor, Battle of 63, 72, 82, 85, 88–95 Selby, Rowland 92 Seller, John 48 Selwyn, William 187 Senhouse, Richard 59 sequestration 3–4 Seven Provinces see Dutch Republic Seymour, Edward 134 Seymour, Sir Edward 101 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of 52, 202n. 32 Sheres, Henry 36–7, 47, 59–60, 73, 76–7, 84–7 Sheridan, Thomas 124–5 Sheridan, William, Bishop of Kilamore and Ardagh 128 Sheriff Hutton 1, 4, 195n. 4 Shovell, Cloudesley 52, 57 Shrewsbury, 12th Earl and 1st Duke of 139–42, 165 Sidney, Henry see Romney siege-raising tactics 168 Silver, Thomas 53, 54, 202n. 42 Sintzheim, Battle of 18 Skelton, Bevil 15, 17−18 Skinner, Mary 51 Slavery see Tangier, slavery Smollett, Tobias 109 Solms, Hendrik Trajectinus, Graf von 134−6, 176, 179, 181 Somerset, folk-lore in 112 Speke, Hugh 118

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standing armies 9–10, 23 Stapleton, Sir William 69 Stearne, Robert 184 Stevens, John 138 Stewart, William see Mountjoy Stewart, Colonel William 128, 137, 145–56, 159–60, 166–7 Stone, Charles 151, 226n. 26 Storton, William 218n. 18 Strode, John 73 Strother, William 108 Stuart, Anne see Anne, Queen of England Stuart, James Francis Edward 122 Stuart, Mary see Orange, Princess Mary of Suffolk, Catherine Howard née Alleyne, Countess of 51 Suffolk, George Howard, 4th Earl of 51 Sunderland, Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of 3, 45–6, 98–100 Sundini 138 Swallow, HMS 137, 139, 141−3, 146, 153−5, 157, 161, 163, 168, 171−2 Swan, HMS 197n. 10 Sydney, Henry see Romney Sydney, Robert 10 Talbot, George 63, 205n. 103 Talmash, Thomas 35, 37, 130, 198n. 15, 233n. 30 Tangerines 60, 61, 123, 169 Tangier 6, 14, 28–9, 31–63 evacuation 45−6 Great Sally 35−6 Great Siege 32−4 slavery 38–9, 41, 43, 52, 60, 62, 199n. 32 Tangier Committee 37, 40, 43–4, 48, 52 Tangier Regiments see Army, England, regiments of infantry, Queen’s; Trelawney’s Taunton 69−70, 72, 74−5, 84, 89, 93−4, 98−101, 112, 115 executions in 98, 100, 100−12 Tate, Zouch 64, 205n. 102 Taylor, Tom 106 Test Acts 115, 121, 123 Tettau, Ernst Julius von 181, 184 Teviot, Andrew Rutherford, 1st Earl of 32, 36, 43, 61, 197n. 11

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Index Thoyras, see Rapin de Thoyras Thorold, Anthony 69 Three Questions, the 121 see also Closeting; Regulations Tily see Tyley Tiffin, Zachariah 159, 161, 171, 179, 222n. 15 Tobermory 68 Tollemache see Talmash Toulmin, Joshua 109 Townshend, Anne née Wythies (Percy’s grandmother) 3 Townshend, Aurelian (Percy’s grandfather) 3 Townshend, Mary see Kirke, Mary (Percy’s mother) Treason Club 123, 128 Trelawney, Charles 11, 40, 55, 62, 73, 107, 112, 123, 125, 130, 134, 137−9, 169, 216n. 81, 223n. 19 regiment of see Army, England, regiments of infantry, Trelawney’s Trelawney, family 7, 28 Trelawney, Jonathan 134 Trelawney, Sir Jonathan 134, 216n. 81 Trevanion, Richard 71 Trier 16, 20 Trumbull, William 47−50, 62 Turckheim, Battle of 20 Turenne, Henri d’Auvergne, Vicomte de 15–20 Tutchin, John 102–4, 108–12 Tyley, Joseph 68 Tyrconnell, Richard Talbot, 1st Earl and 1st Duke of 62, 120–1 United Provinces see Dutch Republic Unity, HMS 47 Upcott, William 88 Vauban, Sebastien Le Prestre de 15–16 Vaudémont, Charles-Henri de Lorraine, Prince de 186 Vaughan, John 81−2, 91, 206n. 19 Venner, Thomas (c. 1608–61) 10 Venner, Thomas (b. 1641) 82–3 Vere, de see also Kirke, Diana; Kirke, Mary; Oxford Vere, Lady Diana de (d. 1742) see St Albans, Duchess of

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Vere, Lady Mary de (d. 1725) 5 Vernon, Lady Mary née Kirke (Percy’s sister) 3, 5−6 see also Vernon, Sir Thomas Vernon, Sir Thomas 6 Villiers, Edward (d. 1694) 87, 91, 182−4 Villiers, Edward (d. 1689) 24, 54 Villiers, Lord Francis 3 Wade, Nathaniel 68, 80–2, 87, 91, 93 Waldeck, Georg Friedrich, Graf von 186 Walden, Sir Lionel 26 Walker, George 150–3, 159–62, 171–2 Warminster 73, 83−4, 94, 127, 168 Kirke at 129−31 Waterford 77 Wem, Sir George Jeffreys, 1st Baron of xvi, 100–8 Wentworth, Lady Henrietta 67–8, 93 Werden, Robert 126, 134, 221n. 68, West Byfleet, Kirke’s house at 13, 113, 131, 217n. 3 Western Campaign see Bloody Assizes West Indies 60−1 Westonzoyland 84–8, 94, 98, 108 Wharton, Henry 128, 231n. 9 Wharton, Thomas, 1st Earl 128, 135, 190n. 27 Wheeler, Adam 108 Wheeler, Francis see Wheler Wheler, Francis 52, 61 White, Robert 162, 222n. 8 Wickham, Henry 142 Wildman, John 86 William, Prince of Orange see Orange Williamson, Sir Joseph 23, 27 Wilson, Edmund 14 Wilson, Thomas, Bishop of Sodor and Man 186 Wind, William 92 Wingfield, Charles 63, 67, 197n. 9, 205n. 102, 218n. 18 Wingfield, George 58, 63, 67, 110, 117n. 9, 204n. 81, 205n. 102, 227n. 1 Winraham, John 71 Withers, Henry 99, 144, 153, 160, 165, 212n. 17, 227n. 2 Wood, Cornelius 129, 178, 221n. 78 Wolseley, William 151–2, 160–6, 171–2, 175

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272 Index Woolwich, HMS 110, 201n. 6 Wray, Sir Chichester 13 Wren, Sir Christopher 29 Württemberg-Neustadt, Ferdinand Wilhelm, Duke of 175, 177, 181

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Wyndham, Sir Charles 77, 92, 207n. 40 Wynn, James 151, 226n. 27 York, Duchess of see Mary of Modena York, Duke of see James II

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