The Battle of The Boyne, 1690 (part 9 of 14)

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The Boyne, 1690

William's army, having marched by Ardee, Co. Louth, reached the Boyne early on Monday 30 June (Old Style) and encamped near Tullyallen on the left or north bank. They faced the main concentration of James's men, who were encamped on the ridge at Donore. James had a total force of about z 5 ,000, of whom three regiments or about 1,500 men were in Drogheda. That afternoon the Dutch Guards, Dutch William's crack regiment, were ordered down towards the river, where they came under fire from the Jacobite guns, seven of which had opened up after the Williamites' arrival. William himself, viewing his enemies, of whom some were drawn up on the other side of the river, was grazed on the shoulder by a cannon ball. He was heard to say 'No nearer', or words to that effect, when he was struck; he was a brave man, and he continued his inspection.
It must soon have become apparent to him and to his generals of many nationalities that they enjoyed some considerable advantages. Apart from the fact that the river bend suggested the possibility of outflanking their opponents, the bank on which they stood was the higher one, although this was not such a great advantage in the days of short range guns as it would become later. Another feature of the terrain which would aid them if they were to attempt a crossing at Oldbridge was the deep ravine that has since been named King William's glen; this offered a covered approach to the Boyne. But they could see also that the houses at Oldbridge-there are none there now-were occupied by their opponents, and this and the fact that there were many pockets in the gently rising ground on the south bankpockets in which unknown numbers of troops might be hiddenand that their enemies had a resolute air, suggested that an attempt to cross where they were might be stubbornly contested and that they might suffer heavy losses. The river bank too must have appeared boggy and of uncertain practicability for cavalry. James, whose tents were on the skyline at Donore, might not be altogether within the bend; he might, in fact, enjoy what later writers were to speak of as the advantage of interior lines, or of a central position, if it became a matter of transferring troops to resist a subsidiary attempt to cross further upstream-say at Rosnaree or Slane, places that were nearer to Donore than they were to Tullyallen. The crossing places of the river were well known and William must have had as much information about them as James had.
William made no further move that evening; bot he held a council of war. If an attack was to be made on the Jacobites it must be made frontally at Oldbridge, or it might take the form of an attempt to turn their flank or flanks by a crossing upstream or downstream, or in both directions, or it might be a combination of frontal attack and flanking movement. Any attempt on the flanks must cause James to divide his forces, and must therefore weaken him, but it could not be made by the Williamites unless they were prepared to divide their forces too. The prospect of action at any distance downstream was ruled out. There was a bridge at Drogheda, but it was held by James, and the Boyne, which is tidal, was unfordable between Drogheda and a little below Oldbridge. ·The choice therefore lay between a crossing at ' Oldbridge and one upstream, or an attempt might be made to combine and co-ordinate the two. There was a bridge-broken by the Jacobites-at Slane, and there were, apparently, several fords between Oldbridge and Slane, the nearest of them being at Rosnaree.
The council must have considered all this. Our information of what was said and what happened tells us that Schomberg, who up to this in the Irish war had shown a caution that we might perhaps have expected in a man of his age-he was seventy-fiveproposed the division of the Williamite army into two unequal parts, the smaller of which was to make a frontal attack sufficient to hold the enemy to his original position at Oldbridge, while the larger crossed at a ford or fords upstream and struck James in flank and rear. If such a flanking movement were made during the night and if it should take the Jacobites unawares, it might, as we have seen, result for them in irredeemable disaster. This was what General Keating had in mind when he accused King James and his advisers of 'great and glaring misconduct' in not foreseeing the danger in which they lay and in not 'occupying the pass of Slane with a strong corps of infantry and artillery, covered by works'. Keating seems to have let William and his advisers down far too lightly in deeming it merely 'a great neglect' on their part not to have 'intercepted the Irish army at Duleek', since if Duleek had been blocked 'they must have surrendered or been driven into the sea'. Whether Schomberg and those who concurred with him were aware of the full possibilities of the plan which they proposed is uncertain.

The history of the Battle of the Boyne, 1690 continues here

Taken from Irish Battles by G.A. Hayes-McCoy, published by Appletree Press. Further reading: A Little History of Ireland by Martin Wallace with illustrations by Ian McCullough. Click here for more information on the book.

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