King James, at the call of the Irish majority, left his French retreat, and sailed from Brest with a fleet provided by King Louis, which saw him in safety to memorable Kinsale, where he landed on March 12, old style, 1689. He was accompanied by about 1,200 veteran troops, French and Irish, with a sprinkling of royalists, Scotch and English, and several officers of high rank, including Lieutenant-General De Rosen, Lieutenant-General Maumont, Major-General De Lery, Major-General Pusignan, Colonel Patrick Sarsfield, afterward the renowned Earl of Lucan, and the king’s two natural sons, the Duke of Berwick and Grand Prior Fitzjames. There came with him also fifteen Catholic chaplains, most of whom could speak the Gaelic tongue, and these gentlemen were very useful to him on a mission such as he had undertaken. The progress of the ill-fated monarch through Ireland, from Kinsale to Dublin was, in every sense, a royal one. The Irish masses, ever grateful to any one who makes sacrifices, or who even appears to make them, in their behalf, turned out in all their strength. A brilliant cavalcade, headed by the dashing Duke of Tyrconnel, escorted the king from town to town. His collateral descent from King Edward Bruce, freely chosen by Ireland early in the fourteenth century, was remembered. James was, therefore, really welcomed as King of Ireland. The Irish cared nothing for his British title. If the choice of the majority of a nation makes regal title binding, then James II was as truly elected King of Ireland, in 1689, as Edward Bruce was in 1315. And we make this statement thus plainly, because it will enable non-Irish and non-Catholic readers to understand why Catholic Ireland fought so fiercely and devotedly for an English ruler who had lost his crown in the assertion of Catholic rights and privileges. There was still another cause for this devotion of the majority of the Irish people to King James. He had consented to the summoning of a national Irish parliament, in which Protestants as well as Catholics were to be represented in due proportion, and this decision on his part made many of the Episcopalian Irish either neutral in the civil conflict or active on his side. The number of such persons as were comprised in the latter class was comparatively insignificant—just enough to mitigate the curse of absolute sectarianism in the contest. The Dissenting or non-conforming Irish were, almost to a unit, hostile to the Jacobite cause. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BOOK IV CHRONICLING IMPORTANT EVENTS IN IRELAND FROM THE ARRIVAL OF JAMES II IN THAT COUNTRY UNTIL THE DEPARTURE OF THE DUKE OF BERWICK TO FRANCE AFTER THE FIRST SIEGE OF LIMERICK, IN 1690 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER I