The morning of the 1st of July broke fair, and a little after sunrise the English army advanced in three divisions to the attack. The right under the younger Schomberg, assisted by the Earl of Portland and James Douglas, was detailed for the same operation which the Marshal would have had executed four hours earlier, and by a surprise. Having marched a few miles up the river to Slane Bridge, and finding there but one regiment of Irish dragoons, they easily beat them back, crossed the bridge, and made good their footing on the southern bank of the Boyne. Lauzun, apprehensive for his command of the pass of Duleek, had detached the best of his troops--his own countrymen--to resist the further advance of the English right; and the centre and left of William's army were opposed at the lower fords by the Irish Catholics alone. Between them and the Dutch Guards, the French Huguenots, the men of Londonderry and Inniskillen, it was _impar congressus_ indeed.[13] Schomberg in command of the centre took the water at the ford of Old Bridge. William at the head of the left wing, consisting entirely of cavalry, made for a more difficult and dangerous crossing lower down. At one point only does the passage of the river appear to have been for more than a moment doubtful. The Danes and Huguenots under Cambon and Caillemot were set upon in the act of landing by the Irish cavalry under Richard Hamilton; the former were driven back again into the water, and the latter, unarmed with pikes, began to give ground. The conflict raged hotly for a short space at the southern exit of the ford; Caillemot fell mortally wounded; the whole brigade was wavering; when old Schomberg, who had been watching the action from the northern bank, dashed impetuously into the river. "_Allons, Messieurs!_" he cried to the Huguenots, as he pointed to the French Catholics in James's ranks, "_voila vos persécuteurs!_" As he uttered the words a small band of Irish horsemen came galloping in upon the main body, the Huguenots, mistaking them for friends, having allowed them to pass. In the confused melée which followed the Marshal was surrounded; he received two sabre cuts on his head, and a musket shot, said in one account to have been fired in a fatal mistake "by one of his own men," laid him dead upon the ground. The arrival of William, who had with difficulty forced his way across through the strongly flowing tide, at once decided the doubtful struggle. "Men of Inniskillen, what will you do for me?" was his inspiriting question to the sorely pressed Protestants of Ulster; and drawing his sword with an arm yet stiff from the wound of the previous morning, he led his Dutch Guards and Inniskilleners against the still unbroken Irish centre. Ulstermen and Hollanders vied with each other in steadiness and valour; Schomberg's cavalry came opportunely to their support; De Ginkell's horse effected as timely a diversion on the enemy's left. Hamilton and his riders being thus driven back, the heart