The Siege of Derry 1689

by Richard Doherty

  There followed a brief campaign along the river Bann, which marks the boundary between the counties of Antrim and Londonderry. After almost a week Jacobite troops forced the Williamite garrison, under Rawdon, out of Moneymore on 4 April; three days later, Richard Hamilton’s men crossed the Bann at Portglenone. Bad weather conditions, including persistent rain – and it had even been snowing when the Jacobites first reached Coleraine – played havoc with the health of the soldiers, including the officers. One Williamite officer, Colonel Edmonstone, the commander at Portglenone, died from a fever contracted in the trenches there, while Sir Arthur Rawdon was also taken ill and, although he made his way to Londonderry after the defeat at Moneymore, had later to be evacuated to England due to his illness.35

  With the Jacobites on both sides of the Bann, Gustavus Hamilton decided that he had no choice other than to evacuate Coleraine since the town now faced a full-scale siege which it could never have withstood. Williamite detachments along the Bann were withdrawn and the entire force began its march to Londonderry before the Jacobite army could cut it off. This move brought much criticism down on Gustavus Hamilton, with one Williamite writer alleging that Coleraine fell because of a shortage of good officers, while the garrison was described as a rabble that retreated in considerable disorder allowing many of its weapons and horses to fall into enemy hands.36 However, the writer failed to indicate what alternative there might have been for the Coleraine garrison.

  As the soldiers trudged along the road to the longed-for safety of Ulster’s only city, they were caught up once again in a stream of refugees. The Reverend John Mackenzie, one of the chroniclers of the siege that was to follow, wrote of them that they ‘came towards Derry as their last refuge’.37 This last refuge, the last walled city built in Europe, was now a refuge for Ulster’s Protestants, a regional stronghold for them and a strategic defence for Protestantism and King William’s cause in Ireland. It thus fulfilled all three possible roles for fortifications as recognized by military theorists.38 As a refuge the city provided the perceived protection of its walls, although these had not been intended to withstand modern artillery, while those same walls became the stronghold for most Protestants in north-west Ulster, as well as from east Ulster. Perhaps its most important role was as a strategic defence for the cause espoused by the Protestants of Ulster, which included allegiance to William III. Nowhere else was there a location that would permit the Williamites to seek defence but also maintain lines of communication with England that offered the prospect of allowing a relief force to arrive by sea.

  And so it was that the city of Londonderry became the major battleground in Ireland in 1689. All possibilities of a negotiated peace had vanished in the havoc of war, and preparations were underway to increase both the level and tempo of military activity in the country. In late-March, as Coleraine teetered, Parliament in London voted to allocate finance for a relief force for Ireland with a sum of over £300,000 for a campaign of six months’ duration; an additional £100,000 was granted to cover the costs of transportation and to provide an artillery train. Should the Irish campaign last more than six months then more provision was to be made in the form of an additional £300,000.39 This financial allocation marked an important moment in parliamentary history since it indicated that the monarch had to approach parliament to secure the finance with which to wage war. The money was to be raised, in part, by a Poll Bill which proposed imposing taxes under twenty-three different heads; all but one of these – a tax on fee farm rents ‘now paid and not otherwise charged’ – was agreed by the Commons on 4 April. Among those to be taxed were judges, nobles, baronets, esquires or reputed esquires, widows, gentlemen having an estate of £300 and ‘dignified’ clergy.40

  In spite of his earlier proclamation to bring in provisions, Lundy found that the response in the city had been poor and ‘therefore by force [he] obliged all the merchants’ to hand over provisions to the city’s stores. Salmon, butter and cheese were confiscated. The outlying landowners were ordered to have their tenants bring in all the grain that they could on the promise that they would eventually be paid for it. Should they fail to do so they would certainly lose their grain ‘for if our own men or the Enemy came amongst them they would take it for nothing’. Lundy also encouraged the landlords to take grain in lieu of rent and then send that grain into the stores. This would also be a good way for the tenant farmers to pay their rents as they had no cash to do so. Whether the landlords considered this a good idea we do not know.

  On 20 March Lundy received a letter from Captain James Hamilton, aboard the merchant ship Deliverance, which had been escorted by the frigate HMS Jersey,7 under Captain Beverly, and which had brought arms, ammunition and some money ‘for the use of Derry’. The latter sum totalled £598.16s.8d which Hamilton had received from the collector of customs at Chester, Mathew Anderton, who had been instructed to provide £1,000. It seems that Lord Shrewsbury’s letter of 8 March was also delivered by Hamilton.

  However, Hamilton had orders not to unload anything into Lundy’s care until the governor had taken the oath of allegiance to King William and Queen Mary. Lundy therefore boarded the Jersey where Hamilton ‘tendered me the oath’. This was to be a subject of controversy in the days ahead with some claiming that Lundy had never taken the oath at all and demanding that he do so again. Against this, Lundy noted that, on 21 March, he ‘had all the people of quality and officers of [the] town assembled and tendered them the oath [and] in the afternoon [he] had their Majesties proclaimed King and Queen’ with all the solemnity that circumstances in the city permitted. Subsequently, a House of Commons committee was told that Colonel Stewart, Captain Mervyn and Captain Corry were all present when Lundy took the oath ‘to be true to King William before his commission was delivered to him: But the Mayor of Londonderry was not present, being gone into the Irish Army; And the Deputy Mayor was suspected for a Papish at that time’. Presenting his evidence to the same committee Sir Arthur Rawdon claimed to have been put out of the cabin with Captain Beverly and ‘divers others’. It was on this same day that a Declaration of Union (see Appendix Two) was made by ‘the nobility and gentry of the neighbouring counties, and of the citizens and garrison of Londonderry’.42

  Following this the arms and ammunition were landed and distributed although some 600 weapons of the 1,600 unloaded were defective; it was said that there were weapons for 2,000 men. Some 480 barrels of powder were included in the cargo that was landed. It is unlikely that Hamilton would have permitted this unloading to take place had Lundy not taken the oath. There was considerable consternation at both the quantity and quality of the weapons supplied. The muskets were matchlocks rather than the more modern flintlocks and there must have been a feeling that the city was being fobbed off with obsolescent weapons. Not surprisingly, Lundy recorded that this bred much ill-feeling that led to many leaving the country who would previously not have considered doing so.

  Once more Lundy took up his pen to write an appeal for assistance. His letter, addressed to Shrewsbury, detailed the sad condition of the city, the great disappointment felt at the supplies that had arrived with Deliverance and HMS Jersey, the pressing need for money and arms, and general officers to command the garrison. Without these, he argued, the town would almost inevitably fall into Irish hands. He was also concerned about the soldiers of the garrison who were ‘negligent and would do nothing’, a complaint that seems to relate to the locally-raised units. Without money to pay these men there were no sanctions with which to punish or discipline them. His ordeal at Coleraine seems to have caused Lundy to look on the Londonderry garrison with a more jaundiced eye. But, he told Shrewsbury, the most urgent need was for provisions ‘considering the great numbers of people that flocked from all parts to Derry, being chased there by the Irish from their own homes’. Even while appealing for provisions for his own town, Lundy was sending powder – twenty barrels with ball and match – to Coleraine as well as two guns, and food. But Coleraine was soon to capitulate
, as we have seen, allowing Richard Hamilton to march for Derry with his army.

  This caused Lundy to write yet another letter to Shrewsbury in which he told his lordship, who held one of the highest offices of state and might be equated to the modern home secretary if not the prime minister, that the situation was becoming desperate, the soldiers were ‘downright [mutinous] and would do nothing but what they pleased’. Unless a general with an army and provisions was despatched forthwith to relieve Ireland, it would be too late. In spite of their truculent state, Lundy ‘drew out 19 companies of those that came from Coleraine’ (about 1,050 men) and brought them into the city to strengthen the garrison, giving them provisions from the stores and supplying their officers with some money to pay them. The remainder of the Coleraine force was sent into the Laggan valley, an area of highly fertile farmland between the city and Letterkenny, where they were allocated quarters. However, the Coleraine commander, Hamilton, was so incensed at what he saw as the cowardice of his men that he refused to stay any longer. Lundy comments wryly that a great many followed Hamilton’s example and went off.

  Two Jacobite forces were now making their way towards the Protestant stronghold of Londonderry. Richard Hamilton’s force was approaching from Coleraine while the force that had been marching to reinforce him was en route from Charlemont in Tyrone. But there was no agreement on overall strategy within the Jacobite high command. Both King James and Lord Melfort had planned that a campaign in Scotland should follow the fall of the city. One senior Jacobite, Justin McCarthy, felt that the only real difficulty with that plan was in finding the shipping to transport the army from the Foyle to Scotland since the French fleet, having brought James to Kinsale, had sailed for home, leaving only three frigates for James’ use. This absence of a strong French naval presence was to be crucial to the Jacobite army at Derry and later in the Irish campaign.

  While James and Melfort seemed optimistic, the principal French representatives did not share that feeling. Avaux, the senior French adviser, and Conrad de Rosen, the senior general, were pessimistic; the former’s reports back to Louis told of shortages of trained soldiers, horses, money, military equipment and provisions.43 This was hardly a situation in which confidence could be felt. And matters were complicated by Tyrconnel’s attitude to Melfort. He distrusted the Scot’s influence with James, a distrust also felt by Avaux who, by contrast, considered Tyrconnel a trustworthy ally. These tensions did nothing for morale at the top of the Jacobite command while the shortages did little for morale at the lower end. However, the news that Hamilton had pushed the Williamites back to Derry raised confidence in Dublin. That was tempered by further news that a relief force was being made ready in north-west England with a fleet assembling in Liverpool to carry it to Londonderry. On 2 March the Navy Board had received orders that

  Vessels be immediately hired at Liverpool or where it may be most conveniently done for transporting two battalions of soldiers consisting of about 1200 men with their accoutrements from this port to London Derry in Ireland, and that they be victualled as can best be done at the said place of their embarking.44

  This made the seizure of the city the most important strategic objective for James and his forces. It also made that seizure a matter of great urgency.

  Notes

  Much of the material in this chapter is based on documents in the National Archives of Scotland. These are: GD26/7/37 – 1, Case for Lundy and letter giving details of preparations at Derry; GD26/7/37 – 2, Account of Lundy’s proceedings in Ireland since 13 December 1688; GD26/7/37 – 3, Draft petition to the Privy Council defending his conduct. In most cases it will be clear to the reader that the source is one of these documents and thus these are not normally annotated.

  1: Mitchelburne, Ireland Preserv’d.

  2: Mackenzie, op cit, p. 14

  3: Milligan, op cit, p. 42

  4: Mackenzie, op cit, p. 13

  5: Ibid

  6: Walker, A True Account of the Siege of London-Derry, pp. 19–20

  7: Ibid, p. 20

  8: Seymour, p. 108

  9: Mackenzie, op cit, p. 13, refers to Forward’s arrival with that of two other Donegal landowners.

  10: Ibid

  11: Ibid

  12: Witherow, Derry and Enniskillen, pp. 212–7

  13: Gilbert, A Jacobite Narrative of the War in Ireland, p. 43

  14: Ibid

  15: Macrory, pp. 138–9

  16: Finlay, The Siege of Londonderry, p. 13. Finlay used figures and comments made by Macaulay.

  17: Avaux, Négociations, p. 85; Milligan, op cit, pp. 112–3; Macrory, pp. 142–3. Although Macrory cites Avaux as his source the details he gives do not chime with the Frenchman’s report.

  18: Avaux, op cit, p. 37 & p. 44

  19: House of Lords Record Office (HLRO): House of Commons Journal (HoCJ), 15 April 1689

  20: For examples see Avaux, op cit, pp. 74–5 on general shortages and p. 82 on the lack of weaponry in infantry units.

  21: Gilbert, op cit, pp. 47–8

  22: Ibid, p. 46; Avaux, op cit, p. 11. The former does not mention Lery but he is included as a cavalry brigade commander in Louis’ orders to Maumont, reproduced in Avaux’s records.

  23: Doherty, op cit, p. 38

  24: Macrory, op cit, pp. 143–4

  25: Quoted in Mitchelburne, op cit

  26: See Gilbert, p. 45, where the army is estimated at 3,500.

  27: Macrory, op cit, p. 146

  28: Ibid, pp. 147–8

  29: HLRO, HoCJ, 15 April 1689. On this date it was agreed to appoint a committee ‘to consider of the distressed condition of the Protestants of Ireland fled from Ireland; and of a way how they may be relieved’.

  30: Macaulay, History of England, Vol. III, p. 55

  31: Mitchelburne, op cit. See also Wauchope Colonel John Mitchelburne, Irish Sword, Vol. XX, No. 80, p. 138.

  32: Quoted in, inter alia, Simpson, op cit, p. 96

  33: Avaux, op cit, p. 60

  34: Macrory, op cit, pp. 149–151; Doherty, op cit, p. 43

  35: Macrory, op cit, p. 151; Doherty, op cit, p. 44

  36: Quoted in Macrory, pp. 151–2

  37: Mackenzie, op cit, p. 28

  38: Keegan, A History of Warfare, pp.139–40

  39: HLRO, HoCJ, 24 March 1689

  40: Ibid, 3 April 189

  41: Colledge & Warlow, Ships of the Royal Navy, p. 179

  42: Simpson, op cit, pp. 100–1

  43: Avaux, op cit, as for note 20.

  44: NA Kew, ADM2/1743

  __________

  1 Forward’s family is remembered in the name of the townland of Castleforward, outside Newtowncunningham, in east Donegal. Newtowncunningham, in turn, was a plantation village, originally called Cunningham’s New Town

  2 Not long after his release Mountjoy was killed at the battle of Steenkirk while fighting in William’s army.

  3 ‘The ‘Red Coats’ were regular infantry while the ‘country companies’ were from the locally-raised forces

  4 The outline of the ravelin was discovered during an archaeological dig in the area in 1999.

  5 These are the officers below the rank of captain although at this time the term may also have included captains.

  6 Charles Talbot, Duke. of Shrewsbury, had been a minister under James II. He had converted to Protestantism and was now in favour with the new regime, having been one of the seven men who had invited William to come to England.

  7 The first of eight ships of this name to serve in the Royal Navy, Jersey carried forty-eight guns. The ship was captured by the French in the West Indies in December 1691.41

  CHAPTER FOUR

  No Surrender!

  As the refugees from Coleraine streamed across the mountain to Newtownlimavady and thence to Londonderry, the defences of the latter had been improved almost beyond recognition since the shutting of the gates in December. Much of this was attributable to the city’s new governor, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Lundy. A Scot, Lundy knew
the city well and had been stationed there for some time. He had a lengthy military career behind him and had served with the Royal Regiment of Foot in Tangier, which had been under an almost constant state of siege.1 Moreover, he was acquainted with the latest concepts in military engineering as had been proved by his building of the ravelin at Bishop’s Gate. Lundy knew that the French were the most sophisticated military engineers of the day and that, should the city come under siege, it was likely that French engineers, or men familiar with their ideas, would be among the besiegers.

  But we have noted that Lundy was frustrated at the attitude of many of the garrison and at the lack of assistance that seemed to be forthcoming from England. Had he known how the situation was being viewed in London, his frustration might have been even greater since the House of Commons appeared to be taking an almost casual approach. On 4 April it was decided that a committee of the whole house would be established ‘to consider the state of this Kingdom, and of Ireland’. That the plight of Ireland’s Protestants was known in London is evidenced by the same house, on 15 April, appointing a further committee ‘to consider the distressed condition of the Protestants of Ireland fled from Ireland; and of a way how they may be relieved’. This latter committee was to have its first meeting on the 16th but its work thereafter seemed to lack any sense of urgency as did that of the first committee.2