ll force to Ulster
to take advantage of the panic which had followed the relief of
Londonderry. James indeed was already talking of flight, and looked upon
the game as hopeless. But the spirit of the Irish people rose quickly
from their despair, and the duke's landing roused the whole nation to a
fresh enthusiasm. The ranks of the Irish army were filled up at once,
and James was able to face the duke at Drogheda with a force double that
of his opponent. Schomberg, whose men were all raw recruits whom it was
hardly possible to trust at such odds in the field, did all that was
possible when he entrenched himself at Dundalk and held his ground in a
camp where pestilence swept off half his numbers.

[Sidenote: Battle of the Boyne.]

Winter at last parted the two armies, and during the next six months
James, whose treasury was utterly exhausted, strove to fill it by a
coinage of brass money while his soldiers subsisted by sheer plunder.
William meanwhile was toiling hard on the other side of the Channel to
bring the Irish war to an end. Schomberg was strengthened during the
winter with men and stores, and when the spring came his force reached
thirty thousand men. Lewis too felt the importance of the coming
struggle. Seven thousand picked Frenchmen under the Count of Lauzun were
despatched to reinforce the army of James, but they had hardly arrived
when William himself landed at Carrickfergus and pushed rapidly with his
whole army to the south. His columns soon caught sight of the Irish
forces, hardly exceeding twenty thousand men in number but posted
strongly behind the Boyne. Lauzun had hoped by falling back on Dublin to
prolong a defensive war, but retreat was now impossible. "I am glad to
see you, gentlemen," William cried with a burst of delight; "and if you
escape me now the fault will be mine." Early next morning, the first of
July 1690, the whole English army plunged into the river. The Irish
foot, who at first fought well, broke in a sudden panic as soon as the
passage of the river was effected, but the horse made so gallant a stand
that Schomberg fell in repulsing its charge and for a time the English
centre was held in check. With the arrival of William however at the
head of his left wing all was over. James, who had throughout been
striving to secure the withdrawal of his troops to the nearest defile
rather than frankly to meet William's onset, abandoned his troops as
they fell back in retreat upon Dublin, and