234. Battle of the Boyne: Clash of Two Kings (Ep 2)

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0:28Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnon. And me, William de Rumpel. We are joined once more by Jane Allmire, author of Making Empire. The most patient woman on the planet. I said that last time. We're really testing her. She's patient last time too. Can I just tell you, this marvellous book, and if you're interested in what we're talking about, it is all contained in this magnificent theme that Jane has written. Jane Allmire's Making Empire, Ireland Imperialism and the Early Modern World. In the last episode, we really spent a lot of time talking about Cromwell and the two decades of horror that Irish people go through.

1:07Can we just talk about how it ends? Because it's sort of 10 years after the conquest of Ireland that, you know, Oliver Cromwell is no more, but it is a quite grisly end to his saga as well. Tell us about that. Well, Cromwell dies of malaria, actually, in 1659. Malaria? Is that kind of the malarial swamps of Cambridge? Cambridge, exactly. They had them, yeah, in Kent and in Cambridge. There was lots of malaria, yeah, absolutely. Do go on. Shut up. Let's just talk. And his son, who's known to history as Tumbledown Dick, succeeds him. Now, he doesn't last for very long. And then we see the army basically going to Charles II.

1:45I'm not letting you get away with that brief. Tumbledown Dick, why? Well, because he was such a disaster. I mean, and it wasn't supposed to be a dynasty, the Cromwell dynasty. But still the son succeeds Cromwell, doesn't last. The army moves in, restores the Stuart dynasty, Charles II, whose father, Charles I, has been executed in 1649. He's been in the continent, basically, in exile for the 1650s. He's brought back. And when he comes back, they make a point of basically digging Cromwell up. Cromwell was buried in Westminster Abbey. He's dug up and his body is just scattered. We don't know, but his head allegedly ends up in Cambridge, in Sydney Sussex College.

2:30But apparently it's been moved, Anita tells me. Yes. Well, I sort of mentioned this in the last episode, that Huntington, which was his constituency, also John Major's constituency, you know, they have a museum and they very proudly have an exhibition. And I thought they had his head, but I have subsequently looked it up and I don't want to give you hashtag fake news. It's a death mask of the head, which was taken from the dismembered head, which is now in Huntington's Museum and it will be on display until the 30th of March. The death mask. So where's the head? We still haven't found where the head is.

3:03We don't know where the head is. We don't know where the head is. So there was a story that it ended up, certainly the body, the trunk, ended up in my local parish church in Chiswick, in London, in St. Nicholas Church. I think it was all cut up, William. I don't think they would have had the trunk. His sisters lived in Chiswick, which is why the trunk ended up buried secretly in the crypt of St. Nicholas in Chiswick. That's the story. So, I mean, it's interesting you say that it was because they didn't want a place of worship for Cromwell. What I had heard from my less than reputable sources was that Charles II was so angry with him that he wanted to hang him and he couldn't hang him because he was dead.

3:39So, he could only sort of like desecrate the body. Yeah, no, that's true as well. And that was the best that he could do. Yeah, that's also true. There we go. My sources, you can chat to me again in the pub. I will believe everything you say as usual. Okay, now this is 1659, the year after Cromwell's body goes northwest and south and east. We should talk about this thing that I did say was on everybody's iPhone. And since then, we've done an experiment among our own team, some people's iPhone, the 12th of July, which is marked as Battle of the Boy. There is a sectarian bias in iPhones somewhere.

4:11Catholic iPhones are different from Protestant iPhones. Can I just say it is interesting that some of ours have it and some of ours do not have it. But it is a national holiday, a national bank holiday in Northern Ireland to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. And that is really what is going to lead us in conversation today. So, Jane, lead us forward from the restoration. Charles II arrives back, tumble-down Dick is dispatched off somewhere. What happens next as far as Ireland is concerned? Well, the king is restored to the throne of his three kingdoms of England, Ireland and Scotland.

4:44and the Irish are delighted because they think, oh my goodness, we've been loyal to the King during the Civil War. It's time to get our lands back. So you have this very complicated. So in Ireland, it becomes then a very complicated situation around the land settlement because the Cromwellians, the adventurers, the soldiers who have got land in Ireland are now very well entrenched. And Charles II really can't afford to alienate them. He needs their support in order to govern effectively. But we have all these Catholics who are feeling, hang on, we supported you loyally during the 1650s. We want our lands back.

5:23So it ends up being all very, very tense. And of course, a lot of conniving and toing and froing and bribery and corruption. Eventually, there is a land settlement worked out. Nobody's happy. But we find our friend, the Duke of Ormond comes back. And by and large, during the period between the 1660s, 1670s, Ireland really does very well. We see Dublin becoming that second city of empire. Growing suddenly very quickly now. Suddenly very quickly. During the 1650s, we've had something called the Navigation Act put in place, which helps to create a servient economy in Ireland. But it also then, if you want, drives the provisioning trade.

6:08So Ireland is starting economically to prosper on the back of English colonial expansionists. Exporting Irish butter for the first time. Of course, butter, but also salt beef, salt pork. Ireland basically is provisioning the Caribbean. It's hugely important. And later, of course, linen becomes important as well. So it's this story in Ireland of just drawing breath, trying to recalibrate the trauma of the 1640s. The population starts to grow again. We see continued colonial immigration into Ireland. Some of these colonists also then are using Ireland as a staging post as they go on into the Atlantic world, especially the Ulster Scots, as we know them.

6:54And by and large, it's a pretty peaceful period. And prosperous. And prosperous. After the catastrophic time in the previous 20 years. And of course, William, Charles II is well disposed to Catholics. He himself, we know, secretly converts, but he's a practising Anglican, but very well disposed to Catholicism. How long you said, we know he secretly converts. Tell us more about that. I mean, that's quite the drop in. Tell us more about that. Well, at the Treaty of Dover, I mean, he shows, you know, basically I'm a Catholic, but for political reasons, I have to be Anglican. So that's just a pragmatic thing on his part.

7:33However, his brother, who's the Duke of York, openly converts to Catholicism. We've met him before, I think, in the history of the Royal Africa Company, getting involved in enslaving in Guinea and that whole terrible saga. Isn't it his letters are burned into the chests of people who are enslaved and traded like minorities? The brand of the Royal African Company. It's his initials. So all I'm trying to say here is the Stuarts are very well disposed to Catholicism. So it's practice. It's a longer driven underground. And Catholics feel that at long last, you know, they're going to be able to go back to a golden era where they could worship freely.

8:16And we see this particularly with the accession of James in 1685 when Charles II dies. So he exceeds. I mean, we have to say why he exceeds. He exceeds because Charles II dies and that's it. The succession passes on. Do we know how Charles II died? Is he an old man when he dies? I think he dies of mercury poisoning. His bedroom is over. He has a laboratory. And basically, you know, he's doing all these sorts of experiments and he's exposed to Mercury. I don't actually know. That's the theory. But Charles II, of course, has no legitimate male heirs. So, I mean, he's got an illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, but no legitimate ones.

8:56So his brother then becomes his heir. And that's all fine until the brother has a son and it becomes very clear that it's going to be a Catholic succession. And that's when things start to get very, very difficult indeed. And is that Bonnie Prince Charlie? That's Bonnie Prince Charlie. That's Bonnie Prince Charlie. Yes, so that's the son that Mary of Modena has, goes on to be James III. Who we've also met in our Scottish episodes, in Culloden and all those stories. So James II is now a problem for Protestants, because there's going to be a Catholic succession. What happens? Well, basically, happy days in Ireland.

9:35They're delighted because they think, you know, we're going to have a Catholic king and the whole Catholic order is going to be re-established. The English parliament is not so happy. And here we have effectively they dethrone him and they invite his nephew. Now, this is where it gets a bit complicated because his nephew is also his son-in-law, a man called William of Orange. They invite him to basically take the English throne. And he duly arrives in England in what in England is known as the Glorious Revolution. nothing glorious about it at all in an Irish or Scottish context, but we see this sort of almost peaceful handover of James fleeing to the continent, William coming into England.

10:19Now, Anita will be very delighted to discover there's a piece of my family history here. We haven't had many of my family in the pod for a bit. But this one is a cracker because on board the ship in the Glorious Revolution is not only William of Orange's, but his alleged boyfriend, who's called Arnold Euse Keppel, who is my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. Oh, you and the Keppels, that's right. You're all the same clan. And if you go to Hampton Court, there is a passage from William of Orange's bedroom to Arnold Euse Keppel's bedroom, and we will say no more on this matter. But it's an unproven allegation, but certainly in the family, it's always remembered that this was his, shall we say, his role at court.

11:04So, I mean, describe your Keppel. Well, it was good enough. In the recent rehanging of the National Portrait Gallery, an incredibly beautiful portrait of Ardell Dues Keppel turned up and it's now in the rehang. And he's a rather beautiful boy. He does look quite sulky. Yes, I sent you pictures. Yeah, he's good looking. He's got great features. He's got great features, but he does look like he's just pissed off, if I might say. He's just really annoyed him. He had to work hard. He just looks like, you know, you just told him he's got to do the laundry or the washing up. Not really. That's the look on his face.

11:39I'm glad William mentioned this, but it's probably just worth noting that obviously this is contested. It's the most male for this episode. And William, and listen, we may come back to it when we talk about William, but just to be very clear, he could be bisexual because he clearly has relations with his wife, Mary, and she suffers from a number of miscarriages. But certainly if you talk to orange men or members of the lawyers community, they will completely reject any suggestion that he was homosexual. And when this was raised, the late Ian Paisley, who led the Paisley Against Sodomy campaign, now this is, remember homosexuality, male homosexuality was illegal in Northern Ireland.

12:21I think it was 1982. I mean, Paisley would have condemned you from the pulpit for uttering such words, still rimple. It's a political, it's one of those political footballs. Very much so. Again, you know, this is propaganda from the Catholics. It's never true. You're just trying to do them down. Gotcha. One person who I'd really like to bring into the conversation now is the Earl of Turconnell, who is going to be quite an important character in this episode. Can you tell us about Richard Talbot, otherwise known as the Earl of Turconnell? Oh, Turconnell's a fascinating character. He comes from sort of a very well-off gentry family, County Kildare, Catholic.

12:57His brothers are achievers. One brother, Peter, goes on to be the Archbishop, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin. But Tirconnell or Talbot goes off to serve in Europe, the European armies. And that's where he meets Charles II and his brother, James, Duke of York. And he meets them because he volunteers to go to England to assassinate Oliver Cromwell. Oh, really? Now, that obviously doesn't succeed. clearly. What year does he try and bump him on? In 1655. Is there an attempt? There is an attempt. It fails and he manages to escape. What method do they use? Good question. I don't know that. Maybe somebody listening will be able to tell us.

13:36I just don't know. But he's actually captured, but he manages to escape back to the continent. And that leads to a lot of rumour about whether or not he's done a deal with the Cromwellians or something, but he clearly hasn't. But it's interesting because at that point he and James become extremely close friends. And you must remember that this is now the 1650s. These men were all sort of born in the early 1630s. So they're sort of in their prime. And one of Talbot's jobs or Tidconnell's jobs is to be minder of James's mistresses. So he becomes a very sort of... Hang on, hang on, hang on a minute.

14:11Keeper of the mistresses. Keeper of the mistresses. He puts this on a business card. Or a CV. I don't think so. It just shows you how close that relationship is between James and Turconnell. Okay. And Turconnell is going to be important to our story. Why? Because we've got William now coming back. Turconnell is clearly a Catholic. Turconnell has Catholic sympathies. And it's at this time when they're thinking this is a brave new world. Catholics can come out of the shadows. They have a chance of re-establishing themselves. and then William is chosen by Parliament because William is a Protestant and he won't rock the boat.

14:50So what does that do to people like Turconnell? Well, what Turconnell does is he hates the Duke of Ormond. So he and Ormond are constantly fighting, but he manages to secure influence at court. And thanks to his relationship with particularly James, he's able to get influence back in Ireland. And really from the mid-1680s, when James becomes king, we see Turconnell then re-Catholicizing Ireland. So in other words, he purges the Irish army and gets rid of the Protestants and only then has Catholics. How does he do that? He literally fires them. He goes in and gets rid of them and just fires them.

15:30And he replaces them with Catholic soldiers and particularly officers. But it's much more than that, Anita. He goes in and he tries to, if you want, replace the JPs, the sheriffs, the judiciary to get rid of the Protestants and replace them with Catholics. So that is extremely effective. And he does it in a very short period of time. He sort of clears out the administration, clears out the army and creates a Catholic bureaucracy and a military machine. But he's done this, though, with James II on his shoulder. Of course he does. When James II, I mean, he couldn't possibly do this. There'll be so much grievance back in Westminster about this.

16:11As long as James II is sitting on his shoulder, as long as he's looking after him, he can do all of these things. But once James is gone, then what happens to Connell? Well, to Connell obviously continues as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. And then James himself, remember, he's left England, he's gone to France. And it's really important to remember the wider picture here because Louis XIV, that great French absolute monarch. The Sun King. The Sun King, Versailles and all of that. He offers refuge to James. And then James leaves France and arrives in Ireland to be with Turconnell because he wants Turconnell basically to raise an Irish army that's going to allow him then to regain his English throne.

16:59So Ireland at this point becomes that backdoor again into England. So just again to get the timing completely clear, how long is James II in France before he sails for Ireland and reopens hostilities? Well, it's not very long. He leaves England 1688 and he's back in Ireland in March 1689. So it's a matter of months. So he goes there, basically, he's not, I mean, we have this image sometimes of the Stuarts being these slightly luxurious, slow-moving figures. He's actually straight on it. He goes to France, he raises an army, and he's back into Ireland and back in play. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Louis XIV, why is Louis XIV doing this?

17:41Because it's all about world domination as far as the French are concerned. And Louis XIV hates William of Orange because, obviously, he's been the ruler of the Netherlands and has been his big block to power. So we have to take a break in a minute now. But what is happening, I think, is we're seeing Ireland suddenly finding itself improbably at the center of European geopolitics. The Sun King now has a new queen on his chessboard, and he's moving straight into the middle of the board and challenging William of Orange, who seized the crown of England, Scotland and Ireland. And we're suddenly now going to see Ireland at the centre of everything.

18:26Welcome back. So we didn't create a complete pen portrait of William of Orange and the so-called Glorious Revolution at the last half. So Jane, tell us, give us a complete picture of this man who incredibly quickly has taken the throne of England, but not yet Ireland. So William of Orange was born in 1650. His mother is Mary Stuart, who is the sister of Charles II and James II. He's grown up in the Netherlands. He's a fluent Dutch speaker, fluent in French, fluent in German. The one language he can't really speak is English. Physically, he's quite a small figure. He's about five foot six. He's slightly got a hunchback and a hooked nose.

19:13As a child, he suffered from smallpox, which left him with an asthmatic wheeze and a very mottled complexion. And then he has this effeminate carriage. And we've talked about his sexuality. With my great, great, great, great, great grandfather. Yes, allegedly. Allegedly. But I suppose what I'm saying, he's not that big strapping hero that we see on a white horse as he would be portrayed by many. But he's also a great proponent of religious toleration. He's come from the Netherlands, but also he's played this hugely important role of leading this anti-European, if you want, coalition against the great French king, Louis XIV, who has set out to sort of rule Europe.

19:57So he's very, very important. And he's been very frustrated by the fact that his uncles, James and before him, Charles, have been part of the French coalition and have not supported the Netherlands. Is he super religious? I mean, is religion a foundation of his personality and drive? No, not really at all, Anita. He's a great proponent of religious toleration. This is a characteristic, actually, of the Dutch in this period. Unlike many of the other nations in Europe, where it was, if you want, one rule or one faith, he actually encourages religious diversity. So Jane, in March 1689, James II arrives with the whole French army in Kinsale.

20:40The Irish Catholics welcome him with full support. And this is a major problem for William. He's barely been, what, six months in this strange country in England. He's had quite an easy time without any major battle to fight in 1688. But now suddenly the French are in play and all eyes are moving to Kinsale and to Ireland. So basically at this point, when James arrives in Kinsale, actually the Jacobites, as they are now being called. Just to explain that, Jacob being the Latin for James. For James. So that's why we call them Jacobites. control all of the country, except for two really important places.

21:19One is Enniskillen, but the other is Derry. I'm just going to do a little bit of a, because Derry is, obviously, we've talked about it, this major fortified city set up by the London Company in the early decade of the 17th century. And when the Jacobite forces come to try and take Derry, there's a siege in 1689, the population of Derry under normal circumstances would have been about a thousand. During the siege, that population is inflated. So we will have maybe as many as 8 ,000. We don't really know people who are now beginning. Obviously, the siege begins. It lasts for 101 days. So people are starving.

21:58There is a famous price list, isn't there, of dogs, cats, rats and mice. And a quarter of a dog fattened by eating the bodies of the slain Irish costs five shillings and five pence. I mean, it's extraordinarily grim. and about a third of the population of the city dies, half of the military garrison. They shut the doors, the apprentice boys shut the doors and say, no surrender, we're not giving you the city. And it's a siege that goes on and lasts 105 days. It's also a siege that is commemorated every August. And it's where we get this phrase, no surrender from. Which is still a great loyalist chant even today.

22:40Even today, exactly, William. But what's so interesting as well is how that no surrender goes through time. And we have our friend, the Lawrence brothers, Henry Lawrence in India in 1857 when he dies. And remember, he's of Derry provenance. Allegedly, when he dies, his dying words are no surrender. So, I mean, and Paisley would have used that no surrender very regularly during the troubles. But to take us back, the news has arrived that not only has James landed in Kinsale, but he's brought French troops with him and, crucially, money and supplies of war. So Parliament, this huge alarm in London, one MP stands up and says, if Ireland should be lost, England will follow.

23:23And they immediately vote in£700 ,000. And then William steps up and announced that he's going in person to Ireland. And Parliament votes an even larger sum of£1.2 million, which in those days must be the most colossal fortune. Vast. And so William arrives in Carrickfergus in June 1690. His army is 36 ,000 well-armed veteran troops. Interestingly, he's got Danish troops, Dutch troops, French Huguenots, English and Irish Protestants. Whereas James's army, obviously you've got French troops as part of James's army, but mostly then it's Irish Catholics. So it's these very international forces that face each other.

24:10The mercenary Irish who've been fighting in a variety of Catholic courts now rallied to the Stuart court. So this is a big deal. This is the crisis which has been coming ever since the whole Stuart issue was apparently solved at the so-called Glorious Revolution. And do you see sort of, you know, what do you see among the general population? Do you see them rallying to one flag or to other or just thinking, oh, God, we are stuck in this again. I thought this was over. Exactly. It's part two of what they've had in the 1640s and 50s all over again. So what happens is the Irish Catholics rally, of course, to the cause of James II.

24:44Irish Protestants then rally to the cause of William of Orange. So it becomes a deeply sectarian conflict. The War of Two Kings. Well, actually, it's the War of Three Kings in a sense, because I think Louis XIV is the third king. And you need to see what's going on in Ireland as almost a sideshow of what's going on in the continent. And remember that, just going back to William of Orange, there are no papal troops who are actually sent. But the Pope does send subsidies to William of Orange, which is something, again, isn't always acknowledged. Hang on, this can't be right. The Pope sends subsidies to William of Orange.

25:26To William of Orange, who's fighting Catholics? Why? Yes, why? Because he sees it as part of this anti-French coalition on the continent. And this is where it just becomes so complicated. So in Ireland, it's seen as a Catholic-Protestant thing, but in Europe, it's seen as part of European geopolitics. Exactly. Gosh. And that's why the Pope is supporting William of Orange. As I say, he doesn't send troops, he just sends subsidies. So I've got some figures for the amount of war materials arriving in Ireland at this point. In 1689, for example, the French land, 16 ,000 sabres, 3 ,000 swords, 5 ,000 muskets, 1 ,000 pair of pistols, 500 carbines, 500 flintlocks, and 100 ,000 rounds of ammunition.

26:141690, there are yet more fleets arriving with military experts as well as materials, generals, engineers, artillerymen, commissars So suddenly Ireland is filling with the most enormous armies and wars The whole of the European military world has landed in Ireland And they're ready now for the big battle which we will come to call the Battle of the Boyne So this battle, first thing to point out, is fought on the 1st of July, not the 12th of July. We'll come to Ockham in a moment, which is fought on the 12th of July. Just to remind people, the 12th of July is the thing that appears on some people's iPhones as a bank holiday for Northern Ireland.