Narratives from Macaulay

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. THE SIEGE OF LONDONDERRY. THE famous siege of Londonderry may be regarded in several aspects, (1) As an incident in English History, in the strictest sense, it is part of the revolution, or series of events by which the majority of James II.'s subjects deposed him in favour of a Protestant King. Driven from England, James had taken refuge at the French Court, where he was cordially welcomed by Louis XIV., and furnished with considerable assistance in French officers, arms and ammunition for an expedition to Ireland, where he might hope to 10 find loyalty among the Catholic majority. The Protestants, or Englishry, had indeed been driven northwards, and, alarmed by rumours of massacre, and by actual assaults from the hostile natives, had taken refuge in large numbers in Enniskillen and Londonderry. The latter town was besieged by James in person, but he shortly withdrew to Dublin, and convoked a Parliament, of which the members were almost entirely Catholic. Their violent measures against the Protestants aroused fresh indignation in England and led to the deliverance of the city, which was finally carried out by 20 Kirke. But the siege has even more significance if we regard it as (2) an event in the History of Ireland. From that point of view, it is part of the great race struggle which has been going on in Ireland ever since the time of Strongbow (1169). The aboriginal Irish, as Macaulay calls them, had never acquiesced in the English Conquest, and their hatred of the rulers had been further increased when, at the time of the Reformation, England had become in the main a Protestant country, while Ireland remained Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic Lord-Lieutenant, Tyrconnel, whom James had appointed to that office by the exercise of his ' dispensing power' w...