These Acts were perhaps only what is called natural, but it must be owned that they were also terribly unfortunate.  Up to that date those directly penal laws against Catholics which afterwards disfigured the statute book were practically unknown.  A Catholic could sit in either Irish House of Parliament; he could inherit lands, and bequeath them to whom he would; he could educate his children how and where he liked.  The terror planted in the breast of the Protestant colony by that inoperative piece of legislation found its voice in the equally violent, but unfortunately not equally inoperative, passed Acts by them in the hour of their triumph.  Acts, by means of which it was fondly hoped that their enemies would be thrown into such a position of dependence and humiliation that they could never again rise up to be a peril.

In the north a brilliant little victory had meanwhile been won by the Enniskillen troops under Colonel Wolseley, at Newtown Butler, where they attacked a much larger force of the enemy and defeated them, killing a large number and driving the rest back in confusion.  William was still detained in England, but had despatched the Duke of Schomberg with a considerable force.  Schomberg’s men, were mostly raw recruits, and the climate tried them severely.  He arrived in the autumn, but not venturing to take the field, established himself at Dundalk, where his men misbehaved and all but mutinied, and where, a pestilence shortly afterwards breaking out, swept them away in multitudes.

On both sides, indeed, the disorganization of the armies was great.  Fresh reinforcements had arrived for James, under the Comte de Lauzan, in return for which an equal number of Irish soldiers under Colonel Macarthy had been drafted for service to France.  In June, 1690, William himself landed at Carrickfergus with an army of 35,000 men, composed of nearly every nationality in Europe—­Swedes, Dutch, Swiss, Batavians, French Huguenots, Finns, with about 15,000 English soldiers.  He came up to James’s army upon the banks of the Boyne, about twenty miles from Dublin, and here it was that the turning battle of the campaign was fought.

This battle James watched at a discreet distance from the hill of Donore.  The Irish foot, upon whom the brunt of the action fell, were untrained, indifferently armed, and had never before been in action; their opponents were veterans trained in European wars.  They were driven back, fled, and a considerable number of them slaughtered.  The Irish cavalry stood firm, but their valour was powerless to turn the day.  Schomberg was killed, but William remained absolute and undisputed master of the field.

At the first shock of reverse James flew down the hill and betook himself to Dublin.  He arrived there foaming and almost convulsed with rage.  “Madam, your countrymen have run away!” was his gracious address to Lady Tyrconnel.  “If they have, sire, your Majesty seems to have won the race,” was that lady’s ready retort.