The battle which broke at five o’clock the next morning was a desperate one.  Roused at last from his coldness St. Ruth appealed in the most moving terms to the officers and men to fight for their religion, their liberties, their honour.  His appeal was gallantly responded to.  A low stone breast-work had been raised upon the hillside in front of the Irish, and against this Ginkel’s veterans again and again advanced to the attack, and again and again were beaten back, broken and, in one instance, chased down the hill on to the plain.  St. Ruth broke into vehement enthusiasm.  “The day,” he cried, waving his hat in the air, “is ours, gentlemen!” A party of Huguenot cavalry, however, were presently seen to be advancing across the bog so as to turn the flank of the Irish army.  It seemed to be impossible that they could get through, but the ground was firmer than at first appeared, and some hurdles thrown down in front of them formed a sort of rude causeway.  St. Ruth flew to the point of danger.  On his way he was struck by a cannon ball which carried off his head, and the army was thus left without a general.  Sarsfield was at some distance with the reserve.  There was no one to give any orders.  The breast-work was carried.  The Irish fought doggedly, retreating slowly from enclosure to enclosure.  At last, left to themselves, with no one to direct or support them, they broke and fled down the hill.  Then followed a hideous butchery.  Few or no prisoners were taken, and the number of the slain is stated to have been “in proportion to the number engaged greater than in any other battle of that age.”  An eye-witness who looked from the hill the next day said that the country for miles around was whitened with the naked bodies of the slain.  It looked, he remarked with grim vividness, like an immense pasture covered with flocks of sheep!

[Illustration:  INITIAL LETTER FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS.]

XLIV.

THE TREATY OF LIMERICK.

Nothing was now left but Limerick.  Galway had yielded immediately after the day of Aughrim, its garrison claiming and obtaining the right of marching out with all the honours of war.  Tyrconnel was dying, and had long lost, too, what little reputation he had ever had as a soldier.  Sarsfield, however, stood firm to the last.  Fresh reinforcements were hoped for from France, but none came until too late to be of any use.  The town was again invested and besieged.  An English fleet held the mouth of the Shannon so as to prevent any relief from coming to its aid.  From the middle of August to the end of September the siege went on, and the walls, always weak, were riddled with shot and shell.  Still it showed no symptoms of submission.  Ginkel, who was in command of William’s army, dreaded the approach of autumn, and had instructions from his master to finish the campaign as rapidly as possible, and with this end in view to offer good and honourable terms to the Irish.  An armistice accordingly was agreed to for three days, and before the three days ended the famous “Articles of Limerick” were drawn up and signed by Sarsfield on the one hand, and the Lords Justices, who had just arrived in camp from Dublin, on the other.