Catholic Ireland had not acquiesced in the elevation of William of Orange to the throne of England; she invited over King James.  Personally brave, and blinded by his hopes, he set out from St. Germain on the 25th of February, 1689.  “Brother,” said the king to him on taking leave, “the best I can wish you is not to see you back.”  He took with him a corps of French troops commanded by M. de Rosen, and the Count of Avaux as adviser.  “It will be no easy matter to keep any secret with the King of England,” wrote Avaux to Louis XIV.; “he has said before the sailors of the St. Michael what he ought to have reserved for his greatest confidants.  Another thing which may cause us trouble is his indecision, for he has frequent changes of opinion, and does not always determine upon the best.  He lays great stress on little things, over which he spends all his time, and passes lightly by the most essential.  Besides, he listens to everybody, and as much time has to be spent in destroying the impressions which bad advice has produced upon him as in inspiring him with good.  It is said here that the Protestants of the north will intrench themselves in Londonderry, which is a pretty strong town for Ireland, and that it is a business which will probably last some days.”

The siege of Londonderry lasted a hundred and five days; most of the French officers fell there; the place had to be abandoned; the English army had just landed at Carrickfergus (August 25), under the orders of Marshal Schomberg.  Like their leader, a portion of Schomberg’s men were French Protestants who had left their native country after the revocation of the edict of Nantes; they fought to the bitter end against the French regiments of Rosen.  The Irish Parliament was beginning to have doubts about James II.  “Too English,” it was said, “to render full justice to Ireland.”  There was disorder everywhere, in the government as well as in the military operations; Schomberg held the Irish and French in check; at last William III. appeared.

He landed on the 14th of June, and at once took the road to Belfast; the Protestant opposition was cantoned in the province of Ulster, peopled to a great extent by Cromwell’s Scotch colonists; three parts of Ireland were still in the hands of the Catholics and King James.  “I haven’t come hither to let the grass grow under my feet,” said William to those who counselled prudence.  He had brought with him his old Dutch and German regiments, and numbered under his orders thirty-five thousand men; representatives from all the Protestant churches of Europe were there in arms against the enemies of their liberties.