James, having gained courage and funds from his sojourn at the court of Louis XIV, presently made his appearance in Ireland, relying on the support of the feudal lords.  He landed at Kinsale, in Cork, on March 12, 1688, according to the Old Style, and reached Dublin twelve days later, warmly welcomed by Lord and Lady Tyrconnell.  The only place in the country which strongly declared for William was the walled city of Derry, whence we have seen the Puritan forces issuing during the wars of the preceding generation.  James, this officer says, went north to Derry, in spite of the bitterness of the season, “in order to preserve his Protestant subjects there from the ill-treatment which he apprehended they might receive from the Irish,” and was mightily surprised when the gates were shut in his face and the citizens opened fire upon him from the walls.

[Illustration:  Tullymore Park, Co.  Down.]

James withdrew immediately to Dublin, assembled a Parliament there, and spent several months in vain discussions, not even finding courage to repeal the penal laws which Queen Elizabeth had passed against all who refused to recognize her as the head of the church.  James was already embarked on a career of duplicity, professing great love for Ireland, yet fearing to carry out his professions lest he might arouse animosity in England, and so close the door against his hoped-for return.

Enniskillen, on an island in Lough Erne, dominated by a strong castle, was, like Derry, a settlement of Scottish and English colonists brought over by the first of the Stuarts.  These colonists were up in arms against the grandson of their first patron, and had successfully attacked his forces which were besieging Derry.  James, therefore, sent a small body of troops against them; but the expedition ended in an ignominious rout rather than a battle, for the Jacobite army seems hardly to have struck a blow.  The Irish leader, Lord Mountcashel, who manfully stood his ground in the general panic, was wounded and taken prisoner.

The armies of James, meanwhile, made no headway against the courageous and determined defenders of Derry, where the siege was degenerating into a blockade, the scanty rations and sickness of the besieged being a far more formidable danger than the attacks of the besiegers.  James even weakened the attacking forces by withdrawing a part of the troops to Dublin, being resolved at all risks to protect himself.

So devoid of resolution and foresight was James that we only find him taking means to raise an army when Schomberg, the able lieutenant of William, was about to invade the north of Ireland.  Schomberg landed at Bangor in Down in August, 1689, and marched south towards Drogheda, but finding that James was there before him, he withdrew and established a strongly fortified camp near Dundalk.  James advanced to a point about seven miles from Schomberg, and there entrenched himself in turn, and so the two armies remained; as one of Schomberg’s officers says, “our General would not risk anything, nor King James venture anything.”  The long delay was very fatal to Schomberg’s army, his losses by sickness and disease being more than six thousand men.