The household troops came on in a manner worthy of their long and terrible renown.  A third time Neerwinden was taken.  A third time William tried to retake it.  At the head of some English regiments he charged the guards of Lewis with such fury that, for the first time in the memory of the oldest warrior, that far famed band gave way.446 It was only by the strenuous exertions of Luxemburg, of the Duke of Chartres, and of the Duke of Bourbon, that the broken ranks were rallied.  But by this time the centre and left of the allied army had been so much thinned for the purpose of supporting the conflict at Neerwinden that the entrenchments could no longer be defended on other points.  A little after four in the afternoon the whole line gave way.  All was havoc and confusion.  Solmes had received a mortal wound, and fell, still alive, into the hands of the enemy.  The English soldiers, to whom his name was hateful, accused him of having in his sufferings shown pusillanimity unworthy of a soldier.  The Duke of Ormond was struck down in the press; and in another moment he would have been a corpse, had not a rich diamond on his finger caught the eye of one of the French guards, who justly thought that the owner of such a jewel would be a valuable prisoner.  The Duke’s life was saved; and he was speedily exchanged for Berwick.  Ruvigny, animated by the true refugee hatred of the country which had cast him out, was taken fighting in the thickest of the battle.  Those into whose hands he had fallen knew him well, and knew that, if they carried him to their camp, his head would pay for that treason to which persecution had driven him.  With admirable generosity they pretended not to recognise him, and suffered him to make his escape in the tumult.

It was only on such occasions as this that the whole greatness of William’s character appeared.  Amidst the rout and uproar, while arms and standards were flung away, while multitudes of fugitives were choking up the bridges and fords of the Gette or perishing in its waters, the King, having directed Talmash to superintend the retreat, put himself at the head of a few brave regiments, and by desperate efforts arrested the progress of the enemy.  His risk was greater than that which others ran.  For he could not be persuaded either to encumber his feeble frame with a cuirass, or to hide the ensigns of the garter.  He thought his star a good rallying point for his own troops, and only smiled when he was told that it was a good mark for the enemy.  Many fell on his right hand and on his left.  Two led horses, which in the field always closely followed his person, were struck dead by cannon shots.  One musket ball passed through the curls of his wig, another through his coat; a third bruised his side and tore his blue riband to tatters.  Many years later greyhaired old pensioners who crept about the arcades and alleys of Chelsea Hospital used to relate how he charged at the head of Galway’s horse, how he dismounted four times to put heart into the infantry,