Tyrconnel had made no preparations for the approaching campaign.  But Saint Ruth, as soon as he had landed, exerted himself strenuously to redeem the time which had been lost.  He was a man of courage, activity and resolution, but of a harsh and imperious nature.  In his own country he was celebrated as the most merciless persecutor that had ever dragooned the Huguenots to mass.  It was asserted by English Whigs that he was known in France by the nickname of the Hangman; that, at Rome, the very cardinals had shown their abhorrence of his cruelty; and that even Queen Christina, who had little right to be squeamish about bloodshed, had turned away from him with loathing.  He had recently held a command in Savoy.  The Irish regiments in the French service had formed part of his army, and had behaved extremely well.  It was therefore supposed that he had a peculiar talent for managing Irish troops.  But there was a wide difference between the well clad, well armed and well drilled Irish, with whom he was familiar, and the ragged marauders whom be found swarming in the alleys of Limerick.  Accustomed to the splendour and the discipline of French camps and garrisons, he was disgusted by finding that, in the country to which he had been sent, a regiment of infantry meant a mob of people as naked, as dirty and as disorderly as the beggars, whom he had been accustomed to see on the Continent besieging the door of a monastery or pursuing a diligence up him.  With ill concealed contempt, however, he addressed himself vigorously to the task of disciplining these strange soldiers, and was day and night in the saddle, galloping from post to post, from Limerick to Athlone, from Athlone to the northern extremity of Lough Rea, and from Lough Rea back to Limerick.86

It was indeed necessary that he should bestir himself; for, a few days after his arrival, he learned that, on the other side of the Pale, all was ready for action.  The greater part of the English force was collected, before the close of May, in the neighbourhood of Mullingar.  Ginkell commanded in chief.  He had under him the two best officers, after Marlborough, of whom our island could then boast, Talmash and Mackay.  The Marquess of Ruvigny, the hereditary chief of the refugees, and elder brother of the brave Caillemot, who had fallen at the Boyne, had joined the army with the rank of major general.  The Lord Justice Coningsby, though not by profession a soldier, came down from Dublin, to animate the zeal of the troops.  The appearance of the camp showed that the money voted by the English Parliament had not been spared.  The uniforms were new; the ranks were one blaze of scarlet; and the train of artillery was such as had never before been seen in Ireland.87