The Battle of the Boyne

The Battle of the Boyne. By Benjamin West Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2970408

The death of Oliver Cromwell, and the restoration of the monarchy under the slightly lighter touch of the hedonistic Charles II followed. The conflict was far from being done and dusted, however. Charles was exceptionally prolific in providing his mistresses with children, but not his wife. The heir to the throne thus continued to be his younger brother, James, an avowed Catholic. James came to the throne in 1685, and was to rule until 1688. The final straw for the rebellious English establishment was when James produced a male heir. As far as they were concerned, the entire Protestant establishment was now under threat. Such were the complexities of denominational politics of the time that the daughter of James – Mary, was herself a Protestant, and married into the Dutch Royal Family to William of Orange, himself a Protestant, albeit from a somewhat different dissenting tradition. The English Establishment, for whom overthrowing monarchs had become something of a habitual pastime, sensed an an opportunity, and in another extraordinary decision effectively invited William to invade their own country (not that William was not already willing and prepared). 

James was overthrown and initially fled to France before sensing an opportunity to revive his fortunes by taking the fight to Ireland. He landed there in 1689. The Irish parliament persuaded James to declare a bill of religious freedom for both Catholics and Protestants, as James attempted to build up his forces. William noted the threat, and acted decisively. The English army once more crossed the Irish Sea.

Three Hadsors of the Dublin branch of the family felt encouraged enough by the dispute to join the Jacobite cause, and yet again their optimism was misguided. The final showdown came at the Battle of the Boyne on July 1st, 1690, and there a Lieutenant James Hadsor met his end. 

Two other Hadzors were also involved in this final act - Richard and Thomas. Both were subsequently charged with high treason. 

The Battle of the Boyne brought an era to a close. It is perhaps something of an irony that the break with Europe as initiated by Henry VIII, now required a European intervention in the shape of the Dutchman, William of Orange, to preserve it, but the facts are as they are. James II was the last Roman Catholic Monarch of England, and his attempt to reverse the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688, collapsed on that fateful day by the Boyne river. With the wisdom of hindsight, the English parliament passed a bill stating that no Roman Catholic could from now on ascend to the throne, nor be married to a Catholic. It took over two centuries for the latter provision to be relaxed. 

The former ruling still stands in all its glorious antiquity and absurdity as we continue to discuss the future of the United Kingdom.

The Glorious Revolution and Battle of Boyne are celebrated to this day on July 12th on Orangeman's Day in a commemoration that has its own long and controversial history, yet another example of how whilst the Irish cannot forget history, the English by and large cannot remember it.

Writing in the Independent back in 1992, and with remarkable prescience, Johnathan Israel puts the case that the so-called Glorious Revolution was not much more than a quick and fairly bloodless foreign invasion that has been portrayed as if were a carefully considered parliamentary decision and yet another great moment on the march to democracy. He concludes as follows:

No, what has happened here seems to be the most glaring example of the harm done by our traditionally insular approach to so-called 'British' history, which is rarely studied with anything like adequate reference to Scotland, Ireland and the American colonies, let alone continental Europe.

The deeply ingrained and undiminished segregation of 'British' - in reality English - history from European history, which pervades its teaching and study in our schools and universities creates a narrowness of vision that has become a powerfully constricting cultural factor. The basic assumption is that everything important in British history can be explained in terms of British causes. But it is an assumption which, as the story of the Glorious Revolution and its interpretation shows, is a fallacy.