Williamite War in Ireland - Glorious Revolution

Glorious Revolution

The war in Ireland began as a direct consequence of the Glorious Revolution in England. James, who was a Roman Catholic, attempted to introduce freedom of religion for Catholics and bypass the English Parliament to introduce unpopular laws. For many in England, this was an unpleasant reminder of the rule of Charles I, whose conflict with the Parliament ended with the outbreak of the English Civil War. The breaking point in James' relationship with the English political class came in June 1688 when his second wife gave birth to a son, which opened the prospect of an enduring Catholic Stuart dynasty. This fear led some political figures to conspire to invite William III of Orange, stadtholder of the main provinces of the Dutch Republic, to invade England. William had indicated that such an invitation would be a condition for a military intervention, which he desired primarily for military and strategic reasons.

The Dutch Republic was at the brink of war with the France of Louis XIV, then the greatest military power in Europe. English Stuart Kings Charles II and James II had fostered a close alliance with France since the English Restoration, and William wanted to detach England's resources of men, money, and arms from France and put them at the disposal of his League of Augsburg. William invaded England in November 1688 and James fled to France after putting up only a token resistance. William in 1689 assumed the Throne jointly with his wife, James' daughter Mary.

However, while James II was unpopular in England, he had widespread popular support in Ireland. The Irish were almost all Roman Catholics and had fought en masse for the Stuart dynasty in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the 1640s, in the hope of securing religious toleration and political self-government. They had been defeated by 1652 and were punished by the English Commonwealth regime with land confiscations and penal legislation. They were largely disappointed with the failure of King Charles II to completely reverse this situation in the Act of Settlement 1662.

James had given them some concrete concessions in the 1680s by appointing an Irish Catholic, Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell as Lord Deputy of Ireland, and by re-admitting Catholics as Army officers and into other public offices. When James fled England in 1688 he looked to Ireland to muster support for a re-conquest of his Three Kingdoms. In 1689 he held what became known as the "Patriot Parliament" in Dublin which reversed the confiscations of the 1650s and confirmed his support from most of the Irish landed gentry.

Ironically, while Irish Catholics supported King James en masse, the Papal States had joined the League of Augsburg. Pope Innocent XI had lent William of Orange 150,000 Scudi for war purposes through his family's bank before his death in 1689.