Battle of Boyne

The Bataille of Boyne is held the July 12th 1690 during the Glorieuse Revolution and is completed by the victory of the forces of the king protesting of England, Guillaume III or William of Orange, over those of the catholic king Jacques II of England, its predecessor.

Origin and course of the battle

This battle takes place in Ireland, close to the town of Drogheda on the river bank Boyne. Louis XIV of France sent a task force in Ireland to help Jacques II to reconquer the throne which the English Parliament had withdrawn to him because of its fidelity to the Catholicisme and of its will to preserve the absolute capacity to entrust it to his/her daughter Marie II and her son-in-law Guillaume III.
During the battle, the 36.000 soldiers of William of Orange ordered by the marshal of Schomberg crush the 23.000 soldiers (including 7.000 French) of the army franco-jacobite. The Schomberg marshal finds death there.

The defeat of Jacques II and his exile

This defeat puts an end to the hopes of Jacques II to reconquer the throne. It must be exiled definitively in France. The hopes of the catholic Irish population of émanciper of the English supervision also die out. The soldiers of Jacques II exile themselves with him, for the majority in France, but also in Spain, some will offer their services of Mercenaire S in other European countries. In France, they were enough numerous to constitute Irish regiments with the service of the king and to constitute the Irish Brigade. These exiled soldiers were particularly valorous, because they defended a lost cause. They had been called the Wild geese ( Wild gooses in French).

Nowadays

The battle of Boyne is a decisive victory with the advantage of the Protestant Irishmen who made a celebration symbolic system of it. Nowadays, in Northern Ireland, the Orangistes still commemorate the memory of the victory by processions. These steps orangists, which pass by the catholic districts, are regarded as provocations by the catholics. These processions feed the ancestral competitions which are the fundamental cause of the permanent conflicts of the 20th century between Irish of north.

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