34. Another theatre in a wider war

It's the run up to the Battle of the Boyne.

So we're chatting about the many motivations for William III's invasion of England. Yes, the aims of the Glorious Revolution, protecting or simply implementing a particular view of a certain number of English liberties, mattered. But there was also the much more personal objective of protecting his wife's claim to the English throne, which he would share with her. And then, as a Dutchman, he wanted to get on with fighting Holland's war against France. For that, English neutrality would be a great improvement over its potential involvement on Louis XIV's side; even better, having it join with Holland would be a huge boost. And if he were king, couldn't he make sure that happened?

A lot was at stake when the sides met at the Boyne. But it wasn't just the fate of the English and Scottish crowns, or of Catholicism in Britain and Ireland. It was also the hopes of defeating France in a much wider European war.

That made the Irish campaign one theatre in that war.

Illustration: King Louis XIV of France, ‘Louis the Great’, the ‘Sun King’. The figure dominating the European scene and threatening the other powers.
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; purchased through a generous contribution by Joseph Verner Reed to the Victor Proetz Memorial Fund

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License