Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/450

 370

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. IL NOV. 5, IDOL

WILLIAM IIL's CHARGERS AT THE

BATTLE OF THE BOYNE.

(10 th S. ii. 321.)

WITH reference to Viscount Wolseley's unreliable statement on the above subject, I venture to point out that at p. 252 of my much prized copy of that delightful book the Blackwater,' by W. R. Wilde (Dublin, James McGlashan, 1849), it is recorded that King William plunged into the Boyne " with Col. Woolstey," and passed with great diffi- culty, "/or his horse was bogged at the other side, and he ivas forced to alight, till a gentle- man hefyed him to get his horse out" As to the colour of the horse, according to a large equestrian portrait of William at the Boyne, in the National Portrait Gallery, it was black with a white face.
 * The Beauties of theBoyne and its Tributary

With regard to Sir W. R. Wilde, he was one of the most active members of the Royal Irish Academy, and his love of the past was an enthusiasm. In everything connected with Ireland's ancient history, traditions, literature, and relics, he was inspired with impassioned fervour. He died at the age of sixty-one in 1876.

I may also be permitted to direct attention to the fact that in John D'Alton's ' History of Drogheda ' (Dublin, 1844), at pp. 332-3, it is stated that Theobald Mulloy, a captain of dragoons, when William's horse "tvas shot under him," promptly substituted his own. The royal recollection of the incident is evinced in a letter from Secretary Southwell, who wrote to George Clarke, the King's Secretary of War in Ireland :

" I have the honour to entertain his Majesty at my house, after I had been with him one night at sea. He lies to-morrow at Badminton, and then hurries away for London. I hope you had what I enclosed you to my Lord Maryborough ; I fear in that hurry I forgot to undersign it. I entreat you to put my name thereto, if it be still in your hands ; and this was the last command I had from his Majesty, that I should write to you his will and pleasure that Captain Mulloy have the first troop that falls in Colonel Wolseley's regiment. I am doing forty things at once, and therefore wonder

3t it 1 say nothing, but ever am, sir, yours, &c."

Robert Southwell's letter, dated at King's Wotton, in 1690, after William's return from Holland, is preserved among the manuscripts in Trinity College, Dublin. The italics are mme - HENRY GERALD HOPE.

The horse referred to in the family tra- dition mentioned in MR. DALTON'S quotation from Burke's 'Commoners' is buried at Mughestown, co. Roscommon, Theobald Mul-

loy's property, now in my possession. The grave is marked by a clump of trees.

W. H. MULLOY, Col. (late R.E.). With reference to MR. DALTON'S remark that William III. is "generally depicted riding a white horse," I can corroborate his statement ^ so far as concerns a canvas, 58 in. x 76 in., in my possession, representing the 'Siege of Namur,' by Hughtenburg, in which the king appears in the centre of a group comprising Prince Eugene and Marl- borough. H.

The fine historical picture 'The Battle of the Boyne ' was painted by Benjamin West, and engraved by John Hall, a celebrated engraver of that date. The inscription underneath mentions that the original painting is in the possession of ihe Earl Grosvenor. It is dedicated to George, Prince of Wales, and the date of the engraving is 1782. The figures of the combatants are spirited ; William III. is mounted on a vhite charger, wearing a cuirass of polished s\eel, and, with sword in hand, beckoning fiis soldiers onward. Perhaps in the course of the eventful day he might have had twolor three horses. Macaulay, in the sixteenth chapter of his 'History,' gives a grapKc description of the battle.

It was announced that the Duke d Schomberg, who was killed in the battle, would be interred in Westminster Abbey, but for some reason or other (perhaps on account of the great distance) the corpse found a grave in St. Patrick's Cathedral at Dublin, and an unhonoured one too, though not unmarked. Swift, when Dean of St. Patrick's, after remonstrating, but uselessly, with the descendants of the duke, at length erected a simple monument at his own expense in 1731 in the cathedral, with a caustic inscription upon it, which thus concludes : " plus potuit fama virtutis apud alienos quam sanguinis proximitas apud suos, A.D. 1731."

This I have seen with my own eyes, and also the skull of the brave veteran, which is preserved in the vestry of St. Patrick's Cathedral, but why taken from its sepulchre I cannot say. The Countess of Holderness, to whom Swift addressed the unavailing letter, was Frederica, married first to Robert Davey, Earl of Holderness, and secondly to Benjamin Mildmay, Earl FitzWalter, and grand- daughter of Frederick, Duke of Schomberg. She died in 1751. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

PURCELL'S Music FOR ' THE TEMPEST ' (10 th S. ii. 164, 270, 329). It is quite evident that Reggio set only one ' Tempest ' song,