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Landen.]

THE DUKE OF BERWICK TAKEN.

army, that they filed off towards the flank; as Luxembourg found that to force the position it would be necessary to storm the villages of Laér and Neerwinden. The latter was deemed by both commanders the pivot of operations-the point on which the battle rested.

By General Rubantel on the right, by the Duke of Berwick in the centre, and by Montchevreuil, a veteran officer of high reputation, on the left, it was furiously assailed at once.

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cognised by one of his mother's brothers, George Churchill, who on that day was at the head of a brigade. A hasty greeting was exchanged between them, and the brigadier presented the captive duke to the king. The meeting of these two royal personages, "united by such close ties," says Macaulay, "and divided by such inexpiable injuries, was a strange sight. Both behaved as became them. William uncovered, and addressed to his prisoner a few words of courteous greeting. Berwick's only reply was a solemn bow. The king put on his hat, the duke put on his hat; and the cousins parted for ever."

The battle meanwhile had been raging along the whole line of entrenchments; and on both sides cannon and musket, carbine and pistol, were doing their deadly work.

Similar orders to take Laér were also given. The French brigades attacking Neerwinden were the 1st Battalion of the Bourbonnais, the Lyonnais, the Regiments of Anjou and Artois, and King James's Royal Regiment, or the Irish Guards. Berwick led the assault, and the French came on with wonderful élan. He cut his way, at the point of the bayonet, into the village. The first to encounter him at this place were the Royal Scots, under the fire of whom the head of Berwick's column perished; while their grenadiers "threw their grenades with unerring aim from the windows of a house they occupied. The French, however, pressed forward, and the battalion, unable to resist the host of combatants which assailed it, was forced to retire; at the same time the house occupied by their grenadiers was set on fire" ("Re-manded the brigades posted at Landen, ordered cords of the 1st Foot").

At this critical moment the Queen Dowager's English regiment, through smoke and flame and a storm of shot, came rushing with charged pikes to the succour of their Scottish comrades; and shoulder to shoulder both battalions renewed the conflict with splendid bravery. Prince Frederick's Danes, in crimson doublets, and Fayel's Dutch, in yellow, advanced to the support of the 1st and 2nd Royals, while at the same moment King William came galloping to that part of the position, and by his presence and ardour inspired the hearts of all.

With pike and bayonet the French disputed the possession of Neerwinden for some time; but after a struggle that had lasted for two hours they gave way, "and were driven through the defile into the plain; and the Royal and Queen Dowagers battalions, which had fought together at Tangiers in Africa, stood triumphant at the end of the village, and were thanked for their gallantry by the king."

In their hands had remained the leader of the assault, the young Duke of Berwick, then rising fast to eminence among the captains of the seventeenth century. He had been taken, with his aide-decamp, Captain Achmuty, a Scottish exile, while endeavouring to rally the fugitives. Concealing his white cockade the Bourbon badge-he sought, by the use of his native tongue, to pass himself off as an officer of the English army; but he was re

Having failed at Neerwinden on the right, an attempt was vigorously made by the enemy on the left at Neerlanden, where only four battalions were posted, the rest having marched, by the rear, to reinforce Brigadier Ramsay. Four French regiments of dragoons passed the Beck, and attacked the allied flank at the village. François de Crequy, Marquis de Marines, and Marshal of France, who com

them to charge at the same moment. As on the right, two hours' sharp fighting ensued here; but the enemy were ultimately repulsed, and hurled from the village into the plain.

William was present part of the time with Selwyn's Regiment (2nd Foot), and witnessed the flight of the enemy.

In the centre, the Duke of Luxembourg again and again led the white-coated French infantry, with wild shouts and colours flying, within less than half musket-shot of the well-manned breastwork that lay between the Belgian hamlets and where old General Talmash held command. But again and again they recoiled before the withering fire that rattled ceaselessly over the rude earthen rampart; and when they retreated for the last time over lines of their own dead, after the attack on the villages had failed, it seemed as if all was over, and that William must triumph.

Galloping to a point that was out of gun-shot, he summoned a few officers to hasty council. They were seen conversing with animation for a brief space, and then they separated, each repairing to his perilous post.

Then it became known that the decision of Luxembourg was, that a last attempt must be made to storm Neerwinden; and that the hitherto invincible Household Troops of France must lead the way.

They advanced in a manner worthy of their high renown and ancient reputation for headlong valour; while William, leaving Neerlanden, led the British battalions twice to the charge, fighting with the spirit they had shown all day. Until this period the Allies had successfully repulsed all the attacks of the enemy; but now once more the roar of battle was deepening amid the clouds of smoke and dust that shrouded Neerwinden.

The Mousquetaires, in their splendid apparel, with advanced banner, showing a bomb falling on a burning town, and the motto "Duo Ruit et Lethun," the French and Swiss Guards, the Gensdarmes Ecossais, the Gensdarmes Bourguignons, De Flandres, and De la Reine, with all the other Household Troops, under the Prince of Conté, and three other brigades, advanced against Neerwinden, and broke the Hanoverian cavalry; while the second line of horse and the reserve advanced on the left against the hedges of Laér.

The Marquis d'Harcourt, who had been sent for from the castle of Huy, came in at this most critical moment with twenty-two squadrons of fresh cavalry. Villeroi pushed in on the right of the entrenchment, the possession of which was disputed by the British and Danes with the most undaunted courage; and thus even the splendid Household Troops of France were successfully repulsed-but for a time only.

By the fiery ardour and the strenuous exertions of the Duke de Chartres, their broken ranks were rallied; and the attack was resumed for a third time, and the entrenchment levelled to make entrance for an overwhelming force of cavalry.

"However, they did not come in on easy terms," says D'Auvergne, in his "Campaigns" (1693). "The first troop of Life Guards, of which Luxembourg was colonel, lost their standard, which was taken by a soldier of the Coldstream Guards (Talmash's). The Fusiliers suffered very much in this action.

"The king behaved with great gallantry, and narrowly escaped the musket-shots," continues D'Auvergne. "One passed through the flowing curls of his periwig, and rendered him deaf for a time." Burnet says it went through his hat. A second passed through his coat; a third carried off the knot of his scarf, and left a small contusion on his side; and his two led horses were killed close to him.

In "Ormond's Memoirs" we learn that he charged repeatedly at the head of the troops; and the duke himself, when charging at the head of one of Lord Lumley's squadrons of horse, had his steed shot under him, and was wounded by a soldier who

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was on the point of killing him, when one of the
French Guards-a Mousquetaire, probably—suppos-
ing by a diamond ring which sparkled on his finger
that he must be a man of distinction, took him
prisoner. He was afterwards exchanged for the
Duke of Berwick; "but this misfortune of his
Grace was a blessing to a great many
of the poor
prisoners of the allied troops, who were confined
in the same town (Namur), as he distributed
among them a considerable sum of money."

The Elector of Bavaria, who made a stern attempt to resist the progress of the French Guards, was driven to the river Gette, and succeeded in gaining possession of a bridge, at the other end of which he rallied some cavalry and infantry to protect those ready to cross.

This was about four in the afternoon, when the white banner of Bourbon was waving over Neerwinden, and the whole allied line had given way. Confusion and slaughter reigned everywhere. Count Solmes received one mortal wound, and died in the hands of the enemy, regretted perhaps by his Dutch Blues, but certainly not by the British, who never forgave him for his conduct at Steenkirke. The Marquis de Ruvigné, fighting against France with all the rancour of a religious renegade, was taken prisoner, but saved his head by escaping.

Standards, arms, and drums were cast away on all hands by the flying Allies; the horse rode down the foot, and the artillery cut the traces of the cannon, abandoning them to the foe. The bridges and fords of the Gette were choked with killed and wounded, and hundreds perished miserably amid its waters; after King William, on finding that his right wing was completely overthrown, took care to place the river between himself and the enemy, and then gave the order to fall back on Dormal, which was occupied by the dragoons of the left wing, who had not been engaged.

All who were unable to gain the passes threw themselves into the river. Such was the fate of the right wing of the horse, and part of the left, as well as of the infantry engaged at Neerwinden and Laér. The cannon and artillery-wagons were wedged in the narrow ways, and easily captured. General Talmash was entrusted with the care of the main body of infantry that retreated by Dormal to Leene, which he conducted with a prudence only equalled by the skill and courage he had displayed in the defence of the long breastwork. When William passed the river at Neerhespen, he united part of the English and Scots Foot Guards, and all that survived of Ramsay's brigade, to the cavalry of the left wing. With these and the

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troops he had brought with him, he joined the Elector of Bavaria, and began his melancholy retreat to Bautechem, near Tirlemont ("Coldstream Records ").

"Never, perhaps," says Macaulay, "was the change which the progress of civilisation has produced in the art of war more strikingly illustrated than on that day." After referring to the days of Horatius, Richard of England, and Robert Bruce, "In such an age," he continues, "bodily vigour is the most indispensable qualification of a warrior. At Landen, two poor sickly beings, who in a rude state of society would have been regarded as too puny to bear any part in combats, were the souls of two great armies. In some heathen countries they would have been exposed while infants; Christendom, six hundred years earlier, they would have been sent to some quiet cloister. But their lot had fallen on a time when men had discovered that the strength of the muscles is far inferior in value to the strength of the mind. It is probable that among the 120,000 soldiers who were marshalled around Neerwinden under all the standards of Western Europe, the two feeblest in body were the hunchbacked dwarf who urged forward the fiery onset of France, and the asthmatic skeleton who covered the slow retreat of England."

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After seven hours of unavailing bravery, his army was again defeated, with the loss of 10,000 men, 69 pieces of cannon, and 60 standards. the result of recent encounters with William, Luxembourg sent such a vast number of these embroidered trophies to Paris, that the Prince of Conté was wont to call him "the upholsterer of Notre Dame," the church in which they were hung. The loss of the French was 15,000 men, and their corpses were piled breast high in the streets of the villages on the flanks of the long breast

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work. Many great lords were among the slain. Montchevreuil, and the gallant Patrick Sarsfield, the titular Earl of Lucan, were lying there mortally wounded. Poor Sarsfield did not fall at the head of the Irish Brigade, but in front of a French division, fighting for France, instead of the land he loved so well, and where his memory is still cherished with enthusiasm.

Though defeated, William had two medals struck in honour of Landen; on each of these is his own profile, with the legend, "Invictissimus Gvillemvs Mag."

The losses of the French were so great that they derived little advantage from their victory, save the power of besieging Charleroi.

Worn with fatigue, the French lay down to sleep in thousands upon that horrible field, totally unable to pursue the Allies or follow up their victory. The officers and wealthy nobles had their sumpter horses brought up, a supper spread, and amid the dead and the dying they laughed and sang, talked exultingly of the past day's danger and glory, and drank to each other in goblets of champagne.

For ages was Landen renowned as a terrible battle-field. "During many months," says Macaulay, quoting a letter from the Earl of Perth to his sister, "the ground was strewn with skulls and bones of men and horses, and with fragments of hats, shoes, saddles, and holsters. The next summer the soil, fertilised by 20,000 corpses, broke forth into millions of poppies. The traveller who, on the road from St. Tron to Tirlemont, saw that vast sheet of rich scarlet spreading from Landen to Neerwinden, could hardly help fancying that the figurative prediction of the Hebrew prophet was literally accomplished, that the earth was disclosing her blood and refusing to cover the slain."

CHAPTER LXXXII.

LAGOS BAY-ST. MALO, 1693.

NEVER since London was a city were there more gloom and depression within it than when tidings came, in 1693, of the result of Sir George Rooke's encounter with the French in Lagos Bay.

At this time the plan of the French Government was that their Brest squadron, under the Count de Tourville, and that of Toulon, under the Count d'Estrees, should rendezvous near Gibraltar, and there look out for booty among the shipping of Britain and the United Provinces:

The plan of the Allies was that seventy sail of the line, with thirty frigates and lesser vessels, should assemble in the Channel, under Killigrew and Delavel, two Lords of the Admiralty, to convoy the Smyrna fleet, as it was named, beyond those waters where it might be in peril of the Brest squadron; after which the greater part of the armament was to return to the Channel, leaving Rooke, with twenty sail, to convoy the traders beyond the squadron which lay at Toulon under D'Estrees.

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successful voyage. The Amsterdam squadron was not off our coast till late in April, and that of Zealand did not appear till May.

It was June before this vast united fleet of war and merchant ships lost sight of the white cliffs of England, and by that time the Count de Tourville was already on the sea, and steering southward, with sixty-three sail of the line, manned by 4,484 men. The combined fleet was of eighty-three sail. The admirals, Killigrew and Delavel, unfortunately were ignorant of the motions of Tourville, and took it for granted that he was still lying in Brest. They had certainly heard a rumour that some shipping had been seen to the northward, and hence supposed that he was taking advantage of

vain. He was compelled to obey their orders, and to proceed towards the Mediterranean with his twenty men-of-war, while Killigrew and Sir Ralph Delavel returned to the Channel. It was known by this time that Tourville had left Brest, and the return of the main body of the fleet caused the greatest alarm in London. Rooke, says Bishop Burnet, "had a fair and strong gale of wind, so that no advice sent after him could overtake him; nor did he meet with any ships at sea that could give notice of the danger that lay before him."

He left by the way the vessels bound for Bilboa, Lisbon, and St. Ubes, under the convoy of two men-of-war, and pursued his course towards the Straits of Gibraltar with the 400 merchant

Lagos Bay. 1

i

THE ENEMY IN SIGHT. ships, which, says Smollett, "belonged to England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Hamburg, and Flanders."

On the 17th of June, when sixty leagues off Cape St. Vincent, he dispatched the Lark, a sixth-rate, of twenty-four guns and 110 men, as being his swiftest sailer, to the vicinity of Lagos Bay to reconnoitre. She crept in shore and was becalmed. Next day his scouts discovered two of the enemy's ships, and gave them chase till noon, when the

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Nova was in sight; the wind died away, and ten sail of the enemy were visible in the offing, with some smaller vessels, to which they set fire, and then stood off, with their boats ahead, to decoy the squadron and convoy into the heart of their fleet.

By this time the Count d'Estrees had left Toulon with a strong force; but he met with a heavy gale near Gibraltar, which so disabled and scattered his shipping that they had to seek shelter in various French ports.

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Chatham, a fifty-gun ship, came up with one which was armed with seventy guns, and immediately engaged her; but a few broadsides had barely been exchanged when the enemy's whole fleet came in sight, under Cape St. Vincent.

Immediately on making this startling discovery, the captain of the Chatham housed his guns, and made all sail to report the circumstance to the admiral, who immediately summoned a Council of War, which was attended by the Dutch Admiral Vandergoes. Pursuant to a resolution they made, the fleet, making all sail, ran along the shore all night, and compelled, in passing, many of the enemy's ships to cut their cables in Lagos Bay.

When day broke next morning the town of Villa

About noon the sea-breeze sprang up from westnorth-west, when Sir George Rooke bore along the coast of Algarve, and every few minutes ship after ship of the enemy came in sight, till eighty-three could be distinctly seen in the offing. He then knew that, with his small force to guard so rich and numerous a convoy, he was face to face with the Count de Tourville. Only sixteen ships, however, bore up to him, with three flags flying, those of the Admiral, Vice-Admiral of the Blue, and RearAdmiral of the White; "for the Vice-Admiral of the White stood off to sea, that he might weather our squadron and fall among the merchant ships, while the body of their fleet lay to leeward of one another as far as they could be seen."

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