War of the Grand Alliance

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Nine Years War (Apr. 1593–Mar. 1603), also known as Tyrone's rebellion, after the state's main antagonist in the conflict, Hugh O'Neill, 2nd earl of Tyrone. It arose from Fitzwilliam's partition of Monaghan, which broke up the MacMahon lordship and threatened other Ulster lordships with a similar fate. The state's other main antagonist, Red Hugh O'Donnell, was O'Neill's son‐in‐law. Their alliance transcended traditional rivalry in Ulster and came to include many other Gaelic lords in an oath‐bound confederacy which initially took the form of a secret conspiracy.

The first action of the war was an exercise in manipulation and deceit by O'Neill. After the ejection of a sheriff from Fermanagh, O'Neill fought on the side of the government while simultaneously directing his brother Cormac, and other relatives whom he allegedly could not control, against the state. This was a delaying tactic, because the northern lords were hoping for aid from Spain, where they had sent agents as early as 1592. O'Neill disclosed his true role in February 1595 when he ordered the destruction of the garrison on the river Blackwater. The state finally proclaimed him a traitor in June 1595.

Irish tactics during the war were primarily defensive. The buannacht system used to accommodate redshanks was reoriented to put local troops into the field. These were well trained and leavened with English and Spanish veterans. Up to a third of the confederates fought with firearms, supplied by Scottish and Old English merchants, which enhanced their traditional guerrilla‐style tactics. A major lack was artillery, which made the taking of forts and towns, other than by ruse or betrayal, impossible. The English army, surprised by the discipline of their opponents, suffered from a divided command, between Lord Deputy Russell and Lord General Norris in 1596–7, and between Black Tom Butler of Ormond and Henry Bagenal in 1598. Their offensive tactics usually amounted to no more than a single expedition to establish or relieve outlying garrisons. The resulting Irish victories were in fact large ambushes—the Ford of the biscuits (1594), Clontibret (1595), the Yellow Ford (1598). These successes, together with the fall of Sligo and Cavan, allowed the war to spread to Connacht and Leinster in 1595 and to Munster in 1598.

For the Irish, politics was an extension of war. O'Neill used ceasefires and long‐drawn‐out negotiations as a delaying tactic in which the hard‐pressed and factionalized state acquiesced. A compromise, which would have left O'Neill supreme in Ulster, was negotiated in 1596 but aborted by the timely arrival of Spanish agents. Further negotiations, prolonged in the case of Ormond in 1598, and short and secret in the case of Essex in 1599, worked to O'Neill's advantage. After the débâcle of Essex's lieutenancy, O'Neill and his confederates controlled the greater part of Ireland. Unable to take the towns by force, O'Neill now tried to win over the Old English Catholics. In November 1599 he issued a proclamation requesting the Old English to join his fight for faith and fatherland. A final negotiating position with the crown, which would have provided for an autonomous Catholic Ireland run jointly by its great lords and the Old English, was drawn up. Cecil, the English secretary of state, marked these 22 demands with the word ‘Utopia’.

O'Neill's adoption of patria frightened the crown more than it encouraged the Old English. Mountjoy was rapidly dispatched to Dublin and Docwra established at Lough Foyle behind confederate lines. The strategy was now the establishment of small garrisons, closely placed and mutually supporting, to wear down the economy that supported the irregular warfare of the Irish. The long‐heralded Spanish expedition finally landed at Kinsale, only to withdraw ignominiously after O'Neill and O'Donnell abandoned their defensive tactics and risked all in a pitched battle. The garrisons in Ulster brought famine in their wake. One by one O'Neill's allies sued for peace and he went into hiding. In September 1602 Mountjoy destroyed the symbol of his authority at Tullaghoge. However, the garrison policy was proving very expensive and could be sustained only by the debasement of the Irish currency. The state was therefore glad when O'Neill submitted at Mellifont in March 1603. The war had cost the English exchequer nearly £2 million—eight times as much as any previous Irish war and as much as Elizabeth's continental wars. But it had given England complete control of Ireland for the first time since the Anglo‐Norman invasion.

Bibliography

Morgan, Hiram , Tyrone's Rebellion (1993)

Hiram Morgan

Nine Years War, 1689–97. Also known as ‘ King William's War’ or the ‘War of the English Succession’. William of Orange accepted England's throne in 1688 in the hope that the nation's superior sea power and financial strength could be used in his struggle against Louis XIV's ambitions in the Netherlands and Germany. The French king's support for the exiled James II in Ireland and his harassment of the English fleet early in 1689 made war inevitable, and in May William formed a Grand Alliance which included England, the United Provinces, and the Empire. What was initially envisaged as a short struggle to compel French recognition of the English succession developed into a prolonged conflict of unprecedented scale and financial commitment. In Ireland James's Franco-Irish army was soon defeated at the Boyne in July 1690 and the rebels finally suppressed in 1691. But England's naval mastery of the English Channel was initially weakened by the French fleet and several times invasion was threatened until in May 1692 the allies overwhelmed the French off La Hogue. Meanwhile, William was enmeshed in a desperate war in the Netherlands. In the slow, yearly grind of siege warfare he suffered a series of costly defeats before capturing the key fortress town of Namur in 1695, but his only real achievement was in preventing the French from completely overrunning Flanders. The war ended in September 1697 when the exhausted protagonists signed the treaty of Ryswick.

Andrew Hanham

War of the Grand Alliance 1688–97, war between France and a coalition of European powers, known as the League of Augsburg (and, after 1689, as the Grand Alliance). Louis XIV of France took advantage of the absence of Emperor Leopold I on a campaign against the Turks and of the promised support of James II of England to invade the empire and devastate (1689) the Palatinate. The revolution in England overthrew James, and William, prince of Orange, became William III of England (1688–89). In an attempt to keep William from leading troops to the Continent, Louis supported a counterrevolution in Ireland but was frustrated at the battle of the Boyne (1690). The naval war, of which the first major battle was the French victory at Beachy Head (1690), was practically ended by the English victory of La Hogue (1692). On land, however, Louis and Vauban took Namur (1692); Marshal Luxembourg was victorious at Fleurus (1690) over the Dutch and at Steenkerke (1692) and Neerwinden (1693) over William III; and the duke of Savoy was defeated at Marsaglia by Catinat (1693), while another French army entered Catalonia. The exhaustion of the belligerents and the defection of Savoy from the Grand Alliance (1696) finally led to the Treaty of Ryswick . This war was known on the American continent as King William's War (see French and Indian Wars ).

Bibliography: See G. N. Clark, The Dutch Alliance and the War against French Trade, 1688–97 (1923, repr. 1971).

Nine Years War (1688–97) Also known as the War of the Grand Alliance, a conflict that resulted from French aggression in the Rhineland, and that subsequently became a power struggle between LOUIS XIV of France and WILLIAM III of Britain. In 1688 when French armies invaded Cologne and the Palatinate, the members of the League of Augsburg took up arms. Meanwhile William had driven JAMES II from the throne of England and in 1689 a Grand Alliance of England, the United Provinces, Austria, Spain, and Savoy was formed against France. The French withdrew from the Palatinate. James II, supported by French troops, was defeated in Ireland at the Battle of the BOYNE. In 1690 the French navy won a victory off Beachy Head, but in 1692 was defeated at La Hogue, though their privateers continued to damage allied commerce. The French campaigns in north Italy and Catalonia were successful, but the war in the Spanish Netherlands became a stalemate as one lengthy siege succeeded another. William's one success was the retaking of Namur. The war was a severe defeat for France, despite a good military performance, because its financial resources were not equal to those of Britain and the United Provinces. Peace was finally concluded by the Treaty of Ryswick.

Nine Years War, 1689–97. Also known as ‘King William's War’ or the ‘War of the English Succession’. William of Orange accepted England's throne in 1688 in the hope that the nation's sea power and financial strength could be used against Louis XIV's ambitions in the Netherlands and Germany. The French king's support for the exiled James II made war inevitable, and in May 1689 William formed a Grand Alliance which included England, the Dutch, and the Holy Roman Emperor. In Ireland James's Franco‐Irish army was soon defeated at the Boyne in July 1690 and the rebels finally suppressed in 1691. But England's naval mastery of the English Channel was initially weakened by the French fleet and several times invasion was threatened until in May 1692 the allies overwhelmed the French off La Hogue. The war ended in September 1697 when the exhausted protagonists signed the treaty of Ryswick.

Grand Alliance, War of the See NINE YEARS WAR.