with the Bavarians, on the heights of Schellemberg, the scene of one of the most obstinate and sanguinary struggles on record. "Hell itself" says Mr. O'Connor,* describing this battle, "could hardly exhibit a scene more horrible." At one time, no less than eight thousand dead bodies filled up the fosse. How many of them were Irish? At Blenheim, when Marlborough's star was in the ascendant, the Irish shared in the losses of the French and Bavarians, estimated at about ten thousand killed, and thirteen thousand prisoners. Among the latter, there were but few Irish; for Lord Clare and his dragoons, notwithstanding the overwhelming force of the Prince of Holstein, having cut their way from the village of Oberklaw, gained the Rhine in safety, leaving four hundred and fifty killed and wounded out of one Dutch regiment with which they were engaged single hand. In 1705 the Irish regiments of Berwick, Dillon, Fitzgerald, and Galway, were at the battle of Cassano, where, out of fifty thousand combatants, about fourteen thousand were killed or wounded. The Irish suffered sorely, and thirty years afterwards, an Italian travellert could trace their position by the long line of unburied bones that whitened the banks of the Pendino. Eugene and Vendome were too busy to bury them! As at Blenheim, the Irish had again to cut their way through the lines of the victorious allies at Ramillies, in the following year. Through ridges of bayonets and walls of lances, onward they pressed, mowed down, in scores at each step, by the murderous volleys of their triumphant assailants. One of the first to fall wounded was the gallant Lord Clare, as, sword in hand, he sought to lead his men to honourable safety. But another O'Brien, Murrough of Carrigogunnel, his lieutenant-colonel, quickly replaced him, and succeeded not only in breaking the English lines, and effecting a junction with the retiring ranks at St. André, but also in capturing a pair of English colours, which, till the close of the last century, might be seen suspended in the chapel of the Irish Benedictines at Ypres, where he hung them. To form a precise estimate of the loss of the Irish at Ramillies, is of course impossible, but it must have been terrific. Anything, however, for the exiles, before the disgrace of decking, as captives, the triumph of Marlborough. This "good old Lord," Charles O'Brien, died soon after of his wounds in Brussels, as his brother Daniel had died at Pignerol thirteen years before.

Whilst Marlborough was thus enjoying a series of triumphs over the incapacity of Villeroy, and shedding torrents of Irish blood at Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Louvain, Menin, and the other towns of Flanders, where he was victorious, others of the exiles were vainly endeavouring to retrieve the fortunes of France in Piedmont. Castiglione was ths brightest spot in the Italian campaign of 1706; and for the victory gained there, by the Count de Medavi, on the 9th of September. Colonel Arthur Dillon, whose regiment had a principal share in it, was made a lieutenant-general, and Knight

* "Military Memoirs of the Irish Nation," page 283. Duffy's edition, 1855.

+ Umicaglia.

of the Order of the Holy Ghost-a fact that shows pretty clearly how Irish valour, despite the national prejudices of French historians, ever prone to undervalue it, was appreciated at Versailles. In 1707, when Greek met Greek, or Irish met Irish on the battle-field of Almanza, Mahony's dragoons fought under Berwick, on the French side, and were victorious over their countrymen serving under Lord Galway, in the army of King Charles. The victory cost the allies fifteen thousand in killed, wounded, and prisoners, and placed King Philip on the Spanish throne. But of the Irish prisoners, three battalions joined the brigade, and fought henceforth side by side, in the same ranks with their conquerors. They, too, were exiles who had fled from persecution at home, to swell the ranks of the Carlists in Spain. Alcira, Lerida, and Carthagena subsequently yielded to Berwick and Orleans; and the regiments of Barke and Dillon were conspicuous amongst the victors. The regiments o. Fitzgerald, Nugent, and O'Brien were engaged at Oudenarde in 1708; but owing to the misunderstanding of their commanders, the Dukes of Burgundy and Vendome, were forced to retire before the well-united forces of Marlborough, Argyle, and Cadogan. The same year witnessed the bravery and long-suffering of another portion of the brigade, who, with their Lieutenant-colonel Lee, served under Marshal Bouflers, and starved with him for full three months, in the fortress of Lille, vainly hoping day by day for relief. Sheer exhaustion, together with utter want of food or ammunition, at length, forced the garrison to thr: w open the gates to the victorious troops of Eugene, and victors and vanquished sat down together to a meal of horseflesh, served up in the citadel the day Ty city surrendered. The autumn of 1709 found the regiments of Dorrington, Galmoy, Lee, O'Brien and Donnell, posted with the French, Swiss, Bavarian and Cologn guards, in the van of Marshal Villars' army. Before them stood one hundred and forty thousand veterans, who had already learned to conquer, under Marlborough, at Blenheim and Ramillies. Six hours' hard fighting decided the fate of the day. Marlborough and Eugene claimed the victory, but with a loss of thirty thousand chosen troops; and Bouflers marched his half-victorious army from the field of Malplaquet, without pursuit or impediment, to the neighbouring strongholds of Bavay, Le Quesnoy, and Valenciennes. "The number of killed and wounded at Malplaquet," says Mr. O'Connor, "overspread England with mourning." Were there no mourners for those who fell in the ranks of Lee and O'Brien? The year 1710 witnessed the gallant but unsuccessful defence of Aire, Bethune, Douay and St. Venant by the Irish and French troops; and the next year found part of them serving under Berwick in Dauphiné, and part still under Villars in Flanders. It saw the tide of fortune again turn in favour of the latter, who, under the command of Booth, Dorrington, Galmoy, Lee, Nugent, O'Brien, and O'Donnell, aided by the garrison of Valenciennes, and the other French columns, carried the trenches of Denain, and in an instant swept Albemarle and his eight thousand veterans

like chaff before them. This famous day, the 24th of July, 1712, was but the first of a series of victories gained in succession, at St. Amand, Marchiennes, Le Quesnoy, Bouchain, and Douay. Irish valour was conspicuous, and Irish blood flowed like water in each and every one of them.

To this day, the attention of the traveller journeying, by the old coach-road, from Cambrai to Valenciennes, is arrested by the tall, slender obelisk of blue marble that stands in the centre of the little village of Denain, and if he be curious in monuments, he will halt for a moment in his journey, and decipher on the base of the column in question the following lines from Voltaire, which the writer copied in one of his excursions to Denain and its environs :

"Regardez dans Denain l'audacieux Villars,
Disputant le tonnerre à l'aigle des Cæsars."

The treaty of Utrecht, signed in the spring of 1713, partially restored peace to Europe, but only partially, for Germany, refusing to accede to it, war was still continued in Spain, Italy and the Rhine country, and we find the Irish still under arms. They were engaged at Barcelona, St. Sebastian, Guestella, Parma, Kehl, Philipsburgh, Dettingen, and Ypres.

The Abbé Mac Geoghegan closes his estimate of Irish mortality in the wars of France, with the battle of Fontenoy, fought between the armies of Louis XV. under the Marschal de Saxe, and the allied forces commanded by the duke of Cumberland, on Tuesday, the 11sh of May, 1745. As every Irish reader-in fact any attentive reader of history, must be familiar with the events of that

"Day of long-sought vengeance
To the swords of the Brigade,"

we deem it needless to enter on any minute details of it. Suffice it to say that six battalions of Irish, comprising the regiments of Berwick, Buckley, Clare, Dillon, Lally, Rothe, and Fitzjames's horse, were engaged, and of these the following return of killed and wounded was published the morning after the battle. BERWICK'S regiment had one captain killed, and seven captains and four lieutenants wounded. BUCKLEY'Sone captain and thirteen lieutenants wounded. CLARE'S -Lieutenant-colonel O'Neil, one captain and two lieutenants killed, seven captains wounded, two dangerously, and five lieutenants also wounded, two of them dangerously. DILLON'S-Colonel Dillon killed, two captains, Cary and Mannery, killed; lieutenant-colonel Mannery wounded; four captains wounded-two dangerously, five lieutenants wounded, two mortally. LALLY'S Two lieutenants killed, two captains and three lieutenants dangerously wounded, the lieutenantcolonel (slightly), the major and three lieutenants wounded. ROTHE'S-One captain and one lieutenant killed, five captains and three lieutenants wounded. FITZJAMES'S had three captains killed, one major, one adjutant, fifteen officers, and one mareschal des logis wounded-making in all, twelve infantry and three cavalry officers killed, and sixty-five infantry and

eighteen cavalry wounded. One-third of the common soldiers fell with their officers.

Fontenoy, however, did not complete the holocaust of Irish valor immolated on the battle-fields of France. Two years after, the exiles were at Laufeldt, which they carried by storm, with a fearful loss of near seventeen hundred privates, and one hundred and thirty officers, including their gallant Colonel Edward Dillon, brother to James, who fell at Fontenoy. Four years after, the waters of the Maese were again dyed with their blood, at Maestricht. With Lally they sailed for Pondicherry, and with him, in 1758, wrested the fac tories on the coast of Coromandel from their hereditary opponents. And when the scene of French military achievements shifted to America, thither the Wild Geese winged their flight. In a word—and it is a striking but undeniable fact, not generally adverted toas long as France remained faithful to her God, and loyal to her king, the Irish were with her. When she became infidel and regicide, the Irish were no longer required in her service; or, if required, would no longer remain there, a circumstance that forms another bright link in the long, unbroken, traditional chain of Irish faith and loyalty.

The Revolution completely broke up the Irish Brigade in the service of France. Individual members of each corps, 'tis true, continued to serve under the banner of the Republic, and many of them won golden honors under the empire. But the regiments were no longer known by their ancient family or territorial appellations. They were henceforth to have their ranks recruited by Frenchmen, and to be distinguished by numerical designations. The Wild Geese were no longer to visit the shores of Brittany. And thus, after more than a century's faithful service, were the names of the Irish regiments blotted out from the army list of France. An Irish priest attended Louis Seize to the scaffold,and the last words of a Dillon on that same scaffold were "Vive le Roi." But the revolution did more. The phrensied iconaclism of its newly-baptised "citizens" destroyed many a rare monument of the past, and with them many an interesting relic of the Wild Geese. Fortunately we have preserved a few, which we mean to lay before our readers in as few words as possible.

In the old church of St. Jacques, in the city of Valenciennes, formerly stood a monument bearing the following inscription: "Hic jacet Franciscus Dillon tam stirpe quam factis clarus, in legione Dilloniand centurio diu militavit, pro patriâ non timidus mori. Sincerus veræ religionis cultor, Jacobo tertio Magne Britanniæ regi fidelis obiit armiger in contumeliam rebellium. 20 Maii 1727." The Church and the monument have long since ceased to exist, both destroyed by the bombardment of 1793. Happily, however, there was an enlightened antiquarian, a veritable Jonathan Oldbuck, but without Monkbarn's eccentricities, then resident in Valenciennes, the father of Mr. Arthur Dinaux, formerly editor and proprietor of the "Echo de la Frontiere," and author of the Archives du Nord, &c. Mr. Dinaux senr. occupied his leisure hours in the de

lightful task of antiquarian research, and faithfully copied every inscription he deemed worth preserving, in the various ancient churches and monasteries visited by him. To the kindness of his son, (which is hereby most gratefully acknowledged, though in a foreign page) the writer is indebted for the preceding as well as the following extracts from his father's MSS., now, for the first time, laid before an Irish reader. Unfortunately, the epitaph gives us no clue to the age or parentage of Frank Dillon; at the same time that the words "diu militavit," lead us to conclude that he must have served in Dillon's regiment, through all its campaigns, from the death of James II. in 1701, when his son was acknowledged as James III. in France, to the peace of Utrecht in 1713, and must have consequently crossed blades with some of Marlborough's and Eugene's cavaliers.

The next epitaph, in the same church of St. Jacques, is not that of a soldier, but of one very dear to a member of Berwick's regiment, touchingly suggestive of the simple but expressive words of the old song, "Shule Aroon."

"But now my love has gone to France,
To try his fortune to advance;

If he e'er come back, 'tis but a chance,
Is go de tu mo murnin slàn."

And to France she followed him, and died there, at the early age of twenty-seven, as the inscription on the tomb informs us. It runs thus

"Ici repose le corps de Dame Anna Maguire, épouse de Mr. 1erence Mac Dermott, Capitaine dans la Brigade de Berwick, decidée le 22 Fevrier 1728, agée de 27 ans."

In the church of the Recollects was a monument erected to the memory of a noble scion of the house of Raleigh, with the following inscription.

"Messire Michel de Rawleigh, de la famille de Rawleigh's-town, vivant capitaine commandant au regiment injanterie Irlandaise de Berwick, chevalier de l'ordre militaire de St. Louis, qui eut l'honneur de servir 42 ans, sous les regnes de Louis XIV. et XV., et mourut le 31 Decembre 1732, agé de 76 ans."

This is, unquestionably, a relic of the "old Brigade;" for from the inscription testifying a service of forty-two years, the deceased must have joined the army of Louis XIV. before the siege of Limerick, and was then probably serving in one of the three regiments drafted out of Ireland, in April 1690, in exchange for the French troops sent by Louis to King James. In addition to the inscription, the monument bore two devices, one, "Robur et Arma," the other," Sat pro cruce mori."

The next and last monument to which we mean, at present, to call our readers' attention, was erected in the parish church of St. Nicolas, which formerly stood on the spot now known as the "Place Verte," but of which not a single trace is at present remaining, thanks to the cannonade of 1793, and the fury of the “sans culottes."

* Raleighstown, vulgarly called Ralinstown, of which not a single vestige, save the family keep, now remains, formerly stood on the high road between Lough Gur and Grange, in the co. Limerick.

The inscription commenced with a piece of poetry, composed, as we learn, by the daughters of the deceased :"Une vertu sans tache, et toujours ignorée

Dès ses plus jeunes ans règla ses volontés,
A l'amour maternel toute entiere livrée
Elle ne connût point d'autres felicités.
Le ciel avait au sort d'une mère adorée
Du bonheur de nos jours, attachée la durée.
Il ne nous reste plus qu'un mortel souvenir
Au fond de ce tombeau ou ses cendres glacées
Attendent le moment qui doit nous reunir,
Elle est l'objet unique qui regle nos pensées."
-Par Mesdames ses filles.-

And underneath ran the following in prose:

"Ci git tres haute, tres puissante Dame Madame Marie de Levis, épouse de Monsigneur Jacques Hyacinthe Vicomte de Sarsfield, Maréchal de camps et armées du roi, Inspecteur de la cavalrie, et de dragons de France. Commandant pour sa Majesté dans les provinces du Hainault et de Cambresis, decidée en cette ville le 5 Janvier 1781. Agée de 45 ans,

"Cette tombe, destinée pour deux personnes, reunira bientôt a cellequ' elle renfirme deja, son mari entre les bras duquel elle est morte."

Viscount Sarsfield, whose commission of Lieutenant General bears date 1st March 1780, resided for a considerable time in Valenciennes as governor of Hainault, and the province of Cambrai. His house stood on the site at present occupied by the powder magazine at the head of the Rue de Beaumont. He died in Paris on the 6th December 1786: and his remains were conveyed to Valenciennes; but, as they could not be interred in the church, they were deposited in the adjacent cemetery. After the bombardment in 1793, the cemetery was changed into a public promenade-the Place Verte-and his tomb having been removed, to make way for the slope leading to the rampart near the Porte du Quesnoy, his remains were finally deposited beneath that slope. But no monument warns the Irish traveller, as he ascends from the Place Verte to the rampart, to "tread lightly o'er the ashes" of a distinguished fellow-countryman bearing the honoured name of Sarsfield. How many an Irish soldier, like Sarsfield de Levis, sleeps in a nameless grave, on the plains of Flanders and elsewhere! Well and truly has poor Davis epitomized the history of the "Wild Geese :"

in far foreign fields, from Dunkirk to Belgrade, Lie the soldiers and chiefs of the Irish Brigade." To rescue from oblivion even one record of our countrymen-one relic, it may be, of kindred long perished, has ever been to us a grateful, a holy task. And never did Arctic explorer labour with more zeal to discover traces of the heroic Franklin and his lost comrades, than we to discover even the slightest memento of our countrymen abroad. Nor have we been wholly disappointed. Wherever we went-and we have had many a quiet, pleasant excursion along the byways of the Continent, which we infinitely prefer to its bustling thoroughfares -we have never failed to turn up something bearing the impress of Ireland. But whether what we have happened upon be as interesting to others as to ourselves, we presume not to determine.

NOCTES LOVANIENSES.

Tyrone and the Bagnals-His Marriage to Mabel-The
Monasteries of Drogheda and Dundalk.

"Now, father," said Purcel, "I will remind you of your promise, and ask you to tell me all you have gleaned of Tyrone's marriage with Mabel Bagual."

"In good faith, dear brother," interrupted the Provincial, 'tis a subject that I would fain eschew, for 'quid monachis cum fœminis,' or in other words, what have we poor friars to do with gossip of the sort? Nevertheless, I will keep my word, and tell you all that I remember of an event which caused great noise in its day; for, strange as it may seem to you, Tyrone's marriage with Bagnal's sister was made a question of state not only in Dublin Castle, what time Fitzwilliam was Lord Deputy, but also in the Honor of Greenwich, where Burghley and the other lords of Elizabeth's privy council treated the matter with as much gravity as if it perilled the continuation of English dominion in Ireland. I myself often spoke to Tyrone on the subject, and I need hardly tell you that he complained bitterly of the manner in which he was dealt with by Sir Henry Bagnal, his brother-in-law, nay, and by the lords of the privy-council, who insinuated that he not only carried off Mabel against her will and consent, but married her while his lawful wife was still alive. I could not enumerate all the letters that were written on this subject; but I remember well that Tyrone showed me the entire of the correspondence, including his own answers to the charges laid against him by Fitzwill am, the Lord Treasurer Burghley, and others of the Queen's cabinet. Withal, as I said before, I'd rather eschew the subject altogether, and leave it to some Irish seanachie with the genius of that good Lope de Vega, who, after delighting all Spain with the exquisite beauty of his muse, renounced Parnassus for Calvary, and sword and shield for the cowl and rosary of a Carmelite in the monastery of Toledo.*

"I deem it necessary, however, before entering into a detail of the circumstances connected with Tyrone's marriage, to inform you that Sir Nicholas Bagnal, the first of that name who figures prominently in our history, came to Ireland in 1542. This Nicholas was a native of Staffordshire, in England, and being a hotheaded galliard, killed a man in a drunken brawl, for which he had to fly his own country, and seek refuge in Ireland, where, at the urgent entreaty of Con, first earl of Tyrone, he received pardon of Henry VIII., and in course of time became an energetic enemy of the O'Neills. Having obtained large grants of land in Down-the principality of the Mac Ginnesses, he laid the foundation of the modern Newry, and there built a strong castle in which he resided constantly. Early in the reign of Elizabeth he was appointed marshal of the queen's forces in Ireland, and when he died his son Sir

Lope de Vega, after serving in the Armada, was ordained priest of the Carmelite Order in 1609.

VOL. I.

Henry succeeded to all his honors. The latter was a man of considerable ability at the pen, for he wrote a description of Ulster in 1587: but if fame does not belie him, he was at heart a very craven. Sharing his father's hatred of the Irish, and solely intent on his own aggandizement, he lost no opportunity of adding to the grants which he inherited, so much so, indeed, that he ultimately became one of the most active of the supplanting foemen of the O'Neills, and their subordinate lords. When the MacMahon of Monaghan was executed at his own door, by the infamous order of Deputy Fitzwilliam, Sir Henry Bagnal received a considerable portion of the murdered chieftain's lands, and there can be little doubt that he hoped, one day or other, to oust Tyrone himself, and share the partition of his wide domains, He was, in sooth, a greedy adventurer, restless, rapacious, unscrupulous; in a word, one who deemed it no sin or shame to aid in any process by which the rightful occupant might be driven from his holding, provided he got share of the spoil. This man hated Tyrone with implacable animosity, and indeed the earl reciprocated the sentiment, nay, branded him in public and private as a coward, who shrunk from the ordeal of single combat."

"Single combat!" interrupted Father Purcell, "surely Tyrone was not justified in accepting or proposing such !"

"Have you not read," replied the Provincial," how Wenceslaus, the canonized Duke of Bohemia, offered to enter the lists and fight his mortal enemy, Radislaus ?"

"Yes," answered Father Purcell," but the legend tel's how an angel armed Wenceslaus in celestial panoply, and forbade his adversary to unsheath the sword."

66

"Be that as it may," continued the Provincial, Bagnal refused to encounter Tyrone, when the latter proposed to meet him, nay, slunk away like a craven, although the earl offered to allow the dastard to come armed from head to foot against him, in hose and jerkin, to encourage him the rather to accept the challenge! Bagnal was valiant enough with the pen, when indicting charges of covert treason against Tyrone-a perfect master of fence when nothing but the pen was needed to deal an assassin thrust, but when there was question of cold, glittering steel, his heart melted within him like wax. In fact, like the pedant King James who now reigns, he trembled at the sight of a drawn sword."

"And yet," resumed Purcell," is it not strange that this man allowed his sister to marry Tyrone?"

"Allowed her!" replied the Provincial; "therein you are wrong, for he did his utmost to prevent their union, nay, sought to dissolve it when it had been effected; but let me tell you all that I know of the wooing and wedding. Tyrone's wife, the Countess Judith, sister of Hugh Roe O'Donnell, died early in 1591, and some months afterwards the earl met, I know not where, but most likely in Newry, Mabel, Sir Henry's only sister. Fascinated by the beauty of the English damsel, for indeed she was a comely creature, just entering her twentieth year, and captivated by the winsome grace of her manners, the earl resolved to marry her, and

2 μ