uth flew to the
point of danger. On his way he was struck by a cannon ball which carried
off his head, and the army was thus left without a general. Sarsfield
was at some distance with the reserve. There was no one to give any
orders. The breast-work was carried. The Irish fought doggedly,
retreating slowly from enclosure to enclosure. At last, left to
themselves, with no one to direct or support them, they broke and fled
down the hill. Then followed a hideous butchery. Few or no prisoners
were taken, and the number of the slain is stated to have been "in
proportion to the number engaged greater than in any other battle of
that age." An eye-witness who looked from the hill the next day said
that the country for miles around was whitened with the naked bodies of
the slain. It looked, he remarked with grim vividness, like an immense
pasture covered with flocks of sheep!

[Illustration: INITIAL LETTER FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS.]

XLIV.

THE TREATY OF LIMERICK.

Nothing was now left but Limerick. Galway had yielded immediately after
the day of Aughrim, its garrison claiming and obtaining the right of
marching out with all the honours of war. Tyrconnel was dying, and had
long lost, too, what little reputation he had ever had as a soldier.
Sarsfield, however, stood firm to the last. Fresh reinforcements were
hoped for from France, but none came until too late to be of any use.
The town was again invested and besieged. An English fleet held the
mouth of the Shannon so as to prevent any relief from coming to its aid.
From the middle of August to the end of September the siege went on, and
the walls, always weak, were riddled with shot and shell. Still it
showed no symptoms of submission. Ginkel, who was in command of
William's army, dreaded the approach of autumn, and had instructions
from his master to finish the campaign as rapidly as possible, and with
this end in view to offer good and honourable terms to the Irish. An
armistice accordingly was agreed to for three days, and before the three
days ended the famous "Articles of Limerick" were drawn up and signed by
Sarsfield on the one hand, and the Lords Justices, who had just arrived
in camp from Dublin, on the other.

The exact purport of these articles, and the extent to which they were
afterwards mutilated and perverted from their original meaning has been
hotly disputed, and is too large and complicated a question to enter
into here at any length. Suffice it to sa