of James's army had done for the Celtic kerne
had been to debase and enervate him. After eighteen months of nominal
soldiership, he was positively farther from being a soldier than on the
day on which he quilted his hovel for the camp.

William had under his command near thirty-six thousand men, born in
many lands, and speaking many tongues. Scarcely one Protestant Church,
scarcely one Protestant nation, was unrepresented in the army which
a strange series of events had brought to fight for the Protestant
religion in the remotest island of the west. About half the troops were
natives of England. Ormond was there with the Life Guards, and Oxford
with the Blues. Sir John Lanier, an officer who had acquired military
experience on the Continent, and whose prudence was held in high esteem,
was at the head of the Queen's regiment of horse, now the First Dragoon
Guards. There were Beaumont's foot, who had, in defiance of the mandate
of James, refused to admit Irish papists among them, and Hastings's
foot, who had, on the disastrous day of Killiecrankie, maintained
the military reputation of the Saxon race. There were the two Tangier
battalions, hitherto known only by deeds of violence and rapine, but
destined to begin on the following morning a long career of glory.
The Scotch Guards marched under the command of their countryman James
Douglas. Two fine British regiments, which had been in the service
of the States General, and had often looked death in the face under
William's leading, followed him in this campaign, not only as their
general, but as their native King. They now rank as the fifth and sixth
of the line. The former was led by an officer who had no skill in the
higher parts of military science, but whom the whole army allowed to be
the bravest of all the brave, John Cutts. Conspicuous among the Dutch
troops were Portland's and Ginkell's Horse, and Solmes's Blue regiment,
consisting of two thousand of the finest infantry in Europe. Germany had
sent to the field some warriors, sprung from her noblest houses.
Prince George of Hesse Darmstadt, a gallant youth who was serving his
apprenticeship in the military art, rode near the King. A strong
brigade of Danish mercenaries was commanded by Duke Charles Frederic of
Wirtemberg, a near kinsman of the head of his illustrious family. It was
reported that of all the soldiers of William these were most dreaded
by the Irish. For centuries of Saxon domination had not effaced the