The Siege

Over 300 years ago,

the city of Londonderry was the scene of one of the most brutal,

dramatic and important episodes in Irish and British history.

In 1689, James II, the deposed - and Catholic - King of England, Scotland and Ireland

launched a military campaign to regain the throne he had lost

to the Protestant William of Orange.

James's plan was to take control of Ireland -

and use it as a launch pad for his move against England and Scotland.

But standing in his way were the Protestant settlers of Ulster -

and, in particular, those behind the walls of Derry.

These walls.

As James knew, if he did not have control of Derry,

he did not have control of Ireland.

What followed was one of the last great sieges in British history.

A remarkable 105 days during which the people within the walls of Derry -

the majority of them Presbyterians - suffered bombardment,

disease and starvation as they resisted James's Jacobite army.

It's an event that has created a deep and lasting legacy in the mind-set of Ulster Protestants.

People who, to this day, continue to identify with the men

and women who defied King James

and refused to surrender this city to his Catholic army.

For them, the cry of "no surrender" is as meaningful now as it was

when it was first shouted out from behind these walls

over three centuries ago.

This is the story of that remarkable siege.

An event that was at the centre of an epic power struggle

to decide not only who controlled Britain and Ireland,

but also the balance of power in Europe.

An event that has shaped the course of our history to the present day.

It was here, at Westminster Abbey,

that James Stuart, Duke of York, was crowned King James II in 1685.

But there was a problem.

Something that that did not sit well with some Protestants

in England, Scotland and Ireland - James was a Roman Catholic.

At first, James and his largely Protestant parliament

enjoyed a cordial relationship.

But over time, tensions mounted.

Not least in Ireland,

where Protestants were alarmed by the activities

of the Lord Deputy, Richard Talbot the Earl of Tyrconnell,

as he restored Catholics to positions of influence

in the state and the army.

Positions they had lost

following Oliver Cromwell's conquest of Ireland in the early 1650s.

Placing such power in Catholic hands was particularly unwelcome

amongst the Protestants of Ulster, many of whom had settled there

during the Scottish and English plantations of the early 17th century.

But then, something happened that dramatically intensified

Protestant fears.

In 1688 James's wife gave birth to their first son.

Now there was not only a Catholic on the throne -

but a Catholic heir to replace him.

They then have a situation where the Anglican nobility -

the people who are really running the country -

are concerned that the whole Protestant Ascendancy

that has prevailed since the reign of Henry VIII is going to be overturned.

A Catholic succession to the throne is the straw

that breaks the camel's back.

And it is after this that a prominent, if you like, cabal

of leading political and military figures, and religious figures,

petition William to effectively invade the King.

The plan to replace James with William of Orange,

the leader of the United Provinces -

or the Dutch Republic, as it was also known -

was nothing short of a coup d'etat.

Indeed it was to become known as the Glorious Revolution.

But the fact that William was married to James's daughter Mary

made the decision to invite him to become their king

more palatable for some tender English consciences.

For William, it was an appealing invitation.

Already at war with Louis XIV of France, he believed that

if he could become King of England - and turn England against France -

he could force Louis to abandon his expansionist plans.

And so, on the 5th November 1688, William and a force of 21,000 men

sailed from their Dutch ports and landed at the small fishing town of Torbay in Devon.

It was a momentous step in a European-wide struggle.

One in which Ireland was about to play a central role.

Ireland's strategic importance

was that it was the back door to Great Britain.

William III can't afford to take his glance off Ireland.

He has got to solve the military problem

before he can turn his full attention to England.

In Ireland itself, tension was mounting.

Richard Talbot, the Earl of Tyrconnell,

knew that Protestants - particularly those in Ulster -

could not be trusted to support King James.

Likewise, the Protestants had become increasingly anxious over

the preceding years because, as they saw it,

Talbot had been busily dismantling their power base.

The situation deteriorated further on the 3rd December, 1688

with the discovery, just down there in the County Down village of Comber,

of a letter addressed to a Protestant nobleman.

What became known as the Comber Letter

warned of a massacre of Protestants by the native Irish,

to take place in a few days time.

On the 9th of December, it said:

The Comber Letter is a bit like the smoking gun

or the sexed-up dossier.

This is a veiled threat that Protestants will be massacred.

And, of course, Protestants had been massacred in large numbers

in the lifetime of many people who were still living.

And that massacre of the 1641 rebellion

would seer itself into the psyche of Protestant Ireland.

So a letter like that

had an enormous propagandist, if you like, effect.

Each side in this struggle,

uses whatever propaganda is available to them.

And the Comber Letter is used to motivate the settlers.

To remind them how precarious their situation is.

The letter is now thought to be a fake.

But, at the time, Ulster Protestants believed it to be genuine.

And, not surprisingly, it spread panic and fear among them now.

Meanwhile, Talbot was anxious to ensure

that Ulster remained under the control of the Jacobite army -

named from the Latin for James - Jacobus.

Central to this was Derry.

It was a city of great strategic importance

and it was largely populated by Scots settlers.

Desperate to avoid any trouble from them, Talbot arranged

for Derry's military garrison to be replaced

by a regiment of Scottish highlanders and Antrim glensmen,

known as the Redshanks.

As Catholics, their loyalty to James was unquestionable.

But news of the Comber Letter -

with its apparent threat to Protestants - reached Derry

before the Redshanks did.

When the Redshanks arrived, they arrived too late.

They arrived on the east bank of the Foyle -

and remember if you think back to the Comber Letter,

here might be the instrument of our slaughter.

If you looked across and saw these soldiers here, no matter who you are,

you'd have fears about should we let these people in to the city.

What would happen when they were allowed into the city?

Once they're in, you can't get them back out again.

Arguments over what to do raged within the city.

The Anglican Bishop, Ezekiel Hopkins,

urged that the Redshanks be admitted,

since they were James's soldiers and James was still their king.

But the Presbyterian minister, James Gordon,

insisted that the gates be locked immediately.

Eventually, 13 apprentices took decisive action -

they rushed to Ferryquay Gate,

and slammed shut the gates in the faces of the King's men.

They're the youth of the city, in many ways.

They're the people who take the lead in disturbances in the city,

who don't agree with what's happening at a higher level,

with what the elite are doing.

They've seen some of the elite trying to leave.

They feel that they're left on their own.

And they take matters into their own hands.

In terms of that period,

this is a very, very major step for anybody to take.

And it was a step from which most people at the time would have felt,

there was no going back.

This was open rebellion and it was inviting the King's anger

and the King's vengeance.

In Dublin, Talbot, the Earl of Tyrconnell,

was infuriated by these events.

And his mood did not improve.

For within a week, the Williamite garrison of Enniskillen

also resisted a Jacobite attempt to take over their town.

For Talbot and James, it was all going horribly wrong.

Back in England, James realised that he had little chance

of defeating the Williamite army

that had landed in Devon in early November.

He knew it would be better to live to fight another day.

And so just seven weeks later, on the 23rd December 1688,

he escaped to France and into the welcoming arms of his cousin

and ally, the Sun King, Louis XIV.

With Louis' support, James put together a plan to regain his throne.

And it was not a complicated plan.

He knew he could draw on support in Catholic Ireland,

still under the control of Tyrconnell.

And he also knew that if he could hold Ireland,

he could use it as a launch pad to move against England and Scotland

and march on London.

William and Mary were about to be crowned King and Queen of England,

but according to James's plan, theirs would be a short-lived reign.

The fly in James's ointment was, of course, the Ulster Protestant.

By now, the Presbyterians of Derry had declared their support for William,

and under the direction of Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Lundy,

they prepared their defences against the looming Jacobite threat.

Lundy does his best. They know that this could break out into war.

They begin building ravelins. Lundy does his job as a soldier.

Lundy expends a tremendous amount of energy over the next few months

preparing the city for the siege.

One thing that must be said -

it would never have survived the siege

had it not been for Lundy's preparations.

By now, the Jacobite campaign was gathering pace.

On the 12th of March, James landed at Kinsale in County Cork,

accompanied by several French generals and 5,000 of their men.

They were to join a loyal Irish army of 50,000 soldiers and irregulars.

In addition to these men, were the Jacobite soldiers under

the command of Lieutenant General Richard Hamilton.

They were already on their way north,

determined to subdue Derry's rebels.

Two days after James's landing at Kinsale,

here in the village of Dromore, County Down,

they secured a decisive victory...

..the so-called Break, or rout, of Dromore -

before going on to take Lisburn, Belfast

and then sweeping across most of Ulster.

Worried at the speed of the Jacobite advance,

Lundy ordered retreats from Monaghan, Cavan, Dungannon,

and Coleraine and the roads to Derry filled with Protestant refugees.

By the 14th of April, James's generals, Hamilton and Pusignan,

had reached Strabane, just 15 miles from Derry.

But to march on the city itself they had to cross to the west

bank of the River Foyle.

They planned to do that where the Foyle begins,

through the joining of two other rivers - the Mourne and the Finn.

Once across, they could march down the west bank of the Foyle

and seize Derry.

With 7,000 to 10,000 men under his command,

Lundy decided to defend the fords here on the River Finn.

But he made a series of catastrophic mistakes that enabled

the Jacobites to push across the river at Lifford,

and here at Clady, where Hamilton and his men -

even though they were vastly outnumbered -

met little resistance from the Williamites.

The Williamites were now in flight pursued by a small number of Jacobites.

Lundy ordered a general retreat to Derry.

For the Jacobites, the way was now clear to the city.

By now, James had joined his army in the north

and on the 18th April he watched as his men encircled Derry.

His hope was that such a massive show of strength

was all it would take to persuade the people behind its walls

to surrender.

James didn't appreciate the amount of enmity

that had been created in Ulster,

particularly by the acts of Tyrconnell.

He was still under the impression that people regarded him

as the rightful monarch,

and that because the King had taken the trouble to come here,

that they would come to their senses

and would all settle down to the business

of being a good king and good subjects once again,

while James carried on trying to regain control of Scotland,

and of England, as well.

James then rode up to the city, here at Bishop's Gate,

to offer his terms of surrender.

They included the defenders' lives, estates,

religion and "a free pardon for all past offences."

But in a remarkable act of treason, the guards on duty

fired on James and his troops.

It's almost inevitable that there was confusion.

And part of the confusion was that James did not realise

that an agreement had been made between the defenders of the city

and the leader of the Jacobite army, Lieutenant General Richard Hamilton,

that no Jacobite troops would approach the city.

What the defenders saw was an act of treachery.

They had this agreement

and here was the King himself breaking the agreement.

They couldn't conceive of a situation in which the King wasn't

aware that the agreement had been made.

And so James literally rides straight into a storm of anger.

Well, if closing the gates is treason,

opening fire on him is definitely treason!

But there was probably an expectation, too,

that once the King arrived,

his presence alone would induce them to change their minds.

I would say it came as quite a big shock to James -

this was not going to be as easy as he thought.

Inside the walls, however, Lundy and his council had agreed

they had no alternative but to surrender to James.

But not everyone accepted this, in particular a young

Ulster-Scots officer Adam Murray.

He and his men distrusted James

and were in no mood for handing the city over to him.

In a showdown, Murray accused Lundy of "gross neglect"

for failing to secure the fords on the River Finn

and urged him to fight on and defend Derry.

Lundy declined, and in doing so lost the support of the people

and his control of the city.

He also secured his reputation in history as a traitor to the cause.

Lundy's reputation as a traitor is totally unfounded.

Lundy was the man who saved the city

from being over-run by a Jacobite army.

Lundy is the man who thwarted James's ambition to use the city

to move off to Scotland, to move eventually down to London

and to regain his three thrones.

With Derry now in Murray's hands,

his message to the people was a simple one - "no surrender".

James had arrived that morning expecting Derry's surrender.

Instead, he had been fired upon and humiliated.

Now, after a stand-off that had lasted four months -

since the city's gates had been closed by the apprentice boys -

the siege itself was about to begin.

After the bravura of firing on James and their shouts of "no surrender",

the Williamites now had to face reality.

They were surrounded and they had to defend themselves against

what they saw as the might of the Jacobite army.

New governors were needed - and urgently.

Lundy was finished, threatened with hanging

and left lurking in his chamber.

Murray, the people's hero, was the popular choice for governor,

but he refused, preferring to remain a soldier.

Adam Murray comes into the picture

and the citizens of the city want him to become the governor.

But he refuses - he prefers to serve rather than to lead.

And throughout the siege,

Murray does come out as a man of tremendous leadership skills.

A man who attracts people, a man who is a born leader.

Because we don't really know

if he had any military experience beforehand.

But like a few others in history, he seems to have that innate ability

to lead people and lead them successfully.

After Murray stepped aside,

Henry Baker, a professional soldier from County Louth,

and George Walker, an Anglican clergyman from County Tyrone,

were elected as joint governors of the city.

They quickly agreed a defence plan,

organised 7,000 soldiers and 340 officers into regiments,

surveyed the stores, and set the weekly ration.

The new governors were in a dire situation.

But they were about to receive help from the most unlikely of sources.

Encouraged by a Jacobite offer of protection,

about 10,000 people fled the city over the next few days,

leaving about 20,000 inside.

The Jacobites, had hoped to gain intelligence from the refugees

but they gained nothing.

Instead they had aided the rebels, for with fewer mouths to feed,

the garrison's food supplies would now stretch further.

Outside the walls, James was in no mood to hang around for the fight.

He departed for Dublin, leaving the French Lieutenant-Generals

Maumont and Pusignan in charge and with clear orders - to take Derry.

Maumont quickly surrounded the city with 16 infantry regiments

and established a gun post in Stronge's Orchard

on the east bank of the Foyle.

With an army of 21,000 men,

it seemed as if the Jacobites would be irresistible.

In contrast, Governor Walker's account of the siege

paints a depressing picture of the scene inside the city at this time.

He laments the lack of food, horses, artillery expertise

and the fact that there was "not a gun well-mounted in the whole town."

But things were not as clear-cut as they seemed.

The Jacobites may have had more men,

but not all their regiments were up to full strength.

Hundreds were deployed foraging for food,

with others tied up defending the Jacobites' vulnerable southern flank

against attack by Enniskillen's Williamites.

This meant the actual Jacobite fighting force was more likely

10,000 men, with 7,000 on the west bank and the rest on the east bank.

At the same time, the Jacobite infantry were poorly trained,

lacked discipline, and many were armed with pikes rather than muskets.

But most crucially, the Jacobites lacked the heavy weaponry

essential for besieging a walled town.

They had only a few light cannon and some mortars.

Artillery capable of inflicting considerable damage and fear within Derry,

but incapable of making a breach in the city's walls.

The Irish Jacobites certainly have enthusiasm,

they are not particularly well led, they are poorly armed...

That lack of armament, lack of discipline,

is uncovered in the starkest way, in what is the debacle of Derry.

The truth was, the Jacobites had come north believing the mere sight

of their forces would shock and awe Derry into surrender.

It had never occurred to them that this mightn't happen.

And so to war.

On Sunday 21st April, the Jacobites commenced bombardment of Derry.

Cannon balls crashed through the roofs of houses,

and smashed through their walls.

But while the Jacobite bombardment got underway,

it was the Williamites who made the early and decisive military strikes.

In the first, Adam Murray saw off a Jacobite attempt

to take the strategic village of Pennyburn, a mile north of Derry.

His men ambushed the Jacobite cavalry,

inflicting heavy casualties on two troops of horse.

And, as the fighting continued over several days,

they claimed two of James's finest French generals -

Maumont and Pusignan.

Though Williamites scored some considerable successes early on,

their success was largely due to the energy and leadership given

by Adam Murray in particular.

You have French senior officers being killed or fatally wounded

by the Williamite soldiers.

So what you've got is good defensive positions

and, above all, good leadership.

And a willingness to take risks, which is what Murray did.

The action soon shifted to Windmill Hill, 500 yards from Bishop's Gate.

Here Murray struck again, killing 200 Jacobites,

and their Brigadier, Ramsey.

The siege was only a fortnight old

and already the Williamites had secured two major victories.

And by the end of May, over 3,000 of James's men had lost their lives.

The Jacobite wounded arrived in Dublin

and told of the savage fighting in the north.

Derry, they said, was James's slaughterhouse.

Although Williamite morale was high,

tensions and feuds flourished in the city's hothouse atmosphere,

particularly between the Anglicans and the Presbyterians.

There was even a sword fight between Governor Henry Baker

and John Mitchelburne, the regimental commander -

a fight which both men survived.

By now, though, the Jacobites were strengthening their positions.

After their failures at Pennyburn and Windmill Hill, they re-grouped,

and moved their camps closer to Derry, establishing themselves

at Balloughry Hill, Pennyburn village and Stronge's Orchard.

Now the city was totally surrounded and under relentless cannon fire.

John Mackenzie, a Presbyterian clergyman who was keeping a diary,

recorded how this struck...

While the Jacobite cannon induced terror in Derry,

their soldiers were suffering badly.

Indeed, conditions on the outside of the walls

were no better than those on the inside.

This was an extremely wet summer -

some might say it was a fairly typical Derry summer.

You've got these Jacobite soldiers who are in camps in sod huts

on the hills overlooking the city.

So what we've got over the period of the 105 days,

is two armies gradually reducing in size, deteriorating,

are suffering malnutrition, lack of ammunition and so forth.

And probably feeling very, very sorry for themselves.

The Jacobites also knew that time was not on their side

and that a relief force was most likely en route

to rescue the Derry garrison.

To forestall this, the French engineer the Marquis de Pointis

built a boom of logs and chains and strung it across the Foyle,

here at Brookhall.

De Pointis also built gun forts which he put at either end of the boom.

Any ship attempting to sail to Derry would be caught on the boom

and then pummelled mercilessly by guns firing from both sides of the river.

The boom was a valuable aid to the Jacobites' cause.

And by the end of May,

their situation further improved with the arrival of new artillery.

Now they could intensify their bombardment of the city.

With cannonballs raining on the city by day,

and bombs being lobbed over the walls by night,

the defenders in Derry were coming under intense pressure.

Shells of 270 pounds were typical.

When the metal casing exploded, fragments scattered everywhere,

mutilating everyone within range.

A long, slow death by septicaemia followed.

According to Governor Walker's account,

between the 3rd and 9th of June, 159 bombs were thrown into the city.

These induced such terror that the besieged, said Walker:

On Monday, 3rd June - seven weeks after the start of the siege -

the pendulum appeared to swing back in the defenders' favour.

For on that day, three advance ships from the fleet,

sent three weeks earlier from Liverpool to relieve Derry,

were spotted on the Foyle.

Now the Jacobites needed to conclude matters, and fast.

As the relief fleet, under the command

of Major-General Percy Kirke, sat on the Foyle, the Jacobite General,

Richard Hamilton, dispatched a force to re-take Windmill Hill.

But the Williamites quashed its attack.

The mood in the Jacobite camp that night was sullen.

Once again, the defenders had acquitted themselves better

than might have been expected.

And so the Jacobites turned to a new weapon.

As de Pointis, the French engineer who had built the boom, put it,

"Attacking must no longer be thought of,

"we shall have to wait on hunger."

De Pointis was right.

Behind the walls, food supplies were running low, as were water, and fuel.

The weather was also unseasonably cold,

and disease had begun to rampage through the city.

In the face of such adversities, the Williamites clung to hope

wherever they could find it.

Even the sight of a star in the daytime sky,

they interpreted as a sign that the rest of Kirke's relief fleet was on its way.

Perhaps - or perhaps not.

But sure enough, on the 56th day of the siege, Thursday 13th June,

the rest of the fleet was spotted far down the Lough.

This was a major blow to the Jacobites,

who now anticipated a Williamite attempt to lift the siege.

But the Jacobites had an unlikely ally.

None other than the commander of the relief fleet,

Major-General Percy Kirke.

Had he been of a different character, had he been more bold,

he might have taken advantage of the collapse in Jacobite morale.

But unwilling to risk his precious ships on the dreaded boom,

he dropped anchor and waited and waited and waited.

It looked as if this was the end.

This was a sizable force of professional soldiers

come from England to put an end to this siege.

And yet this relief fleet sits in Lough Foyle.

And it seems to do nothing.

It does that because the commander Major-General Percy Kirke decided

that the boom across the river is much stronger than it really was.

Kirke would have been understandably reticent about breaching the boom.

That it is a cold crumb of comfort to the residents of Derry

who are dying of starvation in their hundreds.

For the defenders,

who by now had received the last of their weekly rations from Walker,

joy turned to dismay at the sight of the ships idling on the Foyle.

As the Presbyterian clergyman John Mackenzie wrote in his diary:

They were told that William been sending an early fleet,

but to be actually able to see the fleet

gives them much more hope that they will be relieved.

It is a very tantalising situation for them to be in.

There's hope and despair at the same time.

But despair for the Williamites equalled hope for the Jacobites

as they realised the fleet was not for moving.

Food shortages wreaked havoc in Derry.

On June 18th, a mob even stormed Walker's quarters

because they believed he was hoarding food.

For the Williamites it was now more critical than ever

that their dire circumstances were known to the ships of the fleet -

that they were starving while the boats stalled on the lough.

Thankfully for them, a messenger, sent by Kirke,

managed to slip through the Jacobite lines and swim to Derry.

For the first time, the governors now had the chance to communicate

directly with the fleet and Kirke.

Walker sent the messenger - a man named Roch - back to Kirke and his fleet

with a letter describing the perilous circumstances inside Derry's walls.

But this time, Roch was not so lucky.

He was shot and wounded by the Jacobites,

and had to turn back to the city.

Another volunteer was needed for the dangerous mission of swimming to the fleet, 12 miles away.

And a man, known to history only as McGimpsey, stepped forward.

McGimpsey set off with three letters from Walker to Kirke,

wrapped up in a pig's bladder tied around his neck.

Their message was stark -

if the city wasn't rescued within six days it would have to surrender.

Just before dark on the 26 June,

McGimpsey slipped into the Foyle and swam for the fleet.

But he never made it.

He drowned during the night and his body was retrieved by Jacobites.

In a macabre twist, the Jacobites strung up McGimpsey's body

on a gallows in front of the city walls - there for all to see.

In doing so, they sent a stark and demoralising message

to those inside.

That having seized the letters McGimpsey was carrying,

they knew that the people were starving and close to surrender,

and that Kirke and his fleet were still unaware of their plight.

Williamite morale suffered another blow

with Governor Baker's death from illness on the 30th June.

Now Mitchelburne, with whom Baker had had a sword fight,

replaced him as joint governor of the city.

There was also a change of leadership outside the walls,

as the Jacobite Lieutenant-General, Conrad de Rosen, returned to Derry.

A fierce and resolute soldier,

before long he would live up to his reputation for ruthlessness.

Although they had thwarted the city's attempts

to communicate with the fleet, its presence on the Foyle

was still ominous to the Jacobites.

Derry must fall before Kirke's ships could reach the city.

Knowing that the city was on its last legs, Lieutenant General Richard Hamilton

made the garrison an offer for its surrender.

All who wished to, could remain in Derry under his protection.

All who wanted to return home could leave freely.

The garrison gave the appearance of considering Hamilton's proposals,

but in reality was stalling - holding out for relief

from the fleet, whilst its citizens were trying to survive on

horse flesh, dogs, cats,

rats and mice.

All of which had a price.

To increase the pressure on the city,

Lieutenant-General Conrad de Rosen now turned to blackmail.

He rounded up Protestants from the surrounding area

and drove them naked and hungry to Butcher's Gate.

His message for the garrison was chilling -

either let your fellow Protestants in...or let them die.

Rosen believed the Williamites would open the gates

and admit their fellow Protestants creating mayhem and the fall of the city.

But it seems he underestimated the prisoners' resolve.

Governor Walker's account of the siege describes

how they pleaded with the guards at the gate to resist pity

and keep them locked out.

With the city's gates remaining closed and the garrison

threatening to hang its Jacobite prisoners, Rosen relented.

His plan had failed and now Derry, according to Walker:

James was appalled by Rosen's tactics and had him recalled to France.

Some historical accounts have mythologized the city's

fearless resistance.

But whilst its citizens had the will to resist,

they no longer had the ability.

By now there was little meat - of ANY description - within the city.

Likewise there was virtually no fresh water,

while the lanes and streets ran with faeces and urine.

Because of the lack of fresh food, because of the overcrowding,

you've got an outbreak of disease.

You've got typhus and various other diseases

that are endemic in such crowded situations,

which are killing off considerable numbers of the defenders.

As casualties mounted, bodies - not only of people, but horses -

are putrefying.

So conditions inside and outside the city would have been very poor.

But just as conditions inside Derry were getting critical,

the situation took yet another dramatic turn for the worse.

From the walls the defenders watched, in despair and disbelief,

as Kirke's fleet weighed anchor and set sail out of the Foyle.

Kirke was moving his ships to Inch Island, in Lough Swilly.

His plan was to rest his men until further troops came from England.

Only once they arrived would Kirke sail to Derry's rescue.

But of course, no-one in the city knew he planned on returning.

When those ships head out of the Foyle it must've been

a crushing psychological blow to people who are starving.

People who have held out for so long.

To think that deliverance was at hand, and then they disappear.

Deliverance is within reach and then it is snatched away again.

And this does cause, in the later months of the siege,

there are mutinies within the city.

Some... Many people within the city want to surrender.

They're reduced by famine, they're reduced by disease,

they're ill, they're hungry...

There's no wonder that some inside the city say we could surrender.

Hamilton took the opportunity to press for Derry's surrender.

Copies of his offer were smuggled behind the walls and one copy,

inside this shell, was fired into the city.

Hamilton's offer stated that those who accepted his terms could serve James.

Or, if they wished to leave Ireland, could have free passes.

The rest could return to their homes,

where they would be free to practice their religion.

Hamilton's message was simple - make peace now or face certain death.

Hungry and exhausted, and with the relief fleet gone,

the Williamites saw little choice and agreed to talk to the enemy.

But while they decided to drag on the negotiations

for as long as possible, they also knew that unless support came quickly,

they'd have no alternative but to surrender.

On Saturday the 13th July, all guns fell silent

while the two sides met and talked on Windmill Hill.

Meanwhile Governor Walker took stock.

Since his last roll call five days earlier,

the garrison had lost 207 men to hunger and disease.

It now stood at 5,313 men.

Disaster was drawing ever closer.

But then, into Walker's room, appeared a little boy.

The truce had enabled him to make his way from the fleet, through the

Jacobite lines with a letter from Kirke hidden inside his gaiters.

From the letter the boy had carried, Walker learnt of the fleet's

move from Derry over here, to Inch Island here in County Donegal.

He also learnt that Kirke only intended to come

once further troop reinforcements had arrived.

Walker drafted a reply - the enemy had offered honourable terms.

Unless Kirke appeared before July the 26th

the city would have no alternative but to accept those terms and surrender.

The letter hidden about his person,

the little boy set off to walk back to Inch and the fleet.

You can imagine the boy, probably in his early teens,

maybe even a little bit younger,

would have been able to pass lines of soldiers -

simply being seen as a non-descript youngster, even an urchin.

But it still required a considerable amount of courage on the boy's part

because if it were known or even suspected that he was a spy

there was only one likely outcome for that -

his immediate death.

I suppose he's this insignificant little figure

who nevertheless is so important

as a conduit between an increasingly desperate

garrison and what they would consider a rather lacklustre relief operation.

Inside the walls, Walker now had a dilemma.

With Kirke's fleet still at Inch Island and awaiting reinforcements,

there was little hope for the starving citizens

that they would soon be rescued.

And so to boost morale, Walker amended the letter brought by the little boy

so that it falsely stated that there were already thousands of men at Inch,

preparing to rescue Derry.

This letter was copied and handed out around the city.

On Windmill Hill negotiations stalled.

Hamilton wanted the city's surrender by Monday the 15th July.

But the city's commissioners were holding out for Friday

the 26th July.

They agreed to extend the truce and meet the following morning.

Each of them - especially in the later stages -

each of them is dancing around the other.

Each one is trying to gain time.

The Jacobites, they're aware of what happened with the fleet.

The Jacobites are aware that the fleet will come back.

So they know time is running out for them, too.

Time is running out for the people in the city,

they might be that weakened, that they can no longer defend the city.

Powder is running out, supplies are running out.

So each of them is playing for time.

They need to bring this to a conclusion.

Derry's commissioners returned to the city

and reported Hamilton's demand of surrender.

To their surprise, Walker argued that they should comply.

But what about the letter from Kirke that the little boy had brought?

Why surrender if - as it said - troops were already amassed at Inch?

Walker confessed. He had forged the letter.

Kirke had no plans to rescue them anytime soon.

All the city could expect was more hunger and death.

The next day, Sunday the 14th July, the Williamites met Hamilton

once again, but they could not agree a surrender date.

It was stalemate.

Frustrated, Hamilton recommenced bombardment almost immediately.

For the Williamites, all hope now focused, once again,

on Kirke and the relief fleet.

Four days later the little messenger boy returned to Derry

with another letter from Kirke at the fleet.

It offered assurances that he would relieve Derry,

with troops from Enniskillen and those expected from England.

In their reply to Kirke, the joint governors of the city,

Walker and Mitchelburne, wrote that the guns and boom on the Foyle

had gone. It was a lie, as they were still intact.

As he made his way back to the fleet with the letter,

this time the boy was stopped by Jacobite troops

and taken in for interrogation.

However, the little boy told the Jacobites nothing

and two days later he appeared in Kirke's camp.

Kirke was delighted with the news, the boom and the guns were gone,

and Kirke finally launched the relief operation.

The following day, his ships appeared on the Foyle

and anchored here, off Culmore Point,

to await a favourable wind before making their final approach to Derry.

But there were few signs of hope or optimism within the city's walls.

On Sunday 28th July, the 100th day of the siege,

Walker noted that within two days, a staggering 435 soldiers had died.

They were now down to 4,456 men.

The civilian death rate had also soared.

Graveyards, backyards and gardens were packed with bodies,

and in the streets, there wasn't a dog to be seen.

The following day, Walker, who noted the garrison could exist only a further two days,

preached here in St Columb's Cathedral.

He told his congregation he was confident that God would deliver them.

But they must remain true to their faith.

This was the darkest hour for the Williamites.

But that evening the wind blew strongly in their favour

and the ships on the Foyle made their move for Derry.

Then the wind slackened, leaving only the flood tide

to carry the lead ship, the Mountjoy, towards the boom,

which - contrary to Walker's assurances to Kirke -

was still in place.

The Jacobites fired from both banks of the Foyle,

while musketeers returned fire from on-board the Mountjoy.

Meanwhile, on board a longboat, men frantically chopped at the boom with their axes.

And finally the Mountjoy, carried forward by the tide,

struck the chain, which curved like a bowstring - then snapped.

The boom was broken.

Although the Jacobite guns continued firing,

they couldn't stop the Mountjoy from sailing on and reaching the city.

The siege was over.

Derry had survived.

Thomas Ash, a soldier, recorded the sense of relief in the city.

It was, he said:

Once the fleet were seen arriving at the ship quay,

then that was the ultimate message to the Jacobites,

that this is the end.

This is relief. They've got food, they've got ammunition,

and they'll be able to continue the fight.

And for the Jacobite army, there is no alternative but to strike camp

and leave, which is what, over the next few days, they did.

According to Walker,

the garrison lost nearly 3,000 soldiers during the siege.

He didn't record the civilian deaths,

although estimates put them at between 4,000 and 10,000.

The city had paid an enormous price.

But by successfully defending its walls,

Derry's garrison delivered a strategic victory for William

and a devastating blow to James's Jacobite campaign in Ireland.

The Jacobite failure to take the city,

really meant that the high-water mark

of James's attempts to regain his throne had passed.

This is a huge victory for the Williamite forces.

This is the Maiden City.

The Protestant citadel, the plantation citadel, remains secure.

It... It's walls are not breached.

That's of huge psychological

and propagandist importance to the Williamite cause.

It's very, very common to say

that the significant victory for the Williamites in Ireland

was the Battle of the Boyne.

The only significance that the Battle of the Boyne had,

was that the two monarchs were on the battlefield.

The Jacobites were finished when they failed to take Derry.

Just three days later, as Hamilton's forces prepared to leave Derry,

2,000 Jacobites were slaughtered by Williamites

70 miles south of the city, at Newtownbutler.

A further 500 Jacobites fled into Lough Erne and drowned.

And worse was to come for James.

William's subsequent victories at the Boyne and Aughrim

brought to an end all hope of using Ireland to regain the throne.

But the siege of Derry was more than a defining episode

in the power struggle between William and James.

It was a bloody and epic fight to the death

that was to have an impact not only beyond these walls

but beyond the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland.

What happened in Derry, not only changed Irish history,

it changed British history and it changed European history.

So that the true significance of those 105 days

are much, much broader than just this city.

This city played a pivotal part in the history of an entire continent.

That history pivoted around the walls of Derry for 105 days in 1689.

But the siege was, above all else, a defining and symbolic moment

in the psyche and mythology of Ulster Protestants.

Their sense, or perception, of being under siege

is encapsulated in the story of the siege of Derry.

And their cries of "no surrender"

shouted out from these walls

have echoed down through the centuries.

And they can still be heard today.

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