In 1688, Parliament drove King James II into exile, in favour of his daughter Mary and her husband William, ruler of the Dutch Republic. William’s long-standing foe King Louis XIV of France sent James to Ireland to raise rebellion, but William defeated him at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and extinguished a Jacobite revolt in Scotland too.

Victory in Ireland did not end the war, which spread even to England’s colonies in North America and India. However, Louis’s navy was weakened by defeat at Barfleur and La Hogue in 1692, and the cost of the war was becoming prohibitive. When peace was agreed at Ryswick in 1697, the balance of European power had shifted in William’s favour.

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