Publisher's Synopsis
We are going some years back in time after the English defeated the Irish and the treaty of Limerick, (1691), to find many soldiers and their families using this opportunity to get away from devastated Ireland. Under the control of the English King William III, known as the Prince of Orange (which today is the Netherlands) our story unfolds when a young Irishman, Desmond Kennedy, goes in search of his father.Desmond Kennedy is a valiant swordsman and learns on his search that his father was possibly killed in battle. Desmond joins the young and famous military leader, William Churchill, who later became the Duke of Marlborough. Queen Anne along with the thankful British Nation made him an enormous gift of building the Palace of Blenheim for him in remembrance of the important battle of Blenheim (Blindheim, Germany).Desmond's adventures are hazardous and take place during the war-time situated in the reign of King William III and later Queen Anne. The rebels to the English crown fought with the French to place a young James Stuart on the English Throne lost by James II and to make sure the Spanish Throne stays independent.His dangerous life takes him right into the War of Succession, which was a series of huge battles in different European Countries. He discovers something great that allows him to travel back to Ireland; this enables him to find what he was looking for and much more.In this book, we learn about the real history of that time era. If you like History, then this is the volume for you; full of adventure, battles, and more, to relive our History! The evils arising from religious persecution, sectarian hatred, ill government, and oppression were never more strongly illustrated than by the fact that, for a century, Ireland, which has since that time furnished us with a large proportion of our best soldiers, should have been among our bitterest and most formidable foes, and her sons fought in the ranks of our greatest continental enemy. It was not because they were adherents of the house of Stuart that Irishmen left their native country to take service abroad, but because life in Ireland was rendered well-nigh intolerable for Catholics, on account of the nature and severity of the laws against them, and the bitterness with which those laws were carried into effect.An Irish Catholic had no prospects of employment or advancement at home. He could hold no civil appointment of any kind. He could not serve as an officer, nor even enlist as a private, in the army. He could not hold land. He was subject to imprisonment, and even death, on the most trifling and frivolous accusations brought against him by the satellites of the Irish Government. Not only could he not sit in the parliament of Dublin, but he could not even vote at elections. It was because they believed that the return of the Stuarts would mean relief, from at least some of their disabilities, and liberty to carry out the offices of their religion openly, and to dwell in peace, free from denunciation and persecution, that the Irish remained so long faithful to the Jacobite cause.It was not, indeed, until 1774 that the Catholics in Ireland were admitted to qualify themselves as subjects of the crown, and not until the following year that they were permitted to enlist in the army. Irish regiments had enlisted in France, previous to the Convention of Limerick; but it was the Irish army that defended that town, and, having been defeated, passed over to France, that raised the Irish Brigade to the position of an important factor in the French army, which it held for nearly a hundred years, bearing a prominent part in every siege and battle in Flanders, Germany, Italy, and Spain.