He, on the other hand, sent his emissaries to all the camp fires, and tried to make a party among the common soldiers against the French general.

[97] The only thing in which Tyrconnel and Saint Ruth agreed was in dreading and disliking Sarsfield.

Not only was he popular with the great body of his countrymen; he was also surrounded by a knot of retainers whose devotion to him resembled the devotion of the Ismailite murderers to the Old Man of the Mountain.

It was known that one of these fanatics, a colonel, had used language which, in the mouth of an officer so high in rank, might well cause uneasiness.

"The King," this man had said, "is nothing to me.