02/07/2026
It was on this day in 1689 that one of the most infamous episodes of the Great Siege occurred when in scenes reminiscent of 1641, Protestant men, women and children were driven naked at the point of a sword under the walls of Londonderry. The man responsible was Marshal Conrad de Rosen.
Rosen was a French soldier originally from Livonia (modern Latvia) in the Baltic. He first joined the Swedish army in 1644 but was exiled for killing an officer, and fled to France in whose army he was commissioned in 1646. He saw service in the Franco-Dutch wars and in 1689 was the highest-ranking French officer to accompany the dethroned James II/VII to the Kingdom of Ireland in his attempt to retake the throne.
Having been given the position of “Marshal of Ireland” he accompanied James on his march north to Londonderry and when he returned to Dublin. Concerned with Lieutenant-General Hamilton’s lack of progress he was sent back to Derry arriving on 20th June. He immediately began to take a hard line with the defenders of the city, intensifying the bombardment and raising new batteries and trenches, which disrupted the supply of water from wells outside the walls including St Columb’s well.
About 30th June the garrison received a letter from Rosen who Rev Mackenzie states “was said to swear by the belly of God, that he would demolish our town, and bury us in its ashes”. The letter addressed “to the Commanders, officers, soldiers, and inhabitants of the city of London-Derry,” said the defenders had “betwixt this and Monday next, at 6 of the o'clock in the afternoon, being the 1st of July in the year of our Lord 1689, agree to surrender the said place of London-Derry”.
If they refused Rossan would drive all the Protestants from the surrounding countryside and further afield to the city walls. The defenders would then have the choice to let their friends and relatives into the city further straining their dwindling supplies or watch them slowly suffer and die from starvation and the elements. As well as this Rosen threatened “the army, which shall continue the siege, and will… soon reduce them, shall have orders to give no quarter, or spare either age or sex”.
Mackenzie writes “These proposals not being accepted, the French General issues out his orders, as he had threatened in his letter, and drove in all the Protestants for near ten miles round, protected as well as unprotected, men, women, and children, the 2d of July. Many tender people, and some women with child, died by the rude and barbarous usage they met with on the road, (being most striped and guarded in dirty pounds and rotten houses, &c.)”
At first the Defenders of Derry mistook these victims as an Jacobite assault and fired upon them, however by some miracle the only casualties were among their Jacobite guards. None the less those within the walls were naturally distressed, Mackenzie records “it was dismal to us to hear their cries, when we perceived who they were, and saw the enemy driving them with their drawn swords down to the walls.”
However, those herded under the walls of Londonderry urged their friends not to submit, Mackenzie continues “It moved our compassion the more, when these poor people so earnestly entreated us, not to surrender out of pity to them, adding, that they knew they would save neither us nor them alive after it.”
As such if Rossen planned to weaken the resolve of the Defenders of Derry his brutality had the opposite effect. Gov Walker records “they did move great compassion in us, but warmed us with a new rage and fury against the enemy, so that in sight of their camp we immediately erect a gallows, and signified to them we were resolved to hang their friends, that were our prisoners, if they did not suffer these poor people to return to their own houses.”
Rossen was clearly as unmoved by the plight of his own men in captivity as he was by that of those he persecuted, for the next day Captain Ash records “They brought a thousand more of the Protestants to our walls, of all ages and sexes, whom we could not well relieve with provisions, though many of the garrison took in their friends privately and fed them, notwithstanding all orders to the contrary.”
The condemned Jacobite prisoners wrote a letter to Lt Gen Hamilton stating they were “willing to die (with our swords in our hands) for his Majesty; but to suffer like malefactors is hard, nor can we lay our blood to the charge of the garrison, the Governor and the rest having used and treated us with all civility imaginable.”
Hamilton replied stating that those under the walls were there by their own fault and if the prisoners were killed, they would be avenged. However, as Walker writes “the sight of our gallows, and the importunity of some friends of those that were to suffer upon them, prevailed upon the Lieut. General: So that, July 4, [the] poor Protestants have leave to repair to their several habitations; we took down the gallows, and ordered the prisoners to their usual apartments.”
When James heard of this incident, he had Rossen recalled to Dublin calling him a “barbarous Muscovite” and later sent him back to France.
This brutality backfired for the Jacobites as Mackenzie writes “The garrison had here a convincing instance before their eyes, how little trust there was to be reposed in their promises: For many of these people had protections under the King [James]”
Walker also records “we crowded 500 of our useless people (women, children and sick) among the Protestants under the walls, who passed undiscovered with them, though the enemy suspected the design... We also got into our garrison some effectual men out of their number:”
