Sarsfield
the Enniskilleners in check, during the months before Schomberg landed in August. He was not, however, present at the rout of Newtown Butler which, coming on the top of the relief of Derry, lost to James all Ulster north of the Pale. But while James and de Rosen lay about Dundalk within striking distance of Schomberg's army, Sarsfield was sent into Connaught with a small body of troops. Here he exerted himself to such purpose that he raised two thousand men. In September Colonel Lloyd, in command at Sligo, crossed the Curlew mountains and with his Enniskilleners defeated a body of Jacobites at Boyle. The news was welcomed with glee in Schomberg's somewhat discontented army where, as Schomberg wrote,7 "my Irish lords" were "for giving battle daily," and impatient for their share in the confiscation which already they saw in the near future. The Enniskilleners were praised to the skies and Schomberg, yielding to their representations, sent out Colonel Russell with a force of four hundred mounted men to cross the Shannon at Jamestown and, cooperating with troops from Sligo, to advance as far as Athlone along the Shannon and then take Galway. The result was different. Sarsfield attacked the invaders of Connaught, captured Russell and his whole body, and, according to a
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