The River Crossing
The main advance of William’s infantry across the Boyne was along a front of approximately 1.5 Kilometres east of this point.
The sun was shining as three battalions of Dutch Blue Guards, marching eight or ten abreast, entered the river at low tide, at the Oldbridge ford, followed over the next hour at three further crossing places on their left by Huguenot, Danish, Protestant Irish and more Dutch battalions.
The water rose to the soldiers’ armpits as they waded across, and in some cases up to their necks as the mass of men “stopped the current by their sudden motion”. Musket fire from defending soldiers of the Jacobite army, posted behind hedges and houses, failed to prevent the Williamites gaining the south bank.
At noon, King William, with 3,500 mounted troops, crossed the Boyne downstream from the infantry at Drybridge.
