Arlene Foster hanging by a thread.

[tones]

That, or whoever the current pope was.

The irony was that Willem set forth for England with the tacit blessing of that very Pope (Innocent XI). They had a common enemy, Louis XIV of France (l'état, c'est moi) and his vaulting ambitions. James II had been received by Louis and encouraged by him, so he was acting as Louis's agent. In addition, Innocent XI considered James's attempts to drag England back to Roman Catholicism as "premature and ill-advised". This tends to be forgotten (ignored?) by the Loyalists.

The Battle of the Boyne was fought on 1st July 1690 (the change to the Gregorian calendar moved the date to the 12th). Ironically again, there actually was a battle fought on 12th July in 1691, Aughrim, in Galway. This was the decisive battle of the war, and is quite possibly the bloodiest battle ever fought in the British Isles. James's defeat finished the Stuarts until they tried their two Scottish comebacks.

And, no matter what the Orange banners say, his horse was NOT white...

 

[-alan-]

^ Interesting.

Just thinking here, there's surely an opportunity here for somebody much ruder than I to repurpose the old police-horse joke concerning which member of the equine species has got 4 legs and a c** halfway up its back..