The Battle of Beachy Head: Sussex, England, 1690

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Beachy_Head_10,_July_1690.jpg

A bit of background information

Catholic James (aka James VII of Scotland) was crowned James II of England and Ireland in 1685.  When he came to the English throne he instantly found himself up against the might of Parliament, i.e. the Tories and the Whigs, who were primarily protestant and it was evident that he would need to watch his back.  As plots developed behind James’ back, he got a bit windy about his status in England so decided he would form a Kings Party supporting a campaign for ‘religious tolerance’ in the belief that he’d gain support from the Catholics and some other religious groups throughout the land and would then, once he had a foothold, advance Catholicism but this backfired on him and he was overthrown by the Parliamentarians (i.e. those who supported the government rather than the King’s Party) in 1688. 

In order to depose James, the Parliamentarians had combined forces with the Dutch, led by William of Orange who was a protestant.  James got a bit windy and fled to Ireland where he managed to rally support from the Irish Catholics, aiming to build up a force which would enable him to put up a fight for the English throne.  William in the meantime was crowned King of England (becoming William III) where he ruled with his wife, Queen Mary.

By 1689 James had managed to persuade the French to assist him and this urged William to send troops over to Ireland during summer 1689 to subdue James’ supporters, but during the winter of that year William’s troops suffered a setback due to sickness and desertion.

Just before the battle 

By the beginning of 1690 William realised that it wasn’t going to be quite as easy as he thought to tackle James so decided he’d go out to Ireland himself and took a substantial number of British troops with him, leaving Queen Mary in control of England with the aid of certain advisers.  William’s main fleet, under Admiral Torrington, was stationed in the English Channel (east coast) and, in the meantime, the Irish Sea (west coast) was patrolled by a fleet led by the curiously named Sir Cloudesley Shovell.  It was obvious that Shovell’s fleet wouldn’t be able to keep the French at bay from the Irish Sea but, rather than go round the British Isles and take on Shovell, Louix XIV of France took his troops to the Channel and ended up tackling Torrington instead.