Roamer: King William reportedly suffered from asthma at the Boyne

It’s one of the largest annual festivals in Europe; at over six miles to the field, Belfast is the longest parade and County Armagh’s demonstration, in Keady this year, is reputedly the largest Orange gathering on the planet. Around the Twelfth this page usually adds a few minor details to the oft-told historic story, occasionally supplemented with readers’ anecdotes.

One of the more memorable details was King William’s asthma, which nearly changed the course of history. Another unforgettable story, shared here by the Ulster Scots writer, bard and broadcaster Liam Logan, was a hilarious poem about a District Master getting his hair cut before meeting the Pope in Italy!

Liam is currently very ill in a care home and it’s our poignant privilege to smile again at his unique literary legacy and wish him all the best.

But first to King William’s asthma, which he’d suffered from childhood - indeed, some historians say he wasn’t expected to survive.

Dr Jonathan Mattison, Curator of The Museum of Orange Heritage, suggests his breathing problems didn’t seem to hold him back on the battlefield where “the young Prince of Orange often led from the front, which endeared him to his soldiers but worried his generals greatly.”

Historian Marion E Grew considers that England’s bad weather during November 1688 “aggravated William’s asthma as he advanced on London.”

On reaching Salisbury, Prince William lodged in the Bishop’s Palace, recently vacated by James II.

Here, according to Marion Grew, William’s secretary “found him with a severe attack of the cough which so frequently troubled him, especially in this country.”

Two years later, at the Battle of the Boyne, the newly enthroned King William III’s horse got stuck in the mud and “there is some suggestion” Dr Mattison reckons “that during his attempts to free the animal William may have aggravated his asthma, with some witnesses reporting him as being out of breath.”

He was subsequently carried to the riverbank by a member of the Inniskillings before regaining his composure and continuing the advance. And the rest is history. Now to the Ulster Scots virtuoso, Liam Logan, sadly bedridden in a nursing home.

Amidst his many talks, articles, poems, broadcasts and films prior to suffering serious health issues at the end of 2023 Liam wrote three Ulster Scots books, the most recent entitled Nine Rhymes.

Each poem in the book is light-hearted, if not absolutely hilarious, with drawings by Billy Mawhinney.

The late, great, James Fenton, an acclaimed authority on Ulster Scots, commended Nine Rhymes - “It could only be the work of a native speaker” said Fenton, emphasising that it could be enjoyed by readers “with little or no knowledge of Ulster Scots.” The collection was welcomed by reviewers for displaying “the depths and riches” of the Ulster-Scots language and culture and “our shared identity.”

“I have tried in my way to add to the gaiety of the nation with these poems,” Liam told me “and I trust folk find them enjoyable.”

It took him over 15 years to compile, starting with a poem about a corpse, most unexpectedly, coming to life at a wake.

Today’s page ends with several verses from Liam’s poem about a District Master getting his hair cut before meeting the Pope in Italy.

“The local District Master took a danner doon the toon,

His hair was gye lang got an needed cut

So he fun a handy barbers an he waited in the queue,

The barber caa’ed his turn an doon he sut.”

While his hair was being cut, the District Master surprised the barber, also an Orangeman, by admitting he’d be missing the 12th for his first time in 40 years because he’d be holidaying in Italy.

Off he went with his new haircut, and as well as seeing Michelangelo’s David ‘an the Leanin Tower o Pisa’ he chanced upon the Pope in Rome.

“He come fornenst, I sneaked a gleek

A luk come ower his face, baith shocked an sad

He stared gye hard and spoke gye clear

‘Who in God’s name cut yer hair that bad?’”