Walls do not defend men, it is men who defend walls

However, popular imagination, and to some extent the article, errs in attributing to the walls a degree of military engineering they never possessed.

As early as 1628 a Royal Commission judged the city and its walls “so ill situated” that it was “not a place of defence nor tenable if any foreign enemy should come before it”. When the Jacobite army reached the city, the French commander of the artillery, Pointis, predicted victory in “two days”.

Rev Walker recorded “Those very persons that were sent to assist us had so little confidence in the place that they no sooner saw it but they thought fit to leave it”. It is probable that the weakness of the walls underscored Lundy’s actions.

In truth, the outcome of the siege of 1689 owed much more to the vigour of the garrison and the wet weather which hampered the Jacobites’ siege works. As Nesca Robb, in her biography of King William, noted “Walls do not defend men, men defend walls”.

Robert Wallace, Portadown