Robert Lundy

Robert Lundy, (fl. 1689) (died 1717), was the Governor of Londonderry during the Siege of Derry.

Almost nothing at all is known of Lundy's parentage or early life; but he had seen service in the foreign wars before 1688, when he was at Dublin with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the regiment of Viscount Mountjoy. The Apprentice Boys of Derry shut the gates of the city against "a regiment of 1200 Papists, commanded by a Papist,who was Alexander Macdonnell, Earl of Antrim", who hastily withdrew his small force. Later, the Viceroy Tyrconnel solicited intervention by Mountjoy and later dispatched a strong but poorly disciplined Irish force commanded by Sir Richard Hamilton to march north against the Protestants.

A stratagem prepared by Mountjoy and Lundy to assume control of Derry succeeded in embedding a small garrison of predominantly Protestant troops under the command first of Mountjoy then of Lundy, who assumed the title of governor. However, popular feeling in Derry ran so strongly in favour of the Prince of Orange that Lundy declared himself an adherent of King William III, and he obtained from him a commission confirming his appointment as joint governor along with George Walker.

From December 1688 to March 1689 Lundy had the walls and the gates repaired to protect the city, refitted gun carriages and musket stocks, removed buildings and dungheaps outside the walls which might provide cover to besiegers, purchased powder, cannonballs and matchlocks, and had a protective ravelin and outworks built.

Lundy's motivation cannot certainly be known. What is certain is that from the moment Derry was threatened by the troops of King James, Lundy used all his endeavours to paralyse the defence of the city. In April 1689 he was in command of a force of Protestants who encountered some troops under Richard Hamilton at Strabane, when, instead of holding his ground, he told his men that all was lost and ordered them to shift for themselves; he himself was the first to take flight back to Derry. King James, then at Omagh on his way to the north, similarly turned in flight towards Dublin on hearing of the skirmish, but returned next day on receiving the true account of the occurrence.

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