I've walked around the massive walls of the Royal Citadel many times - from the open space of Plymouth Hoe down along Madeira Road to the Mayflower Steps and the Barbican and its array of coffee shops and quayside restaurants - but have never booked a tour of the inside - they are very infrequent as the Citadel is still a functioning military facility. The curving coastal road is a beautiful sunrise location, and the many huge international Navy memorials, with joggers and dog walkers in the morning light, make it look almost like a movie set at times.
After the arrival of William of Orange's vast armada at Torbay on 5 November 1688 - where soldiers, horses and provisions were unloaded - the ships then sailed 35 miles westwards towards Plymouth where they moored in the shelter of Plymouth Sound and wintered there. The Royal Citadel was the westernmost army garrison of King James II, and William knew that he had to take control of it, to ensure that (as Macaulay put it in his mammoth The History of England) "the invaders had now not a single enemy in their rear" for their advance eastwards towards King James II and London.
William's Declaration was read aloud to the Royal Citadel garrison who immediately defected to his cause, and the Declaration was then fastened to the Citadel gate. The irony in this is that the regiment there, the Earl of Bath's Regiment, had been raised just over three years earlier during the June 1685 Duke of Monmouth civilian rebellion, in order to crush it. Monmouth was William of Orange's cousin, and Continental battle comrade. Heads and quarters of some of the 350 executed 'rebels' had been put on public display in Plymouth. However, when faced with William's vast European army and navy, the regiment melted.
A Plymouth primary source for this is The Journal Of James Yonge, Plymouth Surgeon 1647-1721 in which he says:
"... In November this year the Prince of Orange arrived at Torbay with great fleet of men-of-war and merchant ships, and landing there, marched to Exeter, where great resort of gentlemen &c. went to him and declared for him. His declaration was also read in the Citadel and Guildhall and at length the whole nation revolted ..."
William had a lot on his plate. We've all grown up with Ireland's fixation on the Battle of the Boyne, but there was far more going on that just that. Following the naval Battle of Beachy Head on 10 July 1690, he authorised the first Royal Naval Dockyard to be built at Plymouth, in 1691, to defend the west from further French attack.
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• Painting above, showing the Royal Citadel in the background, is entitled 'Plymouth in 1666' by the Dutch artist Willem Van De Velde. It is on display in The Box Arts Centre.
A more detailed account of the events at Plymouth Citadel can be found in the Report on the Manuscripts of the late Reginald Rawden Hastings, Vol II, pages 198-199 (online here), a letter from Theophilus Hastings, the Earl of Huntingdon, to King James II. He had a regiment in Plymouth too:
"What passed on Saturday night relating to my imprisonment and the garbling of the regiment both officers and soldiers I did presume to inform your Majesty in a letter by Major Ingram.
On Monday the formal revolt of this garrison was made, when the Governor caused the Prince of Orange’s Declaration to be read in his presence to the remaining officers of the regiment and to the officers of the citadel; to which when each man had given his concurrence, the Governor then ordered it to be read at the head of the battalion to the private soldiers, to which in imitation of the officers they assented by throwing up of their hats and huzzas; upon which it was fastened publicly on the gates of the citadel. The solemnity ended by several barrels of ale as a largess to the regiment to drink success to this noble achievement.
The Governor himself hath received a commission from the Prince of Orange to command in these parts, and on Tuesday the vacancies were filled up, Hastings being made Colonel and Jacob Lieutenant-Colonel. Hatton refused to serve under any other authority than your Majesty and is dismissed and some others of the officers . .
I could have prevented my present confinement and now obtain my liberty if I would have joined in this guilty action. But those principles of honour and loyalty that hath preserved me hitherto will always direct me to make nothing the act of my will but what shall be answerable to those principles.
I am here a close prisoner, my arms taken away, having not the liberty to walk in the citadel without a guard. My whole dependence is upon your Majesty, whether you will summon the place, it being said it is kept for your Majesty, or demand me, or take in custody some relation of him here, or exchange me. I submit to your Majesty’s wisdom, humbly beseeching that if I receive any despatches from the Secretaries of State, it may be by an expressed writ all with their own hands, for a reason I have which I dare not commit to writing, most letters being opened."
• Photo below of the grand entrance to the Royal Citadel, showing the date 1670, and presumably to which the Declaration was fastened, is from Flickr here.
And, just a few hundred yards away in Plymouth's historic Barbican waterfront area is the Plymouth Gin Distillery, founded 1793, where a display in the reception and shop area credits William with introducing gin to England - "Dutch courage"!
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