It was not till the
beginning of 1706 that he went back to England, and thus it was late
in the spring of that year when the campaign was reopened.
Rejoining his army in the Netherlands, he proposed to make another of
his great marches, namely into Italy, there to join his friend Prince
Eugene in an invasion of France from the south-east. This plan was
made impossible by the crookedness of the kings of Prussia and
Denmark, and some others of the Allies. Swallowing this disappointment
also, as best he might, Marlborough started from the Dyle and advanced
on the great and important stronghold of Namur, at the junction of the
Sambre with the Meuse. Namur had always been greatly esteemed by the
French, and, in dread alarm, Louis ordered Villeroy to take immediate
action. The result was that the two hostile armies, each numbering
about sixty thousand men, met face to face near the village of
Ramillies, half way between Tirlemont and Namur, and near the head
waters of the Great and Little Gheet and the Mehaigne.
Lieutenants Fairburn and Blackett from their position on a bit of
rising ground could take in the general dispositions of the respective
forces, and the same thought passed through both their minds. The
French and Bavarian troops were drawn up in the form of an arc, whose
ends rested on the villages of Anderkirk, to the north, and Tavieres,
on the Mehaigne, to the south.
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