(Updated, July 2016) An incident during the War of the English Succession, sparked off by the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when Catholic James II fled the country after William of Orange landed at Torbay. The prince's main objective was to bring a united Stuart realm into the war with France. In 1690 the deposed King James II attempted to re-capture his throne with the aid of the French troops by way of Ireland, whose Catholic population, he believed, might support him. He soon captured most of Ireland, until King William’s army drove him out. It took some time for William to gain control in Ireland. He landed at Carrickfergus near Belfast on 14 June 1690, to take over command of the army which was to defeat James II and the Catholic hopes in that country. He was escorted by a squadron under Rear-Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, together with 15,000 extra Danish, Dutch and English troops. This lifted morale and by 1 July he faced James II across the River Boyne outside Dublin. The ensuing victory for William led to James's withdrawal from Dublin, which William occupied by 2 July. William’s reign marked the beginning of the transition from the Stuart’s personal control of government to the Parliamentary rule of the House of Hanover.

The painting is apparently intended to show King William in a barge about to land at Carrickfergus Castle, at the start of a campaign in which he successfully regained control of Ireland from the Catholic supporters of the deposed King James II. The roofs of Carrickfergus can be glimpsed beyond the castle wall. In the right foreground is Shovell’s squadron with his flagship, the ‘Monck’ the large ship on the right flying blue at the mizzen (appropriate to a rear-admiral of the blue squadron). It is surrounded by the yachts that brought the king and his suite. In the centre, the yacht ‘Mary’ still flies the Royal Standard although by this time the king had transferred to his barge, shown rowing round to the harbour entrance at the left of the castle. The emphasis of the painting is on Shovell’s ship and perhaps his involvement in the event.

The picture is early English school owing much to van de Velde and probably contemporary. It was not done on the spot but closely copies a printed image of the town taken from 'Great Britain’s Coasting Pilot', published by Greenvile Collins’s in 1693. The accompanying map was engraved by James Collins, but it is not clear if he is also responsible for the view of Carrickfergus

While there is no doubt that the subject is the Carrickfergus landing, the royal standards shown are not that of William III but of the pre-1689 Stuarts and that used as the flag of the Lord High Admiral, 1702-14, under Queen Anne. From 1702 to his death in 1708 this was her husband Prince George of Denmark, who was also present at Carrickfergus and in the subsequent events though not in an official military capacity. If not just an artist error, it is possible that it is George who is shown landing and that the picture may be one painted shortly after he became Lord High Admiral in 1702 looking back to his presence there. Conservation work (2016) has clarified the inscription on a piece of wood floating in the centre foreground as apparently 'C. Pocock . V V -' (or possibly G for the initial and W at the end). No artist called Pocock is otherwise recorded at this time and the meaning of 'V V' is unknown, unless an allusion to the van de Velde studio which was still in existence in the early years of the 18th century, led by Cornelis van de Velde after the death of his father, Willem the Younger, in 1707. The general manner and moderate quality of the work certainly follows the imported style of Dutch emigre painters, but closer to that of the Knyffs rather than the van de Veldes.