He now received a paper, signed by the Earls of Shrewsbury, Devonshire, and Danby, Lord Lumley, Bishop Compton, Edward Russell, the Admiral of England, and Henry Sidney, the brother of the late Algernon Sidney, and afterwards Earl of Romney. This paper, which had been furnished at William's request, was but the result of negotiations between himself and the Whig leaders for some time. He now called into council with the English envoy his confidential friends, Bentinck and Dykvelt, and it was resolved that the time for action was come, and that the invitation should be accepted. In the meantime, whilst William began in earnest, but as secretly as circumstances would allow, his preparations, James at home did everything which a foolish and obstinate ruler could do to complete the alienation of the affections of his subjects. He returned from his camp to his capital only to find it in transports of delight over his own defeat, and resounding with the explosions of guns and crackers, with drinkings of the health of the bishops in the streets, and with the effigy of the Pope blazing before his own gate. So far from making him pause at the contemplation of the avowed and universal spirit of his people, he was only the more exasperated, and continued muttering, "So much the worse for them." He determined to take summary vengeance on the clergy, on the lawyers who had opposed or deserted him, on the army, and on the people. He at once promoted Mr. Solicitor-General Williams, for his unscrupulous conduct on the trial of the bishops, to a baronetcy, and would have placed so convenient a man on the bench could he have spared him at the bar. He dismissed Powell and Holloway; he determined to visit with his vengeance all the clergy throughout the kingdom who had refused to read the Declaration; and an order was issued to all the chancellors of the dioceses and the archdeacons to make a return of them. No matter that they approached ten thousand in number; if necessary, he would drive them all from their benefices. The judges on the circuits were ordered to denounce these refractory clergy, and to speak in the most derogatory terms of the bishops. He broke up his camp, the soldiers of which had been intended to overawe the capital, and stand by whilst he destroyed the national Constitution and the national religion; but had now terrified and disgusted him by drinking the healths of the liberated bishops.

But all his angry attempts only recoiled on himself, and showed more clearly than ever that the reins of power were irrecoverably slipping from his fingers. The spell of royalty—a people's respect—was utterly broken. The chancellors and archdeacons paid no attention to the order for reporting their independent brethren; the High Commission met, and, so far from finding any returns, received a letter from one of the most truckling of their own body, Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, resigning his place in the High Commission. If such a man saw the handwriting on the wall, the warning, they felt, must be imminent, and they departed in confusion. The judges, on their part, found themselves deserted on their circuits; nobody but the sheriff and his javelin men came to meet them, and then went through their duties amid every sign of indifference to their dignity. They were treated, not as the high-minded judges of England, but as the base and venal tools of a most lawless and mischievous monarch. The soldiers were as bold in their separate quarters as they had been in camp. James thought he could deal with them separately, and tried the experiment by ordering a regiment of infantry, which had been raised in the Catholic district of Staffordshire, to sign an engagement to support him in dispersing all the rest, or to quit the army. Almost to a man they piled their arms, and the confounded king was obliged to withdraw the order. But James had a remedy even for the defection of the army. In Ireland the brutal and debauched Tyrconnel had been busily engaged in drilling Irish Celts, and preparing an army so strongly Catholic that he might by this means carry out the royal design of repealing the Act of Settlement, and driving the Protestant colonists from their lands. These troops James sent for, regiment after regiment, and the people of England saw, with equal indignation and alarm, that their liberties, their religion, their laws, were to be trodden down, and the kingdom reduced to a miserable abode of slaves by the wild tribes of the sister island, vengeful with centuries of unrequited oppressions. This put the climax to the national resentment, and still more pressing messages were sent over to William to hasten his approach, and leaders of party in large numbers contemplated a speedy transit to his standard. It was at this juncture that the wild genius of Wharton gave vent to the pent-up feelings of Protestant wrath, by the adaptation of the old Irish tune of "Lillibullero" to English words.

William, meanwhile, was making strenuous preparations for his enterprise. He formed a camp at Nimeguen, collecting troops and artillery from the different fortresses. Twenty-four additional ships of war were fitted out for service, and arms and accoutrements were in busy preparation in every manufactory in Holland. He had saved up unusual funds for him, and had money also pouring in from England and from the refugee Huguenots, who hoped much from his enterprise in favour of Protestantism. It was impossible that all this preparation could escape the attention of other nations, and especially of the quick-sighted Louis XIV. of France. But William had a ready answer—that he wanted an extra squadron to go in pursuit of a number of Algerine corsairs which had made their appearance off the Dutch coasts. The military preparations were not so easily explained; but though Louis was satisfied that they were intended against England, James, blind to his danger, as strongly suspected that they were meant to operate against France. The only enemies which William had to really dread were Louis and the Council of Amsterdam, which Louis had so long influenced to hostility to William, and without whose consent no expedition could be permitted. But the ambition and the persecuting bigotry of Louis removed this only difficulty out of William's way in a manner which looked like the actual work of Providence. The two points on which Amsterdam was pre-eminently sensitive were trade and Protestantism. Louis contrived to incense them on both these heads. His unrelenting persecution of the Huguenots, including also Dutch Protestants who had settled in France, raised an intense feeling in Amsterdam, stimulated by the outcries and representations of their relatives there. To all appeals for tolerance and mercy Louis was utterly deaf; and whilst this feeling was at its height, he imposed a heavy duty on the importation of herrings from Holland into France. Sixty thousand persons in Holland depended on this trade, and the effect was, therefore, disastrous. In vain did the French envoy, Avaux, represent these things; Louis continued haughty and inexorable.

VIEW IN THE HAGUE: THE HALL OF THE KNIGHTS IN THE BINNENHOF.

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These circumstances, in which the pride and bigotry of Louis got the better of his worldly policy, completed the triumph of William of Orange. He seized on them to effect a removal of the long-continued jealousies of the Council of Amsterdam against him. He entered into negotiations with the leading members of the Council through his trusty friends Bentinck and Dykvelt, and as they were in the worst of humours with Louis, the old animosities against William were suffered to sleep, and he obtained the sanction of the States-General to his proposed expedition for the release of England from the French and Catholic influences, and its reception into the confederation of Protestant nations. Another circumstance just at this crisis occurred to strengthen all these feelings in Holland and Germany, and to account for any amount of troops collected at Nimeguen. The aggressions of Louis had roused and combined all Europe against him. Powers both Catholic and Protestant had felt themselves compelled to unite in order to repress his attempts at universal dominion. The King of Spain, the Emperor of Germany, the King of Sweden had entered into the League of Augsburg to defend the empire; and to these were added various Italian princes, with the Pope Innocent XI. himself at their head. Louis had not hesitated to insult the Pope on various occasions, and now he saw the pontiff in close coalition with heretic princes to repel his schemes.

In May of this year died Ferdinand of Bavaria, the Elector of Cologne. Besides Cologne, the elector possessed the bishoprics of Liége, Münster, and Hildesheim. In 1672 Louis had endeavoured to secure a successor to the Elector in the French interest. He therefore proposed as his coadjutor the Cardinal Furstemberg, Bishop of Strasburg; and he would have succeeded, but it was necessary, in order to his choice, that Furstemberg should first resign his bishopric; to this the Pope, in his hostility to Louis, would not consent; he refused his dispensation. But now, the Elector having died, the contest was renewed. Louis again proposed the cardinal; the allies of the League of Augsburg nominated the Prince Clement of Bavaria, who was elected and confirmed by the Pope, though a youth of only seventeen years of age. The allies were equally successful in the bishoprics of Liége, Münster, and Hildesheim; but the principal fortresses, Bonn, Neutz, Kaiserswerth, and Rheinberg, were held by the troops of Furstemberg, and therefore were at the service of France. Louis was, however, exasperated at the partial defeat of his plans, and complained loudly of the partiality of the Pope, and began to march troops to the support of Furstemberg.

But whilst Louis was actually planning a sweeping descent on the German Empire, in which William of Orange lay pre-eminently in his way, he was at the same time in danger of a more momentous occurrence—that of William leaving the way open by sailing for England. If William should succeed in placing himself on the throne of England, he would be able to raise a far more formidable opposition to his plans of aggrandisement than he had ever yet done. Even with his small resources he had proved a terrible enemy, and had arrayed all Europe against him; what would he do if he could bring all the powers of England by land and sea to co-operate with Holland, Spain, Austria, Sweden, and the Netherlands? The stupidity of James and the offended pride of Louis saved William in this dilemma, and led Louis to commit on this occasion the cardinal blunder of his reign.

It was impossible that Louis could be ignorant of what William was doing. The preparations of ships and troops were indications of a contemplated attack somewhere. It might be directed to resist the French on the side of Germany; but other facts equally noticeable demonstrated that the object was England. Avaux, the French envoy at the Hague, in the absence of Abbeville, who was on a visit to England, noticed, in the months of April and May, a swift sailing boat, which made rapid and frequent passages between England and Rotterdam; and he noticed that, after every arrival from England, there were closetings of William and the English Whig leaders at the Hague, especially Russell. After the birth of the heir-apparent of England, William despatched Zulestein to London with his professedly warm, though they could not be very sincere, congratulations on the event; but soon after, on the escape to the Hague of Rear-Admiral Herbert, who was supposed to carry the invitation of the leading Whigs to William, the prince omitted the child's name in the prayers for the royal family of England, and openly expressed his doubts of his being the real child of the queen.