He embarked for Holland on the 5th of March. He left the country amid the rumours of false plots and real schemes of invasion. One Fuller, under the tuition of the notorious Titus Oates, had been accusing no less than fifty lords and gentlemen, including Halifax and some of the king's own ministers, of having pledged themselves to bring in James. However true it might be that many of these were at heart really ready for such a change, it was clearly shown that Fuller's story was got up merely to make money by it, and it was treated with contempt. The rumour of an invasion was, as we shall find, more real. Disbelieving it, or pressed by the necessity of giving a blow to Louis in Flanders, William made a speedy journey to the Hague. There the difficulties which he had to overcome were such as would have sunk the courage of any less firm-hearted man. But though William managed to just hold his stupid and selfish Allies together—too stupid and selfish to perceive their own real interests—he found it impossible to get them into the field. Whilst they were moving like tortoises, each afraid to be before his neighbour, each taking leave to delay because his neighbour delayed, Louis rushed into the arena with his wonted alertness. On the 20th of May he was in his camp at Flanders. He made a grand review of his troops in the neighbourhood of Mons. There a hundred and twenty thousand men were drawn up in a line eight miles long. Such a circumstance was well calculated to spread a deadening report amongst the Allies of the crushing vastness of his army. He was attended by a splendid retinue of nearly all the princes and rulers of France; there was the Duke de Chartres, in his fifteenth year only; the Dukes of Bourbon and Vendôme; the Prince of Conti; and whole troops of young nobles following them as volunteers. Louis appeared in the midst of them with all the splendour and luxury of an Eastern emperor.
From the imposing review Louis bore down directly on Namur. Namur stood strongly at the confluence of the Meuse and the Sambre. It was strong by nature on the sides next the rivers, and made so by art on the land side. The Baron de Cohorn, an engineer who rivalled Vauban, was always in William's army to advise and throw up fortifications. Cohorn had made it one of the most considerable fortresses on the Continent, and he now lay in the city with a garrison of nine thousand men, under the Prince de Brabazon. All the other fortresses—Mons, Valenciennes, Cambray, Antwerp, Ostend, Ypres, Lille, Tournay, Luxemburg, and others, had yielded to the Grand Monarque; Namur alone had resisted every attempt upon it. And now Louis invested it with his whole force. Louis himself laid siege to the place with forty thousand men, and posted Luxemburg with eighty thousand more on the road between Namur and Brussels. Brabazon calculated on the army of William effecting the relief of the place, and Louis resolved to make his approach impossible.
William, joined by the forces of Brandenburg and Liége, and with his army swelled to a hundred thousand men, advanced to the Mehaigne, within cannon-shot of Luxemburg's camp, but there he found himself stopped. Luxemburg's army lay on the other bank of the river, and was so strongly posted, and watched so vigilantly every movement of William, that he saw no means of forcing a way towards the beleaguered city. Whilst thus impeded by the river and the vast force of Luxemburg, Nature came to complete the chafing king's mortifications. Heavy rains set in on St. Medard's Day, the 8th of June, the French St. Swithin. The rivers burst their banks, and the whole country lay under water. If William had had the means to cross the river, the drenching torrents and the muddy soil would have rendered all military operations impossible. Louis with difficulty kept his men to their posts in the siege. Still the assault was pushed on. Cohorn, the engineer, was disabled by a severe wound whilst defending a fort on which he greatly prided himself; and from that hour the defence languished. Brabazon was a man of no spirit; Cohorn's fort was taken, and the town surrendered on the 20th of June.
The exultation of Louis and the French on the fall of Namur was unbounded. This triumph had been won in the very presence of William and the Allies at the head of a hundred thousand men. He ordered medals to be struck to commemorate this success, which his flatterers, and amongst them Boileau himself, declared was more glorious than the mastery of Troy by the Greeks. Te Deum was sung in Paris; the French nation was in ecstasies, and Louis returned to Versailles to enjoy the incense of his elated courtiers and mistresses. But he did not return without a sting to his triumph. The news of a signal defeat of his fleet at La Hogue reached him even as he lay before Namur, and the thunder of William's artillery at the great intelligence wounded his vanity though it could not reach his army.
Louis having quitted the Netherlands, Luxemburg strongly garrisoned Namur, despatched the Marquis of Boufflers to La Bassière, and himself encamped at Soignies. William posted himself at Genappe, sent detachments to Ghent and Liége, and determined to attack Luxemburg. This general shifted his ground to a position between Steinkirk and Enghien, and William then encamped at Lambeque. Here he discovered that all his movements had been previously betrayed to Luxemburg by the private secretary of the Elector of Bavaria, one Millevoix, a letter of whose to the French general had been picked up by a peasant, and brought to the camp. William seized on the circumstance to mislead Luxemburg. The detected spy was compelled to write a letter to the French general, informing him that the next day William was intending to send out a foraging party, and, to prevent it from being surprised, would draw out a large body of troops to protect it. The letter being despatched to the French camp, William took immediate measures for the engagement. His object was to surprise the camp of Luxemburg, and the story of the foraging party was to prevent his alarm on the approach of the troops. He sent his heavy baggage across the Seine, and by four in the morning his troops were on the march towards Luxemburg's position. The Duke of Würtemberg led the van with ten battalions of English, Dutch, and Danish infantry, supported by a large body of horse and foot under the command of General Mackay, and Count Solmes followed with the reserve.
William's forces reached the outposts of Luxemburg's army about two o'clock in the afternoon, and drove them in with a sudden and unlooked-for onset. A regiment from the Bourbonnais was put to instant flight, and William, who had been informed that he should have to march through a country of hedges, ditches, and narrow lanes, but that, on approaching Luxemburg's army, he would find it open plain, now calculated that he had nothing to do but to dash into the surprised camp and produce universal confusion. He had indeed had to pick his way through hedges and ditches, but now, instead of the open plain, there lay still a network of hedges and ditches between him and the enemy. This caused so much delay, that the enemy soon became aware of the real fact, that William was upon them with his whole army. There was an instant hurrying to standards, and William found himself face to face with a body sufficient to dispute the ground with him till the whole was in order.
Luxemburg had been deceived by the forced letter of Millevoix. He had relied on it as being as correct as usual; and, though scout after scout brought intelligence of the English approaching, he deemed it only the foraging party and their supporters, and sat coolly at cards till it was nearly too late. Then he mounted his horse, reconnoitred the enemy, threw forward the Swiss regiments and the far-famed Household Troops of Louis, and encouraged his men to fight with their usual bravery. The young princes put themselves at the head of the Household Troops, and displayed an enthusiasm which communicated itself to the whole line. They found as vigorous opponents in the Duke of Würtemberg and the gallant and pious Mackay. The conflict was maintained at the muzzles of the muskets, and Luxemburg afterwards declared that he never saw so fierce a struggle. The Duke of Würtemberg had already seized one of the enemy's batteries, and penetrated within their entrenchments, but the immense weight of troops that kept pouring on against them at length bore them back. Mackay sent messenger after messenger to bid Solmes hasten up his reserve, but, from cowardice or treachery, Solmes would not move. He said coolly, "Let us see what sport these English bulldogs will make." At length William sent an express order for him to move up; whereupon he trotted his horse forward a little, but never advanced his infantry. When, therefore, Mackay saw that his soldiers were being hewed down by hundreds, and no succour came, he said, "God's will be done," and fought on till he fell. The contest was not, however, decided till the detachment of Boufflers appeared upon the field. Luxemburg sent off an express to hasten him to his assistance; but Boufflers, unlike Solmes, had not waited for that—he had heard the firing, and was already on the way. Then William was compelled to order his troops to draw off; and this retreat he managed with his accustomed skill. He was, however, roused out of his usual stoicism by the infamous conduct of Solmes; and the whole army declared that they would not have been repulsed but for his base desertion of them. The French claimed the victory, though William retired to his camp in good order, and both armies continued to occupy their former position. The fame of William as a general in the field was greatly injured. He was acknowledged to be admirable at a retreat; but it was said that a first-rate general seldom practised that portion of the art of war. But his enemies, by their very joy at this rebuff, acknowledged their sense of his power.
After this nothing of consequence distinguished the campaign in the Netherlands. On the 26th of September William left the army under command of the Elector of Bavaria, and retired to his hunting seat at Loo. The camp was broken up, and the infantry marched to Marienkirke, and the horse to Caure. But hearing that Boufflers had invested Charleroi and Luxemburg, he sent troops under the Elector of Bavaria to raise the siege of those towns. Boufflers retired, and then the Elector distributed his troops into winter quarters; and Luxemburg on his side left the army under Boufflers, and went to Paris.
Besides this there had been an attempt on the part of England to besiege Dunkirk. The Duke of Leinster was sent over with troops, which were joined by others from William's camp; but they thought the attempt too hazardous, and returned, having done nothing. William quitted Holland, and on the 18th of October arrived in England. The result of this expensive campaign, where such unexampled preparations had been followed only by defeat and the loss of five thousand men, excited deep dissatisfaction; and the abortive attempt to recover Dunkirk increased it. The public complained that William had lain inactive at Grammont whilst Louis took Namur, and that if he could not cross the Scheldt in the face of the French army, he might have crossed it higher up, and taken Louis in the flank; that he might, instead of lying inert to witness his enemy's triumph, have boldly marched into France and laid waste Louis's own territories, which would have quickly drawn him away from Namur. Such, indeed, might have been the decisive movements of a great military genius, but there is no reason to think that William was such a genius. His most striking qualities were dogged perseverance and insensibility to defeat.
During William's absence, a variety of circumstances had taken place which threw a dark shade upon his fame, which threatened almost to shake his throne, and which gratified the naval pride of the country.