The Lords now gave notice that they would proceed with the trials of the accused nobles, beginning with that of Lord Somers first, as the Commons had proposed, and called on the Commons to make good their charge. On the other hand, the Commons, still insisting on their right to have a voice in regulating the trials, made an order that no member of their House should appear at the "pretended" trial of the Lord Somers. Notwithstanding, the Lords gave notice that they would proceed on the 17th of June to the trial of Somers, in Westminster Hall. The Commons refused to attend, declaring that they were the only judges, and that the evidence was not yet prepared. This produced a violent debate in the Lords, where the Tory Ministers supported their party in the Commons; but the order for the trial was carried, followed by strong protests against it. On the day of the trial the Lords sent a message to the Commons to inform them that they were going to the Hall, and the Commons not appearing there, the Lords again returned to their own House, and settled the question to be put; and again returning to Westminster Hall, the question was then put:—"That John Lord Somers be acquitted of the articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Commons, and all things therein contained; and that the impeachment be dismissed." This was carried by a majority of thirty-five. A similar course was taken with regard to the other accused.

It had been a miserable Session to the king. His health continued to fail, and, amid his endeavours to conceal the decay of his constitution, that his Allies might not be discouraged, he had found his favourite Minister violently attacked, himself by no means spared, and the Session almost wholly wasted in party feud. It had, however, passed the Succession Bill, and now, to his agreeable surprise, voted him unexpectedly liberal supplies, and sanctioned his forming alliances against France. He now lost no time in appointing a regency; and gave the command of the ten thousand troops, sent to Holland, to Marlborough—an appointment, however despicable the man, the very best he could have made in a military point of view. At the commencement of July he sailed for Holland, accompanied by the Earls of Carlisle, Romney, Albemarle, General Overkirk, and others, and landed on the 3rd of the month. The Scottish troops voted had arrived in Holland before him, and the ten thousand men from England and Ireland were just arriving, so that William appeared again amongst his countrymen at the head of a respectable army of his new subjects. When he presented himself, however, before the States-General the day after his arrival, his appearance was such as to create great alarm in all that saw him. In his energies they put the almost sole trust of effectual resistance to France, and he was clearly fast sinking. He was wasted, pale, and haggard. The last Session of Parliament, and the fierce dissensions which had been carried on between the factions of Whig and Tory, neither of which looked to anything but the indulgence of their own malice, had done more to wear him out than a dozen campaigns. He might well declare that that had been the most miserable year of his existence. What strength he had left, however, he devoted unshrinkingly to the grand object of his existence, the war for the balance of power. He expressed his great joy to be once more amongst his faithful countrymen; and, in truth, he must have felt it like a cordial, for around him in England he saw nothing but unprincipled strife of parties. William told the States that he had hoped, after the peace of Ryswick, to have been able to pass his remaining days in repose, but that the changes which had taken place in Europe were such as no man could see the end of. He was still resolved, he said, notwithstanding this, to pursue the great object of the peace of Europe with unremitting zeal, whether it was to be achieved by negotiation or war; and he assured them of the active support of his English subjects. The States, in their reply, took care to express how much they depended on the courage and power of the English, and to compliment them on the splendid fame for valour which they had acquired in the late struggle.

William then set out to survey the defences of the frontiers, and the state of the garrisons; and having visited Bergen-op-Zoom, Sluys, and other places, and taken such measures as appeared necessary, he returned to the Hague, where the news met him that Louis had recalled his Ambassador, D'Avaux, who left a memorial in a very insolent tone, asserting that his royal master was convinced that no good could come of the negotiations, but still declaring that it depended on themselves whether there should be peace or war. This event by no means surprised William, for both he and Marlborough had felt from the first that there was no sincerity in the professions of D'Avaux, and that they were meant only to gain time. The treaty between England, Holland, and the Emperor was, therefore, urged forward, and was signed on the 7th of September, being styled "The Second Grand Alliance." By this treaty it was contracted that the three Allies should mutually exert themselves to procure satisfaction for the Emperor for the Spanish succession, and security for the peace and trade of the Allies. Two months were yet to be allowed for obtaining the objects by negotiation. If this failed, war was to be made to recover the Spanish Flanders, the kingdoms of Sicily, Naples, and the other Spanish territories in Italy; moreover, the States and England might seize and keep for themselves whatever they could of the colonial possessions of Spain. No peace was to be made by any one of the Allies until they had obtained security for the absolute separation of France and Spain, and that France should not hold the Spanish Indies. All kings, princes, and States were invited to enter the alliance, and tempting offers of advantages were made to induce them to do so. William had already secured the interest of Denmark, and the promises of Sweden; but the young King of Sweden, Charles XII., was too busily pursuing the war with Russia and Poland to lend any real service to this cause. At the very moment that the Allies were canvassing for confederates, this "Madman of the North," as he was called, gave the Czar Peter a most terrible overthrow at Narva on the 30th of November, 1700, killing thirty thousand of his men. Holstein and the Palatinate came into the treaty, and the news from Italy soon induced the German petty princes to profess their adhesion, especially the Electors of Bavaria and Cologne, who had received subsidies from France, and raised troops, with which they would have declared for Louis had not the victories of Prince Eugene swayed their mercenary minds the other way.

Several months before the signing of the treaty at the Hague, Eugene, at the head of the Emperor's troops in Italy, had opened the war. He had entered Italy at Vicenza, and passed the Adige near Carpi, where, being opposed by Catinat and the Duke of Savoy, he defeated them with considerable slaughter, and forced them to retire into Mantuan territory. Catinat and the French had excited the hatred of the peasantry by their insolence and oppressions, and they flew to arms and assisted Eugene, who was very popular with them, by harassing the outposts of the French, cutting off their foragers, and obstructing their supplies. Marshal Villeroi being sent to their aid, Catinat retired in disgust. Villeroi marched towards Chiari, and attacked Eugene in his camp, but was repulsed with the loss of five thousand men. By the end of the campaign the Prince had reduced all the Mantuan territory except Mantua itself and Goito, which he blockaded. He reduced all the places on the Oglio, and continued in the field all the winter, displaying a genius for war which greatly alarmed the king of France. He despatched fresh reinforcements to Piedmont under Marshal Vendôme, but he found the Duke of Savoy now cold and backward in assisting him. The duke had got all that he could look for from France; his second daughter was married to the new king of Spain, and, satisfied with that, he was by no means ambitious of French domination in his own territories.

On the other hand, France endeavoured to distract Austria by sowing insurrection in Hungary, and Louis's emissaries were busy all over Europe. He managed to make an alliance with Portugal, though the king himself was attached to the House of Austria, but was a weak prince, and was betrayed by his Ministers, who were corrupted by France. Meanwhile the English and Dutch fleets sailed in strong force along the coasts of Spain, to overawe the French, and another fleet was despatched to the West Indies, to be ready in case of hostilities. In Spain itself both people and nobles began to repent bitterly of their subjection to France. They felt greatly annoyed at the insolence of the king's French Ministers and attendants, who treated the highest grandees with very little consideration. The French dress was introduced into the Court, and French manners also, and a formal edict was issued, putting the French nobles on the same level with the proud hidalgoes of Spain. The finances of Spain were at the lowest ebb, the spirit of the nation was thoroughly demoralised, and the condition of France was very little better. These circumstances, being universally known, encouraged the Allies in their projects. Yet the Emperor, for whose cause the Alliance was ostensibly created, was almost equally poor. He had engaged to bring 90,000 troops into the field—66,000 infantry and 24,000 horse; yet he was compelled to negotiate a loan with Holland for 500,000 crowns. William, on his part, was to furnish 33,000 infantry and 7,000 horse; and the States-General 32,000 infantry and 20,000 horse.

THE PRETENDER PROCLAIMED KING OF ENGLAND BY ORDER OF LOUIS XIV. (See p. [529].)

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At this juncture James II. lay on his deathbed. Louis XIV. made three successive visits to the dying king; and this strange monarch—who had no feeling for human misery in the gross, who let loose his legions to lay waste happy human homes in all the countries round him, to ravage, massacre, and destroy the unoffending people by barbarities which must have instructed the very devils in cruelty—shed tears over the departure of this poor old man, whose life had been one vast miserable blunder, and whose death was the best thing that could happen to him. He promised the dying man that he would maintain the right of his son to the English crown as he had maintained his, though he had sworn at the treaty of Ryswick to do nothing to disturb the throne of William; and (September 16, 1701), as soon as the breath was out of James's body, he proclaimed the prince King of England by the title of James III. This title was acknowledged by the King of Spain, the Duke of Savoy, and the Pope. The moment William received the news of Louis having proclaimed James's son King of England, he despatched a messenger to inform the King of Sweden, who was guarantee of the peace of Ryswick, of this flagrant breach of it. He ordered the Earl of Manchester immediately to retire from Paris without taking leave, and Poussin, the Secretary of Tallard, to quit London. Louis pretended that his acknowledgment of the Prince of Wales was mere form; that he meant no infraction of the treaty, and might justly complain of William's declarations and preparations in favour of the Emperor. In fact, kings never want pleas when they have a purpose, however unwarrantable it may be. The people of England hastened to express their abhorrence of the perfidy of the French king. Addresses of resentment were poured in from London and from all parts of the kingdom, with declarations of a strong determination to defend the king and his crown against all pretenders or invaders.

William was impatient to be in London to make the necessary arrangements for a new Ministry and a new Parliament, and also for the war which was now inevitable. But he was detained by a severe illness; in fact, he was fast succumbing to the weakness of his constitution, and the ravages made on it by his stupendous exertions in the wars he had been constantly engaged in, and, still more, by the eternal war and harass of the unprincipled factions which raged around his island throne. He arrived in England on the 4th of November, where he found the two factions raging against each other with unabated rancour, and the public in a ferment of indignation at the proclamation of the king of the French acknowledging the Pretender, and still more at an edict which Louis had published on the 16th of September, prohibiting all trade with England, except in beer, cider, glass bottles, and wool, and the wearing of any article of English manufacture after the 1st of November next. William closeted himself with some of his Ministry who, he still hoped, might be disposed to different measures; but finding them still as determined as ever to pursue their former course and to insist on their impeachments, he dissolved Parliament on the 4th of November, and called a new one for the 31st of December.