Such was the alarm in London owing to these circumstances that there was a heavy run on the Bank, increased to the utmost by all who were disaffected to the Government. The Commons also suspended the Habeas Corpus Act, and the country was alive with military preparations.

The Allies and France prepared for a vigorous campaign in the Netherlands. Notwithstanding the low state of Louis XIV.'s funds and a series of severe disasters which had attended his arms, he put forth wonderful energies for the maintenance of his designs. He assembled at least one hundred thousand men in the Netherlands, under the command of the Duke of Burgundy, the Duke of Vendôme, the Duke of Berwick—who had been so suddenly called from Spain—Marshal Boufflers, and the Old Pretender, who sought here to learn martial skill, which he might employ in attempting to regain his crown. On the other hand, Marlborough went to the Hague towards the end of March, where he was met by Prince Eugene, and the plan of the campaign was concerted between them, the Pensionary Heinsius, and the States-General. Eugene then returned to Vienna to bring up reinforcements, and Marlborough proceeded to Flanders to assemble the army, and be in readiness for the junction of Eugene. Before Eugene and Marlborough parted, however, they had gone together to Hanover, and persuaded the Elector to be contented with merely acting on the defensive, so that he might spare a part of his forces for the projected operations in Flanders. His son, the Electoral Prince—afterwards George II. of England—took a command of cavalry in the Imperial army under Marlborough.

SARAH DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. (After the Portrait by Sir Peter Lely.)

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The Duke of Vendôme, on the 25th of May, posted his army at Soignies, whilst Marlborough was encamped at Billinghen and Halle, only three leagues distant. The French then moved towards Braine-la-Leuvre, and Marlborough, supposing that they meant to occupy the banks of the Dyle and cut him off from Louvain, made a rapid night march, and on the 3rd of June was at Terbank, Overkirk occupying the suburbs of Louvain. There, as the Allies were yet far inferior in numbers, they imagined the French would give them battle; but such were not the French plans. They had advanced only to Genappe and Braine-la-Leuvre, and now sought by stratagem to regain the towns they had lost in Flanders. They knew that the Allies had drawn out all their forces, and that few of these towns had any competent garrisons. The inhabitants of many of these places had a leaning to France, from the heavy exactions of the Dutch, and the popularity of the Elector of Bavaria and the Count de Bergeyck, who was a warm adherent of the Bourbons. The French, therefore, resolving to profit by these circumstances, despatched troops to Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres, and were soon admitted to these places. They next invested Oudenarde; but Marlborough, being now joined by Eugene, made a rapid march to that town, and took up a strong position before it. The French, however, unwilling to come to an engagement, passed the Scheldt, and attempted to defeat the Allies by attacking them whilst they were in the act of passing it after them. The Allies, however, effected their transit, and came to an engagement with the enemy between the Scheldt and the Lys on the 11th of July. The French amounted to one hundred thousand, the Allies to little more than eighty thousand. The latter, however, had this great advantage—that the commanders of the Allies were united, those of the French were of contrary views. The Duke of Vendôme was prevented from attacking the Allies during their passage of the river by the remissness of the Duke of Burgundy. When it was already three o'clock in the afternoon, and the Allies were safe over, then Burgundy was eager for an attack, and the Duke of Vendôme as averse from it, the proper opportunity having been lost. The wiser general was eventually overruled, and Major-General Grimaldi was ordered to attack Count Rantzau, who was posted on a marshy plain near the village of Eyne, with a muddy rivulet in front of him, with the king's Household Troops. But these troops, when they saw the nature of the rivulet, would not charge, and filed off to the right. Rantzau then crossed the rivulet himself, and, whilst General Cadogan assaulted the village of Eyne, attacked and drove before him several squadrons of the enemy. In this attack the Electoral Prince of Hanover greatly distinguished himself by his gallant charge at the head of Bülow's dragoons. He had his horse killed under him, and Colonel Laschky killed at his side. Several French regiments were completely broken, and many officers and standards were taken by the Hanoverians. The general engagement, however, did not take place till about five o'clock, when the Duke of Argyll came up with the infantry. Overkirk and Tilly, who led on the left of the Allies, were the first to make the French give way, when they were attacked in flank by the Dutch infantry under the Prince of Orange and Count Oxenstjerna, and completely routed their right. After that the whole line gave way. In vain Vendôme exerted himself to check their flight and reform them; they fled in wild confusion along the road from Oudenarde towards Ghent, and Vendôme could do nothing but protect their rear. Their greatest protector, however, was the night, which stopped the pursuit of the Allies. As soon as it was light the pursuit was resumed; but this was checked by the French grenadiers, who were posted behind the hedges that skirted the road, and the French army reached Ghent at eight in the morning, and encamped on the canal on the other side of the city at Lovendegen, after one of the most thorough defeats that they had ever sustained. They lost three thousand men, were deserted by two thousand more, and had seven thousand taken, besides ten pieces of cannon, more than a hundred colours and standards, and four thousand horses. The loss of the Allies was not inconsiderable, amounting to nearly two thousand men.

After resting a couple of days on the field of battle, a detachment was sent to level the French lines between Ypres and the Lys; another to lay the country under contributions as far as Arras, which ravaged the country and greatly alarmed Paris itself by carrying the war into France. This alarm was heightened by the Allies next advancing upon the city of Lille, which was considered the key to Paris and to half of France. Lille was very strongly defended by batteries and entrenchments, and by a garrison of twenty-one battalions of the best troops in France, commanded by Boufflers. This daring act combined all the skill and chief leaders on each side for the attack or the defence. The Dukes of Burgundy, Vendôme, and Berwick hastened to the relief of the place. Marlborough, Eugene, the Prince of Orange, Augustus, King of Poland, and the Landgrave of Hesse, were engaged in the siege. All the art and valour on both sides were put forth. The French endeavoured to cut off the supplies of the Allies coming from Ostend; but Major-General Webbe, who guarded these supplies with a body of six thousand men, defeated an attacking party of twenty-two thousand French under the Count de la Motte, near Wynendale, killing six thousand of them, and accomplishing one of the most brilliant exploits of the whole war. After a stubborn and destructive defence Boufflers capitulated for the town on the 22nd of October, but contrived to hold the citadel till the 9th of December.

Lille, important as it was, was not won, it is said, without a loss of at least twelve thousand of the Allies, whilst Boufflers was reckoned to have lost half his garrison. During the siege Eugene had to hasten to the rescue of Brussels. After the fall of Lille the Allies reduced Ghent, Bruges, and all the towns they had lost; and the French, greatly humiliated, abandoned Flanders, and retired into their own territories, the French Court being filled with consternation at these terrible reverses. The Duke of Berwick was highly incensed at the management of the campaign by Vendôme and Burgundy. He states that during the siege of Lille Marlborough, through him, made propositions for peace, which were, however, haughtily rejected by the not yet sufficiently humbled Louis. Marlborough would probably have been glad to have procured peace now, that he might watch the critical state of affairs at home, where Harley and Mrs. Masham were steadily driving their mines beneath the feet of the Whigs, and where the whole body of Tories were constantly endeavouring to misrepresent his proceedings in the war, continually prognosticating defeats from alleged blunders, which, nevertheless, were as regularly refuted by the most brilliant successes.

The campaign in Catalonia had begun in favour of the French, but there, too, had ended decidedly in favour of the Allies. There the Earl of Galway was superseded by General Stanhope, an able and active officer; and Count Stahremberg, the Imperial general, was a man of like stamp. But before the Imperial troops had arrived in the English fleet commanded by Sir John Leake, the Duke of Orleans had besieged and taken Tortosa and Denia, the garrison of the latter place being detained prisoners, contrary to the articles of capitulation. No sooner, however, did Generals Stanhope and Stahremberg get into the scene of action than they put a stop to the progress of the French, and maintained the rest of the province intact. They soon, moreover, planned a striking enterprise. Sir John Leake carried over to Sardinia a small body of troops under the command of the Marquis D'Alconzel, assaulted and took Cagliari, and received the submission of the whole island, which acknowledged King Charles, and sent a very timely supply of thirty thousand sacks of corn to the army in Catalonia, where it was extremely needed. General Stanhope then, with the consent of Count Stahremberg, set sail for Minorca with a few battalions of Spaniards, Italians, and Portuguese, accompanied by a fine train of British artillery directed by Brigadier Wade and Colonel Petit. They landed on the 26th of August at Port Mahon, and invested St. Philip, its chief fortress. They so disposed their forces that the garrison, which consisted only of one thousand Spaniards and six hundred French marines, under Colonel Jonquiere, imagined that there were at least twenty thousand invaders, and, in consequence, surrendered after some sharp fighting, in which Brigadier Wade, at the head of a party of grenadiers, stormed a redoubt with such fury as amazed the garrison. On the 30th of September not only Port Mahon but the whole island was in the hands of the English, the garrison of Port Fornelles having also submitted to the attack of Admirals Leake and Whitaker. The inhabitants were delighted with the change, King Philip having so heavily oppressed them and deprived them of their privileges.

On the 28th of October the Prince of Denmark, the husband of the queen, died at Kensington Palace, in his fifty-fifth year. George of Denmark was a man not destitute of sense, but of no distinguished ability. He was a good-natured bon-vivant, who was, however, fond of the queen, who was very much attached to him. They lived together in great harmony and affection, having no jars or jealousies. They had several children, who all died early, their son, the Duke of Gloucester, arriving at the greatest age. Anne was supposed to have a strong conviction that the death of all her children was a judgment on her for her desertion of her father and the repudiation of her brother the Prince of Wales, whom, though she was the first to brand as a supposititious child, she came to recognise as her own brother.