CONTENTS
| CHAPTER I | |
| 1650-1672 | |
| Birth, ancestry, and early years—State of Dutch parties—William's boyhood—His character and ambitions—Hostility of De Witt and his partisans—Visit to England—Outbreak of the War of 1672 | [Page 1] |
| CHAPTER II | |
| 1672-1678 | |
| William elected Stadtholder of Holland—Murder of the De Witts—Campaign of 1672-3—Successes of the Prince—Declared hereditary Stadtholder—Progress of the French arms—Marriage with Mary—Negotiations of Nimeguen—Conclusion of the Peace—Battle of St. Denis | [9] |
| CHAPTER III | |
| 1678-1688 | |
| An interval of repose—Revival of continental troubles—Death of Charles II.—Expedition of Monmouth—Mission of Dykvelt—James's growing unpopularity—Invitation to William—Attempted intervention by France—William's declaration—He sets sail, and is driven back by storm—Second expedition and landing | [17] |
| CHAPTER IV | |
| 1688 | |
| Advance to Exeter—Measures of James—Council of the Lords—Their proposals—The King goes to Salisbury—Defection of Churchill—James returns to London—Negotiation—Attempted flight of James—His arrest—Advance of William—Entry of Dutch troops into London—Actual flight of James | [30] |
| CHAPTER V | |
| 1688-1689 | |
| Characteristics of the English Revolution—Views of the various parties—The Convention—Proposal to declare the throne vacant—The Regency question—The resolution of the Commons—Amendment of the Lords—The crisis—Attitude of Mary—Announcement of William—Resolution passed—Declaration of Right—Tender of the Crown | [39] |
| CHAPTER VI | |
| 1689 | |
| William's part in the Revolution—Convention declared a Parliament—Oath of Allegiance—Settlement of Civil List—Appropriation Clause—Toleration and Comprehension—Address of the Commons inviting the King to declare war | [56] |
| CHAPTER VII | |
| 1689-1690 | |
| Invasion of Ireland—Campaign of 1689—Parliamentary strife—The conduct of the war—The Oates Case—The Succession Bill—Attempts to pass an Indemnity Bill—Rancour of the Whigs— Their factious opposition to William's Irish plans—Dissolution of Parliament | [67] |
| CHAPTER VIII | |
| 1690-1691 | |
| Parliament of 1690—Tory majority—Settlement of the royal income—Case of the Princess Anne—The "Act of Grace"—Detection of Preston's conspiracy—William's departure for Ireland—Battle of the Boyne—Battle off Beachy Head—Marlborough's Irish campaign—William's departure for the Hague | [79] |
| CHAPTER IX | |
| 1691-1692 | |
| Campaign of 1691 in the Netherlands—Fall of Mons—Disaffection of William's councillors—Conclusion of year's campaign—Disgrace and dismissal of Marlborough—Massacre of Glencoe | [93] |
| CHAPTER X | |
| 1692-1693 | |
| Gloomy European prospects—Campaign of 1692 in the Netherlands—Defeat of Steinkirk—Attempt of Grandval—Session of 1692—Place Bill and Triennial Bill—Campaign of 1693—William outwitted by Luxembourg—Defeat of Landen—Session of 1693-94—Louis's overtures of peace | [104] |
| CHAPTER XI | |
| 1693-1694 | |
| Formation of the first party Ministry—Reintroduction of the Triennial Bill and its defeat—Of the Place Bill and its veto—Causes of the disallowance—Macaulay's account examined—Campaign of 1694—Death of Mary | [119] |
| CHAPTER XII | |
| 1695-1697 | |
| Campaign of 1695—Capture of Namur by the allies—Dissolution of Parliament—William's "progress"—The elections—New Parliament—Grants to Portland—The Assassination Plot—Campaign of 1696—Fenwick's conspiracy—Negotiations with France—Peace of Ryswick | [135] |
| CHAPTER XIII | |
| 1698-1699 | |
| Portland's embassy—His life in Paris—The question of the Spanish Succession—The First Partition Treaty—General election and meeting of the new Parliament—Its temper—Opposition to William's military policy—Reduction of the army | [156] |
| CHAPTER XIV | |
| 1699-1700 | |
| Death of the Electoral Prince of Bavaria—Renewed negotiations—Second Partition Treaty—The Irish forfeitures—The Resumption Bill—Will and death of the King of Spain | [171] |
| CHAPTER XV | |
| 1701-1702 | |
| English indifference on the Spanish Question—Death of James II. and Louis's recognition of the Pretender—Reaction in England—Dissolution of Parliament—Support of William's policy by its successor—The Treaties—Accident to William—His illness and death—Character—The Whig legend examined—His great qualities as man and ruler—Our debt to him | [189] |
CHAPTER I
1650-1672
Birth, ancestry, and early years—State of Dutch parties—William's boyhood—His character and ambitions—Hostility of De Witt and his partisans—Visit to England—Outbreak of the War of 1672.
William Henry, Prince of Orange and Count of Nassau, a ruler destined to play a greater part in shaping the destinies of modern England than any of her native sovereigns, was born at the Hague on the 4th of November 1650. By blood and ancestral tradition he was well fitted for the work to which he was to be called. The descendant of a line of statesmen and warriors, the scion of a house which more than a century before had been associated with the most heroic struggle for national freedom that history records, he could hardly have added stronger hereditary to the great personal qualifications for the enterprises reserved for him. His family was one of the most ancient in Europe—reaching back, indeed, for its origin into the regions of fable. "I will not take upon me," says an English biographer, writing shortly after his hero's death, "to extend the Antiquity of the House of Nassau as far as the time of Julius Cæsar, though that Emperor in his first book of Commentaries, De Bello Gallico, says that one Nassau, with his brother Cimberius, led a body of Germans out of Suabia and settled upon the banks of the Rhine near Treves, which is the more observable by reason of the Affinity of the Words, which differ only in the Transposition of one Letter; but I doubt 'tis rather Presumption than Truth for any one to affirm that there is an Estate upon that very Spot of Ground mentioned by Cæsar which belongs to the Nassovian Family to this Day." Without insisting on so very ancient and remote an origin as this, we may take it as certain that the House of Nassau had been established in Europe for some thousand years at the birth of William. As early as in the thirteenth century it was honoured with the imperial dignity in the person of Adolph of Nassau. The title and domains of Orange were added to the family in the sixteenth century by the marriage of Claude de Chalons, sister and heiress of the then Prince of Orange, with Henry of Nassau, from whose son Réné the principality passed by testamentary bequest to the great Stadtholder of Holland, William, surnamed the Silent, the illustrious liberator of the United Provinces from the yoke of Spain. The acquisition of this petty principality—only twelve miles in length by nine in breadth—was by no means the matter of trivial importance which its territorial dimensions might imply. Its situation in the very heart of the dominions of France, the incidents attaching to that situation and the consequences flowing from it, contributed in their degree to that complex system of forces by which the course of history is determined. To William I. succeeded his son Maurice, the bearer of a name also memorable in the history of the States, a greater soldier and a statesman of scarcely less ability than his father, though of a far more chequered fame. Under Maurice the power of the Stadtholder or Governor was, in spite of the jealousy with which it was regarded by the burgher party, considerably advanced, and he was not without reason suspected of the design of making himself an absolute ruler. Dying without issue, he was succeeded by his brother Frederick Henry, another renowned captain, under whom the long struggle with Spain was at last brought to a close by the renunciation, in the Treaty of Westphalia, of the Spanish claim upon the United Provinces. William II., the son of Frederick Henry, was born in 1626, and succeeded his father at the age of twenty-one. Endowed with all the restless activity and ambition of his uncle, he attempted, in prosecution of the same monarchical designs as that prince, to seize the city of Amsterdam by a coup de main. The project, however, was defeated, and William, after a troubled reign of only four years, was fatally attacked by the smallpox, and died on the 27th of October 1650, leaving no issue. Eight days after his death, however, his widow, Mary, daughter of Charles I., gave premature birth to the son whose career it is in these pages proposed to trace.