[133] Mazure, iii. 50. James was so much out of humour at D'Avaux's interference, that he asked his confidents, "if the King of France thought he could treat him like the cardinal of Furstenburg," a creature of Louis XIV. whom he had set up for the electorate of Cologne. Id. 69. He was in short so much displeased with his own ambassador at the Hague, Skelton, for giving into his declaration of D'Avaux, that he not only recalled but sent him to the Tower. Burnet is therefore mistaken (p. 768) in believing that there was actually an alliance, though it was very natural that he should give credit to what an ambassador asserted in a matter of such importance. In fact, a treaty was signed between James and Louis, Sept. 13, by which some French ships were to be under the former's orders. Mazure, iii. 67.
[134] Louis continued to find money, though despising James and disgusted with him, probably with a view to his own grand interests. He should, nevertheless, have declared war against Holland in October, which must have put a stop to the armament. But he had discovered that James with extreme meanness had privately offered, about the end of September, to join the alliance against him as the only resource. This wretched action is first brought to light by M. Mazure, iii. 104. He excused himself to the King of France by an assurance that he was not acting sincerely towards Holland. Louis, though he gave up his intention of declaring war, behaved with great magnanimity and compassion towards the falling bigot.
[135] Halifax all along discouraged the invasion, pointing out that the king made no progress in his schemes. Dalrymple, passim. Nottingham said he would keep the secret, but could not be a party to a treasonable undertaking. Id. 228; Burnet, 764; and wrote as late as July to advise delay and caution. Notwithstanding the splendid success of the opposite counsels, it would be judging too servilely by the event not to admit that they were tremendously hazardous.
[136] The invitation to William seems to have been in debate some time before the Prince of Wales's birth; but it does not follow that it would have been despatched if the queen had borne a daughter; nor do I think that it should have been.
[137] Ralph, 980; Mazure, ii. 367.
[138] Dalrymple, 216, 228. The prince was urged in the memorial of the seven to declare the fraud of the queen's pregnancy to be one of the grounds of his expedition. He did this: and it is the only part of his declaration that is false.
[139] State Trials, xii. 151. Mary put some very sensible questions to her sister, which show her desire of reaching the truth in so important a matter. They were answered in a style which shows that Anne did not mean to lessen her sister's suspicions. Dalrymple, 305. Her conversation with Lord Clarendon on this subject, after the depositions had been taken, is a proof that she had made up her mind not to be convinced. Henry Earl of Clarendon's Diary, 77, 79; State Trials, ubi supra.
[140] M. Mazure has collected all the passages in the letters of Barillon and Bonrepos to the court of France relative to the queen's pregnancy (ii. 366); and those relative to the birth of the Prince of Wales. P. 547. It is to be observed that this took place more than a month before the time expected.
[141] Montesquieu.
[142] Some short pamphlets, written at this juncture to excite sympathy for the king, and disapprobation of the course pursued with respect to him, are in the Somers Collection, vol. ix. But this force put upon their sovereign first wounded the consciences of Sancroft and the other bishops, who had hitherto done as much as in their station they well could to ruin the king's cause and paralyse his arms. Several modern writers have endeavoured to throw an interest about James at the moment of his fall, either from a lurking predilection for all legitimately crowned heads, or from a notion that it becomes a generous historian to excite compassion for the unfortunate. There can be no objection to pitying James, if this feeling is kept unmingled with any blame of those who were the instruments of this misfortune. It was highly expedient for the good of this country, because the revolution settlement could not otherwise be attained, to work on James's sense of his deserted state by intimidation; and for that purpose the order conveyed by three of his own subjects, perhaps with some rudeness of manner, to leave Whitehall was necessary. The drift of several accounts of the revolution that may be read is to hold forth Mulgrave, Craven, Arran, and Dundee to admiration, at the expense of William and of those who achieved the great consolidation of English liberty.