AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.
The affairs of Ireland were not a little embarrassed by the conduct of the trustees appointed to take cognizance of the forfeited estates. Their office was extremely odious to the people as well as to the court, and their deportment was arbitrary and imperious. Several individuals of that kingdom, provoked by the insolence of the trustees on one hand, and encouraged by the countenance of the courtiers on the other, endeavoured by a circular letter to spirit up the grand jury of Ireland against the act of resumption: petitions were presented to the king, couched in very strong terms, affirming that it was injurious to the protestant interest, and had been obtained by gross misinformations. The king having communicated these addresses to the house, they were immediately voted scandalous, false, and groundless; and the commons resolved, That notwithstanding the complaints and clamours against the trustees, it did not appear to the house but those complaints were groundless; nevertheless they afterwards received several petitions imploring relief against the said act; and they ordered that the petitioners should be relieved accordingly. Proposals were delivered in for incorporating such as should purchase the said forfeitures, on certain terms therein specified, according to the rent-roll, when verified and made good to the purchasers; but whereas in this rent-roll the value of the estates had been estimated at something more than seven hundred and sixteen thousand pounds, those who undertook to make the purchase affirmed they were not worth five hundred thousand pounds; and thus the affair remained in suspense.
THE KING RECOMMENDS AN UNION.
With respect to Scotland, the clamours of that kingdom had not yet subsided. When the bill of abjuration passed in the house of peers, the earl of Nottingham had declared that although he differed in opinion from the majority in many particulars relating to that bill, yet he was a friend to the design of it; and in order to secure a protestant succession, he thought an union of the whole island was absolutely necessary. He therefore moved for an address to the king that he would dissolve the parliament of Scotland now sitting, as the legality of it might be called in question, on account of its having been originally a convention; and that a new parliament should be summoned that they might treat about an union of the two kingdoms. The king had this affair so much to heart, that even when he was disabled from going to the parliament in person, he sent a letter to the commons expressing an eager desire that a treaty for this purpose might be set on foot, and earnestly recommending this affair to the consideration of the house; but as a new parliament in Scotland could not be called without a great risk, while the nation was in such a ferment, the project was postponed to a more favourable opportunity.
HE FALLS FROM HIS HORSE.
Before the king’s return from Holland, he had concerted with his allies the operations of the ensuing campaign. He had engaged in a negotiation with the prince of Hesse D’Armstadt, who assured him that if he would besiege and take Cadiz, the admiral of Castile, and divers other grandees of Spain, would declare for the house of Austria. The allies had also determined upon the siege of Keyserswaert, which the elector of Cologn had delivered into the hands of the French; the elector of Hanover had resolved to disarm the princes of Wolfenbuttle; the king of the Romans, and prince Louis of Baden, undertook to invest Landau; and the emperor promised to send a powerful reinforcement to prince Eugene in Italy; but William did not live to see these schemes put in execution. His constitution was by this time almost exhausted, though he endeavoured to conceal the effects of his malady, and to repair his health by exercise. On the twenty-first day of February, in riding to Hampton-court from Kensington, his horse fell under him, and he himself was thrown upon the ground with such violence as produced a fracture in his collar-bone. His attendants conveyed him to the palace of Hampton-court, where the fracture was reduced by Ronjat, his sergeant-surgeon. In the evening he returned to Kensington in his coach, and the two ends of the fractured bone having been disunited by the jolting of the carriage, were replaced under the inspection of Bidloo, his physician. He seemed to be in a fair way of recovering till the first day of March, when his knee appeared to be inflamed, with great pain and weakness. Next day he granted a commission under the great seal to several peers, for passing the bills to which both houses of parliament had agreed; namely, the act of attainder against the pretended prince of Wales, and another in favour of the quakers, enacting, That their solemn affirmation and declaration should be accepted instead of an oath in the usual form.
WILLIAM, 1688-1701.