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 Until 1688 his heir had been his eldest daughter, the good and beloved Princess Mary, who had been married in 1677 to her Dutch cousin, Prince William of Orange, who was now the leader of Protestant (and much of Catholic) Europe against the King of France. Most Englishmen were content to wait till James should die; then this darling Protestant girl would be their queen. But in June, 1688, James had a son born to him, who would, of course, be brought up as a Papist. The whole nation shivered at the prospect; its leaders, Whig and moderate Tory alike, would wait no longer, and a secret message was at once dispatched to Prince William, begging him to come over to England, either to turn out King James or to teach him by force (for nothing but force would ever convince such a character) to govern better.

Prince William of Orange was the son of Charles I’s daughter Mary. He was a frail little creature, nearly always ill, with an enormous hook-nose and cold grey eyes, which only lighted up in battle. His manners were also cold and unkind; but underneath all he had a soul of fire. He cared for but one thing on earth, to smash King Louis of France. He saw that rich England had been, since Cromwell's time, too much the ally of France, too much the enemy of Holland. He thought she had played false to Protestantism. If he came to England to deliver it from King James, he meant afterwards to throw the whole weight and wealth of England into the alliances which he was for ever knitting together against his hated enemy, France. For English ‘politics’ and the English Constitution, for the squabble of Whigs and Tories in the English Parliament, he cared nothing at all. But he was the husband of the heiress of England, and here was his chance of power.