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 though they were defeated in both battles. William was a fierce and dogged fighter, but he was not a first-rate general, and France still had the best of it when a sort of truce was concluded in 1697. Parliament, in which the Tories then had the upper hand, at once reduced the army to 7,000 men.

This was most foolish, as every one knew that old King Louis XIV was only preparing for a fresh war in order to put his own grandson on the throne of Spain, which fell vacant in 1700. The Austrians also claimed the Spanish crown, and it was the plain duty of England to help them. Many Englishmen, however, said, ‘No, let them fight it out. What does it matter to England?’ ‘This is what comes of your foreign king,’ and so on. William, foreigner as he was, knew better. The growing power of France threatened every nation in Europe. The time had gone by when England could afford to stand aside from the quarrels of her neighbours.

William might, however, have failed altogether to convince Englishmen of this if Louis had not made one great mistake. Old King James II died in 1701, and Louis at once recognized his son (the same Prince of Wales who was born in 1688) as ‘James III’. This was the same as dictating to Englishmen who should be their King; and the whole nation voted for war at once. William would have led it to battle as bravely as ever but for his death in 1702. His good wife, Mary, had died childless seven years before, and her sister Anne now became Queen. But Anne, too, was now childless, and so, to find an heir of the old royal blood who was also a Protestant, England would have to go back a long way, in fact to the descendants of James I. James I’s daughter, Elizabeth, had married a German