Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/101

], was passed, and preparations began for carrying the scheme into effect; but as the expedition did not sail till 1698, we have here only to note a transaction which led eventually to much misery. Parliament granted some indulgence to the episcopalians, by which seventy of their clergy retained their livings, and voted a hundred and twenty thousand pounds for the services of the state.

In Ireland there was also a parliamentary session held under the lord-deputy, Capel, in which the protestant ascendancy was most fully and tyrannically established. They voted one hundred and sixty-three thousand three hundred and twenty-five pounds for the English service, and passed an act annulling all attainders and other acts passed in the late parliament of James. They passed another act disowning all papists; one to forbid the catholics sending their children abroad to be educated; and another for settling the estates of intestates. These were but the beginning of a long series of acts which were passed betwixt this time and the third year of queen Anne, by which the unfortunate Irish were as completely ground to the dust and converted into slaves, as if they had been Russian subjects. And all this time the Toleration Act was in pretended force.

At the moment that William was about to set out for the continent, a most determined plot for his assassination was discovered; but as the conspirators were not brought to trial till the following year, we defer notice of it till then.

William embarked on the 12th of May for Holland. Before going he had appointed as lords-justices to carry on the government in his absence—archbishop Tennison; Somers, keeper of the great seal; Pembroke, keeper of the privy seal; Devonshire, the lord steward; Dorset, the lord chamberlain; Shrewsbury, the secretary of state; and Godolphin, first lord of the treasury. There had also been a formal reconciliation betwixt him and the princess Anne. Marlborough and his wife were now all anxiety for this reconciliation. The queen being gone, and William, from his infirmities, not being calculated on for a long life, Marlborough saw Anne at once brought many degrees nearer the throne. Instead of James ever returning, the crafty Marlborough felt sure that, even if William did not succeed in retaining his popularity, any change would seat, not James, but Anne on the throne. It was his interest, therefore, to promote by all means Anne's chance of succession, because, once on the throne, he felt that he should be the ruling power. Anne was, therefore, induced by him and his countess to write a conciliatory letter to William, proposing to wait on him and endeavour to console him in his distress. This had not been effected without some difficulty and delay, but, when once effected, William received the princess very cordially; gave her the greater part of the late queen's jewels, restored all her honours, her name was once more united in the prayers for the royal family, and the foreign ambassadors presented themselves at her house. In one thing, however, Marlborough was disappointed. William did not appoint Anne regent during his absence, as he had hoped, because he knew that that would be the same thing as to make Marlborough viceroy. The king still retained his dislike to the Marlboroughs, and though he permitted them to reside again under the same roof with the princess, he refused for some time to admit Marlborough to kiss his hand in the circle at Kensington, and offered him no renewal of his offices and command.

William entered on the campaign of 1695 under unusual advantages. Louis of France had reduced his country to such distress that he was now obliged to stand on the defensive. The people were loud in their complaints all over France of the merciless exactions for the continuance of the war. They were actually perishing of famine. Barbessieux, the minister, was not able to devise resources like the able Louvois, who was gone; and now Louis had lost by death the great marshal, Luxembourg, who had won for him almost all his martial renown. The forces in Flanders, deprived of their heroic and experienced head, were badly supplied with provisions, badly recruited, and to make all worse, Louis, as he had chosen his prime minister, now selected his general—not from the men of real military talent, but from a courtier and man of pleasure—Villeroi. He was a tall, handsome man, much admired by the ladies, and a reckless gambler, but totally unfit to cope with William in the field. Boufflers was still at the head of a division of the array, but under Villeroi.

Louis was apprehensive that the allies would make a push at Dunkirk. He therefore ordered a new line to be drawn betwixt the Lys and the Scheldt, and every means to be taken to cover Dunkirk, Ypres, Tournai, and Namur. William arrived in the camp of the allies on the 5th of July, and immediately marched against Villeroi, who retired behind his lines betwixt Ypres and Menin. He, however, detached ten thousand men to support Boufflers, who had advanced as far as Pont d'Espières. William then sent forward the elector of Bavaria to confront Boufflers, who also retired behind his lines, and the elector passed the Scheldt, and posted himself at Kirk. William, having thus driven the French to the frontiers of Flanders, then dispatched the baron Von Heyden from the camp of the elector of Bavaria, along with Ginckel, to invest Namur. At the same time, leaving Vaudemont to confront the army of Villeroi on the border of Flanders, William suddenly marched also for Namur, the Brandenburgers having orders to advance from another quarter. William's hope was, by this ably-concerted plan, completely to invest Namur before any fresh troops could be poured into it; but Boufflers, perceiving his design, managed to throw himself into the city with seven regiments of dragoons, by which the garrison was raised to fifteen thousand men. Immediately on the heels of Boufflers arrived William and the elector, and encamped on both sides of the Sambre and Meuse, thus investing the whole place.

They began to throw up their entrenchments on the 6th of July, under the direction of the celebrated engineer, Cohorn. The city had always been strong; it had been of late years made much stronger by Cohorn, and since then the French had added to its defences. Its castle was deemed impregnable; the town was full of provisions and of brave soldiers, and it was regarded as a somewhat rash act in William to attempt so formidable a fortress, with the chance of being taken in the rear by Villeroi at the head of eighty thousand men. The moment that Villeroi saw the object of William he began to put himself in motion to attack Vaudemont, and, having beaten him, to advance on Namur.