Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/198

184 of England. Whilst these things were acting, a member informed the house that the papists in the county of Limerick were forming themselves into bodies to maintain a correspondence with the disaffected in England and elsewhere. The house immediately resolved that the papists of Ireland were bent on bringing in the pretended prince of Wales under the name of James III.; and the anti-papal frenzy growing hourly more rampant, the lord-lieutenant suddenly prorogued parliament, to the great disgust of dominant protestantism.

It was proposed betwixt the emperor of Germany and the allies that the present campaign should be opened with a power and by measures which should go far to paralyse France. The archduke Charles, the emperor's second son, was to declare himself king of Spain, should propose for the hand of the infanta of Portugal, and should proceed to that country to prosecute his claims on Spain by the assistance of the English and Dutch fleets. Meantime the emperor promised to take the field with such a force as to drive the elector of Bavaria, the active and able ally of France, out of his dominions. But Louis, as usual, was too rapid in his movements for the slow Germans. He ordered marshal Villars, who lay with thirty thousand men at Strasburg, to pass the Rhine and advance into Bavaria to the support of the elector. Villars immediately crossed and reduced the fortress of Kehl, opposite to Strasburg, conducting the garrison to Philipsburg. The threatened danger roused the emperor, who ordered count Schlich to enter Bavaria by way of Saltzburg, and at the same time count Stirum to enter Bavaria by the way of Neumark. Schlich, in the execution of his orders, defeated the militia which protected the lines at Saltzburg, and took possession of Riedt and other places. Stirum also took Neumark and Amburg, routing the Bavarians at both places. The elector, however, assembling his forces near Brenau, deceived Schlich by feigning an intention to surprise Passau. Schlich advanced to defend Passau, and the elector, having thus accomplished his object, crossed the bridge of Scardingen and attacked Schlich, who had in his haste left his cavalry and artillery behind, and defeated him. He then marched against the Saxon troops which guarded the artillery, and put them to the rout. Following up his successes, he took Neuburg on the Inn, overthrew the imperialists under the prince of Brandenburg-Anspach, near Burgenfelt, and then advanced to Ratisbon, where the diet was sitting, and compelled them to open the city gates to him. There he engaged to leave the diet at their deliberations and quit the place, on condition of Ratisbon being declared neutral.

Villars, who should have reached and seconded the decisive actions of the elector of Bavaria, had not been so successful. He had first waited to be joined by count Tallard with another body of troops, and when this was effected, the combined host endeavoured to break through the lines of the prince of Baden at Stollhoffen. But the prince had, fortunately, been joined by eight Dutch battalions, and they repulsed the French with great loss, and Villars retreated towards Ollingen. Nevertheless, Villars eventually succeeded in joining the elector of Bavaria; and Stirum, who was endeavouring to reach the camp of the prince of Baden, was prevented, being attacked near Schwemmingen, and compelled to retire on Nortlingen.

The war was thus skilfully diverted by Louis from the Rhine into the very neighbourhood of the emperor. On the other hand, Marlborough, who was the soul of the war on the lower Rhine, had been detained by his exertions to counteract the efforts of Louis XIV. in another quarter. Insurrections had broken out amongst Louis's protestant subjects in the Cevennes, who had been barbarously oppressed. Marlborough, who cared more for the paralysing of Louis than for the interests of protestantism, strongly proposed in the council that assistance should be sent to the mountaineers of the Cevennes. This was fighting Louis with his own weapons, who was exciting insurrection in Hungary and Bohemia amongst the subjects of the emperor. Lord Nottingham and others of the council as strongly opposed this measure, on the principle of not exciting subjects against their legitimate sovereign; but Marlborough prevailed. Arms and ammunition were forwarded to the Cevennes, and direct communications were ordered to be opened with the insurgents, which would have compelled Louis to detain a large force for the subjugation of these rebels, which otherwise would have gone to the Rhine; but these aids never reached the unfortunate Cevennes.

Marlborough reached the Hague on the 17th of March, much earlier still than William used to arrive there. Nor had the war paused for his arrival. He had stimulated the Prussians to be in action much earlier. In February they had reduced the fortress of the Rhineberg, and then proceeded to blockade Guelders, the last place in the power of France on the frontiers of Spanish Guelderland. It was fortunate, for the unity of command, that Athlone and Saarbruck, Marlborough's jealous rivals, were both dead; so that now Marlborough had only the Dutch camp deputies as clogs on his movements, but they were quite sufficient often to neutralise his most spirited projects. He found Villeroi and Boufflers posted on the frontiers of the Spanish Netherlands, and his design was to attack and drive them out of Flanders and Brabant. But here, in the very commencement, he was obliged by the States-General to give up his own views to theirs. They desired an immediate attack on Bonn, persuading themselves that the elector of Cologne would rather capitulate than risk the ruin of the town. Marlborough went reluctantly but not inertly into this plan, foreseeing that it would waste a great deal of precious time, and prevent his falling on Villeroi and Boufflers at the right moment, when the attempt to support the elector of Bavaria had drawn many of their forces away into Germany. He was the more chagrined the more he saw of the want of energy in the allies. He proceeded to Nimeguen to arrange with Cohorn the plan of the siege of Bonn. He visited and inspected the garrisons at Venloo, Ruremond, Maestricht, and the other places which he took the last campaign on the Meuse. Arriving before Cologne, he found preparations were making for a siege, but in a most negligent manner; and Cohorn especially excited his disgust by coolly proposing to defer the siege of this place till the end of summer. But Marlborough knew too well the necessity of preventing an attack from that quarter; ordered the place to be invested, and then marched on Bonn with forty battalions, sixty squadrons, and a hundred pieces of artillery. The trenches were opened on the 3rd of May,