Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/59

A.D. 1691.] dependence for the defeat of the great continental enemy. On the 26th of January he made his triumphant entry into the Hague.

The immense popularity of William as manifested on this occasion was a lesson to the English nobles, who were sensible of the cold and grudging respect in which William was held in England as a foreigner, notwithstanding the vast service he had rendered the country in ridding it of the incorrigible dynasty of the Stuarts, and establishing its liberties on a new and solid basis. The enormous crowds who had flocked into the Hague from all the great towns, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Haarlem, Leyden, Delft, and other places, including all that was distinguished in the country; the dense masses deafening them with continued acclamations as the procession passed, attended by all the authorities in their robes, and by sixteen hundred armed burghers in their most costly dresses; the festal array of the city, gay with triumphal arches bearing significant mottos; the most glowing tapestry suspended from windows and balconies, and endless wreaths and festoons of evergreens — bore enthusiastic testimony to the unbounded joy of the Dutch in seeing their great stadtholder once more amongst them. Large pictures represented the glorious actions of his ancestors and himself in defence of their country, and the increase of their renown; every window was crowded, and the fairest faces in Holland were flushed with the ardour of welcome. As the evening closed in, fireworks set the city aglow. The English nobles remarked on his wonderful popularity, and William gave them another lesson:—"Yes," said he, "but I am not the favourite. The shouting was nothing to what it would have been had Mary been with me." The meaning must have been felt. Mary was a foreigner there, yet the hearts of the Dutch were not cold to her on that account, as the English ones were to him.

A splendid assembly of his princely allies or their ambassadors were waiting to welcome him home, and to proceed to the business of the congress. Amongst these were the electors of Bavaria and Brandenburg the landgrave of Hesse Cassel, the duke of Zell and Wolfenbuttel, prince Christian Louis of Brandenburg; prince Waldeck, the prince of Nassau, statdholder of Friesland; the princes of Nassau-Sarbruck, Nassau-Dillenburg, and Nassau Idstein; the duke administrator of Würtemberg; the prince of Würtemberg; the two princes of Anspach; the landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, and his brother, the duke of Saxe-Eisenach; prince Philip, palatine; the duke of Zulsbach, the duke of Courland; the prince of Anhalt-Zeerborst, the landgrave of Homberg, three princes of Holstein-Beck; the duke of Holstein; the prince of Commerci; the prince palatine of Birkenfeldt; the princess of Nassau-Friesland, the princess of Radzevill, the countess of Soissons, and other ladies of princely families.

William, getting away from the noise and turbulence of mere congratulation, hastened to meet his allies, and take measures for future action. Though he had been achieving a great triumph, for which his people hailed him as "William the Conqueror," and winning great laurels in Ireland, all these princes, dukes, and electors of sounding title had done almost worse than nothing in the defence of Germany and Holland. Prince Waldeck had suffered a grave defeat at Fleurus, and Louis was still menacing with a large army not only Holland but Germany. William did not hesitate to tell the assembled princes plainly of their errors and defects. He asserted that their present difficulties were proof enough of them. Their failure, he assured them, arose from their party feuds and jealousies; that unless they could bring themselves to forget their particular interests in the general interest, and to combine heartily, promptly, and continuously, they must remain weak and at the mercy of France; that their general interest was the true interest of every individual; that whilst they were disunited, and consequently slow and uncertain in their movements, France had but one will, and struck blows rapid and decisive. Their frontier fortresses were nearly all in the hands of the French, who would very soon possess themselves of the remainder unless they combined as one man. For his own part, he pledged himself to come over at spring at the head of a powerful English army, and would spare neither money nor exertion to arrest the conquests of Louis, and pluck the liberties of Europe from his grasp.

William's spirit and sound sense seemed to reanimate the drooping energies of the allies. The quota of troops to be furnished by every prince was determined; it was agreed to bring two hundred and twenty thousand into the field in spring, and never to rest till they had not only driven Louis from the territories of his neighbours, but had compelled him to give toleration to his protestant subjects. These matters arranged, William made use of the influence which the new alliance with the duke of Savoy gave him, to procure a cessation of the persecutions of the duke's protestant subjects, the Waldenses. To him these simple mountain shepherds — Christians of a church remaining independent of Rome from the earliest times—owed it that they could once more live in peace; that numbers of them were released from dungeons, and their children, who had been torn from them to be educated in popery, were restored.

All being thus favourably settled, the princes dispersed to their several states, and William retired to obtain a short period of relaxation at Loo. But he was speedily roused from his repose. The proceedings of the congress had been closely and anxiously watched by Louis of France. He saw that its deliberations were certain to produce a profound impression on all Europe, and he resolved to neutralise this by one of his sudden and telling blows. At once all his available means and forces were put in motion. A hundred thousand soldiers were in rapid march on Mons, one of the most important fortresses of the Spanish Netherlands. Louis did not even trust the operations of this assault to his famous general, Luxembourg, and the greatest military genius of the age, Vauban; but he hurried to the scene of action himself, early as the season was—in March. Five days after the siege commenced Louis was there, accompanied by the dauphin, the dukes of Orleans and of Chartres. He pushed on the attack with all vigour, to have it over before any assistance could arrive. Though suffering from the gout, he went about amongst the soldiers, encouraging them by the blandest and most familiar addresses; helped personally to bind up their wounds in the hospitals, and partook of the broth prepared for them. With his quick perception of the dangers from his adversaries, he had noticed the diversion which it was intended that the duke of Savoy should make,