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LEFT ENGLAND 21 ENGLAND fiid to France, and a convention sum- riioned by William settled the crown on him, he thus becoming William III. An- nexed to this settlement was a Declara- tion of Rights, circumscribing the royal prerogative. This placed henceforward the right of the British sovereign to the throne on a purely statutory basis. A toleration act, passed in 1689, released dissent from many penalties. In 1692 originated the national debt, the exchequer having been drained by the heavy military expenditure. A bill for triennial Parliaments was passed in 1694, the year in which Queen Mary died. For a moment after her death William's popularity was in danger, but his successes at Namur and elsewhere, and the obvious exhaustion of France, once more confirmed his power. The treaty of Ryswick followed in 1697, and the death of James II. in exile in 1701 removed a not unimportant source of danger. Early in the following year William also died, and by the act of settlement Anne succeeded him. The closing act of William's reign had been the formation of the grand alliance between England, Holland, and the Ger- man Empire, and the new queen's rule opened with the brilliant successes of Marlborough at Blenheim (1704) and Ra- millies (1706). Throughout the earlier part of her reign the Marlboroughs practically ruled the kingdom, the duke's ■wife, Sarah Jennings, being the queen's most intimate friend and adviser. In 1707 the history of England becomes the history of Great Britain, the Act of Union passed in that year binding the Parliaments and realms of England and Scotland into a single and more power- ful whole. On the death of Anne, the House of Brunswick came to the throne in the person of George I. (1714-1727). The principal events of the reign were abortive Jacobite risings, the divorce of the queen, and the ''South Sea bubble." George II. ascended the throne in 1727. His reign was prosperous, but not very eventful, except for the rebellion under the young pretender. George III. be- came king in 1760. Under his rule, the British Empire in India was founded, the American colonies established their independence, and the French Revolu- tion burst forth. England was for a time on the verge of ruin. The national debt reached enormous pi'oportions. But the genius of Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Nel- son, Olive and Wellington rescued the country, after the failure of George III.'s plan of personal government had been demonstrated. During this reign the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland was effected. The king died in 1820, and was succeeded by George IV. His reign of 10 years witnessed' Roman Oatholic emancipation, the first development of England as a colonial power in the sense of to-day, and marked industrial expansion. William IV. ruled seven years (1830-1837). During this period the great Reform Bill, extending the suffrage, marked the dawn of the democratic era in English politics. Victoria became Queen of England in 1837, and died Jan. 22, 1901, her re ign being the longest in the country's his- tory. Her sway covered the period which embraces the revolutions of 1848 throughout Europe, the wars of Prussia against Austria and France, the Orim- ean war, the Oivil War in the United States, the struggle for Egypt and the control of Afghanistan, the problem of Ohina and the conflict with the Boers which ended with the absorption of the Transvaal and the South African Re- public into the British Empire. The matters of purely domestic concern were the corn-law agitation, the condition of the working classes, trade-union regula- tion, free trade and popular education. During these years, the naval supremacy of England was maintained, the colonial empire of Great Britain was cemented and strengthened, and home rule, in the face of persistent agitation, was refused to Ireland. There was a very democratic extension of the suffrage during one of the Gladstone administrations. The In- dian Empire did not, on the whole, pros- per during the period from 1890 to 1900, but the occupation of Egypt, dat- ing from 1882, was successful. The British North American Act of 1867 and the Oommonwealth of Australia Act of 1900 indicated the tendency to im- perial federation, of which England's commanding position makes her the cen- ter. The royal power meanwhile waned to an extent which, with the extension of suffrage, left the country practically a democracy at the end of the 19th cen- tury. Edward VII. became king in 1901. In 1902 the New Education Bill was enacted and in the following year a Land Act for Ireland was passed, which provided for the distribution of £100,- 000,000 to tenants for the purpose of enabling them to acquire ownership of land. The distribution was made in the form of long-term loans. In the same year Joseph Ohamberlain introduced a proposal for the modification of the fiscal arangements of the country which was equivalent to the abandonment of free trade. He proposed that the United Kingdom should enforce a duty on food imports from foreign countries and ad- mit products from the colonies free. This question was agitated both within and without Parliament for several years,