Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/105

 Dutch republic became the two hinges of rthe proposed alliance. More remote in its consequences was the promise of Charles to co-operate in the ulterior designs of Louis upon the Spanish monarchy at large, in which event England was to obtain South America with Minorca and Ostende. It was not settled whether the proclamation of catholicism in England was or was not to precede the joint declaration of war against the United Provinces ; but the date of the latter was left to France. In return Louis promised to Charles a payment of 80,000l. to meet the cost of the disturbances which might occur in England when the plan was ma& known, and an annual subsidy of 120,000l. during the war, for which England was to fiimish six thousand soldiers and fifty ships, and France thirty ships and the rest of the land forces. The final compact concluded on these bases was the notorious treaty of Dover (20 May 1670) signed by Arlington, Arundel, Clifford and Bellings, and by Colbert de Croissy on the part of France, and negotiated in its final stages by Charles in person and his sister, the Duchess of Orleans. She had been permitted to travel to England, in order to urge the view of Louis, according to which the war against the United Provinces was to have precedence among the objects of the treaty, and she seems to have succeeded in impressing this on Charles, who was in no immediate haste about the conversion scheme. With the latter Buckingham, Lauderdale, and Ashley remained unacquainted; but they appended their signatures to a second treaty (31 Dec. 1670), which fixed the beginning of the Dutch war for April or May following, and which dealt with the payment in consideration of England's conversion as an additional subsidy for military purposes (, ii. 26). The conclusion of the first treaty of Dover had been followed by the death, immediately on her return to France, of the Duchess of Orleans under circumstances deemed deeply suspicious. After her death a Breton lady, who had accompanied her to Dover and attracted the notice of Charles II, settled in England as the king's mistress, This was Louise de Kéroualle, called 'Madam Carwell' in the country of her adoption, where she was afterwards created Duchess of Portsmouth, and became both the agent and the symbol of French infiuence in the royal counsels (see, L. de K., in Revue Historigue, vol. xxviii. (1885) ; cf. , 9 Oct. 1671). It was not long before the resuits of the new alliance began to show themselves. Parliament, where a dispute had conveniently arisen between the two houses, was prorogued in April 1671, after voting a supply by way of a demonBtration against France, and did not meet again till February 1673. In the meantime the conversion money and the first instalment of the annual war subsidy had been paid, and another treaty similar to the last had been concluded with France, probably intended to obscure the length of time since which an understanding had been arrived at (2 Feb. 1672, see, ii. 28 and n.) Charles had, however, notwithstanding the urgency of his new mistress and of his wife's almoner, the Abbé Patrice, delayed his profession of Catholicism, which might have deprived him of lus crown with results more enduring than had attended the attempt of Colonel Blood (9 May 1671 ; see ). But on 16 March 1671 he issued another Declaration of Indulgence,, announcing his determination to suspend all penal laws against nonconformists and recusants. Great endeavours were made to obtain addresses of thanks from the protestant nonconformists, but with only partial success; in November the great seal was transferred from Bridgeman, who had been in doubts about the declaration, to Shaftesbury (Ashley). Meanwhile the preparations for a Dutch war continued. In the autumn of 1671 the king made a 'sea-progress' from Portsmouth for inspecting the western ports (, Chronicle, 581 ; cf. Hatton Correspondence, i. 62) ; but a more important preliminary step was the notorious ' stop of the exchequer ' (2 Jan. 1672), by which the chief bankers in London, from whom the king had borrowed 1,300,000l., were made bankrupt, and a great multitude of people ruined. All payments from the exchequer were prohibited for a twelvemonth but a day or two afterwards the bankers were promised half the usual interest on the capital and interest due to them (, ii. 56 seq. ; cf., 175 ; , 123-4).

The reconstruction of the government by the close of 1672 established in the chief conduct of afiairs the five politicians whose names had been subscribed to the treaties with France of December 1670 and February 1672. But the so-called Cabal never alone constituted the committee of foreign afiairs, which the Duke of York, Bridgeman till his dismissal, and Sir John Trevor, who had replaced Morrice as one of the secretaries of state (the other was Henry Coventry), likewise attended. Moreover, Buckingham, Shaftesbury, and Lauderdale cannot be said to have been privy to the conversion scheme (, ii. 53-5). The Dutch war, declared 17 March, 1672, was of course supported by them all. and most notably by Shaftesbury. It was on the whole unpopular, yet there is truth in the