Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/615

Rh EXGLAND.] WILLIAM III 579 before to come to terms with France, and by several other German princes. In Flanders William himself opposed Conde and fought the indecisive battle of Seneffe (August 1674). For the next two years the war dragged on with out very important results. William, although he had saved Holland, could not prevent France from winning places at the expense of the empire and Spain. In April 1677 he was decisively beaten by the duke of Orleans near St Oiner. A great part of the Spanish Netherlands as well as Franche Comte was now in the hands of France. These advances caused much alarm in England ; and the prince of Orange linked himself closer to that country by marrying Mary, elder daughter of James, duke of York, in November 1677. Early next year William signed a treaty of alliance with England, the object of which was to compel Louis to come to terms. The duplicity of Charles and the attitude of the country party in England, anxious for war with France but unwilling to put an army into the king s hands, prevented this arrangement from taking effect. A fresh treaty was, however, made between the two powers (July), and the pressure thus brought to bear upon Louis led to the peace of Nimeguen (August 1678). Four days after the peace was signed William attacked the French army under the duke of Luxembourg in its en trenchments round Mons. A sanguinary but resultless battle ensued. William attempted to justify this bloodshed by the insufficient and incredible plea that he was not aware that the peace had been signed. He can hardly have wished to prolong the war ; but it is not surprising if he was dis satisfied with a peace which gave Franche Comte and many places in the Spanish Netherlands to France. During the years which immediately followed the peace of Nimeguen, Louis s aggressive proceedings provoked a general uneasiness, of which the prince of Orange made skilful use. The French king had seized on William s ancestral principality of Orange in the south of France. William declared publicly that he would make Louis repent the outrage, and when called on to withdraw his words refused to do so. Personal affront was thus added to the national grounds of his hostility. The second of his coali tions against France began by a treaty between the Nether lands and Sweden (October 1681) for the maintenance of the peace of Nimeguen, which was soon joined by the empire and Spain, and by several of the German states. When, however, Louis declared war on Spain, invaded the Spanish Netherlands, and even took Luxemburg (1683-84), William could not persuade the states-general to raise an army, and the allied powers acquiesced in the truce of Ratisbon, which left the French king in possession of all that he had won (1685). Certain claims on the Palatinate which Louis urged on behalf of his sister-in-law, the duchess of Orleans, gave William an occasion for organizing a further combination against him. In July 1686 the emperor, with the kings of Spain and Sweden, acting as members of the empire, and the most important German princes entered into the league of Augsburg, which, how ever, William did not himself join. Meanwhile, as heir presumptive to the English throne, lie paid close attention to what was passing in England. lie sought to win Charles by sheltering the duke of Mon mouth during the exile to which his father had unwillingly condemned him. The same motives led him to dismiss the duke when James II. succeeded his brother, and to dis courage the attempt which Monmouth made to win the crown. He also endeavoured to stop Argyll and his friends when they were setting out for England and he tried to dissuade Monmouth from his rash expedition, and to induce him to take service against the Turks in Hungary, and, when this failed, he sought, with as little success, to prevent his crossing to England. Throughout the whole crisis he showed a scrupulous regard for the interests of his father-in-law, which fortunately coincided with his own but at the same time he astutely avoided any step which would have alienated from him the constitu tional party. When, however, James II. began to show himself in his true colours, William became the head of the opposition in England. As such, he strongly disap proved of the first Declaration of Indulgence (1686) and remonstrated with James on the unconstitutional nature of his act. When the king requested him, a year later, to place Papists instead of Protestants in command of the English regiments then in the service of Holland, he declined to do so, and rejected with equal firmness a demand from James that he should send the troops back to England. Nevertheless he refused to listen to Mor- daunt s premature suggestion that he should undertake an invasion in 1686, and, even when Edward Russell visited him at The Hague (May 1688), he was unwilling to move till he was assured that the majority of the nation would be with him. The letter, signed by seven leaders of the two great English parties, which Admiral Herbert carried to Holland (June 30) set his scruples at rest. On 30th September he issued a declaration in which he recapitulated James s unconstitutional acts, and stated that he was coming to England in order to secure the assembling of a free parliament, by whose decision he was resolved to abide. On 2d November he sailed from Holland, and three days later landed at Torbay. At first only few persons joined him, but presently the gentry began to come in. James, who had massed his troops at Salisbury, was compelled by William s advance and by the desertion of Churchill and others to fall back upon London. Here he attempted to treat with the invader. William, anxious to avoid all appearance of conquest, consented to negotiate, and it was agreed that a parliament should be summoned, both armies meanwhile holding aloof. James, however, attempted to leave the country, but was stopped and returned to Whitehall. For a moment he seemed to contemplate resistance, but William now insisted on his retiring from London. His final flight relieved the prince of a great difficulty. On 19th December William arrived in London, and at once called a meeting of peers and others who had sat in the parlia ments of Charles II. s reign. By their advice he summoned a convention, which met on 22d January 1689 and settled the crovn on William and Mary, who, after accepting the Declaration of llights, were on 13th February proclaimed king and queen. The revolution had so far succeeded beyond expectation ; but William s difficulties had only begun. His primary object was to bring England into the field against France. But he had first to secure his own throne, which was still endangered by resistance in Scotland and Ireland ; in order to do it with effect he had to gain the good will of the Eng lish parliament and to harmonize or control its two great factions, which, momentarily united by the imminence of despotism, were again almost on the verge of civil war. He wished to be superior to party, which he could only become by being independent of parliament, and this the revolution had rendered impossible. The revolution was due mainly to the Whigs, who were therefore William s natural allies ; but the political principles of the Whigs led them to curtail the power of the sovereign. The principles of the Tories were much more to his taste ; but the Tories were disinclined to apply their principles on behalf of a sovereign whose title they could not conscien tiously acknowledge. In selecting his first ministry William endeavoured to conciliate both sides and to hold the balance even. He eventually saw that such a policy was impracticable, and that, the nation having arrived at