Chapter XV: REIGN OF WILLIAM III. (concluded) (3)

This strange memorial, which is known to have been written by Defoe, was signed "Legion," and charged the House with unwarrantable practices under fifteen heads. A new claim of right was arranged under seven heads. Amongst the reprehensible proceedings of the Commons were stated to be, the voting of the Partition Treaty fatal to Europe, because it gave too much of the Spanish dominions to France, and not concerning themselves to prevent them from taking possession of them all. Deserting of the Dutch when the French were almost at their doors, and till it was almost too late to help them, it declared to be unjust to our treaties, unkind to our confederates, dishonourable to the English nation, and negligent of the safety of both our neighbours and ourselves. Addressing the king to displace his friends on base surmises, before the legal trial or any article proven, was pronounced illegal, contrary to the course of law, and putting execution before judgment. It also declared the delaying of proceedings on impeachments to blast the reputations of the accused without proving the charges, to be illegal, oppressive, destructive of the liberties of Englishmen, and a reproach to Parliaments. In the same strain it criticised the attacks on the king's person, especially those of that "impudent rascal John Howe," who had said openly that his Majesty had made a "felonious treaty," insinuating that the Partition Treaty was a combination to rob the king of Spain, when it was quite as just as to blow up one man's house to save that of his neighbour. The Commons were admonished to mend their ways, as shown to them in the memorial, on pain of incurring the resentment of an injured nation; and the document concluded thus, "for Englishmen are no more to be slaves to Parliament than to kings--our name is Legion, and we are many."

No sooner was this paper read than the blustering Commons were filled with consternation. They summoned all the members of the House by the Sergeant-at-Arms; anticipations of sedition and tumult were expressed, and an address to his Majesty was drawn up in haste, calling on him to take measures for the public peace. Howe, one of the noisiest men in the House, and accustomed to say very bold things, and other Tory members, declared their lives in danger; others got away into the country, believing that "Legion" was on the point of attacking the Parliament. A Committee was appointed to sit permanently in the Speaker's chamber, to take every means for averting a catastrophe, with power to call before them all persons necessary for throwing light on the danger, and to examine papers. At length, however, as "Legion" did not appear, and all remained quiet, the House began to recover its senses; it began at the same time to dawn upon their apprehensions that they had been hoaxed by some clever wag. This wag, as we have said, was none other than the inimitable author of "Robinson Crusoe," one of the shrewdest political writers of the time.

The Lords now demanded that the trial of Somers and the other noblemen should proceed without any further delay, but the Commons proposed that it should be conducted before a Committee of both Houses. This they did to bar the way of the trial, for they appeared rather to desire to destroy the characters of the accused than to proceed to extremities. They were aware that the accused nobles had a majority in their favour in their own House, and that to impeach them there was to fail. They, therefore, passed an unjustifiable address to the King, praying him to dismiss the five peers from his Council, even before the impeachments were heard. For the same reasons the Lords refused to admit the Commons to a share in the trial, because in their House there was a majority the other way. They replied, therefore, that such Committees were contrary to custom in cases of impeachment for misdemeanour; that the only exception was that in the case of the Earl of Danby and the five Popish lords, and that the fate of it was sufficient warning to avoid such a precedent, for the Committee could not proceed for altercations, and the affair could only be got rid of by dissolving Parliament. The Commons still argued for it, the Lords persisted in their refusal, and at this moment the dispute was interrupted by the king calling on both Houses to attend to the ratification of the new Succession Bill.

After this the contest regarding the mode of trial of the impeached nobles was renewed with unabated acrimony. In one of the conferences on the subject Lord Haversham declared his opinion that the Commons themselves really believed the accused lords innocent; "for there are," he said, "various other lords implicated in the very same business, and yet the Commons make no charge against them, but leave them at the head of affairs, near the King's person, to do any mischief they are inclined to, and impeach others, when they are all alike guilty, and concerned in the same facts." This was a hard hit, for it was the simple truth, and the delegates of the Commons, as they could not deny it, could only affect to take violent offence at it. There was fresh correspondence, but the Lords cut the matter short by deciding that there should be no Committee of both Houses for regulating the trials of the impeached nobles. The Commons, however, on the 14th of June sent up their charges against the Earl of Halifax, declining to proceed against Portland, as they said, out of respect to his Majesty.

The Lords now gave notice that they would proceed with the trials of the accused nobles, beginning with that of Lord Somers first, as the Commons had proposed, and called on the Commons to make good their charge. On the other hand, the Commons, still insisting on their right to have a voice in regulating the trials, made an order that no member of their House should appear at the "pretended" trial of the Lord Somers. Notwithstanding, the Lords gave notice that they would proceed on the 17th of June to the trial of Somers, in Westminster Hall. The Commons refused to attend, declaring that they were the only judges, and that the evidence was not yet prepared. This produced a violent debate in the Lords, where the Tory Ministers supported their party in the Commons; but the order for the trial was carried, followed by strong protests against it. On the day of the trial the Lords sent a message to the Commons to inform them that they were going to the Hall, and the Commons not appearing there, the Lords again returned to their own House, and settled the question to be put; and again returning to Westminster Hall, the question was then put:--"That John Lord Somers be acquitted of the articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Commons, and all things therein contained; and that the impeachment be dismissed." This was carried by a majority of thirty-five. A similar course was taken with regard to the other accused.

It had been a miserable Session to the king. His health continued to fail, and, amid his endeavours to conceal the decay of his constitution, that his Allies might not be discouraged, he had found his favourite Minister violently attacked, himself by no means spared, and the Session almost wholly wasted in party feud. It had, however, passed the Succession Bill, and now, to his agreeable surprise, voted him unexpectedly liberal supplies, and sanctioned his forming alliances against France. He now lost no time in appointing a regency; and gave the command of the ten thousand troops, sent to Holland, to Marlborough--an appointment, however despicable the man, the very best he could have made in a military point of view. At the commencement of July he sailed for Holland, accompanied by the Earls of Carlisle, Romney, Albemarle, General Overkirk, and others, and landed on the 3rd of the month. The Scottish troops voted had arrived in Holland before him, and the ten thousand men from England and Ireland were just arriving, so that William appeared again amongst his countrymen at the head of a respectable army of his new subjects. When he presented himself, however, before the States-General the day after his arrival, his appearance was such as to create great alarm in all that saw him. In his energies they put the almost sole trust of effectual resistance to France, and he was clearly fast sinking. He was wasted, pale, and haggard. The last Session of Parliament, and the fierce dissensions which had been carried on between the factions of Whig and Tory, neither of which looked to anything but the indulgence of their own malice, had done more to wear him out than a dozen campaigns. He might well declare that that had been the most miserable year of his existence. What strength he had left, however, he devoted unshrinkingly to the grand object of his existence, the war for the balance of power. He expressed his great joy to be once more amongst his faithful countrymen; and, in truth, he must have felt it like a cordial, for around him in England he saw nothing but unprincipled strife of parties. William told the States that he had hoped, after the peace of Ryswick, to have been able to pass his remaining days in repose, but that the changes which had taken place in Europe were such as no man could see the end of. He was still resolved, he said, notwithstanding this, to pursue the great object of the peace of Europe with unremitting zeal, whether it was to be achieved by negotiation or war; and he assured them of the active support of his English subjects. The States, in their reply, took care to express how much they depended on the courage and power of the English, and to compliment them on the splendid fame for valour which they had acquired in the late struggle.

William then set out to survey the defences of the frontiers, and the state of the garrisons; and having visited Bergen-op-Zoom, Sluys, and other places, and taken such measures as appeared necessary, he returned to the Hague, where the news met him that Louis had recalled his Ambassador, D'Avaux, who left a memorial in a very insolent tone, asserting that his royal master was convinced that no good could come of the negotiations, but still declaring that it depended on themselves whether there should be peace or war. This event by no means surprised William, for both he and Marlborough had felt from the first that there was no sincerity in the professions of D'Avaux, and that they were meant only to gain time. The treaty between England, Holland, and the Emperor was, therefore, urged forward, and was signed on the 7th of September, being styled "The Second Grand Alliance." By this treaty it was contracted that the three Allies should mutually exert themselves to procure satisfaction for the Emperor for the Spanish succession, and security for the peace and trade of the Allies. Two months were yet to be allowed for obtaining the objects by negotiation. If this failed, war was to be made to recover the Spanish Flanders, the kingdoms of Sicily, Naples, and the other Spanish territories in Italy; moreover, the States and England might seize and keep for themselves whatever they could of the colonial possessions of Spain. No peace was to be made by any one of the Allies until they had obtained security for the absolute separation of France and Spain, and that France should not hold the Spanish Indies. All kings, princes, and States were invited to enter the alliance, and tempting offers of advantages were made to induce them to do so. William had already secured the interest of Denmark, and the promises of Sweden; but the young King of Sweden, Charles XII., was too busily pursuing the war with Russia and Poland to lend any real service to this cause. At the very moment that the Allies were canvassing for confederates, this "Madman of the North," as he was called, gave the Czar Peter a most terrible overthrow at Narva on the 30th of November, 1700, killing thirty thousand of his men. Holstein and the Palatinate came into the treaty, and the news from Italy soon induced the German petty princes to profess their adhesion, especially the Electors of Bavaria and Cologne, who had received subsidies from France, and raised troops, with which they would have declared for Louis had not the victories of Prince Eugene swayed their mercenary minds the other way.

Several months before the signing of the treaty at the Hague, Eugene, at the head of the Emperor's troops in Italy, had opened the war. He had entered Italy at Vicenza, and passed the Adige near Carpi, where, being opposed by Catinat and the Duke of Savoy, he defeated them with considerable slaughter, and forced them to retire into Mantuan territory. Catinat and the French had excited the hatred of the peasantry by their insolence and oppressions, and they flew to arms and assisted Eugene, who was very popular with them, by harassing the outposts of the French, cutting off their foragers, and obstructing their supplies. Marshal Villeroi being sent to their aid, Catinat retired in disgust. Villeroi marched towards Chiari, and attacked Eugene in his camp, but was repulsed with the loss of five thousand men. By the end of the campaign the Prince had reduced all the Mantuan territory except Mantua itself and Goito, which he blockaded. He reduced all the places on the Oglio, and continued in the field all the winter, displaying a genius for war which greatly alarmed the king of France. He despatched fresh reinforcements to Piedmont under Marshal Vendôme, but he found the Duke of Savoy now cold and backward in assisting him. The duke had got all that he could look for from France; his second daughter was married to the new king of Spain, and, satisfied with that, he was by no means ambitious of French domination in his own territories.

On the other hand, France endeavoured to distract Austria by sowing insurrection in Hungary, and Louis's emissaries were busy all over Europe. He managed to make an alliance with Portugal, though the king himself was attached to the House of Austria, but was a weak prince, and was betrayed by his Ministers, who were corrupted by France. Meanwhile the English and Dutch fleets sailed in strong force along the coasts of Spain, to overawe the French, and another fleet was despatched to the West Indies, to be ready in case of hostilities. In Spain itself both people and nobles began to repent bitterly of their subjection to France. They felt greatly annoyed at the insolence of the king's French Ministers and attendants, who treated the highest grandees with very little consideration. The French dress was introduced into the Court, and French manners also, and a formal edict was issued, putting the French nobles on the same level with the proud hidalgoes of Spain. The finances of Spain were at the lowest ebb, the spirit of the nation was thoroughly demoralised, and the condition of France was very little better. These circumstances, being universally known, encouraged the Allies in their projects. Yet the Emperor, for whose cause the Alliance was ostensibly created, was almost equally poor. He had engaged to bring 90,000 troops into the field--66,000 infantry and 24,000 horse; yet he was compelled to negotiate a loan with Holland for 500,000 crowns. William, on his part, was to furnish 33,000 infantry and 7,000 horse; and the States-General 32,000 infantry and 20,000 horse.

At this juncture James II. lay on his deathbed. Louis XIV. made three successive visits to the dying king; and this strange monarch--who had no feeling for human misery in the gross, who let loose his legions to lay waste happy human homes in all the countries round him, to ravage, massacre, and destroy the unoffending people by barbarities which must have instructed the very devils in cruelty--shed tears over the departure of this poor old man, whose life had been one vast miserable blunder, and whose death was the best thing that could happen to him. He promised the dying man that he would maintain the right of his son to the English crown as he had maintained his, though he had sworn at the treaty of Ryswick to do nothing to disturb the throne of William; and (September 16, 1701), as soon as the breath was out of James's body, he proclaimed the prince King of England by the title of James III. This title was acknowledged by the King of Spain, the Duke of Savoy, and the Pope. The moment William received the news of Louis having proclaimed James's son King of England, he despatched a messenger to inform the King of Sweden, who was guarantee of the peace of Ryswick, of this flagrant breach of it. He ordered the Earl of Manchester immediately to retire from Paris without taking leave, and Poussin, the Secretary of Tallard, to quit London. Louis pretended that his acknowledgment of the Prince of Wales was mere form; that he meant no infraction of the treaty, and might justly complain of William's declarations and preparations in favour of the Emperor. In fact, kings never want pleas when they have a purpose, however unwarrantable it may be. The people of England hastened to express their abhorrence of the perfidy of the French king. Addresses of resentment were poured in from London and from all parts of the kingdom, with declarations of a strong determination to defend the king and his crown against all pretenders or invaders.

William was impatient to be in London to make the necessary arrangements for a new Ministry and a new Parliament, and also for the war which was now inevitable. But he was detained by a severe illness; in fact, he was fast succumbing to the weakness of his constitution, and the ravages made on it by his stupendous exertions in the wars he had been constantly engaged in, and, still more, by the eternal war and harass of the unprincipled factions which raged around his island throne. He arrived in England on the 4th of November, where he found the two factions raging against each other with unabated rancour, and the public in a ferment of indignation at the proclamation of the king of the French acknowledging the Pretender, and still more at an edict which Louis had published on the 16th of September, prohibiting all trade with England, except in beer, cider, glass bottles, and wool, and the wearing of any article of English manufacture after the 1st of November next. William closeted himself with some of his Ministry who, he still hoped, might be disposed to different measures; but finding them still as determined as ever to pursue their former course and to insist on their impeachments, he dissolved Parliament on the 4th of November, and called a new one for the 31st of December.

The two parties went to the election for the new Parliament with the same fierce bitterness with which they had fought through the last Session. The bribery, corruption, and intimidation were of the most open and shameless kind; but the Whigs, having the moneyed interest in their favour, carried the day, having no doubt with them at the same time the sentiment of the better part of the nation.

The new Ministry was immediately arranged. On the 24th of December Charles Howard, the Earl of Carlisle, was appointed First Lord of the Treasury, in place of Lord Godolphin. On the 4th of January, 1702, Charles Montague, Earl of Manchester, who had been ambassador at Paris, was made Secretary of State in place of Sir Charles Hedges; on the 18th the Earl of Pembroke was transferred from the Presidency of the Council, and made Lord High Admiral; and Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset, took the Presidency. Henry Boyle, afterwards Earl of Carleton, was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer; the Privy Seal, having been in commission since the death of the Earl of Tankerville, remained so. The Cabinet thus consisted of the personal friends of the king, and the Whigs had strengthened their party, having carried the elections in most of the counties and chief boroughs; yet they found themselves so far from a commanding majority that they were immediately defeated in the election of the Speaker. The king was desirous of seeing Sir Thomas Littleton in the chair; but the Tories managed to elect Harley; Henry St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, who was sent up from Wootton Basset, seconding the motion for Harley. The speech, which was drawn up by Somers according to Sunderland's advice, was then read by William.

In this speech, which was greatly admired, the king said that he trusted that they had met together with a full sense of the common danger of Europe, and of that resentment of the conduct of the French king which had been so strongly and universally expressed in the loyal addresses of the people; that in setting up the pretended Prince of Wales as King of England they had offered to him and to the nation the highest indignity, and put in jeopardy the Protestant religion, and the peace and security of the realm, and he was sure they would take every means to secure the Crown in the Protestant line, and to extinguish the hopes of all pretenders and their abettors; that the French king, by placing his grandson on the throne of Spain, had put himself in a condition to oppress the rest of Europe, and, under the pretence of maintaining it as a separate monarchy, had yet made himself master of the dominions of Spain, placed it entirely under his control, and so surrounded his neighbours that, though the name of peace continued, they were put to the expense and inconvenience of war; that this endangered the whole of our trade, and even our peace and safety at home, and deprived us of that position which we ought to maintain for the preservation of the liberties of Europe; that to obviate these calamities he had entered into several alliances according to the encouragement given him by both Houses of Parliament, and was still forming others. And he then said emphatically, "It is fit I should tell you that the eyes of all Europe are upon this Parliament. All matters are at a stand till your resolutions are known; therefore no time ought to be lost. You have yet an opportunity, by God's blessing, to secure to you and your posterity the quiet enjoyment of your religion and liberties if you are not wanting to yourselves, but will exert the ancient vigour of the English nation; but I tell you plainly my opinion is, if you do not lay hold on this occasion, you have no reason to hope for another."

He then recommended the Commons to take measures for the discharge of the debt and for preserving public credit, by the sacred maxim that they shall never be losers who trust to a Parliamentary security. In asking them for the necessary aids he was only urging that they should care for their safety and honour at a critical time. He reminded them that in the late war he ordered yearly accounts of the expenditure to be laid before them, and passed several Bills for securing a proper examination of accounts. He was quite willing that any further measures should be adopted for that end, so that it might appear whether the debts had arisen from misapplication or mere deficiency of the funds. He then finally touched on the sore point of the dissensions; trusting that both Houses were determined to avoid all manner of disputes and differences, and resolved to act with a general and hearty concurrence for promoting the common cause which alone could insure a happy Session. He should think it as great a blessing as could befall England, if he could perceive them inclined to lay aside those unhappy feuds which divided and weakened them, for that he himself was disposed to make all his subjects easy as to even the highest offences committed against him. He conjured them to disappoint the hopes of their enemies, and let there be no other distinction amongst them for the future but of those who were for the Protestant religion and the present establishment, and those who were for a Popish prince and a French Government. For his part, he desired to be the common father of his people, and if they desired to see England placed at the head of the Protestant interest and hold the balance of Europe, they had only to improve the present opportunity.

The effect of this speech was wonderful. It flew through the nation, which was already worked up into a war-fever, with the rapidity of lightning, and was everywhere received with enthusiasm. The zealous supporters of the principles of the Revolution had it printed in ornamental style, in English, Dutch, and French, and it was soon translated into other languages and disseminated all over Europe. It was the announcement of a determined war against the grasping ambition of France, and the eyes of the whole world were truly fixed on England, which volunteered to take the lead in this serious enterprise. As for the supporters of William and the Protestant government, they framed his speech and hung it in their houses as the last legacy of the Protestant king to his people. The Lords immediately drew up a zealous address, in which they echoed his resentment of the conduct of the French king in acknowledging the pretended Prince of Wales, and declared that they would not only support and defend him against the pretended Prince of Wales and all other pretenders, but, should they be deprived of his Majesty's protection, they would still defend the crown of England, by virtue of the Acts of Parliament, against all but the recognised successors. On the 5th of January the Commons presented a similar address, and assured the king that they would enable him to make good the alliances he had made and such as he should yet make for the peace of Europe. The Lords, not to be behind the Commons, presented a second and more explicit address, in which they not only engaged to support the king in his alliances, but declared that Europe could never be safe till the Emperor was restored to all his rights, and the invaders of Spain should be expelled. And they, too, declared their full approbation of the king's new alliances, and their full determination to support him in them.

William, warned by the resentment of the last House of Commons at the concealment of the Partition Treaties, now laid his present treaties at once before the new Parliament. On the 6th of January Secretary Vernon laid before both Houses copies of the treaty with the King of Denmark and the States-General, the secret Articles attached to this treaty, the treaty between the King of Sweden, the States-General, and William, and the separate treaty between William and the States-General, signed in the month of November. The Commons were as prompt in expressing their approbation of them, and on the 9th of January they proposed, by an address to his Majesty, to take care that an article should be introduced into the several treaties of alliance, binding the Allies never to make peace with France until reparation was made for the indignity offered by the French king in declaring the pretended Prince of Wales King of England. They also resolved that a Bill should be brought in for the abjuration of the pretended Prince of Wales.

They then went into the question of the supplies, and voted unanimously that £600,000 should be borrowed at six per cent. for the services of the navy, and £50,000 for Guards and garrisons. They agreed to the number of troops which the king had stipulated as his contingent in the war, namely, 30,000 foot and 7,000 horse; and added 8,300 more English soldiers to the 10,000 already sent to Holland, and voted 40,000 seamen. His Majesty's Allies were to be invited to embark a certain proportion of troops on board his Majesty's ships of war. All the king's contracts for subsidising troops belonging to foreign princes were confirmed, and to defray the charges of these naval and military forces they imposed taxes with an alacrity almost unparalleled. They imposed four shillings in the pound on all lands and incomes, including annuities, pensions, and stipends, and on all the professional profits of lawyers, doctors, surgeons, teachers of separate congregations, brokers, factors, etc. Then an additional tax of two and a half per cent. was put on all stock-in-trade and money out at interest, and of five shillings in the pound on all salaries, fees, and perquisites. They laid on a poll-tax of four shillings per head, so completely had this generation come to tolerate this hated form of imposition, which formerly roused the people to open rebellion. Besides this, they taxed the capital stock of all corporations and public companies which should be transferred in sale to the amount of one per cent., and, finally, they placed sixpence a bushel on malt, and a further duty on mum, cider, and perry.

On the 15th of January they passed unanimously a Bill for the attainder of the pretended Prince of Wales, and sent it up to the Lords, and the Lords, exceeding them in zeal, added a clause attainting also the ex-queen Mary of Modena as regent of the pretended Prince of Wales. The Commons, however, objected to this amendment as calculated to sanction a practice of attainting persons by added clauses instead of original Bills, which they designated as a pernicious course, as not allowing the full consideration due to so momentous a measure. They struck it out, but the Lords demanded a conference, and pressed their amendment on the ground that the Commons had themselves adopted that practice so long ago as the 3rd of Henry VIII. The Commons were not likely to pay much regard to the practice of either House in the reign of that lawless monarch, and returned the Bill to the Lords without the clause, and the Lords, on further reflection, passed it.

This was followed in the Lords by the Bill so strongly recommended by Sunderland for the abjuration of the pretended Prince of Wales, in which was a clause introduced into the oath, acknowledging William rightful and lawful sovereign. There was a violent debate on the point whether this oath should be voluntary or compulsory. The Earl of Nottingham strongly opposed its being compulsory, and he was supported by other lords of the Tory party. They contended that the Government was first settled with another oath, which had the value of an original contract, and any other oath was unnecessary; that this oath could do nothing more than that oath had done. All inclined to keep that oath had kept it, and all inclined to break it had broken it, and these would break this or any other oath. Whilst they were in debate, Sir Charles Hedges introduced a clause which made it obligatory on all persons enjoying appointments in Church and State, and with an obligation to maintain the Government in King, Lords, and Commons, and to maintain the Church of England, with toleration to the Dissenters. After a sharp debate it passed the Commons, but only by a majority of one. In this Bill it was made equally penal to compass or imagine the death of the Princess of Denmark as it was the death of the king. The Bill was strenuously opposed in the Lords, but it was carried, and Nottingham and nineteen other peers entered their protest against it. The Quakers had endeavoured to get themselves exempted from the operation of the Bill, but in vain. This zeal of the Whigs in Parliament for imposing fresh oaths did them no good, but tended to revive the unpopularity which had so lately driven them from office. Whilst these subjects were before Parliament, the Lords made a fresh attempt, by a Bill of their own, to procure the attainder of Mary of Modena, but the Commons let the Bill lie.

In Scotland the clamour against the Government for its treatment of the Darien scheme still continued. The Earl of Nottingham, therefore, moved that the Scottish Parliament should be dissolved, and an attempt be made to unite the two kingdoms, by which all causes of complaint would be hereafter removed, since all parties would have a like interest in the trade of the nation. The king was greatly bent on this design, but he had met with an accident which prevented him from going to the House of Lords to propose it. But he sent a message both to the Lords and to the Commons, expressing his earnest desire that a union should take place, and that Commissioners were already appointed in Scotland to treat with such Commissioners as should be appointed in England for that end. He represented that he was fully satisfied that nothing could more contribute to the security and happiness of the two kingdoms than such a union, and that he should esteem it a peculiar felicity if, during his reign, so great an event should take place.

But the accident alluded to was of a more serious nature than was suspected, and, falling on a weak and exhausted frame, was about to bring his reign to an abrupt close. In riding towards Hampton Court on the 20th of February, on his accustomed Saturday's excursion to hunt there, his horse fell with him and fractured his collar-bone, besides doing him other serious injury. He was carried to Hampton Court, where the bone was set; and though the surgeon remarked that his pulse was feverish, he was deemed in too feeble a condition to admit of benefit by bleeding. Contrary, moreover, to the advice of his medical attendants, he would insist on returning that same evening to Kensington, and was, accordingly, conveyed thither in a carriage; but on arriving, it was found that the collar-bone, by the jolting of the carriage, was again displaced. It was again set, and the king slept well the night through after it. For several days no bad consequences appeared; but on the 1st of March great pain and weakness were felt in his knee. Ronjat, his surgeon, a Frenchman, who had re-set the bone, had contended that he ought to have been bled; Bidloo, his Dutch physician, had opposed it as injurious in his debilitated state. He was now attended by Sir Thomas Millington, Sir Richard Blackmore, Sir Theodore Colledon, Dr. Bidloo, and other eminent physicians. Again he appeared to rally, and on the 4th of March he took several turns in the gallery at Kensington; but, sitting down on a couch, he fell asleep, and awoke shivering and in high fever. On this there was a hurry to pass several Bills through the Lords that they might receive his signature, in case of fatal termination of his illness. These were the Malt-tax Bill, the Bill for the Prince of Wales's Attainder, and one in favour of the Quakers, making their affirmation valid instead of an oath. These being prepared, and the king not being able to use his hand, the royal signature was affixed by a stamp made for the purpose.

This took place on the 7th of March, and was not a moment too soon, for the king's symptoms rapidly gained strength, and he died the next day. The Earl of Albemarle, his great favourite, arrived from Holland on the day preceding his death, and it was thought the good news which he brought would cheer him, but William appeared to receive his information with indifference, and merely replied, "_Je tire vers ma fin_" ("I approach my end"). The news of the king's danger filled the antechamber with such a throng of courtiers as is generally witnessed at the expected moment of a monarch's decease; not prompted by affection, but on the watch to seize the earliest moment to make their court to his successor. Physicians, statesmen, and emissaries of interested parties were there mingled, eagerly listening for the reports of his state, and ready to fly with the news of his decease. Amongst these were the messengers of the Princess Anne and of Lady Marlborough, who, with her husband, now absent with the army in Holland, had scarcely less to expect from the event. Yet even Lady Marlborough, assuredly by no means sensitive where her ambition was concerned, expresses her disgust at the scene. "When the king came to die, I felt nothing of the satisfaction which I once thought I should have had on this occasion; and my Lord and Lady Jersey's writing and sending perpetually to give an account [to the Princess Anne] as his breath grew shorter and shorter, filled me with horror." These Jerseys, who were thus courting the favour of the heiress to the Crown by these incessant messages of the advancing death of the king, had been amongst those on whom he had heaped favours and benefits pre-eminently. Such is the end of princes. The closing scene is thus detailed by Bishop Burnet, who to the last showed himself one of the steadiest and most grateful of his courtiers:--"The king's strength and pulse were still sinking as the difficulty of breathing increased, so that no hope was left. The Archbishop of Canterbury and I went to him on Saturday morning, and did not stir from him till he died. The Archbishop prayed on Saturday some time with him, but he was then so weak that he could scarce speak, but gave him his hand, as a sign that he firmly believed the truth of the Christian religion, and said he intended to receive the Sacrament. His reason and all his senses were entire to the last minute. About five in the morning he desired the Sacrament, and went through the Office with great appearance of seriousness, but could not express himself; when this was done, he called for the Earl of Albemarle, and gave him a charge to take care of his papers. He thanked M. Auverquerque for his long and faithful services. He took leave of the Duke of Ormond, and called for the Earl of Portland, but before he came his voice quite failed; so he took him by the hand and carried it to his heart with great tenderness. He was often looking up to heaven in many short ejaculations. Between seven and eight o'clock the rattle began; the commendatory prayer was said to him, and as it ended he died, on Sunday, the 8th of March, in the fifty-second year of his age, having reigned thirteen years and a few days."

It was found on opening the body that he had had an adhesion of the lungs, which being torn from the side to which it had adhered by the fall from his horse, was the cause of his death. His head and heart were sound, but he had scarcely any blood in his body.

In person William was of a spare frame, middle stature, and delicate constitution, being subject to an asthma and cough from his childhood, supposed to be the consequences of small-pox. He had an aquiline nose, clear bright eyes, a finely-developed forehead, a grave aspect, and was very taciturn, except amongst his immediate friends, who were almost all his own countrymen. His reserved and repellent manner gave great offence to his English courtiers and nobles, and the lavish wealth which he heaped on his favourite Dutchmen heightened this feeling. He never liked Englishmen, and they never liked him. For his neglect to attach himself to the English there is, however, much excuse. The men about his Court, and the very party who brought him in, were a most selfish, rapacious, and unprincipled set. It is difficult to point to a truly noble and genuinely patriotic man amongst them. Perhaps the most unexceptionable were the Earl of Devonshire and Lord Somers; but the greater part of them were men whose chief object was self-aggrandisement; and the party fight which the two factions kept up around the Throne made it anything but an enviable seat. The peculation and jobbery in every department of the State were wholesale and unblushing, and the greater part of those who were ostensibly serving him and receiving his pay, were secretly engaged to his enemies, spies upon all his actions and intentions, and traitors, in a perpetual transmission of his projects to the Court of his deadly foes. The forbearance which he constantly manifested towards those despicable men was something admirable and almost superhuman. Though he was well aware of their treason, he still employed and endeavoured to conciliate them. With a cold exterior, William was far from destitute of affection. This he showed in the confidence with which he entrusted the government to his wife in his absence, and in his passionate grief for her death. It was also manifested in his warm and unshaken attachment to the friends who had shared his fortunes, who spoke his tongue, who knew his whole mind and nature, and who served him with a fidelity, amid an age of treachery and a Court of deep corruption, than which there is nothing more beautiful in history.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote A: That is, during their good behaviour.]