Though all military opposition was thus overcome, William soon found
difficulties of another kind in the management of the state. The
Tories, though glad to save the established church by calling in his
interference, had submitted with no good grace to the necessity of
making him king; and no sooner was the danger past, than their usual
principles of hereditary right were in a great measure revived. From
the name of the exiled monarch, they now began to be known by the
appellation of _Jacobites_. James’ hopes of a restoration were thus
for a long time kept alive, and the peace of William’s mind was so
much embittered, as to make his sovereignty appear a dear purchase.
Perhaps the only circumstances which reconciled the king to his
situation, was the great additional force he could now bring against
the ambitious designs of Louis XIV. Almost from his accession he
entered heartily into the combination of European powers for checking
this warlike prince, and conducted military operations against him
every summer in person. The necessity of having supplies for that
purpose rendered him unfit, even if he had been willing, to resist any
liberal measures proposed to him in Parliament, and hence his passing
of the famous Triennial Act in 1694, by which it was appointed that a
new Parliament should be called every third year. In this year died
Queen Mary, without offspring; after which William reigned as sole
monarch.
The peace of Ryswick, concluded in 1697, by which the French power was
confined to the limits, permitted William to spend the concluding
years of his reign in peace. In 1700, in consideration that he and his
sister-in-law Anne had no children, the famous Act of Succession was
passed, by which the crown, failing these two individuals, was settled
upon the next Protestant heir, Sophia, Duchess of Hanover, daughter of
Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of James I.
The reign of King William is remarkable for the first legal support of
a standing army, and for the commencement of the national debt. It is
also distinguished by the first establishment of regular banks for the
deposit of money, and the issue of a paper currency. Formerly, the
business of banking, as far as necessary, was transacted by
goldsmiths, or through the medium of the public Exchequer, by which
plans the public was not sufficiently insured against loss. In 1695,
the first public establishment for the purpose, _the Bank of England_,
was established by one William Paterson, a scheming Scotsman; and next
year the Bank of Scotland was set on foot by one Holland, an English
merchant. The capital in the former case being only £1,200,000, and in
the latter, the tenth part of that sum.
In the reign of King William flourished Sir William Temple, an eminent
political and philosophical writer, to whom is usually assigned the
honor of first composing the English language in the fluent and
measured manner which afterwards became general. The most profound
philosophical writer of the age was John Locke, author of an Essay on
the Human Understanding, an Essay on Toleration, and other works.
Bishop Tillotson stands high as a writer of elegant sermons. The
greatest name in polite literature is that of John Dryden, remarkable
for his energetic style of poetry, and his translations of Virgil and
Juvenal.