1695-1697
Campaign of 1695--Capture of Namur by the allies--Dissolution
of Parliament--William's "progress"--The elections--New
Parliament--Grants to Portland--The Assassination Plot--
Campaign of 1696--Fenwick's conspiracy--Negotiations with
France--Peace of Ryswick.
For some weeks after the death of Mary William's grief for her loss
disabled him from the discharge of public duties. He desisted from the
personal delivery of his answers to addresses from the two Houses, and
though important domestic events--such as the disgrace and dismissal of
Sir John Trevor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, for corruption,
and the proceedings preliminary to the contemplated impeachment of
Danby, now Duke of Leeds, for the same offence--took place before the
prorogation, the King does not appear to have actively interested
himself in them, either on one side or the other. Leeds, though he
escaped the impeachment with which he was threatened, stood morally
convicted of the charges preferred against him; but William still
allowed this useful and experienced, if unscrupulous public servant to
remain at the head of the Council. The only mark of royal displeasure
with which he was visited was his exclusion from the list of
lords-justices appointed according to custom to execute the royal
authority during the King's absence on the Continent.
On the 3d of May Parliament was prorogued, and on the 12th of the same
month William set out for Flanders to take command of the allied army
for what was destined to be the most successful of his campaigns.
Luxembourg was dead, and the command of the French army in the
Netherlands had devolved on a far inferior general in the person of
Marshal Villeroy. William was now matched against a general to whom he
was as much superior as Luxembourg had been to him, and this reversal of
conditions told speedily and signally on the fortunes of the year's
campaign. The prime object of William's operations was the retrieval of
the disastrous loss which the allies had suffered in 1692 by the fall of
Namur. On the recapture of this important fortress he now bent his whole
energies. His first movement, however, was an unsuccessful one. Athlone,
who had been detached with a large force to invest the city, was unable
to prevent Boufflers from throwing himself into it with a strong
reinforcement. The garrison now numbered 14,000 or 15,000 men, and as
its works had been planned by Vauban, the greatest military engineer of
his age, its defenders reckoned it impregnable. Leaving the main body of
his army under the Prince of Vaudemont, who, when pressed by Villeroy,
succeeded in skilfully retiring to Ghent, William, at the head of a
division, effected a junction with the forces of the Elector of Bavaria
and the Brandenburg contingent, and marching to Namur proceeded rapidly
to invest it. Its siege was then vigorously prosecuted. Cohorn, the
pupil of Vauban, and next to him in scientific reputation, was the
engineer of the allies, and, thus pitted against his master, had every
incitement to the exertion of his utmost skill. The trenches were opened
on the 2d of July, and on the 8th the outworks of one side of the city
were attacked and carried by an English force. This was the occasion on
which William is reported to have exclaimed, laying his hand on the
shoulder of the Elector of Bavaria, "Look, look at my brave English!"
The soldier in him was far nearer to them than the statesman, and amid
the smoke and tumult of that Flemish battlefield he was doubtless
stirred by emotions towards his subjects which at Kensington or
Westminster he had never known. On the 17th of the month, after a fierce
conflict in which the attacking forces were thrice beaten back and
thrice returned to the assault, the first counterscarp of the town was
carried. On the 20th the Bavarians and Brandenburgers captured another
portion of the outworks, and a few days later the English and Dutch made
themselves masters of the second line of fortifications. Before,
however, a general assault could be ordered, Boufflers, who did not
consider himself strong enough to defend the town, surrendered it on
terms of being allowed to retire into the citadel, for the possession of
which, in its turn, an obstinate struggle began. Villeroy, now before
Brussels, endeavoured in vain by a furious and destructive bombardment
of that city to compel the allies to raise the siege of the Namur
citadel, and Boufflers, in his last stronghold, soon found himself
exposed to so terrible a fire from one hundred and sixty cannon and
sixty mortars that, unless relief reached him, he felt that capitulation
could only be a question of days. At this desperate juncture Villeroy
advanced to his assistance, and on the 15th of August his army, 80,000
strong, was sighted by the defenders of Namur. The siege of the citadel
was not for a moment intermitted; the allies stood between the fortress
they were seeking to capture and the host which was marching to relieve
it, equally prepared to strike at both. For three days the two armies
confronted each other--three days of such anxiety as Europe had not
known since the beginning of the war. Everything seemed to portend a
conflict between the two great hosts--as decisive and even epoch-making
a struggle as that which, after the lapse of a century and a quarter,
was to be fought out on that now historic plain which the French general
had skirted on his way from Brussels. But the event surprised every one
and disappointed many. On the night of the 18th Villeroy unaccountably
withdrew his army, and the fate of the fortress was sealed. Portland was
sent to demand its surrender, but Boufflers, oppressed by the tradition
that no French marshal had ever capitulated, refused to do so, and the
next day, after the bloodiest assault which the history of that time
records, the allies succeeded in capturing about a mile of the
prodigious outworks of the citadel. Boufflers requested a truce of
forty-eight hours to bury his dead, which was allowed him; and before
the expiration of the time he signified his willingness to capitulate
within ten days. He was informed by the Elector of Bavaria on behalf of
the allies that he must surrender immediately or prepare for an
immediate renewal of the attack; and thus resolutely met he yielded. On
the 26th of August the garrison marched out with the honours of war, and
the greatest humiliation inflicted upon the French king since the
commencement of his career of conquest was with much pomp and
circumstance consummated. Villeroy and his useless army had already
retired to Mons.
The capture of Namur was the greatest event of the year, and indeed of
the campaign. It marked the turn of the tide in Louis's fortunes. From
1690 onwards it had set steadily in its favour, and reached full flood
on the day of Landen, in 1693. The following year may be fairly taken as
representing the half-hour of slack water before the ebb begins; but in
1695 it was plain to every one that the tide was running out. No other
victory was needed to demonstrate it after that of Namur, and none in
fact was won. In the autumn hostilities as usual ceased, and on the 10th
of October William, leaving his army in winter quarters, returned to
England to be received with a too rare warmth of welcome by his people.
He seized the opportunity of this burst of popular sunshine to dissolve
Parliament, which had still under the Triennial Act another year of life
to run. It has been suggested that he did so to put a stop to the
impeachment of Leeds, but though the proceeding against the Minister to
whom he owed not only his marriage with Mary, but in a great measure his
elevation to the English throne, must doubtless have given him
uneasiness, he had reason enough apart from this for determining the
life of the Legislature. "The happy state the nation was in," says
Burnet, "put all men except the merchants in a good temper; none could
be sure we should be in so good a state next year; so that now probably
elections would fall on men who were well affected to the Government. A
Parliament that saw itself in its last session might affect to be
froward, the members by such a behaviour hoping to recommend themselves
at the next election." And though Burnet only glances at the State
prosecutions as one among the causes which decided William's action, it
was with no special reference to the case of Leeds. "Besides," are his
words, "if the same Parliament had been continued probably the inquiries
into corruption would have been carried on which might divert them from
more pressing affairs, and kindle greater heats, all which might be more
decently dropped by a new Parliament than suffered to lie asleep by the
old one."
A proclamation was accordingly issued dissolving the existing
Parliament, and summoning a new one for the 22d of November. The
interval was employed by William in an unwonted effort to conciliate the
goodwill of the electors. For the first and only time in his reign he
set out upon a royal progress through the eastern and northern parts of
his kingdom, visiting many great houses, not only of Whig, but in some
cases of Tory magnates. At each of his stopping-places the rural
population of all degrees from squire to peasant thronged to see him,
and it seems evident that he made almost pathetic efforts to please.
"The King," says Burnet, who is always an outspoken critic of his royal
master, "studied to constrain himself to a little more openness and
affability than was natural to him; but his cold and dry way had too
deep a root not to return too oft upon him." Neither at Cambridge in his
journey northward, nor at Oxford, which he took on his return, was his
visit a success. The chiefs of the younger University invited him to no
entertainment; he declined that which was offered him by the
authorities of the elder. People murmured, too, at his visit to Althorp,
and some remarked, no doubt with less truth than ill-nature, that the
only place in which he really succeeded in making himself agreeable was
at the seat of the highly unpopular Sunderland. Nevertheless, and
however little these conciliatory efforts may have contributed to the
result, the elections went generally in William's favour. In many
constituencies Tories lost their seats, and were replaced by Whigs. The
city of London, which had returned four of the former party, now sent to
Parliament four of the latter. Members were in some places expressly
instructed by their constituents to support the King, and to vote
whatever supplies might be necessary for the vigorous prosecution of the
war. The new Parliament contained about one hundred and sixty members,
of whom the greater number were known to be well disposed towards the
King. William had triumphantly performed a feat which, as attempted by
the advisers of the sovereign, has perhaps more often been attended with
disaster than with success.
On the 22d of November, the day appointed, the new Parliament met. The
Commons again chose Foley for their Speaker, and the King made a long
speech from the throne. The demand for supplies was still very high, but
William said that as he had engaged in the present war by the advice of
his first Parliament, who thought it necessary for the defence of the
Protestant religion and the preservation of the liberties of Europe, and
as the last Parliament had with great cheerfulness assisted him to carry
on the war, so he could not doubt but that the present Parliament would
be unanimously zealous in the prosecution of it, particularly since the
advantages gained that year afforded a reasonable hope of future
success. The Commons voted an address of thanks and congratulation upon
the success of his Majesty's arms abroad, and pledged themselves to the
prosecution of the war. William returned a short but suitable answer,
and the business of the session began. The Legislature set to work to
effect a much-needed purification of the coinage, and as the Lords had
made a concession to the Commons in respect of the measure which became
necessary for this purpose, the Lower House now assented to the often
rejected amendment introduced by the Upper House in the Bill for
regulating trials in cases of high treason, which now at last became
law. But the session was not to proceed far without giving birth to an
unfortunate difference between Parliament and the King. William, with
that ill-judged profuseness of liberality towards his Dutch adherents,
by which he compromised not only contemporary popularity but posthumous
reputation, proposed to grant to Portland a magnificent estate
consisting of five very extensive manors in Denbighshire. The people of
the county forthwith set up the cry that the King intended to make this
foreigner Prince of Wales, so far at least as he could do so by
bestowing on him all that the Crown had to give in the principality. The
local gentry petitioned against the grant, and an address was voted
requesting the King to stop it. "Portland," says Macaulay, "begged that
he might not be the cause of a dispute between his master and the
Parliament, and the King, though much mortified, yielded to the general
wish of the nation." It would have been better, however, if the
historian had in this place added that William forthwith made a fresh
grant to the Earl of Portland of the manors of Grantham, Dracklow,
Pevensey, and East Greenwich, in the counties of Lincoln, Cheshire,
Sussex, and Kent, together with the honour of Penrith in the county of
Cumberland, and other manors in Norfolk, York, and the Duchy of
Lancaster. As these ancient crown-lands were far apart it could not now
be said that the King was creating a principality for the favourite, but
it removed no other of the serious objections to the grant.
Again, however, and as before, at a moment when the seldom very bright
sky of William's popularity threatened to become seriously overcast, the
sympathies of his people were revived by his enemies. The most
formidable of the conspiracies against the King's life, that known _par
excellence_ as the Assassination Plot, was set on foot, or rather
revived, as the renewal of a project which had been frustrated several
months earlier by the departure of William for the Continent--in the
autumn of 1695; and by the spring of the following year was ripe for
execution. Its leading spirit was one Sir George Barclay, a Scotchman,
who came over from St. Germains with a special commission from James,
which if it did not actually contemplate, or at least expressly sanction
assassination, was, to say the least, of a dangerously elastic
character. Among those whom he enlisted in the conspiracy were one
Charnock, an ex-fellow of Magdalen College, who had been a tool of James
II. in his high-handed violation of the statutes and liberties of that
society, Sir John Fenwick, a man of good family and connections and a
noted Jacobite agitator, and Sir William Parkyns, a Tory. The plan of
the conspirators was to lie in wait for William at a ferry on the
Thames, which he was in the habit of crossing every Saturday on his way
from Kensington to hunt in Richmond Park. To overpower the royal guards
it was necessary to raise the number of the conspirators to forty, among
whom it was tolerably certain that there would be at least one traitor.
As a matter of fact there were three. The secret was communicated by one
of these to Portland; the King, at first disposed to make light of it,
consented at last to abandon his hunting expedition on the Saturday
fixed for the assassination, and again on the same day in the following
week; and the principal conspirators were arrested. Barclay escaped to
France, and the Duke of Berwick, who had at the same time been vainly
attempting to prepare the way for a French invasion by a Jacobite
insurrection, also fled the country. William, in a speech from the
throne, made a formal announcement to the two Houses of the detection of
the conspiracy and his providential escape; and shortly afterwards
several of the conspirators, including Charnock and Parkyns, were tried
and executed.
That the discovery of the Assassination Plot tended, as Macaulay holds,
to revive the popularity of William may perhaps have been the case; it
is at any rate certain that on the occasion of the next difference
between the King and the Legislature he proved to be fully master of the
situation. The growing jealousy entertained by the landed interest
towards the wealthy traders, who were now in ever-increasing numbers
disputing the representation of the counties and provincial boroughs
with the squirearchy, gave birth during the present session to a project
of legislation of a highly reactionary kind. A Bill was brought in for
excluding from the House of Commons every one not possessed of a certain
estate in land. For a county member this property qualification was
fixed at five hundred a year, for a borough member at two hundred. Early
in February the Bill was read a second time, and referred to a select
committee, whose deliberations are rendered memorable by the fact that
an attempt was made in the course of them to antedate an existing
provision of an electoral system by about a century and a quarter. It
was proposed to add a clause enacting that votes should be taken by
ballot, but the proposition was rejected without a division. Duly
revised by the committee the Bill was returned to the House, and it then
became apparent that the pretensions of the landed interest were to meet
with resistance from an unexpected quarter. The Universities of Oxford
and Cambridge raised their voices against a restriction which struck at
individual ability no less than at personal property, and in deference
to their protest a motion was made to except the Universities from the
operation of the Bill. This, however, was rejected by 151 votes to 143,
and a motion subsequently made to except the city of London was not
pressed to a division. The Lords, from disinclination, let us charitably
hope, to embroil themselves with the elective House on a matter of
electoral legislation, passed the Bill without any amendment, and it
came up in due course for the royal assent. It was perhaps the least
invidious of all the opportunities ever offered to William for the
exercise of the veto, and he very wisely resolved to stop the Bill. In
spite, however, of the obviously disinterested character of the
step--the measure being one which touched no royal prerogative
whatever, and which he could have no reason for vetoing save that he
believed its provisions to be opposed to the true interests of the
country--his action did not escape challenge. An attempt was made by a
section of the Tory party to carry a vote of censure upon whatever
Minister had advised him to refuse assent to the Bill. The proposal,
however, was not taken up by the more moderate members of the
Opposition, and was ultimately rejected by the very large majority of
219 to 70--a sufficiently emphatic affirmation of the legitimate
character of at least this exercise of the prerogative of disallowance.
It is of course not impossible, as has been already admitted, that the
recent revulsion of goodwill towards the King may have contributed to
the completeness of this victory, but it seems scarcely necessary to
ascribe much to the operation of any such sentiment. It is pretty clear
that the Bill for the Regulation of Elections was very doubtfully
regarded in many quarters of the House; and it is indeed rather
surprising that in a Parliament such as that returned in 1695, with Whig
influence in a distinct ascendency, it should have been possible to
carry the Bill at all. It must, moreover, be remembered that even if
there had been a more pronounced liking for it in Parliament itself, the
measure was essentially one of that character for which a shrewd member
will not venture to vote except with one eye on his constituents.
Natural as it was for a country gentleman of that day to object to a
Londoner coming down with a valise full of guineas to contest with him
his native county or his ancestral borough, it is not to be supposed
that his objection would be shared by the free and independent electors
of either constituency. To them it might appear by no means undesirable
that "local interest" should be stimulated to judicious liberality by
the competition of the open-handed outsider.
On the 27th of April the first session of the new Parliament came to an
end, and a fortnight after the prorogation William landed in Holland,
whence he immediately set out to resume the command of the allied forces
in Flanders. His presence, however, was needed rather for purposes of
counsel than command; for, in truth, the long and desperate struggle
with Louis had now reached a stage when even the most enterprising of
captains might well be of opinion that Q. Fabius was the only general
whose tactics were worth studying. At one time it had almost become a
question which of the combatants would be the first to swoon from
exhaustion; but before William's arrival the skilful surprise and
destruction by Athlone and Cohorn of a vast magazine of ammunition and
stores, collected by the French at Groet, had virtually decided that
question against France. England, then in the throes of a monetary
crisis, was sufficiently hard put to it to support the continued strain
of the campaign; but upon France, with three armies afoot in three
hostile countries at once, the demand was far more terrible. She was
virtually too weak to attack in the Netherlands, and William probably
saw no advantage to himself in forcing an engagement. The summer passed
away in marches and counter-marches, and not a blow was exchanged
between Villeroy and the strategist who had plucked Namur out of his
grasp the year before. On the Rhine operations were equally bloodless
and indecisive. In Catalonia there had been some hard fighting, and
Vendome, who had succeeded Noailles, won a dearly-bought victory over
the Spaniards. Throughout the year, indeed, the pen was more busy than
the sword, and the straits in which Louis found himself may be measured
by the energy of his efforts to detach the allies from each other. The
wavering Duke of Savoy was at last definitively won over, his seduction,
it is said, being finally effected by assurances secretly transmitted to
Turin from the Court of Versailles to the effect that James would
inevitably be restored to his throne in consequence of the extraordinary
measures then being concerted for that purpose. The Duke, upon this,
went on pretence of pilgrimage to Loretto, and there signed a secret
treaty with France. Suspicion of his fidelity, however, soon gained
ground, and in the course of the summer he threw off the mask and
declared his intention, in accordance with a clause in the secret
treaty, of establishing a neutrality over all Italy. To this, of course,
the Emperor and the Kings of Spain and England refused to assent; but
the Duke compelled them to submission by an invasion of Milan, and all
Italian resistance to the French power was brought to an end. Louis at
the same time made separate overtures of peace to the Dutch, and with
such success that the States-General formally resolved that the
concessions of France afforded good ground for a treaty. The terms were
communicated to the other members of the confederacy, by some of the
weaker of whom they were accepted, although the Emperor and the King of
Spain united in rejecting them.
While matters were in this condition William returned to England for the
parliamentary session, and in his speech on the 20th of October to the
two Houses he informed them that overtures of peace had been made by the
enemy. But the language in which he referred to them left no doubt of
his own views. "I am sure," he said, "we shall agree in opinion that the
only way of treating with France is with our swords in our hands." This
is not a method of treating with foreign Powers which finds equal favour
in our own day; but in 1696 there was no great difference among English
parties as to the proper mode of negotiating, at any rate with Louis
XIV. The House of Commons was as sternly distrustful of the French king
as was William himself. Protracted and burdensome as had been the
struggle, they were in no more hurry to catch at Louis's overtures than
he. In their address of reply the Commons recalled the fact that this
was the eighth year that they had assisted his Majesty with large
supplies for carrying on a just and necessary war, and that this war had
cost the nation much blood as well as treasure; but they added that the
benefits procured to religion and liberty were not dearly purchased at
this price, and they pledged themselves to provide not only the
necessary supplies for continuing the war with vigour, but also for the
payment of the public debt, which had been gradually accumulating in
consequence of the deficiencies of revenue. The close of this session
was marked by vehement debates in both Houses on the Bill for the
attainder of Sir John Fenwick. Fenwick, who had been arrested in the
previous summer, and was now lying in the Tower, endeavoured to save his
life by making a confession incriminating Marlborough, Godolphin,
Russell, Shrewsbury, and other Lords, whom he indicated as holding
communications with the exiled king. William, however, who had long been
well aware of the treason of most of these accused servants of his,
declined to notice the charges, and the accuser only sealed his own doom
by making them. A Bill of Attainder was brought in against him by the
Whigs, and, the insufficient evidence in support of it having by a
straining of the law of treason been voted sufficient, passed both
Houses after a series of hot debates in which neither political party
showed to great advantage, and Fenwick was executed.
Early in 1697 the long struggle between France and the allies showed
signs of drawing to a close. Louis had expressed his willingness to
surrender the conquests made in the war, to restore Lorraine and
Luxembourg to their lawful owners, and to recognise William as King of
England. To these terms William and the States-General were ready enough
to assent; Spain, however, and the Emperor, raised objections; the
latter, as is suggested, on account of his desire to keep up the war
until the death of the ailing Spanish king, so that his own pretensions
to the crown of Spain might have the support of the allied army against
those of the French rival in the succession. Difficulties were
accordingly raised to delay the meeting by a Congress. The Emperor
proposed Aix-la-Chapelle as its place of meeting, and objected to the
French alternative proposal of the Hague. It was, however, finally
agreed that the representation of the allies should assemble at the
Hague, while those of France took up their quarters at Delft, a few
miles off; and that meetings between the two sets of negotiators should
take place at Ryswick, an intermediate village, in a palace belonging
to the Princes of Orange. Here accordingly they met on the 9th of May
1697, England being represented by Pembroke and Villiers, with the poet
Matthew Prior as their secretary, and France by Messieurs Harley, Crecy,
and Caillieres. Kaunitz and De Quiros were the respective
plenipotentiaries of the Empire and Spain. A Swedish minister acted as
mediator. Like other famous Congresses before and since, however, the
Congress of Ryswick made little progress; and after it had been many
weeks in session with no visible result, William resolved to open
negotiations directly with Louis through one of his generals commanding
in the Netherlands. He selected Boufflers as the most eligible for his
purpose, and Portland was directed to solicit a short interview. Leave
to comply with this request was immediately asked and obtained from the
French king, and several conferences took place between the two,
resulting, in less time than the Congress had taken to exchange powers
and settle formalities of precedence and procedure, in the settlement of
the basis of a treaty. Portland's commission was couched in highly
authoritative terms, and Marshal Boufflers's report of them shows most
strikingly how commanding an influence William then exercised in Europe,
and what lofty language one of the least assuming of men regarded it as
entitling him to use. In the French Marshal's account of his first
interview with Portland he recites an assurance conveyed to him by the
latter on the part of England, "that if satisfaction be given him on
points which concern him (the Prince of Orange) personally, he will
oblige the Emperor and the Spaniards to make peace; being satisfied for
himself, as well as the States-General, with the offers which your
Majesty has made in the preliminaries, and that if the Emperor and the
Spaniards persist in refusing to make peace, he will conclude it without
them together with the Dutch."[16]
The required satisfaction, however, was not obtained without some
difficulty. On William's side two stipulations were made, to which Louis
hesitated to assent; and neither these nor the two counter demands
advanced by the French king were ultimately assented to in the form in
which they were originally proposed. William required first that in the
peace which was to be concluded, and by which Louis was to consent to
recognise him King of England, the French king should "promise and
engage not to favour, directly or indirectly, King James against him."
The French plenipotentiaries at the Hague had already assented to their
master engaging himself not to favour directly or indirectly "the
enemies of the Prince of Orange, acknowledged King of England." William,
however, desired that James should be designated by name. "It is
absolutely necessary," writes Boufflers, reporting Portland's words to
Louis, "for the security of the Prince of Orange, that your Majesty
should engage _expressly_ not to favour directly or indirectly King
James _nominatim_; and" (this was the second point of contention) "that
he shall go and reside at Rome or elsewhere out of France, provided he
be not near enough to keep up any party in England." Boufflers added
that though the first demand might be waived if Louis had any reluctance
to mention James by name, and that "other equivalent terms" might be
found to give the Prince of Orange the securities he desires, yet that
it was indispensable in order to remove all suspicion that the exiled
king should reside out of France.
To both of these stipulations Louis demurred. It was inconsistent, he
held, with his honour as a sovereign, and with his duties as a host and
kinsman, to name "the King of England" in the treaty and to engage to
cause him to quit France; but he offered to agree "not to assist
directly or indirectly the enemies of the Prince of Orange without any
exception"; and Boufflers was directed to point out that the last three
words would exclude all suspicion of a restriction in favour of any
person whatsoever, and in fact amount to a virtual designation of James.
Upon this a further clause was engrafted by William, engaging Louis "not
to favour in any manner whatsoever the cabals, secret intrigues,
factions, and rebellions which might occur in England, nor any person or
persons who should excite or foment them," and to this Louis, after
modifying the expression "person or persons" which he regarded
apparently as the equivalent of "James or James's adherents," consented.
An attempt was made by William to obtain an assurance that after peace
was concluded James would be "induced to resolve of his own accord" to
live out of France; but Louis declined to yield even thus far, and the
point was waived. William perhaps believed that he could the better
afford to do so, as he proposed to make his acceptance of one of Louis's
two stipulations dependent upon his obtaining practical satisfaction on
this head. To the demand for the pension of £50,000, to which Mary of
Modena was alleged to be entitled, William had signified his
willingness to allow her any sum to which she could show lawful claim,
but it seems pretty clear that he had resolved to qualify this promise
by the condition that she and her husband should quit St. Germains. The
other demand of Louis--too arrogant to have been seriously urged, and in
all probability only put forward in formal fulfilment of a promise--was
that a general amnesty should be granted to all those who had followed
the fortunes of James, and further, that they should be restored to
their forfeited estates. To this last modest request William replied
that it was not in his power to grant it since the reversal of attainder
was a matter of statute and not of prerogative; to the former he replied
with proper spirit that "as for the general amnesty, besides that his
honour and glory demand that he shall not be forced to it by a treaty of
peace, the safety of his own person requires him not to recall
individuals to England whom he knows to be his personal enemies; but
that as soon as he shall be acknowledged King of England, and in
undisturbed possession by the treaty of peace, he will readily, of his
own free will, pardon those who seem to him disposed to return with good
faith and to live in quietness, behaving as good and loyal subjects."
The demand was of course immediately waived, and the two Powers being
now in accord, it now only remained to bring the rest of the allies into
the agreement. This, however, was not to be done in a moment. Both
Austria and Spain held back, and while they were hesitating new
successes of the French arms brought about an enhancement of the French
terms. Barcelona fell before one of Louis's armies, and the South
American Cartagena before a squadron of his fleet. Upon this his
plenipotentiaries were instructed to announce that he intended to keep
Strasburg, and that unless his terms, thus modified, were accepted by
the 10th of September he should hold himself at liberty to modify them
yet further. The combined influence of the reverse and the menace,
assisted by the steady pressure of William's determination, at length
produced the desired effect. At daybreak on the 11th of September
(1697), after a night spent in debate as to the order of procedure, the
Treaty of Ryswick was at last signed as between France and Spain, France
and the United Provinces, and France and England--the Emperor being
allowed till the 1st of November to signify his adhesion. Two days later
the news was known in England, and was there received with universal
rejoicings. William, however, regarded it with no unmixed satisfaction.
"I received last night," he writes to the Pensionary, Heinsius, "your
letter of the preceding day, and your letter of yesterday has been
delivered to me to-day by Lord Villiers. May God be pleased to bless the
peace which has just been concluded, and long continue it by His grace.
Yet I confess that the manner in which it has been concluded inspires me
with some apprehensions for the future."
FOOTNOTE:
[16] Grimblot's _Letters of William III._, etc., i. 8.