of Stair, the King's chief adviser, to root out the most unyielding of the clans. A proclamation was issued from Edinburgh offering pardon to every rebel who, before 31 December, 1691, should swear to live peaceably under William and Mary. The chief of the Macdonalds of Glencoe waited stubbornly until the very last day, when he presented himself before an official not empowered to take an oath, who sent him with a letter to the sheriff of Argyleshire. The sheriff after some hesitation accepted the submission and forwarded the certificate to Edinburgh, 6 January. This the Master of Stair suppressed, after which he secured William's signature to an order authorizing the extermination of the clan. On 1 February a company of soldiers was dispatched to Glencoe, where they stayed for nearly two weeks enjoying the rude but plentiful hospitality of the clan. Suddenly, in the early morning of the 13th, they rose and began to massacre their hosts. But they made the mistake of shooting instead of stabbing their victims, while the troops detailed to block the exits of the glen failed to arrive in time, so that a majority escaped. Many of them, however, perished of exposure, their homes were set on fire, and their cattle driven off. Stair's only regret was that so many got away. His enemies, however, and the opponents of the Government raised such an outcry that William, though he regarded the deed as a wholesome example visited on a gang of thieves and outlaws, was forced to consent to a commission of inquiry. Stair was retired and remained in private life till the next reign.

The Alliance against France (1689). — Meantime, William, in the autumn of 1689, had completed an alliance against France on which he had been laboriously working for years. It included the Empire, Spain, England and the Dutch. After his authority had been established in Ireland and Scotland, he departed, 18 January, 1691, to meet the allies in a congress at the Hague. Though his combination seemed an overwhelming one, it had almost no cohesion. Each of the Powers, determined on giving as little and getting as much as possible, counted on leaving the Dutch and English to bear the brunt of the fighting and the expense. They quarreled with one another about points of precedence, they were separated by trade rivalries and religious differences, while Louis, fighting on inside lines, was master of the resources of his Kingdom, and, ably assisted by Louvois, the greatest War Minister, Luxemburg, the greatest general, and Vauban, the greatest engineer of the age, could direct singly and unopposed the operations of his armies.

1 Meaning literally Glen of Weeping. It was a dreary inaccessible spot on the

western coast.

The Dismissal of Marlborough.

1

his allies and to keep up their enthusiasm but to face one Jacobite plot after another. No less than three whom he regarded as trusty supporters entered into treasonable negotiations with the enemy. Marlborough went to the greatest lengths; for he actually intrigued with the Jacobites to get rid of William, with the ultimate aim of putting not James, but Anne, in his place. The Jacobites, becoming suspicious, disclosed his designs, which led William to dismiss him, 10 January, 1692. It was a serious loss that, throughout the war, he was deprived of the aid of one destined to prove himself in the next reign the most remarkable of England's generals.

The Victory of La Hogue, 1692. Early in 1692, James, counting on his popularity with the navy and the discontent of Russell, who commanded the Channel fleet, prepared an invasion of England. Having assembled a fleet and mustered an army to be transported to the English coast, he issued a stupid and ill-timed declaration, in which he not only expressed no regret for the past and gave no promises for the future, but breathed dire vengeance against all who should oppose his return, and even published a list of those whom he had marked out for punishment. Indeed, it was so damning that the English Government had it licensed and freely distributed, which proceeding, together with the prospect of attack, roused the intensest patriotism. Russell, who, though in a fit of dissatisfaction at the grants he had received from William, had corresponded with the enemy, was a stanch Whig and zealous for the fame of the English navy, and declared: "Do not think that I will let the French triumph over us in our own sea . . . if I meet them, I fight them, aye, though his Majesty himself should be on board." So, when their fleet appeared in the Channel, they were met by a combined force of the English and the Dutch, who drove the French ships back to the Norman coast and burned the bulk of them in the harbor of La Hogue, before the very face of James and his army, 19-24 May.

William's Loss of Namur and Defeat at Steenkerke (1692). — The triumph at La Hogue, however, was more than counterbalanced by William's reverses in the Netherlands — his loss, in June, of Namur, commanded by a citadel never before taken, and his defeat by Luxemburg, 3 August, at Steenkerke on the road from Namur to Brussels. When the King returned to England in October, after narrowly escaping an attempt on his life hatched in the French War Office, the situation was altogether discouraging. English merchantmen were suffering from the pillaging of the enemy's privateers, the harvest had failed, 1 John Churchill had been created Earl of Marlborough at the coronation.

owing to heavy rains, and the insecurity and discontent were aggravated by a startling increase of crime. Housebreakers and footpads were so bold and active that William had to detail cavalry to guard the roads to London and to take the sternest measures to put down disorder. Having, with the greatest difficulty, secured supplies for the coming campaign from a Parliament torn by faction, he started back for the Netherlands 24 March, 1693.

William's Defeat at Neerwinden (19 July, 1693). This year the allied army took a strongly intrenched position where Luxemburg attacked it, 19 July. The battle of Neerwinden or Landen, as it is sometimes called from a neighboring village — the bloodiest battle of the century and one of the most terrible ever fought in the Netherlands, resulted in another defeat for William. But Luxemburg, though he drove him from the field, did not follow him up, either because his forces were too crippled or because he lacked energy. William, with the wonderful power of recovery for which he was famous, rallied his forces at Brussels, and ended the year's campaign in a position fully as strong as when it began.

The Failure of the Expedition to Brest. English Successes in the Mediterranean, 1694 The French plan of war for 1694 was to concentrate its energies in the Mediterranean against England's Spanish ally. The English, on their part, planned to send out two naval expeditions, one against Brest, the other to the Mediterranean. The destination of the first was betrayed by Marlborough, who can by no means be exonerated on the ground that the secret had already been disclosed. He apparently had a double motive; to secure himself in case William's enemies triumphed, and to discredit his ablest rival, who was in command. The expedition, delayed by contrary winds in the bargain, failed in its object, and accomplished nothing beyond devastating a few undefended points along the French coast. Russell, however, who went to the Mediterranean, was able to save Barcelona from an attack of a combined French army and fleet and to force them to take refuge under the guns of Toulon. His success marked another step in the rise of the English sea power, and, by checking Louis XIV's Spanish designs, exercised an effective influence on the subsequent course of the war.

The Death of Queen Mary (28 December, 1694).-On 28 December, 1694, Queen Mary died of smallpox at the early age of thirty-two. By her marriage with William of Orange she became a great factor in frustrating the designs of James II and checking the growing ascendancy of Louis XIV. She had endeared herself to the Dutch, and her popularity with the English went far to soften the animosity against

her sour Consort and his Dutch favorites. The King's grief at her loss was terrible, though he had only tardily come to appreciate her devotion, especially after she had readily renounced her rights to the throne that he might be the more a King.

FOR ADDITIONAL READING

Narrative. Lodge; Trevelyan; Macaulay; Ranke; and Cambridge Modern History.

Constitutional. Maitland, English Constitutional History, period IV: Hallam; Taswell-Langmead; and Taylor. Mary T. Blauvelt, The Development of Cabinet Government (1902), a good brief sketch. For scholarly treatments of the origin and growth of the Cabinet, see H. W. V. Temperly and Sir Wm. Anson, English Historical Review, XXVII, 682 ff. and XXIX, 56-78, and E. R. Turner, American Historical Review, XVIII, XIX, 27-43. A. S. Turberville, The House of Lords in the Reign of William III (1913).

751-768,

Army and Navy. Fortescue; Clowes; Mahan, Sea Power; and Corbett, England in the Mediterranean, I.

Scotland and Ireland. P. H. Brown; Turner and Joyce. For a full bibliography, see Cambridge Modern History, V, 825-837.

Special. Seeley, British Policy and The Expansion of England (1895), a luminous treatment.

Contemporary. Burnet.

Church. Hutton; Wakeman; and Stoughton.

Selections from the sources.

Adams and Stephens, nos. 235-240. Robert

son, Select Statutes, pt. I, nos. XII-XVII.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688.

WILLIAM ALONE (1694-1702)

The Assassination Plot (1695-1696), and the Attainder of Fenwick (1697). The death of Mary, by breaking one of the strongest links between William and the English people, revived the hopes of the Jacobites, who planned another attempt to restore James, this time by means of an assassination plot, later coupled with a scheme for raising an insurrection assisted by an invasion from France. However, the Duke of Berwick, a natural son of James, who came to England in January, 1696, to prepare the way for the projected invasion, failed to induce the Jacobites to rise, while, in February, a design to intercept and kill the King was betrayed. Most of the conspirators were arrested, though, owing to the King's wise forbearance, only eight were put to death. Among them was Sir John Fenwick, who while implicated in the projected insurrection, seems to have had nothing to do with the attempt to murder his Sovereign. He was executed, 28 January, 1697, after conviction by Bill of Attainder, the last man in England to suffer by this process.

The Restoration of the Coinage (1696).-Meantime, the great war was drawing to a close. During 1695, William had succeeded in recovering Namur, but in the campaign of 1696 the movements of both armies were hampered by lack of money. France was reduced to a state of downright misery, and England was suffering from a temporary financial stringency, due largely to a restoration of the currency. In spite of severe penalties, old clipped and mutilated coins circulated freely, while new ones with milled edges were hoarded or melted down and sold as bullion. The evil was bound to continue so long as those under weight were accepted at their face value. Through the efforts of four remarkable men, John Locke, Lord Somers, Charles Montagu, and Sir Isaac Newton, a Recoinage Act was passed, January, 1696, and carried into effect, which provided that the old damaged coins should cease to be legal tender by 4 May. The Government agreed