Proposals of William,

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London lest they should seem to overawe the Parliament, James, for the same reason, should consent to withdraw his Irish regiments to an equal distance; and that, if the King and he himself should desire to be present in London at the meeting of Parliament, they should each have an equal body-guard. It might not have been unreasonable for James's envoys to object to this provision as offensive and inadmissible; since it certainly implied an equality between the King and the Prince; while another stipulation, that the King should not seek to introduce any French troops into the kingdom, was probably more really at variance with the King's feelings and schemes, though it was one to which he would have found it impossible to raise even a plausible objection. William also varied the form of the answer, which, according to the draft of his councillors, would have seemed to proceed from himself alone; but he chose that it should appear to be their work as well as his; to be, as it were, the joint answer of himself and the Council, since, as he laid it down, he had come to relieve the people of England according to their own desires and on their own principles.

But James never waited to receive the answer. His fears led him to take the exact course which those in the Prince's confidence and interest most desired. Lord Halifax had, by the express command of the Prince, who had good reason not to trust too much to his chaplain's discretion, been refused a private interview with Burnet; but at one of the public receptions he had found opportunity for a hurried conversation with him. "What," he asked the busy Churchman, "did the Prince's partisans really seek? Did they wish to have the King in their power?" "By no means; they should not know what to

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"do with him, and no one wished to harm him.” 'What,” asked Halifax, "if he were to go away?" "Nothing," replied Burnet, "could be so desirable." And this very course, which his enemies most wished, but to which none of them could have driven him, James now took of his own accord. On the 6th of December, the very day on which his Commissioners reached Hungerford to wait for William, the little Prince of Wales was brought secretly back to London. While William was discussing with his Council the reply to be given to them, a distinguished French noble, by marriage nearly allied to Louis himself, but to whom that alliance had as yet brought nothing but loss of Court favour, was conducting the Queen and her infant son to France; and the moment that James received intelligence of their embarkation having been safely effected, he began to prepare for his own flight.

Nothing could change his purpose. It had no weight with him that, at the same time, he received letters from Halifax and his brother Commissioners, announcing that the answer to his proposals would be favourable. A panic, equally unkingly and impolitic, had taken entire possession of his mind; and, as if his duplicity and preference for falsehood were ineradicable, he was as resolved to signalize his flight with needless bad faith as to fly. Once more he summoned a Council, in which the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of the City were included; he exhorted them to discharge their duties as faithful councillors of the Crown, and vigilant guardians of the public peace; and assured them that though he had thought it best, while an armed enemy was in the country, to place his wife and heir in security, he himself would stay among them, and trust his own honour and safety to their loyalty.

Fames leaves London.

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He even imposed on his most confidential ministers; told the Lord Chamberlain that he had good news from Hungerford; bade the Lord Chancellor attend him at an early hour on the morrow; and, soon after midnight, quitted the palace by a secret passage; crossed the Thames in a small boat; with a childish hope of embarrassing those whom he left behind, he threw into the river the Great Seal, which he had ordered Jefferies to leave in his chamber, for the express purpose of making away with it; found a carriage ready equipped on the Surrey side; and drove with all speed to Sheerness, where a vessel was waiting for him, in which he hoped, before night, to reach the French coast.

Fortunately for him, if his pertinacity in folly had not baffled all the endeavours of Fortune to save him, that hope was for the moment disappointed. He succeeded, indeed, in getting on board the ship; but the wind was so fresh that the captain hesitated to put to sea: and, before he consented to weigh anchor, the command was taken out of his hands. Garbled and imperfect intelligence of what was taking place in London had reached the district; it was understood that the Roman Catholics, and especially the priests, were fleeing from London; and when it was also learnt that some well-dressed strangers had recently gone on board the craft which was seen to be preparing to get under way, a body of fishermen from the neighbouring villages, at all times a rough and unmanageable body, boarded her, and compelled the King, whom they mistook for the Jesuit Father Petre, with his attendants, to go on shore. There he was presently recognized. Some of the Kentish gentlemen gathered round him to protect him and set him at liberty. But at first he seemed utterly broken in spirit; while he was believed to be Petre, he had been

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somewhat rudely handled; had been robbed of his purse and watch; and he burst out from time to time into childish lamentations; sometimes muttering to himself a saying of his father, that "the distance was short between the prison of a King and his grave;" at others, loudly declaring that the Prince of Orange was thirsting for his life, and begging for a boat to regain the ship, and resume his flight.

But after a while he grew calmer. When he was first brought on shore, he had found time and means to write a brief note to acquaint any one to whom it might be delivered, that he was in "the hands of an insolent rabble." And the letter was brought to London to the Council of Peers, who, on the first intelligence of his flight, had taken the government upon themselves. They instantly despatched Lord Feversham with a detachment of Life Guards to ensure his safety; and the sight of the gallant troops restored him to a sense of what was due to his dignity, revived his courage, and disposed him to entertain wiser counsels. He sent Lord Feversham back with a letter to the Prince, in which he announced that he should instantly return to Whitehall, and invited William to a personal conference; placing St. James's Palace at his disposal as a temporary residence; and after resting a night at Rochester, drove back to London, from which he had been absent five days.

But, short as the period of his absence had been, it had been long enough to inflict almost irretrievable injury to his cause, and certainly to show him the extreme impolicy of his flight, and to warn him never to repeat it. It had alienated almost all those who had hitherto been his staunchest friends. His brother-in-law, Lord Rochester, advised the Duke of Northumberland, who commanded a troop of Life Guards, to call his soldiers together, and at once to declare

A Council of Peers is summoned.

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for the Prince; Halifax, who, to contempt for the King's pusillanimous folly united a keen indignation at having been mocked by being sent on an idle commission to Hungerford, henceforth directed all his efforts to place William on the throne. Many even of those, with whom loyalty was a principle of religion, were of opinion that, by departing or intending to depart from the kingdom without making any provision for a regency during his absence, James had resigned his office, and released them from their allegiance. And Sancroft, who, as Primate, was at the head of the Peerage, summoned a Council of Peers, who speedily drew up and published a declaration, that all hope of a peaceful redress of grievances and of a restoration of the public tranquillity by the authority of Parliament had been extinguished by the King's flight. That, therefore, they had all determined to join the Prince of Orange for the security of the liberties and religion of the nation. And, promising liberty of conscience to all Protestants of every denomination, they announced that, till the Prince should arrive, they took on themselves the responsibility of the Government. And they sent a copy of the declaration to William, with an entreaty that he would hasten with all speed to London.

The line of conduct thus announced by them cannot be denied to have been not only wise and constitutional, but indispensably necessary. How necessary, a very few hours gave fearful proof. They proceeded to regulate those matters which they regarded as most pressing, to displace some of the Roman Catholics who were in high office, and to send down orders to Lord Dartmouth to abstain from acting against William's fleet. But there was a nearer danger which, as they did not foresee it, they did not provide against. When the King quitted Whitehall he left a