time, the Irish cavalry held them in check; but already the thoughts of James were bent only on flight, and he made no effort to rally his men. At the first symptoms of wavering he galloped towards Dublin, and in hot haste escaped again to France. The Irish, deserted by their king and disheartened by their disastrous defeat, continued their opposition to William for more than a year. Before they were finally subdued he returned to England, leaving Churchill in supreme command. By the By the capitulation of Limerick, resistance was finally abandoned; but the treaty 22 then entered into between the generals was not observed by the Protestant Irish Parliament, and a system of iron despotism was enforced for more than a hundred years afterwards. 1. The Great Seal; impressed on all doen. ments, proclamations, and edicts in the name of the sovereign. 2. Convention. That is, an assembly equiva lent to a parliament, but not called by a constitutional head like the king. The name is applied (1) to the 'Barebones' parliament summoned by Cromwell in 1653, before he was appoint d Lord Protector (see p. 89); (2) to the assembly called by General Monk which recalled Charles II. (see pp. 95 and 99); and (3) to this body which dethroned James II., and elected William of Orange. 3. It is a maxim of our monarchy that the king never dies,' for the moment that one sovereign ceases to live the next heir has really begun to reign. This party held that whenever the man James Stuart had left the throne vacant, the crown had devolved upon his daughter Mary, who was How actually queen. 6. Declaration of Rights, not to be confounded with the Petition of Right of 1628. The four most important bulwarks of English liberty are (1) Magna Charta wrung from King John (1215), (2) The Petition of Right exacted from Charles I. in 1628 (see p. 24), (3) The Habeas Corpus Act forced from Charles II. in 1679 (see p. 109), and (4) The Declaration of Rights in January 1689. 7. Premises, the propositions stated before in the Declaration. 8. Princess Anne, second daughter of James II., married to Prince George of Denmark. 9. Scottish Estates, the equivalent of the Eng lish Parliament. It included bishops, peers, and members of the Commons. 10. Viscount Dundee, formerly Graham of Claverhouse (see note 12, p. 105). 4. What took place was this-(1) the Commons 11. Killiecrankie, in the district of Blair Athol enacted that " King James having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of in the north of Perthshire. The battle was fought on July 27th, 1689. the kingdom by breaking the original 12. Glencoe. The massacre of Glencoe took place compact between king and people on February 13, 1692. and having withdrawn himself out of the 13. The Proclamation fixed the last day of 1691, kingdom, has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby vacant;" E. The crown was offered to William and Mary as the time before which submission had to be made. 14. Macdonald had gone to Fort-William within the time to make submission, but the governor could not receive the oath of allegiance, and sent him to Inverary to take it. He arrived there a day or two too late. 18. James landed on March 12, 1689. 15. William was deceived by the Earl of Breadal- Schomberg, a French refugee, who, upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, fled to Holland. He became the faithful friend of William, and was overcome with grief at his death. 1, 1690. 16. Sept, a tribe or clan, so called from the staff 21. The battle of the Boyne was fought on July or sceptre of the clan. Others say that it is probably a corruption of the word 'sect.' 17. Loch Leven, not to be confounded with Loch Leven in the county of Kinross. 22. The Treaty of Limerick' has thus become known as The Broken Treaty.' WILLIAM III.: THE KING APPOINTED BY PARLIAMENT. WILLIAM AND MARY. HARACTER and Policy of William. When William of Orange ascended the throne of England he was in his thirty-eighth year. His aspect was pale and furrowed with lines of care, for his bodily frame was all too weak for the heroic spirit which animated it : "A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay, And o'er-informed2 the tenement of clay." 4 3 His eye was of piercing brightness, his brow lofty, his manner cold and passionless. "He had," says a contemporary, "a thin and weak body, was brownhaired, and of a clear and delicate complexion. He had a Roman eagle nose, bright and sparkling eyes, a 5 large front, and a countenance composed to gravity and authority. . He spoke little and very slowly, and most commonly with a disgusting dryness, which was his character at all times, except in a day of battle; for then he was all fire, though without passion, he was then everywhere and looked to everything." With his intimates' he was frank, affectionate, and witty, and he was capable of inspiring friendships stronger than death; but by the nation he was respected rather than loved, for he did not shine in social intercourse and experienced little pleasure in the routine. of life. His mind was formed for great achievements; and he found his keenest enjoyment in perilous adventure, in the excitement of battle, and in the game of politics which he waged on such a stupendous scale with his antagonist Louis XIV. of France. William's eager desire was to be not leader of a faction or party, but King of the whole of England. It is one of the glories of this monarch, that through his generosity no blood was shed in England at the great Revolution. The Whigs, who had brought him to the throne, clamoured for vengeance against their Tory foes; but the firm king, by an Act of Grace from the crown, declared "a perfect oblivion for all political offences up to that moment." 8 The chief motive which led William of Orange to accept the crown of England, was the immense accession of strength he thereby acquired for withstanding the ambitious projects of Louis of France. The two sovereigns, William and Louis, stood out prominently as the most powerful rulers of their time. The destinies of Europe virtually depended on the success of the ono against the other. From his childhood, William had 9 I carried on a heroic struggle against his great rival. By the terrible expedient of bursting the sea-dykes and flooding the greater part of his country,10 he had saved Holland from French conquest; and after continuing the conflict for six years, he at last, by the peace of Nimwegen, had secured its independence. 11 12 William and Louis of France.-Shortly after ascending the throne of England, William succeeded in forming the league against France known as the Grand Alliance,1 of which the principal members were England, Holland, Germany, and Spain. While William was occupied in Ireland, fortune had been favouring the arms of France in its contest with the Allies. In addition to this, the allied fleet had sustained a severe defeat off Beachy Head, owing to the culpable reluctance of Torrington," the English admiral, to engage in battle, while the Dutch portion of the fleet were bravely contending against superior numbers. The French landed on the coast of Devon and burned Teignmouth, but the outrage was fatal to the Jacobite rising, which it was hoped their landing would incite. Had Tourville dashed at London instead of attacking the west, the Stuart dynasty might have been re-established by foreign force, and the whole course of English modern history completely changed. As the chief spirit of the coalition was William, Louis' policy was to give such aid to James that the attention of his rival would be concentrated on the defence of his own throne. Thus the issues of the great European war depended at this time upon the result of the struggle in Ireland; and the victories of the Boyne in 1690, and of Aughrim 14 in 1691, far more than counterbalanced the French successes on the continent. France was now threatened along its whole line of |