MEDAL STRUCK TO COMMEMORATE THE ABLE CONDUCT OF THE QUEEN, after the Defeat of the English and Dutch Fleets in the Channel in June, 1690. Obverse: Bust of the Queen. Reverse: The Tower on the one side, and the Dutch Ships careening on the other; in front, the Queen extending a Trident in her right hand. was the trim of his politics at this moment, it is proved beyond a doubt that subsequently he maintained a close correspondence with the courts of St. Germains and Versailles. Upon the departure of William from Ireland the conduct of the war there fell to General Ginckel, who retired from before the well-defended walls of Limerick to Clonmell. The Earl of Marlborough. though allied with the Princess Anne, and a disaffected party that met at Sion House, and though regarded with suspicion and dislike by William and his queen, was eager to have a share in the glory or the profits of the Irish war; and, by means which are not very clearly explained, he actually got appointed to a command, and landed at Cork on the 21st of September, with about 5000 English troops, who were presently joined by about 4000 Danes, already in the country, under the command of the Duke of Wirtemburg. Marlborough's mission was to take Cork and Kinsale, through which principally the Irish kept up their communications with France; and this duty he performed completely and with alacrity, returning to England with triumph in little more than a month. The Duke of brats, and then returned to the rest, with the conviction that the people in the west of England were not at all disposed to rise for King James. Grafton, one of Charles's illegitimates, who had accompanied him to Cork, was killed at the siege of that place. William, it is said, declared that he knew no man who had seen so little of war so fit to be a general as Marlborough; but the English people were much more enthusiastic in the praise of the native hero, boasting that he had achieved more in one month than the king's phlegmatic Dutch favorites had done in two campaigns.1 After the departure of the luckless James, the Irish and French quarreled worse than before; and, to make the confusion still more hopeless, the Irish themselves were split into two or three factions. Louis XIV. recalled his troops, and the Duke of Berwick went over to France in disgust and despair. On the approach of winter a great part of the wasted country was like a hell: famine and disease, violence, murder, and all the darkest crimes held a horrible jubilee. The expedition of James had produced an amount of human misery which has been rarely equaled in any other country in modern times. The brave and active Sarsfield remained to carry on the war for James. 1 Archdeacon Coxe, Life of Marlborough. It will be well to remark at this point the line of conduct recommended by his advisers, and which would doubtless have been followed MEDAL STRUCK TO COMMEMORATE THE FLIGHT OF JAMES II. FROM IRELAND, AND THE SUPREMACY OF THE HOUSE OF ORANGE Obverse: Bust of King James, with a Peruke in a bag. Reverse: An Orange-tree laden with Fruit, and, opposite to it, an old Oak thrown to the ground. 66 On the 2d of October, William again met his par- ommend to their care the clearing of his revenue, liament, having previously received congratulations so as to enable him to subsist and maintain the on the success of his arms from the city of London charges laid on the civil list. He assured them that and from various other quarters. In his opening the support and success of the confederacy abroad, speech, he said, "That he had used his best en- which was equally meant to defend the liberties of deavors to reduce Ireland into such a condition that England and the integrity of the continental states it might be no longer a charge to England; and from the encroachments of the French, would ahGod had blessed his endeavors with such success, solutely depend upon the speed and vigor of the that he doubted not but he should have been fully English parliament. Then, after noticing the genpossessed of that kingdom by this time, had he eral fidelity and affection of the people, he combeen enabled to have gone into the field as soon as plained of the recent ill conduct of the fleet, which he should have done, and as was more especially had committed the honor of the country. Knownecessary in Ireland, where the rains are so great ing that some party or parties would do their utand begin so early." He then extolled the bravery most to limit the supplies and carry the attention of the army; and, having said he had asked no rev- of the Houses to other matters, he said, in concluenue for himself, but what he had readily subjected sion, Whosoever goes about to obstruct or divert to be charged to the uses of the war, he added that your applications to these matters, preferably to he would command all the public accounts to be all others, can neither be my friend nor the kinglaid before the House of Commons, by which they dom's."1 would see that the real want of what was necessary beyond the funds given, and the not getting in due time that for which funds were assigned, had been the principal causes why the army was in so much arrear of their pay, and the stores both for the navy and the ordnance not supplied as they ought to be." He told them that it was too plain, from what the French had done and were doing, that if the present war were not prosecuted with vigor, England would be in the greatest danger; that he would lay before the Commons a statement of what would be necessary for the proper support of the fleet and the army; and that he must recif James had proved victorious. When Melfort was under the happy impression that his master had succeeded in Ireland, and was about transferring the war to England, he advised some of the most absolute and odious measures that had ever been suggested by a British minister. After saying that the first steps on English ground would be most dangerous, and that all the rocks they had before split upon must be minded, he adds:-"These rocks are obvious. Besides the oaths and penal laws against dissenters from the church of England, there is the standing army of foreigners, the power of money, the exorbitant usurpations of parliament, the trial of high treason and other crimes against the crown by juries, the Habeas Corpus Act, and such like, which, if not regulated more advantageously for the crown or quite abolished, I can see no comfort the king can have of his crown, or safety the subjects can have from their own follies. There is a great consideration of forming the party the king will choose to govern by, for by a party a factious state must still be mastered: endeavoring to use all equally in it being a certain way to lose all. . . . This party ought to be of men of tried loyalty; for with our countrymen there is no trusting to new men nor to probabilities, so corrupt our blood is grown by hereditary rebellion against God and the king." The court was to be composed estest, and loyalist principles." "But, above all things," says Melfort, care must be had that such as have been active in the king's service exclusively of those "that be of the best blood, and prudentest, hon 46 in his absence be well rewarded, and all advantages taken to punish such as have been the authors or promoters of this rebellion; and if the king be forced to pardon, let it be as few of the rogues as he can, and with a watchful eye over them, remembering that King David par The Commons forthwith voted that a supply should be given to their majesties for the entire reduction of Ireland, for securing the peace of this kingdom, and carrying on a vigorous war against France. They proposed that £1,000,000 of this money should be raised upon the credit or by the sale of the estates forfeited in Ireland by those who had taken up arms for King James. This, in effect, would have included the estates of all the papists; and prudential and merciful objections were offered. The Commons, however, brought in a bill for attainting the persons that were or had been in rebellion, either in England or Ireland, and for confiscating their estates and applying them to the use of the war, with a clause for reserving a portion of the forfeitures for his majesty's disposal. The Lords let this bill sleep; and, in spite of messages from the Commons, it was finally allowed to drop. On the 25th of November, after giving the royal assent to a bill for doubling the excise upon beer, ale, and other liquors, William, in a speech to both Houses, declared his grateful sense of the readiness of the Commons in voting such large supplies, assuring them that he would see the money properly applied to the uses for which it was intended. He told them that the posture of affairs abroad required his presence at the Hague before the end of the year, and that, consequently, he must desire them to expedite their further supplies, for no funds were left available for the support of the civil government, as the excise and all other branches of the revenue had been applied to other uses. The Commons made such dispatch that, by the 20th of December, there was a bill ready for the royal assent for grantdoned Shimei at his return to Jerusalem, but took care that he shoulding certain duties upon East India goods, wrought sooner or later feel the smart of his wickedness the first failing he made. Such as are excepted, no pardon should ever be allowed; and among these should be as many of those families where father and son both are engaged, or such as have been hereditarily disloyal: for from such there is no more loyalty to be expected than religion from the devils. It is not in their nature, and rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft, neither can repent." Such were some of the precious remedies proposed, such the blessings intended for England if the counter-revolution had succeeded. And we shall soon find that neither time nor an increase of devotion made the exiled sovereign more scrupulous about promise breaking: that, to help him in winning his way back, James issued proclamations and manifestoes, which, upon his own avowal, he never meant to respect, intending, on the contrary, to take full vengeance upon the nation which had cast him off. silks, and other merchandise; and another bill, for increasing the duties upon wine, vinegar, and tobacco. Altogether, the money voted for the support of the ordnance, of the army, which was to consist of 69,000 men, and of the fleet, with 28,000 seamen, amounted to £4,000,000-the greatest sum that had, as yet, been voted by an English parliament. People began immediately to complain of the increase of taxation; but the inestimable benefit 1 Ralph.-Coxe. they were purchasing was worth the money. In passing these bills, William told them that he could not long defer his voyage; and represented to the Commons, that if some annual provision could be made for augmenting the navy, and building some new men-of-war, it would be a very necessary care at that time, both for the honor and safety of the nation." The Commons presently voted £500,000 more for the building of new ships of war." A.D. 1691. On the 5th of January William took his leave of the parliament. In the course of his speech he said. "I think it proper to assure you that I shall not make any grants of the forfeited lands in England or Ireland till there be another opportunity of settling that matter in parliament, in such manner as shall be thought most expedient." His departure from this promise-which, however, he never broke to the extent represented by his enemies was one of the worst steps taken by William, and one that caused him most trouble in the sequel. After the king had spoken, the Lord Chief Baron Atkins declared that it was his majesty's pleasure that both Houses should adjourn till the 31st of March. Parliament adjourned accordingly; and on the very next day, on the 6th of January, while the Londoners were enjoying the festivities of Christmas, William set off on his journey. But the weather became most inclement: a severe frost set in, with strong and contrary gales of wind, and when he had got as far as Canterbury, he was obliged to return. He remained at Kensington till the 16th, when he again set out in the midst of frost and snow. On the same day he embarked at Gravesend; and on the 18th, about noon, his convoy, consisting of twelve men-of-war and seven yachts, and having on board many persons of distinction, made the Dutch coast, after a troublesome and dangerous voyage. That coast was ice-bound, and it was extremely dangerous to attempt getting into port with the large ships. But William, who always suffered exceedingly from sea-sickness, and whose affairs were most urgent, would not be delayed. He ordered a chaloupe to be got ready, stepped into it with the Duke of Ormond, the Earl of Devonshire, now lord steward of the household, the Lord Chamberlain Dorset, the Earl of Monmouth, his country man and bosom friend, Bentinck, now Earl of Portland, and his other attached followers, Messrs. Auverquerque and Zuleystein. The sailors hesitated to put off-his men of quality advised him to stay-but William gave the word, and away they went in the open boat. They had been told by a fisherman that they money In the course of this year the Earl of Marlborough wrote a letter to King William, while on the continent, which proves that he was already suspected of peculation, and of that eagerness for which was afterward a most notorious and striking part of his character. You will pardon me, sir," he writes to the king, "that I take the lib erty in saying that I have been extremely fretted at a thing that has been told me since you went, which is, that Sir John Guise should tell you that he knew by merchants, when I came out of Holland, that I left £30.000 there, and that your majesty should answer him, that when you came back you would inquire into it. I do assure you that there is not any thing true of what Sir John Guise has told you; and if your majesty find that I had one shilling there before the 6500 guinas that I sent over by my Lord Portland, and afterward 4700 to Schulenberg, I then beg you to believe me the least of men." (See the letter, dated June 17, 1630, in Dalrymple's Appendix.) were within a league and a half of Goree; but either the fisherman misinformed them, or they mistook their way in a thick fog which presently surrounded them. The fog was soon made darker by the setting of the sun; and all that cold night they pulled and beat among floating ice; and it was eight o'clock the next morning before they reached Goree, half perished with cold. On the next day, William got to the neighborhood of the Hague, where he was waited upon by the States-General, the states of Holland, the council, the public bodies, the foreign ministers, and an immense body of princes and confederates, who looked to him as their defender and champion against the victorious and insulting French. Among these princes and potentates were the electors of Bavaria and Brandenburg; the dukes of Zell and Wolfenbuttel; Prince Christian Louis, of Brandenburg; the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel; Prince Waldeck; the Prince of Nassau, stadtholder of Friesland; the princes of Nassau-Sarbruck, Nassau-Dillenburg, and Nassau-Idstein; the Duke.Administrator of Wirtemberg; the two princes of Anspach; the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, and his brother, the Duke of Saxe-Eysenach; Prince Philip Palatine; the Duke of Zulsbach; the Prince of Wirtemberg; the Duke of Courland; the Prince of Anhalt-Zeerborst; the Landgrave of Homberg; three princes of Holstein-Beck; the Duke of Holstein; the Prince of Commerci; the Prince Palatine of Birkenfelt; the Princess of Nassau-Friesland; the Princess of Radzevill; the Countess of Soissons; the Princess of Saxe-Eysenach; and others, attended by counts and barons, far too numerous to name. William was no stage hero-no parading, dramatic prince: his manners were cold and retiring-his dress and personal bearing as simple as those of a plain Dutch or English gentleman; yet, though he was indifferent or averse to such pageantries, he consented to make a triumphal entrance into the Hague; and, on the 26th, the stadtholderking rode under arches and through streets studded with inscriptions and hung with tapestry. The burghers, in arms, lined the way; the windows and balconies were crowded with the fairest faces the Seven Provinces could show, and the very housetops were covered with spectators, who hailed him as " William the Conqueror." Before the cannon had done roaring or the bonfires had burned themselves out, William proceeded to business; and, in a day or two, the assembled princes, and the other members of the confederacy represented by their ambassadors, sat as a congress to provide for their own security and the general independence of Eu rope. While William had been defeating the Jacobites and the French in Ireland, the Dutch and their allies, under the command of Prince Waldeck, had been wasting their time or misdirecting their efforts on the continent, and the French had gained a great victory over them at Fleurus, in Flanders, nearly at the same moment that William had won the battle of the Boyne. The real head of the league, and 1 "State of Europe for January, 1691;" and "A late Voyage to Holland," as cited by Ralph. Town HOUSE, HAGUE, WITH CARRIAGE OF PRINCE OF ORANGE. 1686. From Prints of the time. life and soul of the confederacy, now told this con- | coalition; and the congress resolved that 222,000 gress that the imminent danger wherein they were thrown sufficiently showed the errors they had committed; that juster and better measures must be instantly adopted without losing time in debate; that, in the circumstances they were in, they must act, not talk; that the French were masters of all the chief fortresses which had served as barriers, and would quickly possess themselves of the rest, if the spirit of division, slowness, and particular interests continued any longer among them. In continuation, he spoke broadly of the errors and vices which are inherent in every coalition of the sort; and which, in spite of all his efforts, and the accumulated proofs of the fatal consequences, continued to vex him till his dying day. He told them that all parties in the confederacy ought to be persuaded that their respective interests were comprised in the general one; that the French were united, and were formidable in that union; that it was in vain to clamor and complain, or to trust to protests against their injustice; that it was not the resolutions upon paper of a diet or congress, nor the hopes of some men of fortune arising from frivolous foundations, but soldiers, strong armies, and a prompt and sincere union among all the forces of all the allies that must do the work, put a stop to the conquests of Louis, and snatch the liberty of Europe from his grasp. He pledged himself to spare neither his credit and forces nor his own person, and promised to return, in the spring, at the head of an English army. His speech gave courage to the desponding, and a momentary union to the conflicting elements of the men in all should take the field, and that no peace Godolphin, he had made, and was actually making, communications of the state of public affairs and domestic transactions in England: yet Marlborough was treated with every show of esteem and confidence by King William; and, as soon as he was on the continent, he attracted universal admiration by his talent for military affairs, although, through inevitable circumstances, his operations were confined to hastening the preparations and assembling and exercising the troops of the confederation for the ensuing campaign. It was pretty apparent that, notwithstanding their being on unfriendly terms with nearly every country in Europe, and in open war with the Empire, Spain, Holland, Savoy, England, and even the pope, the French would still be very formidable enemies. William, at the head of about 70,000 men, of various nations and various dispositions, advanced to the capital of Spanish Flanders, covered Brussels, which was threatened by the main body of the French army under Marshal Luxembourg (Louis had returned to Versailles), forced that able general to retire, sent a detachment to the relief of Liege, which was threatened by habitants threatened to rise against the garrison; | sovereign and benefactor. Together with his friend and the governor capitulated on the 20th of April, before William could collect the Spanish troops in Flanders and his other dilatory allies. Indeed, the Spaniards had been so careless and slow that nothing was prepared for the expedition; and, while the French had all the matériel of war in the utmost abundance and perfection, William could not find baggage-wagons or horses to draw his artillery. After the fall of Mons, he hastened back to England, where more than one conspiracy against his government had been detected during his absence. Upon his arrival in London he regulated the mode in which the war in Ireland was to be prosecuted, got the English fleet to sea under the command of Admiral Russell, and filled up, at last, the sees which were held to be vacated by the bishops that would not take the oaths to his government. Dr. Tillotson became archbishop of Canterbury; and, generally speaking, the vacated bishoprics were filled with men superior in learning, morality, and decency to those who had displaced themselves by refusing the oaths. But this fact did not, of course, moderate the complaints of the Non-jurors, who contrived to disturb and vex the queen, though they could never irritate William into a persecution. The celebrated Henry Dodwell distinguished himself among these Non-jurors by his "pervicacious humor." That Dodwell," said William, "wants me to put him in prison; but I will disappoint him." By the 1st of May the king was again on his way to Holland, having further prorogued the parliament; and, on the 2d, he embarked at Harwich, under the convoy of a strong squadron commanded by Admiral Rooke. Some English levies had already been sent over— others went with him; and he was attended by Lord Sidney, secretary of state, and the earls of this was all that many other scoundrels wanted. The archdeacon is Marlborough and Portland. Ever since the begin- probably right in his conjecture, though assuredly obtuse in his moral ning of the year Marlborough had been correspond-feeling in passing over the selfishness and double treachery of his hero ing with King James, and the refugees at St. Germains, through Colonel Sackville and Mr. Bulkely, two of the numerous Jacobite agents, expressing, in unqualified terms, his contrition for his past conduct, and his anxiety to make amends to his dethroned 1 The most important of these conspiracies was headed by the Scottish Lord Preston, whom James, since his abdication, had created an English viscount and secretary of state. In the preceding month of December, Danby, now Earl of Caermarthen, received intelligence that a suspicious vessel, with several gentlemen passengers on board, was about to sail from the river to France. This vessel was boarded off Gravesend, and in her hold were found my Lord Preston, Mr. Ashton, who had been in the household of the late queen, and one Elliot. Ashto attempted to throw a bundle of papers overboard, but they were secured and found to contain very treasonable matters. The most remarkable of the papers was styled, "The Result of a Conference between some lords and gentlemen, both Tories and Whigs, respecting the Restoration of King James:" which, however, was to be brought aboot (or so said the paper) "without endangering the Protestant religion," &c. Elliot made his peace with the government by betraying has confederates; or, according to another account, he was not tried because no good evidence could be procured against him. Lord Prestom and Ashton were brought to trial at the Old Bailey, were found guity of a design to bring in King James by means of French arms, &c., and were both condemned to die. Ashton was hanged on the 18th of January (1691), but Preston, who is supposed to have communicated many secrets to the government, was respited and finally enlarged. By the discovery of this plot many persons of note were committed. The Earl of Clarendon, uncle to the queen, was sent, with some others, to a very short imprisonment in the Tower. The Bishop of Ely, Mr. Grakan, and some others, absconded. 1 Coxe's Memoirs of John Duke of Marlborough, with his Original James had even been assured by his secret agents that Marlborough would desert to him or to the French with all the English troops that were in Flanders. In James's Memoirs it is said, "Nevertheless the Correspondence, collected from the family records at Blenheim King king found no effects from these mighty promises; for his majesty, insisting upon his offer of bringing over the English troops in Flanders as the greatest service he could do him, he excused himself, under pretense that there was some mistake in the message; that it would ruin all to make the troops come over by parcels; that his business was to gain an absolute power over them, then to do all the business at once." Archdeacon Coxe thinks that the Jacobite agents exaggerated their services and deceived James by telling him more than Marlborough had told them, and that all that Marlborough wanted was to secure an indemnity for himself and friends in case of a counter-revolution. But so very lightly as to leave it almost doubtful whether he seriously dis approves of his conduct. In the Memoirs of James, where a letter is cited, written by that unhappy sovereign on the 20th of April to his former favorite, it is said, "However, as if he (Churchill, i. e., Marlborough) had merited great matters, he grows upon the king (James) in his demands; for his first request was only two lines under his hand, though not signed, to testify that he would extend his pardon to him, or any other, though the greatest offenders, who by their future behavior, should give him proofs of their deserving it, which he said would influence the . . . . . . self, my lady [the Princess Anne is here evidently meant]. Churchill, and others: this the king readily complied with; but his lordship stopped not there: when he found the king so goodnatured, his next request was that he would please to write to my Lord Godolphin and assure him of forgiveness too; in which letter the queen must insert a few words likewise to testify her being reconciled to him, and yet at the same time to order him to keep his employments, to be more serviceable, as was pretended [it seems he had soon forgot his friend's scrupulosity, and that he made a conscience of betraying his trust]; so that, in fine, they were to be pardoned and in security in case the king returned, and yet to suffer nothing in the interim, nor to give any other proofs of their sincerity, in case the king returned, than bare words and empty promises, which, under pretense of being suspected, or of doing greater service afterward, there never was found a suitable time to put the least of them in execution. However, the king thought fit to bear with this sort of double dealing, and, seeing him begin to decline in the Prince of Orange's favor, still hoped he might do service in the end; so accepted his excuses, and continued his correspondence, from time to time, as long as he lived, though with scarce any other effect than to bring an additional expense upon him, by appointing persons in England to act under his directions; and an additional trouble, from the continual complaints of the king's other friends, who, being of different religions, and having different views, instead of uniting their force for the king's service, studied all they could to thwart each other's methods." |