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Reign of Charles II. (Continued) page 8


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In spite of the season, the end of November, Louis had taken the field, according to his novel plan of winter campaign, and invested Guislain, which was expected to fall in a few days.

This decisive conduct on the part of Louis roused the wrath of Charles; he had adjourned parliament from the 4th of April to the 15th of January. He expressed his surprise to Louis at the unreasonableness of his conduct, and despatched directions to Hyde, the ambassador at the Hague, to enter into a separate treaty with the States, on the model of the triple alliance, engaging not only to defend each other against all aggressors, but to continue to force the other parties to come to fair terms. Such a treaty was signed at the Hague on the 31st of December. Louis, on hearing of it, stopped the payment of Charles's pension, but at the same time he proposed, through Montague, the English ambassador, a truce of twelve months, during which all might be arranged, and then he threw out a bait which he knew would be extremely tempting to Charles. That if he could persuade his nephew to consent to the cession of Conde, Valenciennes, and Tournai, their full value should be paid to the king in bars of gold, concealed in bales of silk, and any sum that the lord treasurer might name in reward of his services, should be remitted in diamonds and pearls. But both Danby and the duke of York set their faces against any such disgraceful compromise; Danby remaining steady to his views of the danger of the French ascendancy, and the duke being zealous for the interests of his new son-in-law, and in the hope of receiving the command of any auxiliary force sent from England to co-operate with Holland. At the duke's suggestion the English forces were recalled from the army of France, a strong squadron was sent to the Mediterranean to reinforce the fleet under Sir John Narborough, and the port of Ostend was demanded from Spain as a depot for the English army in Flanders.

This unusual vigour induced Louis to set in motion the forces of the opposition both in England and Holland. To Barillon, his ambassador at London, he sent over the younger ßuvigny, who was related to lady Vaughan, and intimate with the Russell family. The ambassadors first tried to bring over again Charles by the most liberal offers of money; they warned him to beware of the pernicious counsels of Danby, who was seeking popularity; and to Danby himself they paid the highest compliments, and begged him to use his influence with the king. Charles, who never long resisted the temptations of money, was not, however, yet to be moved, and the ambassadors then tried their influence with the opposition. They found Holliß and lord William Russell extremely hostile to the court, but suspicious of a secret engagement betwixt Charles and Louis. This suspicion the ambassadors did their best to root out, and Hollis and Russell engaged to attach to the supply conditions which should cause the king to reject it. The ambassadors promised that Louis, on his part, should use all his influence to cause a dissolution of parliament, and to ruin Danby, measures which the opposition earnestly desired. They even offered money to the opposition, and asked lord Russell to give them the names of such persons as they should reward for their services in this matter. Russell repelled the offer with indignation, and replied that he should be sorry to have anything to do with men who could be bought with money. They did not, however, find others of the patriots quite so scrupulous. Louis, at the same time, was at work at the Hague, insinuating through his agents that William, now connected with England, was joined with Charles, whom the Dutch most cordially hated, in a common scheme for ruling Holland and England by a military force, and that their only safety lay in peace and disbandment of troops. Their arts were so successful, that the Dutch began to cry for peace on any terms.

When parliament met on the 28th of January, Charles announced that he had made a league offensive and defensive with Holland, for the protection of Flanders, and that if France would not consent to a peace on fair terms, they would endeavour to force it; but that he should require to put ninety ships into commission, and raise thirty or forty thousand troops, and a liberal supply would be necessary to defray the cost. This was the very thing that the country party had been clamouring for, but they had now been drawn into a false position by the acts of Louis; and though they could not condemn the proposals, they declared that no peace ought to be made with France except such as should restrain that country to the limits set by the treaty of the Pyrenees. This, under the present circumstances, it would be folly to ask of Louis, and Charles reproached the opposition with the inconsistency of their conduct, in throwing obstacles in the way of the very measure they had clamoured for, especially after he had followed their own advice in making the treaty with Holland. The ministry, however, carried a vote for the maintenance of the necessary fleet and army, and a supply was granted on general taxes to cover the expenditure*

Meantime Louis had pushed his military operations forward in the Netherlands, with a vigour which confounded his enemies. Towards the end of January he proceeded from Paris to Metz; Namur and Möns were invested, and before the end of March he had made himself master of Ypres and Ghent. By this means he had opened a road into the very heart of Holland, and exposed Brussels to his attacks; and both on the continent and in England the cry was now for more vigorous measures. Three thousand soldiers were sent by Charles to Ostend, and the levy of forces was proceeded with vigorously. But the more Charles exerted himself to raise troops and prepare actively for war, the more the opposition expressed their suspicions of the use intended for these troops. Russell talked of popery, and Sir Gilbert Gerrard declared that the forces raised would never be used against any foreign enemy; that their object was nearer home. They demanded, therefore, that he should at once declare war against France, recall his commissioners from Nimeguen, and dismiss the French ambassador. This language, on the part of men, many of whom had been receiving their money to compel a peace advantageous to France, surprised not a little Barillon and Ruvigny, who remonstrated with Hollis and Russell, Shaftesbury and Buckingham. But they were told that the real object was to embarrass the king in raising these troops; for that once raised, he would secure the leaders of the opposition, and then would obtain from the slavish parliament any supplies that he might demand, thus at once making himself independent of parliament and of Louis.

That the opposition had grounds for their fears there was little question, and the French envoys were obliged to be satisfied with this odd-looking sort of friendship. Charles undoubtedly had rather have the army and the supplies than go to war with Louis; and the consternation of the confederates now opened up to him a new chance of obtaining Louis's money, and keeping the peace. Both the prince of Orange and Spain, by its ambassadors, informed him that they would now no longer object to the cession of Tournai and Valenciennes, if France would restore the other five towns, with Ypres and Ghent. Charles, who now thought all difficulty removed, hastened to write these conditions to Louis, and so confident was he that they would be accepted, that he caused Danby to add, in a private letter, that if the peace was effected on these terms, he should expect a pension of six millions of livres for the next three years for his services. In a postscript the king himself wrote, "This is writ by my order. - C. R." This letter, afterwards produced against Danby, occasioned his ruin.

But Louis was not so easily satisfied after his recent victories. He demanded Ypres and Conde as well as Tournai and Valenciennes. Charles professed to be disgusted with this grasping disposition, but both Holland and Spain expressed their willingness to concede. The conquest of Ghent and French gold produced their effect, and an armistice was entered into to allow time for preparing the articles of peace. To satisfy Charles, Louis assented to his demand of a pension of six millions livres, on condition that he bound himself to break with Holland if it refused to sign the treaty on the conditions now offered, to recall his troops from Flanders, reduce his army to six thousand men, and prorogue and then dissolve parliament.

When parliament met 6n the 23rd of May, they demanded that Charles should immediately declare war or disband the whole of the troops recently raised. They voted two hundred thousand pounds on condition that the troops should be at once paid off with it, and two hundred thousand pounds more for the navy. The king asked for three hundred thousand pounds a year in addition to his present income, to enable him to punish the pirates of Algiers, and take that position in the continental politics which the rank of England required; but to this the commons turned a deaf ear.

By the middle of June the plenipotentiaries at Nimeguen had settled all the preliminaries of peace, and were on the point of signing, when Louis started another difficulty - that he would continue to hold the six towns stipulated to be restored to Spain, till the emperor of Germany had restored the conquests made from his ally, the king of Sweden. The confederates refused to admit any such condition, and preparations were again made for war. Charles sent over four thousand men under the earl of Ossory to join the English forces in Flanders, and Temple hastened to the Hague, to complete a fresh treaty with the States, binding each other to prosecute the war against Louis unless he abandoned the claim for Sweden. This might have had effect with Louis, had he not convincing evidence that Charles was not in- earnest. At the very moment of this apparent spirit, Charles was bargaining for more money with Barillon, in the chamber of his French mistress, the duchess of Portsmouth; at Barillon's instigation, one Ducros, a French monk, was sent to Temple, at Nimeguen, desiring him to persuade the Swedish ambassadors to concede their claims and make peace; and Louis, by giving a hint of this fact to the States-general, so alarmed them at the perfidy of their pretended ally, that they hastened to sign the treaty with France, without any stipulation in favour of Spain. The Spanish Netherlands were at the mercy of Louis, and the coalition against him was completely broken up.

William of Orange, who was extremely mortified at having to conclude a peace on such terms, and rightly attributing the necessity to the conduct of Charles, took the opportunity to give a parting chastisement to the French, which has been, and with apparent reason, always regarded as a blot upon his character. On the 4th of August, four days after the signing of the peace by Beverning, the Dutch plenipotentiary at Nimeguen, he attacked the duke of Luxembourg before Möns. Luxembourg had reduced the city to great distress, and had not relaxed his siege during the armistice; William, therefore, affecting to know nothing of the signing of the peace - though at that time it, was known in London, and must be known to him - fell on the duke with all the forces he could muster, Dutch, English, and Spanish, and a desperate battle took place. William took the abbey of St. Denis in front of the French camp; Villahermosa, the Spanish general, took the ruined fortress of Casteau, but was driven out of it again before night. The English troops under lord Ossory did wonders. About five thousand men fell on one side or the other. At night the two armies resumed their places. It was expected that William the next day would utterly rout Luxembourg; and had the continuance of the war permitted, might have made his long-contemplated march into France. But the next day Luxembourg desired a conference, and informed William that the peace was concluded, and William retired towards Nivelles, and the French towards Ath. He had managed to prevent the important fortress of Möns falling into the hands of France.

Scarcely had these events taken place, when William was surprised by an overture from Charles, to unite with him, according to the treaty betwixt them, to compel Louis to grant the Spaniards the terms formerly offered at Nimeguen. The motive for this does not appear clear. If he knew of its conclusion, as he must have done, he could not expect William immediately to violate the peace just made. Probably he wished to appear to the Spaniards to be anxious to keep his engagement to them, for he made the same professions to them, and on the faith of that the Spaniards demanded better terms; but equally probable is the idea that he wanted an excuse for not disbanding the army. William is said, however, to have exclaimed to Hyde, who brought the message, "Was ever anything so hot and so cold as this court of yours? Will the king never learn a word that I shall never forget since my last passage to England, when, in a great storm, the captain all night was crying to the man at the helm, "Steady! steady! steady!' If this dispatch had come twenty days ago, it had changed the face of affairs in Christendom, and the war might have been carried on till France had yielded to the treaty of the Pyrenees, and left the world in quiet for the rest of our fives; as it comes now, it will have no effect at all." Louis resented the interference of Charles at this moment, and suspended the payment of his pension. He, however, receded from some of his terms, and referred the settlement of the differences with the Spaniards and the emperor of Germany to the Dutch. Before the end of October peace was concluded with all parties. Holland had recovered all she had lost, and obtained an advantageous treaty of commerce with France. Spain had lost Franche- Comte, and twelve fortresses in Flanders; Germany had regained Philipsburg in exchange for Friburg; Sweden recovered what it had lost to Denmark and the elector of Brandenburg; and Louis was left with a power and reputation that made him the arbitrator of Europe. Such was the end of the war which had agitated Europe from the Baltic to the Mediterranean for six years, and must have had a very different result had England had a real man on the throne.

We now come to one of the most extraordinary displays of a succession of plots, or pretended plots, which ever occurred in the history of any nation. From a small and most improbable beginning they spread and ramified themselves in all directions, involving the most distinguished persons of the state, ascending to the royal house, threatening the lives of the duke of York, of the queen, and even of the king. Though defeated in their highest aims, they yet brought to execution a considerable number of persons of various ranks, including several noblemen and commoners of distinction. When they appeared to be extinguished for a short period, they broke out again with fresh force, and struck down fresh victims; and whilst much of the machinery of these agitators remained in the deepest obscurity, the mind of the nation was wrought up to a condition of the most terrible suspicion, wonder, and alarm. In the half absurdity of the charges, the half development of ominous truths, the public was thrown into a long fever of terror and curiosity, and seemed to lose its judgment and discretion, and to be ready to destroy its noblest citizens on the evidence of the most despicable of mankind.

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