policy.  William was checkmated and at first, in his anger, inclined to follow his father’s example and crush the opposition of Amsterdam by force.  He possessed however, which William II had not, the support of a majority in the Estates of Holland.  He used this with effect.  The raising of the troops was sanctioned by the Estates (January 31, 1684), an intercepted cipher-letter from D’Avaux being skilfully used to discredit the Amsterdam leaders, who were accused of traitorous correspondence with a foreign power.  Nevertheless the prince, although he was able to override any active opposition at home, did not venture, so long as England and Brandenburg were on friendly relations with France, to put pressure upon the States-General.  The French troops, to the prince’s chagrin, overran Flanders; and he had no alternative but to concur in the truce for twenty years concluded at Ratisbon, August 15, 1684, which left the French king in possession of all his conquests.

No more conclusive proof of the inflexible resolve of William III can be found than the patience he now exhibited.  His faith in himself was never shaken, and his patience in awaiting the favourable moment was inexhaustible.  To him far more appropriately than to his great-grandfather might the name of William the Silent have been given.  He had no confidants, except Waldeck and William Bentinck; and few could even guess at the hidden workings of that scheming mind or at the burning fires of energy and will-power beneath the proud and frigid reserve of a man so frail in body and always ailing.  Very rarely could a born leader of men have been more unamiable or less anxious to win popular applause, but his whole demeanour inspired confidence and, ignoring the many difficulties and oppositions which thwarted him, he steadfastly bided his time and opportunity.  It now came quickly, for the year 1685 was marked by two events—­the accession of James II to the throne of England, and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes—­which were to have far-reaching consequences.

The new King of England was not merely a strong but a bigoted Roman Catholic.  Had he been a wise and patriotic prince, he would have tried by a studiously moderate policy to win the loyal allegiance of his subjects, but he was stubborn, wrong-headed and fanatical, and from the first he aimed at the impossible.  His attempts to establish absolute rule, to bring back the English nation to the fold of the Catholic Church and, as a means to that end, to make himself independent of Parliament by accepting subsidies from the French king, were bound to end in catastrophe.  This was more especially the case as Louis XIV had, at the very time of King James’ accession, after having for a number of years persecuted the Huguenots in defiance of the Edict of Nantes, taken the step of revoking that great instrument of religious toleration on November 17, 1685.  The exile of numerous families, who had already been driven out by the dragonnades,