“It is some distance to look forward to, sire.  If Anne comes to the throne at William’s death, it will, I think, postpone our hopes, for Anne is a Stuart, and is a favourite with the nation, in spite of her undutiful conduct to her father.  Still, it will be felt that for Stuart to fight against Stuart, brother against sister, would be contrary to nature.  Foreigners are always unpopular, and, as against William, every Jacobite is ready to take up arms.  But I think that nothing will be done during Anne’s reign.  The Elector of Hanover would be as unpopular, among Englishmen in general, as is William of Orange, and, should he come to the throne, there will assuredly ere long be a rising to bring back the Stuarts.”

Charles shook his head.

“I don’t want to ruffle your spirit of loyalty to the Stuarts, Captain Jervoise, but they have showed themselves weak monarchs for a great country.  They want fibre.  William of Orange may be, as you call him, a foreigner and a usurper, but England has greater weight in the councils of Europe, in his hands, than it has had since the death of Elizabeth.”

This was rather a sore point with Captain Jervoise, who, thorough Jacobite as he was, had smarted under the subservience of England to France during the reigns of the two previous monarchs.

“You Englishmen and Scotchmen are fighting people,” the king went on, “and should have a military monarch.  I do not mean a king like myself, who likes to fight in the front ranks of his soldiers; but one like William, who has certainly lofty aims, and is a statesman, and can join in European combinations.”

“William thinks and plans more for Holland than for England, sire.  He would join a league against France and Spain, not so much for the benefit of England, which has not much to fear from these powers, but of Holland, whose existence now, as of old is threatened by them.”

“England’s interest is similar to that of Holland,” the king said.  “I began this war, nominally, in the interest of the Duke of Holstein, but really because it was Sweden’s interest that Denmark should not become too powerful.

“But we must not waste time in talking politics.  I see the men have finished their breakfast, and we are here to hunt.  I shall keep twenty horse with me; the rest will enter the forest with you.  I have arranged for the peasants here to guide you.  You will march two miles along by the edge of the forest, and then enter it and make a wide semicircle, leaving men as you go, until you come down to the edge of the forest again, a mile to our left.