One of his chief difficulties was caused by the sullen and menacing demeanour of the Northern powers.  Denmark and Sweden had at one time seemed disposed to join the coalition; but they had early become cold, and were fast becoming hostile.  From France they flattered themselves that they had little to fear.  It was not very probable that her armies would cross the Elbe, or that her fleets would force a passage through the Sound.  But the naval strength of England and Holland united might well excite apprehension at Stockholm and Copenhagen.  Soon arose vexatious questions of maritime right, questions such as, in almost every extensive war of modern times, have arisen between belligerents and neutrals.  The Scandinavian princes complained that the legitimate trade between the Baltic and France was tyrannically interrupted.  Though they had not in general been on very friendly terms with each other, they began to draw close together, intrigued at every petty German court, and tried to form what William called a Third Party in Europe.  The King of Sweden, who, as Duke of Pomerania, was bound to send three thousand men for the defence of the Empire, sent, instead of them, his advice that the allies would make peace on the best terms which they could get.285 The King of Denmark seized a great number of Dutch merchantships, and collected in Holstein an army which caused no small uneasiness to his neighbours.  “I fear,” William wrote, in an hour of deep dejection, to Heinsius, “I fear that the object of this Third Party is a peace which will bring in its train the slavery of Europe.  The day will come when Sweden and her confederates will know too late how great an error they have committed.  They are farther, no doubt, than we from the danger; and therefore it is that they are thus bent on working our ruin and their own.  That France will now consent to reasonable terms is not to be expected; and it were better to fall sword in hand than to submit to whatever she may dictate."286

While the King was thus disquieted by the conduct of the Northern powers, ominous signs began to appear in a very different quarter.  It had, from the first, been no easy matter to induce sovereigns who hated, and who, in their own dominions, persecuted, the Protestant religion, to countenance the revolution which had saved that religion from a great peril.  But happily the example and the authority of the Vatican had overcome their scruples.  Innocent the Eleventh and Alexander the Eighth had regarded William with ill concealed partiality.  He was not indeed their friend; but he was their enemy’s enemy; and James had been, and, if restored, must again be, their enemy’s vassal.  To the heretic nephew therefore they gave their effective support, to the orthodox uncle only compliments and benedictions.  But Alexander the Eighth had occupied the papal throne little more than fifteen months.  His successor, Antonio Pignatelli, who took the name of Innocent the Twelfth, was impatient