Secretary of State—­New Titles bestowed—­French Plan of War; English Plan of War—­ Expedition against Brest—­Naval Operations in the Mediterranean—­ War by Land—­Complaints of Trenchard’s Administration—­The Lancashire Prosecutions—­Meeting of the Parliament; Death of Tillotson—­Tenison Archbishop of Canterbury; Debates on the Lancashire Prosecutions—­Place Bill—­Bill for the Regulation of Trials in Cases of Treason; the Triennial Bill passed—­Death of Mary—­Funeral of Mary—­Greenwich Hospital founded

It is now time to relate the events which, since the battle of La Hogue, had taken place at Saint Germains.

James, after seeing the fleet which was to have convoyed him back to his kingdom burned down to the water edge, had returned in no good humour to his abode near Paris.  Misfortune generally made him devout after his own fashion; and he now starved himself and flogged himself till his spiritual guides were forced to interfere.420

It is difficult to conceive a duller place than Saint Germains was when he held his Court there; and yet there was scarcely in all Europe a residence more enviably situated than that which the generous Lewis had assigned to his suppliants.  The woods were magnificent, the air clear and salubrious, the prospects extensive and cheerful.  No charm of rural life was wanting; and the towers of the most superb city of the Continent were visible in the distance.  The royal apartments were richly adorned with tapestry and marquetry, vases of silver and mirrors in gilded frames.  A pension of more than forty thousand pounds sterling was annually paid to James from the French Treasury.  He had a guard of honour composed of some of the finest soldiers in Europe.  If he wished to amuse himself with field sports, he had at his command an establishment far more sumptuous than that which had belonged to him when he was at the head of a great kingdom, an army of huntsmen and fowlers, a vast arsenal of guns, spears, buglehorns and tents, miles of network, staghounds, foxhounds, harriers, packs for the boar and packs for the wolf, gerfalcons for the heron and haggards for the wild duck.  His presence chamber and his antechamber were in outward show as splendid as when he was at Whitehall.  He was still surrounded by blue ribands and white staves.  But over the mansion and the domain brooded a constant gloom, the effect, partly of bitter regrets and of deferred hopes, but chiefly of the abject superstition which had taken complete possession of his own mind, and which was affected by almost all those who aspired to his favour.  His palace wore the aspect of a monastery.  There were three places of worship within the spacious pile.  Thirty or forty ecclesiastics were lodged in the building; and their apartments were eyed with envy by noblemen and gentlemen who had followed the fortunes of their Sovereign, and who thought it hard that, when there was so much room under his roof, they should be forced