EXPANSION OF ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY RULE

William III

William III was a foreigner, and belonged to a people little liked by the English. He was unfamiliar with the customs and traditions of English government and life, was naturally cold and suspicious, and seems to have had a strain of heartlessness in his nature, as is shown by some incidents of his early life and by his attitude toward the massacre of Glencoe. Always old beyond his years, and brought up in the midst of factional quarrels in Holland, he had learned early to be wary and politic. He came to England determined to rule honorably and well, but his heart was not in his work. From the beginning he found himself confronted with the rivalries of Whigs and Tories, all of whom were uncertain, because of the changes wrought by the revolution itself, just how the government should be carried on. Caring little for the problems of government, and desiring chiefly to reconcile parties, that he might make England strong, to aid him in his military enterprises, he naturally was inclined to favor compromise. As king he was neither Whig nor Tory, Anglican nor Dissenter. He chose his advisers at first from both parties. At the very outset of his reign be tried to persuade parliament to pass a "comprehension" bill reconciling Anglicans and Dissenters; and when that failed, he favored the Toleration Act, in order to bind the Dissenters to him. War against Louis XIV was his mission in life; every thing else was secondary. So far as he personally was concerned, every act of his government was but a means to the eventual reduction of the power of France in Europe.

Resistance of the Scottish Highlanders: Glencoe

Before, William could undertake his chief work in earnest, he had to make secure his control in Scotland and Ireland as well as in England, and become undisputed king of the three kingdoms.

James II had governed these two lands as conquered provinces. In Scotland he had given the government into the hands of the Scottish Episcopalians, who checked every attempt of the Covenanters to gain control. When James II fled from England, the Covenanters, led by the Argyles of the Campbell clan, turning the tables on the Episcopalians, drove the established clergy from their parishes, abolished Episcopacy, and proclaimed William and Mary sovereigns of Scotland. But trouble followed these rather high-handed measures. John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, a noble of the Graham clan, aroused the Highlanders and took up arms for James. At Killiecrankie, on July 27, 1689, his followers, armed with sword and. target, won a dashing, victory over the soldiers of the new government, who were armed with musket and the new-fangled bayonet just introduced from France. But the brilliant victory availed little, for Claverhouse was slain in the battle, and without him at their head the clans were unable to hold together. In 1691 William bought their allegiance with gifts of money and promises of amnesty. His success, however, was stained by the slaughter of the Macdonalds of Glencoe, victims to the old-time hate of the Campbells, who as Whigs and Covenanters had obtained control of the government. That bloody murder of February 13, 1690, was long remembered by the Macdonalds, who during the next century never lost opportunity to seek revenge.

National Uprising in Ireland: Battle of the Boyne

In Ireland, William had to fight more bitterly for his crown than he had in Scotland. The able but unscrupulous Tyrconnel, whom James had sent over to hold Ireland for the Stuarts, had done his work well. He had made the Roman Catholics the dominant power, and had roused all the Irish hatred of the Protestants and the English. Consequently, when William became king of England, the greater part of Ireland was in the hands of Roman Catholics, and the nation, loyal to James, sprang to arms in order to throw off the burden of English Protestantism. English and Scotch Protestants everywhere fled from the country. Only in Ulster, in the towns of Londonderry and Enniskillen, had they forces enough to resist the advancing Roman Catholics. In March, 1689, James II arrived from France with aid furnished by Louis XIV, and began the siege of these towns. The fight was to the death, for already had the Irish parliament, wholly under the control of Roman Catholics, declared for the independence of Ireland, confiscated the lands of the English, and passed an act of attainder against two thousand English and Scottish Protestants. The siege of Londonderry is a famous event in history. For one hundred and five days the heroic people held out, until at last a fleet sent by William, in August, 1689, saved the day, and prevented northern Ireland from falling into the possession of the Roman Catholics.

Encouraged by this success, William himself came over, and with his general, Schoenberg, a Dutchman and Huguenot refugee, pushed southward and met the forces of James at the river Boyne, in southern Ulster, north of Dublin. There James and his French and Irish allies were hopelessly defeated. The battle of the Boyne (July 1, 1690) destroyed the last hope of the Stuart king, and he fled to France. The flight of James left the Irish face to face with the struggle for their own independence, and for four months they fought like heroes. But William was too great a general for them to hope for success. Cork and Kinsale in the south, Athlone in the west, and finally, after two sieges, Limerick in the southwest, were taken, and the whole of Ireland passed under English and Protestant control.

With the peace of Limerick (October, 1691), the war was ended. Ten thousand Irish soldiers were allowed to withdraw to France, and the definite promise was made that Roman Catholics in Ireland should be protected. But this promise was not kept. As events were to prove, the bigotry of the Roman Catholics under Tyrconnel was to be fully matched from this time forward by the bigotry of the Protestants in the Irish parliament. From 1690 to 1778, a Roman Catholic in Ireland was treated like a criminal and an outlaw.

The battle of the Boyne and the capture of Limerick were of great importance to William, for they saved the day for him, not only in Ireland, but also in England and in France.

The War with France: Victory of La Hogue

In May, 1689, before he undertook the subjugation of Ireland, William had declared war against France, and had sent troops under Churchill to cooperate with the Continental allies. Louis's great object was to strike a quick and decisive blow, in order to force upon the allies a humiliating peace. When, therefore, his general, the great Luxembourg, defeated the English and Dutch at Fleurus in the Netherlands (June 30, 1690), and on the same day the French fleet defeated Admiral Torrington off Beachy Head in Sussex, Louis seemed to have gained his end. All that was needed to complete the victory was success in Ireland.

For William the moment was a critical one. His position was insecure in England. Disaffection was widely prevalent, and Tories like Marlborough and Admiral Russell were already in correspondence with James. The Jacobites, a party favorable to the Stuarts, were forming, ready to welcome the Stuarts back to England should Louis and James be victorious. The Convention, which had beefs made a legal parliament on February 20, 1689, had been dissolved by William in January, 1690, because of the quarrels of the Whigs and Tories; and William had even threatened to abdicate the throne. But the victory of the Boyne entirely changed the situation. The Jacobites lost ground; the nation, fearing a French invasion after the defeat off Beachy Head, demanded a cessation of party strife; the victory gave new prestige to the government of William and Mary; and when William returned from Ireland after the peace of Limerick, he was greeted by the nation with expressions of loyalty and devotion. He disgraced Marlborough by depriving him of all his offices in.1691, but left Russell in command of the fleet. For this expression of confidence he received a speedy reward. While he himself was in Flanders and was losing Namur and the battle of Steinkirk (1692), Russell, on May 19,1692, won the sea fight of La Hogue, which was on the sea what the battle of the Boyne had been on the land. This victory of the English fleet over the powerful armament of France was not only the first great sea victory in the maritime struggle between England and France, but it was the first of a series of victories that made England mistress of the seas.

The remainder of the war was for England indecisive. William was unsuccessful, except in the capture of Namur in 1695; but the staying powers of the allies wore out the strength of France. Louis, dependent as he was on swift and decisive victories, finally acknowledged that he could not succeed, and in 1697 signed the treaty of Ryswick. By this treaty he recognized William as king of England and Anne as his successor, thus yielding one of the chief points for which the war had been undertaken.

Parties at Home

While the war was dragging on its weary course abroad, party conflicts were producing confusion and discouragement at home. The Whigs, having been the victors in 1688, were in the main in control until 1698. But meanwhile they passed through two serious crises: one in 1690, at the time of the battle of the Boyne; the other in 1692, before the victory of La Hogue was won. Had either of these victories gone to the French, the Whigs would have been overthrown and James might have been reinstated as king of England. But the victory of La Hogue gave the Whigs an established position, and the Whig ministry, called the Junto, which William appointed in 1695, remained in office until 1698. In this year, owing to the prolongation and great expense of the war, a reaction took place in favor of the Tories, and though peace had been made in 1697, the Tories won in the elections of 1698. They retained their control until 1701, when, owing to further aggressions of Louis XIV, the Whig supremacy was reestablished. When Anne came to the throne in 1702, the Whigs were turned out of office and Tory leadership was restored. Into the details of these party struggles we need not go; it will be sufficient to sum up briefly the results of William's reign in government, legislation, and finance.