Arrived there, he learned from Lord Feversham, his general-in-chief, that though the men were loyal the officers were not to be trusted. It is said that Feversham proposed to dismiss all that he suspected and promote sergeants in their stead. His suspicions proved to be just. Within a week Churchill, Grafton, Kirke, and Trelawny had all deserted to the Prince of Orange. Other officers were less open in their treachery; and it is said that one battalion of the Foot Guards was led into William's camp by its sergeants and corporals. The desertion of his own children finally broke the spirit of James. On the 11th of December he signed an order for the disbandment of the Army, and took to flight; and on the 16th he returned to London to find on the following night that the battalions of the Prince of Orange were marching down St. James's Park upon Whitehall. The old colonel of the Coldstream Guards, Lord Craven, though now in his eightieth year, was for resistance, but James forbade him. The Coldstream Guards filed off, and a Dutch regiment mounted guard at Whitehall. Five days later James left England for ever. CHAPTER II [Sidenote: 1660-1688.] Before entering on the reign of William we must pause for a time to study the interior administration of the Army. The reign of the two last Stuarts is rightly considered as marking the end of a period of English general history--the final fall of the old monarchy first overthrown with King Charles the First. But in regard to military history the case is different. It is a critical time of uncertainty during which the Army, a relic barely saved from the ruins of a military government, struggled through twenty-eight years of unconstitutional existence, hardly finding permission at their close to stand on the foundation which Charles and James, using materials left by Cromwell, had made shift to establish for it. Precarious as that foundation was, it received little support for nearly a century, and little more even in the century that followed, thanks to the blind jealousy of the House of Commons. It will therefore be convenient at this point to examine it once for all.