Like the ministry of the Cabal, the new government began by making advances to the Dutch. A peace was concluded. Sir William Temple was charged with the care of foreign affairs, and was shortly afterwards despatched as an envoy to the Congress of Nimeguen, there to settle the terms of general peace. But Danby continually oscillated between the royal and the national policy, sometimes urging Charles to unite himself with Europe in a war against France, sometimes lending himself privately to the secret negotiations with Louis XIV. In the course of the year 1676 a new convention assured to Charles II. a pension of £100,000 sterling and the assistance of such French troops as might be necessary in his dominions. {369} The letters of Danby do not permit us to doubt the knowledge that he had of the situation, if not his connivance at the treaty. Charles II. undertook to prolong the prorogation of Parliament, which had endeavored to force upon him an effective action in the general pacification of Europe. The war on the Continent still continued when the Houses at length assembled again in 1677. The Duke of Buckingham and Lord Shaftesbury maintained that the length of the prorogation amounted to a dissolution, but Danby was an accomplished master of the art of corruption; he disposed of the money from France. The country party was defeated in the House of Commons, and the authors of the proposition for a dissolution were sent to the Tower, where they were detained for several months. Meanwhile the increasing successes of Louis XIV. began to alarm Danby as they alarmed England. Suddenly looking towards Holland, he obtained from the king authority to invite William of Orange to visit London, and negotiating secretly with that prince, he concluded a marriage between him and the eldest daughter of the Duke of York, the Princess Mary, whose hand had been previously offered to William without resulting in the manifestation of any eagerness on his part for the alliance. The importance of this concession was keenly felt in Paris. "Louis XIV. sent immediately for Montague, our ambassador," says Burnet, "who when he came to Versailles saw the king the most moved that he had ever observed him to be. He asked him when was the marriage to be made. Montague understood not what he meant, so he explained all to him. Montague protested to him that he knew nothing of the whole matter. The king said he always believed the journey would end in this, and he seemed to think that our court had now forsaken him. Lord Danby, who recalled Montague to London, asked him how the king had received the news of the marriage. The ambassador answered, 'As he would have done the loss of an army.'" {370}