Thus William on his return to England could for the first time show his Parliament a solid success due to the British red-coats; and the House of Commons gladly voted once more a total force of eighty-seven thousand men. But the war need be followed no further. The campaign of 1696 was interrupted by a futile attempt of the French to invade England, and in 1697 France, reduced to utter exhaustion, gladly concluded the Peace of Ryswick. So ended, not without honour, the first stage of the great conflict with King Lewis the Fourteenth. The position of the two protagonists, England and France, was not wholly unlike that which they occupied a century later at the Peace of Amiens. The British, though they had not reaped great victories, had made their presence felt, and terribly felt, on the battlefield; and, as the French in the Peninsula remembered that the British had fought them with a tenacity which they had not found in other nations, not only in Egypt, but even earlier at Tournay and Linselles, so, too, after Blenheim and Ramillies they looked back to the furious attack at Steenkirk and the indomitable defence of Neerwinden. “Without the concurrence of the valour and power of England,” said William to the Parliament at the close of 1695, “it were impossible to put a stop to the ambition and greatness of France.” So it was then, and so it was a century later, for though none know better the superlative qualities of the French as a fighting people, yet the English are the one nation that has never been afraid to meet them. With the Peace of Ryswick the ’prentice years of the standing Army are ended, and within five years the old spirit, which has carried it through the bitter schooling under King William, will break forth with overwhelming power under the guiding genius of Marlborough. AUTHORITIES.—The leading authority for William’s campaigns on the English side is D’Auvergne, and on the French side the compilation, with its superb series of maps, by Beaurain. Supplementary on one side are Tindal’s History, Carleton’s Memoirs, and Sterne’s _Tristram Shandy_; and on the other the _Mémoires_ of Berwick and St. Simon, Quincy’s _Histoire Militaire de Louis XIV_, and in particular the _Mémoires_ of Feuquières. Many details as to Steenkirk, in particular, respecting the casualties, are drawn from _Present State of Europe, or Monthly Mercury_, August 1692, and as to Landen from the official relation of the battle, published by authority, 1693. Beautiful plans of both actions are in Beaurain, rougher plans in Quincy and Feuquières. All details as to the establishment voted are from the Journals of the House of Commons. Very elaborate details of the operations are given in Colonel Clifford Walton’s _History of the British Standing Army_. VOL. I. BOOK VI. CHAPTER I