_James's coldness towards Louis._--The secret of this uncertain policy, which has not been well known till very lately, is to be found in the king's character. James had a real sense of the dignity pertaining to a king of England, and much of the national pride as well as that of his rank. He felt the degradation of importuning an equal sovereign for money, which Louis gave less frequently and in smaller measure than it was demanded. It is natural for a proud man not to love those before whom he has abased himself. James, of frugal habits and master of a great revenue, soon became more indifferent to a French pension. Nor was he insensible to the reproach of Europe, that he was grown the vassal of France and had tarnished the lustre of the English Crown.[131] Had he been himself protestant, or his subjects catholic, he would probably have given the reins to that jealousy of his ambitious neighbour, which, even in his peculiar circumstances, restrained him from the most expedient course; I mean expedient, on the hypothesis that to overthrow the civil and religious institutions of his people was to be the main object of his reign. For it was idle to attempt this without the steady co-operation of France; and those sentiments of dignity and independence, which at first sight appear to do him honour, being without any consistent magnanimity of character, served only to accelerate his ruin, and confirm the persuasion of his incapacity.[132] Even in the memorable year 1688, though the veil was at length torn from his eyes on the verge of the precipice, and he sought in trembling the assistance he had slighted, his silly pride made him half unwilling to be rescued; and, when the French ambassador at the Hague, by a bold manœuvre of diplomacy, asserted to the States that an alliance already subsisted between his master and the king of England, the latter took offence at the unauthorised declaration, and complained privately that Louis treated him as an inferior.[133] It is probable that a more ingenuous policy in the court of Whitehall, by determining the king of France to declare war sooner on Holland, would have prevented the expedition of the Prince of Orange.[134]