Matters in England were brought to a crisis in the month of June. Upon Trinity Sunday, the 10th of the month--two days after the imprisonment of the seven Bishops--London was thrown into frantic excitement by a report that James’s Queen had presented him with a son and heir. A Popish successor would bring upon the country those calamities of which the prospect for two reigns had filled men with dismay. The bulk of the people could not believe the fact. They declared that the Queen had not been confined at all--that she for some time had worn a cushion under her dress--that her pretended son had been conveyed into her chamber in a silver warming-pan on a Sunday morning, when Whig lords and ladies, who otherwise might have detected the cheat, were lying in bed or were gone to prayers. Stories the most absurd and disgusting were believed. At that moment anything seemed more credible than the simple event which had really occurred. The news of this assumed Royal conspiracy flew over to Holland, and it created the utmost consternation, William and Mary sincerely believing what they were confidently told. At all events, the child--of whose supposititious character the idea vanished afterwards from all but the most fanatical minds--was publicly baptized in the Church of Rome, the Pope’s Nuncio standing sponsor. This added to the national exasperation, and the Whig and Protestant party immediately began to think of seeking succour from Holland, and putting an end at all hazards to the existing state of things. [Sidenote: 1688.] William had before this become the head of the English opposition. Old Republicans and old Royalists, Anglican Churchmen who hated Rome, Latitudinarian Churchmen who loved liberty, and Evangelical Churchmen who believed in Calvinism--Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, the first anxious for comprehension, the second and third wishing only for freedom of worship--all had been turning their thoughts for some time to the Prince of Orange as the star of their hopes. English soldiers, English sailors, and English Divines, had publicly presented themselves in the old Gothic _Binnenhof_ of the Hague, or held private interviews with the Dutch Governor. The Earl of Devonshire, Lord Shrewsbury, Admiral Herbert, Lord Lumley, and others, had written to His Highness, more or less explicitly, offering to devote to him their fortunes and their lives. * * * * * This went on in the spring of 1688, amidst excitements produced by the Declaration of Indulgence. Holland at the same period felt deep sympathy with England.