At the news of William’s arrival in Exeter, whither he had marched from Torbay, the English aristocracy became wildly excited and hastened to join his standard. The faculty of the University of Oxford sent him word that, if he needed money to carry out his enterprise, the plate of that institution would be melted down to furnish him with a revenue. An agreement of the nobility and gentry was drawn up and signed, and in it they promised to stand by William of Orange and each other, “in defence of the laws and liberties of the three kingdoms and the Protestant religion.” Thus, it will be noticed, Protestant interests was the cry of the majority in England, opposed to James, who, as we have said, aimed at equality of all creeds before the law, while in Ireland, where the old faith “prevailed mightily,” Catholic interests, or civil and religious liberty, became, also, the war-cry of the majority. In England the Catholic minority remained mostly supine during this period and until long afterward. In Scotland the Catholics and many Episcopalians rallied for James under the leadership of the implacable and brilliant Claverhouse, afterward created Viscount Dundee. They took the field for “James VII of Scotland,” as they called the exiled king, at the first tap of the war drum. The Catholic majority in Ireland naturally recognized in the unfortunate monarch a friend who offered them religious and political liberty, and so they resolved to place their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” at his disposal.