James Stuart deserted his post as ruler of these realms because he found himself assailed by difficulties which the most ordinary ability ought to have overcome. William assumed the same position in the face of difficulties which only the highest qualities of kingcraft and statesmanship could have enabled him to successfully grapple with. In a word, James possessed no ideal that qualified him to be a king, much less an Empire-Maker. William _did_ possess such an ideal, and that is the only reason why he became King of England, _vice_ James Stuart, absconded. Next, perhaps, to Henry VII., William was the most business-like sovereign who has occupied the British throne. With him all men and things, all beliefs and sentiments, were subordinated to the achievement of the one great end--the curbing of the power of France, and consequently the furtherance of political and theological liberty in Europe. He was, in fact, only incidentally an Empire-Maker, although without him and without the broad and firm basis of popular liberty and national strength which he laid down, as it were, in the doing of his greater work, the building up of the Imperial fabric would undoubtedly have been long delayed and seriously impeded. He got himself made King of Great Britain and Ireland, not because he wanted to occupy the throne, but because from that eminence he would be able to look the Grand Monarch more equally in the face. We get a luminous insight into the character of the man in his reply to the Convention or conference of the two Houses of Parliament which had proposed that his wife as actual and lawful heir to the throne which her father had forsaken, should occupy it as queen, and that he should reign by her authority as a sort of Royal Executive. “My lords and gentlemen,” he said, “no man can esteem a woman more than I do the Princess, but I am so made that I cannot think of holding anything by apron-strings, nor can I think it reasonable to have any share in the government unless it be put in my own person, and that for the term of my life. If you think fit to settle it otherwise I will not oppose you, but will go back to Holland and meddle no more in your affairs.” That was the kind of man William of Orange was. He had come to be a king, and a king he would be or nothing. And so king he was, and it was not very long before he was to show how well his self-confidence was justified. He had scarcely seated himself on the throne before the Parliament, recognising the fact that his work was something other than merely filling James’s place, deliberately suggested that he should resume as King of England the hostilities which he had begun against Louis as Stadtholder of the Netherlands, and he on his part showed how ready he was to take up the task by exclaiming, in one of his rare bursts of exultation, after reading the address: “This is the first day of my reign!”