Hitherto, the success of the Jacobite cause in Ireland and Scotland, had rendered the tenure of the English throne by the Prince of Orange a matter of uncertainty both to himself and his English adherents. The state of public feeling in the capital had rendered the presence of his foreign mercenaries continually necessary to his person; and he knew that should James succeed in repressing the rebellion in the other two kingdoms, his restoration to the third would follow as an inevitable consequence. He had already, with the English people, lost all that popularity which immediately succeeded his invasion. By turning the Convention into a Parliament, in order to avoid a popular election, he outraged the first principle of the British Charter, and the people soon learned that his pledges to maintain their liberty and religion were only affected for the time, to establish his own dominion over them. The Conventionists, too, so long subservient to his wishes, had, since erected into a Parliament, inveighed against the Dutch influence in the kingdom, and he, more than once, had threatened to abdicate and leave them to the mercy of their outraged king. This threat never failed of its desired effect on the leaders of the Opposition in Parliament; but the popular discontent had to be suppressed by the strong hand; and the British soldiers who showed any sign of disaffection, were sent to serve as his Dutch contingent to the League, while the followers of Schomberg and Ginckle lived at will in England.