For six weeks the victorious Dutch fleet dominated the English seas. So secure was De Ruijter that he left only Van Ghent’s squadron to guard the Thames, and sailed down the Channel as a conqueror, sweeping up English trade, and terrorizing the coasts. What he might have done had his fleet carried troops may be judged from the pages of Pepys. Panic, confusion, and self-seeking reigned supreme at Court, and among the seamen discontent was rife. Sir Edward Spragge did at last succeed in forming a squadron sufficient to hold the Thames against Van Ghent, but this was all. When the Peace of Breda was signed in July De Ruijter still victoriously ranged the English seas. So ten years after Oliver Cromwell had made Britain’s name dreaded wherever her flag flew, Charles II., ‘the Lord’s anointed,’ degraded her to the dust. He was to wage another war with the Dutch, and to see the heroic De Ruijter successfully withstand the combined strength of France and her jackal--England. He left his realm the vassal of France, the national escutcheon bearing a stain that has never been forgotten, and the once invincible navy reduced to a mass of rotting hulks that could not venture out of port. When James II. succeeded to the throne discontent was already rife among the people, and when his natural brother James, Duke of Monmouth, landed almost alone in Dorsetshire, the West country peasantry flocked to his standard. The hideous barbarity with which the premature and ill-conducted revolt was suppressed merely added fuel to the smouldering furnace. Had Monmouth been a stronger man, had he been better supplied with money, arms, and trained officers, matters might have been different. The navy could with difficulty mobilize a small squadron, which was at sea too late to prevent him from landing. The fate of the Stuart dynasty was sealed when James alienated the sympathies of the hitherto thoroughly servile Anglican Church and the Court, or ‘Tory’ party, in Parliament. The result was a temporary, but for the time all-powerful, coalition against him. A nucleus of trained troops around which the discontented could rally was necessary; and the malcontents naturally turned to William, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, the husband of the King’s daughter Mary. Every motive of statesmanship, interest, and personal inclination, combined to induce William to respond to the appeal. The great object of his life was to curtail the overshadowing power of Louis XIV. Without the assistance of England, this was all but an impossibility. It can hardly be doubted that William looked forward to his own ultimate election as King of England. That the men who invited him had no clear conception of this part of the political situation seems certain; but William, with his sagacity and experience, must have been perfectly aware of the only possible satisfactory solution.