As soon as the French king heard of the death of Charles and of the accession of James, he hastened to send to the latter a munificent donation of £35,000. James was not ashamed to shed tears of delight and gratitude. Young Lord Churchill was sent as extraordinary ambassador to Versailles to assure Louis of the gratitude and affection of the King of England. This brilliant young soldier had in his 23rd year distinguished himself amongst thousands of brave men by his serene intrepidity when engaged with his regiment in operations, together with French forces against Holland. Unhappily, the splendid qualities of John Churchill were mingled with alloy of the most sordid kind. _Subservience to France_ The accession of James in 1685 had excited hopes and fears in every Continental court. One government alone, that of Spain, wished that the trouble that had distracted England for three generations, might be eternal. All other governments, whether republican or monarchical, Protestant or Romanist, wished to see those troubles happily terminated. Under the kings of the House of Stuart, she had been a blank in the map of Europe. That species of force which, in the 14th century, had enabled her to humble France and Spain, had ceased to exist. The Government was no longer a limited monarchy after the fashion of the Middle Ages; it had not yet become one after the modern fashion. The chief business of the sovereign was to infringe the privileges of the legislature; that of the legislature was to encroach on the prerogatives of the sovereign. The king readily received foreign aid, which relieved him from the misery of being dependent on a mutinous Parliament. The Parliament refused to the king the means of supporting the national honour abroad, from an apprehension, too well founded, that those means might be employed in order to establish despotism at home. The effect of these jealousies was that our country, with all her vast resources, was of as little weight in Christendom as the duchy of Savoy or the duchy of Lorraine, and certainly of far less weight than the small province of Holland. France was deeply interested in prolonging this state of things. All other powers were deeply interested in bringing it to a close. The general wish of Europe was that James should govern in conformity with law and with public opinion. From the Escurial itself came letters expressing an earnest hope that the new King of England would be on good terms with his Parliament and his people. From the Vatican itself came cautions against immoderate zeal for the Catholic faith.