The occasion of this second attempt was an event to be shortly noticed, which might have been thought likely to dispose the Parliament to a more liberal view of military necessities; and William has been censured by his greatest admirer for not having applied to the House for an increase of the English establishment instead of striving to retain a force of his countrymen. It is not a matter for regret, however, that this mistake, if mistake it was, should have been committed; for it enables us pretty accurately to measure the respective proportions of reason and prejudice in the conduct of Parliament. So far as the motive of the House of Commons in these military retrenchments was a purely economical one--so far even as it implied blindness to those European considerations which our insular position no more absolved us from regarding in 1698 than it does to-day--this motive was, if mistaken, respectable. Even that exaggerated dread of a standing army, which, no doubt, had more to do with the decision of the parliamentary majority than any theory, good, bad, or indifferent, of the probable course of European affairs, would not deserve to be severely judged. But it is difficult to attribute the refusal of the House of Commons to sanction William's retention of his body-guard to any worthier motive than mere jealousy of the foreigner. It was a step as unwise from the political point of view, and in its bearing on the relations of sovereign and subject, as on the moral side it was ungracious. One can well understand that the personal affront involved in it may have been harder for the King to bear than even the rejection of his general military demands. Anyhow there seems no doubt that upon learning the decision of the House in the matter of the army William did seriously contemplate retirement to Holland, after abdicating in favour of the Princess Anne, and that nothing but the firmness of Somers prevented him from carrying his resolution into effect. So at least Somers himself believed; and Somers's knowledge of the royal mind, as well as of the royal character, was distinctly superior to that of Burnet, who treated the threat of withdrawal as not seriously meant. And when, having schooled himself to submit with dignity and grace to this rebuff, he found himself churlishly denied the slight personal favour which he subsequently requested, his bitterness of feeling was, we may well believe, extreme.[19] The whole incident is one which no Englishman of the present day, whatever his politics, can look back upon without a sense of shame.