The time was now fast approaching when William's military policy was to be justified by events. Throughout the whole of this year the struggle of rival Powers over the fast decaying body of the unhappy Charles had gone spiritedly forward at the Court of Madrid. The combatants, however, were unequally matched. On the side of France were enlisted the services of Cardinal Portocarrero, who soon succeeded in removing the King's confessor--an Austrian instrument--and substituting another in the French interests. The terrors of religion were then brought to bear upon the wretched sovereign in a strength sufficient to overcome his natural leanings in the matter of the disposition of his crown and kingdom towards his own Austrian flesh and blood. They persuaded the unhappy imbecile that he had been bewitched through Austrian agency; they persuaded the populace of Madrid that the partisans of Austria had brought about a famine. Having at last succeeded in utterly discrediting the rival party, and working upon the superstition of Charles until he believed that if he ousted his Bourbon heir from the succession he would be inevitably damned, the French faction finally induced him to sign a will appointing Philip, Duke of Anjou, universal successor to the Spanish monarchy. A month afterwards this miserable slave of the priest and the plotter at last obtained his manumission. He died on the 1st of November 1700, and William then learnt for the first time that the months of laborious negotiations spent on the successive framing of two carefully-drawn treaties had been completely thrown away. For a brief space of time, indeed, he remained in doubt whether Louis really intended to play him false, but before the middle of the month of November all uncertainty was at an end. Louis threw over the Partition Treaty and adopted the will. The Duke of Anjou was despatched into Spain with the historic exclamation touching the effacement of the Pyrenees--mountains certainly not in this instance removed by "faith,"--and William had the intolerable chagrin of discovering not only that he had been befooled, but that his English subjects had no sympathy with him or animosity against the royal swindler who had tricked him. "The blindness of the people here," he writes sadly to the Pensionary Heinsius, "is incredible. For though the affair is not public, yet it was no sooner said that the King of Spain's will was in favour of the Duke of Anjou, than it was the general opinion that it was better for England that France should accept the will than fulfil the Treaty of Partition." FOOTNOTES: