For some weeks after the death of Mary William's grief for her loss disabled him from the discharge of public duties. He desisted from the personal delivery of his answers to addresses from the two Houses, and though important domestic events--such as the disgrace and dismissal of Sir John Trevor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, for corruption, and the proceedings preliminary to the contemplated impeachment of Danby, now Duke of Leeds, for the same offence--took place before the prorogation, the King does not appear to have actively interested himself in them, either on one side or the other. Leeds, though he escaped the impeachment with which he was threatened, stood morally convicted of the charges preferred against him; but William still allowed this useful and experienced, if unscrupulous public servant to remain at the head of the Council. The only mark of royal displeasure with which he was visited was his exclusion from the list of lords-justices appointed according to custom to execute the royal authority during the King's absence on the Continent. On the 3d of May Parliament was prorogued, and on the 12th of the same month William set out for Flanders to take command of the allied army for what was destined to be the most successful of his campaigns. Luxembourg was dead, and the command of the French army in the Netherlands had devolved on a far inferior general in the person of Marshal Villeroy. William was now matched against a general to whom he was as much superior as Luxembourg had been to him, and this reversal of conditions told speedily and signally on the fortunes of the year's campaign. The prime object of William's operations was the retrieval of the disastrous loss which the allies had suffered in 1692 by the fall of Namur. On the recapture of this important fortress he now bent his whole energies. His first movement, however, was an unsuccessful one. Athlone, who had been detached with a large force to invest the city, was unable to prevent Boufflers from throwing himself into it with a strong reinforcement. The garrison now numbered 14,000 or 15,000 men, and as its works had been planned by Vauban, the greatest military engineer of his age, its defenders reckoned it impregnable. Leaving the main body of his army under the Prince of Vaudemont, who, when pressed by Villeroy, succeeded in skilfully retiring to Ghent, William, at the head of a division, effected a junction with the forces of the Elector of Bavaria and the Brandenburg contingent, and marching to Namur proceeded rapidly to invest it. Its siege was then vigorously prosecuted. Cohorn, the pupil of Vauban, and next to him in scientific reputation, was the engineer of the allies, and, thus pitted against his master, had every incitement to the exertion of his utmost skill. The trenches were opened on the 2d of July, and on the 8th the outworks of one side of the city were attacked and carried by an English force. This was the occasion on