The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part F.: From Charles II. to James II.
David Hume · en
treatment, that republic was obliged to yield to the most mortifying
conditions. The empire was insulted in its head and principal members;
and used no other expedient for redress, than impotent complaints and
remonstrances.
* It appears from Sir John Dalrymple’s Appendix, that the
king received from France a million of livres for his
connivance at the seizure of Luxembourg, besides his
ordinary pension.
Spain was so enraged at the insolent treatment which she met with, that,
without considering her present weak condition she declared war against
her haughty enemy: she hoped that the other powers of Europe, sensible
of the common danger, would fly to her assistance. The prince of Orange,
whose ruling passions were love of war and animosity against Prance,
seconded every where the applications of the Spaniards. In the year
1681, he made a journey to England, in order to engage the king into
closer measures with the confederates. He also proposed to the states to
make an augmentation of their forces; but several of the provinces,
and even the town of Amsterdam, had been gained by the French, and the
proposal was rejected. The prince’s enemies derived the most plausible
reasons of their opposition from the situation of England, and the known
and avowed attachments of the English monarch.
No sooner had Charles dismissed his parliament, and embraced the
resolution of governing by prerogative alone, than he dropped his new
alliance with Spain, and returned to his former dangerous connections
with Lewis. This prince had even offered to make him arbiter of his
differences with Spain; and the latter power, sensible of Charles’s
partiality, had refused to submit to such a disadvantageous proposal.
Whether any money was now remitted to England, we do not certainly know;
but we may fairly presume, that the king’s necessities were in some
degree relieved by France.[*] And though Charles had reason to apprehend
the utmost danger from the great, and still increasing naval power of
that kingdom, joined to the weak condition of the English fleet, no
consideration was able to rouse him from his present lethargy.