Note 668 — Chapter XI · (continued 2)

Dalrymple, 31-57. James gives a different account of this; and intimates that Henrietta, whose visit to Dover he had for this reason been much against, prevailed on the king to change his resolution, and to begin with the war. He gained over Arlington and Clifford. The duke told them it would quite defeat the catholic design, because the king must run in debt, and be at the mercy of his parliament. They answered that, if the war succeeded, it was not much matter what people suspected. P. 450. This shows that they looked on force as necessary to compass the design, and that the noble resistance of the Dutch, under the Prince of Orange, was that which frustrated the whole conspiracy. "The duke," it is again said (p. 453), "was in his own judgment against entering into this war before his majesty's power and authority in England had been better fixed and less precarious, as it would have been, if the private treaty first agreed on had not been altered." The French court, however, was evidently right in thinking that, till the conquest of Holland should be achieved, the declaration of the king's religion would only weaken him at home. It is gratifying to find the heroic character of our glorious deliverer displaying itself among these foul conspiracies. The Prince of Orange came over to England in 1670. He was then very young; and his uncle, who was really attached to him, would have gladly associated him in the design; indeed it had been agreed that he was to possess part of the United Provinces in sovereignty. But Colbert writes that the king had found him so zealous a Dutchman and protestant, that he could not trust him with any part of the secret. He let him know, however, as we learn from Burnet, 382, that he had himself embraced the Romish faith.