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of law, without it they have no authority at all. The Lord Chancellor is the Keeper of the Seal, but James, before he fled, desired Jefferies to give it up to him. It lay at the bottom of the river for a few months, and was then accidentally caught in a fisherman's net and dragged up. But before that time a new Great Seal had been made, bearing the names of William and Mary, King and Queen of England.

At the time of King James's flight, the Prince of Orange and his army had not advanced beyond Hungerford, and the populace of London thought they might take this opportunity of doing as they pleased. So they began to plunder and destroy the Roman Catholic chapels and convents, &c., and would have committed many other outrages, if the chief persons in London had not agreed to take the rule into their own hands for a little while, and put a stop to the proceedings of the rioters.

There was one man who was obnoxious to all parties-Judge Jefferies. He was discovered at this time lurking in a small public-house at Wapping, disguised like a collier, and the house was immediately surrounded by a crowd calling for vengeance on the unjust judge. It was well for him that a troop of soldiers came quickly up, and guarded the carriage which conveyed him to the Tower, for the mob would have torn him in pieces. In an agony of terror he was conducted to his prison, and died there after a few months of great misery both of mind and body.

King James had not been able to effect his escape; the vessel in which he had embarked was boarded by a party of fishermen, who robbed him of his money, and when they found out who he was, would not let

him go on. He was brought back to London, but William, who heartily desired that his father-in-law might leave the country quietly, took care that he should not be prevented from making his escape a second time. James arrived safely in France, and met with a most generous reception from Louis, who gave him plenty of money, and the pleasant palace of St. Germains to live in, and did every thing else that he could think of to soothe and gratify his unfortunate guests.

From the 11th December, 1688, which was the day that King James left his palace, to the 13th February, 1689, there was no King of England—this period of our history is called the Interregnum. But the Prince of Orange and the chief men in the country kept all things quiet and in order. A parliament came together to consider what was to be done, and they could not at first agree.

Some thought that James ought still to be called king, but not to have any authority, because he had used it so badly, and that the Prince of Orange should govern for him with the title of Regent. Others said that James must never be king, even in name, any more; and, at last, almost all agreed that James had deprived himself of his kingly office by his bad government, and also by flying from his kingdom, and that the nation had a right to offer the crown to the Prince of Orange and his wife.

In order to prevent any future sovereign from governing unlawfully as James had done, the parliament drew up a famous statute, called the Bill of Right, in which they set forth plainly the rights of Englishmen; and when the crown was offered to

WILLIAM III. AND MARY II.

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the Prince and Princess of Orange, this statute also was presented to them, and they promised faithfully to govern according to it. Thus was completed the English Revolution: and this was the end of the long struggle between the sovereign and the nation which had been going on ever since the reign of James the First. Since the Revolution, whatever wars England may have had abroad, she has had peace at home; for since James the Second fled from the kingdom, no English sovereign has attempted to set his own authority above the laws of the land.

CHAPTER LXIX.

WILLIAM III. AND MARY II., 1689.-CHARACTER OF THE NEW KING AND QUEEN. -AFFAIRS OF SCOTLAND FROM THE DEATH or CHARLES II. TO THE BATTLE OF KILLIECRANKIE.-AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.-SIEGE OF DERRY.-BATTLE OF THE BOYNE, 1ST JULY,

1690.

(From 1689 to 1690.)

WILLIAM and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen on the 13th February, 1689: the prince was at this time thirty-eight, his wife twenty-six years of age. Mary was a general favourite; she possessed excellent abilities, her disposition was kind and gentle, her manners very cheerful and engaging. Only one fault was found with her that she seemed too ready to ascend her father's throne, and had taken possession of the palace from which he had fled, with an air of the utmost satisfaction and merriment. It was alleged in her excuse, that her husband had entreated her to show by every outward sign that she approved of what

M

he had done, and that she could not therefore express her sorrow for the sad fate of her father.

William was far from being as popular as his queen; he was very wise and brave, but his manners were cold and disagreeable. The English acknowledged that he had rendered them a great service in delivering them from the bad government of James; but they did not like him. This was not surprising, for he never learnt to like England; his favourite friends were all Dutchmen; he seldom spoke at all to the English gentlemen who frequented his court; and when he did, his conversation was not very agreeable. He was rude and imperious even to his wife, though he loved her very much.

His health would not suffer him to live in London, so he amused himself with adding to the palace at Hampton Court, and building and planting at Kensington, that he might make his English homes as much like the square, formal houses and gardens of Holland as possible. But the true delight of William's life was in the great concerns of war and politics; and he highly valued his British kingdom, because it enabled him to make head more successfully against that great enemy of Protestant churches and free governments, Louis the Fourteenth.

During most of William's reign, he spent a large portion of every year in the Netherlands, conducting the war with France. But he was first obliged to settle himself firmly in his new kingdom; for the adherents of James in Scotland were not willing to accept William for king; and James himself had landed in Ireland (March 12th, 1689), and was preparing for war.

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We must now go back a little, that some account may be given of what had taken place in Scotland and Ireland, since the death of Charles the Second.

We have seen that there had been much trouble in Scotland, because most of the Scots were firmly persuaded that their church ought not to be governed by bishops; and the king, on the contrary, insisted that they should have bishops. Some of the Scottish bishops and clergy were excellent men; Leighton, especially, was a man of rare genius and piety; but no goodness could overcome the aversion of the Scots to Episcopacy, or, as they called it, Prelacy; and they only waited for a favourable opportunity of throwing off the yoke which the king had imposed on them. But the men called the Covenanters were more resolute than their brethren; they braved the terrors of the government; and although the Scottish parliament, soon after James the Second came to the throne, passed a frightful law, condemning to death every one who attended any meeting for public worship in the open air, the undaunted Covenanters continued to meet on the solitary moors and hill sides. Often the troops hunted them down, and there was one officer in particular, Graham of Claverhouse, Lord Dundee, whom they hated as their chief persecutor; but nothing could intimidate them, and men and women alike went cheerfully to a cruel death.

Amongst the Scottish gentlemen who had gone into exile during the reign of Charles the Second, was the Earl of Argyle, the head of the great clan Campbell. As soon as James the Second succeeded his brother, Argyle ventured back to Scotland, in hope of raising an insurrection and putting an end to