vagant symptoms of tumultuary joy; he suddenly enquired the cause, and was told by Feversham, "It is nothing but the rejoicing the soldiers for the acquittal of the bishops." "Do you call that nothing? replied the king; "But so much the worse for them."

Five months from this time the Prince of Orange, invited by the general voice of the people to rescue them from popery and slavery, landed at Torbay, and on the 23rd December, 1688, a day which will ever be memorable in the annals of England as the happy termination of the GLORIOUS REVOLUTION OF 1688, the tyrant who had sought to subvert our laws, destroy our church, and invade our rights and liberties, was compelled to resign the crown, and fly from the land which had too long endured his arrogance and oppression. Kings of England, p. 169.

DEATH OF JAMES II.

He survived his dethronement thirteen years, living the whole of that time at St. Germains, near Paris (with the exception of two attempts to recover the crown he had so disgracefully lost), in complete inactivity. Hunting was his favourite amusement, and an occasional visit to the monastery of La Trappe, where the poor monks were vastly edified with his humble zeal and pious deportment, formed his only occupation. He died of a lethargy on the 6th September, 1701, aged 68. Kings of England, p. 171.

PERSON AND CHARACTER.

He had a noble and commanding presence, rather above the middle stature; his complexion was much fairer than his brother, Charles the Second, but the expression of his face was far less prepossessing. Of the public character, at least of this prince, there can be no difference of opinion. He was a bigot in his religion, and a despot in his principles of government. With these qualities, which formed the predominant features of his mind, it was hardly possible any virtues could take root, still less be beneficial. Some historians, however, have ascribed to him the virtues of sincerity, bravery, and frankness. His sincerity was poorly evinced, when, in spite of reiterated promises to preserve the religion and liberties of the people, his whole reign exhibited the most scandalous violations of both. His bravery, though less questionable than his sincerity, was as poorly illustrated at the battle of the Boyne, where, instead of being the last, he was the first to set an example of flight. Kings of England, p. 171.

CHRONICLE.

1685, April 23. James and his queen crowned at Westminster. Nov. 5. The Prince of Orange lands at Torbay, in Devonshire. Dec. 10. James took water at Whitehall stairs, and embarked for France; in crossing the Thames, from the Horseferry, he threw the great seal into the water, that nothing might be legally done in his absence. Dec. 14. The Prince of Orange came to Windsor. And on the 23rd December, James took his final departure from

England, and joined his wife and child at St. Germains. In this reign the Duke of Buckingham introduced from Venice the manufacture of glass and crystal into England. Prince Rupert was also an encourager of useful arts and manufactures. He was himself the inventor of etching. Otto Guericke invented the air pump. Newton, by the discovery of the fluxional calculus, the investigation of the great law of gravitation, and its application to the motions of the heavenly bodies, the decomposition of the rays of light, whence he deduced the whole theory of colours, did more to extend the bounds of natural philosophy than all the philosophers ancient or modern who had preceded him. About this time was established the Royal Society. Many of the large houses of the nobility in the Strand were pulled down, and in the year before the revolution the suburbs of the metropolis were much increased by the settlement of about thirteen thousand French Protestants, who abandoned their native country to avoid the persecution of Louis XIV. Long-acre, Seven-dials, Soho, and Spitalfields, were in a manner planted by them; their avocations were chiefly ornamental jewellery and silk-weaving.

REIGN OF WILLIAM III.

FROM 1689 TO 1702-13 YEARS, 23 DAYS.

BATTLE OF THE BOYNE.

James, on his retirement to France, having warmly interested Louis XIV. in his cause, lost no time in collecting an army anu landing in Ireland, which still owned his authority, from whence he hoped, being reinforced by the Catholics, to make a descent on England to recover his lost crown; but he soon found the taon more difficult than he contemplated. The siege of Londonderry being raised by General Kirke, James was not long afterwards met by King William in person, on the banks of the Boyne, where on the 1st July, 1690, was fought the famous battle which extinguished the hopes of the craven-hearted adventurer, who was again obliged to seek ignominious security in France. The hostile armies had been drawing gradually nearer to each other until on the 29th of June, when James crossed the river Boyne, and took up his position on the right bank. William was so near at hand, that on the 30th he too reached the river at the same point, and prepared for battle. The armies were very large; William's consisted of 26,000 English, French, Dutch, and Danes; James's of 27,000 French and Irish, independant of a body of troops who held Drogheda for him on his right, so as to command the road to Dublin. The commanders included brave and eminent men on both sides; William had with him the Duke of Schomberg and his son, Count Schomberg, Generals Ginkel, Douglas and Kirke;

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whilst for James fought the Dukes of Tyrconnell and Berwick, Generals Hamilton and Saarsfield, the Count Lauzun, and other able French officers; but then there was William, a host in him. self, whilst as far as James's military abilities or courage were concerned his troops would have been as well, if not better, with out him than with him. An accident, however, had nearly wrought an overwhelming counterbalance in James's favour; as William, on the night of his arrival on the Boyne, rode up and down with his staff to examine the enemy's position, and judge how he might best attack them, two field-pieces were brought to bear upon his party, and fired with such precision, that a man and two horses were killed by the first shot, very near to William's side. A second shot followed, which grazed the bank of the river, then bounded along en ri hochet, as military men say, until it passed right across the king's shoulder, and tore away some little flesh. Lord Coningsby, riding up immediately, clapped his handkerchief to the wound, but William said he heeded it not, that the ball should have come nearer to do him harm; and then, after the wound was dressed, proceeded with his employment, continuing on horseback nearly the whole of the day. But James's soldiers, seeing the confusion produced among the party, fired on, jumped at once to the conclusion that William was killed, and sent off expresses to that effect to Dublin, to Paris, and to all the other capitals of Europe. Towards night William called his officers together, not exactly to ask their opinion, but rather to tell them that he had determined he would pass the river on the morrow. Immediately all preparations were made; the men were to wear in their hats green boughs or sprigs, to distinguish them from the French and Irish, who wore pieces of white paper as cockades. At midnight William rode amidst the light of torches through every part of the camp; when day broke, in all the splendour of one of the finest of summer mornings, the troops were roused, and by the time the sun was up, the leading divisions were on the march. Ten thousand horse and foot presently moved towards the fords below Slane, and five thousand of James's army advanced to dispute their passage. The contest was sharp, but short and decisive; James's officer, Sir Neale O'Neill, fell dead at the head of his regiment at the first charge, and his opponent, General Douglas, was soon firmly posted on the opposite bank; and now there opened a still more portentous attack from the centre of William's position. Amidst a general movement of Enniskillen infantry, regiments of French Huguenots, and of large bodies of cavalry, a dense mass of Dutch blue guards were in particular seen to advance, their drums beating a march, till they reached the water's edge, when they dashed eight or ten abreast into the river, and crossed towards the centre of James's army, which was partly covered by ditches and breastworks and partly hidden by intervening heights. A tremendous fire was opened upon the guards as they reached the middle of the river, but they moved on, reached the opposite bunk, and dislodged their enemies.

he Huguenots and Enniskilleners crossed a little lower down, hilst the cavalry made way between them and the Dutch guards, ut the attacks upon them were so fierce that the Huguenots were roken, and lost their commander, and some of the horse driven ack. Schomberg here started forward, passed the river, placed imself at the head of the Huguenots, and, pointing to the French Catholics in James's army, cried out in words that must have had most stirring effect upon those to whom they were addressed, Come, gentlemen see your persecutors!" but even as he spoke ball passed through his neck, and the veteran was presently ead. William now charged in person with the Enniskillen egiment, who now rallied, and redeemed themselves from the disrace of their momentary retreat; William, with his sword drawn, nough hardly able to carry it through pain and stiffness of his wound the day before, directed them and the Dutch guards right gainst the centre of James's army, where, however, no James now vas; that prudent monarch was already thinking of the road to Dublin, and endeavouring to place himself in a convenient nearess to it; but his troops fought better for their master than he did or himself, and though they were driven back by the overhelming impetus of William's attack, they rallied, and even reulsed their enemies for a time so vigorously, that the king was in reat personal danger. But from ail quarters the charges grew ore and more frequent and severe; again and again the Irish ad French were compelled to retreat, till, in a word, it was evient the battle was lost, when there was a rapid dispersion of the ighty force that promised in the morning to restore James to his ree kingdoms. The French alone retreated in good order; imes's precautions for escape were perfectly successful; he went f under the protection of General Saarsfield's regiment of cadry, and swept along as fast as fear could carry him to Dublin. eanly enough he endeavoured to throw the blame of defeat on e brave Irish; as he reached the castle of Dub in, and Lady yrconnel advanced to meet him, he said to her, “ Your e autryn, the Irish, Mudim, can run very quick;" the stinging answer is, "Your Majesty excels them in this as in everything else, for you ve won the race.” This was unpleasant, but James was not to be terred by it from continuing his flight at so rapid a pace that he de to Waterford by the next night, a distance of more than a indred miles; here he had shipping ready, and he at once em- . rked for France. As he ascended the side of the vessel the nd blew off his hat; General O' Farrel, to prevent his catching ld, put his own hat on the king's head, who seems to have been ached by the single act of kindness so far as to try to say someing noticeable on the occasion, so he observed that “If. through fault of the Irish, he had lost a crown, he had gained a hat from them its place.* Old England, vol. ii., p. 255.

An obelisk of grand proportions commemorates the battle, and marks the spot ere William received his wound, and, at the present moment, all the details of

MASSACRE OF GLENCOE.

Ang the different clans of Highlanders, the most tardy in his submission to William was Macdonald of Glencoe. The Earl of Breadalbane, the mortal enemy of this chieftain, represented him

the court as an incorrigible rebel, a ruffian inured to bloodshed and rapine, who would never be obedient to the laws of his coun Ly, nor live peaceably under any sovereign. He observed that he paid no regard to the proclamation of the king offering indemnity to those who should surrender on a certain day, and proposed that he, his family, and dependents, should be destroyed by military execution. This advice was adopted, and an order, signed and countersigned by the king's own hand, was transmitted to the Master of Stair, Secretary of Scotland, who gave particular and urgent directions to put the inhabitants of Glencoe to the sword, charging the officer to take no prisoners, that the example might be the more terrible. In the month of February, Captain Campbell, of Glenlyon, marched into the valley of Glencoe with a company of soldiers, on pretence of levying the arrears of land-tax and the hearth money. When Macdonald asked whether they came as friends, or enemies, he answered as friends, and gave him the most solemn pledge that neither he nor his people should sustain the least injury. In consequence of this declaration, he and his men were received with the greatest hospitality, and for fifteen days they lived with the Glencoe men apparently in the most unreserved friendship. At length the fatal period approached. Macdonald and Campbell having passed the day together, parted about seven in the evening, with mutual professions of the warmest affection. The younger Macdonald perceiving the guards doubled, began to suspect some treachery, and communicated his suspicion to his brother, but neither he nor his father would harbour the least doubt about Campbell's sincerity: nevertheless, the two young men went forth privately to make further observations. They overheard the common soldiers say they liked not the work; that though they would willingly have fought the Macdonalds of the Glen fairly in the field, they held it base to murder them in cold blood, but that their officers were answerable for the treachery. When the youths hasted back to apprise their father of the impending danger, they saw the house already surrounded: they heard the discharge of musquets, and the shrieks of women and children, and being destitute of arms, secured their own lives by immediate flight. The savage ministers of vengeance had en

the battle live in the memories of the people who dwell around, and are handed down from generation to generation, and not only these particulars alone, but all the high relationships and entire genealogies of the distinguished persons who were engaged in it. The Irish traditions still possess the peculiar precise character of the traditions of nations who have no books, and whose memory is therefore the stronge In them everything is described with the greatest accuracy, the localities, the physiognomics, the speeches, just as if the people had seen everything themselves. Old England, vol. ii., p. 258.