would have tried
by a studiously moderate policy to win the loyal allegiance of his
subjects, but he was stubborn, wrong-headed and fanatical, and from the
first he aimed at the impossible. His attempts to establish absolute
rule, to bring back the English nation to the fold of the Catholic
Church and, as a means to that end, to make himself independent of
Parliament by accepting subsidies from the French king, were bound to
end in catastrophe. This was more especially the case as Louis XIV had,
at the very time of King James' accession, after having for a number of
years persecuted the Huguenots in defiance of the Edict of Nantes, taken
the step of revoking that great instrument of religious toleration on
November 17, 1685. The exile of numerous families, who had already been
driven out by the _dragonnades_, was now followed by the expulsion of
the entire Huguenot body, of all at least who refused to conform to the
Catholic faith. How many hundreds of thousands left their homes to find
refuge in foreign lands it is impossible to say, but amongst them were
great numbers of industrious and skilled artisans and handicraftsmen,
who sought asylum in the Dutch Republic and there found a ready and
sympathetic welcome. The arrival of these unhappy immigrants had the
effect of arousing a strong feeling of indignation in Holland, and
indeed throughout the provinces, against the government of Louis XIV.
They began to see that the policy of the French king was not merely one
of territorial aggression, but was a crusade against Protestantism. The
governing classes in Holland, Zeeland, Friesland and Groningen were
stirred up by the preachers to enforce more strictly the laws against
the Catholics in those provinces, for genuine alarm was felt at the
French menace to the religion for which their fathers had fought and
suffered. The cause of Protestantism was one with which the Princes of
Orange had identified themselves; but none of his ancestors was so keen
an upholder of that cause as was William III. The presence in their
midst of the Huguenot refugees had the effect of influencing public
opinion powerfully in the States in favour of their stadholder's warlike
policy. Nor was the Dutch Republic the only State which was deeply moved
by the ruthless treatment of his Protestant subjects by the French king.
The Elector of Brandenburg, as head of the principal Protestant State in
Germany, had also offered an asylum to the French exiles a