lf disaffection would turn into actual revolt. The Bloody
Assize had left its terror on the Whigs. The Tories and Churchmen,
angered as they were, were still hampered by their horror of rebellion
and their doctrine of non-resistance. Above all the eyes of the nation
rested on William and Mary. James was past middle age, and a few years
must bring a Protestant successor and restore the reign of law. But in
the midst of the struggle with the Church it was announced that the
Queen was again with child. The news was received with general unbelief,
for five years had passed since the last pregnancy of Mary of Modena,
and the unbelief passed into a general expectation of some imposture as
men watched the joy of the Catholics and their confident prophecies that
the child would be a boy. But, truth or imposture, it was plain that the
appearance of a Prince of Wales must bring on a crisis. If the child
turned out a boy, and as was certain was brought up a Catholic, the
highest Tory had to resolve at last whether the tyranny under which
England lay should go on for ever. The hesitation of the country was at
an end. Danby, loyal above all to the Church and firm in his hatred of
subservience to France, answered for the Tories. Compton answered for
the High Churchmen, goaded at last into rebellion by the Declaration of
Indulgence. The Earl of Devonshire, the Lord Cavendish of the Exclusion
struggle, answered for the Nonconformists, who were satisfied with
William's promise to procure them toleration, as well as for the general
body of the Whigs. The announcement of the boy's birth on the 10th of
June was followed ten days after by a formal invitation to William to
intervene in arms for the restoration of English liberty and the
protection of the Protestant religion. The invitation was signed by
Danby, Devonshire, and Compton, the representatives of the great parties
whose long fight was hushed at last by a common danger, by two recent
converts from the Catholic faith, the Earl of Shrewsbury and Lord
Lumley, by Edward the cousin of Lord Russell, and by Henry the brother
of Algernon Sidney. It was carried to the Hague by Herbert, the most
popular of English seamen, who had been deprived of his command for a
refusal to vote against the Test.

[Sidenote: James and France.]

The Invitation called on the Prince of Orange to land with an army
strong enough to justify those who signed it in rising in arms. An
outbreak of revolt was in fact