nmouth forced him into action. To preserve his wife's right
of succession with all the great issues which were to come of it, as
well as to secure his own, no other course was left than to adopt the
cause of the Duke of York. Charles too seemed at last willing to
purchase the support of the Prince in England by a frank adhesion to his
policy abroad. He protested against the encroachments which Lewis was
making in Germany. He promised aid to Holland in case of attack. He
listened with favour to William's proposal of a general alliance of the
European powers, and opened negotiations for that purpose with
Brandenburg and Spain. William indeed believed that the one step now
needed to bring England to his side in the coming struggle with Lewis
was a reconciliation between Charles and the Parliament grounded on the
plan for providing Protestant securities which Charles was ready again
to bring forward.

[Sidenote: William and the Exclusion.]

But he still remained in an attitude of reserve when the Parliament at
last met in October. The temper of the Commons was as bitter as
Shaftesbury had hoped. It was in vain that Charles informed them of his
negotiations for an European alliance and called on them to support him
by reason and moderation. The House was too full of the sense of danger
at home to heed dangers abroad. Its first act was to vote that its care
should be "to suppress Popery and prevent a Popish successor." Rumours
of a Catholic plot in Ireland were hardly needed to set aside all
schemes of Protestant securities, and to push the Exclusion Bill through
the Commons without a division. So strong had Monmouth's party become
that a proposal to affirm the rights of Mary and William by name in the
Bill was evaded and put aside. From this moment the course of the Prince
became clear. So resolute was the temper of the Lower House that even
Temple and Essex now gave their adhesion to the Exclusion Bill as a
necessity, and Sunderland himself wavered towards accepting it. But
Halifax, whose ability and eloquence had now brought him fairly to the
front, opposed it resolutely and successfully in the Lords; and Halifax
was but the mouthpiece of William. "My Lord Halifax is entirely in the
interest of the Prince of Orange," the French ambassador, Barillon,
wrote to his master, "and what he seems to be doing for the Duke of York
is really in order to make an opening for a compromise by which the
Prince of Orange may benefit." The