placed on his own head, if he could only be convinced that such a
sacrifice was indispensably necessary to his great design. In the days
of the Popish plot, therefore, though he disapproved of the violence
with which the opposition attacked the royal authority, he exhorted
the government to give way. The conduct of the Commons, he said, as
respected domestic affairs, was most unreasonable but while the Commons
were discontented the liberties of Europe could never be safe; and to
that paramount consideration every other consideration ought to yield.
On these principles he acted when the Exclusion Bill had thrown
the nation into convulsions. There is no reason to believe that he
encouraged the opposition to bring forward that bill or to reject the
offers of compromise which were repeatedly made from the throne. But
when it became clear that, unless that bill were carried, there would
be a serious breach between the Commons and the court, he indicated
very intelligibly, though with decorous reserve, his opinion that the
representatives of the people ought to be conciliated at any price. When
a violent and rapid reflux of public feeling had left the Whig party for
a time utterly helpless, he attempted to attain his grand object by a
new road perhaps more agreeable to his temper than that which he had
previously tried. In the altered temper of the nation there was little
chance that any Parliament disposed to cross the wishes of the sovereign
would be elected. Charles was for a time master. To gain Charles,
therefore, was the Prince's first wish. In the summer of 1683, almost
at the moment at which the detection of the Rye House Plot made the
discomfiture of the Whigs and the triumph of the King complete, events
took place elsewhere which William could not behold without extreme
anxiety and alarm. The Turkish armies advanced to the suburbs of Vienna.
The great Austrian monarchy, on the support of which the Prince had
reckoned, seemed to be on the point of destruction. Bentinck was
therefore sent in haste from the Hague to London, was charged to omit
nothing which might be necessary to conciliate the English court, and
was particularly instructed to express in the strongest terms the horror
with which his master regarded the Whig conspiracy.

During the eighteen months which followed, there was some hope that
the influence of Halifax would prevail, and that the court of Whitehall
would return to the policy of the Triple Allia