e monarchy but for the fatal law which secured that assembly
from dissolution. [409] There was, it must be owned, a flaw in this
reasoning which a man less shrewd than William might easily detect. That
one restriction of the royal prerogative had been mischievous did
not prove that another restriction would be salutary. It by no means
followed because one sovereign had been ruined by being unable to get
rid of a hostile Parliament that another sovereign might not be ruined
by being forced to part with a friendly Parliament. To the great
mortification of the ambassador, his arguments failed to shake the
King's resolution. On the fourteenth of March the Commons were summoned
to the Upper House; the title of the Triennial Bill was read; and it was
announced, after the ancient form, that the King and Queen would take
the matter into their consideration. The Parliament was then prorogued.

Soon after the prorogation William set out for the Continent. It was
necessary that, before his departure, he should make some important
changes. He was resolved not to discard Nottingham, on whose integrity,
a virtue rare among English statesmen, he placed a well founded
reliance. Yet, if Nottingham remained Secretary of State, it was
impossible to employ Russell at sea. Russell, though much mortified,
was induced to accept a lucrative post in the household; and two naval
officers of great note in their profession, Killegrew and Delaval, were
placed at the Board of Admiralty and entrusted with the command of the
Channel Fleet. [410] These arrangements caused much murmuring among the
Whigs; for Killegrew and Delaval were certainly Tories, and were by many
suspected of being Jacobites. But other promotions which took place at
the same time proved that the King wished to bear himself evenly between
the hostile factions. Nottingham had, during a year, been the sole
Secretary of State. He was now joined with a colleague in whose society
he must have felt himself very ill at ease, John Trenchard. Trenchard
belonged to the extreme section of the Whig party. He was a Taunton man,
animated by that spirit which had, during two generations, peculiarly
distinguished Taunton. He had, in the days of Popeburnings and of
Protestant flails, been one of the renowned Green Riband Club; he had
been an active member of several stormy Parliaments; he had brought
in the first Exclusion Bill; he had been deeply concerned in the plots
formed by the chiefs of the o