letter freeing him from all consequences of his connection with the massacre, and conveying no disapproval of anything but the method of its execution (for the report see Carstares Papers, p. 236; for the ‘Scroll of Discharge,’ Paget's The New Examen, p. 74; see ib. p. 69 as to the tract ‘Gallienus Redivivus,’ published after the appointment of the commission, and clearly aimed at King William).
Early in 1692 the half-discoveries which had led to the dismissal of Marlborough were in some measure discredited by the exposure of the fictitiousness of ‘Fuller's plot.’ Soon, however, Louis XIV, trusting partly to English discontent and disloyalty, partly to the country being bared of troops for William's campaign in Flanders, equipped a powerful expedition for the invasion of England by James. But the defeat and destruction of the French fleet at La Hogue (19 and 24 May) ended the last armada ever despatched by Louis against this country, and it had not even succeeded in drawing William out of the Netherlands. Here he failed to raise the siege of Namur (which was taken on 23 June), and, throwing himself in the way of Luxemburg's advance upon Brussels, was defeated by him at Steenkirke (3 Aug.), where, however, the losses of the French were such as to stay their advance (the correctness of Macaulay's and other descriptions of the battle are impugned by Müller, ii. 198; see ib. p. 102, as to William's sorrow for the death, in November, of Waldeck, who made the dispositions for the battle). A week after Steenkirke a French officer named Grandval was executed in the English camp, having confessed a design upon William's life, in which Louvois and his son were said to have been involved, and of which James II and his queen are stated to have been aware (Burnet, iv. 170, and Macaulay, chap. xix. As to Louis XIV's ignorance of the plot, see Briefe der Herzogin Elisabeth Charlotte von Orléans an die Kurfürstin Sophie, 1891, i. 154). On 24 March 1693 William was back in Holland after his parliamentary session, and soon confronted the French forces, nearly double his own in number, commanded by Louis XIV. But it was not until after the departure of the latter, who had declined a battle, that Luxemburg, after taking Huy, could attempt by a decisive action to drive William out of Brabant. The battle of Neerwinden, or Landen (19 July), in which William gave remarkable proofs of personal valour, is described by Macaulay as the most sanguinary battle fought in Europe during the seventeenth century. Berwick had collected two hundred volunteers for an attack on the person of William in this battle (Klopp, vi. 214). Though Luxemburg was victorious, his terrible losses prevented a pursuit. William fell back upon Brussels, and was soon reinforced; but he neither ventured on a second battle nor interfered with the capture of Charleroi, soon after which he returned to England (29 Oct.) The two years' campaigns had resulted in maintaining a balance of success between the adversaries, and in the latter part of 1693 an inclination towards peace was first shown by the aggressor (see ib. vi. 237). In England the tories and the country interest were likewise beginning to grow weary of the war, while the whigs and the mercantile classes were prepared to keep up the English army, without whose aid the struggle in the Netherlands must have collapsed and invasion become possible. This increase of tension between the political parties made it more and more difficult for William to govern with the support of both. In the winter session 1692–3 the place bill, which prohibited the tenure of any office under the crown by a member of parliament chosen after 1 Feb. 1693, and which would have altered the relations of all future parliaments to the crown, had been rejected by a narrow majority; to the passing of the triennial bill, which as amended would have terminated the sitting parliament on Lady day 1694, and limited the duration of all subsequent parliaments to three years, the king had refused his assent, thus for the second time making use of his power of veto (14 March 1693; as to William's interview with Swift, sent by Temple to urge him to assent to the bill, see Swift's own account in his ‘Autobiographical Anecdotes’ in Forster's Life, i. 13). But though he had thus opposed the wishes of the whigs, the necessities of his foreign policy, which he plainly put before parliament when opening the session on 7 Nov. (Kennet, iii. 665), and the increased violence of the wrangles between the two parties during its course, strengthened his inclination to trust the stronger and better organised of them. The triennial bill was this time rejected by the commons. To a new and far less drastic place bill he injudiciously refused his assent, by this third use of his power exasperating the tories, and running a serious risk of losing his supply (December). The storm, however, blew over, and the remainder of the session was occupied with the provision of ways and means, partly by a lottery loan of 1,000,000l., and the incorporation of the subscribers to a further loan of 1,200,000l., under the name of the governor and company of the Bank of
