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of Sir John

early in January 1697 and sir John Fenwick, BOOK III. finding that there was no mercy in reserve for 1697. him, prepared with fortitude to meet his approaching fate; and, notwithstanding the proofs Execution of weakness and pusillanimity which he had pre- Fenwick. viously shewn, he resigned himself to the stroke of death with calmness and composure. On account of his rank and noble connection, his sentence was changed to decapitation, which he suffered on Tower-hill, January the 28th, leaving in the hands of the sheriff a paper containing, with a denial of some circumstances, a virtual confession of the substance of the charges adduced against him; and "praying GoD to bless his true and lawful sovereign king James; and to restore him and his posterity to the throne again, for the peace and prosperity of the nation."

ment of

of Sunder

The session of parliament terminated on the 16th of April 1697, the king declaring, as usual, his intention to embark speedily for the continent. Previous to his departure, he introduced Advance the earl of Sunderland, who had long been known the Earl covertly to influence his councils, once more to land. a conspicuous station in public life, by appointing him to the office of lord chamberlain, vacaut by the resignation of the duke of Dorset. This nobleman was at the same time sworn of the privy council, and constituted one of the lords justices during the absence of the king. The lord keeper

BOOK III. Somers was created a peer, and advanced to the 1097. dignity of chancellor of Great Britain; and admiral Russel was made earl of Orford, and continued to occupy the post of first commissioner of the admiralty, with powers little inferior to those usually vested in a lord-high-admiral.

Negotia

tions re

Peace.

The maritime powers being at length seriously lative to disposed to listen to the pacific overtures of France, a joint memorial was presented to the court of Vienna by the ambassadors of England and Holland, early in the present year 1697, to entreat his imperial majesty to accept the mediation of Sweden without reserve, and name a place for holding the congress. In consequence of this proposition, the emperor deigned to signify, in cold and haughty terms, his acquiescence: and the ministers and ambassadors of the allied powers, excepting Spain, who affected to stand aloof, as if able singly to vindicate her own rights and to maintain her own separate interests, being assembled at the Hague, February 1697, M. de Callieres, in the name of his Most Christian majesty, offered to confirm and re-establish the treaties of Westphalia and Nimeguen as the basis of the present pacification; to restore the city of Strasburg to the empire, and Luxemburg to Spain, or an equivalent for each; to restore Mons, Charleroy, and the places captured in Catalonia to Spain, in the state in which they were

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1697.

taken, and the town and castle of Dinant to the BOOK II. bishop of Liege; to annul all the decrees of reunion made since the conclusion of the peace of Nimeguen; to restore Lorraine according to the conditions of the said treaty; and to recognise the prince of Orange as king of Great Britain. These were great and ample concessions; and such as fully demonstrated the sincerity of the king of France, and his earnest desire to give satisfaction to the different powers of the alliance. The emperor, however, still appeared actuated by sullen and angry discontent. He insisted, in a memorial delivered to M. Callieres, not only on the re-establishment of the treaties of Westphalia and Nimeguen in their full extent, according to the explanation of Nuremburg, but on the unconditional restitution of Lorraine to the duke, of the castle and duchy of Bouillon to the elector of Cologne; and with respect to Spain, to place all things on the basis of the treaty of the Pyrenees. And in a subsequent memorial, delivered April the 10th to the Swedish ambassador as mediator, styled the Ulterior of his Cæsarean majesty, the same extravagant demands are renewed-with the addition of the insulting declaration," that his imperial majesty would not have consented to accept the mediation at all, if the king of Sweden had not consented to guaranty the preceding declarations of France."

BOOK III.

1097.

The death of the Swedish monarch Charles XI., which happened at this period; did not impede the progress of the negotiation; the ambassador mediator declaring, "that his late royal master had persevered to the last in his purpose of fulfilling the promised guarantee. And feeling the approach of death, he had earnestly recommended the same thing to his successor and that his majesty now reigning had inherited the same inclinations and attachments, and desired to manifest Congress the same sincerity in all things." The emperor Ryswick. and Spain at length, through the urgent and re

opened at

Campaign in Flanders.'

peated instances of Sweden and the maritime powers, agreed to open the conferences in form; and the congress was transferred from the Hague to the village of Ryswick, where king William had a palace, which now became the seat and centre of political intrigue and negotiation. There many successive weeks and months passed away in unavailing diplomatic discussion and altercation.

But while the allied potentates affected to give law to France in the cabinet, the armies of that formidable power, taking advantage of these impolitic delays, were successfully exerting themselves in making new acquisitions and conquests. And on the arrival of the king of England in Holland, he received the unwelcome intelligence, that the town of Acth was invested by the ene

BOOK I

1097.

Aeth.

my, now under the conduct of M. Catinat; the maréchals Villeroi and Boufflers having the command of the covering army. The place was sur- Capture of rendered after a defence not very vigorous, and thirteen days open trenches only. King William had now taken upon him the command of the allied army, which he posted in so strong and judicious a position, that M. Catinat could gain no farther advantage-the campaign being, on the part of the king, professedly and entirely defen

sive.

ferences of

The opposite armies lying very near to each other, in the vicinity of Brussels, the attention of Secret bonthe public was powerfully excited by the repeated Halle. interviews of the earl of Portland and maréchal Boufflers, who, leaving at some distance their trains of officers and attendants, met by agreement in the plain of Halle, in the sight of the two camps; and at the last of these conferences the two military negotiators retired to a cottage, where they signed the articles previously concluded on. It was then signified to the plenipotentiaries at Brussels, that the king of England had adjusted his separate concerns with France; and William immediately retired from the camp to his palace at Loo.

What were the precise subjects of the conferences of Halle, and what the separate articles agreed to, have been the subject of much curious

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