five hundred pounds seemed fabulous wealth.  What, he asked, was he to do for it?  Nothing, he was told, but to speak the truth, that was to say, substantial truth, a little disguised and coloured.  There really was a plot; and this would have been proved if Blackhead had not been bought off.  His desertion had made it necessary to call in the help of fiction.  “You must swear that you and I were in a back room upstairs at the Lobster in Southwark.  Some men came to meet us there.  They gave a password before they were admitted.  They were all in white camlet cloaks.  They signed the Association in our presence.  Then they paid each his shilling and went away.  And you must be ready to identify my Lord Marlborough and the Bishop of Rochester as two of these men.”  “How can I identify them?” said Holland, “I never saw them.”  “You must contrive to see them,” answered the tempter, “as soon as you can.  The Bishop will be at the Abbey.  Anybody about the Court will point out my Lord Marlborough.”  Holland immediately went to Whitehall, and repeated this conversation to Nottingham.  The unlucky imitator of Oates was prosecuted, by order of the government, for perjury, subornation of perjury, and forgery.  He was convicted and imprisoned, was again set in the pillory, and underwent, in addition to the exposure, about which he cared little, such a pelting as had seldom been known.282 After his punishment, he was, during some years, lost in the crowd of pilferers, ringdroppers and sharpers who infested the capital.  At length, in the year 1700, he emerged from his obscurity, and excited a momentary interest.  The newspapers announced that Robert Young, Clerk, once so famous, had been taken up for coining, then that he had been found guilty, then that the dead warrant had come down, and finally that the reverend gentleman had been hanged at Tyburn, and had greatly edified a large assembly of spectators by his penitence.283

CHAPTER XIX

Foreign Policy of William—­The Northern Powers—­The Pope—­Conduct of the Allies—­The Emperor—­Spain—­William succeeds in preventing the Dissolution of the Coalition—­New Arrangements for the Government of the Spanish Netherlands—­Lewis takes the Field—­ Siege of Namur—­Lewis returns to Versailles—­Luxemburg—­Battle of Steinkirk—­Conspiracy of Grandval—­Return of William to England—­ Naval Maladministration—­Earthquake at Port Royal—­Distress in England; Increase of Crime—­Meeting of Parliament; State of Parties—­The King’s Speech; Question of Privilege raised by the Lords—­Debates on the State of the Nation—­Bill for the Regulation of Trials in Cases of Treason—­Case of Lord Mohun—­ Debates on the India Trade—­Supply—­Ways and Means; Land Tax—­ Origin of the National Debt—­Parliamentary Reform—­The Place Bill—­The Triennial Bill—­The First Parliamentary Discussion on the Liberty of the Press—­State of Ireland—­The King refuses to pass the Triennial Bill—­Ministerial Arrangements—­The King goes to Holland; a Session of Parliament in Scotland