years later serving under the French standard. In 1672 the Duke of
Monmouth, then in the prime of his fortune, joined Turenne with a force
of six thousand English and Scottish troops, amongst whom marched John
Churchill, a captain of the Grenadier company of Monmouth's own
regiment. But the military glory Claverhouse is said to have won in the
French service cannot have been great: his studies in the art of war
must have been mainly theoretical. In the year 1668, the year in which
Claverhouse is said to have left Scotland for France, Lewis had been
compelled to pause in his career of conquest. The Triple Alliance had in
that year forced upon him the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. He had been
compelled to restore Franche Comté, though he still kept hold of the
towns he had won in the Low Countries. But the joy with which all
parties in England welcomed this alliance had scarcely found expression
when Charles, impatient of the economy of his Parliament and indifferent
to its approval, opened those negotiations which, with the help of his
sister the Duchess of Orleans, and that other Duchess, Louisa of
Portsmouth, resulted in the secret treaty of Dover. We are not now
concerned to examine the particulars of a transaction which even Charles
himself did not dare to confide entirely to his ministers, familiar as
the Cabal was with shameless deeds. It is enough for our present purpose
to remember that, in return for a large annual subsidy and the promise
of help should England again take up arms against her king, Charles
bound himself to aid Lewis in crushing the rising power of Holland and
to support the claims of the House of Bourbon to the throne of Spain.
Supplies were obtained for immediate purposes by closing the Exchequer,
an act which ruined half the goldsmiths in London. As a set-off against
this, a royal proclamation, arrogating to itself powers only Parliament
could rightly exercise, suspended the laws against Nonconformists and
Catholics. The latter were, indeed, allowed to say Mass only within
their private houses, but to dissenters of every other class was granted