of the Stadtholder. There had been, not indeed clamours, but
mutterings against him. He had, it was said, neglected his native
land for his new kingdom. Whenever the dignity of the English
flag, whenever the prosperity of the English trade was concerned,
he forgot that he was a Hollander. But, as soon as his well
remembered face was again seen, all jealousy, all coldness, was
at an end. There was not a boor, not a fisherman, not an artisan,
in the crowds which lined the road from Honslaerdyk to the Hague,
whose heart did not swell with pride at the thought that the
first minister of Holland had become a great King, had freed the
English, and had conquered the Irish. It would have been madness
in William to travel from Hampton Court to Westminster without a
guard; but in his own land he needed no swords or carbines to
defend him. "Do not keep the people off;" he cried: "let them
come close to me; they are all my good friends." He soon learned
that sumptuous preparations were making for his entrance into the
Hague. At first he murmured and objected. He detested, he said,
noise and display. The necessary cost of the war was quite heavy
enough. He hoped that his kind fellow townsmen would consider him
as a neighbour, born and bred among them, and would not pay him
so bad a compliment as to treat him ceremoniously. But all his
expostulations were vain. The Hollanders, simple and parsimonious
as their ordinary habits were, had set their hearts on giving
their illustrious countryman a reception suited to his dignity
and to his merit; and he found it necessary to yield. On the day
of his triumph the concourse was immense. All the wheeled
carriages and horses of the province were too few for the
multitude of those who flocked to the show. Many thousands came
sliding or skating along the frozen canals from Amsterdam,
Rotterdam, Leyden, Haarlem, Delft. At ten in the morning of the