ABSTRACT
The seventeenth century in England had been many things by turns—lusty, cramped, licentious. It could claim a blood-stained Rebellion, a light-hearted Restoration, and a peaceful Revolution. During those last dozen years England—not knowing on whom to gamble, never certain of whom to trust—was to be rife with conspiracy and faction. The war plainly began as a defensive war against French ambitions; but as victories piled up for England and the struggle still dragged on, it became clear that it was also something else. Many people, however, supposed that he would; and on that supposition enough plotting went on between England and Saint-Germains to pack a dozen melodramas. Twice the England had got rid of Stuart kings—and yet it had a curious feeling that a monarch who was not a Stuart was not a monarch, and its eye travelled over the water to Saint-Germains.
