Excerpt from The Battle of the Boyne: Together With an Account Based on French and Other Unpublished Records of the War in Ireland 1688 1691, and of the Formation of the Irish Brigade in the Service of FranceWhen it became generally known that William of Orange was preparing a large ¿eet and army to cross into England, and that he had been invited to come over for the preservation Of the Protestant cause by some of the most in¿uential men in England and Scotland, French statesmen had to face the fact that James, far from being likely to succeed in holding his own, was confronted with the grave risk of losing his throne. This risk was increased by James's own conduct. He would not believe that those who Offered him such effusive lip-service could be false. He should have sent Sunderland to the Tower, instead of loyal George Skelton.French Opinion was prepared then for the downfall of James long before the poor King realised his own position, and there was no inclination at Versailles to risk the mad adventure of keeping him on the throne by means of a French army. But, on the other hand, the fact was appreciated that while the Prince of Orange had an army in England he would have fewer troops in the Netherlands, and that then would be the time for France to press him in the Meuse valley. It was also hoped that the presence of foreign troops in England would arouse national opposition [to that veiled conquest of 1688 which believers in the invulnerability of England have so consistently ignored down to the present day, and it was never conceived to be possible that the English people would make, even for the sake of a menaced Church.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.