policy. The disbandment which troubled him so greatly was not to be repeated in our history (Seeley, The Growth of British Policy, 1895, ii. 347). He was by predilection a soldier, never appearing quite at his best except on the field of battle, where he repeatedly proved his high personal courage; as a general he took the measure of the foremost commanders of his times, and himself displayed circumspection, determination, and dash. On the other hand, he neglected the navy, and confessed that he did not understand sea affairs (Dalrymple, iii. 257). It was not his fault that he could give but little direct effect to his views of religious policy, favouring not only the toleration of which in England, as well as in Holland, he was a consistent promoter, but also a comprehension from which both the English and the Scottish churches were averse. In his personal tenets he seems to have been a Calvinist, ‘much possessed with the belief of absolute decrees’ (Burnet, iv. 564; cf. Letters of the Duchess of Orleans, passim); while his indifference to forms of church government failed to affect the regularity of his religious observances (McCormick, Life of Carstares, p. 38 n.) His unpopularity with the English clergy finds its chief explanation in their politics; the higher church appointments he was, during her lifetime, glad to leave to the queen. He readily associated himself with the wave of opinion against the progress of profanity and immorality which marked the last lustrum of his reign (Kennet, iii. 745). He showed warm sympathy with the struggles of protestantism in Switzerland and France, and was a kind friend to the protestant refugees in England (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1690–1, Introd. p. xlvii; cf. C. Weiss, Histoire des Réfugiés Protestants de France, Paris, 1853, i. 321 seqq.).
His personal morality cannot be held to have risen above the level of his age. Macaulay has attempted to invest with a sentimental halo the affection which in his later years he learnt to dedicate to his faithful and self-sacrificing wife; but till within a year of her death (Shrewsbury Correspondence, pp. 19 sqq.) he kept up some sort of special relation with Elisabeth Villiers (afterwards Lady Orkney) [q. v.], the avowed mistress of his earlier married days. The suggestions as to his convivialities with a few chosen intimates at the Loo have little or no significance. A quite unwarrantable interpretation, gravely accepted by so calm an historian as Lord Stanhope, has been put upon Burnet's awkward statement (iii. 133), that ‘he had no vice but of one sort, in which he was very cautious and secret’ (cf. Letters of the Duchess of Orleans, u.s. i. 226). Although in his later years he made a favourite of Albemarle, he showed no fickleness towards the friends and advisers of his youth, and did not requite Portland's jealousy by a withdrawal of his confidence. With the two successive grand pensionaries, Fagel and Heinsius—with the latter in particular—his relations were continuously those of complete mutual trust. In England there were few on whom he could rely; but he preserved an unshaken confidence in Temple and Henry Sidney (Romney), valued the services of Somers, and to the last paid much attention to the counsels of Sunderland. He disliked flatterers, and a lack of geniality in his nature made him generally prone to taking unfavourable impressions. Although simple in bearing, and averse from all pomp and show (cf. Burnet, iv. 373, after Ryswick), he had a strong sense of dignity, ignoring considerations of profit (cf. Trevor, i. 113) and scorning as ‘beneath him’ apprehensions for his own safety (cf. his refusal to inquire into schemes for his assassination, Macaulay, chap. vii.) Throughout the greater part of his career he bore himself calmly both in the hour of victory and in the face of hopes defeated (cf. Burnet, iv. 106, after the Boyne and the raising of the siege of Limerick), and rarely departed from his rule of lenity except when rigour seemed required by ‘justice and example’ (Carstares Papers, p. 331). On the other hand, his reserved disposition disinclined him from courting popularity by his manners, and in his later years this unwillingness inevitably degenerated into moroseness. His extraordinary application to business, of which his voluminous correspondence furnishes a convincing record, and which was facilitated by a memory of extraordinary strength, illustrates his disregard of self, for Burnet must be correct in describing him (iii. 133) as hating business of all sorts. Yet he disliked the pleasures of life even more; he cared nothing for learning or art, shrank from conversation, and was as inamusable as Napoleon. Hunting was his one diversion, doubtless both on account of its solitariness and because, notwithstanding its fatigues, it seemed to suit his health, which he liked to treat in his own way (cf. Grimblot, i. 136). In his earlier manhood he carried on this pursuit at Dieren and other hunting seats, latterly by preference at his beloved country palace of the Loo. On this Kensington Palace was modelled, as altered from the house which he had bought from Nottingham in
