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WILLIAM THE TIIIKD.

the purpose of concealment. It had been necessary to chap.

xxiv.

trust so many deputies and magistrates that rumours ofxvhat had been passing at Loo got abroad. Quiros, theSpanish Ambassador at the Hague, followed the trail withsuch skill and perseverance that he discovered, if not thewhole truth, yet enough to furnish materials for a despatchwhich produced much irritation and alarm at Madrid. Acouncil was summoned, and sate long in deliberation. Thegrandees of the proudest of Courts could hardly fail toperceive that their next sovereign, be he who he might,xvould find it impossible to avoid sacrificing part of his de-fenceless and widely scattered empire in order to preservethe rest; they could not bear to think that a single fort, asingle islet, in any of the four quarters of the world wasabout to escape from the sullen domination of Castile. Tothis sentiment all the passions and prejudices of thehaughty race were subordinate. “We are ready,” suchwas the phrase then in their mouths, “to go to any body,to go to the Dauphin, to go to the Devil, so that we allgo together.” In the hope of averting the threatened dis-memberment, the Spanish ministers advised their masterto adopt as his heir the candidate whose pretensions itwas understood that France, England and Holland wereinclined to support. The advice was taken; and it wassoon every where known that His Catholic Majesty hadsolemnly designated as his successor his nephew FrancisJoseph, Electoral Prince of Bavaria. France protestedagainst this arrangement, not, as far as can now be