f Ryswick.]

In May negotiations were opened at Ryswick; the obstacles thrown in the
way of an accommodation by Spain and the Empire were set aside in a
private negotiation between William and Lewis; and peace was finally
signed in October 1697. In spite of failure and defeat in the field
William's policy had won. The victories of France remained barren in the
face of a united Europe; and her exhaustion forced her for the first
time since Richelieu's day to consent to a disadvantageous peace. On the
side of the Empire France withdrew from every annexation save that of
Strassburg which she had made since the Treaty of Nimeguen, and
Strassburg would have been restored but for the unhappy delays of the
German negotiators. To Spain Lewis restored Luxemburg and all the
conquests he had made during the war in the Netherlands. The Duke of
Lorraine was replaced in his dominions. A far more important provision
of the peace pledged Lewis to an abandonment of the Stuart cause and a
recognition of William as King of England. For Europe in general the
peace of Ryswick was little more than a truce. But for England it was
the close of a long and obstinate struggle and the opening of a new aera
of political history. It was the final and decisive defeat of the
conspiracy which had gone on between Lewis and the Stuarts ever since
the Treaty of Dover, the conspiracy to turn England into a Roman
Catholic country and into a dependency of France. But it was even more
than this. It was the definite establishment of England as the centre of
European resistance against all attempts to overthrow the balance of
power.

[Sidenote: William's aims.]

In leaving England face to face with France the Treaty of Ryswick gave a
new turn to the policy of William. Hitherto he had aimed at saving the
balance of European power by the joint action of England and the rest of
the European states against France. He now saw a means of securing what
that action had saved by the co-operation of France and the two great
naval powers. In his new course we see the first indication of that
triple alliance of France, England, and Holland, which formed the base
of Walpole's foreign policy, as well as of that common action of England
and France which since the fall of Holland has so constantly recurred to
the dreams of English statesmen. Peace therefore was no sooner signed
than William by stately embassies and a series of secret negotiations
drew nearer to France. It w