Excerpt from A History of the Four Georges, Kings of England: Containing Personal Incidents of Their Lives, Public Events of Their Reigns, and Biographical Notices of Their Chief Ministers, Courtiers, and Favorites The most formidable opponent whom Louis XIV. Had yet encountered in the execution of his gigantic plans of conquest, was the able and indomitable Prince of Orange. That remarka ble and mysterious man, whose peculiar qualities have been depicted with such masterly skill by the most gifted historian whom the nineteenth century has produced, * devoted his whole life to the task of curbing that aspiring spirit, and humbling that haughty head. In spite of all his efforts Louis obtained, partly by treaty and partly by conquest, not only Flanders, but Bava ria, Sardinia, Naples, Sicily, while he ruled the Spanish empire through Philip V. Its sovereign; but William of Orange succeed ed in establishing a memorable coalition against his foe, of which England, Hanover, Prussia, Denmark, and Holland were mem bers. Before these hostile nations could effectively array their armaments against each other, the soul of the conspiracy expired in the person of its founder; and several years of undiminished supremacy were thus insured to the French autocrat, by the death of William III. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This 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.