The party whose interests he attacked would be restrained from insurrection by principle.
Influenced by such considerations as these, James, from the time at which he parted in anger with his Parliament, began to meditate a general league of all Nonconformists, Catholic and Protestant, against the established religion.

So early as Christmas 1685, the agents of the United Provinces informed the States General that the plan of a general toleration had been arranged and would soon be disclosed.

[232] The reports which had reached the Dutch embassy proved to be premature.
The separatists appear, however, to have been treated with more lenity during the year 1686 than during the year 1685.

But it was only by slow degrees and after many struggles that the King could prevail on himself to form an alliance with all that he most abhorred.

He had to overcome an animosity, not slight or capricious, not of recent origin or hasty growth, but hereditary in his line, strengthened by great wrongs inflicted and suffered through a hundred and twenty eventful years, and intertwined with all his feelings, religious, political, domestic, and personal.