Estates sufficient to support the highest rank in the peerage were distributed among his illegitimate children.

That these grants, however prodigal, were strictly legal, was tacitly admitted by the Estates of the Realm, when, in 1689, they recounted and condemned the unconstitutional acts of the kings of the House of Stuart.

Neither in the Declaration of Right nor in the Bill of Rights is there a word on the subject.

William, therefore, thought himself at liberty to give away his hereditary domains as freely as his predecessors had given away theirs.

There was much murmuring at the profusion with which he rewarded his Dutch favourites; and we have seen that, on one occasion in the year 1696, the House of Commons interfered for the purpose of restraining his liberality.