It was in vain that William and Heinsius represented the importance of every hour.

"The Emperor's ministers go on dawdling," so the King wrote to Heinsius, "not because there is any difficulty about the matter, not because they mean to reject the terms, but solely because they are people who can make up their minds to nothing." While the negotiation at Vienna was thus drawn out into endless length, evil tidings came from Madrid.
Spain and her King had long been sunk so low that it seemed impossible for him to sink lower.

Yet the political maladies of the monarchy and the physical maladies of the monarch went on growing, and exhibited every day some new and frightful symptom.

Since the death of the Bavarian Prince, the Court had been divided between the Austrian faction, of which the Queen and the leading ministers Oropesa and Melgar were the chiefs, and the French faction, of which the most important member was Cardinal Portocarrero, Archbishop of Toledo.

At length an event which, as far as can now be judged, was not the effect of a deeply meditated plan, and was altogether unconnected with the disputes about the succession, gave the advantage to the adherents of France.