The King's return to his Catholic policy was not caused only by internal, but also by external considerations.

As has been shown, it had been Sir William Temple's idea to elaborate the Triple Alliance into a European confederacy for the preservation of the Spanish monarchy and of the balance of power. The intention was, to include in it Lorraine and Switzerland, the principal Protestant princes, and even the Emperor as well; all were to pledge themselves to mutual defence, and the maintenance of the renunciation made in the Peace of the Pyrenees. In these movements against the schemes of Louis XIV, ardent Huguenots saw ground for some hope that their old independence might be restored. An old soldier, Roux de Marcilly, who had served among the Waldensians, and kept up a chain of communications with the whole of southern France, appeared as early as the summer of 1668 in London, to call the attention of the English ministers to whom he had access, to the great prospect that opened before them; he asserted that Provence, Languedoc, Guyenne, even Normandy, would rebel at the first opportunity; he sought to direct the ambition of Charles and the Duke of York to the acquisition of these provinces.