William III

William III is presented as the ruler whose accession ends the Comprachicos’ relative security under James II. The contrast between the two kings gives his brief but consequential role its shape: a change of dynasty becomes a change in state policy, and the resulting law sends the persecuted association—and other fugitives—into flight.

Accession and political contrast

The narrative marks the change in 1688, when William III replaces James II. Under the Stuarts, the Comprachicos had enjoyed a measure of protection because they served the Crown’s interests as discreet agents in the disappearance of inconvenient young heirs. William III is described as having different ideas and practices from his predecessor and as acting severely against the association. His significance in this account therefore rests less on personal characterization than on the reversal of a political arrangement: what had been useful to royal power becomes a target for suppression.

The campaign against the Comprachicos

William III’s stated aim is to crush the Comprachicos. Early in his reign, a statute passed by Parliament strikes directly at the child-buying association. The law provides severe penalties for convicted members, including branding and pillory, and allows confiscation of property. Its provisions distinguish between ordinary members and chiefs, with additional penalties for the latter; people who failed to inform on the association risked confiscation and life imprisonment. The statute also specifies a separate punishment for women found among the group.

These measures make the campaign more than a declaration of royal hostility. The law supplies an enforcement framework, attaching penalties not only to participation but also to silence. The text presents the statute as a decisive blow that leaves the Comprachicos dispersed and broken as an association.

Consequences and narrative role

The law’s effects extend beyond its intended target. The narrator explains that it drives the Comprachicos and vagabonds of many kinds into a general flight. Most of the Comprachicos return to Spain, many of them Basques. In the account of the abandoned child, this wider movement provides the immediate political background to the fugitives’ presence: the group that may have left the child behind is considered in light of the dispersal caused by the anti-Comprachicos measures, though the passage does not establish the identity of those particular fugitives.

William III thus functions as the agent of a consequential reversal rather than as a continuously present character. His accession changes the relation between the Crown and the Comprachicos; Parliament’s statute turns that change into punishment and displacement. The same policy meant to break up a criminal association also unsettles a broader population, linking the king’s intervention to the novel’s opening circumstances of flight and abandonment.