Glorious Revolution

I

Introduction

Glorious Revolution, description, used retrospectively, for a complex series of events in England from 1688 to 1689, including the replacement of the Roman Catholic king, James II, with the Protestant William III and his wife Mary II, and the passage of the Bill of Rights.

After his accession in 1685, James had alienated his Protestant subjects through his efforts to secure freedom of worship and civic equality for England’s small Catholic minority. The methods he used were seen as changing England’s mixed, parliamentary constitution into an absolute monarchy. James expanded his army and allowed Catholics to hold public office and worship freely, contrary to English law. Until 1688 Protestant unease at his conduct was tempered by the expectation that James would be succeeded by Mary, his daughter, and her husband William of Orange. However, in June 1688 the queen gave birth to a son, who would be raised as a Catholic and take precedence over Mary in the succession. Invited by prominent Protestants, William gathered a massive fleet and an army of 40,000 men and invaded England, landing at Torbay, Devon, on November 5, and began to advance on London. James, suffering a loss of nerve due to desertions from his cause, fled to France with his family without giving fight.

II

The Joint Monarchy and the Bill of Rights

William’s stated objective was to secure a free Parliament that would allow the English to remedy their grievances. With James gone, he was invited to take charge of the government and maintain order. He summoned a “Convention”—a true Parliament could be called only by a king—and on February 6, 1689, it declared that James had abdicated and offered the crown to William and Mary, creating the only joint monarchy in English history. Many in Parliament were reluctant to recognize William as king, because he was not James’s immediate heir, but they had no real alternative, as he was already exercising full kingly power. They salved their consciences by offering the crown to Mary as well, although executive power lay with William. The claim of James’s son was negated by a resolution declaring that experience had shown that it was incompatible with the safety of a Protestant kingdom to be governed by a Catholic prince.

The offer of the Crown was preceded by the reading of a “declaration of rights”, later passed into law as the Bill of Rights; the future exclusion of Catholics from the English throne was added at this stage. The Bill condemned what many saw as recent breaches of the constitution; the only major novelty—apart from the debarment of Catholics from the throne—was the statement that the king could not raise an army in peacetime without Parliament’s consent. Parliament also passed the Toleration Act that allowed freedom of worship to Protestant Nonconformists; Catholics, Jews, and Unitarians were excluded from its benefits and Nonconformists were not allowed full civil rights, including the right to hold public office, until 1828.

The Bill of Rights clarified some uncertainties, but left the Crown’s basic prerogatives intact. The monarch still had the power to choose ministers and office-holders, summon and dismiss Parliament, command the armed forces, and formulate policy—at least in theory. After 1689, however, William found it increasingly difficult in practice. The Commons refused to grant him sufficient revenues to support the cost of government, even in peacetime. William’s accession embroiled England in major wars with France, namely the Nine Years’ War and the War of the Spanish Succession. The financial independence of previous monarchs had obviated any need to call Parliament regularly. William and his successors had to call Parliament each year, to vote supply. The Commons exploited the King’s necessities, attaching conditions to their grants. As Parliament was divided on party lines, the leaders of the majority party used their control of the Commons to put pressure on the monarch to follow their advice. Increasingly, parliamentary politicians, rather than monarchs, made key decisions about policy and appointments. Although further legal limitations have been imposed on royal power since 1689, notably by the Act of Settlement, the monarch has been far more stringently constrained by the practical need to work with Parliament.

III

Emergence of a Fiscal-Military State

The Revolution led not only to the reduction of the monarch’s personal power, but also to the growth of a “fiscal-military state”. No longer fearful of royal absolutism, and at war with the greatest power in Europe, Parliament voted more and more taxes, which were increasingly used to pay the interest on loans. Government borrowing grew in volume and sophistication, helped by the founding of the Bank of England. With greater financial resources, the government enlarged the armed forces and the administration needed to manage them. England was already a major commercial and colonial power. After 1689 its increased resources and military and naval might enabled Britain to expand its empire and become a truly global power.

IV

Impact of the Revolution in Scotland and Ireland

William’s accession to the English throne had profound implications for James’s other kingdoms. James’s deposition in England did not affect his position as king of Scotland. His supporters—the Jacobites—offered spirited armed resistance, but a Convention, called by William, drew up the Claim of Right, which declared that James had forfeited the throne for misgovernment, and offered the Crown to William. It also called for the abolition of episcopacy and of the Lords of the Articles, a committee that decided which bills should be put before Parliament. William conceded both demands, unleashing a bitter vendetta by Presbyterians against Episcopalians and confused parliamentary faction-fighting. Under William’s successor, Anne, there was a real prospect that the union of Crowns between England and Scotland, established by the accession of James VI to the English throne in 1603, might be broken. This drove Anne’s ministers to push through the Act of Union of 1707, joining the Scottish and English Parliaments and creating a single political entity, Great Britain.

In Ireland, James had largely transferred political and military power from the Protestant Anglo-Irish ruling elite to the Catholics, who responded to William’s invasion of England by seizing control over most of the island. In March 1689 James, with French support, arrived to command the Catholic forces. Fearing that Ireland might serve as a base for a Jacobite invasion, William sent an army to Ireland and in June 1690 went there himself. He quickly defeated James at the Boyne, and took Dublin, but the Jacobites’ resistance continued and in October 1691 they surrendered on terms at Limerick. The Protestant elite refused to honour William’s concessions to the Catholics. Most Catholic landowners had already been dispossessed; now the process was completed and the Dublin Parliament passed new penal laws against Catholics. William was displeased, but he needed the Protestant elite to secure Ireland against the French and Jacobites. The Anglo-Irish, while ultimately dependent on England’s military might, exploited this situation to assert the Dublin Parliament’s independence of that at Westminster. The 18th century was a golden age for Anglo-Irish Protestants; Catholic nationalism revived only in response to the French Revolution.