If we begin by assessing the first of these areas – the matters of policy that caused disunity and antagonism between James and the nobility – we shall quickly be able to appraise what the level of unity in England’s body politic was. The first cause of serious grievance and fear amid the Protestant nobility in Britain was the absence of a Parliament. James had not called Parliament since 1685, robbing the nobles of a chamber in which to make their views known. This alone would have been sufficient to cause unrest amidst the noble class, but their fears were heightened by memories of the actions of Charles I during his eleven year Personal Rule. Furthermore, comparisons between Charles’ Arminianism and Laudian reforms and the Catholicism of James II would have increased fears amidst the noble classes who remembered the unpleasant ‘Thorough’ reforms of Laud, and the political turmoil and ultimate civil war that followed. Indeed, a comparison with Charles I is useful, for many of the aspects of James’s style of rule were similar to those of Charles. The nobles were further frustrated, as they had been in the times of Charles I, by the failure of the King to represent them at court. James, much like Charles, had built up a closed court of close friends and sycophants. A weak man of apparently poor intellect, James had failed to appreciate, as had Charles, the importance of using his court to keep his finger on the political pulse by involving his opponents as well as his friends in court life. Much like the situation in late 1630’s and early 1640’s, the aggrieved nobles attacked the ‘evil advisors’ surrounding the King. Yet James did nothing to accommodate the excluded Protestant nobles, and so ultimately they could no longer continue to ascribe all blame to the ministers and advisors of the King. This tendency to blame those that surrounded the King rather than the King himself is an important example of the nature of the emerging crisis in its early stages. Mirroring the constitutional crisis of the 1640s, the actual institution of monarchy was never called into question in the opening stages of the crisis. Thus we can see that it was matters of policy rather than constitutional principal which initially divided that King and his nobles. The way in which the nobility refrained from an direct attack upon the King, choosing instead his advisors as their target, demonstrates how the breech might still have been sealed. Again similar to Charles I, James failed to see the fact that the nobility could be appeased, and possibly even reconciled to some of his Catholic policies if he would incorporate them into the court. This failure resulted in the exclusion of one of the most powerful blocks of English politics from the lawful system of government. This resulted in the highly dangerous situation whereby James left the nobles with no means of venting their grievances and frustrations other than by open rebellion. Coupled with fears of James’s absolutist beliefs, the nobles were not only aggrieved by the failure of their monarch to represent their importance and status, but they were also fearful for the future safety of their constitutional position. This ‘exclusion crisis’ for the nobility was to be transformed into a volatile and dangerous situation by the nature of James’s religious policy.
Much like Charles had done, James introduced a religious element to politics that unsettled the Protestant nobility. At this time, religion and politics were intrinsically linked, and the advent of a Catholic king in opposition to a Protestant nobility created an unstable and potentially catastrophic situation. Charles had frustrated his Parliament and gentry through his High Anglican beliefs, and his marriage to a Roman Catholic. James in this religious respect was in a far worse position: he was a Roman Catholic himself. There has been much debate over James’s religious policy, and conclusions have varied. Some have proposed that James did indeed harbour absolutist intentions which he derived from his Roman Catholic philosophy, whilst others have defended his religious policy as actually being a policy of religious toleration and that his extra-parliamentary actions were intended to achieve a greater level of religious toleration in Britain. However, it is not actually of much importance, for the purposes of this essay, what James’s actual motivation was. What is important is the fact that the Protestant British nobility saw James as a King attempting to impose popery over the ‘lawful Protestant establishment in Church and State’. It was this religious division that in many ways was to prompt the need for a new king, for James could never be reconciled in the minds of the gentry to Protestantism as he remained a Catholic. Thus, William of Orange became the Protestant ‘Deliverer’. This outcome of the Revolution is a useful indication of the nature of divisions within England in 1688. The need for a Protestant saviour to take the throne represents the desire of the nobility to keep the constitutional status quo stable by dismissing any notion that kingship was being called into question. Indeed, both Whig and Tories stated that James II had not been forced to abdicate, but rather that he had forfeited his right to the throne and had been replace. William himself had said that his aim in coming to England was to assist James. This policy was adopted in order that the gentry might keep careful control of events. They well remembered the near catastrophic political collapses in the 1640-60 period, when there was the perception of constant danger from Leveller-inspired notions of popular sovereignty and equality. The religious license during the turmoil of the civil war period would also have been a cause of fear for the nobles in 1688, who would not wish to see the Church of England threatened. Indeed, the largely conservative nature of the constitutional settlement, which imposed no great reforms other than the important codification of the relationship between the King, Parliament and the law. Even this reform was the result of conservative-minded policy on the part of the nobles, who wished to ensure that a similar crisis could never arise again. The nobility achieved what they had set out to do, and did so so successfully that the term ‘Glorious Revolution’ soon came into being, reflecting the total triumph of conservative aims. There had been no blood spilt, the Church of England stood, and the danger of another Catholic on the throne had been removed.
The actions of James during his reign thus created the atmosphere of fear and distrust that galvanised the nobility into action against James. However, we have not examined how united the nobles were in this apparent total resistance to James. The fact that only seven noblemen requested that William of Orange come to England to give ‘protection and countenance to their rising’ suggests that the actions of the gentry were by no means always the carefully considered actions of a homogenous body acting as one that they might appear. The party divisions between the nobles over many of the issues that would arise during James’s reign had been apparent from the accession of James II. The Tories had supported James’s accession to the throne as a matter of right, whilst the Whigs had been more sceptical. Indeed, throughout the period of James’s reign, both parties had been at odds over many issues, most beyond the scope of this essay. However, the opportunity for the gentry to remain disunited was curtailed by the actions of James. The absence of a Parliament from 1685 meant that the gentry simply did not have a forum in which to divide themselves. The Whig/Tory divisions of the House of Commons could not continue with such vehemence outside of Parliament. Since Parliament was not in sessions for some three years, the nobles had the common grievance of being ignored by their King. The situation at James’s court had a similar effect, albeit some ultra-Tory prerogative men did benefit from the court composition. Thus, even though the nobles had a great many reasons to be divided, the King continued to provide them with greater reasons to form a united front. This unity was, however, fragile at the best of times, for the nobles had no reason to believe that the current situation could continue for an extended period of time. The knowledge that James, who suffered bouts of ill-health, would die sooner or later, meant that the nobles could assume that any unity in shared discontent with the King would be a short-lived state of affairs. This assumption was to be greatly challenged when on 10th June 1688 Queen Mary Beatrice gave birth to a son. This event was a disaster for Orangist and Protestant hopes. It cut off the foreseeable return of the Protestant Stuarts to the throne. The following invitation for William of Orange to come to England and take the throne demonstrated just how much this one event affected the gentry.
Indeed, the speed with which William of Orange was requested to come to England is worthy of some investigation. It seems that when the pregnancy of Queen Mary Beatrice became known in December 1687, the nobility and William and Mary were alerted to the possible loss of their claim to the throne. This stimulated an intense interest on their part in the concealed development of a paramilitary opposition to James’s policies. Thus, when the Prince of Wales was born, it took only three weeks for the seven noblemen to invite William to come to their aid. This is perhaps the strongest evidence that there was a degree of long-term unity among the gentry, and it would help explain the rapid and bloodless conclusion of the Revolution. However, if there were such a strategy, it is difficult to know how many of the nobility knew of it or agreed with it, and it is perfectly possible that only a small and well-prepared group of nobles were instrumental in the swift actions of late 1688. It seems unlikely that any plot could have existed before the pregnancy of Queen Mary Beatrice, since it was a common assumption that William and Mary would take the throne upon James’s death. Although there may have been co-operation between members of the gentry at this time, it appears to be most likely that it was spurred on by exceptional events – the birth of James’s son and the threat of a Catholic succession – rather than by any long-term alliances between parties. The actual settlement in 1688-9 represented a political compromise between the two parties, and the Revolution did not represent a victory for either party. This suggests that there was at least some degree of co-operation in the settlement, but again this seems likely to have been driven by a fear of a prolonged revolutionary period which would give an opportunity for radical ideas and groups to develop, as they did in the period of settlement after the civil war in 1645-49.
The level of unity amidst the Royalist faction is difficult to gauge. In many ways it is not of much import, for events occurred so rapidly during the actually Revolution that James had practically no time to take any action whatsoever. In the period before the Revolution, we might surmise that the Royalists acted with considerable unity. The ultra-Tories had all supported James’s right to take the throne, and they had supported his decisions throughout most of his reign. However, since James filled his court with men who were often sycophantic and merely sought advancement through his patronage, it is difficult to consider such unity as a significant endorsement of support for an important social group. We might surmise that James had emphatic support and complete loyalty from men who knew only how to give James their loyalty and emphatic support. The way that events dictated the course of the Revolution, and the failure of James to offer the nobles any forum for voicing and discussing their grievances was far more significant than the level of consolidation within the Royalist camp.
The scope of the analysis in this essay has been deliberately restricted in order to permit a clearer discussion of the political unity of the major political entities, and so it is not possible to conclude with any certainty the state of unity in the whole nation. Indeed, I do not actually believe that it is possible to answer such a question at all, and so a more limited investigation is not only more practical, but also more useful. However, it is possible to conclude in terms of the parameters I set for our analysis at the beginning of this essay, and I believe that we can assert such conclusions with a reasonable degree of confidence.
The body politic was not a homogenous entity by 1688. The King had antagonised his nobles, and it was this rather than any inherently gregarious political feeling among the gentry that unified them briefly in opposition to him. This unity was never a permanent feature, nor was it intended to be. It was only the birth of James’s son that galvanised the nobles, or at least a significant section of them, into acting in a united manner. Equally, the settlement with William and Mary was only accomplished so swiftly and with so little conflict because the gentry was once again united by external factors, in this case the fear that the constitutional upheaval caused by the effective dethroning of James might allow radicalism to take root. At the end on 1688 Britain was no more united than it had been at the beginning of the year. The Revolution represented a compromise between a divided nobility that shared a fear of constitutional radicalism inherited from the civil war forty years previously.
For the sake of simplicity, I have used the term ‘noble’ to refer to those significantly involved in politics at this time. The term has been used primarily to mean Members of Parliament, but I have also used it to encompass any member of the gentry who was politically involved at the time. I take the term from the conventional description of the seven dissident ‘noblemen’ who invited William of Orange to come to England.
Robert Beddard, The Revolutions of 1688, (1991), p 1.