king”
James was unable to persuade parliament into agreeing with his policy of Catholic toleration,
to this he prorogued the government and it never met again.
In April 1687 James’ continued over inflated sense of power cause him to make the fatal
mistake of the ’Declaration of Indulgence’, this act suspended all tests and granted freedom
of worship to all (although it was weighted in favour of the Catholics). This declaration
provoked horror in his now dwindling support base, as the act would, “dismantle
privileges of the Anglican church...reducing it to the status of Catholic and dissenting
churches ”.
James dissolved his old Government in July 1687 so as to gain approval of his actions by a
new one, this blatant hypocrisy of the King and his grotesque ‘fixing’ on his part, was a
gross insult of his executive power. Had James had his way the role of parliament would
have become “little more than a rubber stamp for Royal wishes” .
James’ disrespect of and disregard to the importance of parliament and want of radical
religious change caused great anxiety in all sides of society, his actions were to provoke
parliament into making sure of the curtailment of the king’s executive power.
James’ provokes further anger this time from the church itself, ordering the Anglican clergy
to read his declaration from the pulpit and also he makes sure that Anglican Bishops see that
copies of the declaration are distributed . In response to this, Sancroft, (Archbishop of
Canterbury) and 6 other bishops petition the King to be excused from reading his
Declaration; enraging the King, he arrests all 7 Bishops on charges of sedition and places
them in the Tower. Again we see James misusing his power in an attempt to have his own
way and alienating his own supporters.
The birth of James’ only son on 10th June 1688 was to cause yet further anxiety to the
already troubled Anglicans; this new heir to the English throne was born to James’ second
Catholic wife. James’ eldest daughter Mary (herself a protestant and married to William of
Orange) was therefore no longer destined to be England’s next monarch. Tories as well as
Whigs were both fearful of the fate of the Anglican church . William of Orange, Stadtholder
of Holland was the most renowned defender of the Protestant faith in Europe , he was
called upon in a radical move by the ‘Immortal Seven’ to invade England and secure Mary’s
place as next monarch of England. This conspiracy was indeed a radical one, to actively
ask for a foreign power to ‘invade’ and remove the king was extreme. However there is
some debate amongst historians on how many and who amongst the nobility was willing to
stand against the king, Professor Kenyon maintains “there importance has been greatly
inflated”
However a source from the time, an estimate from William’s Dutch intelligence in May
1687 indicated that over half of the U.Ks’ nobility opposed James’ policies, obviously the
risk to a member of the nobility for being openly anti-James were huge, owning vast
amounts of wealth (especially inherited) and holding a very powerful position of office would
of all been lost if one was convicted of treason had William failed to establish himself, but
that did not mean they lacked revolutionary sympathies
The want of the nobility to replace James with a quasi-invasion from William Orange was
itself extremely radical, the nobility knew of the James’ close friendship with King Louis XIV
who incedently was enemies with William even to the extent of offering French naval ships in
a possible struggle with William, made this whole operation extremely precarious and very
risky. But it was the risk of a Catholic autonomous monarchy, which feared the landed
classes even greater.
William landed at Torbay on November 5th 1688, with an army a third of that of the Kings’,
he declared that he had not come to invade and conquer England, but that he was on a
‘Protestant crusade’ He had sent out a declaration to the English people in early
September where in overblown fashion condemned the introduction of arbitrary government
and slavery , William in fact was not intending to start a bloody, messy war, he was
convinced that the English populous were behind him and that they would defend his
passage onto the English throne.
James failed to meet William and his army with is own far superior force, he pulled it back
towards the London, a humiliating and demoralising retreat James soon began to notice
that his country were not on his side, and on 22 of December humiliatingly fled to King
Louis in France.
On the 6th of February 1689 William was offered the throne subject to accepting the
accompanying declaration - this was to become the Bill of Rights, this Bill is example of the
measure of the Glorious Revolution, its design to purposefully ensure that the conduct of
King James II should not be repeated in the future. It included measures protecting the
throne, that “...not only male heirs of James but also all Roman Catholics were to be
barred from succession”.
The Bill of Rights like the revolution were both not meant to cause any upset and or changes
within the British power system, they were merely antidotes to the situations and experiences
caused by the James II. A definite need and want by Westminster to return to an ordered
past when the status of the Church of England was that of extreme importance, as to keep
the country stable.
The years immediately after the Revolution Britain was at war with France almost constantly
for 15 years, this meant that Parliament was summoned on a regular basis, this in turn helped
Parliament to consolidate the power it so yearned.
Furthermore we have the Act of Settlement of 1701, which further protected the country
from the monarchy, partly in reaction to William’s foreign policy it, secured Protestant
succession of the throne.
In conclusion the Glorious Revolution was indeed a radical period in history, the actions of
the ’Immortal Seven’ and the general countries’ discontent with James II made sure that his
reign would be stopped and never repeated in the Declarations and acts that followed
William’s succession of the throne. However one must also consider James’ actions as
radical, his unconstitutional and illegal innovations of religion and the want to integrate
Catholicism back into the country were themselves extremely radical and threatening to the
landed interest in England, therefore the Immortal Seven in contrast seem un-radical and
were simply wanting this unpredictable and precarious situation at an end, and a return to the
era of complete religious and political dominance by the Anglican Church. One also has to
mention that the period after William’s accession to the throne the slight shift in power from
the Executive king to the legislative Houses of Parliament, this has been argued that it was
not the intention of Westminster to plan this increase in their stature but more of a bi-product
of the constitutional mess that was getting William of Orange and Mary into monarchy and
getting the country to ‘accept’ the Revolution.
Words: 1501
Frank O’Gorman “The Long Eighteenth Century” (Oxford University Press, 1997) Pg29
M. Ashley ‘The Glorious Revolution of 1688’ 1966 Pg57
Betty Kemp “King and Commons” 1959 pg25
Frank O’Gorman “The Long Eighteenth Century” 1997 Pg 30
Frank O’Gorman “The Long Eighteenth Century” 1997 Pg30
Gregory Stevenson ‘Britain in the Eighteenth Century’ 2000, pg4
Frank O’Gorman “The Long Eighteenth Century” 1997 pg30
Frank O’Gorman “The Long Eighteenth Century” 1997 pg30
M. Ashley ‘The Glorious Revolution of 1688’ 1966 pg 139
M. Ashley ‘The Glorious Revolution of 1688’ 1966 p161
M. Ashley ‘The Glorious Revolution of 1688’ 1966 p160
M. Ashley ‘The Glorious Revolution of 1688’ 1966 pg 135
Frank O’Gorman “The Long Eighteenth Century” 1997 pg31
Frank O’Gorman “The Long Eighteenth Century” 1997 pg32
