Glorious Revolution (1688): William of Orange Takes the Throne

The Glorious Revolution of 1688–89 was the removal of King James II of England, Scotland and Ireland and his replacement by his daughter Mary II and her Dutch husband, William III of Orange. Triggered by a Dutch invasion in November 1688, it ended with Parliament offering the crown on new terms in February 1689 and is widely seen as the birth of Britain’s constitutional monarchy.

Background: James II and his opponents

James II came to the throne on 6 February 1685, succeeding his brother Charles II. He was an open Roman Catholic in kingdoms where most of the political class was firmly Protestant and where memories of the civil wars, the execution of Charles I and the fear of “popery” ran deep. Many accepted him nonetheless because his heirs, his daughters Mary and Anne, were Protestants.

The crushing of the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685 left James in a strong position. He used it to expand the standing army and to appoint Catholic officers in breach of the Test Acts, which required office holders to belong to the Church of England. When Parliament objected, he prorogued it and never let it sit again.

James then turned to royal prerogative. Through the “dispensing power” he exempted individuals from laws; with his Declaration of Indulgence of April 1687 he suspended the penal laws against Catholics and Protestant dissenters altogether. He also purged town corporations and county offices in an attempt to pack a future Parliament with supporters.

The crisis of 1688

Two events in 1688 turned discontent into revolution. When James ordered the Declaration of Indulgence to be read in every church, seven bishops, including Archbishop William Sancroft of Canterbury, petitioned against it. They were sent to the Tower and tried for seditious libel, but a jury acquitted them on 30 June 1688 to wild public rejoicing.

Earlier that month, on 10 June, the queen, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a son, James Francis Edward Stuart. A Catholic male heir now took precedence over James’s Protestant daughters. Rumours spread that the baby was an impostor smuggled into the birth chamber in a warming pan. The story was false, but it was widely believed and politically useful.

On the day of the bishops’ acquittal, seven leading figures, later called the “Immortal Seven”, signed a letter inviting William of Orange to intervene. They were the Earls of Danby, Shrewsbury and Devonshire, Viscount Lumley, Henry Compton, Bishop of London, Edward Russell and Henry Sidney.

William’s motives

William was stadtholder, the leading office holder, of the Dutch Republic and the husband of James’s eldest daughter Mary. His main concern was Europe. Louis XIV of France had attacked the Dutch Republic in the Franco-Dutch War of 1672–1678 and was preparing for new conflict. William feared that England under James would either side with France or stay neutral.

By bringing England into the coalition against Louis, William could secure the Dutch Republic. The invitation gave his invasion political cover, but the decision and the enormous preparations were his and those of the Dutch States General, who financed the expedition.

The invasion

The Dutch fleet was one of the largest ever assembled in the Atlantic world: roughly 450 to 500 ships, including some 50 warships, carrying an army usually estimated at about 14,000 to 21,000 soldiers depending on what is counted, plus thousands of horses and many sailors. A first attempt to sail in October was driven back by storms. On 1 November (English Old Style dating) the fleet set out again.

An easterly wind, celebrated as the “Protestant wind”, carried William through the Strait of Dover and down the Channel while keeping James’s navy pinned in the Thames estuary. The army landed at Brixham on Torbay in Devon on 5 November 1688, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. William issued a declaration promising to protect Protestantism and to secure a “free Parliament”, while saying nothing about taking the crown.

James’s collapse

James had a larger army, perhaps 30,000 or more men, and advanced to Salisbury to meet the invader. But his nerve and his support gave way together. Risings in his favour did not happen; instead nobles declared for William in the north and the Midlands. In late November senior officers deserted, among them John Churchill, the future Duke of Marlborough. James’s son-in-law Prince George of Denmark followed, and his daughter Anne slipped away from London.

Fighting was limited to small clashes, notably at Wincanton on 20 November and at Reading on 9 December. James retreated to London, sent his wife and baby son to France and on 11 December fled the city, reportedly dropping the Great Seal of England into the Thames. Fishermen stopped him near Faversham in Kent and he was brought back to London.

William, unwilling to make his father-in-law a martyr, allowed him to leave again. William entered London on 18 December, and James sailed for France on 23 December, where Louis XIV gave him the palace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

The settlement

At William’s request a Convention, an assembly elected like a Parliament but not summoned by a king, met on 22 January 1689. The Commons resolved that James had “abdicated the government” and that the throne was vacant. Tory peers preferred a regency or Mary as sole queen; William made clear he would accept neither and would return to the Netherlands rather than be his wife’s consort. Mary supported him.

The compromise was a joint monarchy with executive power in William’s hands. On 13 February 1689, in the Banqueting House in Whitehall, William and Mary were offered the crown together with a Declaration of Right listing James’s abuses and asserting the rights of Parliament and subjects. They were crowned on 11 April 1689. The Declaration became law in December 1689 as the English Bill of Rights.

In Scotland a separate Convention adopted the Claim of Right in April 1689 and offered the Scottish crown to William and Mary. In Ireland, where most of the population was Catholic, James retained wide support.

Key people

• William III (1650–1702): Prince of Orange and Dutch stadtholder, king of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1689 until his death.
• Mary II (1662–1694): James’s elder daughter, joint sovereign with her husband.
• James II (1633–1701): the deposed king, who spent the rest of his life in exile in France.
• John Churchill (1650–1722): officer whose desertion undermined James’s army; later the Duke of Marlborough.
• The Immortal Seven: the peers, bishop and politicians who signed the invitation to William.

Consequences

The revolution was not bloodless outside England. James landed in Ireland in March 1689, leading to the Siege of Derry, William’s victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and the Treaty of Limerick in 1691. In Scotland the Jacobites, as supporters of James were called, won at Killiecrankie in July 1689 but their rising faded; its aftermath included the Glencoe massacre of 1692.

England joined the coalition against France in the Nine Years’ War, beginning a long series of wars with Louis XIV. War finance transformed the state: the Bank of England was founded in 1694 and a national debt guaranteed by Parliament grew rapidly. Because the Crown depended on Parliament for money every year, Parliament now met annually.

New laws reshaped politics and religion. The Toleration Act of 1689 allowed Protestant dissenters to worship freely, though Catholics and non-Trinitarians remained excluded. The Mutiny Act made the army’s discipline dependent on regular parliamentary approval, and the Triennial Act of 1694 required elections at least every three years. The Act of Settlement of 1701 later fixed the Protestant succession on the House of Hanover.

Myths and facts

Myth: it was a purely English, peaceful affair. In fact it was launched by a foreign invasion and was followed by years of war in Ireland and Scotland, with lasting bitterness, especially in Ireland.

Myth: the baby prince was smuggled in a warming pan. Contemporary witnesses and later historians agree that James Francis Edward was the queen’s genuine son. He became the “Old Pretender” of later Jacobite risings.

Myth: it created democracy. The settlement strengthened Parliament, but Parliament was elected by a small, property-owning minority and power remained with landowners. Its legacy is constitutional monarchy and the rule of law rather than democracy in the modern sense.

Interpretations

Nineteenth-century Whig historians, above all Thomas Babington Macaulay, presented 1688 as a wise, conservative restoration of ancient liberties. Later historians stressed instead the role of the Dutch army and of European power politics. Some, such as Steve Pincus, argue that it was a genuinely modern revolution that changed the economy, foreign policy and the state, while others, such as Tim Harris, emphasise its British and Irish dimensions and the popular pressure that preceded it.

Timeline

• 1685, 6 February: James II becomes king.
• 1687, April: First Declaration of Indulgence suspends penal laws.
• 1688, 10 June: Birth of James Francis Edward Stuart.
• 1688, 30 June: The seven bishops are acquitted; the invitation to William is signed.
• 1688, 5 November: William lands at Brixham, Torbay.
• 1688, 11 December: James flees London; he is caught and returned.
• 1688, 23 December: James leaves England for France.
• 1689, 22 January: The Convention meets in Westminster.
• 1689, 13 February: William and Mary accept the crown and the Declaration of Right.
• 1689, 11 April: Coronation of William III and Mary II.

Why it matters

The Glorious Revolution settled that the British monarch would rule under law and with Parliament, not above it. Its ideas, expressed in the Bill of Rights and in works such as John Locke’s political writings, influenced constitutional thinking across Europe and in the American colonies, even as its violent legacy in Ireland and Scotland shaped those countries for centuries.