The Glorious Revolution
William of Orange landed in Devon in November 1688 with some 15,000 men, and James II left the country without a battle. James had been on the throne for three years. He was a Catholic in a country whose political class regarded Catholicism as a foreign despotism, and he had used the royal power of dispensing with statutes to put Catholics into the army, the universities and the privy council, prosecuted seven bishops for refusing to read his declaration of indulgence, and been acquitted of nothing in the process. Toleration was not the objection; the method was, and so was the standing army. The country had been prepared to wait him out, since his heirs were his Protestant daughters, until his second wife produced a son in June 1688 and a Catholic dynasty became the prospect. Seven peers wrote to William, who was James's nephew and son-in-law and who wanted England's resources against Louis XIV. The invasion was the largest amphibious operation in Europe that century and is rarely described as one. James's army melted, his officers defected, he lost his nerve, threw the great seal in the Thames and was allowed to escape to France on the second attempt because a prisoner would have been a problem. The Convention declared the throne vacant and offered it to William and Mary jointly with a Declaration of Rights attached, which is where parliamentary sovereignty is conventionally dated from. Ireland and Scotland were subdued by force over the following three years.
- Year: 1688 CE
- Category: Political
