Glorious Revolution

• Tasks
• Background
• Teachers' notes
• External links
• Connections to Curriculum

In early 1689, James II, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was deposed by Parliament and replaced by his daughter, Mary, and her husband, the Dutch prince William of Orange.

Since James II ascended the throne in 1685, he had fuelled the interconnected fears of Catholicism and arbitrary government within England, a deeply Protestant country. As a determined Catholic, James had granted Catholics many rights, including the freedom to worship openly, to hold public office, and even to be members of the privy council. His continuous use of the royal prerogative to achieve his own political and religious ends was central to his downfall.

In June 1688, James’ second wife Mary of Modena gave birth to a son, destroying English hopes that Mary, the king’s Protestant daughter, would ascend the throne after the death of James II. Instead, they faced the prospect of another Catholic king. This, combined with James II’s continued authoritarian behaviour, led to several peers (the ‘Immortal Seven’) asking the Dutch prince William of Orange to invade England. On 5 November 1688, William arrived with his army on English shores.

In December 1688, James II fled to France. After being presented with the Declaration of Rights, which stressed the need for a contractual model of kingship and government, William and Mary accepted the throne on the 13 February 1689.

Use documents in this lesson to explore the causes of Glorious Revolution and its impact on the British monarchy. Also find out about the effects of the Glorious Revolution on Ireland and the American colonies.

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Tasks

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Background

The Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 replaced James II with the joint monarchy of his daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange, both Protestants. James II’s behaviour from his ascension to the crown in 1685 suggested Catholic absolutism, which aroused fear in England, a deeply Protestant country. While James II’s determination to impose an authoritarian form of government was gently resisted, there were two key factors that urged a group of English peers (the Immortal Seven) to contact the Dutch prince William of Orange. The birth of James II’s son, James Edward Stuart, on 10 June 1688, scuppered hopes that James II’s protestant daughter Mary might soon occupy the throne. Secondly, the peers feared that James would revoke the Test Acts, which barred Catholics from public office.

William of Orange was well prepared. Despite his declared motivations for invading England as a merciful crusade, he had other pragmatic and political reasons to intervene. He was aware the Dutch Republic was under threat from the French King Louis XIV and wanted to further an English alliance to prevent the expansion of the French Empire.

Helped along by the ‘Protestant wind’, William landed at Torbay on 5 November 1688 with a substantial army. When he arrived, anti-Catholic riots broke out across the nation. Despite his initial control of capital, and a standing army of 53,000 men, James II fled London in December. He was captured by Kent fishermen near Sheerness, but was kept under purposefully light guard, and successfully fled the country on the 23 December. The path was now clear for William and Mary to take the throne. However, before they did so, a ‘Convention Parliament’ was held on 22 January 1689, where the details of the Declaration of Rights, later formalised in law as the Bill of Rights, was discussed and agreed. The Declaration of Rights was a pragmatic agreement that enshrined a constitutional form of monarchy in England, in which the principles of royal succession were abandoned, and the king was fiscally shackled to parliament, changing the face of the British monarchy irrevocably.

The revolution had far reaching consequences beyond England, as this lesson demonstrates. In Ireland and Scotland, the revolution was not, as the Whig historians would call it, ‘bloodless’. In both countries, it was religiously and politically divisive. William III’s expedition to Ireland and the Battle of the Boyne is a key example of Anglo-Irish conflict in the 1690s. The Irish were subject to the rule of Anglo-Irish landed gentry and an unpopular Episcopal church, cementing an Anglo-Irish resentment and hatred that would become entrenched in centuries to come.

The Glorious Revolution was also a transatlantic phenomenon, as American colonies experienced political unrest and the uneasy transfer of power. New York is a notable example. Originally founded as a Dutch colony, New York was actually allocated to James II as a proprietor when the English took it from the Dutch in 1664 and he was Duke of York (hence the name), so he had a longstanding relationship with the colony. In 1688 New York was not homogenously British, but was also home to the Dutch, French Huguenots, indigenous peoples, and a small Black population. The overthrow of the Jacobite government in New York and the establishment of the Dutch captain Jacob Leisler as the Governor of New York was the start of a significant political fracture in the colony. Some believed Leisler acted in William and Mary’s best interests to maintain stability in New York, while those against Leisler accused him of arbitrary and unprincipled behaviour. Eventually, Leisler was executed in 1691 for treason. The period entrenched existing divisions between the English and Dutch population in the colony, which would fester even beyond the American Revolution (1775-1783).

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Teachers' notes

This lesson uses sources from The National Archives, in particular records from the State Papers and Colonial Office, to explore the Glorious Revolution.

Before starting, it would be useful to ensure that students are familiar with these key terms and ideas: Catholicism, absolutism, arbitrary government, contractual government, colonialism, and rebellion.

The first source that students examine comes from the State Papers. It was written on June 30^th 1689 by the ‘Immortal Seven’- Edward Russell, Henry Sidney, Lord Richard Lumley, Henry Compton, Bishop of London, Charles Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, William Cavendish, Earl of Devonshire, and Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby. This letter is momentous as it constitutes William of Orange’s invitation to invade England and a guarantee of English support. The source extracts prompts students to consider the key motivations for writing this letter, and the relationship that is established between William and the nobility and church in England.

The second source is a printed document which outlines William’s declared motives for arriving in England in 1689. This document assists students to outline the key issues that led up to the Glorious Revolution, and the prominence of religion as a central concern.

Next, students look at a printed pamphlet written by Elinor James (1644-1714), a printer and polemicist who earned the nickname ‘the London City Godmother’ for her prolific and outspoken political writing. In the pamphlets, Elinor supports James II and tries to persuade parliament of the king’s virtue. She also warns parliament of the danger of James’ removal, and scrutinizes William of Orange’s actions and motivations. This source provides an opportunity to consider individuals who were sympathetic to James II at the time. This account is notable for being written and published by a woman, and can be a point of further discussion.

The fourth source is the Declaration of Rights, with the king’s answer, from 13 February 1689. Students can consider how the king and government’s relationship is reframed in this document, and how it might represent a contractual or constitutional form of government. Students may also like to consider the nature of the document as a parchment roll, and challenges associated with the document’s preservation.

The fifth sources relate to the Battle of the Boyne, William III’s decisive victory in Ireland over James’ forces in 1690. Source 6a is an account of William’s expedition to Ireland, and encourages students to think about how William is characterised, and the tensions in the source between the claim to provide a historically factual version, and the content which is evidently partisan to William. It may invite broader questions as to how we can approach history objectively. Source 6b is a pictorial representation of the Battle of the Boyne. Students might like to consider how this is a form of propaganda, as a commemoration of William’s victory.

The final sources relate to the consequences of the revolution within colonies in America. It invites students to consider how the Glorious Revolution was in fact a transatlantic phenomenon. Dependent on the colony, the transfer of power varied from a peaceful transition to civil war. Both of these sources largely focus on Leisler’s Rebellion in New York, in which the colony’s militia, led by notable Dutch inhabitants of the colony, detained the Jacobite government and appointed the German merchant Jacob Leisler as governor. The two sources come from opposing points of view. The first source is a letter from the deposed Jacobite governors, and the second source is written by an individual who supported Leisler’s Rebellion. Students can consider the similarities and differences between these two sources.

You may want to split the lesson for students working individually or use the sources in paired/group work. Students should be encouraged to think about the limitations of looking at different forms of evidence to evaluate their understanding the Glorious Revolution.

All sources are transcribed, and some language is explained/translated in square brackets.

Finally, although this lesson is aimed at Key stage 5, teachers could use these documents and provide their own questions and/or create simplified transcripts to use with younger students.

Sources

Illustration Image: Engraving printed by James Clark showing William and Mary Prince and Princess of Orange 1690. A large medal on a pedestal with busts of William III and Mary II in Roman style. 1690. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Source 1: An extract from a letter sent to the Prince of Orange inviting him to become King of England, 30 June 1688. Catalogue ref: SP 8/1/224.

Source 2:  A printed handbill entitled ‘Six Mature Articles’, Dec 1688-Jan1689. Catalogue ref: SP 31/4/123.

Source 3: An untitled, printed pamphlet by Elinor James, Nov 1688. Catalogue ref: SP 31/4/105

Source 4: Enrolment of the Declaration of the 12 February of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons [‘The Declaration of Rights’], with the king’s answer. Catalogue ref: C 212/18/1

Source 5a: Extracts from report entitled ‘Relation of his Majesty’s Expedition in Ireland and particularly of the Battle of the Boyne drawn out of Letters writ by Persons of Quality’. Catalogue ref: SP 8/11/11.

Source 5b: Panoramic view of the Battle of the Boyne, and the victory of King William III, 1691, etching. Catalogue ref: MPHH 1/34.

Source 6a: Extracts from ‘A letter concerning responses to the Glorious Revolution and the unrest in the colonies’. Catalogue ref: CO 5/1081 f.10-11.

Source 6b: ‘Memorial from New York on the replacement of Governor Nicholson with Governor Leisler’, June 1690. Catalogue ref: CO 5/1081 f.377-8.

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External links

BBC In Our Time Podcast, The Glorious Revolution:
The Glorious Revolution

History Extra Podcast: The Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution

Magdalene College Libraries, Oxford:
Elinor James

Connections to Curriculum

Key Stage 5

These documents can be used to support any of the exam board specifications covering the Stuarts, specifically the reign of James II, Glorious Revolution, and the reign of William III and Mary II.

AQA GCE History ‘A’ Level

Stuart Britain and the Crisis of Monarchy, 1603-1702

Edexcel GCE History ‘A’ Level

Britain, 1625-1701: conflict, revolution, and settlement

OCR GCE History ‘A’ Level

The Making of Georgian Britain 1678-c.1760

Enquiry topic: The Glorious Revolution 1678-1689

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