The Glorious Revolution

The short analysis

In the autumn of 1688, William of Orange crossed the Channel with a substantial Dutch army at the explicit invitation of leading English nobles and bishops who had grown alarmed by James II's Catholic sympathies and his apparent determination to govern without meaningful parliamentary restraint. James, abandoned by his army and much of his court, fled to France rather than fight, and Parliament seized on his departure to declare the throne vacant and offer it jointly to William and his wife Mary, James's Protestant daughter. The terms attached to that offer were codified in the Bill of Rights of 1689, a document that ruled out a standing army in peacetime without parliamentary consent, prohibited arbitrary taxation, and confirmed the right to free elections and free speech within Parliament. Historians have argued ever since about how revolutionary the revolution actually was. Some see it as a conservative coup by a propertied elite anxious to protect its privileges; others treat it as a genuine constitutional turning point that made future absolutism impossible in England. What is hardest to dispute is its long reach: the financial and military machinery Parliament built in its aftermath, including the Bank of England and a funded national debt, gave Britain the resources to become an imperial power. Abroad, the revolution reoriented English foreign policy toward sustained confrontation with Louis XIV's France, a commitment that would define European politics for a generation.