21B

Stuart Britain and the Crisis of Monarchy, 1603-1702

________________________________________________________________

SECTION FOUR The Establishment of Constitutional Monarchy, 1678-1702

Topic 21 The Glorious Revolution and its consolidation in England, Scotland and Ireland

Key Question B: How was the Glorious Revolution consolidated across the Three Kingdoms?

The ‘revolution’ of 1689 and the position and power of monarchy

The Dutch invasion and flight of James II placed the Tories in a dilemma. They had been just as keen as the Whigs to defend the Anglican Church and the rule of law against the policies of the King, but they remained committed to the constitutional principles of Divine Right and the lawful succession. With the dramatic change of circumstances in 1688, most now acknowledged that William of Orange seemed to be the only guarantor of public order, so arrangements for the continuity of government had to be made.

A Convention Parliament, consisting of 319 Whigs and 232 Tories, duly assembled on 22 January 1689 to begin the process of establishing a revolution settlement. Debates around how to legislate for the transfer of power divided MPs along constitutional lines:

  • The Whig View – ‘Contract Theory’: Whigs believed in John Locke’s idea that a King ruled according to a social contract. If the conditions were violated, the people (represented by Parliament) had the right to depose him and install a new sovereign. The Whigs therefore held that James II could be declared lawfully overthrown by claiming that the King had ‘broken the fundamental laws of the constitution’.

  • The Tory View – Divine Right: Tories believed in Divine Right of Kings and lawful succession by primogeniture. If James II was not to be reinstated with restrictions on his power, a stratagem had to be found that would enable Tories to accept William and/or Mary with a clear conscience. As they would not accept that James II had been deposed or overthrown, the Whig position was inviable.

In the end, a pragmatic compromise between the two sides was reached. A Commons statement, approved on 28 January 1689, read as follows: ‘King James II, having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between the King and the people; and by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons having violated the fundamental laws; and having withdrawn himself out of this kingdom; has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby vacant.’

Parliament thus agreed to declare William King, with two provisions:

1. His wife, Mary, would receive the title of joint monarch (albeit without the same level of power).

2. If Mary died and William married again, any children from his second marriage would remain behind Anne, Mary’s younger sister, in the line of succession.

A parliamentary committee then produced The Declaration of Rights (subsequently known as The Bill of Rights), which stated that Catholics could never inherit the throne of England. The Declaration was very much a compromise, left deliberately ambiguous in terms of the constitutional implications of James’s removal. There was no written statement that James had been deposed, or that he had broken a contract – it was claimed that he had ‘deserted’ the throne rather than ‘abdicated’. Similarly, William and Mary were not referred to as the ‘rightful’ or ‘lawful’ heirs. All this was carefully managed to appeal to Tories, who regarded William and Mary as de facto monarchs (in physical possession of the Crown) rather than de jure monarchs (the rightful sovereigns). According to the wording of The Declaration, it was still possible to recognise them as rulers without denying that, as far as the law was concerned, James was still the rightful King.

At a formal ceremony held on 13 February 1689, The Bill of Rights was read aloud to William and Mary. They were then jointly offered the Crown. At their coronation, on 11 April, the new monarchs swore an amended oath that illustrated how the relationship between the Crown and Parliament had changed over the course of the century:

  • Before 1689: all monarchs had sworn to ‘Confirm to the people of England the laws and customs to them granted by the Kings of England’.

  • From 1689 onwards: the oath read for the first time by William and Mary stipulated that it was the monarch’s duty ‘To govern the people of this kingdom of England … according to the statutes in Parliament agreed on’.

The change underlined the fact that English monarchs now had to accept that they were subject to the rule of law, rather than above it. The Revolution Settlement finally agreed upon is summarised in the table overleaf.

The Succession

  • Parliament declared that, as James had gone into exile, the throne had been left ‘vacant’.

  • The Crown was offered to William and Mary as joint sovereigns.

  • If Mary predeceased her husband, William would rule alone. After William, any royal offspring borne by Mary would succeed, or, if there were no children, Mary’s sister Anne would become Queen.

  • If Anne died without children, the throne would pass to descendants of the union between James I’s daughter, Elizabeth, and Frederick, Elector of the Palatinate.

The Bill of Rights

  • All government office holders, MPs and clergymen had to swear an Oath of Allegiance, recognising William and Mary as King and Queen.

  • The Mutiny Act declared that maintaining a standing army in peacetime without parliamentary consent was illegal.

  • Monarchs could no longer raise taxation without parliamentary consent.

  • The monarch’s suspending and dispensing powers were declared illegal.

  • It was decreed that parliaments must be held ‘frequently’, that parliamentary elections must always be ‘free’, and that freedom of speech in parliament must be respected.

  • The prerogative courts could not be revived, so that the Crown could not impose excessive bail or fines, or cruel or unusual punishments.

The financial settlement

  • The Crown was granted ordinary revenue of £1.2 million a year.

  • Extraordinary revenue was to be voted by Parliament as and when it was required.

  • The Parliament of 1690 stipulated that excise duties were to be voted for life, and customs duties were voted for four years.

  • The Hearth Tax was abolished.

  • Later, the 1693 Million Loan Act and establishment of the Bank of England would secure the Political Nation’s financial control over the monarchy, as they were the now the guarantors of Crown debt.

The religious settlement

  • The Toleration Act denounced transubstantiation and permitted freedom of worship to anyone who took the Oath of Allegiance.

  • Protestant dissenters were exempted from some penal laws, so they no longer had to attend Anglican services, although their meeting houses had to be officially registered.

  • The Test Acts (1673 and 1678) remained in force, meaning that Catholics and non-Anglican dissenters were still not permitted to hold government offices.

Like the Parliamentarians of 1642, the ‘revolutionaries’ of 1689 were mostly reluctant and conservative, and believed they were fighting to preserve the ancient liberties of the subject against the innovations of a potentially reforming regime. The eventual Revolution Settlement therefore stopped short of a major expansion of liberties for subjects in several important respects:

  • full religious toleration for Protestant dissenters was not achieved, as Anglicans would not agree to the suspension or repeal of The Test Acts and The Corporation Act – thus, the religious settlement was less tolerant and comprehensive than William would ideally have liked;

  • there was nothing to prevent the possibility of parliaments sitting for long periods of time (such as the Cavalier Parliament, 1661-79);

  • those who described themselves as ‘True Whigs’ felt betrayed by the settlement because they had failed to establish a right of rebellion or the extension of civil liberties into new areas of public life;

  • the monarch could still use Quo Warranto actions to alter the charters of towns and boroughs to his or her political advantage;

  • there was no prohibition of the buying and selling of offices;

  • there was still no independent judiciary;

  • while undoubtedly significant, The Bill of Rights had limited constitutional force – it was not a binding document due to the fact there was no mechanism in place to guarantee its terms were followed.

Nevertheless, the events of 1688-89 had in some ways facilitated a decisive shift in the relationship between the Crown and Parliament:

  • The Bill of Rights was the closest England had ever had to a written constitution, and implied a contract existed between ruler and ruled;

  • the financial settlement ensured that the Crown would be dependent on Parliament for continual subsidies, a fact that was quickly reinforced by William’s continued wars with France;

  • Crown income became national income, raised and managed by Parliament;

  • Parliament began to have a strong influence on foreign policy;

  • the Crown accepted the necessity of regular parliaments, and recognised the value of MPs who could win them parliamentary support, leading to the creation of government ‘ministries’ that would have an important executive role for monarchs of the 18th century;

  • Parliament had been transformed from an occasional event into a permanent institution of government.

The consolidation of the revolution in Scotland

Prelude – the reign of James II: James had antagonised Presbyterian sentiment by clamping down on conventicles, and by making it clear that he regarded law-making in Scotland as his absolute prerogative, with the Scottish Parliament having very little influence. The defeat of Argyll’s Rising had been followed with bloody repression and was used as an excuse to promote Catholics into military and administrative roles. The Protestant reaction to this was uncompromising: preachers flatly refused to obey the King’s directive against anti-Catholic sermons, leading to rioting in some towns. In 1687, James issued an Edict of Toleration (an equivalent of The Declaration of Indulgence for Scotland), suspending all penal laws for Catholics and offering private freedom of worship for Presbyterians if they took an oath of non-resistance that confirmed the King’s absolute power.

Events of the revolution in Scotland: The revolution was well-received by Protestants north of the border. At first it was relatively bloodless, with nothing more than the odd attack on Catholic chapels and processions, in which effigies of the Pope were burnt. Early in 1689, William summoned a Convention of Estates to decide the political settlement. The Scottish Crown was offered to William and Mary on the grounds that James had forfeited his throne by attempting to convert the ‘legal limited monarchy’ into an ‘arbitrary despotic power’. Further reforms followed:

  • the Convention abolished the episcopacy from the Scottish Kirk;

  • Presbyterian ministers who had lost their livings as a result of the 1662 Act of Uniformity were restored;

  • legislation asserting royal supremacy over the Kirk was repealed;

  • the Kirk was given the power to appoint its own ministers, leading to a purge of around 600 clergymen in the next seven years.

However, not all Scots welcomed the events of 1688-89. Some members of the Scottish nobility remained loyal to the Stuarts, and Catholics remained powerful, especially in the Highlands, where the MacDonald clan held sway. The leading Scottish Jacobite was John Graham, Viscount Dundee. In July 1689, his forces defeated a Williamite army at the Battle of Killiecrankie. However, Dundee’s death at this encounter meant that success was short-lived. The following month, the Battle of Dunkeld saw the Catholics comprehensively defeated. Fort William was subsequently established as a powerful royal military base, from where a permanent Protestant presence could be maintained in the Highlands.

Aftermath of the revolution: The conflict was officially brought to an end by the Treaty of Achallander in June 1691. Jacobites agreed to swear an oath to William and Mary in exchange for full indemnity and a payment of £12,000 to cover the costs of the war. Unfortunately for the Catholic Scots, Sir John Dalrymple, Secretary of State for Scotland, used the peace as an opportunity to attack the MacDonald clan. In January 1692, 45 innocent men, women and children were put to death in an event known as the Glencoe Massacre. This served to heighten the unpopularity of the new regime in the Scottish Highlands, but it also underlined the decline of the Jacobite cause north of the border (until a brief revival in the mid-18th century).

The consolidation of the revolution in Ireland

Prelude – the reign of James II: As in Scotland, James had pressed for the promotion of Catholics in both the Irish army and civil administration. He hoped to create a parliament that would be totally submissive to his will. In contrast to Scotland, however, Irish Catholics were in the majority. From 1685, Richard Talbot, the Earl of Tyrconnell, had been purging Protestants from the government and military forces, and restoring property from the Church of Ireland back to the Catholic Church.

Events of the revolution in Ireland: The revolution threatened to unravel all of Tyrconnell’s work, prompting his invitation to James to travel to Ireland and use it as a springboard for the recovery of England and Scotland. Louis XIV encouraged the expedition by sending 3,000 French troops to support James. He was hoping that a Jacobite rebellion in Ireland would force William to divert some of his forces west, leaving the Dutch Republic vulnerable.

James landed in March 1689 and took control of the 40,000-strong army assembled by Tyrconnell. The Catholic Irish now took political matters into their own hands by calling their own parliament in Dublin. In what was, technically, an illegal assembly, the Irish Parliament declared its independence from England and passed over 2,000 Acts of Attainder to restore former Catholic lands back to their original owners. Any Protestant who declared for William was threatened with the death penalty.

James moved into Protestant Ulster and besieged the town of Londonderry. In July 1689, a relief force lifted the siege and throughout the winter of 1688-89, a Williamite army successfully re-captured most of the province, then advanced towards Dublin. In June 1690, William himself arrived in Ireland with a force of over 40,000 Dutch, Danish and French Protestant troops (he deliberately chose not to use English soldiers because he feared many of them were secret Jacobites). Acting against the advice of his French advisers, this time James met William head-on. At the Battle of the Boyne, he was heavily defeated (losing 1,000 men compared to William’s 400) and fled back to France. The war did not end there, however. Throughout 1690, Protestants captured Waterford and Cork from Jacobite forces. In 1691, Catholic troops in the west were subdued in a final major battle at Aughrim. Limerick was the last town to fall to William, after a long siege, in September 1691.

Aftermath of the revolution: The Treaty of Limerick (October 1691) brought armed conflict in Ireland to an end. Catholic soldiers were allowed free passage to France or could join William’s army. Initially, the native Irish were promised the degree of independence and religious toleration that they had been permitted during the reign of Charles II. However, once Protestant domination of the Irish Parliament had been restored (with Catholics disenfranchised after defeat in the war), this offer was rescinded. The final settlement saw Catholics lose one million acres (14%) of their land, and penal codes against them were re-introduced. They were barred from public office and the professions, while high-ranking members of the clergy and many priests were expelled from the country altogether. Although these measures were never brought into full effect across the whole kingdom, the Glorious Revolution represented a disaster for Irish Catholics, who were now established as lower-class citizens, subservient to a Protestant Anglo-Irish ascendancy.