© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

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Still, William was reluctant to invade, believing that the English people would not react well to a foreign invader. He therefore demanded that the most eminent English Protestants first invite him to invade. On 30 June 1688—the same day the bishops were acquitted—a group of political figures known as the "Immortal Seven" complied, sending him a formal invitation. William began to make preparations for an invasion; his intentions were public knowledge by September 1688. With a Dutch army, William landed at Brixham in southwest England on 5 November 1688. He came ashore from the ship "Brill" carried aloft by a local fisherman Peter Varwell to proclaim "the liberties of England and the Protestant religion I will maintain". William had come ashore with 15,500 soldiers and up to 4000 horses. Gilbert Burnet, the Bishop of Salisbury, was more precise and claimed the figure to be 14,352. James's support dissolved almost immediately; Protestant officers defected from the English army (the most notable of whom was Lord Churchill, James's most able commander), and influential noblemen across the country declared their support for the invader. Though the invasion and subsequent overthrow of James II is commonly known as the "Glorious Revolution," it was in reality a coup d'Ètat.

James at first attempted to resist William, but saw that his efforts would prove futile. He sent representatives to negotiate with William, but secretly attempted to flee on 11 December. A group of fishermen caught him and brought back to London. He successfully escaped in a second attempt on 23 December. William actually permitted James to leave the country, for he did not wish to make him a martyr for the Roman Catholic cause.

In 1689, a Convention Parliament summoned by the Prince of Orange assembled, and much discussion relating to the appropriate course of action ensued. William III felt insecure about his position; though only his wife was formally eligible to assume the throne, he wished to reign as King in his own right, rather than as a mere consort. The only precedent for a joint monarchy in England dated from the sixteenth century: when Queen Mary I married the Spanish Prince Philip, it was agreed that the latter would take the title of King. But Philip II remained King only during his wife's lifetime, and restrictions were placed on his power. William, on the other hand, demanded that he remain as King even after his wife's death. Although some individuals proposed to make her the sole ruler, Mary, remaining loyal to her husband, refused.

On 13 February 1689, Parliament passed the Declaration of Right, in which it deemed that James, by attempting to flee on 11 December 1688, had abdicated the government of the realm, thereby leaving the Throne vacant. The Crown was not offered to James's eldest son, James Francis Edward (who would have been the heir-apparent under normal circumstances), but to William and Mary as joint Sovereigns. It was, however, provided that "the sole and full exercise of the regal power be only in and executed by the said Prince of Orange in the names of the said Prince and Princess during their joint lives".

William and Mary were crowned together at Westminster Abbey on 11 April 1689 by the Bishop of London, Henry Compton. Normally, the coronation is performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the Archbishop at the time, William Sancroft, refused to recognise James II's removal. On the day of the coronation, the Convention of the Estates of Scotland—which was much more divided than the English Parliament—finally declared that James was no longer King of Scotland. William and Mary were offered the Scottish Crown; they accepted on 11 May. William was officially "William II", for there was only one previous Scottish King named William (see William I).

Revolution Settlement

William III of England encouraged the passage of the Act of Toleration 1689, which guaranteed religious toleration to certain dissenters. The Act, however, only extended to a limited group of individuals: it did not cover non-Christians, those who disbelieved in the Holy Trinity or Roman Catholics. Thus the Act was not as wide-ranging as James II's Declaration of Indulgence, which attempted to grant freedom of conscience to people of all faiths.

In December 1689, one of the most important constitutional documents in English history, the Bill of Rights, was passed. The Act—which restated and confirmed many provisions of the earlier Declaration of Right—established restrictions on the royal prerogative; it was provided, amongst other things, that the Sovereign could not suspend laws passed by Parliament, levy taxes without parliamentary consent, infringe the right to petition, raise a standing army during peacetime without parliamentary consent, deny the right to bear arms to Protestant subjects, unduly interfere with parliamentary elections, punish members of either House of Parliament for anything said during debates, require excessive bail or inflict cruel or unusual punishments. William was opposed to the imposition of such constraints, but he wisely chose not to engage in a conflict with Parliament and agreed to abide by the statute.

The Bill of Rights also settled the question of succession to the Crown. After the death of either William or Mary, the other would continue to reign. Next in the line of succession was Mary II's sister, the Princess Anne, and her issue. Finally, any children William might have had by a subsequent marriage were included in the line of succession. Non-Protestants, as well as those who married Roman Catholics, were excluded from the succession.

Rule with Mary II

William continued to be absent from the realm for extended periods during his war with France. England joined the League of Augsburg, which then became known as the "Grand Alliance." Whilst William was away fighting, his wife, Mary II, governed the realm for him, but acted on his advice. Each time he returned to England, Mary gave up her power to him unbegrudgingly. Such an arrangement lasted for the rest of Mary's life.

Although most in England accepted William as Sovereign, he faced considerable opposition in Scotland and Ireland. The Scottish Jacobites— those who believed that James II was the legitimate monarch — won a stunning victory on 27 July 1689 at the Battle of Killiecrankie, but were nevertheless subdued within a month. William's reputation suffered following the Massacre of Glencoe (1692), in which almost one hundred Scots were murdered for not properly pledging their allegiance to the new King and Queen. Bowing to public opinion, William dismissed those responsible for the massacre, though they still remained in his favour; in the words of the historian John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, "one became a colonel, another a knight, a third a peer, and a fourth an earl."

In Ireland, where the French aided the rebels, fighting continued for much longer, although James II had perforce to flee the island after the Battle of the Boyne (1690). The victory in Ireland is commemorated annually by the The Twelfth. After the Anglo-Dutch Navy defeated a French fleet at La Hogue in 1692, the naval supremacy of the English became apparent, and Ireland was conquered shortly thereafter. At the same time, the Grand Alliance fared poorly on land. William lost Namur, a part of his Dutch territory, in 1692, and was disastrously beaten at the Battle of Landen in 1693.

Mary II died of smallpox in 1694, leaving William III to rule alone. Although he had previously mistreated his wife and kept mistresses (the most well known of which was Elizabeth Villiers), William deeply mourned his wife's death. Although he was brought up as a Calvinist, he converted to Anglicanism. His popularity, however, plummetted during his reign as a sole Sovereign.

William is assumed by most modern scholars to have been bisexual. He had several male favourites, including a Rotterdam bailiff Van Zuylen van Nijveld, and two dutch courtiers to whom he granted English dignities: Hans Willem Bentinck became Earl of Portland, and Arnold Joost van Keppel was created Earl of Albemarle. William was especially close to his fellow Dutch countrymen and made little headway into his new dominions as a monarch, somewhat always an outsider to his subjects.

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