Share Flipboard Email. Robert Longley. History and Government Expert. Robert Longley is a U. Facebook Facebook. The Glorious Revolution resulted in the English Bill of Rights that established England as a constitutional rather than absolute monarchy and served as the model for the U. Bill of Rights. Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Longley, Robert. Glorious Revolution: Definition, History, and Significance.
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What Is a Constitutional Monarchy? King James II took the throne in England in , during a time when relations between Catholics and Protestants were tense. There was also considerable friction between the monarchy and the British Parliament. James, who was Catholic, supported the freedom of worship for Catholics and appointed Catholic officers to the army. He also had close ties with France—a relationship that concerned many of the English people.
In , King James II issued a Declaration of Indulgence, which suspended penal laws against Catholics and granted acceptance of some Protestant dissenters. Later that year, the king formally dissolved his Parliament and attempted to create a new Parliament that would support him unconditionally. The Whigs, the main group that opposed Catholic succession, were especially outraged. William was already in the process of taking military action against England, and the letter served as an additional propaganda motive.
William of Orange assembled an impressive armada for the invasion and landed in Torbay, Devon, in November King James, however, had prepared for military attacks and left London to bring his forces to meet the invading army. James decided to retreat back to London on November In December , King James made an attempt to escape but was captured. Later that month, he made another attempt and successfully fled to France, where his Catholic cousin Louis XIV held the throne and where James eventually died in exile in In January , the now-famous Convention Parliament met.
James gave Catholics in Britain freedom to worship openly, and, more worryingly, proposed the removal of parliamentary acts that prohibited Catholics from holding public office, known as the Test Acts.
James appointed Catholic officers to the army and a number of Catholic peers to his Privy Council. His next move was to dissolve parliament and search for officials who would support Catholics in public office. He wished to form a parliament that would bend to his will.
The forces that the prince of Orange amassed for his invasion were vast, the flotilla consisting of 43 men-of-war, four light frigates and 10 fireships protecting over flyboats capable of carrying 21, soldiers.
All in all, it was an armada four times the size of that launched by the Spanish in James had made military preparations for the defence of England over the summer and autumn of and his army encamped on Hounslow Heath was, at about 25, men, numerically larger than the force brought over by William.
For the first time since the s, England was faced with the prospect of civil war. The civil unrest convinced James to leave London and bring out his forces to meet the invading army in a pitched battle.
He was frequently debilitated by heavy nosebleeds. However, the king was now convinced that his own life was in danger and was making preparations to flee the country. On 11 December, in the wake of renewed anti-Catholic rioting in London, James made his first attempt to escape, but was captured by Kent fishermen near Sheerness. After considerable pressure from William himself, parliament agreed that he would rule as joint monarch with Mary, rather than act merely as her consort, and on 13 February William and Mary formally accepted the throne.
Before they were offered the crown, William and Mary were presented with a document called the Declaration of Rights, later enshrined in law as the Bill of Rights, which affirmed a number of constitutional principles, such as the illegality of prerogative suspending and dispensing powers, the prohibition of taxation without parliamentary consent and the need for regular parliaments. In reality, the Bill of Rights placed few real restrictions on the crown. It was not until that the call for regular parliaments was backed up by the Triennial Act.
Pressure from William also ensured the passage in May of the Toleration Act, granting many Protestant groups, but not Catholics, freedom of worship. This toleration was, however, considerably more limited than that envisaged by James II. Their massive cost led not only to growth of modern financial institutions — most notably the Bank of England founded in — but also to greater scrutiny of crown expenditure through parliamentary committees of accounts.
The bureaucracy required to harvest all this money grew exponentially too.
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