1685–1692

James II and the Glorious Revolution

When Charles II died in 1685, the crown passed to his brother. The new king was a Catholic. In England, Wales and Ireland he was James II; in Scotland he was James VII.

James II favoured Catholics and made some of them army officers, even though an Act of Parliament had banned this. He ignored Parliament and even had several Church of England bishops arrested. People in England feared that he wanted to turn the country Catholic again.

At first, though, people weren't too worried, because the next in line to the throne were his two daughters, who were both committed Protestants. Then, in 1688, the queen gave birth to a son. Suddenly it looked as if the next king would be a Catholic too.

A revolution without bloodshed

James II's elder daughter, Mary, had married William of Orange, her cousin. William was a Protestant and ruled the Netherlands. In 1688 a group of powerful English Protestants asked William to come over with an army and take the throne.

When William arrived, nobody fought him. James II ran away to France, leaving the throne to William. In England, Wales and Ireland he was William III, and in Scotland William II. He ruled side by side with his wife, Mary II.

People later called this the "Glorious Revolution". It was "glorious" because no battles were fought in England, and because it secured the power of Parliament: from then on, no monarch could simply rule alone.

William had landed at Torbay in south-west England on 5 November 1688, exactly 83 years after the Gunpowder Plot, and Protestants saw this as a sign from God. As James II fled, he is said to have thrown the Great Seal, the symbol of royal power, into the River Thames. There was also a rumour that his baby son wasn't the queen's at all, but a baby smuggled into her room in a warming pan (a covered metal pan used for warming beds). This was political propaganda, and there is no evidence for it.

The Boyne, Killiecrankie and Glencoe

James II was determined to win back his crown. Backed by French troops, he landed in Ireland. In 1690, in Ireland, William beat him at the Battle of the Boyne, a victory that some people in Northern Ireland still celebrate today. William took back control of Ireland, and James fled to France once more. After this, the Catholic Church in Ireland faced many restrictions, and Irish Catholics were shut out of government.

James had supporters in Scotland too. An armed rising on his behalf was quickly crushed at Killiecrankie. (That is how the handbook tells it. In fact the Jacobites won the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689, but their leader, Viscount Dundee, was killed there; they were then beaten at Dunkeld, and the rising soon fell apart. In the test, answer as the handbook does.) Every Scottish clan was then ordered to swear an oath accepting William as king. The MacDonalds of Glencoe missed the deadline, and as punishment they were massacred. The massacre left some Scots deeply distrustful of the new government.

Some people still believed that James was the rightful king, especially in Scotland. Some followed him into exile in France; others supported him in secret. James's supporters were called Jacobites, from Jacobus, the Latin form of James. They would try to bring the Stuarts back for more than fifty years.

Era contents: 1600 – 1700