6.4. The Glorious revolution and the Bill of Rights

It was a strange revolution, and the English took some pride in its strangeness. In England (though not in Scotland or Ireland) it was almost bloodless. And after it, apart from the provisions of the Bill of Rights, virtually nothing appeared to have changed. No grand new constitutional settlement was enacted, binding the king or extending the role of parliament. But from then on it was accepted that the monarch of England ruled through parliament, that parliament made law and that the king was under, not above, the law.

In 1689 James II (Charles II’s brother) was removed from the throne and replaced by his daughter Mary and William of Orange (a powerful figure in his own land – Holland) as joint sovereigns. The reason why it so happened was that James had become increasingly unpopular on account of his unconstitutional behaviour and Catholicism. Seven prominent politicians, plotted to invite the protestant William to become king. William and Mary accepted a new constitutional settlement, the Bill of Rights (1689). The Bill of rights was an act of Parliament which established Parliament as the primary governin g body of the country. The joint sovereigns had to fight Jacobite armies to secure their crown in Scotland and Ireland. In July1690 the defeat of James II and his French allies by William III at the battle of Boyne (it took its name from the river Boyne) in Ireland confirmed the new situation.

The Act of Union of 1707 made Scotland an equal partner with England in economic and colonial enterprise and gave it representation in Parliament.