On This Day: King escapes to France, shifting power from Crown towards Parliament - Dec. 23, 1688

[jgo]

(edited from Wikipedia)
"
James VII and II [escapes]

James VII and II (1633–1701) was King of England and Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was the last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland. His reign is now remembered primarily for conflicts over religious tolerance, but it also involved struggles over the principles of absolutism and the divine right of kings. His deposition ended a century of political and civil strife in England by confirming the primacy of the English Parliament over the Crown.

On 30 June 1688, a group of seven Protestant nobles invited William, Prince of Orange, to come to England with an army. By September, it had become clear that William sought to invade. Believing that his own army would be adequate, James refused the assistance of King Louis XIV of France, fearing that the English would oppose French intervention.

When William arrived on 5 November 1688, many Protestant officers, including [General John] Churchill, defected and joined William, as did James's own daughter Anne.

James lost his nerve and declined to attack the invading army, despite his army's numerical superiority. On 11 December, James tried to flee to France, first throwing the Great Seal of the Realm into the River Thames. He was captured in Kent; later, he was released and placed under Dutch protective guard.

Having no desire to make James a martyr, William let him escape on 23 December. James was received by his cousin and ally, Louis XIV, who offered him a palace and a pension.

Glorious Revolution

The Glorious Revolution is the name given to the events that led to the deposition of James II and VII in November 1688. He was replaced by his daughter Mary II and her Dutch husband, William III of Orange, who was also his nephew. The two ruled as joint monarchs of England, Scotland and Ireland until Mary's death in 1694. The Revolution itself was relatively bloodless, but pro-Stuart revolts between 1689 and 1746 caused significant casualties, while the political movement known as Jacobitism persisted into the late 18th century. William's invasion was the last successful invasion of England.

Domestically, the Revolution confirmed the primacy of Parliament over the Crown in both England and Scotland.

Impact

As a coup, albeit largely bloodless, [the Glorious Revolution's] legitimacy rests in the will expressed separately by the Scottish and English Parliaments according to their respective legal processes. On this point, the Earl of Shaftesbury declared in 1689, "The Parliament of England is that supreme and absolute power, which gives life and motion to the English government".

The Revolution established the primacy of parliamentary sovereignty, a principle still relevant in consultation with the 15 Commonwealth realms regarding succession issues. The Bill of Rights 1689 formally established a system of constitutional monarchy and ended moves towards absolute monarchy by restricting the power of the monarch, who could no longer suspend laws, levy taxes, make royal appointments or maintain a standing army during peacetime without Parliament's consent. The British Army remains the military arm of Parliament, not the monarch, although the Crown is the source of all military executive authority.

Unlike the 1638 to 1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, most ordinary people in England and Scotland were relatively untouched by the "Glorious Revolution", the majority of the bloodshed taking place in Ireland. As a consequence, some historians suggest that in England at least it more closely resembles a coup d'état, rather than a social upheaval such as the French Revolution.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_II_of_England
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution

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[DavidDvorkin]

1. "The British Army remains the military arm of Parliament"

That's really interesting.