No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Who Dubbed It “The Glorious Revolution?”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Extract
It was not very glorious at first, at least to many English people of the late seventeenth century. With a king of undoubted legitimacy squeezed out and a new, albeit related monarch installed and recognized by Parliament, the transaction shook government, nation and church alike. It left Jacobite and non-juring splinters all round. The Revolution, happening in fulfillment of ideals of exclusionist Whigs, did not entirely satisfy those partisans, who soon learned that they could not control their masterful king, William III. As for the Tories, their consciences ached due to their resistance to a divinely-appointed sovereign. Few highly-placed Englishmen were comfortable with their need to call in a foreigner to help them solve their domestic squabbles. Indeed, one writer, reflecting on the letter inviting the Prince of Orange to invade England, thought it would have been “more glorious … to assist our undoubted Soveraign [sic], then to suffer him to be dethroned, solely because he is a Roman Catholic.”
Twentieth-century historians called the Revolution other names than “glorious.” It has been dubbed a “sensible,” a “model,” a “moral,” a “respectable,” a “palace,” and simply the English Revolution. All agreed that it was indeed a Revolution, and they themselves were in agreement with some early writers who were contemporary with the event. The Orange Gazette, at the very end of the year 1688, reported on “the Revolutions that had occurred.” The historian Nicholas Tindal wrote that William of Orange himself, in a speech before the House of Lords, spoke of “this late Revolution.” Considerable discussion ensued in Parliament and in pamphlets as to whether William conquered James, or whether the king had abdicated, or had deserted his kingdom. But little question with contemporaries: there was a Revolution.
- Type
- Note
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1987
References
1 Some Reflections on the Humble Petition … of the Lords (November, 1688).
2 Trevelyan, G. M., The English Revolution (London, 1938)Google Scholar.
3 Ogg, David, England in the Reigns of James II and William III (Oxford, 1955)Google Scholar.
4 Bahlman, Dudley, The Moral Revolution of 1688 (New Haven, 1957)Google Scholar.
5 Pinkham, Lucile, William III and the Respectable Revolution (Cambridge, 1954)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Straka, Gerald M., The Revolution of 1688: Whig Triumph or Palace Revolution? (Boston, 1963)Google Scholar.
7 Trevelyan, The English Revolution, and others.
8 The Orange Gazette, no. 2, 31 December–3 January, 1698.
9 Tindal, Nicholas, The Continuation of Mr. Rapin de Thoyras History of England, 4 vols. (London, 1751), 3:45Google Scholar.
10 The History of England (London, 1720), p. 1150Google Scholar.
11 Echard, Laurence, The History of the Revolution and the Establishment of England in the Year 1688 (Dublin, 1725), p. 169Google Scholar. Prall, Stuart uses the title, The Bloodless Revolution (New York, 1972)Google Scholar.
12 Boyer, Abel, The Royal Dictionary (London, 1767)Google Scholar.
13 The History of his own Times, (1740): The History of England (1771); The History of England (1773); A Complete History of England (1757).
14 Passim in both Echard's works above.
15 Lindsay, John, A Short History and Vindication of the Revolution collected out of the writings of the Learned Bishop Burnet and Dr. Kennett (London, 1716), p. 5Google Scholar.
16 The Orange Gazette, no. 4, 7–10 January, 1689.
17 The London Courant, no. 6, 25–29 December, 1688.
18 Reflections on the Late Great Revolution (London, 1689)Google Scholar.
19 The Diary of John Evelyn, Everymans Library, 2 vols. (London, 1953), 2:288 (2 Dec. 1689)Google Scholar.
20 Trevelyan, G. M., History of England, 3rd edition (London, 1945), p. 472Google Scholar.
21 The Prince and Princess of Orange “stood sponsors” at the baptism of the first child of Burnet and his wife. “Burnet, Gilbert,” Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 1917), 3:401Google Scholar.
22 The Diary of John Evelyn, 2:97 (15 Nov. 1674) and 171 (28 May, 1682)Google Scholar.
23 Sermon before the Prince of Orange, Dec., 1688 (London, 1689), p. 1Google Scholar.
24 Sermon Preached before the House of Commons (London, 1689), p. 17Google Scholar.
25 Ibid., 35.
26 A Sermon Preached at the Coronation of William and Mary (London, 1689), pp. 20, 28, 29Google Scholar.
27 An Enquiry into the Measures of Submission to the Supreme Authority (London, 1693)Google Scholar.
28 A Sermon Preached at Bow-Church before the Lord Maior (London, 1690), p. 24Google Scholar. On the persistence of divine right thinking, see Straka, Gerald M., Anglican Reaction to the Revolution of 1688 (Madison, 1962), pp. 65 ffGoogle Scholar. and Kenyon, J. P., Revolution Principles (London, 1977), pp. 21, ff. and 61 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
29 This was true of at least fifteen sermons that were preached in 1702 following the death of William III.
30 A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of Salisbury (London, 1706), p. 6Google Scholar.
31 On a list of sermons preached by Rosewell, published by J. Lawrence at the Angel in Poultry, London.
32 Sermon Preach'd at Crosby-Square (London, 1709), p. 13Google Scholar.
33 Sermon of the Seventh of November, being the Thanksgiving Day (London, 1710), p. 18Google Scholar.
34 The Evil and Mischief of a Fiery Spirit (London, 1711), p. 18Google Scholar.
35 The Charge of God to Joshua in a Sermon (London, 1711), p. 20Google Scholar.
36 The Linen Manufactures, A Sermon (London, 1715), p. xGoogle Scholar.
37 For example, see Bradley, Thomas, The Establishment of the Kingdom (London, 1716)Google Scholar; Lucas, Thoma, Christian Compulsion not Persecution (London, 1718)Google Scholar; Synge, Edward, A Sermon Preach'd at St. Andrews (Dublin, 1719)Google Scholar; George, William, A Sermon Preach'd before the Honourable House of Commons (London, 1732)Google Scholar.
38 (London, 1713).
39 Britain's Mercies and Britain's Duty (Boston, 1746), p. 20Google Scholar.
40 The Revolution of 1688 and the Birth of the English Political Nation (Lexington, Mass., Toronto London, 1973), p. viiGoogle Scholar.
41 A Sermon Concerning Popery with the Preface. … Giving an Account of the Glorious Revolution (Edinburgh, 1746)Google Scholar.