The Glorious Revolution – 9

Today’s installment concludes The Glorious Revolution,
the name of our combined selection by Gilbert Burnet and Henry Duff Traill. The concluding installment, is by Henry Duff Traill.

If you have journeyed through all of the installments of this series, just one more to go and you will have completed nine thousand words from great works of history. Congratulations!

Previously in The Glorious Revolution.

Time: 1688

On Monday, February 4th, the Lords resolved to insist on their amendments; on the following day the Commons reaffirmed their disagreement with them by two hundred eighty-two votes to one hundred fifty-one. A free conference between the two Houses was then arranged and met on the following day.

But the dispute, like many another in our political history, had meanwhile been settled out of court. Between the date of the peers’ vote and the conference Mary had communicated to Danby her high displeasure at the conduct of those who were setting up her claims in opposition to those of her husband; and William, who had previously maintained an unbroken silence, now made, unsolicited, a declaration of a most important and, indeed, of a conclusive kind. If the convention, he said, chose to adopt the plan of a regency, he had nothing to say against it, only they must look out for some other person to fill the office, for he himself would not consent to do so. As to the alternative proposal of putting Mary on the throne and allowing him to reign by her courtesy, “No man,” he said, “can esteem a woman more than I do the Princess; but I am so made that I cannot think of holding anything by apron strings; nor can I think it reasonable to have any share in the government unless it be put in my own person, and that for the term of my life. If you think fit to settle it otherwise I will not oppose you, but will go back to Holland, and meddle no more in your affairs.”

These few sentences of plain-speaking swept away the clouds of intrigue and pedantry as by a wholesome gust of wind. Both political parties at once perceived that there was but one possible issue from the situation. The conference was duly held, and the constitutional question was, with great display of now unnecessary learning, solemnly debated; but the managers for the two Houses met only to register a foregone conclusion. The word “abdicated” was restored; the vacancy of the throne was voted by sixty-two votes to forty-seven; and it was immediately proposed and carried without a division that the Prince and Princess of Orange should be declared king and queen of England.

It now only remained to give formal effect to this resolution, and in so doing to settle the conditions whereon the crown, which the convention had now distinctly recognized itself as conferring upon the Prince and Princess, should be conferred. A committee appointed by the Commons to consider what safeguards should be taken against the aggressions of future sovereigns had made a report in which they recommended not only a solemn enunciation of ancient constitutional principles, but the enactment of new laws. The Commons, however, having regard to the importance of prompt action, judiciously resolved on carrying out only the first part of the program. They determined to preface the tender of the crown to William and Mary by a recital of the royal encroachments of the past reigns, and a formal assertion of the constitutional principles against which such encroachments had offended. This document, drafted by a committee of which the celebrated Somers, then a scarcely known young advocate, was the chairman, was the famous “Declaration of Right.” The grievances which it recapitulated in its earlier portion were as follows:

1. The royal pretension to dispense with and suspend laws without consent of Parliament;
2. the punishment of subjects, as in the “Seven Bishops'” case, for petitioning the crown;
3. the establishment of the illegal court of high commission for ecclesiastical affairs;
4. the levy of taxes without the consent of Parliament;
5. the maintenance of a standing army in time of peace without the same consent
6. the disarmament of Protestants while papists were both armed and employed contrary to law;
7. the violation of the freedom of election;
8. the prosecution in the king’s bench of suits only cognizable in Parliament;
9. the return of partial and corrupt juries;
10. the requisition of excessive bail;
11. the imposition of excessive fines;
12. the infliction of illegal and cruel punishments;
13. the grants of the estates of accused persons before conviction.

Then after solemnly reaffirming the popular rights from which these abuses of the prerogative derogated, the declaration goes on to recite that, having an “entire confidence” William would “preserve them from the violation of the rights which they have here asserted, the Three Estates do resolve that William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, be and be declared king and queen: to hold the crown and royal dignity, to them the said Prince and Princess during their lives and the life of the survivor of them; and the sole and full exercise of the royal power be only in and exercised by the said Prince of Orange, in the names of the said Prince and Princess during their lives, and, after their deceases, the said crown and royal dignity of the said kingdoms and dominions to the heirs of the body of the said Princess; and, for default of such issue, to the Princess Anne of Denmark and the heirs of her body; and, for the default of such issue, to the issue of the said Prince of Orange.” Then followed an alteration required by the scrupulous conscience of Nottingham in the terms of the oath of allegiance.

On February 12th Mary arrived from Holland. On the following day, in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, the Prince and Princess of Orange were waited on by both Houses of convention in a body. The declaration was read by the clerk of the crown; the sovereignty solemnly tendered to them by Halifax, in the name of the Estates; and on the same day they were proclaimed king and queen in the usual places in the cities of London and Westminster.

This ends our selections on The Glorious Revolution by two of the most important authorities of this topic. This blog features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

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