1688: The Tornado That Swept a Nation

Sixteen eighty-eight will forever be a year remembered in both English and religious history. The changes rained down chaos on what was thought to be permanent establishments and traditions in English culture and government. The events surrounding England leading up to and in the year 1688 added to the overall history of Europe during the late seventeenth century, while at the same time distinguished England from the rest of the Continental powers.

The Calm Before the Storm

England during the late seventeenth century was a thriving country with diversity and tradition. Black explains the times well saying:

In 1400-1660 there had been considerable disruption due to the aristocratic feuds and dynastic discontinuities of the fifteenth century, the Reformation and the Civil Wars, but thereafter there was more continuity, at least at the elite level, although, lower down, the enclosure of land brought major social change reflected in particular in the decline of the yeoman class into peasantry.

This newfound stability solidified the hierarchical society surrounding the average person during these times. Culminating at about five million people, the men and women of England predominantly lived in villages with three to four hundred people on average with three-fifths of the English people living in these villages. Coupled with the lack of a good road system and economic difficulties, any of these Englishmen stayed near their birthplace for their lives never moving outside the village.

After the political instability of the 1640s and 1650s, English society finally stabilized after the Restoration, which is Charles II ascent to the throne after his father was executed, Puritan revolutionaries took over the country, and the crown was restored to the Stuart line. Heyck explained that “After the restoration of the Stuart line in 1660, the gentry reigned like little kings in the countryside. There was no police or standing army, and the gentry controlled the militia. … the gentry took responsibility for law and order at the local level.” The gentry’s power and wealth were also slowly on the rise due to the economy and the prominence of London as a thriving European city. Due to immigration and “aggressive English foreign and colonial policy,” English elite found themselves in a thriving and boisterous economy in which they already owned a large portion of. With exports on the rise it seemed as if England was becoming a major dominating country in the spectrum of Continental Europe.

London was also a major advantage for England. Though a few zealots left from the days of Cromwell “…regarded as an unhealthy influence on the nation, partly because it drained away wealth and population and party because it housed the makings of a mob that might intimidate the government.” Though these fears were not new or unfounded, most people believed London had a lot to offer. Not only the central focal point of fashion and society, but “London was the largest European city west of Constantinople. It was the center of national politics, the location of the high courts, the greatest port in England by far, the radiating nucleus of foreign trade, and the home of a growing financial interest.” However, these thriving times also made London a “receptacle of thousands of unemployed from the provinces and teemed with street people of all sorts.” As with most countries on the eve of a crisis, the deception of stability and prosperity was only a mask hiding the storm brewing in the nation.

A Tempest on the Horizon

The religious tension leading up to the Glorious Revolution was obvious to most contemporaries, but especially to the elite and the Irish. After the turmoil of Puritan rule during the Commonwealth, the English “believed that an established Church of England on the Episcopal model (that is, with bishops ruling dioceses) was the main instrument for social order." They believed that church and state should not be separate and that the ruling monarch was meant to lead the nation as head of the Church. Without this balance of a unified religion, many believed that the nation would divide and fall. Many alive during this time remembered Cromwellian rule, recalling the feeling of hopelessness as a ruler with a different religious view exploited Englishmen in order to attempt to spread their zealous ways.

Religious tolerance had a brief glimpse of hope when Charles II was invited back to England to rule in 1660. Charles “promised 'liberty to tender consciences,' but Parliament was in no mood to encourage religious pluralism." This would set the tone for religious intolerance both against dissenters (non-Anglican Protestants) and more forcibly and violently, Roman Catholics. For example there was the Clarendon Code, which limited the rights of non-Anglicans such as it “suppressed any unauthorized religious meeting, whether non-conformist or Roman Catholic.” Another important piece of legislation was the Test Act, which required all English officers to swear an oath that praised and required the belief in the Church of England and simultaneously denounced all other religions and denominations, banning Catholics and dissenters from holding office.

Ireland, still under the rule of the British crown, was another matter all together. Instead of a majority of Protestantism trying to oust itself of the remnants of Roman Catholicism, Ireland was about seventy-five to eighty percent Catholic and was trying to hold onto a country that was splitting over the religion issue. Heyck explains that “[t]o aggravate matters, most landlords by the late seventeenth century were Protestants, and most tenants and farm laborers were Catholics.” This socio-religious status would last in Ireland for decades to come. However, Ireland was more volatile and dangerous because it would be the ideal place of a Catholic power to go to win the British Isles, bringing it under the wing of the Papacy. This heightened tension added to Englishmen’s skepticism of both the Irish people but also the court.

This was the climate in which the question of Charles’s succession arose. Having no heir of his own, his obvious heir would be his brother James, Duke of York, king of Scotland. Known as the ‘merry monarch,’ in his early years Charles found it easier to relatively keep the peace between Catholics and Anglicans as a new ruler. Heyck explains saying, “Charles took care never to appear as an enemy of Protestantism, nor to alienate the Anglican establishment and its supporters." While Charles had his vices such as womanizing and adultery, these were ignored for the most part by English noblemen, unlike his brother James.

James was an open and feverous Catholic who faced a Parliament who questioned his succession of the throne because of his religion and personality that reminded both Parliament and the nation of his father, Charles I, who was beheaded under the charge of his tyrannical and pugnacious ways. Black comments that “James had inherited his father Charles I's worst characteristics-- inflexibility and dogmatism-- and pressured forward unpopular authoritarian changes designed to further his goals of greater royal authority and paving the way for re-‘Catholicsation’." It was under the critical eye of the nation that a hate for James, Duke of York, truly formed within Parliament, and later the nation. A major attack on James was the invention of Isreal Tonge and Titus Oates, who formed the false conspiracy known as the Popish plot. Stater explains the effect that the conspiracy had on Parliamentary politics:

In October 1678, the revelation of a plot to murder the king and place the duke of York on the throne initiated a series of events that culminated in the triumph of the anti-Exclusionist party in 1685. The plot turned the once acquiescent Cavalier Parliament, which was already uneasy about the duke's open Catholicism, into a ready instrument in the hands of the earl of Shaftesbury and his allies in their campaign to oust York from the King's council.

These increasing skepticisms and rumors finally pushed Parliament over the edge into the realm of questioning the succession of James as king after his brother Charles.

The main issue that the nation had with James was his religion, though it was not helped by his personality. Heyck sheds light on the minds of England saying that “James was slow-witted and rigid. From the early 1970s, the desire grew among many Protestants to keep James from succeeding to his inheritance." He reminded Parliament too much of his father, and they feared that his contentious ways would lead to the same result: a civil war and regime that tore the nation apart, left it in colossal debt, and the threat of invasion from foreign powers. The fear of absolutism also threatened Parliament. Many nations in Continental Europe were leaning towards absolute rule by their monarchies and it was feared that England would suffer the same fate. From the viewpoint of Parliament, for example, France, ruled by Louis XIV, was on the verge of absolutism. Since Louis was Catholic, the conclusion that Catholicism was synonymous with absolute rule quickly emerged as a popular theory in England. For the Whigs “popery necessarily led to absolutism, particularly since James, in their eyes, had so alienated the Protestant people of England that he must inevitably try to rule absolutely." So in 1679, debates of whether to allow James’s succession as king of England (he was already king of Scotland) took a serious turn. Parliament tried to keep Charles at bay by controlling the budget he was allocated for his affairs, yet this backfired.

Charles had to turn to Louis XIV, his cousin, king of France, and one of the richest and most powerful kings in Europe in order to finance his reign. This turning to a Catholic power is exactly what Parliament feared and it raised fears that Charles was Catholic too. A major turning point in the Exclusion Crisis was when the House of Commons in 1679 finally passed a bill that excluded James from the line of succession but “Charles could not accept, and he defeated the measure with one of the strongest weapons still in the monarch's political arsenal: he dissolved Parliament." This move saved his brother from the insult of being denied his coronation rights.

To the gentry, this failure to stop their assumed tyrant from assuming the throne unleashed fear and apprehension. Stater explains the contemporary view stating, “The ties of community and interest that bound the gentry, already weakened by the civil wars and interregnum, came under extreme pressure in the age of party inaugurated by the Exclusion Crisis." Tensions were high when after the death of his brother, James I took the throne, unleashing a reign of absolutism and a push for re-‘Catholicsation’ of England.

High Winds and Dark Clouds

James believed that he was the divinely anointed monarch, an idea that he shared with his father. With this assumed blessing from God, James pushed to return England to the arms of the Vatican. James began to make decisions that showed his true intentions of integrating Catholicism into the government and high society of England. However, “James's trouble was that the English Parliament refused to cooperate with him in his Catholic policy. That meant he had to operate by the royal prerogative.” This only caused another grievance of Parliament, the infringement on their liberties. James kept on pushing, calling for an end to the Test Act, the legislation that barred non-Anglicans from holding public office. Since James wanted Catholic officers in the army, for a start, “[i]n 1686, he began the tactic of 'closeting members' members of Parliament-- canvassing and pressuring them to repeal the Test Act and the Clarendon Code against Catholics." While this was happening, rebellions and uprisings were happening in Scotland and Ireland.

This need for troops allowed for James to gain some political power, at least temporarily. Although the needed money was granted to James from Parliament to put down the rebellions, when he “sought to maintain his army of twenty thousand men and to keep the ninety Catholic officers he had appointed in defiance of the Test Act, the political nation-- Tories included-- felt that their liberties and their power were being threatened.” James had crossed a major line and was rapidly approaching his political point of no return.

James’s fervor for Catholicism continued on, defying Parliament and the will of the English people. James began to make some very public moves that made his favor toward Catholicism and Rome extremely apparent. He soon “encouraged Catholic priests to return to England, allowed them to proselytize by education and propaganda, exchanged representatives with the Vatican, accepted a Vicar Apostolic (bishop) from Rome, and even too two Jesuits into his intimate circle." It was these acts, coupled with the activity in France against Protestants that terrified Parliament. Louis XIV of France had revoked the Edict of Nantes, which allowed for religious tolerance in France by allocating certain areas for non-Catholics to live and work. French Protestants were soon fleeing to England for protection. However, the proximity of these two events in time and nature strongly associated James with Louis XIV, who was seen as a tyrannical, zealous Catholic who ruled absolutely.

On a more threatening matter, James was teetering on the edge of a issue that had already come into question several times even before his reign: his royal legitimacy. His actions and policies “destroyed any chance he had of maintaining an alliance with the Church of England, which had been a bulwark of royal legitimacy and had adopted a posture of 'passive obedience' to the king's will.” Without this support, the common people of England would no longer be reminded of the king’s legitimacy. The Church was the major form of communication to the English people, who mostly lacked legibility and mass forms of communication. The common Englishman was accustomed to listening to the Church for the socially correct way to think and as the authority on political, as well as spiritual and social, matters in the country. Therefore, the result of James losing any hope of support crushed the chance of support from the people

James I kept pushing his regime, even though he was losing all support from royalists and Tories alike. He went too far when he pushed for all Oxford and Cambridge schools to be open to Catholics and forced them to hire Catholic scholars. A University of Oxford school, Magdalen College, refused to allow this disregard for their tradition and requirements. James’s solution was to have “removed the fellows from their posts, which struck English Protestants not only as a blow to Protestantism but also as a threat to the rights of private property." It seemed that every time James pushed for more Catholicism in English society, he lost more and more supporters for civic, not religious reasons.

James however, would make one more move that would seal his fate as a failed monarch. Heyck speculates that “The climax of James's campaign came in April 1687, when he issued a Declaration of Indulgence, suspending by royal edict the Test Act and penal laws against Catholics and dissenters alike." This Declaration of Indulgence angered both politician and commoner alike, being an obvious defiance of English law and tradition. However, it must be noted that James also granted rights for both Catholics and dissenters. He was trying to gain the support of the dissenters, who had seen so much oppression from Anglicans and thought that he could unite the two causes with the showing of the commonality in that oppression. However, “[a]s he descendants of the Puritans, the dissenters had long been more hostile to Romanism than had the Anglicans.” They simply could not trust James to hold up the bargain of tolerance. The alliance with Anglicanism took form by spring of 1688.

Here Comes the Hail

Reissuing the Declaration of Indulgence in April 1688, James commanded in May that all parishes of the Church of England read the edict to their patrons. Not only did this anger Anglicans immensely, but it was also pointless to communication. Both parties effected by this, Catholics and dissenters, would not be at an Anglican church. This move was too far and James soon met opposition. Soon, “[s]even Anglican bishops, including the archbishop of Canterbury, petitioned James on grounds that his prerogative powers gave him no right to force the clergy to read the Declaration.” James had these seven arrested and tried for libel of the seditious variety. However, he was unable to win a verdict of guilty, proving that James had lost all of his allies and friends. James’s reign seemed like it was politically debunked. Heyck offers the view that “[n]o doubt Protestant bigotry must share some of the blame, but James's haughty insensitivity and rigidity played a vital role." However, by miracle or conspiracy, depending on one’s bias, James’s reign was about to be more secure than ever.

James had been married previously and had two daughters, Mary and Anne, both raised and married Protestant. Mary was in line to inherit the throne, with the accompaniment of her husband, William of Orange. James’s second wife, Mary of Modena, a Catholic, was assumed infertile after many failed attempts at producing an heir for James. But to the terror and annoyance of the enemies of James, “in November 1687, she announced to a surprised and skeptical world that she was pregnant." Suddenly, the nation was in a panic about the heir of the unwanted Catholic king. Many thought her pregnancy a hoax or a fake. However, on June 10, 1688, James received his heir, a son. Swiftly, “[f]rantic Protestant propaganda suggested that the baby was not the queen's child but had been smuggled into the royal bedchamber in a warming pan." This was the breaking point for the British elite.

Thunder and Lightning

Seven members of the British elite took matters into their own hands. Seeking a leader that was both strongly Protestant and could push for a legitimate claim to the throne, six nobles and one bishop, from both the Tories and the Whigs, wrote to William of Orange, James’s son-in-law and nephew, to come and save their nation. The letter reads:

We have great satisfaction to find … that your Highness is so ready and willing to give us such assistances as they have related to us. We have great reason to believe we shall be every day in a worse condition than we are, and less able to defend ourselves, and therefore we do earnestly wish we might be so happy as to find a remedy before it be too late for us to contribute to our own deliverance. But although these be our wishes, yet we will by no means put your Highness into any expectations which may misguide your own councils in this matter; so that the best advice we can give is to inform your Highness truly both of the state of things here at this time and of the difficulties which appear to us.

As to the first, the people are so generally dissatisfied with the present conduct of the government in relation to their religion, liberties and properties (all which have been greatly invaded)… who are desirous of a change… It is no less certain that much the greatest part of the nobility and gentry are as much dissatisfied… that strength would quickly be increased to a number double to the army here…
If upon a due consideration of all these circumstances your Highness shall think fit to adventure upon the attempt, or at least to make such preparations for it as are necessary (which we wish you may), there must be no more time lost in letting us know your resolution concerning it… no certain resolutions can be taken till we have heard again from your Highness.

The letter was merely an invitation to invade, the thing that the English feared most, only second to Popery. The geographic nature of England allowed the fear of invasion to fester among generations and since William the Conqueror took London in 1066, England was to be invaded, yet this time by invitation.

William of Orange wanted this to happen. It was not that he wanted to debunk the English crown, but he wanted the advantage of having England as an ally in his fight against France; if invasion was the way to get that William would take that chance. He is described as “a cautious, shrewd opportunist, who ought to take advantage of the English opposition to James in order to fulfill the great goal of his life: to block the expansion of Louis XIV's France." William’s ideal situation was for England to avoid a civil war, to align with Holland against France, and to keep the monarchy intact for the eventual succession of his wife Mary. However, James’s actions, along with the recent birth of an heir, made this situation impossible. William believed the heir to be a conspiracy by the Jesuits, a monastic sect that was banned from England and seen by contemporaries as the Pope’s right hand. William feared a civil war was on the way for England.

Nevertheless, William had to wait for the right opportunity. He was viciously fighting off an invasion of Holland by France and needed relief in order to take his troops to the British Isles. Heyck describes the event that changed the tides as follows: “Fortune favored William, because in 1688, Louis saw an opportunity-- on that had to be seized quickly-- to advance his long -standing interest in the Rhineland." Louis XIV finally had the chance to take on long-time rivals the Habsburgs of the Holy Roman Empire. Seen as a greater threat and greater opportunity, France moved to attack in September 1688.

On October 30, 1688, “William's fleet of 275 ships, carrying a carefully prepared army of fifteen thousand men, sailed” for England. His banner read “The Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England” giving the impression not of invasion, but salvation. William launched a propaganda campaign all over the nation. For example:

The manifesto William circulated cleverly stated the purposes of his invasion: it rehearsed the long list of complaints about James's attack on the Church, the parliamentary boroughs, and the privileges of the county elite; it asserted the rights of Parliament as against James's unlawful use of the prerogative; and it promised election of a free Parliament and investigation of the Prince of Wales.
Most people stood aside and let William make his way to London, conquering towns along the way. The Whigs, of course, supported William and soon Tories joined as well.

James had made an attempt to win back support quickly by reversing his recent actions such as reinstating the arrested fellows of Magdalen College. Yet, it was too little, too late. The problem was that “James forced the Tories to choose between the Church and their local power on the one hand and the principle of monarchical legitimacy on the other." Cornered and without help, James sent the queen and his young son to France on December 8, 1688, following two days later. He attempted to bring all government to a halt by disbanding the royal army and throwing the Great Seal, the seal needed to legitimize any government document, into the Thames River. Though James technically fled, Parliament would eventually declare that James had abdicated the throne. Heyck explains that, “William could not have hoped for a better chain of events, which was spoiled only by some Kentish fishermen who captured James and returned him to London. Upon leaving James wrote to Parliament saying, “'That he thought himself oblig'd in Conscience to do all he cou'd to open his People's Eyes, that they might see the true Interest of the Nation in this important Conjuncture: That finding he cou'd no longer stay with Safety, nor act with Freedom, he had left the Reasons of his withdrawing from Rochester.” William had no intention of making a martyr of James; hence, he arranged for him to escape again." Suddenly, William was handed a country without barely any fighting.

The Eye of the Storm

Parliament was now faced with making all of the events legal. William himself had something to say on the legality of the upheaval: “It is both certain and evident to all men, that the public peace and happiness of any state or kingdom cannot be preserved where the law, liberties, and customs, established by the lawful authority in it, are openly transgressed and annulled.” Black comments that “the dynastic position was crucial: political legitimacy could not be divorced from the sovereign and the succession." It was imperative that Parliament make William’s takeover legitimate to debunk any future upheavals or revolutions. While easily deciding to block any Catholics from future succession and to place restrictions on the monarchy, Parliament leaned toward the argument of wording in order to justify the revolution they had caused.

Parliament followed the logic of John Locke’s writing during the Exclusion Crisis (though not published until 1689). They decided that if “the king broke the original 'social contract' by which civil society had been initially formed, then the people, through their representatives, had the right to depose him and select a new monarch." Locke’s work was well circulated throughout Europe and would have been read by many of members of Parliament as well as members of the elite and emerging merchant classes. Parliament decided that ‘abdicated’ would be the correct term. An example of the kind of debate surrounding the issue is as follows:
... whereas they look upon the word 'abdicated,' to express properly what is to be inferred; from that part of the Vote to which your lordships have agreed, That king James II. by going about to subvert the constitution, and by breaking the original contract between king and people, and by violating the fundamental laws, and withdrawing himself out of the kingdom, hath thereby renounced to be a king according to the constitution, by avowing to govern by a despotic power, unknown to the constitution, and inconsistent with it; he hath renounced to be a king according to the law, such as a king as he swore to be at his coronation, such a king to whom the allegiance of an English subject is due; and hath set up another kind of dominion, which is to all intents an 'abdication,' or abandoning of his legal title, as fully as if it had been done by express words.-- And, my lords, for these Reasons the commons do insist upon the word 'abdicated,' and cannot agree on the word 'deserted.'

James would be declared abdicated, leaving William free to take the role of king and monarch. There was debate to whether William should take authority:
Mr Garroway.] All England is sensible of the great deliverance that we have had from Popery and Slavery by this generous Expedition of the Prince of Orange. I need not urge Arguments to give him Thanks; and, in the mean time, till we can proceed to a Settlement of the Nation, and till the Lords and Commons shall make farther application to him, desire "that he will be pleased to take the Administration of the Government upon him.
William was the obvious, and planned choice.

A Glimmer of Blue Sky

William was now in a position “to play the role he believed God assigned him-- to defeat the Catholic France of the Sun King." However, because of the recent restrictions placed on royal power, he would have a hard time receiving financing it. However, what would be deemed the Glorious Revolution would have a lasting significance and impact both in England and in Europe.

Domestically, the revolution would be the victory chant of the Whig party for years to come, claiming themselves as the saviors of the empire. It would lend to them a “heroic, self-congratulatory account of English development." Black further explains that Whiggish and Protestant would be seen as synonymous. They ensured this by binding Protestantism to the oath monarchs would take. Part of the oath given to William and Mary was “Will You to the utmost of Your power Maintaine the Laws of God the true Profession of the Gospell and the Protestant Reformed Religion Established by Law? And will You Preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of this Realme and to the Churches committed to their Charge all such Rights and Priviledges as by Law doe or shall appertaine unto them or any of them.” Also, the Glorious Revolution would be a large step towards a parliamentary monarchy. While some might argue that it resulted in a parliamentary monarchy, “the instability of the ministries of the period 1989-1721 suggests that the political environment necessary for an effective parliamentary monarchy had in some ways been hindered by the events of 1688-89.” Domestically, the effect of the revolution was more legal and political, as opposed to on a continental and international scale, which was more cultural.

The Glorious Revolution defined the relationships England would have with other nations for decades to come. Black comments that the revolution:
Not only in encouraging links with the Protestant world, especially with the United Provinces, but also because a tenuous link can be drawn between the willingness to conceive a new political structures and governmental arrangements, seen, for example with the parliamentary Union of England and Scotland in 1707 and the foundation of the Bank of England in 1694.
Also, a worldwide alliance between Anglicans and nonconformists began to emerge as a result of the alliances formed in 1688.

The Colors of the Wind

Art and music were important movements during the Glorious Revolution. Before, “by European standards, the British monarchs were not great patrons, in part because of the limited nature of royal revenues and the dependence on parliamentary financial support." However, because of the need for propaganda, art became a tool in order to show the splendor of William of Orange or the nobility of James. Music was important to the English and went through change that reflected the events of the year.

Many London publishers began printing musical instruction books after the Restoration. The emergence of the merchant classes led to an enlarging of houses that could afford to hire musicians. Chamber music was very popular and “the French and Italian styles [were] given frequent performance.” Music followed the changing of politics. When Charles II came back to England, the popular music changed to the light and airy style that Charles had grown accustomed to while in exile. When competitive professionalism rose at the end of the seventeenth century, the more eloquent and bold instruments dominated the musical scene. Mackerness comments that “The musical public at the end of the seventeenth century was unquestionably larger than it had been in Elizabethan times, but the political and religious events of the intervening period had, in a subtle way, helped to make it more superficial." With the political instability, Englishmen looked for outlets and found solace in the novelty of art and music.

Overall, the year 1688 has strong resonance in English history as a year of revolution and culmination. England avoided becoming the absolutist nation that would cause so much trouble in the coming centuries for the European Continent. While further developing into a constitutional monarchy, Parliament secured more power and defined the role of a monarch in English government. Contemporaries saw this year as a culmination of the grievances they had with both church and state. England in the year 1688 would forever leave a path of destruction and debris through the power of the monarchy.