The Glorious Revolution

This is the essay for the 33rd week of the 7th Grade Ron Paul Curriculum. It’s about the Glorious Revolution.

 

The king of England during the Glorious Revolution was James II. He was the second son of Charles I. He became king in 1685 when his brother Charles II died of Apoplexy. It seemed that James II tried to get Catholicism back in England and also regain some of the Monarchy’s power. James II was also struggling with the English parliament and the Anglican establishment. He also persecuted Scottish Covenanters and his belief in absolutist philosophies also damaged his relations with the parliament.

At the beginning of James II reign, nobody thought it would cause a revolution. The original heir to the throne was James’s Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William III. But when James II got a protestant son James Francis Edward Stuart the parliament started to worry that Catholicism would come back. During this time even some supporters of the Monarchy, the Tories started siding with the supporters of the parliament, the Whigs.

Mary’s husband William was also king of the Netherlands or back then the Orange-Nassau region. When James’s made his protestant son the heir the English Parliament asked William III to invade England and depose James II as king. The invasion was so successful that in 1689. Mary and William became co-monarchs of England, James II had to flee England and was deposed as king in 1688, only three years after he became king James II was also the last Roman Catholic king in England.

The glorious Revolution Earned its name because of the fact that it was not very bloody. Unlike its French counterpart the French Revolution. And this showed that the parliament could be stronger than the Monarchy. The Glorious Revolution ended any chance of there being another Roman Catholic king. This was made stronger by the Act of Settlement which was passed in 1701 which said that any Catholics weren’t able to inherit the throne. The Bill of Rights established the modern parliamentarian state according to many historians. The Bill of Rights was passed after the Glorious Revolution. Which technically means that the Glorious Revolution caused the modern parliamentarian state. Since the time of the Glorious Revolution, the Crown has kept losing power and the parliament gaining power.

Even though the Glorious Revolution succeeded in deposing James II, it wasn’t a complete success. By definition any revolution centralizes power. The Glorious Revolution was also a basis for the American Revolution.