The Glorious Revolution (1688): When London Staged the Politest Coup in History

November 1688 was when London perfected the art of the bloodless revolution, proving that sometimes the most dramatic political changes happen not with cannons and cavalry charges, but with strongly worded letters and a collective decision that enough was quite enough. The Glorious Revolution wasn’t just glorious – it was gloriously English in its combination of high principle, practical politics, and an almost supernatural ability to avoid making a mess while completely transforming the constitution.

The trouble had been brewing for years. James II, who had succeeded his brother Charles II in 1685, seemed determined to undo everything that made the Restoration work. Where Charles had been pragmatic and flexible, James was rigid and doctrinaire. Where Charles had understood the need for religious balance, James appeared bent on returning England to Catholicism, regardless of what his overwhelmingly Protestant subjects thought about the idea.

James’s problems weren’t just religious – they were constitutional. He believed in absolute monarchy with the fervor of a convert, which in a sense he was, having embraced both Catholicism and political absolutism with the enthusiasm of someone who’d discovered a wonderful new hobby. He packed the army with Catholic officers, appointed Catholics to university positions, and issued declarations of indulgence that seemed designed to undermine the Church of England’s established position.

London watched these developments with growing unease. The city that had thrown such a magnificent party for Charles II’s restoration was decidedly less enthusiastic about James’s vision of divine right monarchy. Merchants worried about their Protestant customers, nobles fretted about their estates, and ordinary Londoners began to mutter that perhaps they’d been hasty in welcoming back the Stuart dynasty.

The breaking point came in 1688 when James’s wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a son. Suddenly, the prospect of a Catholic dynasty stretching indefinitely into the future became terrifyingly real. Protestant England faced the nightmare scenario of not just a Catholic king, but a Catholic succession that could undo two centuries of religious and political development.

This was when a group of prominent politicians – the “Immortal Seven” – made one of the most audacious decisions in English political history. They wrote a letter to William of Orange, James’s Dutch nephew and Protestant son-in-law, formally inviting him to invade England and save the country from its own king. It was like calling in a foreign army to stage a family intervention, and somehow it worked.

William’s response was a masterpiece of political theater disguised as military action. He landed at Torbay in Devon with a professional army of 15,000 men, but he called it a “glorious enterprise” to restore English liberties rather than a conquest. His propaganda machine worked overtime, flooding the country with pamphlets explaining that he’d come not to conquer but to liberate, not to destroy but to preserve.

London’s reaction was immediate and telling. Instead of rallying to defend their anointed king, the city’s elite began what can only be described as a mass defection. Nobles, bishops, army officers, and government officials abandoned James with a speed that would have impressed Olympic sprinters. It was as if someone had announced that supporting James II had suddenly gone out of fashion, like wearing last year’s wig or serving inferior wine at dinner parties.

The military situation was almost comically one-sided. James’s army, which should have been his trump card, melted away like snow in summer. His own officers defected to William, his soldiers deserted in droves, and his navy declared for the Protestant cause. It became clear that James wasn’t just losing a war – he was losing a popularity contest, and losing it badly.

The psychological moment came when Princess Anne, James’s own daughter, fled London to join the rebels. When your own children abandon your cause, it’s generally a sign that your political position may be somewhat compromised. James, faced with the complete collapse of his support, made the decision that would define his legacy: he fled.

But here’s where the story becomes uniquely English. James didn’t flee because he was captured or because London was under siege. He fled because he could read the political winds and realized that nobody – literally nobody – wanted him to stay. It was the most polite revolution in history, where the king essentially fired himself rather than force his subjects to go through the unpleasantness of a proper civil war.

William’s entry into London on December 18, 1688, was a carefully choreographed triumph. Unlike a conqueror, he came not with trumpets and banners but with modesty and constitutional propriety. He didn’t claim the throne by right of conquest but accepted it as a gift from Parliament, establishing once and for all that English kings ruled by consent of the governed rather than by divine appointment.

The settlement that followed was revolutionary in its implications but conservative in its methods. William and Mary became joint monarchs not because they’d won a war, but because Parliament had offered them the crown with strings attached. The Bill of Rights that accompanied their coronation established principles that would influence constitutional development around the world: no standing armies without Parliamentary consent, no suspension of laws, no excessive bail or cruel punishments.

London celebrated the Glorious Revolution with characteristic English restraint. There were bonfires and celebrations, but nothing like the wild festivities that had marked Charles II’s restoration. This was a more mature city, conscious that they’d just accomplished something unprecedented and important, but also aware that the real work of building a new constitutional order was just beginning.

The revolution’s true genius lay in its combination of radical change and conservative justification. Parliament had effectively fired one king and hired another, but they’d done it in the name of preserving ancient English liberties rather than creating new ones. They’d staged a revolution by claiming they were preventing one, transformed the constitution by insisting they were defending it.

The Glorious Revolution established London as the capital of a constitutional monarchy that would become the model for democratic development worldwide. It proved that political change didn’t require bloodshed, that revolutions could be both thorough and civilized, and that sometimes the most effective way to transform a nation is to convince everyone that you’re simply restoring it to its proper condition.