---
node: glorious_revolution
type: event
slug: glorious_revolution
title: "The Glorious Revolution"
lead: "In 1688 William of Orange landed in England at the invitation of leading notables; James II fled, and in 1689 William III and Mary II took the throne bound by the Bill of Rights. The revolution fixed parliamentary supremacy over the crown."
published: 2026-07-11
updated: 2026-07-11
---

## What happened

William landed at Torbay on 5 November 1688 with a Dutch army. James II's forces melted away, and he escaped to France. A Convention Parliament declared the throne vacant and offered it jointly to William and Mary, on conditions set out in the Bill of Rights of 1689 — no royal suspension of laws, no taxation or standing army without Parliament, free elections and frequent parliaments.

## Background

James II's open Catholicism, his purges of office-holders, and the birth of a Catholic heir in June 1688 united Whig and Tory notables — the 'Immortal Seven' — behind an invitation to William, Mary's husband and the Protestant champion against Louis XIV.

## Consequences

In England the transfer was nearly bloodless, but it was fought out in Scotland and in Ireland, where William's victory at the Boyne (1690) entrenched Protestant rule. The settlement — with the Toleration Act and, in 1701, the Act of Settlement — made England a parliamentary monarchy and pulled it into the European wars against France.