1689 King James II., having endeavored to subvert the constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between king and people, and by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons having violated the fundamental laws and having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, had abdicated the government, and that the throne had thereby become vacant." This lumbering resolution was unanimously adopted. The Whigs were pleased with the clause which made the vacancy of the throne depend on James's misgovernment, and the Tories were pleased with the clause which made it depend on his so-called voluntary abdication. The Tories in the Lords proposed that James should remain nominally king, but that the country should be governed by a regent. Danby, however, and a small knot of Tories supported the Whigs, and the proposal was rejected. Danby had, indeed, a plan of his own. James, he held, had really abdicated, and the crown had therefore passed to the next heir. That heir was not, according to him, the supposititious infant, but the eldest daughter of James, Mary, Princess of Orange, who was now in her own right queen of England. It was an ingenious theory, but two circumstances were against its being carried into practice. In the first place, Mary scolded Danby for daring to set her above her husband. In the second place William made it known that he would neither be regent nor administer the government under his wife. Danby therefore withdrew his motion, and on February 6 the Lords voted, as the Commons had voted before, that James had abdicated and the throne was vacant. A Declaration of Rights was prepared condemning the dispensing power as lately exercised and the other extravagant actions of James II., while both Houses concurred in offering the crown to William and Mary as joint sovereigns. As long as William lived he was to administer the government, Mary only attaining to actual power in the event of her surviving her husband. After the death of both, the crown was to go first to any children which might be born to them, then to Anne and her children, and, lastly, to any children of William by a second wife in case of his surviving Mary and marrying again. As a matter of fact, William had no children by Mary, who died about eight years before him, and he never married again. On February 13 William and Mary accepted the crown on the conditions offered to them. The main characteristic of the revolution thus effected was 1641-1689 that it established the supremacy of Parliament by setting up a king and queen who owed their position to a Parliamentary vote. This political revolution succeeded, while the Puritan Revolution of 1641 failed, because, in 1641, the political aim of setting the Parliament above the king was complicated by an ecclesiastical dispute which had split Parliament and the nation into two hostile parties. In 1689 there was practically neither a political nor an ecclesiastical dispute. Tories and Whigs combined to support the change, and Churchmen and Dissenters made common cause against the small Roman Catholic minority which had only been dangerous because it had the Crown at its back, and because the Crown had been supported by Louis and his armies. A revolution thus effected was, no doubt, far less complete than that which had been aimed at by the more advanced assailants of the throne of Charles I. It did not aim at changing more than a small part of the political constitution of the country, nor at changing any part whatever of the social institutions. Consequently it did not rouse the antagonism which had been fatal even to the best conceived. plans of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. It is much to be regretted that the moral tone of the men who brought about the revolution of 1689 was lower than that which had brought about the revolution of 1641. That this was the case, however, was mainly the fault of the unwise attempt of the Puritans to enforce morality by law. The individual liberty which was encouraged by the later revolution would in due time work for morality as well as for political improvement. I Chapter XLII WILLIAM III. AND MARY II. WILLIAM III. 1689-1702. MARY II. 1689-1694 LEADING DATES THE MUTINY ACT AND THE TOLERATION ACT, 1689-BATTLe of Killie- T was unlikely that William would long be popular. He was cold and reserved, and he manifestly cared more for the strug gle on the continent than for the strife which never ceased between English parties. Yet he was sagacious enough to know that it was only by managing English affairs with firmness and wisdom that he could hope to carry England with him in his conflict with France; and he did his work so well that, though few of his new subjects loved him, most of them learned to respect him. As he owed his crown to the support of both parties, he chose his first ministers from both. In March his throne was exposed to some danger. The army was dissatisfied in consequence of the shabby part which it had played when called on to defend James II., and one regiment mutinied. Only the Dutch troops could be trusted, and it was by them that the mutiny was suppressed. The punishment of mutinous soldiers by courts-martial had been forbidden by the Petition of Right. Parliament now passed a Mutiny Act, which authorized the maintenance of discipline by such courts for six months only. The Act has been since renewed from year to year, and as, if it dropped, the king would have no lawful means of maintaining discipline, Parliament thus maintains control over the army. Still more important was the Toleration Act, which gave to Dissenters the legal right to worship publicly, on complying with |