The English Revolution, 1688-1689

Why do historians regard the Revolution of 1688 as important? And did it deserve the title of “glorious” which was long its distinctive epithet? “The Sensible Revolution” would perhaps have been a more appropriate title and certainly would have distinguished it more clearly as among other revolutions.But in so far as it was indeed “glorious,” in what does its “glory” consist? It is not the Napoleonic brand of glory. It is not to be sought in the glamour of its events, the drama of its scenes, and the heroism of its actors, though these also rouse the imagination and stir the blood. The Seven Bishops passing to the Tower through the kneeling throngs; William’s fleet floating into Torbay before the Protestant wind; the flight of James II, following his wife and infant son to France, none of them ever to return—doubtless these are romantic scenes, that live in memory. Such also are the events that followed more bloodily in Scotland and in Ireland—the roaring pass of Killiecrankie, the haggard watch on Londonderry walls, and Boyne water bristling with musket and pike. Yet all these are not, like the fall of the Bastille or Napoleon’s Empire, a new birth of time, a new shape of terror. They are spirited variations on themes invented forty years before by a more heroic, creative and imprudent generation.