Revolutions can be many things. Bloody or peaceful, necessary or unnecessary. What a particular revolution is then, of course, always depends on the point of view. But today I would like to talk about a completely different revolution:the Glorious Revolution of England in 1688. And even if one likes to accuse the British of presenting almost everything as glorious, legendary and even mythical, this word has its justification here. The Glorious Revolution as it is known in English (or simply the English Revolution) was a truly glorious one. Well, at least if you disregard the fact that you had to invite a Dutchman to keep order in your own country. Today's Brexit supporters should actually be angry with the green and blue.
The English problem with Catholicism
Like so much in English history, the Glorious Revolution has to do with religion. The issue of religion and religious practice is one of the most fascinating contradictions in the country. A country where today it feels like every second church has been converted into a nightclub, supermarket or Sikh temple. For what England is today has its roots in large part in the religious disputes of earlier times. The period in which these disputes were fought out most intensely was the 17th century.
The events that were to bring about the Glorious Revolution in 1688 began a good 150 years earlier. Henry VIII famously fell out with the Catholic Church and set England on the path to Protestantism. Of course, that was probably not really intended on his part. Heinrich saw himself as a Catholic all his life, but he just had a few problems with women. Incomprehensible to Henry, the pope didn't think it was great when kings divorced their wives or had their wives beheaded. The Vatican has always been a spoilsport.
But what began across Europe in the 16th century escalated for good in the following century. Since the fanatics went completely nuts on all sides. As is well known, on the continent itself we experienced the Thirty Years' War, the most devastating military conflict of all time. But of course a proud island nation like England would not allow itself to be drawn into such a stupid and unnecessary argument! Blood-soaked battlefields with the dead piling up in the thousands as far as the eye can see. No! England certainly doesn't need Europe for that. They do it wonderfully on their own!
Glorious Revolution... only glorious compared to what?
The English king at the time of the Thirty Years' War was Charles I Stuart. Like most kings since Henry VIII, he was a Protestant, at least on paper. And that's what you had to be in England too! The population and - more importantly - the nobility - were largely Protestant or even radically Protestant. The Puritans in particular, a particularly strict breed of Protestantism, experienced rapid popularity at the time. Many of them later even emigrated to the American colonies because life in England was too vicious for them. Protestant life in England in the early 17th century! Well, they were right. Going to church just once a day is downright heretical...
The problem with all this:King Charles himself did not take the matter of Protestantism very seriously. This created an ongoing tension that escalated in 1642. Then Karl asked Parliament for more money to fight an Irish rebellion. In return, they wanted to have control over the deployed army. As a reaction, Karl tried to have some members of parliament arrested without further ado, which finally made the camel’s straw overflow. The population stood behind the members of parliament, the parliament set up an army and the English civil war could take its course. The troops of Parliament and the King massacred each other for almost seven years, until the Army of Parliament under Oliver Cromwell emerged victorious from the war. Charles was executed and England became a republic. That all sounds fine now, but republic in the context meant more of a dictatorial rule by Oliver Cromwell than anything you now imagine. How wonderful this time was for the population is still deeply anchored in the collective memory. Ask an Irishman what he has to say about it!
Oh, the Stuarts aren't that bad
After a good (or rather bad) ten years, Cromwell's spook was over. The English experiment with the Republic had failed. It is not without reason that the country is still a monarchy today, contrary to all human logic! After the dictator Oliver Cromwell had died in 1658 and his son had relinquished the office he had been given faster than Theresa May three times “strong and stable” say, Karl's son Karl II was brought back to the country. The reign of the Stuart kings wasn't that bad, one thought. People never learn.
Unfortunately, the peace with the Stuarts did not last long this time either. King Karl died in 1685 and his brother James II took over the reigns. And that was a real problem, because Jacob was a self-confessed Catholic! So not like his brother and father, who were at least secretly Catholics or only converted on their deathbed, that was at least polite! Jacob was openly loyal to the Pope! In any case, the Protestant nobles were alarmed. But at least they had one last consolation:Jakob was already over 50 years old and had only two daughters, both of whom were deeply Protestant. "Let's just let the old bastard do it, it can't take that long", so they thought.
Unfortunately, the English nobles really just had bad luck. Three years after his accession to the throne, Jacob suddenly became a father again – and a son at that! His rather whimsical attempts to strengthen the role of Catholics in England were suddenly deadly serious. Then some barons had a brilliant idea:Let's just invite a Dutchman to invade England! The Glorious Revolution plan was born!
Actually a less than glorious revolution
So they wrote a letter to the nice governor of the Netherlands, William of Orange, and asked quite casually whether he had any plans for the autumn. There were several reasons for the decision to invite him to England with his entire army. On the one hand – and most importantly – Wilhelm, unlike Jacob, was of course a Protestant. On the other hand, he was also Jacob's son-in-law, which from a dynastic point of view was not entirely insignificant. That fits perfectly! The nobility must have thought so and took action with the aim of finally dismantling their Catholic king.
In November 1688, Wilhelm landed in England with a sizeable army and began moving towards London. Now it was to turn out for Jakob that he really had bet on the wrong horse. Most of the population was somewhat negative about the pro-Catholic airs of their king. On top of that, Jakob wasn't particularly popular personally. Wilhelm, on the other hand, was a handsome and polite man, was extremely well received by the people and embodied the ideals of the Enlightenment, which was very much en vogue at the time, quite a bit better. Knowing the Dutch, he probably spoke better English than most English people back then, which certainly didn't hurt. After large sections of the nobility defected to Wilhelm, James II quickly threw in the towel. In a heroic act, he stole out of his room and fled to France in the dead of night. Wilhelm and his wife Maria, the daughter of James II, were crowned equal King and Queen of England the following spring.
A very English revolution
So the Glorious Revolution went completely without a fight, at least for the time being. It's quite a boring revolution, one could say now. So how does it qualify as such at all? Well, that has more to do with its aftermath than the event itself. With the expulsion of Jacob and the coronation of William, a completely new era began in England. The king was no longer subordinate to parliament, he had to govern with parliament. This status as "King in Parliament" remained with the British monarchy to this day.
Twelve years after the Glorious Revolution, England finally "solved" its religion problem. With the Act of Settlement in 1701, Catholics were outright forbidden from becoming kings of England. Even marrying a Catholic excluded a member of the royal family from inheritance until recently! So the problem was solved once and for all! Super, well done, dear English. But well, maybe you'd better ask the Irishman from earlier what he thinks about it.
You can still sign up for my email newsletter here if you want to get a regular dose of entertaining stories in your inbox. By the way, this post is my contribution to the “Revolutions” blog parade, which the German Historical Museum has announced. You might find other exciting posts there! You can read about whether and what you should learn from this in this post, in which I deal with the often claimed repetition of history. See you next time!