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- Title
The Peerage and the Revolution of 1688.
- Authors
HOSFORD, DAVID
- Abstract
Four points support the thesis that the English nobility played a critical role in the revolution. First, the later 17th-century aristocracy was energetic, wealthy, and connected in ways facilitating political action within, and subsequently outside, the parliamentary arena. Second, it was a class conscious of status and privilege which many policies of James II bumped up against inadvertently, but often with negative consequence. Third, most peers were observant protestants in an age when religious belief, or at least the externals of practice, still mattered greatly. Fourth, habits of deference and traditional spheres of influence at the local level remained surprisingly intact despite intensive royal effort to reshape the lieutenancies, commissions of the peace, and municipal and other corporate bodies. Resistance to repeal of the Test Acts was the issue around which a leadership group emerged in the aristocracy. Initially it focused on a parliamentary solution in which an absolute majority in the house of lords could be counted on to stand firm no matter how the Commons might vote. In the absence of that opportunity and in the face of other events regarded as inimical to class, nation and the protestant interest, many peers turned away from natural alliance with the crown and - in the case of a forward group - conspired with the prince of Orange. Ultimately, more than a third of the nobility aligned itself with those peers intent on constraining the king's freedom of political action, an important factor contributing to his decision to flee.
- Subjects
UNITED Kingdom; GLORIOUS Revolution, Great Britain, 1688; NOBILITY (Social class); ARISTOCRACY (Political science); WILLIAM, Prince of Orange; PROTESTANT churches; 17TH century British church history; POLITICAL participation
- Publication
Parliamentary History, 2008, Vol 27, Issue 2, p198
- ISSN
0264-2824
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1750-0206.2008.00036.x