The Glorious Revolution — Parliament Wins Forever

In 1688, King James II — a Catholic monarch ruling a Protestant nation — provoked a constitutional crisis by suspending laws against Catholics, packing the army with Catholic officers, and, most alarmingly, fathering a Catholic son who would displace his Protestant daughters in the line of succession. Seven leading noblemen secretly invited William of Orange, the Dutch stadtholder married to James's Protestant daughter Mary, to invade England and "rescue" its liberties. William landed at Torbay on November 5, 1688, with 15,000 troops. James's support collapsed — even his own daughter Anne deserted him — and he fled to France. Parliament declared the throne vacant and offered it jointly to William and Mary, subject to the English Bill of Rights (1689). This document was revolutionary: it established that the monarch could not suspend laws, levy taxes, or maintain a standing army without Parliament's consent; guaranteed free elections, freedom of speech in Parliament, and protection from cruel and unusual punishment; and barred Catholics from the throne. The "Glorious Revolution" was called "glorious" because it was achieved with minimal bloodshed in England (though Ireland and Scotland saw significant conflict). It permanently settled the question that had haunted the Stuart dynasty: Parliament, not the Crown, was sovereign. Every British monarch since has ruled under this framework, and the Bill of Rights influenced both the American Bill of Rights (1791) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).