The Glorious Revolution

by Edward Vallance

  William’s physical weakness, and the retreat from public life it sometimes necessitated, compounded a reserved and taciturn personality that distanced him from his subjects. Even those relatively close to him complained about William’s frosty demeanour. Gilbert Burnet remarked that the King had ‘a coldness in his way, that damps a modest man extreamly for he hears things with a dry silence that shows too much of distrust of those to whom he speaks’.5 He chided his master for his lack of effort in winning the affections of the nation and these personality traits were hardly helped by the fact that the King was frequently out of the kingdom on his military campaigns, as he pursued the defeat of Louis XIV. Equally, reform of the royal court instigated by both William and Mary, which created a more sober, less magnificent regal style, while, as we will see, being welcomed by some moral campaigners as a necessary change from the debauched institution presided over by Charles and James, also created a less public, less accessible monarchy.

  The King’s preference for a more private existence fed into other concerns. His possession of an English wife never completely obscured the fact that he was a foreigner with only a weak hereditary claim to the throne. English mistrust of William as an outsider was increased by the King’s reliance on a small band of mainly Dutch advisers, in particular William Bentinck, whom he created Earl of Portland, and Arnald van Keppel, who became Earl of Albemarle. Not only did these Dutchmen monopolise the King’s attention, they also took the lion’s share of royal patronage, something that English courtiers viewed with great jealousy. There was evidence of hatred of the Dutch at a popular level too. William Pennington, a London labourer, was accused in 1689 of calling William a ‘Dutch Dogg’ and Mary his ‘Dutch Bitch’.6 Jacobite writers alleged that the favour that William held Bentinck and Keppel in was more than platonic, and the former Williamite turned Jacobite plotter Robert Ferguson claimed that Englishmen were filled with ‘contempt and hatred of themselves, for enduring a Catamite to rule over them’.7 There is no conclusive evidence to support such claims. It was true that both Bentinck’s and Keppel’s rooms interconnected with the King’s apartments and that William was known to stay up late into the night with them, although this was not an unusual arrangement for royal servants. Bentinck did warn William, in a letter, about the rumours his closeness to Keppel was generating, but this can be seen as a product of jealousy at the younger courtier’s increasing influence upon his royal master. Perhaps the greatest argument against these allegations, however, was the very clear affection that William held for Mary.8

  The strong attachment that developed between the royal couple had not been evident at the beginning of their marriage in 1677. Then, their union had clearly been, as most royal matches were, a piece of statecraft. William hoped that by marrying Mary, then aged only fifteen, his junior by twelve years, he would gain greater influence over English politics and thereby bring Britain into an alliance against France. Conversely, his English uncle, Charles II, hoped that the match would give him greater leverage over the Dutch Stadtholder. The political nature of the marriage was reinforced by the fact that it was the King, not her father, the Duke of York, who gave Mary away. For the time being the political aspirations of both parties were frustrated. During the Exclusion Crisis William developed links with the Whig opponents of James and Charles, while, in response, both Charles and James took to remodelling their Parliaments into a more loyal mode. Initially the marriage seemed no more successful on a personal level. Mary wept ‘all that afternoon and the following day’ when she was informed that her uncle and father had agreed that she should marry the Prince on 21 October 1677. For his part, William appeared to take little interest in his wife: at a ball given in honour of her birthday on 15 November it was noted that William danced only once with the princess and appeared sullen. When the royal party left Margate on 19 November, Mary was again in tears, complaining to the Queen, who attempted to sympathise with her plight, ‘but madam you came into England; but I am going out of England’.9 Marital relations were not helped by Mary’s miscarriages, first in the spring of 1678 and then again a year later (she would not conceive again) and by William’s adultery with one of her ladies-in-waiting, Elizabeth Villiers.

  Gradually, though, the royal couple developed affection for each another. The change was most evident in Mary and may in part have been a result of her fairly lonely and isolated life in the Netherlands, where she had spent most of her time in religious devotions and playing cards and doing needlework with her female companions. The Prince, too, at least began to show greater respect for his wife’s feelings, becoming more discreet about his infidelities after Mary had confronted him concerning his relationship with Villiers in 1685. Especially for William, however, the couple were really brought together by Mary’s response to the crisis of 1688. The Princess’s decision to choose loyalty to her husband above her duty of obedience to her father convinced William of her absolute devotion to him, a conviction only made stronger by Mary’s almost complete deference to him on becoming Queen.

  Mary’s Anglican faith was integral to making this crucial decision to honour William rather than her father. As her father’s policies for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts became clear, Mary, despite her personal inclination to retire from public life, became more politically involved. She had already asked James to intercede with Louis XIV on behalf of the French Huguenots, a request which she later claimed her father refused. Mary then complained to the King about the arraignment before the Ecclesiastical Commission of Henry Compton, the bishop who had confirmed her in the Anglican faith and married her to William, but James responded only by chastising her for interfering in matters of state. She rebuffed her father’s attempts to convert her, telling him that the more she heard of his religion ‘the more pleased I am with my own’.10 God had chosen her, she believed, to be the instrument for preserving the Church but yet she had not been gifted an heir. For Mary, heavily influenced by the testimony of her sister Anne, the only logical explanation was that the Prince of Wales must be supposititious, for a Protestant God could not have gifted a popish King a legitimate son.

  This same intense piety also informed Mary’s understanding of her duties as wife, beliefs that had serious political implications. Burnet claimed that he raised with Mary the point that in English law, she as regnant Queen, and not William, would hold the reins of government. He asserted that after he had pointed this out, Mary had reassured William that, according to God’s law, ‘she did not think that the husband was ever to be obedient to the wife: she promised him he should always bear rule; and she asked only, that he would obey the command of “husbands love your wives”, as she should do that, “wives be obedient to your husbands in all things”’.11 The growing bond between the royal couple led to emotional scenes as William left for England alone in the winter of 1688. The Prince told Mary on departing that if he died in battle she should marry again (though not to a papist) – to which Mary replied tearfully that she loved him only and could never love another.

  Allied to a natural grace and beauty, these qualities of wifely obedience and deep, but orthodox, piety contributed to the markedly deeper affection that the public held for their English queen than for their Dutch king. Although they ruled in name as joint monarchs, it was clear from the outset of William and Mary’s reign that it was the King who wielded the real power. It was William who spoke at the coronation – Mary’s sole contribution was ‘her looks and a little curtsy’ – and the symbols of sovereignty were reserved for William. He was first to be anointed, the first to receive the crown and ring and only he took the sword and spurs.12 Though, early in their marriage, William was worried about his wife’s political ambitions, Mary never seems to have wished for a greater share in government. Hostile observers recorded her apparently indiscreet excitement on entering Whitehall for the first time as queen, hinting that personal ambition, rather than religious principle, drove her to betray her father: ‘She ran about it [the palace], looking
into every closet and conveniency, and turning up the quilts of beds, just as people do at an inn.’13 However, the new Queen’s private feelings about her coronation were far more mixed. She explained her behaviour at Whitehall as necessary to convince doubters that she was happy with the government of the kingdom being entirely in her husband’s hand:

  so that I was fain to force my self to more mirth than became me at that time, and was by many interpreted as ill nature, pride, and the great delight I had to be queen. But, alas, they did little know me, who thought me guilty of that; I had been only for a regency, and wisht for nothing else; I had ever dreaded being queen, liking my condition much better (and indeed I was not deceived); but the good of the public was to be preferd and I protest, God knows my heart, that what I say is true, that I have had more trouble to bring myself to bear this so envied estate than I should have had to have been reduced to the lowest condition in the world. My heart is not made for a kingdom and my inclination leads me to a retired quiet life, so that I have need of all the resignation and self denial in the world, to bear with such a condition as I am now in. Indeed the princes being made king lessened the pain, but not the trouble of what I am like to endure.14

  Elsewhere in her memoirs Mary declared her opinion ‘that women should not meddle in government’. However, her husband’s consuming obsession with defeating Louis XIV meant that she was forced to act against her own inclinations. The Regency Act placed regal power and administration of government into the Queen’s hands when the King was absent from the realm. As a result of William’s absences on campaign in Ireland and Flanders, Mary ruled as regnant Queen for a total of thirty-two months.15 In December 1689 the low ebb that his public popularity had reached even led William to consider whether he should not return to Holland and leave government in the hands of his wife. Although there were some disagreements between the royal couple as a result of Mary’s actions as regent – namely over the appointment of William’s candidate, Thomas Tenison, as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1694, instead of the Queen’s favourite, Edward Stillingfleet, and over Mary’s overall preference for Tory ministers above Whigs – the King’s confidence in his wife’s ability to act as regent reflected both her considerable political nous and her willingness to defer to his authority. Although initially hesitant about speaking in Privy Council discussions, Mary was savvy enough to spurn the attempts of the council president, Thomas Osborne, the Earl of Carmarthen, to monopolise her attention by telling the Whig Edward Russell that she needed to see him to explain business to him. In her letters to her husband Mary reiterated her unquestioning readiness to do William’s will: ‘That which makes me in pain is for fear what is done may not please you. I am sure it is my chief desire … as much as may be to act according to your mind.’16

  Her actions as regnant Queen, with their winning combination of submission to male authority (in conformity with patriarchal orthodoxy) and her practical competence (sustaining public faith in the effectiveness of the regime) won widespread approval. Mary’s resolution in response to the crisis brought about by military defeat at Beachy Head in 1690 led some news-sheets to argue that she was ‘deserving the character of another Elizabeth’. (Such comparisons were not new: Mary had been touted as another Elizabeth in the 1670s when she was being promoted as a potential regent in place of her father, James.) In many ways Mary was an even more appealing character than Elizabeth, to male opinion at least, as her marital status and submissiveness allayed traditional worries about the dangers of feminine rule. Some of her public statements seemed to consciously echo Elizabeth. There were resonances with the Virgin Queen’s words at Tilbury, in Mary’s morale-boosting message to naval officers before the battle of La Hogue, ‘that she reposes an entire confidence in them all, and will never think that any brave English seaman will betray her or his country to the insolent tyranny of the French, and as it is their duty and their glory to defend the government, it shall be her part to reward their service’.17 After the battle the Queen made good her word by rewarding the seamen with a substantial sum of money, and pledged herself to establish a hospital at Greenwich for those who were disabled. She received the thanks of both houses of Parliament for her government of the kingdom in the King’s absence.

  Another benefit to William was his wife’s Anglicanism, which strengthened her appeal to Tories who might have distrusted their Calvinist king. Mary’s attachment to the Church of England and her determination to defend and strengthen it were deep and genuine. Her royal chaplain, William Payne, stated that she was devoted to ‘Building up and Repairing the whole Church of England and making it like Mount Sion, the joy of the whole Earth’. However, though she was a committed Anglican, Mary was generous in her relations with dissenters and helped foster cooperation between Protestant denominations. The Presbyterian William Bates stated that she ‘was not fetter’d with Superstitious Scruples, but her clear and free Spirit was for the Union of Christians in Things essential to Christianity’.18 This was reflected in her ecclesiastical appointments, in which William allowed her an almost completely free hand. The episcopate under William and Mary was dominated by latitudinarian bishops who favoured the toleration of nonconformity and were prepared to enter into constructive dialogue with dissenters.

  Mary, like her husband, displayed a strong belief in divine providence and feared that the betrayal of her father, though necessary, would occasion God’s wrath. When splits developed between William and Anne in 1691–2, Mary viewed these events as the Lord’s chastisement. Her commitment to moral reform was highly motivated by a powerful belief in the reality of divine vengeance. She pursued part of this programme through her efforts to reform the court. Burnet recorded:

  She took the Ladys off from that Idleness, which not only wast their time but exposes them to many temptations [hinting at the excesses of Charles II’s reign], and engaged them to work; She wrought many hours a day her self, and had her Maids of honour and Ladys working about her: And whereas the female part of the Court had been in the former reignes subject to much just scandal, She has freed her Court so entirely from all suspitions, that there is not so much as colour for discourse.19

  As will be shown later, Mary was also committed to the moral reform of the nation as whole, viewing this as essential to avoid further divine opprobrium falling upon the country.20

  This campaign for national reformation was all the more necessary in some eyes because of the disorder and division in both Church and State. The broad coalition of Whigs and Tories that had brought William to the throne quickly disintegrated as the objective shifted from restraining or removing James II to delineating the full form of the Revolution settlement and the national government that would administer it. At least in the early years of his government, the King attempted to avoid favouring one party over another in a bid to defuse partisan tensions. However, the bitter political struggles of the past decade, extending to armed rebellion and assassination attempts on the Whig side, and the brutal suppression of such efforts on the Tory side, through executions, corporal punishment, imprisonment and transportation, had scarcely left a well of goodwill between the parties and, in fact, the policy proved ultimately divisive. William’s appointment of ministers who had been loyal to James – such as Sidney, Lord Godolphin, moderates such as Halifax, and Daniel Finch, Earl of Nottingham, and Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and recently Marquis of Carmarthen, who, though a staunch Orangist, was also associated with the policies of Charles II’s ‘tory reaction’ – raised Whig heckles. Thomas Wharton, Whig Comptroller of the Household, complained of this in a letter to the King:

  it is visible to all men & the meanest People reason upon it, That we must expect the same Councills and the same Government from the same Men. If you did not come over to support our Religion & repair the breaches that were made in our Laws and Constitution, what can you urge but Force to justify what you have done, which would destroy the Glory of your Enterprise? We have made you King, as the greatest return we could ma
ke for so great a blessing, taking this to be your Design; and if you intend to govern like an Honest Man, what occasion can you have for knaves to serve you? Can the same Men who have contrived and wrought our Ruin be fitt Instruments for our Salvation?21

  William’s efforts to pour oil on troubled waters were further undermined by demands for vengeance from Whigs for the deaths of Whig ‘martyrs’ such as Algernon Sidney, the Earl of Essex, and the Monmouth rebels, fired, as we have already seen, by the propaganda of men such as John Tutchin which revived memories of the barbarism of the Bloody Assizes. The veteran Presbyterian MP and former parliamentarian colonel John Birch, stated: ‘That which lies heaviest upon the Nation is Blood, I would have some Blood, though little, rather than be stained with what they have shed.’22 The King attempted to block Whig schemes for revenge through a very generous indemnity bill but this was voted down in Parliament. However, Parliament’s committee of grievances, established to look into the misdemeanours of the Tory reaction, did little other than to convince William of the divisiveness of some Whigs and push him further into an alliance with Nottingham. The final straw came for the King as Whig peers opposed the campaign in Ireland, convinced that by removing troops from England it would place the country at risk. In response, William prorogued Parliament on 27 January 1690 and called for a fresh Parliament to meet on 20 March, making it known that he looked for the return of ‘moderate men of the Church party’ to the new House of Commons.

  The election was dominated by strong party feeling, with Whigs using the press to publicise the names of 151 Tories who refused to declare the crown ‘vacant’, while the Tories had printed the names of 146 commonwealthsmen who had voted in favour of disabling from sitting in the House all those who had supported Charles II’s quo warranto campaign (an attempt to effect a mass purge of Tories from the House). The final result saw a general swing towards the Tories, particularly in London, where the four Whig incumbents for the capital were replaced wholesale by Tory candidates, giving Nottingham a working majority in the Commons. The increasing Tory influence in government and in the House led the Whig Secretary of State Shrewsbury to resign his offices.