With James VII determined to reset Britain and bring us back to Rome, even the liberals had had enough. When the seven bishops in England, who had opposed the king because of his tyrannical policies, were tried for seditious libel and acquitted by the court on 30 June 1688, anti-Catholic riots kicked off in England and Scotland. A group of politicians, religious, and military leaders banded together and invited William of Orange to come over and intervene with his army. He was married to Mary Stuart, the oldest daughter of Charles II, and they had been following James VII’s rule carefully from Holland. For years, they had been regularly informed by worried English and Scottish leaders about where the people were being led, and now the time for revolution had come.
When we hear the word ‘revolution’, we tend to think of the French Revolution, which led to terrible atrocities and the deaths of 200,000 people, or of the Bolshevik Revolution, which saw about 100,000 people executed. The Glorious Revolution, by comparison, was almost free of any bloodshed. Accompanied by Revd William Carstares, a Covenanter who had been tortured for his faith, William of Orange landed with his forces at Brixham, Devon, on 5 November. As the army of 14,000 proceeded to march to London, James VII’s nobles and soldiers deserted him en masse. In a panic, James VII and his family fled to France under the protection of the dissolute and tyrannical Roman Catholic, Louis XIV.
Here in Scotland, the nation was incensed. Students at Glasgow University burnt an effigy of the pope, along with those of the Archbishops of Glasgow and St Andrews. In December a mob got into Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh and ransacked the king’s private chapel. Taking away images of the saints, rosary beads and crucifixes, they piled them in a heap and publicly burnt them. Whilst the Protestants were cleansing the land of ‘pagan idolatry’, thieves were seizing the opportunity to steal whatever they could in the confusion. Over 200 Episcopalian clergymen were driven out of their manses by the mob, leaving them to plead for help from the Presbyterian Church for aid for their families, but as Professor William Cunningham says, ‘Still no life was lost. The only martyrdom these men went through was a little rough usage from an ignorant rabble, and the loss of their livings’, which had been raised through tyrannical taxes. It is an extraordinary fact, that after 28 years of the most cruel oppression of the people by the State and fawning clergy, that nobody murdered their opponents. Even the rough handling of the Episcopalian clergy by some over-zealous Presbyterians was strongly condemned by the majority.
A new day had dawned for England, Scotland and Ireland. The Glorious Revolution would see the process started through the Reformation, and through the stand of the Covenanters, advance to an era of growing freedom and democracy through a biblical Christian understanding. It would be a movement from which our British constitution would develop and be the envy of many nations.
‘Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with Him’ (Daniel 2:20-22, NKJV). Image: William of Orange and the Glorious Revolution, Jan Wyck, public domain, via Wikimedia Common