The historical context and aftermath of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89. Refashioning the State, 1688-1714
A lecture from the Yale course on Early Modern English history. In this lecture, Professor Wrightson discusses the transformation of the English state in the twenty years following the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He examines the ambiguities of the Revolutionary Settlement which placed authority in William III and Mary II following the deposition/abdication of James II, and the manner in which parliamentary government was strengthened through responses to the demands of the wars precipitated by the revolution, culminating in the constitutional provisions of the Act of Settlement of 1701. Finally he considers the origins and outcomes of the 1707 Act of Union which fused the kingdoms of Scotland and England into the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and ends by briefly characterizing the paradoxical realities of the British state of 1714.
