Is There A Case For James II?
What was the “black thing” that palsied the character of the brave but highly unpopular monarch who was dethroned in 1688? Maurice Ashley queries a poisoned historical legacy.
Glorious Revolution
The Birth of the Old Pretender
J.P. Kenyon describes how, in 1688, there were weighty reasons to suppose that the new royal heir was a changeling, smuggled to the Palace in a warming pan.
The Politics of Wine in 18th-century England
After the upheavals of 1688, England’s shifting social order needed new ways to define itself. A taste for fine claret became one such marker of wealth and power, as Charles Ludington explains.
Honest Tom Wharton
John Carswell analyses some of the foremost political actors in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
The First Earl of Shaftesbury
At one time a member of Charles II's notorious Cabal, Anthony Ashley Cooper later became the much maligned leader of the Protestant and Parliamentary opposition to the last two Stuart kings. By J.H. Plumb.
English Revolutions: Lessons from the land of Liberty
Rachel Hammersley discusses how events in the 1640s and 1680s in England established a tradition that inspired French thinkers on the path to revolution a century later.
1688: A Fight for the Future
The Glorious Revolution was the result of a contest between two competing visions of the modern state, argues Steven Pincus. The springboard for Britain’s eventual global dominance, this surprisingly violent series of events became a model for change the world over
Before the Glorious Revolution
Graham Goodlad examines the controversies surrounding the development of royal power under Charles II and James II.
Revealing Mary
Angela McShane Jones asks what depictions in broadsides of Mary II with her breasts exposed, tell us about 17th-century popular attitudes to royalty.
Birth of William of Orange
The future king of England was born in his family's court at The Hague on November 4th, 1650.