AP® European History · Unit 3 · Topic 3.2
The Glorious Revolution and Constitutional Monarchy
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 replaced James II with William and Mary on Parliament's terms, and the 1689 Bill of Rights turned old customs about taxation and armies into written law the monarch could not legally cross.
James II pushed toward Catholic absolutism and ruled without Parliament's consent, so a group of nobles invited his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange to take the throne instead. William landed with an army in November 1688, James fled to France, and almost no one fought for him. That is the glorious part: a regime change settled by invitation and flight rather than battle. But the deal came with conditions. Before William and Mary could be crowned in 1689, they had to accept the Bill of Rights, which moved power away from the crown and toward Commons, Lords, and the courts, especially over the purse.
The Bill of Rights took customs that past monarchs had mostly respected, like asking Parliament before raising new taxes or keeping a standing army in peacetime, and wrote them into enforceable law. That is the real mechanism: informal expectation becomes statute, and statute can be enforced in court no matter who sits on the throne. A monarch who ignored it was now breaking the law, not just breaking tradition. This is why 1689 counts as the birth of constitutional monarchy in England: the crown still governs, but inside limits set by a legal document it cannot unilaterally rewrite.
None of this made England a democracy. Parliament's power grew, but Parliament itself was elected by a small slice of property-owning men, so authority shifted from one elite institution to another rather than to the people broadly. This matters for comparing England to Locke, whose idea that government rests on the consent of the governed fits the logic used to justify removing James II, even though the actual voting public stayed narrow for generations. It also sets up the contrast with absolutist France next door, where Louis XIV answered the same question about sovereignty by concentrating it entirely in the king.
Key terms
- Glorious Revolution
- The 1688 replacement of James II with William and Mary, accomplished with almost no violence in England.
- English Bill of Rights (1689)
- A law requiring William and Mary to accept, which wrote parliamentary consent for taxation and standing armies into enforceable statute.
- Constitutional monarchy
- A system where a monarch still rules but is legally bound by a constitution or statute limiting royal power.
- Popular sovereignty
- The principle, associated with Locke, that legitimate government derives its authority from the consent of the governed.
Watch it explained
- How it worksDraw where power sits before and after 1689: crown, Commons, Lords, courts, and the purse.
- How it worksHow does the English Bill of Rights convert custom into hard limits a monarch cannot cross?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't a constitutional monarchy the same thing as a democracy in 1700?
- Ties togetherHow does Locke's account of consent line up with what actually happened in 1688?
Check yourself
End of topic.