1688: Revolution in the Family PDF
Preview 1688: Revolution in the Family
FPT > U - S - • TS 1688: REVOLUTION IN THE FAMILY Nineteen eighty-eight marks the third centenary of the extraordinary events of 1688, generally known as the Glorious Revolution, in which the Catholic King James II was deposed by his Protestant daughter and her Dutch husband, William of Orange. Historians are divided about the religious and political significance of these events - was it, as Macaulay thought, the beginning of the constitutional monarchy and political democracy in Britain? - but one thing is certain: the Revolution of 1688 was a f amily drama on the grandest scale. ‘God help me,’ cried James, on hearing of his daughter Anne’s defection to his son-in-law’s side, ‘my own children have forsaken me.’ In this vivid account of the events surrounding the Revolution Henri and Barbara van der Zee lay particular emphasis on the relationship between the four protagonists. We see how James’s insistence on promoting his Catholic beliefs began siowly to pain and then to antagonize Mary, watching from afar in Holland; how the dull and unfeeling Anne, jealous of her father’s new baby son, fed her sister with carefully considered gossip and scandal from London; and, finally, how Mary coped with the anguish of her husband’s crossing the Channel to make war on her father. The story begins in Holland, where the inevitability of the descent on England is g radually borne in upon William, and reaches its first climax when William’s convoy of troops lands at Brixham on Guy Fawkes Day. The advance of his army across southern England is then chronicled from day to day, from town to town, culminating in the ignominious flight of James from London and the offering of the Crown jointly to William and Mary. Throughout we read of the thoughts and feelings of William and Mary, James and Anne, as a national and family tragedy reaches its painful conclusion. As an Anglo-Dutch couple, Henri and Barbara van der Zee are particularly well suited to write about this Anglo-Dutch revolution. Already the authors of a highly acclaimed biography of William and Mary, for this new book they have gone back to numerous primary sources in England and the Netherlands. The result is a work of history that will be found riveting by those both familiar and unfamiliar with the events that made up the Glorious Revolution. 11192088 £14.95 net Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/1688revolutionin0000vand William and Mary: a rare double portrait of the Dutch king with his Stuart wife. HENRI AND BARBARA VAN DER ZEE 1688 REVOLUTION IN THE FAMILY VIKING VIKING Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London w8 5TZ (Publishing and Editorial) and Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England (Distribution and Warehouse) Viking Penguin Inc., 40 West 23rd Street, New York, New York 10010, USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 1B4 Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand First published 1988 Copyright © Henri and Barbara van der Zee, 1988 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. Made and printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Filmset in 1 1 / 1 3pt Baskerville British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Van der Zee, Henri 1688: revolution in the family. 1. William, III, King of England 2. Great Britain — History — Revolution of 1688 I. Title II. Van der Zee, Barbara 942.o6'7 DA460 ISBN 0—670-80820-2 BY THE SAME AUTHORS WILLIAM AND MARY Contents List of Illustrations 7 Introductio1n7 13 A Note on the Dates 16 ONE ‘The Queen’s Great Belly . . TWO The Orange Factor 35 THREE Family Friction FOUR The Three Questions 59 FIVE 50 Lambeth v. Whitehall 66 six ‘It is a Boy’ 73 SEVEN The English Invitation 79 EIGHT Mary’s Dilemma NINE The Hawks of Versailles 99 90 TEN The Dutch Involvement 108 ELEVEN Vain Concessions 1201 29 TWELVE The Protestant Wind THIRTEEN ‘The Prince that’s Come’ 141 !53 FOURTEEN ‘Nobody Minded theKing’ FIFTEEN Delay at Exeter 166 183 SIXTEEN The King’s Commission *95 SEVENTEEN Flight and Rescue EIGHTEEN The Irish Fright 206 2 1 7 NINETEEN ‘Fallen from the Crown’ TWENTY King and Queen 245 230 Epilogue 240 Bibliography
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