"The 1688 invasion of Britain that's been erased from history" Topic

"The fleet lay stretched out across the English Channel, mainsails billowing under an easterly wind, 20 ships in line abreast and 25 deep, filling the water between Dover and Calais.

Crowds gathered on the white cliffs of the English coast to watch.

But they were not cheering with pride and pleasure – because the display of naval power and military might they were witnessing was not theirs…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Tango, you need to be more selective in your sources. The Daily Mail is Britain's answer to the American supermarket tabloids, not a serious newspaper.

What this article is about is NOT an invasion, but the arrival of William of Orange (soon to become William III) at the invitation of the Protestant British opponents of James II, aka the Glorious Revolution. Might as well label the arrival of American troops in 1917 and 1942 as invasions.

I wouldn't be so dismissive of the description of the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 as an invasion: a disloyal faction intrigued with a foreign power to overthrow the legitimate but unpopular monarch, who was forced to flee when the foreign power landed troops – sounds like an invasion to me, and no similarity whatsoever to 1917 and 1942, I suggest.

Now, on the journalism of the Daily Mail, we may be more in step!

That is a 2008 article on a book that was published that year. Good book. Sadly, Jardine has been dead for several years.

Yep, an invasion. Just a largely bloodless one. Hard to call it anything other than an invasion when Dutch troops were garrisoning London.

The idea that it was a largely bloodless takeover is a very Englishcentric view. James II was King of England Ireland and Scotland and those were the countries William took. But in both Ireland and Scotland it was far from bloodless with the war in Ireland lasting till 1692 and the repeated Jacobite risings in Scotland going out to 1745.
Ireland in particular expressed a desire for the Catholic James to remain King and it took forces from all over Protestant Europe to force home the change and bring on 100 years of Catholic persecution.

Hmmm..a faction within a country decide to overthrow the rule of a king they dislike, and succeed in doing so with the help of foreign troops.

Seems to me something not dissimilar happened on the other side of the Atlantic nearly one hundred years later…

Kevin, I was only referring to the initial "invasion". I understand that it got a whole lot bloodier after that. You refer to "Catholic persecution" like it was a bad thing. Cheers

The Glorious Revolution?… The birth of the constitution?… Forgotten!? By whom?

Green Tiger: not forgotten but the fact that it was an invasion by a foreign power is largely overlooked

Agree!.

Amicalement
Armand

Invasion by a foreign power ? It put the deposed monarch's daughter on the throne, not even a break in the dynasty.

James was a fool and made a pathetic attempt to return to an absolute monarchy. Even those British that deplored the removal of a crowned king abandoned him in the end because he was so useless.

Even the majority of British Catholics could see supporting him wasn't a sensible move, Britain was a predominantly Protestant country by then and would never have tolerated an openly Catholic ruling class.

A fascinating period of history, one of my favourites. It was an invasion by a foreign power, one that had fought 3 wars with England over the previous 35 years. The invasion resulted in a change of English foreign policy towards France, which was to the benefit of the Dutch state. William had a claim in his own right as a grandson of Charles I.

Even eminent scholars on this period like Childs call it an invasion. It would also be wrong to think William III would be so altruistic to sail with the best part of his army, under very bad weather conditions, with the French army lurking on the Republic's borders, just because a bunch of Englishmen wrote him an invitation? He probably would have gone over without an invitation.
Looking at the size and composition of the Dutch invading force, it went to England expecting to fight, not to win hearts and minds.