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NARRATOR: In 1534 King Henry VIII, splitter of churches and of wives, broke with Catholicism and declared himself supreme governor of the Protestant Church of England. For the next 150 years, conflict over England's state religion plagued the country, but in this video we'll cover the climax of that conflict and find out why the glorious revolution was so glorious.

Last week, we looked at the English civil war which concluded with Charles II restored as King of England. Like his father, Charles I, Charles II favored toleration of Catholics though Charles I toleration for Catholicism did play a not insignificant part in him getting his head chopped off. So yeah, this already sounds like it's going to go well.

Charles II died in 1685. And despite the fact that he had many, many children, he was succeeded by his brother, James II, as they were all illegitimate, real pious guy.

James II had converted to Catholicism in the 1660s after being exposed to the religion whilst living abroad in France. When he came to the throne, Parliament, in spite of his religion, was initially supportive of the new king. Remember, England had just suffered a series of civil wars and 10 years of dictatorship by Oliver Cromwell. So no one was really eager to see the start of yet another conflict between the King and Parliament. It also helped that James's children, Mary and Anne, were both raised as Protestants. And his eldest, his likely successor, Mary, was married to the Protestant Stadtholder of the Netherlands, William of Orange.

William of Orange did not have a good relationship with his father-in-law. Early in James II reign, two rebellions broke out against him, one in England and one in Scotland. But both were given tacit support by William, and both initially launched their attacks from the Netherlands.

The Scottish rebellion only involved about 300 men, and it was defeated by the increasingly professional English army within just days of its beginning. The English rebellion, on the other hand, was considerably more dangerous to James. It was led by the Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate Protestant son of Charles II and James's nephew. He claimed the English throne and went so far as to crown himself king on June 11, 1685. Of course, to be a King one needs a kingdom, and the Duke didn't have that.

England as a whole remained loyal to James, and his army crushed Monmouth's nearly as easily as it had the Scots. The Duke of Monmouth was executed for treason on the 15th of July 1685, only a month after trying to seize the throne. The two rebellions, while easily beatable, still really got under James' skin, and he turned that anger towards the Dutch. After all, William of Orange could have easily stopped both rebellions from even beginning. And yet, he didn't. Though that wasn't the only reason to be mad at the Dutch, England and the Netherlands had already fought three wars before James came to the throne, over control of maritime trade. And the two countries remained fierce rivals.

Back at home, James was trying to exert what he viewed as his divine right to rule, meaning he was in charge, because God said so, over Protestant England. And Parliament was starting to get sick of it, but they didn't rebel. Why? Well, some of it comes from the want to avoid the devastation of more conflict that I mentioned earlier. But more importantly, at some point, James was going to die. And his heir, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange, were both Protestant. That was up until 1688 when James had a son who he fully intended to raise as a Catholic.

This combine of attempts to enforce Catholic doctrine on the Church of England made parliament snap. So a group of seven lords and members of parliament wrote a letter to William and Mary, requesting that they invade England and depose James II, and offering them help to do it. William's Dutch army landed in England on November 5th, 1688. And James bravely ran away to France. He also tossed the great seal of the realm into the River Thames, which Parliament decided to interpret as tantamount to abdication.

William and Mary were crowned as co-monarchs of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1689. So why was the Glorious Revolution glorious? Well, for one it was bloodless, at least in England. But more importantly, it ended a fierce debate that had been going on in the country since Charles I got into his first battle with Parliament, really since the Magna Carta.

Who should have real power? Parliament or the monarch? And the answer was resoundingly Parliament. As a condition of becoming co-monarchs, Parliament had Mary and William agree to sign the English Bill of Rights in 1689. It limited the powers of the monarchy, strengthened parliament, and entrenched democratic rights at the heart of the state.

The revolution also resulted in the Act of Settlement of 1701, which formally set out the rules for succession to the throne and ended centuries of random royals attempting to grab power, though it also banned Catholics from wearing the crown. But from William and Mary onwards, English, and later British monarchs, progressively gave up more and more of their power and became the figureheads that the monarchy is today.

Hey, look, you made it to the end of the video. If you enjoyed it, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and the bell, so you can get notified about our next one. I've been James, and thank you for watching SuperEzHistory.