Alternate history: what if James II and VII had kept his throne?

It might have been a largely peaceful surrender of power, but it was a significant one, too. William and Mary’s joint reign broke the notion of the divine right of kings by introducing a ‘contract’ between the monarchy and the people, as represented by Parliament. James, in contrast, had favoured a tighter concentration of power within one individual: himself. Had James repelled William and Mary’s invasion, what kind of monarchy might have developed under him?

“First of all, we need to understand James’s aims for Parliament,” explains Professor Ted Vallance of the University of Roehampton and author of The Glorious Revolution: 1688 – Britain’s Fight For Liberty (Little, Brown, 2006). “He aimed to fashion a House of Commons that would vote for the repeal of the Penal Laws, which excluded Catholics from public life. In this respect, he sought to make Parliament more ‘manageable’, and to use his prerogative powers to dissolve it when it became troublesome.”

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Professor Vallance certainly cautions against any notion that the king sought to remove the legislature wholesale. “Had James done away with Parliament entirely, it would have actually made it hard for him to govern,” he explains. “Parliament represented England’s governing classes – its most powerful figures and the individuals who ensured the smooth operation of local government. The rapid swings of political fortune over James’s reign were already creating a chaotic political situation at local level.”

Risk of revolution

If the situation had been allowed to persist, could this chaos have turned into some kind of popular revolution capable of registering a significant blow to the monarchy itself? “It’s doubtful that domestic resistance would have posed much of an immediate threat to his authority,” observes Professor Vallance. “The king had built up a sizeable army, which had already demonstrated that it could deal effectively with uprisings, as shown by the crushing defeat of Argyll’s and Monmouth’s rebellions in 1685.”

If, in the event James ruled for longer, Parliament had been clipped and curbed, what about the country’s religious make-up? “Some contemporaries believed that James’s intention was to restore Roman Catholicism as the religion of the state,” says Professor Vallance. “The long-term impact of having a Catholic dynasty in a Protestant country would surely have given a boost to the Catholic community in England, at the same time weakening the connection between the church and the monarchy. Even if England had not officially become a Catholic nation, there is a strong possibility that it would have ceased to be an Anglican one.”

The rapid swings of political fortune over James’s reign were creating a chaotic political situation

On assuming power, William quickly established a ‘Grand Alliance’, including England and the Dutch Republic, to firm up support in the Nine Years’ War against Louis XIV’s France. Had James remained on the throne, what would have been the nature of English foreign policy, particularly in relation to the French against the Protestant Dutch?

Fighting France

“I think the response would have been very different,” says Professor Vallance, “but it would not necessarily have seen England side with the French. Louis’s ambitions seemed limitless, so Catholic as well as Protestant heads of state were wary of the threat that France posed to their own interests. England staying out of the conflict at the beginning is perhaps the most likely scenario.” And would the French have gained quick superiority over the Dutch without the latter receiving naval support from England? “What seems most likely is a shorter conflict, with a peace favouring the French.”

Finally, had James been succeeded by his son James, Prince of Wales, the subsequent route of succession would have taken a different path, and the British throne would not have been occupied by such era-defining monarchs as George III, Victoria and Elizabeth II. “Perhaps we don’t need to get too caught up in the dazzling personalities of these royals,” concludes Professor Vallance. “The Glorious Revolution also bequeathed us George I and George II. The likely alternative outcome would have been the same old hereditary lottery, with some good monarchs and some bad.”

This article was first published in the October 2023 issue of BBC History Revealed