Читать книгу Anglo-American Cultural Studies - Jody Skinner - Страница 90

William and MaryRevolutions usually have something bloody about them – lots of executions or at least a good battle or two. The winners of the Glorious RevolutionGlorious Revolution invented the name – a bit unfairly perhaps since there was some bloodshed involved but not a lot. We can already guess who’s involved from the last question. What happens to monarchs in Britain who seem a bit too much Catholic? Well, either they have to gain powerpower and execute their enemies as Mary TudorMary I, Tudor did or they have to leave the country fairly quickly as James IIJames II was forced to do. Britain had already suffered as a so-called Republic and wanted to have no more of that, but what can a country do if there are no royal Protestant relatives in the immediate family? Well, why not look around and see what the rest of Europe has to offer. And since James II’s first wife was Protestant and their oldest daughter, Mary, had conveniently married a Protestant, King William of Holland, Parliament invited Mary and William to take the throne in 1688. With the threat of the Dutch navy and army breathing down his neck and with no support in Parliament, James II gave up the throne and fled to FranceFrance, where he lived most of the rest of his life except for one last attempt to regain power. In the famous Battle of the BoyneBattle of the Boyne in IrelandIreland, William defeated James II. As part of the Glorious Revolution one document of what would become known as the British ConstitutionConstitution was passed, the Bill of RightsBill of Rights, American, not to be confused with the part of the United States Constitution with the same name that was written exactly one hundred years later ( 5).