Orange Invitation

There may have been a Glorious Revolution without him, but William of Orange was the man who took the helm in 1688, replacing the Stuart king James II as King of England.  William was invited into England by a letter delivered on June 30, 1688, and landed at Torbay on November 15th.

Without the Glorious Revolution, Walter Scott's characters the Ravenswoods, in "The Bride of Lammermoor", would not have lost legal right to their estate:

'A day was accordingly fixed for holding a grand palaver at Wolf's Hope on the subject of Caleb's requisitions, and he was invited to attend at the hamlet for that purpose. 

He went with open hands and empty stomach, trusting to fill the one on his master's account and the other on his own score, at the expense of the feuars of Wolf's Hope. But, death to his hopes! as he entered the eastern end of the straggling village, the awful form of Davie Dingwall, a sly, dry, hard-fisted, shrewd country attorney, who had already acted against the family of Ravenswood, and was a principal agent of Sir William Ashton, trotted in at the western extremity, bestriding a leathern portmanteau stuffed with the feu-charters of the hamlet, and hoping he had not kept Mr. Balderstone waiting, "as he was instructed and fully empowered to pay or receive, compound or compensate, and, in fine, to age as accords respecting all mutual and unsettled claims whatsoever, belonging or competent to the Honourable Edgar Ravenswood, commonly called the Master of Ravenswood——"...'

William and Mary

February 12, 1688 represented the end of the Glorious Revolution (of 1688) that led to the abdication of the English throne by James II.  William, Prince of Orange called a convention to select a new leader.  On the 12th of February, the convention decided: William of Orange and Mary, James' daughter, and William's wife, would become King William III and Queen Mary II of England.

Walter Scott writes of this change of power in his "Tales of a Grandfather."

"...The Convention, in the meantime, almost entirely freed from opposition within their own assembly, proceeded to determine the great national question arising out of the change of government. Two letters being presented to them, one from King James, the other on the part of the Prince of Orange, they opened and read the letter with much reverence, while they passed over with little notice that of his father-in-law, intimating by this that they no longer regarded him as a sovereign.



This was made still more manifest by their vote respecting the state of the nation, which was much more decisive than that of the English Convention. The Scots Whigs had no Tories to consult with, and were of course at no trouble in choosing between the terms of abdication or forfeiture. They openly declared that James had assumed the throne without taking the oaths appointed by law ; that he had proceeded to innovate upon the constitution of the kingdom, with the purpose of converting a limited monarchy to a despotic authority ; they added, that he had employed the power thus illegally assumed, for violating the laws and liberties, and altering the religion of Scotland ; and in doing so, had Forfeited his right to the Crown, and the throne had become vacant..."

The forfeiture, in strict law, would have extended to all James's immediate issue, as in the case of treason in a subject; but as this would have injured the right of the Princess-of Orange, the effects of the declaration were limited to King James's infant son, and to his future children. In imitation of England, the crown of Scotland was settled upon the Prince and Princess of Orange, and the survivor of them ; after whose decease, and failing heirs of their body, the Princess Anne and her heirs were called to the succession.