wer and leave them to die there
of lingering disease, in darkness, solitude, and despair. No future
king like the marble-hearted James II would sit in the court room at
Edinburgh, and watch with curious delight the agony inflicted by the
Scotch instruments of torture, the "boot" and the thumbscrew, or like
his grandfather, James I, burn Unitarian heretics at the stake in
Smithfield market place in London (S518).

For the future, thought and discussion in England were to be in great
measure free, as in time they would be wholly so. Perhaps the coward
King's heaviest retribution in his secure retreat in the royal French
palace of Versailles was the knowledge that all his efforts, and all
the efforts of his friend Louis XIV, to prevent the coming of this
liberty had absolutely failed.

493. Summary.

The reign of James must be regarded as mainly taken up with the
attempt of the King to rule independently of Parliament and of law,
and, apparently, he sought to restore the Roman Catholic faith as the
Established Church of England.

Monmouth's rebellion, though without real justification, since he
could not legitimately claim the crown, was a forerunner of that
memorable Revolution which invited William of Orange to come to the
support of Parliament, and which placed a Protestant King and Queen on
the throne.

WILLIAM AND MARY (House of Orange-Stuart)--1689-1702

494. The "Convention Parliament"; the Declaration of Right. 1689.

After the flight of James II, a "Convention Parliament" met, and
declared that, James having broken "the orginal contract between king
and people," the throne was therefore vacant. The Convention next
issued a formal statement of principles under the name of the
"Declaration of Right," 1689.[1]

[1] It was called a "Convention Parliament" because it had not been
summoned by the King (S491). Declaration of Right: see Summary of
Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xxii, S24. On the
coronation oath see S380, note 1.

That document recited the illegal and arbitrary acts of the late King
James II, proclaimed him no longer sovereign, and resolved that the
crown should be tendered to William and Mary.[2] The Declaration
having been read to them and having received their assent, they were
formally invited to accept the joint sovereignty of the realm, with
the understanding that the actual administration should be vested in
William alone.

[2] William of Orange stood next in order of