Convention Parliament (1689)

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Parliaments of England
1604–1705
Coat of arms of England
ParliamentDate
5th Parliament of King William III
 1701
6th Parliament of William III Dec. 1701
1st Parliament of Queen Anne 1702
2nd Parliament of Queen Anne 1705
List of parliaments of England

The English Convention was an assembly of the Parliament of England which met between 22 January and 12 February 1689 (1688 old style, so its legislation was labelled with that earlier year) and transferred the crowns of England and Ireland from James II to William III and Mary II.

A parallel Scottish Convention met in March 1689 and confirmed that the throne of Scotland was also to be awarded to William and Mary.

Assemblies of 1688

Immediately following the

privy councillors
on 12 December 1688 to form a provisional government for England. James II returned to London on 16 December; by the 17th he was effectively a prisoner of William who arrived in London the next day. Subsequently, William allowed James to flee in safety, to avoid the ignominy of doing his uncle and father-in-law any immediate harm.

William refused the crown as

Archbishop Sancroft, but the proposal was rejected and instead the assembly asked William to summon a convention.[1]

Convention of 1689

The Convention Parliament was

limited monarchy.[3]

The Tories favoured the retention of James II, a regency, or William's wife,

Mary, alone as queen. Archbishop Sancroft and loyalist bishops preferred that James II be conditionally restored.[4]

On 29 January, it was resolved that England was a

Protestant kingdom and only a Protestant could be king, thus disinheriting a Catholic claimant.[5]
James was a Roman Catholic.

By the beginning of February, the Commons agreed on the descriptor "abdicated" and that the throne was vacant, but the Lords rejected abdicated as the term was unknown in common law and indicated that even if the throne was vacant, it should automatically pass to the next in line, which implied it was to be Mary.[6]

However, on 6 February the Lords capitulated, primarily since it became apparent that neither Mary nor

Mary II
should both take the throne, which the Commons agreed if William alone held regal power.

The parliament drew up a

Protestants
, which was finalised on 12 February.

On 13 February, William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland. The acceptance of the Crown was conditional not upon acceptance of the Declaration of Right but on the assumption that they rule according to law.[8][9]

On 23 February 1689, King William III reconvened the Convention into a regular parliament[10] by dissolving it and summoning a new parliament almost a year later.

The actions of the Convention Parliament were regularised in early 1690 by the

2nd Parliament of William and Mary following a new election
.

Effect on Thirteen Colonies

The Convention Parliament of 1689 would be imitated in the

United States Constitution.[11]

Notable acts of the parliament

See also

References

  1. ^ Harris 2006 pp.312–313
  2. ^ Harris 2006 p. 314
  3. ^ Harris 2006 p. 317
  4. ^ Harris 2006 p. 319
  5. ^ Fritze, Ronald H. & Robison, William B. Historical dictionary of Stuart England, 1603–1689 Greenwood Press (1996) p. 126 entry on Convention Parliament (1689)
  6. ^ Harris 2006 p. 327
  7. ^ Hoppit, Julian A Land of Liberty?, England 1689–1727 Oxford University Press (2000) p. 20
  8. ^ Bogdanor, Vernon (1997). The Monarchy and the Constitution. Oxford University Press. pp. 5–6.
  9. ^ Harris 2006 p.347
  10. ISBN 9780719006616
    .
  11. ISBN 978-0-19-505573-3
    .

Works cited
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