The Parallel Paths of Two Doomed Royal Houses

The famous epigram describing Bourbon exiles—”they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing”—could equally apply to the returning Stuarts in 1660. Like their French successors, the Stuart dynasty stumbled through one monarch’s reign before being forced into exile again when a more foolish younger brother squandered whatever goodwill remained. In remarkably similar circumstances, James II fled to France in 1688, while Charles X of France would flee to England in 1830. Here the parallels end, for while England emerged from its prolonged constitutional crisis with a political settlement that endures to this day (albeit with modifications), France would experience another dynasty, two empires, and five republics—so far.

The Conservative Revolution of 1688-1689

The longevity of the 1688-1689 settlement owes much to its fundamentally conservative character—less a compromise than an aggregation of what had worked in the past and seemed worth preserving. As philosopher Michael Oakeshott famously observed through his nautical metaphor, political success resembles keeping a ship afloat on a boundless sea where the art lies in using traditional resources to turn unfriendly circumstances to advantage.

The English ship of state set sail in 1688 with its construction outlined in the Declaration of the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown—better known as the Bill of Rights. William III and Queen Mary had to consent to this document before ascending the throne vacated by James II. The Parliament drafting this bill grounded its legitimacy in representing “the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled at Westminster, lawfully, fully and freely representing all the estates of the people of this realm.” This was no blank-slate revolution but a restoration of proper order before ambitious tyrants began “subverting and extirpating the Protestant religion and the laws and liberties of this kingdom.”

The Twin Threats: Catholicism and Absolutism

The revolutionaries aimed to prevent any future imposition of Catholicism and absolutism on England, with the former deemed the greater threat. The Bill of Rights explicitly barred anyone reconciled with Rome from inheriting or exercising royal authority. To prevent future infringements on laws and liberties, monarchs could no longer suspend laws, interfere with justice, pack Parliament, maintain standing armies, or levy taxes without parliamentary consent. Crucially, Parliament would now meet frequently and regularly—a requirement strengthened by the 1694 Triennial Act mandating annual sessions and elections every three years.

Though the wily William III secured some loosening of restrictions, his enormous war expenses kept him largely dependent on Parliament. This settlement’s endurance proved that conservatism and liberalism need not conflict. As David Hume later praised: “It gave such an ascendant to popular principles as has put the nature of the English constitution beyond all controversy…The government of England, if not the best, was at least the most entire system of liberty that had ever been known amongst mankind.”

Religious Settlement: Tolerance with Limits

While revolutionaries agreed on Catholicism, they divided over Protestant dissenters, reaching compromise in the 1689 Toleration Act. The Anglican establishment acknowledged it could no longer eradicate Puritanism—nonconformists like Baptists, Congregationalists and Quakers could worship freely without attending Anglican services, though public offices and universities remained Anglican preserves. By 1710, England and Wales had about 400,000 nonconformists worshipping in 3,900 licensed meeting houses—twice the number of Anglican parishes in London. Though dissenters still faced discrimination like paying church rates and tithes to churches they never attended, this was preferable to Roman Catholicism.

Elite Unity and the Jacobite Threat

Similar reasoning helped maintain elite cohesion. While Tory principles of divine right, hereditary succession, and royal supremacy over the church were shattered, William and Mary being Protestant made the new regime palatable to most Tories. James II’s brief reign had so violated property rights that even Jacobites praising the “king over the water” were limited. Outside the Scottish Highlands, Jacobitism attracted negligible support across social ranks—even after the uninspiring George I succeeded in 1714. The “Old Pretender” James Francis Edward’s refusal to renounce Catholicism for London’s sake handed his opponents priceless advantage. With England’s tiny Catholic community, politics remained an Anglican preserve, leaving the Stuarts dependent on Spanish or French help to reclaim their throne—making their restoration synonymous with foreign invasion. When James III’s younger son Henry became a Catholic cardinal, restoration became untenable except for dwindling hardcore Jacobites.

The Irish and Scottish Contrasts

While the Glorious Revolution solved England’s religious problems by tolerating Protestant dissent while suppressing Catholics, applying this formula to Ireland—where Catholics formed three-quarters of the population (versus England’s 2%)—produced very different results. After their decisive 1690 defeat at the Boyne, Irish Catholics faced desperate straits. Excluded from Ireland’s parliament and subjected to penal laws, they were barred from bearing arms (1695), from inheriting Protestant land (1697), and from buying land or leasing it long-term (1703). As Catholic landownership plummeted from 59% in 1640 to 14% by 1703, a new Anglo-Irish Protestant elite emerged. The 1719 Declaratory Act affirmed Westminster’s supremacy, leaving no doubt about Ireland’s subordinate status.

Scotland presented a different picture again. Presbyterianism’s enthusiastic support for William III meant James II couldn’t claim to have abdicated there—he was deposed by Scotland’s “Convention of Estates,” which might depose again. William had to accept this and let Scotland’s parliament reorganize its church, making Presbyterianism the established church and ending Episcopalianism’s official status. The ensuing decade’s turbulence revealed divisions between Highlands and Lowlands as deep as those between Scotland and England—dramatized by the 1692 Glencoe Massacre where Campbells slaughtered MacDonalds on government orders. By 1707, elites recognized only union could end over a century of mutually destructive instability, especially with Scotland refusing to follow England’s succession, risking a Jacobite king north of the border. The 1707 Act of Union created “Great Britain,” with Scotland trading its parliament for 45 Commons seats and 16 Lords seats chosen by Scottish peers.

The Rise of Oligarchy

The 20-year political reconstruction after 1688’s real winners were the aristocratic oligarchy controlling Westminster and key appointments. Surprisingly small—just 173 English temporal peers in 1700, rising only to 267 by 1800—this elite maintained remarkable continuity. As John Cannon showed, British peerage’s reputation for openness to new men and money was partly myth even by the late 1700s. Of 113 peers created after 1780, only seven lacked family connections to nobility—just one, banker Robert Smith (Lord Carrington), was truly self-made.

Peers exerted growing Commons influence through “pocket boroughs”—rotten boroughs they controlled. By 1780, 52 peers controlled 113 Commons seats (one-quarter of Lords controlling one-fifth of Commons), with many MPs being peers’ relatives. Of 1784’s MPs, 107 were peers’ sons, 26 grandsons, 12 nephews, plus 84 baronets and their relatives. As John Cannon concluded, the 18th-century Commons was “one of the most exclusive ruling elites in human history,” bound by shared values and confidence.

Nobility’s Expanding Dominance

Aristocrats tightened their grip across British high society. In the church, nobles returned to Anglican hierarchy in the early 1700s. They dominated the military—43 of 102 regimental colonels in 1769 were peers or their sons. The navy saw both successful admirals ennobled (Hood, Nelson etc.) and nobles’ younger sons joining up. Admiral Earl St Vincent complained naval promotion was blocked by “the younger branches of nobility and the sons of members of parliament.”

Locally, nobles’ share of agricultural wealth grew steadily—from 15-20% of arable land in 1688 to 20-25% by 1790, with the top 20 owning over 40,000 hectares each. Rising rents (doubling by 1815) and industrial demand for coal beneath their estates boosted noble wealth, evident in grand houses like Chatsworth and Culzean Castle. Urban palaces like Burlington House and Marlborough House displayed similar confidence.

The Gentry: Oligarchy’s Junior Partners

About 15,000 gentry families lived off land rents in increasingly cultured comfort—hunting, racing, or like Jane Austen’s Mr. Bennet, reading. As justices of the peace (JPs), they formed governance’s backbone—what Maitland called “the most English part of all our governmental organization.” Appointed by sheriffs, JPs came from local landowning elites, handling law enforcement and minor administration. Though unpaid and often lazy or corrupt (like Tobias Smollett’s fictional Justice Gobble), their numbers grew from 2,560 in 1680 to 8,400 by 1761. By 1800, one-quarter were Anglican clergy. As Frank O’Gorman noted, JPs made gentry “partners in oligarchy,” linking center and localities. Most MPs were JPs, making them, in Trevelyan’s words, “not so much controlled by the central government as controlling it” through quarter sessions.

The Crown’s Role

The 1688 settlement left the monarch governing as well as reigning—appointing ministers and directing policy, especially foreign affairs. William III used English resources against Louis XIV; the first two Hanoverians used them for their German electorate. By resolving the Stuarts’ religious and financial problems, the Glorious Revolution arguably paved the way for stronger monarchy. Though Parliament now met regularly and controlled finances, it could be managed. Bishops, Scottish peers, military men and courtiers gave the king reliable Lords support even in hard times—like December 1783 when George III toppled the Fox-North coalition by declaring supporters of their India Bill his enemies. As Lord Rosebery described, peer ambition trumped principle when royal disfavor threatened honors or offices.

Royal support also shaped Commons elections—the crown controlled about 30 seats through Admiralty patronage. Despite attempts to exclude crown pensioners from Commons, about 200 “placement” still supported royal ministers in 1780. Young William Pitt’s 1782 attack on “the corrupt influence of the crown” was ironic—within two years, as prime minister, he exploited royal patronage himself. Though “economical reforms” reduced royal influence, it remained significant.

The Delicate Balance

Political stability required ministers trusted by both crown and Commons. As Fox and North discovered in 1783 (and many before them), royal disfavor was fatal, while losing Commons support doomed any minister regardless of royal backing. Foreign policy failures were especially unforgivable—not even George II could save Walpole after his disastrous war policy, nor George III keep Lord North after American independence loomed. Longer ministries (Walpole 1721-42, North 1770-82, Pitt 1783-1801) and shorter chaotic periods reflected this interdependence between crown, politicians and legislature.

All acknowledged needing each other, but to what degree? When Commons voted 233-215 in 1780 that “the influence of the crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished,” the balance seemed upset. Ironically, as Herbert Butterfield noted, the very process of passing such resolutions demonstrated the corruption being condemned. George III’s subsequent humiliations—accepting three hated governments in 18 months after sacking North—belied the motion’s claim. As North told Commons: “I was the creature of Parliament in my rise; when I fell I was its victim…My political life is the best refutation of the wild assertion that the crown has destroyed the independence of this House.”

The Unreformed System

By the mid-1700s, MPs hardly represented “all the estates of the people” as the 1689 Bill of Rights claimed. Infrequent elections after the 1716 Septennial Act, uncontested seats, and pre-arranged county elections made politics an oligarchic sport. Bribery, treating and intimidation were routine amid open voting—vividly depicted in William Hogarth’s 1755 painting “An Election Entertainment” showing a raucous Whig feast while Tories parade an anti-Semitic effigy, with a “No Bribery” act trampled underfoot. Elections could ruin even wealthy men—Sir George Yonge exhausted his £240,000 fortune on six Honiton contests. “Pocket boroughs” like Old Sarum (no residents) returned MPs while booming Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield had none. Reformers noted 6,000 voters controlled 257 seats representing England’s majority while 5 million went unrepresented.

Yet reform waited until 1832 because Parliament’s beneficiaries wouldn’t reform themselves. Pitt’s 1782 reform motion failed 141-161; his 1783 attempt lost 149-293. As Pitt noted, reformers were divided and lacked national support. The French Revolution proved fatal—its violence made reform seem like repairing one’s house in a hurricane. While many initially cheered the Bastille’s fall, the 1792 September Massacres repelled them. Liberal Samuel Romilly called the Revolution “the most glorious event in history” in May 1792 but by September denounced its “republic of tigers.” Louis XVI’s 1793 execution turned many against “liberty”—William Cowper wrote it made him “sick at the very name.” The Revolution united Britain’s elite as never before—even Fox’s allies deserted him over his continued support for France, joining Pitt’s national unity government.

The Empire’s Paradox

The Holy Roman Empire’s longevity—nearly a millennium—suggests it worked better than Voltaire’s quip about it being “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire” implies. Recent scholarship shows its Reichstag (Imperial Diet) mattered greatly to emperors, princes and European powers alike. Fixed at Regensburg after 1683, its three houses—electors, princes (ecclesiastical and secular), and imperial cities—let German elites participate politically. Though anomalous (the archbishop-elector of Mainz, ruling 350,000 people, outranked Prussia’s king ruling millions), the Reichstag was Europe’s most inclusive political forum, distributing power widely through society. Even peasant sons could become prince-abbots in southern Germany’s imperial abbeys.

The empire’s 1,500 imperial knightly families governed their own estates (35,000 people across 13,000 km²), forming what Frank O’Gorman called “partners in oligarchy.” Families like Schönborn, Stadion and Metternich served the empire or church to supplement estate incomes. This diffusion of power made the empire conservative—even stagnant—as modern concepts of sovereignty and centralization clashed with its structure. As legal expert Johann Jakob Moser noted in 1766, “Germany is governed in the German fashion”—by laws, treaties, privileges and traditions.

External Threats and Internal Tensions

Since the Habsburgs built a world empire in the 1500s, the Holy Roman Empire was regularly entangled in their conflicts. While other European states centralized, the Habsburgs expanded outward—especially into Hungary, only fully controlled by the late 1600s. The Reformation compounded internal strains, eroding imperial cities’ civic culture while boosting princes’ courtly display. After 1648’s Peace of Westphalia, Louis XIV’s repeated invasions and foreign princes acquiring imperial territory (Sweden-Pomerania, Hanover-Britain etc.) further weakened the empire. Most consequentially, Brandenburg’s electors acquired Prussia—secularized in 1525, fully sovereign by 1660. In 1701, Frederick I became “King in Prussia”; his grandson Frederick II seized Silesia in 1740, fighting three wars to keep it and becoming “the Great.” France’s decline helped Frederick—as French resources stretched thin in colonial wars with Britain, German princes could no longer rely on Versailles to counter Habsburg dominance.

Frederick dealt the empire a heavy blow. Influenced by Enlightenment ideas and rebelling against his authoritarian father, he scorned the empire’s “antiquated, whimsical constitution,” calling the Reichstag a “ghost” whose representatives “barked at the moon.” A 1757 incident symbolized Prussia’s new brutality—when an imperial notary served Brandenburg’s envoy Baron von Plotho with a decree outlawing Frederick for invading Saxony, Plotho stuffed the document down the notary’s shirt and had him thrown downstairs. Three weeks later, Frederick crushed Franco-imperial forces at Rossbach—a German victory over France that was also the empire’s defeat. French commander Soubise complained his German allies lacked fighting spirit, especially Protestants whose “sympathies lie entirely with Prussia.”

Joseph II’s Rejection of the Empire

Though Frederick made Prussia a sovereign state, he couldn’t make other princes follow—only major states like Bavaria, Saxony or Hanover could aspire to independence. Smaller principalities, ecclesiastical states, imperial cities and knights needed the empire to survive predators. Normally, they supported the Habsburg emperor against threats like Prussia. But when Joseph II became co-ruler in 1765 (sole ruler after 1780), he abandoned the empire after failing to reform its courts. Unlike his predecessors who balanced Habsburg and imperial interests, Joseph prioritized Austria aggressively. In 1782, he stopped payments to German officials—turning influential figures against Austria while cutting off intelligence. In 1783, he unilaterally abolished bishoprics’ diocesan rights in Habsburg lands, seizing their assets. Such blatant illegal acts shocked even imperial loyalists.

Frederick the Great capitalized on this by forming the 1785 Fürstenbund (League of Princes) against Joseph’s policies, especially his attempt to exchange the Austrian Netherlands for Bavaria. Recruiting key electors (Hanover, Saxony) and the imperial chancellor himself—the archbishop-elector of Mainz—Frederick demonstrated Austria’s crumbling influence. Joseph persisted until his 1790 death, prompting his long-suffering minister Kaunitz to say “thank God” at the news.

The Empire’s Legacy

In an age when “the state” became politics’ dominant concept, the Holy Roman Empire seemed obsolete—less a state than a “legal and peace order” (Rechts-und Friedensordnung). It didn’t centralize, maximize resources, build big armies or conquer territory. These failures brought 19th-century contempt but also post-1945 reappraisal. Contemporaries ranged from Joseph’s hostility to the affectionate mockery of Goethe’s character Frosch (“Dear Holy Roman Empire, how does it stay together?”). Many recognized its merits—poet Christoph Martin Wieland praised how imperial law protected subjects from rulers’ illegal acts at all levels.

Crucially, “Germany” and “Empire” were near-synonyms since the late 1400s.