In defence of a revolution
I was scandalised by Lucy Worsley’s article on William of Orange ( How Glorious Was the Glorious Revolution?, January). The events of 1688 preserved Magna Carta, gave Britain the Bill of Rights, the Act of Toleration and enshrined the rights of civil and
religious liberty in law. It also prevented James II from ruling as an absolutist monarch in the manner of his mentor Louis XIV, forestalling his attempts to introduce new penal laws and impose Catholicism upon his overwhelmingly Protestant population.
In the article, Worsley cites Tony Benn’s claim that the Glorious Revolution did nothing for women. However, it brought Mary, and afterwards her sister Anne, to the throne. Worsley also refers to Benn’s dismissal of the revolution as an event that benefited a “powerful handful of Protestant males”. The same could be said of the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence, another “powerful handful of Protestant males”, who were inspired by the Glorious Revolution. Patrick Walker, by email