Protestant
members of Parliament were thoroughly disgusted with James and
a document was drafted by Henry Sidney formally inviting Mary
and her husband, William of Orange, to take the throne of England
with as little delay as possible. The paper was signed by "The
Immortal Seven", Lords Shrewsbury, Devonshire, Dunby, Lumley,
Compton (Bishop of London), Edward Russel and Henry Sidney.
William
landed at Torbay in Devonshire with an army of 15,000 and advanced
to London with virtually no opposition. James' forces quickly
deserted him and he fled to France, stopping only to throw the
Great Seal of England into the Thames. Some fishermen captured
him before he could cross the Channel and was brought back to
London. William, not wanting to make James a martyr or a center
for Catholic resistance, contrived to let his father-in-law escape
again.
In
early 1689 a Bill of Rights would redefine the relationship between
monarch and subjects. The Bill of 
Rights
stated that certain acts of James II were illegal and henceforth
prohibited; that Englishmen possessed certain inviolable civil
and political rights; that James had forfeited the throne by abdication
and that William and Mary were lawful sovereigns.
William
and Mary accepted the invitation to rule as joint sovereigns instating
this Declaration of Rights as a condition for ascending the throne.
The royal power to suspend and dispense with law was abolished,
and the crown was forbidden to levy taxation or maintain a standing
army in peacetime without parliamentary consent. Other provisions
of the Bill of Rights included that the succession of the throne
would pass to the heirs of Mary, then to Princess Anne and her
heirs, and that no Roman Catholic could ever be sovereign of England.
Backed
by money and troops provided by Louis, James made an effort to
restore himself by landing in Kinsale, Ireland on March 17, 1689.
Ireland's Catholics rallied to James, beginning with Richard Talbot,
Earl of Tyrconnell, and within a month controlled the entire county
except Enniskillen and Derry.
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