The Glorious Revolution

Press, 21 July 1988, Page 12

The Glorious Revolution

From the “Economist,” London

CELEBRATIONS always have their spoilers. Aboriginals found little to rejoice about in Australia’s 200th birthday, and historians plenty to argue about 400 years after the Spanish Armada. Now constitutionalists are having a field day debating whether the events of 1688 should really be called a “glorious revolution.” The flight of James 11, the accession of William of Orange to the English throne, and the passage (in 1689) of the Bill of Rights were hailed by Lord Macaulay as “of all revolutions the most beneficent.” Some recent commentators disagree. The House of Commons officially shares Macaulay’s view: on July 20 it presented an address to the Queen in Westminster Hall expressing pleasure in the tercentenary of the events that

finally resolved the long struggle between Crown and Parliament in favour of the latter. Not all M.P.s were thrilled. In the debate on the address, Mr Tony Benn and Mr Eric Heffer said that 1688 had entrenched the power of the rich and landed. Mr Benn said that Parliament had lost because of the recent surrender of parliamentary sovereignty to the European Community. Labour’s dissidents missed (deliberately?) the irony that in 1688 it was the Tories who were doubtful and the Whigs who rejoiced.

Other M.P.s reminded the Commons that neither Scotland nor Ireland found the revolution glorious. Both countries fought losing battles against it.

The Scots still remember the massacre of Glencoe and the enforced union of its parliament

with England’s that followed soon after. Many of Ireland’s troubles can be traced back to King Billy, whose victory at the battle of the Boyne was being celebrated by Northern Irish Protestants this week.

In spite of such cavils, few people were demanding a new Bill of Rights. Nor were there many calls for Britain to join all other big European countries in incorporating the European convention on human rights into British law.

Such silence might seem odd to those who remember Lord Hailsham’s warning less than a decade ago about the dangers of an “elective dictatorship,” and his call for constitutional change to avoid them. But then the Tories have been continuously in power ever since.

Copyright — The Economist