Compare the English revolutions of 1642 and 1688. The first was violent; the second was not. ~Jesse Walker, Reason
I’m sorry, but this is hardly credible. The armed invasion by William of Orange in 1688 was relatively less violent than the Great Rebellion because James II gave up before there could be a prolonged fight (there were two major battles in the last months of 1688 after the landing on 5 November and several instances of bloody anti-Catholic rioting), but that’s all. It’s not as if there were any pacific intentions on the part of the stadholder and the Whig (and some Tory) traitors who aided him. Once the Royalists rallied in Ireland and Scotland, the revolution became quite bloody and it would have been just as bloody earlier had James II stayed in England to continue to fight the usurper. As it was, William offered James a way out, and James took it.
But the war raged on for two years once James connected with his natural supporters. Anyone familiar with the song Glencoe knows that the new regime was brutal and tyrannical in its suppression of hostile clans in the Highlands:
And cruel was the foe that raped Glencoe,
And murdered the house o’ MacDonald
Its harsh treatment of Ireland and the bloody legacy of Orange victory in Ulster needs no introduction. The “Glorious Revolution” was a coup for the benefit of a narrow oligarchy, a sort of establishment that everyone in the Country tradition of dissent from the Jacobites to Jefferson despised with good reason, in part because it did not diffuse power and instead concentrated it in the Whig oligarchy. Whatever else might be said in favour of the constitutional protections confirmed after this invasion abetted by traitors, it cannot be said that it was a “peaceful transformation.” It is also rather hard to take that the 1688 revolution ”advanced religious liberty” when it came at the expense of murdered Catholics.
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August 6th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Jesse
I’ve already had this conversation with Gary Gunnels. The short version is that there is a reason why I wrote “advanced religious liberty” instead of “established religious liberty,” and that “screwed the Irish” seemed like a more effective phrase than “screwed the Irish, the Scots, and various inconvenient Englishmen.”
The more substantial point is that you’re missing the point of the paragraph, which was to contrast the transfer of power (basically nonviolent, as these things go) with the consolidation of power (very violent). Quoting directly from the debate: “In London, King James was deposed nonviolently in 1688. In Ireland (and elsewhere), his successor consolidated his power with traditional state violence. I was suggesting that a similar scenario could play out here, with Yushchenko taking power nonviolently in Kiev but sending in the gendarmes to suppress a secessionist revolt in the east.” Another example — probably a better one — is the Iranian revolution of 1978-79. The removal of the Shah was nonviolent. Khomenei’s subsequent rise to power was not.
August 6th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Daniel Larison
Perhaps we’re using different definitions of violence. Pitched battles, rioting, invasion and occupation all sound rather violent to me. To call the 1688 revolution nonviolent or even “basically nonviolent” simply seems inaccurate. An invading army fought two battles with loyal forces; these battles may not have amounted to much in historical imagination, but there was violence enough to lend that label to the revolution’s early phase. I do appreciate the point you are making about the greater violence that occurs when revolutionaries consolidate their power, but here it relies on distinguishing between the revolution in England, which ended quickly, and the revolution everywhere else in Britain as two significantly different things. By the same token, we could call 1789 a nonviolent revolution, followed by later unpleasantness as the revolution was carried into the provinces. But the same process of overthrowing the old order was present in both phases. Both phases are part of the same change of regime, the same revolution. Arguably the Great Rebellion began as a nonviolent dispute between Parliament and Crown in 1640-41 that then got out of hand in 1642.