No Glorious Revolution

No, probably not the way you were thinking.

I was rereading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson (great book by a great author, neither of which I can recommend highly enough) and I got to thinking: what if Charles II outlived the Duke of York? Say, James dies of syphilis in 1865, and Chuck manages to make it another year or two. this means that Mary (and, probably, William) is the new monarch. But, they haven't been called in by parliament, there's no Glorious Revolution in the political field either, maybe even less antiCatholicism. I don't think Will's tastes ran to absolutism, given how meekly he put up with the Dutch and English IOTL, but you never know. Any other thoughts?
 
It would certainly have a big impact - there would be no Act of Settlement, (and therefore no assumption that Parliament is free to chose the monarch) no ban on Catholics, and the Monarch would retain a lot of powers which in OTL were dispensed with after 1688.

William almost certainly wouldn't become joint monarch either, (He was only taken on as such in OTL more or less by his own dogged insistence that since he had won the throne off James, he was entitled to it along with Mary) although he would be a strong consort.

You would have a stronger monarchy and a less defined post-Civil War constitutional settlement than OTL. That could potentially cause trouble later on.
 
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It would certainly have a big impact - there would be no Act of Settlement, (and therefore no assumption that Parliament is free to chose the monarch) no ban on Catholics, and the Monarch would retain a lot of powers which in OTL were dispensed with after 1688.

William almost certainly wouldn't become joint monarch either, (He was only taken on as such in OTL more or less by his own dogged insistence that since he had won the throne off James, he was entitled to it along with Mary) although he would be a strong consort.

You would have a stronger monarchy and a less defined post-Civil War constitutional settlement than OTL. That could potentially cause trouble later on.


If there is no official restriction of Catholics, and if Mary, Anne and William still die childless as IOTL, would Anne Marie d'Orléans be crowned as Queen or the Protestants would never accept it?
 
There is no way that population would put up with a catholic monarch. If a catholic monarch had the desire and political skill to rule it would eventually lead eventually to evolution with a protestant victory (tyranny of number argument)
The longer the catholic monarch held out the more viscous the aftermath would be
 
The problem with just removing James II - you have a number of remaining issues.
Firstly with no James pressure on Charles to divorce his wife becomes even more intense he continues to resist which means the pressure to chose an appropriate husband for his surviving nieces intensifies.
Anti catholicisim was already fairly rampant - the threat of a catholic heir made it worse through the 1670's and 80's but it was already there and had been since long before the civil war.
Anti catholicism's links with royal absolutism (on the continental style) was also becoming more of an issue and the removal of James doesn't remove that feeling either.
Charles II wanted Mary to marry the Dauphin but under pressure from Parliament he changed his mind and permitted their preferred choice William of Orange. At that point Mary was still IOTL second in line so its not unlikely that such a marriage wouldn't have happened without her father's presence. As to the Princess Anne's marriage well initially it was unpopular although was a happy marriage again I can't see an obvious alternate protestant husband. If Anne succeeds her sister (assuming Mary reigns singularly as she would under this scenario) then the passing of power to ministers would probably not change as the growth of the party system etc during her reign was in part due to her personal character traits. The succession after Anne if she dies childless as she did in OTL is more interesting particularly if William of Orange doesn't marry Mary Stuart assuming he does though i doubt seriously that Parliament in the 1690's early 1700's wouldn't have started some action to secure a protestant succession, the fear of a catholic monarch might actually be increased without James II as it would be even more about the fear of the unknown.
The Stuart succession:
Charles II, James II, Mary Stuart, Anne Stuart, William of Orange, Marie Louise of Orlean Queen of Spain(died childless 1689), Anne Marie of Orleans Queen of Sardinia (died 1728) and her issue, then the descendants of Elizabeth Stuart Electress Palatine.
 
Maybe parliament would invite the Duke of Monmouth to take the crown. Avoiding the English Glorious revolution would possibly prevent civil war from breaking out in Scotland although the roots go back to the days of the Covenanters and Montrose and the Battle of the Boyne would not have taken place
 
Maybe parliament would invite the Duke of Monmouth to take the crown. Avoiding the English Glorious revolution would possibly prevent civil war from breaking out in Scotland although the roots go back to the days of the Covenanters and Montrose and the Battle of the Boyne would not have taken place

Whether Duke of Monmouth is invited (and legitimised) will depend on whether he rebels against Mary and/or Anne which is possible!
 
Would a King Monmouth have lead to Mary/William or Anne rebelling? Out of character but how would they have felt losing the throne to a bastard cousin, legitimized or not?
Without that we might still have the house of Monmouth ruling. He shared his fathers taste for women and the precedent for a bastard king means that they're almost a guarenteed heir, be it from the Queen or the Mistress en Titre.
 
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Misread the thread a bit. If Monmouth is legitimized and takes the throne after Mary and Anne are dead my bit about rebellions shouldn't be a problem. I wonder if he had lived that long, would he have been married and had legitimate children by that point? If so I wonder if say his son might have been given the throne to get around the whole bastard thing?
 
If the Glorious Revolution never happens, but Monmouth remains illegitemate, all the effects of the Hannovarians will still happen since George I couldn't speak English, so Parliament had to run the country themselves. And I agree, the Baroque Cycle is brilliant. I particularly like the attention made to ensure all of the speech and writing style are similar to the time period.
 
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I was rereading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson (great book by a great author, neither of which I can recommend highly enough

Not my preferred time period but I read the Baroque Cycle twice and it is easily his weakest work (I include Zodiac) and, as always, he doesn't understand the concept of an ending.

Neal Stephenson is a great author (his Wired articles, his single books more or less, I don't like the recent one… Anathem or whatever) but his endings always suck and the Baroque Cycle is a collection of awesome things that lack a consistently interesting plot or an ending.


As fot the Netherlands they suffered from two obvious things.

The first is an inability to standardize a Republican form of government: something like stadholder-general for a set period + estates-general + stadholders. That would have worked, possibly well.. However, as I imagine most know, they wound up bouncing around and pretty much failed in the 20th century.

The second is to trade Wallonia to the French in return for Flanders+Antwerp (we don't want Belgium) and conduct a "program review" that boils down to: the United Provinces can be a maor trading nation + finance, but it cannot support more than one colony (South Africa, ideally) and it cannot compete with the UK/France/Germany in military matters so industrial/corporate areas should be focused on.

The Glorious Revolution is one of many sideshows in Netherlands' history.
 
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