FROM JAMES II TO THE JOINT MONARCHS:

James II came to the throne in 1685 and he began to place Catholics in positions of
authority in the army and universities.
James’s heirs were his two Protestant daughters Mary (married to the ruler of
Holland) and Anne (married to the ruler of Denmark). Then James married a
catholic woman and had a catholic son. The two parties of Parliament, the Whigs and
the Tories, were alarmed because another civil war could broke out, so they became
to negotiate with William of Orange (Mary’s husband) and William and Mary
became joint monarchs of England as William III and Mary II.
This revolution was called Glorious Revolution because it was bloodless.
Mary and William signed the Toleration Act (more religious tolerance), the Bill of
Rights (re-enacted of
Magna Carta) and the Petition of Rights (the king could levy taxes, raise army and
suspend laws only with the Parliament consent).

QUEEN ANNE’S REIGN:

She was a popular queen, proudly English and Anglican and she made important
political decisions such as the Act of Union (the kingdom of England and Scotland
was replaced by the United Kingdom of Great Britain with a single parliament in
Westminster. Ireland remained a separate kingdom with its own parliament
subordinated to Westminster with a protestant government at Dublin).
Queen Anne signed also the Treaty of Utrecht with the France in 1713 at the end of
the War of Spanish Succession; France had to recognise the Protestant succession
and expel the exiled Stuart. Furthermore France had to gave to England Canada and
the monopoly of the slave trade.