The English Successions and the Settlement of Ireland

A change of ruler with consequences beyond England

In 1688, James II ruled England, Scotland and Ireland. These were separate kingdoms under the same monarch, so replacing him in England raised a wider question: would his other kingdoms accept the new rulers, or help him recover his throne?

James was a Catholic ruling a predominantly Protestant England. His attempts to remove religious restrictions, promote Catholics and use royal power without the agreement of influential political groups alarmed many English Protestants. Even the Tory landowners, normally strong supporters of monarchy, became alienated. The birth of James’s son in 1688 made a continuing Catholic succession possible, rather than an eventual succession by his Protestant daughter Mary.

Mary’s husband, William of Orange, was a Dutch Protestant leader and an opponent of Louis XIV of France. William wanted England’s resources to support the European alliance against Louis, rather than risk England becoming France’s ally. English religious and political concerns therefore connected with a wider European struggle.

William landed at Brixham on 5 November 1688. James’s army offered no effective resistance, and James fled to France. A convention Parliament declared that he had abdicated by abandoning his people and breaking the laws. It offered the throne jointly to William and Mary, who accepted in 1689. Parliament’s role in choosing the rulers was an important change: hereditary succession alone had not decided who would reign. A Scottish convention also accepted William and Mary, although opposition to their rule continued.

The Bill of Rights of 1689 helped establish the new succession and the development of constitutional monarchy: government in which the monarch’s power was limited by law. The revolution therefore changed not only who ruled, but also the relationship between the Crown and Parliament.

Why Ireland became the centre of resistance

Ireland was different from England because about three-quarters of its population was Catholic. Earlier plantations and land settlements had transferred land and influence to English and Scottish Protestant settlers, who were particularly concentrated in Ulster. Many Irish Catholics hoped that James would reverse these losses.

James’s viceroy, the Earl of Tyrconnell, had brought Catholics into the Irish army, judiciary and public offices. He also sought to reverse the Restoration land settlement. These changes revived Catholic hopes but threatened Protestant settlers’ position. Consequently, many Irish Catholics supported James, while most Irish Protestants welcomed William’s takeover.

Their supporters are called Jacobites and Williamites respectively. Their aims were not identical within each camp. James wanted to use Ireland as a base to regain his English throne; Irish Catholic supporters also wanted to recover land and political influence. William wanted to secure his crown and prevent Ireland becoming a base for French-backed intervention elsewhere in the British Isles.

Louis XIV supplied James’s supporters with money, weapons, officers and troops. Helping James could weaken William by tying down his soldiers and resources in Ireland. The conflict was therefore simultaneously an Irish civil war, a struggle over the crowns of the British Isles and part of a European war against France.

Resistance in the north, 1688–1689

The conflict began before James returned to Ireland. In December 1688, the Apprentice Boys of Derry shut the city gates against Jacobite troops. Tyrconnell prepared to suppress this resistance.

James arrived from France on 12 March 1689. Most of Ireland was already under Jacobite control, but Williamite resistance remained in the north-west. James needed to overcome it before attempting an invasion of England.

The siege of Derry, also called Londonderry, lasted from April to July 1689. A barrier across the River Foyle prevented supplies from reaching the city, leaving its defenders and inhabitants increasingly desperate. A relief ship eventually broke through the barrier, and the siege ended. Resistance at Derry and Enniskillen prevented James from securing the whole island and delayed his plans against England.

William’s general, the Duke of Schomberg, arrived in August 1689 and captured Carrickfergus. However, neither army achieved a decisive victory that year. The war continued, while besieged communities faced hunger, destruction and the expense of rebuilding.

The Boyne did not end the war

William landed at Carrickfergus in June 1690 to command his army personally. At the Battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690, his forces numbered about 36,000, compared with about 25,000 Jacobites.

A Williamite movement upstream drew a large part of the Jacobite army away from the main crossing. This helped William’s main force cross the river and defeat James’s army. James returned to France, and his immediate hopes of invading England collapsed.

Irish Jacobites nevertheless continued fighting. Patrick Sarsfield and other leaders regrouped at Limerick, which they held through the winter of 1690–1691. This matters when judging the Boyne’s significance: it drove James out of Ireland, but did not complete the conquest of Jacobite resistance.

In 1691, the Williamite commander Baron de Ginkel conducted the final campaign. His victory at Aughrim on 12 July was a decisive military blow. The Jacobite commander, St Ruth, was killed at a crucial moment, and Williamite cavalry exploited the resulting hesitation. Jacobite forces suffered exceptionally heavy losses and withdrew towards Limerick. Fighting there stopped on 26 September, opening the way to the Treaty of Limerick.

The Treaty of Limerick: promises and choices

The Treaty of Limerick in 1691 contained both civil and military articles. The civil articles guaranteed the property of Jacobite landowners still in arms at Limerick and offered Irish Catholics protection for their religion. These were negotiated protections, not a promise to restore all the land and power Catholics had previously lost.

The military articles gave Jacobite soldiers three choices: return home peacefully, join William’s army for service in Europe, or leave for France to fight for Louis XIV. Those choosing exile received free transport for themselves and their families. Around 12,000 soldiers left between October and December 1691; these emigrants became known as the Wild Geese. Their departure removed experienced soldiers from Ireland while strengthening armies on the Continent.

A settlement that strengthened Protestant dominance

The protections offered at Limerick were not strictly maintained. William confiscated more than 750,000 acres from James’s supporters to reward his followers. The English House of Commons subsequently forced him to cancel these grants, and the lands were sold to help pay for the war. The contrast between promised protection and subsequent confiscation helped give the settlement its reputation as the ‘Broken Treaty’.

Irish Catholic landownership fell from about 22 per cent to 14 per cent in the immediate aftermath of the war. Defeat weakened the Catholic landowning elite and ended the revival of influence begun under Tyrconnell.

The Irish Parliament, overwhelmingly Anglican after the war, passed Penal Laws in the 1690s and early 1700s. These restricted Catholics’ participation in public and professional life and made owning or renting land more difficult. They helped preserve the unequal post-war distribution of power. Anglican dominance also disadvantaged Protestant Dissenters, including Presbyterians: victory did not give every Protestant equal rights.

The Irish Parliament itself became more important because William needed additional taxation to finance war and maintain an army in Ireland. Its control over these funds helped establish regular parliamentary sessions. This was greater influence for a Protestant-dominated institution, not greater political participation for the Catholic majority.

How victory in Ireland strengthened William’s position

Victory in Ireland consolidated William’s control by removing a major base from which James and France could threaten his other kingdoms. England could contribute ships, troops and finance to the alliance against Louis XIV without an undefeated Jacobite army controlling Ireland.

The outcome also reinforced Ireland’s subordination to a monarchy centred on England and to a Protestant governing elite. Ireland remained a separate kingdom rather than becoming united with England through this settlement. The same events could therefore mean security and victory for William and Irish Protestants, but lost land, restricted opportunities and exile for Irish Catholics. Understanding these contrasting consequences explains why the revolution’s impact across the British Isles was much more divisive than a simple change of monarch.

Securing the next Protestant monarch

Military victory did not settle who would inherit the Crown in the longer term. Mary died in 1694 without children. Her sister Anne also had no surviving children after the death of her son, the Duke of Gloucester, in 1700. This created the possibility of a renewed dispute over the succession, with James II’s Catholic son offering an alternative Stuart claim.

The English Parliament responded with the Act of Settlement in 1701. It designated Sophia, Electress of Hanover, a granddaughter of James I, and her Protestant heirs as successors after the existing line. Hanover was a German territory. Choosing this Protestant branch of the royal family prevented the Crown from passing to the Catholic Stuart claimant.

The Act excluded Catholics and, at that time, anyone married to a Catholic from holding the Crown. It also required the sovereign to maintain the Church of England. These provisions made Protestant religion a legal condition of kingship, rather than leaving the succession to hereditary claims alone.

The Act reinforced the constitutional changes begun in 1688–1689. Parliament was determining who could inherit, while further limits were placed on royal power. For example, judges were to hold office during good behaviour rather than simply at the monarch’s pleasure. This helped protect judicial independence: a monarch could not dismiss a judge merely for an unwelcome decision.

From an English succession law to George I’s accession

An English law did not automatically resolve the succession throughout the British Isles. Scotland still had its own Parliament, and Scottish politicians asserted that they could choose a different successor. Separate choices could have broken the shared monarchy and created a rival centre of power on England’s northern border.

The Union of England and Scotland in 1707 established Great Britain with one Parliament and extended recognition of the Hanoverian succession to Scotland. This helped secure a common Protestant succession rather than leaving the two kingdoms free to choose competing monarchs. The wider causes and consequences of the Union belong to the relationship between England and Scotland, but its importance here is that it made the succession settlement British rather than merely English.

Anne had succeeded William in 1702. When she died in 1714, Sophia had already died, so Sophia’s son George, Elector of Hanover, became George I of Great Britain. This was the Hanoverian succession: the new dynasty inherited through the legal settlement Parliament had established.

George’s accession preserved the Protestant monarchy and the constitutional settlement that had followed James’s overthrow. It also secured the same successor for England and Scotland within Great Britain. Ireland remained a separate kingdom under the same Crown, with the Protestant governing order established after the Williamite victory.

However, a legally settled succession was not the same as universal acceptance. Jacobites continued to support James II’s son, James Francis Edward Stuart. The Hanoverian succession excluded his claim from the lawful succession but did not eliminate Stuart loyalty. Overall, the revolution and its later succession settlement strengthened parliamentary authority and the security of the Protestant monarchy, while leaving religious divisions and rival dynastic claims across the British Isles.