Mary II of England in the context of "Province of New Hampshire"

The Bill of Rights 1689 (1 Will. & Mar. Sess. 2. c. 2) (sometimes known as the Bill of Rights 1688) is an act of the Parliament of England that set out certain basic civil rights and changed the succession to the English Crown. It remains a crucial statute in English constitutional law.

Largely based on the ideas of political theorist John Locke, the Bill sets out a constitutional requirement for the Crown to seek the consent of the people as represented in Parliament. As well as setting limits on the powers of the monarch, it established the rights of Parliament, including regular parliaments, free elections, and parliamentary privilege. It also listed individual rights, including the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and the right not to pay taxes levied without the approval of Parliament. Finally, it described and condemned several misdeeds of James II of England. The Bill of Rights received royal assent on 16 December 1689. It is a restatement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William III and Mary II in February 1689, inviting them to become joint sovereigns of England, displacing James II, who was stated to have abdicated and left the throne vacant.

The Acts of Union refer to two acts of Parliament, one by the Parliament of Scotland in March 1707, followed shortly thereafter by an equivalent act of the Parliament of England. They put into effect the international Treaty of Union agreed on 22 July 1706, which politically joined the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into a single "political state" named Great Britain, with Queen Anne as its sovereign. The English and Scottish acts of ratification took effect on 1 May 1707, creating the new kingdom, with its parliament based in the Palace of Westminster.

The two countries had shared a monarch since the "personal" Union of the Crowns in 1603, when James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne from his cousin Elizabeth I to become (in addition) 'James I of England', styled James VI and I. Attempts had been made to try to unite the two separate countries, in 1606, 1667, and in 1689 (following the Glorious Revolution in 1688, and subsequent deposition of James II of England by his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange), but it was not until the early 18th century that both nations via separate groups of English and Scots Royal Commissioners and their respective political establishments, came to support the idea of an international "Treaty of political, monetary and trade Union", albeit for different reasons.

Anne (6 February 1665 – 1 August 1714) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 8 March 1702, and Queen of Great Britain and Ireland following the ratification of the Acts of Union 1707 merging the kingdoms of England and Scotland, until her death in 1714.

Anne was born during the reign of her uncle King Charles II. Her father was Charles's younger brother and heir presumptive, James, whose suspected Roman Catholicism was unpopular in England. On Charles's instructions, Anne and her elder sister Mary were raised as Anglicans. Mary married her Dutch Protestant cousin, William III of Orange, in 1677, and Anne married Prince George of Denmark, a Lutheran, in 1683. On Charles's death in 1685, James succeeded to the throne, but three years later he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Mary and William became joint monarchs. Although the sisters had been close, disagreements over Anne's finances, status, and choice of acquaintances arose shortly after Mary's accession and they became estranged. William and Mary had no children. After Mary's death in 1694, William reigned alone until his own death in 1702, when Anne succeeded him.

Jacobitism was a political ideology advocating the restoration of the senior line of the House of Stuart to the British throne. When James II of England chose exile after the November 1688 Glorious Revolution, the Parliament of England ruled he had "abandoned" the English throne, which was given to his Protestant daughter Mary II of England, and his nephew, her husband William III. On the same basis, in April the Scottish Convention awarded Mary and William the throne of Scotland.

The Revolution created the principle of a contract between monarch and people, which if violated meant the monarch could be removed. A key tenet of Jacobitism was that kings were appointed by God, making the post-1688 regime illegitimate. However, it also functioned as an outlet for popular discontent, and thus was a complex mix of ideas, many opposed by the Stuarts themselves. Conflict between Prince Charles and Scottish Jacobites over the Acts of Union 1707 and divine right seriously undermined the 1745 rising.

James Francis Edward Stuart also known as the Old Pretender (10 June 1688 – 1 January 1766) was the senior House of Stuart claimant to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland from 1701 until his death in 1766. The only son of James II of England and his second wife, Mary of Modena, he was Prince of Wales and heir until his Catholic father was deposed and exiled in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. His Protestant half-sister Mary II and her husband William III and II became co-monarchs. As a Catholic, he was subsequently excluded from the succession by the Act of Settlement 1701.

James claimed the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland when his father died in September 1701. As part of the War of the Spanish Succession, in 1708 Louis XIV of France backed a landing in Scotland on his behalf. This failed, as did further attempts in 1715 and 1719, after which James lived quietly in Rome. Led by his elder son Charles Edward Stuart, the 1745 Rising was the last serious effort to restore the Stuart line.

The Invitation to William was a letter sent by seven Englishmen (six nobles and a bishop), later referred to as "the Immortal Seven", to stadtholder William III, Prince of Orange, dated 30 June 1688 (Julian calendar, 10 July Gregorian calendar). In England, the heir apparent to the throne, James Francis Edward Stuart, had just been born to the unpopular King James II of England, and baptised a Catholic. The letter asked William, who was a nephew and son-in-law of James II, to use military intervention to force the King to make his eldest daughter, Mary, William's Protestant wife, his heir. The letter alleged that the newborn prince was an impostor.

The letter informed William that if he were to land in England with a small army, the signatories and their allies would rise up and support him. The Invitation briefly rehashed the grievances against King James. It claimed that the King's son was supposititious (fraudulently substituted) and that the English people generally believed him to be so. The present consensus among historians is that he was almost certainly their real son. The letter deplored that William had sent a letter to James congratulating him for the birth of his son, and offered some brief strategy on the logistics of the proposed landing of troops. It was carried to William in The Hague by Rear Admiral Arthur Herbert (the later Lord Torrington) disguised as a common sailor, and identified by a secret code.

The Declaration of Right, or Declaration of Rights, is a document produced by the English Parliament, following the 1688 Glorious Revolution. It sets out the wrongs committed by the exiled James II, the rights of English citizens, and the obligation of their monarch.

On 13 February 1689, it was read out to James' daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange, when they were jointly offered the throne, although not made a condition of acceptance.

Revolutionary breach of legal continuity is a concept in English constitutional law, which rationalises the historic English behavior when one King (or regime) was deposed and a de facto ruler was recognised as the new de jure monarch (or republican authority). More generally it is any process, unauthorised by an existing legal order, which results in the creation of a new legal order; whether or not the revolutionary change is brought about by violence. A technical breach of continuity might happen when the former constitutional arrangement is so inefficient that there is not even a practical legal way to amend it.

The most recent successful revolutionary breach in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland was the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689 which replaced King James II of England and Ireland (King James VII of Scotland) with the joint sovereignty of his son-in-law King William III of England (King William II of Scotland) and daughter Queen Mary II of England (and Scotland).

The Nonjuring schism refers to a split in the established churches of England, Scotland and Ireland, following the deposition and exile of James II and VII in the 1688 Glorious Revolution. As a condition of office, clergy were required to swear allegiance to the ruling monarch; for various reasons, some refused to take the oath to his successors, William III and II and Mary II. These individuals were referred to as Non-juring, from the Latin verb iūrō, or jūrō, meaning "to swear an oath".

In the Church of England, an estimated 2% of priests refused to swear allegiance in 1689, including nine bishops. Ordinary clergy were allowed to keep their positions but after efforts to compromise failed, the six surviving bishops were removed in 1691. The schismatic Non-Juror Church was formed in 1693 when Bishop William Lloyd appointed his own bishops. His action was opposed by the majority of English Non-Jurors, who remained within the Church of England and are sometimes referred to as "crypto-Non-Jurors". Never large in numbers, the Non-Juror Church rapidly declined after 1715, although minor congregations remained in existence until the 1770s.