William III of England in the context of "Scots Army"

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.

The Nine Years' War was a European great power conflict from 1688 to 1697 between France and the Grand Alliance. Fought primarily in Europe, related conflicts include the Williamite war in Ireland, and King William's War in North America.

The 1678 Treaty of Nijmegen that ended the Franco-Dutch War was the highpoint of the French expansionist policies pursued by Louis XIV. Over the next few years, he continued attempts to strengthen France's frontiers, culminating in the 1683 to 1684 War of the Reunions. The Truce of Ratisbon guaranteed these new borders for twenty years, but concerns among European Protestant states over French expansion and anti-Protestant policies led to the creation of the Grand Alliance, headed by William of Orange.

Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet (born Gottfried Kniller; 8 August 1646 – 19 October 1723) was a German-born British painter. The leading portraitist in England during the late Stuart and early Georgian eras, he served as court painter to successive English and British monarchs, including Charles II of England and George I of Great Britain. Kneller also painted scientists such as Isaac Newton, foreign monarchs such as Louis XIV of France and visitors to England such as Michael Shen Fu-Tsung. A pioneer of the kit-cat portrait, he was also commissioned by William III of England to paint eight "Hampton Court Beauties" to match a similar series of paintings of Charles II's "Windsor Beauties" that had been painted by Kneller's predecessor as court painter, Peter Lely.

Interventionism, in international politics, is the interference of a state or group of states into the domestic affairs of another state for the purposes of coercing that state to do something or refrain from doing something. The intervention can be conducted through military force or economic coercion. A different term, economic interventionism, refers to government interventions into markets at home.

Military intervention, which is a common element of interventionism, has been defined by Martha Finnemore in the context of international relations as "the deployment of military personnel across recognized boundaries for the purpose of determining the political authority structure in the target state". Interventions may be solely focused on altering political authority structures, or may be conducted for humanitarian purposes, or for debt collection. The 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States provides that "no state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another." The General Assembly of the United Nations has condemned (with one abstaining and no dissenting vote) "armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements."

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.