Prince of Orange Landing at Torbay, engraving by William Miller, 1852.

Prince of Orange Landing at Torbay, engraving by William Miller after J M W Turner (Rawlinson 739), published in The Art Journal 1852 (New Series Volume IV). George Virtue, London, 1852. 

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 is the still popular moniker for what is also referred to as ‘Bloodless’ Revolution (a certainly exaggerated characterization), in which William of Orange and his wife Mary ascended to the thrown of England after the forced abdication of King James II of England. The Glorious Revolution marked both the end of the attempted re-Catholicization of England and the end of Absolute Monarchy in England. The latter aspect of the revolution is of particular interest to the reading of Hobbes’s Leviathan, as it marks a turn away from his pro-royalist theory of Absolute Sovereignty and a turn towards the political theory of Popular Sovereignty championed by John Locke.