And in 1688 there was a coup in which the same James VII was deposed but I've yet to read anyone who uses the word 'coup' when justifying this event.
Replies
He abdicated though so it was fine! 😛
aug 29, 2025, 6:18 pm • 0 0 • view
No he didn't (as far as I know)
aug 29, 2025, 6:19 pm • 0 0 • view
Well, of course, that’s the post-revolutionary narrative. Throwing the seal in the Thames and going to France = vacating the thrown.
aug 29, 2025, 6:20 pm • 0 0 • view
Don't make me go back to my books. It was a revolution, a coup, the overthrow of a monarch. The equality you present between actions = abdication is not adequate. The arc of subsequent Stuart history in Ireland, then Scotland is not one of 'going quietly'. It is a fabulous era too little discussed🙂
aug 29, 2025, 6:25 pm • 0 0 • view
That’s not my view per se! That’s why I said it was a post-revolutionary narrative.
aug 29, 2025, 6:27 pm • 0 0 • view
If your view is that James VII voluntarily abdicated (is that correct?) then why all the subsequent bloodshed (which is not a narrative but a fact)?
aug 29, 2025, 6:29 pm • 0 0 • view
You’re imputing the dominant English view immediately post 1688 to me. I’m just restating it without any personal comment. I don’t have a particular view about the post-hoc justification because I don’t think the legal rationales matter.
aug 29, 2025, 6:32 pm • 0 0 • view
I thought it was you who was relying on the legal rationales? For the record, I'm articulating the dominant Scottish (not English) view. History can be diminished to competing narratives, but they still have to take account of the facts and the blood on the ground is a fact.
aug 29, 2025, 7:16 pm • 0 0 • view
I just don’t see the legal justifications or lack thereof as falsifiable. It’s all a fiction.
aug 29, 2025, 7:18 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm lost by this. What the hell are you talking about? If you use 'fiction' as a pejorative term you fundamentally fail to understand how much effort and labour historians put into their trade. The blood on the ground is not false. Your desire to fictionalise it is weird.
aug 29, 2025, 7:25 pm • 1 0 • view