Well, of course, that’s the post-revolutionary narrative. Throwing the seal in the Thames and going to France = vacating the thrown.

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🙂

That’s not my view per se! That’s why I said it was a post-revolutionary narrative.

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)?

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.

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.

I just don’t see the legal justifications or lack thereof as falsifiable. It’s all a fiction.

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.

I am afraid you are the one who isn’t quite understanding. And why would I— an academic who specializes in historical work— say that? Law is whatever people say it is. There was no objective, defined established law of default royal abdication in 1688. It’s all made up to justify the G. Revolution.

We may have more in common than the limits of X allow. If you go back, my complaint is why 1688 is not called a coup. You wanted 'abdication', but the spin is all wrong. G. Revolution is better but not as good as coup. The English narrative is unacceptable to a Scottish perspective. Words matter