A national convention was summoned, the throne was declared vacant by the abdication of James, and the crown was settled on the Prince and Princess of Orange. "This was the triumph," says Wylie, "not of English Protestantism only; it was the triumph of the Protestantism of all Christendom.... It was the revival, not less of the Scotch Covenanters, whose torn and blood-stained flag, upheld at the latter end of their struggle by only a few laymen, was soon to be crowned with victory."
Thus was the great revolution of 1688 accomplished without tumult or bloodshed. The ignominious flight of James and his queen to France, relieved the ruling powers from all perplexities, and facilitated the arrangement of affairs connected with the act of settlement. Bills were speedily passed for the relief of the Protestants, and for securing the civil and religious liberties of the English people. William, who had been brought up a Calvinist, was strongly inclined to favor dissenters; but several of the bishops and many of the clergy contending for the divine right of kings, refused to take the required oaths to the new government, and became a troublesome faction, afterward known by the term-Nonjurors. In Catholic Ireland, and among the popish clans of the Highlands of Scotland, there were strong factions who favored the house of Stuart.
In Ireland Tyrconnel raised an army of Catholics, and was joined by James from France with a fleet of fourteen vessels, and well supplied by Louis with men, money, and arms. Several battles were fought before the country was subdued. The siege of Derry is one of the most memorable in history; but the famous battle of the Boyne, fought on July 1st, 1690, closed the dispute. James, finding all was lost, escaped once more to France, where he solaced himself with a devotion almost monastic, and which made even his Catholic friends laugh at him, as a man who had thrown away three kingdoms for a mass.
In Scotland Viscount Dundee, the notorious Claverhouse, succeeded in raising a considerable body of Highlanders in favor of their dethroned monarch. The English army, under the command of General Mackay, met Dundee and the clans at the pass of Killiecrankie, where a serious engagement took place. The battle went against the army of William, but the cause of James suffered an irreparable loss in the death of Claverhouse. He was killed when on tip-toe in his stirrups urging on his men to the charge. The rallying power was now gone, and the popish clans laid down their arms, and gradually submitted to the authority of William.