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William III Landing at Brixham, Torbay, 5 November 1688

William III Landing at Brixham, Torbay, 5 November 1688

The Dutch landing at Torbay, painted by Jan Wyck in the year it happened. The fleet that carried William was roughly four times the size of the Spanish Armada; calling the result a bloodless revolution describes England and overlooks Ireland and Scotland entirely.

Early Modern History (1500 – 1800) · Jan Wyck

An invited invasion is still an invasion. William came at the request of seven English peers, with fifteen thousand troops and a printing press, and James II's army melted rather than fought. The settlement that followed — the Bill of Rights, a Protestant succession, parliamentary control of revenue — was genuinely constitutional, and it was imposed after a foreign landing and paid for by a war in Ireland that was not bloodless at all. The painting is at the Royal Museums Greenwich. See the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Public domain — source (Wikimedia Commons). Free to reuse under the stated licence.