James reverses his policy.
When the news of William's final preparations reached England, James was suddenly struck by a panic as irrational as his previous over-confidence. He fell from blind arrogance into extreme depression, when he at last realized the universal discontent which his acts had created. With a craven and useless haste he suddenly began to endeavour to undo his policy of the last three years. He abolished the Court of High Commission, cancelled the appointments of many Romanist officials, recalled the Fellows whom he had banished from Oxford, and made the most profuse promises to respect all the rights and privileges of the Church of England for the future. But such conduct could not restore confidence; he could not make men forget the cruelties of the Bloody Assize, or the indignities which he had heaped on the seven bishops. Such a repentance at the eleventh hour deceived nobody.
Landing of William of Orange.—James deserted.
On the 5th of November, 1688, William of Orange landed at Torbay, and three days later he seized Exeter. James, who had looked for an invasion on the Eastern coast, at once began to march his numerous army towards Devonshire. There was a moment's pause ere the opponents met. For some days no one of note joined the Prince of Orange, and it seemed doubtful if those who had pledged themselves to his cause were about to keep their promise. But the hesitation was not for long. Ere a shot had been fired in the west, insurrections began to break out in all the parts of England where the king had no armed force in garrison. Lord Danby seized York and the Earl of Devonshire Nottingham. But this was not the worst; as James advanced westward, first single officers, then whole companies and regiments, began to slink away from his host and join the enemy. Even those whom he most trusted left him; his own son-in-law, Prince George of Denmark, the husband of his younger daughter Anne, was one of those who absconded. Another was one of his most trusted officers, John Churchill, afterwards the famous Duke of Marlborough. With abominable treachery, Churchill tried to kidnap his master before deserting, and almost succeeded in the attempt.
James flies to France.
Seeing his whole army melting away, James hastily returned to London, strove in vain to gain time by negotiating with the Prince of Orange, and then sent off his wife and son to France, and endeavoured to follow them himself. He was stopped by a mob at Faversham, in Kent, and forced back to the capital. But no one wished to keep him a prisoner, and, with the secret connivance of William of Orange, he was allowed to escape a second time, and to get clear away to France (December 18, 1688).
Thus ended in ignominious flight the preposterous attempt of a blind and arrogant king to coerce England into surrendering its constitution and its religion. The edifice which James had so laboriously reared, crumbled to pieces at the first touch of force from without.