King James II

According to Nash (1996), in the 17^th century during the British Isle struggle, there was a struggle that took too long. It was between the aristocracy and parliament on one side and the monarchy on the other. This war stretched through the civil war of Charles I and the interregnum of Oliver Cromwell. The moment when the aristocracy and parliament emerged determinedly at the top as the winners was referred to as the Glorious Revolution. The Glorious Revolution marked a period when people from England revolt against the irrational demands by an irrational king known as King James II. King James II was aristocratic and many people or the political elite detested his idea of Catholicism. Both James’ Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William who ruled England at that time were promised their allegiance by a powerful group of English Aristocrats nicknamed Whigs on condition that they would invade Britain and depose James (Melinda, 1999). The glorious revolution, therefore, led to the establishment of the parliament’s victory over the King through numerous issues of power being contested in favor of parliament.         

According to historians, James II Catholicism was against religious plurality because the King only focused on to the France’s Louis XIV’s brand of Catholicism (Melinda, 1999). This brand of Catholicism was not only devotional but it also supported religious absolutism, which many were against. James II’s intention was to employ this brand of Catholicism in England to create a rational, but centralized Catholic nation. Locke (1996), affirms that this had impact on England’s religious setting and it led to many people from England being revolutionized to the ideology of Catholicism.

Finally, the Glorious Revolution was a source for various American symbolism myths and was the most significant historical movement that shaped American identity (Bailyn, 1967). During the period of revolution, England colonists went through transformation process by developing a distinctive identity based on principles of the republicans. This was done through taking their heritage of English Whigs ideology and shaping it into the ideology of American republicanism, which is the foundation of American identity (Wood, 1969).