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William III and the Godly Revolution (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History)

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When the Prince of Orange landed at Torbay on November 5, 1688, there were immediate and pressing reasons for him to declare his intentions for invading England. Tony Claydon's, William III and the Godly Revolution examines how the new Prince and his propagandists sold themselves to the English people through an extensive propaganda campaign embracing the rhetoric of what Claydon calls the "Courtly Reformation." The impact of this rhetoric, according to Claydon, was profound, and the chief aim of his study charts out its implications. In this rather short volume, only 237 pages of text, Claydon takes on enormous historiographical issues like the origins of "the Enlightenment" and the modern state. To Claydon, constitutionalism was not nearly as important as religion in these developments, and his major contribution to the field is writing religion back into a period it has historically had no place. Through the examination of an impressive array of pamphlets, printed sermons, and medals, Claydon's book revises the political and religious history of William III and Mary II's reign by illustrating how an essentially non-constitutional religiously based rhetoric was responsible for England's transformation into a politically stable world power.
"Courtly reformation" rhetoric imposed a framework on political debate that limited attempts to undermine the king's royal prerogative. However, before the deployment of this rhetoric could be successful, certain obstacles had to be overcome by William III and his propagandists. The first and perhaps most urgent was the need to repudiate The Declaration of Reasons for appearing in arms in the Kingdom of England. This Declaration, written by William III's propagandists and published a month before his expedition to England, justified the Princes' actions by appealing to constitutional discourse. The Declaration, according to Claydon, posed serious problems for William III once war with France became imminent, since it suggested that "the powers of the monarch should be tightly controlled" (27). At this point, William's propagandists evaded the thorny constitutional issues of the royal prerogative, which William needed to conduct the war, and instead put the propaganda press into high gear refashioning the monarch as providentially justified with a mandate to promote the true church and purify morality. This refashioning had important implications for the exercise of royal authority. Now that the king ruled by providence, according to his propagandists, authority was checked not by common law but by William's "fear of God." According to Claydon, this message "legitimated the regime" and served to "support the court's cause" in defense of William's actions.
It was not merely the exaltation of the new monarch so as to elevate him above the criticisms of party politics that concerned this new rhetoric. "Courtly reformation" was singularly interested in a reformation of manners. This is perhaps the most interesting aspect of Claydon's argument and his most significant contribution to the period. In contrast to emphasizing the events of 1688/89 as a watershed event in constitutional history, Claydon emphasizes the imposition of a new sociability based on the notion of a "virtuous court." Set in diametrical opposition to the supposedly corrupt and debauched court of Charles II, William's propaganda ministers set out to change the image of the royal household by denouncing luxury and discrediting "worldly grandeur" (91). This new message, promulgated by the press and pulpit, according to Claydon, "nationalized" the foreign born King and, more importantly, reconceived of him as "the very embodiment of the new nation" (132). This is the prime achievement of William III's propaganda: It not only elevated him above party criticism thereby giving him much latitude in conducting foreign policy but also forging an ideology that allowed for a critical assessment of the monarchy without creating political crisis and social breakdown. All of Claydon's evidence for the development of a stable polity rests on royal propaganda and even Claydon admits, "It is hard to make any solid claims for the propaganda's achievements" (22). However, despite this problem, Claydon persuasively illustrates how William III's rhetoric of "courtly reformation" and moral reform provided a context for the development of a stable polity and the foundation for the first "modern state" (236).