Whig Theories and Theorists after 1688:the Case for Resistance

Abstract

The challenge of analyzing and defending the Revolution and Settlement addressed by James Tyrrell in Bibliotheca Politica was a task undertaken by other Whig polemicists even before the completion of William’s landing and James’s flight. It was a task that would continue well beyond the thirteen years of William’s reign. A great number of men set out to contribute to the public and politicaldebates and in doing so these lawyers, clerics, doctors and dons drew upon the theory of contract and the tradition of the ancientconstitution.¹ This literature provides evidence of theorists’ reliance upon common ideologies, those standard definitions of people and citizenship and the accepted beliefs and traditional ways of thinking about English history and law, upon which the justification of the events and ideas of 1688–89 was based. James Tyrrell’s Bibliotheca Politica was a part of this Revolution literature and his dialogues reflect the rich variety of argument put to work in these years. The political literature of the 1690s provides a context within which to read Tyrrell, illuminating the strengths and weaknesses he shares with others, as well as those areas where he diverges from or improves upon his contemporaries’ work. Certainly Tyrrell was not the only author defending the Whig order in these years, but his Bibliotheca Politica offers the most comprehensive statement of Whig theory. Yet even as Tyrrell draws upon common beliefs, definitions and traditions, he also provides some unique answers to the problems of justifiable resistance, dissolution and constitutional change.