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The Role of King William III of England in the Standing Army Controversy — 1697-1699

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

Lois G. Schwoerer
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Extract

During the years from 1697 through 1699, King William III of England was engaged in a struggle with a radical Whig press and a Tory coalition in the House of Commons over the size of England's standing army in peacetime. Both sides regarded the contest as one of particular importance; for the King there was no issue during his entire reign which involved him more deeply in English domestic politics. The parliamentary debates on the matter were notably stormy. For what was at stake, just ten years after the Glorious Revolution, was the relative power of King and Parliament. For the first time Article VI of the Bill of Rights, that is, that Parliament must consent to an army in peacetime, was applied and tested. The army question has intrinsic importance but can also be seen as part of a broader struggle between King and Parliament for power. Among such questions as Irish land grants, “placemen,” foreign advisers, and the Land Bank, the standing army was the most complex and emotion-filled issue between the House of Commons and William. Although some of the political implications of the standing army controversy have been suggested, historians have not investigated the part played by William. The King's role is worth isolating for it casts fresh light on William's talents in dealing with domestic politics, illustrates the relationship between a King who, at the end of the seventeenth century, still retained power and a House of Commons which increasingly claimed power, and shows that, however disparate the strength of the two sides in the standing army controversy, a genuine contest took place.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , May 1966 , pp. 74 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1966

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References

1. There is no modern study from the domestic point of view of the decade of the 1690s, nor is there a specific study of the Parliaments, nor a sound, scholarly biography of William in English. Japikse, N., Prins Willem III (Amsterdam, 1930–1933)Google Scholar, remains the best biography. For the political narrative and the implications of the army controversy, the histories of Macaulay, Von Ranke, and Ogg may be consulted as well as Turberville, A. S., The House of Lords in the Reign of William III (Oxford, 1913)Google Scholar, and Feiling, Keith, History of the Tory Party (Oxford, 1924)Google Scholar. Walcott, Robert, English Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1956)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Kenyon, J. P., Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland 1641-1702 (London, 1958)Google Scholar, touch upon this controversy. Military historians such as Charles M. Clode, J. W. Fortescue, and Col. Clifford Walton ignore it.

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