Much of the opposition to James II that existed in 1688 had not existed in 1685, but had been created by his actions. By the late summer of 1688 Sunderland at least had come to realise the extent of the alienation of the political nation and to understand that James, however he tried, could not obtain a parliament that would repeal the penal laws and Test Acts. The threat of William's invasion accelerated James's decision to reverse his Catholicising policy but he would have had to abandon it anyway as it simply was not going to work. If William had not invaded and if James had reverted to a policy more acceptable to the Tories, he would probably have survived. Until William's invasion or a parliament provided it with a focus, the opposition was not strong enough to bring down James's regime. He had an army of nearly twenty thousand men and his financial position was strong after the generous parliamentary grants of 1685. He had no serious financial problems until late in 1688 when William's invasion started a slump in trade and a financial panic.

The Williamite conspirators were too few to bring down the regime on their own. The rest of the opposition consisted mainly of, first, refusals to co-operate with the agents and policies of the king; secondly, a pamphlet literature that gradually increased in volume and in effectiveness and, thirdly, spontaneous but uncoordinated popular violence against manifestations of Catholicism.