Az 1673-as fordulat Angliában: a dicsőséges forradalom előfeltétele ..
The Shift in English National Sentiment in 1673: The Preconditions of the Glorious Revolution

Summary/Abstract: For almost three hundred years, the Glorious Revolution was seen as a quintessentially English event. The causes of the Revolution, however, cannot be confined to England and the short reign of James II (1685–1688). The remote causes of the Glorious Revolution can only be understood within the context of European events, which should be traced back to the second half of the 1660s. The study explores the causes and consequences of the third Anglo-Dutch war (1672–1674), which was of crucial importance in this respect. In the later 1660s English public opinion – which was probably even more developed than the German sociologist, Jürgen Habermas had assumed – was deeply divided in its understanding of European politics. Supporters of the restored monarchy thought that the republican United Provinces presented the main threat to England, while the monarchy‟s critics tended to identify absolutist France as the chief enemy. Shortly after the outbreak of the third Anglo–Dutch war, English popular sentiment decisively shifted from being anti-Dutch to anti-French. The small United Provinces almost collapsed as a result of the French land offensive of 1672. This not only made claims that the Dutch posed the main danger to England appear ridiculous, but also gave rise to a revolution in the United Prov-inces: the republican regime was overthrown in favour of the pro-Stuart William of Or-ange. These developments and the failure of the French navy to support the English fleet convinced the majority of the English that the French presented the main threat to their country. From 1673 onwards, there was growing fear of Catholicism, absolutism and French ambitions and this was only intensified by the obvious Catholicism of James, duke of York, as well as his marriage to the Catholic Mary of Modena, which had been arranged by Louis XIV. Without this strong fear of French-style Catholic absolutism the Glorious Revolution would have been impossible.

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