ABSTRACT
Positive assessments of James suggest that this was more or less the limit of what he was seeking. He needed to secure the firm and widely accepted repeal of the penal laws, of the Corporation Act of 1661 and the Test Acts of 1673 and 1678, so that Catholics could once again enjoy religious freedom but hold public office and thus play a full part in public and political life. James’s nerve broke, he fled abroad and was deemed to have abdicated and he was replaced on the throne by the joint monarchy of William III and his wife, James’s elder daughter, Mary II. Danby suffered from the effects of the Revolution Settlement, which had made Parliament more powerful but left the King in charge of government. William, by treating foreign policy as an exclusively prerogative matter and keeping it secret from Parliament, had contributed to the insularity and narrow-mindedness of the political nation.
