A Scottish Chapter in the History of Toleration
The year 1988 is the tercentenary of the accession of William and Mary to the throne of England at the invitation of the English Parliament. In 1689 the Estates of Scotland invited them to the Scottish throne. Their accession has been called a Revolution and it made a decisive change in the constitutional and ecclesiastical situation in both countries. Henceforth, the monarchy could not claim to rule solely by divine right. The hereditary principle still operated and the panoply of coronations retained many echoes of a divine commission, but monarchs now ruled within the law and were accountable to the parliaments of the two kingdoms and after 1707 to the parliament of the United Kingdom.