On Thu, Apr 05, 2001 at 06:25:38PM +0200, Abigail wrote:
> Well, there's still a big difference. King William became only king
> because of his marriage with Mary - and he didn't bring armies of troops
> and civil servants with him.
King William III (aka William of Orange) did in fact invade England
with a rather large army behind him to depose James II in 1688.
Granted, it was not a terribly violent invasion, and certain parts of
the government invited him in, still it was an invasion under the
definition "A whole lot of foreign guys with guns and swords jumped
off big boats and proceeded to march into London to overthrow the
government."
In fact, they fought and defeated James at the Battle of Boyne in
Ireland in 1690 with a mish-mash of English, Dutch, German, Danes and
French protestants. (Incidentally, this is where all the current mess
in Northern Ireland stems from, bring the tale back full circle to
me).
So he was King by his marriage to Mary (who was Princess at the time),
but Mary wasn't Queen until William kicked James (his Father-in-Law)
off the throne.
PS This English history lesson brought to you by an American who
is wondering why he knows all this.
--
Michael G. Schwern <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.pobox.com/~schwern/
Perl6 Quality Assurance <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Kwalitee Is Job One
Ooops, fatal mutation in the test script.
