A bloodless revolution was now accomplished and the crown was formally presented to William and Mary by an irregular Parliament, which also declared that James II, having endeavored to subvert the constitution and having fled the kingdom, had vacated the throne. In offering the crown to William and Mary, Parliament was very careful to safeguard its own power and the Protestant religion by issuing a Declaration of Rights (13 February, 1689), which was enacted as the Bill of Rights, 16 December, 1689. This act decreed that the sovereign must henceforth belong to the Anglican Church, thereby debarring the Catholic son of James II. The act also denied the power of a king to "suspend" laws or to "dispense" subjects from obeying the laws, to levy money, or to maintain an army without consent of Parliament; asserted that neither the free election nor the free speech and proceedings of members of Parliament should be interfered with; affirmed the right of subjects to petition the sovereign; and demanded impartial juries and frequent Parliaments. The Bill of Rights, far more important in English history than the Petition of Right (1628), inasmuch as Parliament was now powerful enough to maintain as well as to define its rights, was supplemented by the practice, begun in the same year, 1689, of granting taxes and making appropriations for the army for one year only. Unless Parliament were called every year to pass a Mutiny Act (provision for the army), the soldiers would receive no pay and in case of mutiny would not be punishable by court martial. [Sidenote: Measures Favorable to Landlords] [Sidenote: Religious Toleration for Protestant Dissenters: Continued Persecution of Roman Catholics] Both Whigs and Tories had participated in the Revolution, and both reaped rewards. The Tories were especially pleased with the army laws and with an arrangement by which farmers were given a "bounty" or money premium for every bushel of grain exported. [Footnote: That is, when wheat was selling for less than 6s. a bushel.] The Whigs, having played a more prominent part in the deposition of James II, were able to secure the long-coveted political supremacy of Parliament, and religious toleration of Dissenters. The Toleration Act of 1689 did not go as far as the Dissenters might have desired, but it gave them the legal right to worship in public, while their enemies, the Roman Catholics, remained under the ban. [Sidenote: Commercial Gains for England] [Sidenote: Union of England and Scotland: the Kingdom of Great Britain, 1707]