Thus prudently and calmly was effected our great English Revolution. Both as an event and as an achievement we have equal cause to review its history with pleasure; for if in some aspects it testifies to the good fortune of our nation, it reflects credit in others on the good qualities of our people. I have endeavoured in the last chapter to point out that the modern Whig view of the Revolution as a great conflict between two opposing schools of constitutional doctors, resulting in the victory of the more liberal one, is largely legendary; that the struggle between Whigs and Tories resolved itself almost entirely into a dispute of preferences as between two alternative candidates for the throne; and that both parties showed themselves alike prepared to waive the principles which they severally held on condition of attaining their practical end--the success of their favoured candidate. But this does not in any way detract either from the value of the Revolution or from the merits of its authors; while it otherwise only serves to conform it to the normal type of English political work. All our great constitutional precedents are the parents of principle rather than its offspring; we deduce our theories from accomplished facts of our own creation, the creation of such accomplished facts being itself determined by no theoretical considerations, but by certain practical exigencies of the moment. Few Englishmen will think any worse of the Whig because, although firmly wedded to the principle of national sovereignty, he would have been willing to lose the opportunity of expressly affirming it so long as he could by any means place William of Orange, with full regal power, on the throne. Nor will they be any more disposed to condemn the Tory in that when he found himself compelled to give way on the practical point of the succession, he did not think it worth while to quarrel with the assertions or implications of Whig principle contained in the resolution by which the transfer was effected. On the contrary, the temper and habits of mind thus jointly illustrated are national characteristics on which we especially and not unreasonably pride ourselves. For the purposes of a precedent, too, the transaction could hardly have come more happily off. Even a Tory of to-day will admit that it was good for the future development of our constitutional life that the Whig principles of "national sovereignty," "original contract between king and people," and all the rest of it, should then and there receive unmistakable recognition and irrevocable ratification; and this beyond question they did receive. No hair-splittings about desertion or abdication[10] could obscure the two plain facts, that the nation _deposed_ James II., and by a distinct assertion of inherent, or assumption of new, authority--it matters not which--_made_ a new king out of a man who, but for such assertion or assumption of authority, could never have become more than the consort of a queen.