Convention Parliament (1689)

The English Convention first meets at Westminster

The body that was about to decide who should be king was not, at first, a lawful Parliament — because there was no king available to summon it.

22 January 1689: a Convention no monarch had summoned

Lords and newly elected Commons assembled at Westminster on 22 January 1689 in response to letters issued by William of Orange. James II's flight had left no reigning monarch able to summon a regular Parliament.

That made the gathering a Convention rather than, initially, a Parliament — called by William, not summoned by a king. A printed letter from William to the Lords assembled in the Convention carries the contemporary date, 22 January 1688/9.

The double year is the English legal year, which began on 25 March. The parenthetical "12 January 1688 O.S." reverses the conversion: the meeting was 22 January Old Style, which is 1 February 1689 in the proleptic Gregorian calendar.

One word to settle

The Convention began deliberating whether James II's flight amounted to abdication and whether the throne was vacant. It settled neither question on its opening day.

"Abdicated" was the battleground. The Commons accepted the word; many Lords initially resisted it as unfamiliar to common law.

Weeks, not an afternoon

The Commons adopted an abdication-and-vacancy resolution on 28 January. Agreement between the Houses followed in early February, the Declaration of Rights was approved on 12 February, and the crown was offered and accepted on 13 February.

The settlement was English. Scotland held a separate Convention and adopted its own Claim of Right in 1689.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes Date corrected

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Date corrected. The research places this at 1689-01-22.

What the sources leave uncertain

Contemporary English records date the meeting 22 January 1688/9: 22 January under the Julian calendar and 1688 under the legal year beginning on 25 March. Modern British historical practice normally retains the day and month while modernizing the year to 1689.
The proleptic Gregorian equivalent of 22 January 1688/9 Old Style is 1 February 1689, because the calendars then differed by ten days.
The listed parenthetical, “January 12, 1688 O.S.,” reverses the conversion. The meeting itself was on 22 January Old Style, not 12 January Old Style.