Glorious Revolution of 1688

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 is presented as a change of dynasty with immediate consequences for the Comprachicos: the royal protection they had enjoyed under the Stuarts gave way to William III’s determination to suppress them. The shift links a change in political authority to a change in the treatment of an association whose abuses had served the interests of the crown.

Background and Stuart Protection

Under the Stuart rulers, the Comprachicos were protected in part because they supplied a covert service to royal power. James II used them to make inconvenient young heirs disappear; by altering a child’s appearance, they could help clear the way for confiscations and transfers of titles to royal favourites. Their discretion and silence made them useful in affairs of state.

The association also suited the religious politics of the Stuart court. Its members supplied singers for the Miserere of Allegri and displayed devotion to the Virgin, details the narrative presents as further reasons James II was not inclined to oppose them. Their survival therefore depended not simply on their own secrecy, but on a political arrangement in which their practices served royal purposes.

Change of Dynasty

In 1688, Orange supplanted Stuart: William III replaced James II. The narrative marks the transition sharply. James II went into exile and died there; the account also notes the miracles attributed to his tomb and the reported healing of the Bishop of Autun by his relics. These details contrast the religious commemoration of the deposed king with the change in policy under his successor.

William III had neither James II’s ideas nor his practices, and the Comprachicos lost their protection. The Revolution thus altered the association’s political position: a group previously useful to the crown became an object of royal suppression. The account describes William’s campaign as an effort to crush them, presenting the change in regime as the decisive break in their fortunes.

Suppression and Consequences

A statute passed early in the reign of William and Mary struck hard at the child-buying association and, in the narrative’s account, effectively broke it apart. The law prescribed public penalties for convicted members, including branding and confiscation of property; leaders could also face the pillory. Those who failed to inform against the Comprachicos risked confiscation and imprisonment for life. Women found among the association were subject to the cucking-stool, a punishment involving repeated immersion in water.

The statute’s provisions show how the new regime turned opposition to the Comprachicos into a system of penalties and informant obligations. The change was not merely a transfer of royal office: it shifted the state’s relationship with the association from covert cooperation to formal punishment. The measure is described as a crushing blow, though the account also observes that the cucking-stool remained in English legislation for quarrelsome women, an example of how legal punishments could outlast the campaign for which they were invoked.

Narrative Significance

The Revolution functions as the political hinge in the account of the Comprachicos. Under James II, the state’s interest in concealed heirs and transferred titles made their work useful; under William III, the same association faced an explicit effort at eradication. That reversal exposes the dependence of law and enforcement on royal policy, while the statute’s severe penalties show the new authority acting against practices once tolerated for reasons of state.