On July 10, 1688, an invitation was sent to Prince William III. Orange to come to England and take over the royal power in that state. It was an introduction to the so-called The Glorious Revolution, in which the plan from the aforementioned vocation was indeed carried out, and William of Orange became king by expelling the then Catholic King James II. from the Stuart dynasty.
Prince Vilim of Orange was already a Dutch governor (Stadhouder), which in the then Netherlands in practice meant a kind of hereditary ruler (uncrowned, however). According to his mother, who was a British princess, William was the grandson of the former British King Charles I, so he could base his right to the throne on that fact. Yet the then ruling British king, the aforementioned James II, was a legitimate ruler with a greater right to inherit (by male rather than female line).
Opponents of Catholicism wanted James II. to challenge the right to the crown and call on William of Orange as a Protestant candidate to take the throne in his place. The said invitation was sent by seven British powerful men: Lord Danby, Lord Shrewsbury, Lord Devonshire, Lord Lumley, Bishop Henry Compton of London, Admiral Edward Russell, and politician Henry Sydney. In order to undermine Jacob’s right to the throne, the call claimed that he was not really a real king, but that he was replaced shortly after his birth.
Later, they were richly rewarded for their actions, with the three receiving even the highest British aristocratic title, that of duke. Thus Lord Danby became the first Duke of Leeds (Duke of Leeds), Lord Shrewsbury the first Duke of Shrewsbury, and Lord Devonshire the first Duke of Devonshire. Lord Lumley was elevated to the title of Earl of Scarbrough, Edward Russell to the title of Earl of Orford, and Henry Sydney to the title of Earl of Romney. In the colloquial speech, the seven of them were nicknamed the Immortal Seven.
