The Convention Parliament met to decide the fate of the throne after James II, the last Catholic monarch of England, fled to France following the Glorious Revolution.

The English Convention was an assembly of the Parliament of England which met between 22 January and 12 February 1689 and transferred the crowns of England and Ireland from James II to William III and Mary II.

James II and VII was King of England and Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685, until he was deposed in the 1688 Glorious Revolution. The last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland, his reign is now remembered primarily for conflicts over religion. However, it also involved struggles over the principles of absolutism and divine right of kings, with his deposition ending a century of political and civil strife by confirming the primacy of the English Parliament over the Crown.

The Glorious Revolution, also known as the Revolution of 1688, was the deposition of James II and VII in November 1688. He was replaced by his daughter Mary II and her Dutch husband, William III of Orange, a nephew of James who thereby had an interest to the throne irrespective of his marriage to his cousin Mary. The two ruled as joint monarchs of England, Scotland, and Ireland until Mary's death in 1694, when William became ruler in his own right. Jacobitism, the political movement that aimed to restore the exiled James or his descendants of the House of Stuart to the throne, persisted into the late 18th century. William's invasion was the last successful invasion of England.