William of Orange's political career began in the Dutch Republic, where the French invasion of 1672 helped bring him to the stadtholdership and military leadership. He organized resistance and built coalitions to limit Louis XIV's power. His authority arose within republican institutions but also through the Orange dynasty's influence; the violence surrounding the fall of the De Witt brothers formed part of the crisis in which he advanced. Marriage to Mary, daughter of the future James II, in 1677 connected his continental strategy with the Stuart succession.

Concern over James's Catholic policies and the birth of a male heir led English opponents to invite William's intervention in 1688. He landed with an army, and James's flight enabled a new political settlement. William and Mary accepted the English crown jointly in 1689 and recognized the Declaration of Rights, later enacted as the Bill of Rights. A separate Scottish convention offered the Scottish crown. These arrangements limited royal power and established a Protestant succession, but the revolution also involved military force and religious exclusion rather than a uniformly peaceful expansion of liberty.

War continued in Ireland, where William defeated James's army at the Boyne in 1690. The broader conflict ended only after further campaigning and a settlement whose treatment of Catholics remained deeply contested. In Scotland the government's responsibility for the Glencoe massacre of 1692 cast a lasting shadow over the reign. Meanwhile William pursued the Grand Alliance against France, repeatedly returning to continental operations. Mary governed during his absences until her death in 1694. Warfare strengthened the importance of Parliament, taxation and public credit, including the establishment of the Bank of England in 1694.

The Peace of Ryswick in 1697 recognized William's title, but the Spanish succession soon created another European crisis. He worked on arrangements to prevent French predominance while managing faction and ministerial change at home. The Act of Settlement of 1701 further defined the Protestant succession because William and Mary had no children. He died in 1702 following an accident and illness, and Anne succeeded him. His career linked the defence of the Dutch Republic, British constitutional change and European coalition warfare. The institutions consolidated under him endured, alongside the coercion and sectarian divisions through which the settlement was secured.