Commonwealthmen in the Service of Liberty Opposition to William III and the “Republican Canon”

The neo-republican interpretation posits a contrast between republicanism and liberalism which needs re-examining. A case study of the Commonwealthmen who supported the 1688 revolution but then pitted themselves against the new political culture and “credit economy” of William III’s reign shifts our focus away from republicanism as a language to republicanism as a culture and a mode of political action, thus showing that the line between natural rights and civic virtue is in fact blurred.