Often, it seems, this “boundary change” has taken longer to occur
than is normally recognized. Britain’s Glorious Revolution (1688–89),
led to the deposition of King James II with the help of Parliament and
the rapid passage of a Bill of Rights to limit royal powers. Episodes
such as this and the widening of suffrage that began with the 1832 Reform
Act may leave some with the impression that Britain moved in
smooth and linear fashion toward DPM. But a DPM did not actually
emerge until after the First World War. In 1885, when Liberal prime
minister William Gladstone backed Irish Home Rule, Queen Victoria’s
“hostility knew no bounds. She intrigued behind Gladstone’s back, with
Whig members of his party, to form a ‘patriotic’ coalition with the Conservatives
to defeat Home Rule.”4
After reading her grandson George
V’s 1914 correspondence, Vernon Bogdanor concludes that there is “no