Plague of informers : conspiracy and political trust in William III's England /

This book has a contemporary resonance. Weil (Cornell) seeks to explain how a new regime of doubtful legal authority justifies and defends itself. In the attempt to obtain trust and credit, the regime used means--e.g., suspension of habeas corpus, the use of informers and subornation--that called into question the chief justification for William's descent upon England: to secure the liberties of English subjects. Weil does much with the complicated politics of the era and unravels plots--real and imagined--with brio and clarity. The concluding chapter on the assassination plot is a bravura performance. There are omissions. Weil has nothing to say about the Irish and Scottish dimensions of the Glorious Revolution; oddly, William and Mary have no part in the story. Weil does not address the more pragmatic efforts to secure the credit (literally) of the nation, such as the recoinage and founding of the Bank of England. Like other authors, she fails to grasp that it was the deliberate underfunding of the government by the House of Commons rather than the Triennial Act that required annual meetings of parliament. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. D. R. Bisson Belmont University