This useful work provides the best recent account of the trial of the seven bishops under James ii, and makes a cogent case for the importance of this event. It shows how the protest in 1688 of the Anglican episcopate against the king's claim to be able to use the prerogative to liberate dissenters and catholics from legal disadvantage – and the disastrously unsuccessful prosecution of its members for this stand – revealed the depth of opposition to James, and perhaps gave his opponents the courage to resist him. The trial thus emerges as a crucial staging post on the road to the Glorious Revolution which certainly deserves the very clear narrative which this volume provides. The book also gives a useful summary of recent historiographical debates over the late 1680s and suggests what the trial might tell us about these. Here three main conclusions emerge. First, the king's massive misjudgements in his dealing with the bishops make any ‘revisionist’ case for the monarch hard to sustain. James appears to have been the stubborn and stupid bigot of the ‘whig’ tradition. Second, and this time contradicting whiggish views, the events of 1688 were brought about by people with conservative beliefs and attitudes. It was James who innovated: his opponents took radical action only because their ruler was endangering a Restoration settlement which they had hoped would uphold the traditional social, political and religious order. Third, the trial suggests that we need a subtle ‘middle’ position in the debate over the popular element in the revolution. There was a large element of the palace coup in James's loss of power (he was directly undermined by highly-placed politicians such as the bishops and their contacts); but the coup could only be successful because of the wave of popular support unleashed – most importantly by propaganda in support of the bishops and by people witnessing the size, scale and enthusiasm of mass demonstrations in their favour. This is all useful, so criticisms should be muted. However, the book may do more to collect recent study into a convenient package, than to say anything which is startlingly new; and this reviewer was irritated by the large number of very long quotes from original documents. These sometimes made the volume feel more like a student sourcebook than a historical analysis. That said, this publication is welcome, and it will go straight onto undergraduate reading lists as an admirably punchy and sensible account of a turning point in national history.