Henry Sydney, 1st Earl of Romney
Henry Sydney, 1st Earl of Romney was an English Army officer, Whig politician and peer who served as Master-General of the Ordnance from 1693 to 1702. He is best known as one of the Immortal Seven, a group of seven Englishmen who drafted an invitation to William of Orange, which led to the November 1688 Glorious Revolution and subsequent deposition of James II of England.
Henry Sydney, 1st Earl of Romney
Penshurst Place, the Sydney family home in Kent
Sydney's nephew, contemporary and close friend, Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland, Lord President of the Council under James II of England
The Invitation to William was a letter sent by seven Englishmen, six nobles and a bishop, later referred to as "the Immortal Seven", to stadtholder William III, Prince of Orange, dated 30 June 1688. In England, the heir apparent to the throne, James Francis Edward Stuart, had just been born to the unpopular King James II of England, and baptised a Catholic. The letter asked William, who was a nephew and son-in-law of James II, to use military intervention to force the king to make his eldest daughter, Mary, William's Protestant wife, his heir. The letter alleged that the newborn prince was an impostor.
Henry Sydney, author of the letter