This essay discusses the ways in which Britain’s state intersected with the economy in the eighteenth century. With a brief reappraisal of Douglass C. North and his associates’ much celebrated institutionalist interpretation of Britain’s economic success and of the fiscal-military state literature, the essay welcomes recent attempts to overcome the enduring disciplinary divide between economic and political histories, and argues for further scrutiny of the workings of the eighteenth-century British state in economic affairs. While acknowledging to a certain extent the emphasis given by North and others to the vitality of secure property rights to Britain’s economic development, the essay suggests that political institutions, as understood by North and others as formal and informal rules concerning the operation of a national economy, should be examined more closely in the context of the complicated, and often contingent, relationship between the state, economic interests and the public. The same critique, the essay further suggests, may apply to the fiscal-military state literature. Although it has rightly questioned the Whiggish nature of North’s account which privileges the British historical experience over historically diverse paths to economic modernity, the fiscal-military state literature has not paid sufficient attention to the varying extent to which the central executive as well as the legislature involved itself in the operation of the economy. In order to fully appreciate the evolution of institutions underpinning Britain’s economic development and the varying degrees of state intervention in economic affairs, the essay highlights some of the changes – both intended and unintended – brought by the Glorious Revolution to the structure and process of economic policy making – the growing confidence of both the executive and the legislature in handling economic matters, the gradual accommodation between the state and special interests, and the broadening of discussion concerning economic issues within both state and public arenas.