'James II' (in Scotland known with the name 'James VII ';
14 October 1633 –
16 September 1701) became
King of England,
King of Scots, and
King of Ireland on
6 February 1685, and
Duke of Normandy on
31 December 1660. He was the last
Roman Catholic monarch to reign over the
Kingdom of Scotland,
Kingdom of England, and
Kingdom of Ireland. Many of his subjects distrusted his religious policies and supposed
despotism, leading a group of them to depose him in the
Glorious Revolution. He was replaced not by his Roman Catholic son,
James Francis Edward, but by his Protestant daughter and son-in-law,
Mary II and
William III, who became joint rulers in 1689.
The belief that James — not William III or Mary II — was the legitimate ruler became known as
Jacobitism (from ''Jacobus'' or ''Iacobus'',
Latin for James). James made one serious attempt to recover his throne, when he landed in Ireland in 1689. After his defeat at the
Battle of the Boyne in the summer of 1690, he returned to
France, living out the rest of his life under the protection of
King Louis XIV. His son
James Francis Edward Stuart (''The Old Pretender'') and his grandson
Charles Edward Stuart (''The Young Pretender'' and ''Bonnie Prince Charlie'') attempted to restore the Jacobite line after James's death, but failed. James' personal motto was "A deo rex, a rege lex,"
Latin for "From God comes the King, from the King comes the Law."
Early life
James, the second surviving son of
Charles I and
Henrietta Maria of France, was born at
St. James's Palace in 1633 and created
Duke of York in 1644. During the
English Civil War he stayed in
Oxford, a Royalist stronghold. When the city surrendered during the
siege of Oxford in 1646, the Duke of York was confined in St James's Palace by parliamentary command. In 1648, he escaped from the Palace, from there he went to
The Hague in disguise. When Charles I was executed by the rebels in 1649, monarchists proclaimed the Duke of York's elder brother,
Charles, as King Charles II. Charles II was recognised by the
Parliament of Scotland and the
Parliament of Ireland, and was crowned
King of Scots at
Scone, in Scotland, in 1651. He was, however, unable to secure the
Crown of England, and consequently fled to
France.
Like his brother, James sought refuge in France, serving in the French army under
Turenne. In 1656, when his brother, Charles, entered into an alliance with
Spain—an enemy of France—he joined the Spanish army under
Louis, Prince of Condé.
In 1660, with
Oliver Cromwell dead, Charles II was restored to the English Throne. Though James was the
heir-presumptive, it seemed unlikely that he would inherit the Crown, for Charles was still a young man capable of fathering children. In September 1660, James (who was also created
Duke of Albany in Scotland) wed
Lady Anne Hyde, the daughter of Charles's chief minister,
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon.
James was appointed
Lord High Admiral and commanded the
Royal Navy during the
Second (1665–1667) and
Third Anglo-Dutch Wars (1672–1674). Following its capture by the English in 1664, the Dutch territory of
New Netherland was named New York in his honour.
Fort Orange, 240 kilometres (150 miles) up the
River Hudson, was renamed
Albany in James' honour as well. James also headed the
Royal African Company, which participated in the
slave trade.
Religion
James was admitted to the Roman Catholic Church in about 1668 or 1669, although this was kept secret for some time. However, growing fears of Catholic influence at court, led to the introduction by Parliament of a new
Test Act in 1673. Under this Act, all civil and military officials were required to take an oath (in which they were required not only to disavow the doctrine of
transubstantiation, but also denounce certain practices of the Roman Catholic Church as "superstitious and idolatrous") and receive
communion under the auspices of the
Church of England. James refused to perform both actions, instead choosing to relinquish the post of Lord High Admiral. His conversion to Catholicism was now openly known.
Charles II opposed the conversion, ordering that James' children be raised as Protestants. Nevertheless, in 1673, he allowed James (whose first wife had died in 1671) to marry the Catholic
Mary of Modena. Many English people, distrustful of Catholicism, regarded the new Duchess of York as an agent of the
Pope.
In 1677, James attempted to appease Protestants by allowing his daughter, Mary, to marry the Protestant Prince of Orange,
William III (who was also his nephew). Despite the concession, fears of a Catholic monarch persisted, intensified by the failed pregnancies of Charles II's wife,
Catherine of Braganza. A defrocked Anglican clergyman,
Titus Oates, falsely spoke of a "
Popish Plot" to kill Charles and put the Duke of York on the Throne. The fabricated plot caused a wave of anti-Catholic hysteria to sweep across the nation. On the orders of the King, the Duke of York left England for
Brussels. In 1680, he was appointed Lord High Commissioner of Scotland and took up his residence at the
Palace of Holyroodhouse in
Edinburgh.
In England, attempts were made by Anthony Ashley Cooper, the
Earl of Shaftesbury, a former government minister, and now the leading enemy of James and a Catholic succession, to have him excluded from the line of succession. Some even proposed that the Crown go to Charles II's illegitimate son,
James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth. When, in 1679, the
Exclusion Bill was in danger of passing, Charles II dissolved the English Parliament. (The Exclusion Bill crisis contributed to the development of the English two-party system; the
Whigs were those who supported the Bill, whilst the
Tories were those who opposed it.) Two further
Parliaments were elected in 1680 and 1681, but were dissolved for the same reason.
The
Rye House Plot of 1683, a Protestant conspiracy to assassinate both Charles and the Duke of York, failed utterly; it increased popular sympathy for the King and his brother. James once again found himself influential in government, and his brother restored him to the office of Lord High Admiral in 1684.
Reign
Charles died ''sine prole legitima'' (without legitimate offspring) in 1685, converting to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed. He was succeeded by his brother, who reigned in England and Ireland as James II, and in Scotland as James VII. James was crowned at
Westminster Abbey on
April 23,
1685. At first, there was little overt opposition to the new Sovereign. The new Parliament which assembled in May 1685 seemed favourable to James, agreeing to grant him a large income.
James, however, faced the
Monmouth Rebellion (led by Charles II's illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth).
James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth declared himself King on
June 20,
1685, but was afterwards defeated at the
Battle of Sedgemoor. Monmouth was executed at the
Tower of London soon afterwards. The king's judges—most notably,
George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys (the "Hanging Judge")—punished the rebels brutally. Judge Jeffreys'
Bloody Assizes provoked little comment at the time and were seen by many as an appropriate response to an armed rebellion.
To protect himself from further rebellions, James sought to establish a large standing army. By putting Roman Catholics in charge of several regiments, the King was drawn into a conflict with Parliament. Parliament was prorogued in November 1685, never to meet again during James's brief reign.
Religious tension intensified from 1686. James controversially allowed Roman Catholics to occupy the highest offices of the Kingdom, and received at his court the
papal nuncio, the first representative from Rome to London since the reign of
Mary I. James's
Jesuit confessor,
Edward Petre, was a particular object of Protestant ire and when James ordered the suspension of several Anglicans from political office, including
Henry Compton, the anti-Catholic
Bishop of London, he lost much of his previous support.
In the
Declaration of Indulgence (1687), also known as the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, James suspended laws punishing Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters. (It is unclear if James issued the Declaration to gain the political support of the dissenters, or if he was truly committed to the principle of
freedom of religion.) The King also provoked opposition by his policies relating to the
University of Oxford. He offended Anglicans by allowing Catholics to hold important positions in
Christ Church and
University College, two of Oxford's largest colleges. Even more unpopularly, he dismissed the Protestant Fellows of
Magdalen College, appointing Roman Catholics including Bishop Parker in their place.
Glorious Revolution
Half-Crown coin of James II, 1686. The inscription reads IACOBUS II DEI GRATIA (James II by the Grace of God)
In April 1688, James re-issued the Declaration of Indulgence, subsequently ordering Anglican clergymen to read it in their churches. When the
Archbishop of Canterbury William Sancroft and six other bishops (known as the
Seven Bishops) submitted a petition requesting the reconsideration of the King's religious policies, they were arrested and tried for
seditious libel. Public alarm increased with the birth of a Catholic son and heir, James Francis Edward, to
Queen Mary in June, 1688. (Some falsely charged that the son was "suppositious", having been substituted for a stillborn child.) Threatened by a Catholic dynasty, several influential Protestants entered into negotiations with William, Prince of Orange, who was James's son-in-law and nephew.
On
June 30,
1688, a group of Protestant nobles, known as the
Immortal Seven, requested the Prince of Orange to come to
England with an army. By September, it had become clear that William sought to invade. James refused the assistance of Louis XIV, fearing that the English would oppose French intervention. Furthermore, he believed that his own army would be adequate. But the King was too complacent; when William arrived on
November 5,
1688, many Protestant officers defected and joined William. His own daughter,
Anne, left the court, leading to considerable anguish on the part of the King. On
December 11,
1688, James attempted to flee to
France, first throwing the
Great Seal of the Realm into the
River Thames. He was, however, caught in
Kent. Having no desire to make James a martyr, the Prince of Orange let him escape on
December 23,
1688. James was received by Louis XIV, who offered him a palace and a generous pension.
William convened an irregular
Convention Parliament. (The procedure of calling a Convention Parliament had been previously used when succession to the Throne was unclear; it was a Convention Parliament which restored Charles II to the Throne following the English Civil War and republican Commonwealth.) The Convention declared, on
February 12 1689, that James's attempt to flee on
December 11,
1688 constituted an abdication of the government, and that the Throne had then become vacant (instead of passing to James II's son, James Francis Edward). Essentially, this was a Deposition Parliament. James's daughter Mary was declared Queen; she was to rule jointly with her husband William III. The Scottish Estates followed suit on
April 11,
1689.
William and Mary subsequently granted their assent to an Act commonly referred to as the
Bill of Rights. The Act confirmed the earlier Declaration of Right, in which the Convention Parliament had declared that James's flight constituted an abdication, and that William III and Mary II were to be King and Queen. The Bill of Rights also charged James II with abusing his power; amongst other things, it criticised the suspension of the Test Acts, the prosecution of the Seven Bishops for merely petitioning the Crown, the establishment of a standing army and the imposition of cruel punishments. The Bill also stipulated that no Catholic would henceforth be permitted to ascend to the English throne, nor could any English monarch marry a Catholic. The Act, furthermore, settled the question of succession to the Crown. First in the line of succession were the children of William and Mary (if any), to be followed by the Princess Anne and her children, and finally by the children of William by any subsequent marriage.'
Later years
With a French army on his side, James landed in Ireland in March 1689. The Irish Parliament did not follow the example of the English Parliament; it declared that James remained King. At James' urging, the Irish Parliament passed an Act for Liberty of Conscience which granted religious freedom to all Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. The king was, however, defeated at the
Battle of the Boyne by William III on
1 July 1690. He fled to
France after the defeat departing from
Kinsale, his alleged cowardice leading to the dissolution of much of his support and earning him the nickname ''Séamus an Chaca'' ("James the Shit") in Ireland.
In
France, James was allowed to live in the royal château of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye. His supporters were not confined to Catholics. When the Anglican Bishop of
Elphin visited him James II said "If, as I trust, what I have suffered has benefiitted my soul, then even William of Orange will have proved my best friend." An attempt was made to restore him to the Throne by assassinating William III in 1696, but the plot failed. Louis XIV's offer to have James elected
King of Poland in the same year was rejected, for James feared that acceptance of the Polish Crown might (in the minds of the English People) render him incapable of being King of England. Thereafter, Louis ceased to offer assistance to James.
During his last years, James lived as an austere
penitent. He died of a
brain hemorrhage on
16 September 1701 at
Saint-Germain-en-Laye. His body was laid in a coffin at the Chapel of Saint Edmund in the Church of the English Benedictines in the Rue St. Jacques, Paris. However, during the
French Revolution, his body was desecrated and the remains were lost,
[2] however his brain survives in a bronze urn in a chapel at the
Scots College in Paris.
Legacy
James's younger daughter
Anne succeeded to the throne when William III died in 1702. (Mary II had died in 1694.) The
Act of Settlement 1701 provided that, if the line of succession established in the Bill of Rights were to be extinguished, then the Crown would go to a German cousin,
Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and to her Protestant heirs. Thus, when Anne died in 1714 (less than two months after the death of Sophia), the Crown was inherited by
George I, Sophia's son, the Elector of Hanover and Anne's second cousin.
The son of James II,
James Francis Edward Stuart (known to his supporters as "James III and VIII" and to his opponents as the "Old Pretender"), took up the Jacobite cause. He led a rising in Scotland in 1715 shortly after George I's accession, but was defeated. Further risings were also defeated and since the rising of 1745 led by
Charles Edward Stuart, no serious attempt to restore the Stuart heir has been made, although some individuals still adhere to the philosophy of Jacobitism.
James Francis Edward died in 1766, when he was succeeded by his eldest son,
Charles Edward Stuart (known to his supporters as "Charles III" and to his opponents as the "Young Pretender"). Charles in turn was succeeded by his younger brother
Henry Benedict Stuart, the
Dean of the College of Cardinals of the
Catholic Church. Henry was the last of James II's legitimate descendants. At his death in 1807 the Jacobite claim devolved upon the senior descendant of King
Charles I, King
Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia. Presently, James II's heir is
Franz, Duke of Bavaria. Although the
Duke of Bavaria has not claimed the throne, he is recognised by Jacobites as "Francis II".
Titles, styles, honours, and arms
Titles
★ '
14 October 1633 –
6 February 1685': Prince James
★ '
27 January 1644 –
6 February 1685': The Duke of York
★ '
10 May 1659 –
6 February 1685': The Earl of Ulster
★ '
31 December 1660 –
6 February 1685': The Duke of Albany
★ '
31 December 1660 –
6 February 1685': ''His Majesty'' The Duke of Normandy
★ '
6 February 1685 –
11 December 1688': ''His Majesty'' The King
★ '
11 December 1688 –
16 September 1701': ''King James VII in exile''
Styles
The official style of James II was "James the Second, by the Grace of God,
King of England,
Scotland,
France and
Ireland,
Defender of the Faith, etc." (The
claim to France was only nominal, and was asserted by every English King from
Edward III to
George III, regardless of the amount of French territory actually controlled.)
James was created "
Duke of Normandy" by King Louis XIV of France, December 31, 1660. This was a few months after the restoration of his brother
Charles II to the English and Irish thrones (Charles II had been crowned King of Scotland in 1651), and probably was done as a political gesture of support for James - since his brother also would have claimed the title "Duke of Normandy."
Honours
★ Governor of Jersey, ''February – August
1650''
★ Governor of the Company of the Royal Fishery, ''
22 August 1661''
★ Inner Temple, entitled to practice as a Barrister and Bencher, ''
3 November 1661''
★ 'KG':
Knight of the Garter, ''
20 April 1642 –
June 1673''
★ 'PC':
Privy Counsellor, ''before
11 August 1649 –
June 1673''
★ 'PC':
Privy Counsellor, ''
18 May 1674''
★ Member of the Council, ''
4 December 1679''
★ 'MA':
Master of Arts,
Oxford University, ''
1 November 1642''
★ 'FRS': Fellow,
Royal Society, ''
9 January 1664/
65
★ Lord High Commissioner to the Parliament, ''
5 July 1681''
Military
★ ''
1649 –
1660'': Lord High Admiral (in exile)
★ ''
1652 –
1655'': French service, under Turenne.
★ ''
3 June 1658'': Battle of the Dunes
★ ''
1660 –
June 1673'': Lord-Lieutenant of the Cinque Ports
★ ''
1660 –
June 1673'': Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports
★ ''
1660 –
June 1673'': Constable of Dover Castle
★ ''
1660 –
1688'': Captain-General of the Artillery Company of London
★ ''June
1660 –
June 1673'': Lord High Admiral
★ ''
1661 –
June 1673'': Keeper and Captain of Portsmouth
★ ''
1662 –
June 1673'': Chief Commissioner for the government of Tangier
★ ''
27 February 1661/
62 –
June 1673'': Lord High Admiral of Dunkirk, Tangier and all foreign possessions in Africa and America
★ ''
3 June 1665'': Battle of Lowestoft
★ ''
28 May 1672'': Battle of Solebay
★ ''
1 February 1672/
73'': Lord High Admiral
★ ''
26 April 1673'': Generalissimo of the Forces, both Horse and Foot, against the Dutch
★ ''
1683 –
1685'': Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company
★ ''May
1684 – December
1688'': Lord High Admiral
greatness and beautiful rights
Arms
His
arms as King were: ''Quarterly, I and IV Grandquarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lis Or (for France) and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for
England); II Or a lion rampant within a tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for
Ireland)''.
Ancestors
Issue
Miscellaneous
★ James was responsible for the last major redevelopments at the
Palace of Whitehall prior to its destruction by fire.
★ An assertion found in many sources that James II died
6 September 1701 (
17 September 1701 New Style) may result from a miscalculation done by an author of anonymous "An Exact Account of the Sickness and Death of the Late King James II, as also of the Proceedings at St. Germains thereupon, 1701, in a letter from an English gentleman in France to his friend in London" (Somers Tracts, ed. 1809-1815, XI, pp. 339-342). The account reads: "And on Friday the 17th instant, about three in the afternoon, the king died, the day he always fasted in memory of our blessed Saviour's passion, the day he ever desired to die on, and the ninth hour, according to the Jewish account, when our Saviour was crucified." As
17 September 1701
New Style falls on a Saturday and the author insists that James died on Friday, "the day he ever desired to die on", an inevitable conclusion is that the author miscalculated the date which later made it to various reference works. See "English Historical Documents 1660-1714", ed. by Andrew Browning (London and New York: Routledge, 2001). PP. 136-138.
See also
★
Divine Right of Kings
★
Robert Bellarmine - a Roman Catholic theological critique of absolutism as tyranny
★
Touch Pieces
Notes
1. His body was lain in a coffin in the Chapel of Saint Edmund in the Church of the English Benedictines in the Rue St. Jacques, Paris. However during the French Revolution, it was desecrated and destroyed. Parts of his bowel sent to the parish church of St. Germain-en-Laye were rediscovered in 1824 and are the only known remains left.
2. Jacobite.ca
3. Stuart, Catherine Laura
4. Stuart, Charles of Cambridge, Duke of Cambridge
5. Stuart, Charlotte Maria
References
★
Belloc, Hilaire. ''James the Second''. Faber and Gwyer, 1928.
★ Clarke, James S. (Editor). (1816). ''The Life of James II.'' London.
★
Davis, Richard B. (Editor). (1963). ''William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World, 1676-1701.'' Chapel Hill: The Virginia Historical Society by University of North Carolina Press.
★ "James II." (1911). ''Encyclopædia Britannica,'' 11th ed. London: Cambridge University Press.
★ Miller, John (2000). ''James II'', 3d. ed. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08728-4
★
McFerran, Noel S. (2003). "James II and VII."
★ Turner, Francis C. (1948). ''James II.'' London: Eyre and Spottiswoode.
External links
★
James II Chronology
★
King James II on Find-A-Grave
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