Background
He was born in October 1633, the second son of Charles I, James was created Duke of York at baptism.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
JAMES II Stuart
Edit ProfileEducation
James entered the military service to the King of France. He showed himself as a brave warrior, under the leadership of Marshal Tyurene participated in the suppression of the Fronde as well as in the war with Spain. In 1655 the Mazarin government concluded an agreement with Cromwell and members of the British royal family were forced to leave France. The Duke of York joined the Spanish service: he commanded a regiment of British and Irish immigrants stationed in Flanders.
Career
During the Civil War James was taken prisoner by Fairfax (1646), but contrived to escape to Holland in 1648.
Returning to England with Charles II in 1660 he was appointed lord high admiral and warden of the Cinque Ports.
Pepys, who was secretary to the navy, has recorded the patient industry and unflinching probity of his naval administration.
In 1672 he made a public avowal of his conversion to Roman Catholicism.
In consequence of this James was forced to resign his posts.
Anti-Catholic feeling ran so high that, after the discovery of the Popish Plot, he found it wiser to retire to Brussels (1679), while Shaftesbury and the Whigs planned to exclude him from the succession.
In 1684 Charles, having triumphed over the Exclusionists, restored James to the office of high admiral by use of his dispensing power. James ascended the throne on the 16th of February 1685.
The nation showed its loyalty by its firm adherence to him during the rebellions of Argyll in Scotland and Monmouth in England (1685).
The savage reprisals on their suppression, in especial the " Bloody Assizes " of Jeffreys, produced a revulsion of public feeling.
James had promised to defend the existing Church and government, but the people now became suspicious.
James was not a mere" tyrant and bigot, as the popular imagination speedily assumed him to be.
He was rather a mediocre but not altogether obtuse man, who mistook tributary streams for the main currents of national thought.
Thus he greatly underrated the strength of the Establishment, and preposterously exaggerated that of Dissent and Catholicism.
He perceived that opinion was seriously divided in the Established Church, and thought that a vigorous policy would soon prove effective.
Hence he publicly celebrated Mass, prohibited preaching against Catholicism, and showed exceptional favour to renegades from the Establishment.
By undue pressure he secured a decision of the judges, in the test case of Godden v. Hale (1687), by which he was allowed to dispense Catholics from the Test Act.
Catholics were now admitted to the chief offices in the army, and to someimportant posts in the state, in virtue of the dispensing power of James.
The judges had been intimidated or corrupted, and the royal promise to protect the Establishment violated.
The army had been increased to 20, 000 men and encamped at Hounslow Heath to overawe the capital.
In 1687 James made a bid for the support of the Dissenters by advocating a system of joint toleration for Catholics and Dissenters.
In April 1687 he published a Declaration of Indulgence-exempting Catholics and Dissenters from penal statutes.
He followed up this measure by dissolving parliament and attacking the universities.
Seven bishops refused, were indicted by James for libel, but acquitted amid the indescribable enthusiasm of the populace.
Protestant nobles of England, enraged at the tolerant policy of James, had been in negotiation with William of Orange since 1687.
The trial of the seven bishops, and the birth of a son to James, now induced them to send William a definite invitation (June 30, 1688).
James remained in a fool's paradise till the last, and only awakened to his danger when William landed at Torbay (November 5, 1688) and swept all before him.
James pretended to treat, and in the midst of the negotiations fled to France.
At the end of 1688 James seemed to have lost his old courage.
After his defeat at the Boyne (July 1, 1690) he speedily departed from Ireland, where he had so conducted himself that his English followers had been ashamed of his incapacity, while French officers had derided him.
His proclamations and policy towards England during these years show unmistakable traces of the same incompetence.
On the 17th of May 1692 he saw the French fleet destroyed before his very eyes off Cape La Hogue.
He was aware of, though not an open advocate of the " Assassination Plot, " which was directed against William.
By its revelation and failure (February 10, 1696) the third and last serious attempt of James for his restoration failed.
He refused in the same year to accept the French influence in favour of his candidature to the Polish throne, on the ground that it would exclude him from the English.
Henceforward he neglected politics, and Louis of France ceased to consider him as a political factor.
A mysterious conversion had been effected in him by an austere Cistercian abbot.
The world saw with astonishment this vicious, rough, coarse-fibred man of the world transformed into an austere penitent, who worked miracles of healing.
Achievements
-
During the years of the revolution, James took refuge in Holland, and then was enlisted in the French fleet, where he gained the reputation of a brave and capable commander. After the restoration, James returned to his homeland, where he was ranked as a Grand Admiral. He made many useful transformations in the Navy, in particular, invented marine signaling by using flags and flares. During the war with Holland, James won several sea battles, which achieved some popularity. He got the throne after the death of Charles's childless brother in 1685.
Religion
Britain's last Stuart and last Catholic monarch, he granted religious minorities the right to worship.
He attempted to master opposition by controlling local elections, expelling Protestant university officials and replacing them with Catholics, reviving the Anglican Church's High Commission, which removed the critical bishop of London, and maintaining a standing army outside London.
Politics
After his conversion to Catholicism, James's religion, his pro-French policies, and his antiparliamentarian sentiments attracted the hostilities of the emerging Whig party.
The occasion caused even passive observers to resent James's autocracy, and when a few ardent opponents summoned William of Orange, James's son-in-law, to save England's "religion, liberties and properties" by invasion, most of the nation willingly allowed the so-called Glorious Revolution to run its course.
Membership
He was a member of the Royal Society of London.
Personality
His victory over the Dutch in 1665, and his drawn battle with De Ruyter in 1672, show that he was a good naval commander as well as an excellent administrator.
Moreover, though he mismanaged almost every political problem with which he personally dealt, he was singularly tactless and impatient of advice.
He was more honest and sincere than Charles II, more genuinely patriotic in his foreign policy, and more consistent in his religious attitude. He was distinguished by a stern and imperious nature. During military campaigns, he showed personal courage. Unlike his elder brother Charles II, who was ready to compromise in order to preserve power, James II remained faithful to his principles, convictions, word and friends under any circumstances.
Connections
James was married twice: on Anna Hyde (1638-1671), the daughter of statesman and historian Count Clarendon, and on Maria Modena (1658-1718), the daughter of the Modena duke Alfonso IV. From his first marriage he had 8 children. But all his 4 sons and 2 daughters died in childhood and only two daughters, the future queens Maria II and Anna, survived. From the second marriage, seven children were born, of which also only two survived: the son James "The Old Challenger" and the daughter already born in France, Louise Maria Stuart (died at the age of 19 from smallpox). The legal offspring of James II was interrupted in 1807. In addition to descendants of two lawful wives, Jacob (when he was a Duke of York) had children from two mistresses. From Arabella Churchill, the sister of the famous military leader John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, he had two sons, James and Henry, who followed his father to France, and two daughters, Henrietta and Arabella; all of them wore the name Fitzjames, with the prefix Fitz, traditional for illegitimate children of the nobility. From Catherine Sedley, whom James gave the title of countess of Dorchester after the accession to the throne , he had a daughter, also Katherine, in the first marriage of the Marquis, and in the second - the Duchess. The progeny of the illegitimate children of James II exist to the present day; In particular, the descendants of Henrietta Fitzjames (through her mother Diana) are the grandchildren of Elizabeth II, princes William and Harry. Carlos Miguel Fitzshaems Stuart passed the title of the Dukes of Alba after the death of the 13th Duchess of Alba in 1802 (the head of Alba's house until recently was the 18th Duchess Stuart Alba Maria del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James who died on November 20, 2014).
- Mother: :
- Henrietta Maria French
- Sister: :
- Elizabeth Stuart,
- Brother: :
- Henry
- Brother: :
- Carl II
- Brother: :
- Charles James
- son::
- James FitzJames
- son::
- Henry Fitzjames
- son::
- James Stuart
- son::
- James Francis Edward Stuart,
- Sister: :
- Maria Henrietta Stuart, also Maria Henrietta of England,
- Sister: :
- Catherine Stuart
- Sister: :
- Henrietta Anna Stuart,
- Father: :
- Charles I
- daughter::
- Louisa Maria Stuart
- daughter::
- Mary II
- daughter::
- Henrietta Fitzjames
- Spouse: :
- Anna Hyde
- Spouse: :
- Maria Modenskaya,
She was the youngest daughter of the French King Henry IV; the Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, the wife of King Charles I and the mother of two English kings.
She was a daughter of the Anglo-Scottish King Charles I Stuart and the French princess Henrietta Maria. Since the age of six, she was a prisoner of the British Parliament during the Civil War, December 29,1635 - September 8, 1650
He was the King of England and Scotland from 1660, the eldest son of Charles I and Henrietta of France.
the 1st Duke of Berwick, French commander, Marshal of France (1706), illegitimate son of James II and Arabella Churchill (sister of the Duke of Marlborough), August 21, 1670 - June 12, 1734
the first Duke of Albemarle (1696-1702), illegitimate son of James II and Arabella Churchill (sister of the Duke of Marlborough), August 6, 1673 - December 16, 1702
James the Old Pretender, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the only son of Jacob II and Maria Modenskaya, the applicant for the English throne under the name of James III and the Scottish under the name of James VIII, June 10, 1688 - January 1, 1766
She was the eldest daughter of the King of England and Scotland, Charles I, November 4, 1631 - December 24, 1660
Duchess of Orleans, the youngest daughter of Charles I Stuart and Henrietta Maria of France, June 16, 1644 - June 30, 1670
King of England, Scotland and Ireland since March 27, 1625.
the youngest daughter of the deposed King James II; among the Jacobites recognized as a royal princess, although she wasn't the eldest daughter of the monarch, June 28, 1692 - April 18, 1712
the Queen of England and Scotland from 1689, from the dynasty of Stuarts (co-ruler of her husband and cousin Wilhelm III), April 30, 1662 - December 28, 1694
the Duchess of York and the Duchess of Albany, the first wife of the future King of England, Scotland and Ireland, James II, the mother of two queens: Mary II and Anna, March 12, 1637 - March 31, 1671
daughter of the Duke of Modena Alfonso IV d'Este; Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, the second wife of King James II, October 5, 1658 - May 7, 1718
References
-
Born
-
Died
September 5, 1701 (aged 68) -
Resting place
Church of the English Benedictines, Paris, France -
Nationality
English -
Religion
Anglicanism Catholicism -
Political Party
Whig