MDDM: Ch. 33 James II

[jbor]

Scott wrote:

> 336.10 'some of the other Fictions that govern'd that unhappy Monarch's
> Life' ??

James II ruled from 1685-1688. He was driven out of England when the Tories
and Whigs got together and invited William of Orange (James's son-in-law)
to come across the Channel and get rid of him. This was quite an astonishing
turn of events, both for the two opposing political factions to agree on
something for once but also seeing as how England and Holland had just
fought three wars against each other. It just goes to show how unanimously
hated James was.

As well as being an avowed Roman Catholic, stacking his court with papists
and his standing army with Catholic officers, and issuing a Declaration of
Indulgence suspending the penal laws against Catholics and Nonconformists,
he was a cruel and imperious despot. When news of the birth of a male heir
was announced in 1688 most of the population refused to believe that it was
true. A rumour went around that somebody else's new-born baby had been
smuggled into the Queen's bedchamber in a bed-warming-pan. No-one relished
the prospect of a line of Catholic monarchs.

James died in exile in 1701, but his son, James, came to be known as the Old
Pretender, and his grandson was Bonny Prince Charlie. The Jacobite
Rebellions (1715, 1745) had the aim of restoring the throne to the Old
Pretender as James III.

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