As the second son of the King of England, James bore the title Duke of York. The years of his childhood and youth occurred during the era of the English Revolution. During the First Civil War, the prince was next to his father. After the defeat of the royalists (1646), Jacob found himself under the supervision of parliament, but later it was possible to organize his escape to Holland. The Duke of York, his sisters and Queen Henrietta Maria found refuge in France. Having matured, Jacob entered military service with the King of France. He proved himself to be a brave warrior, under the command of Marshal Turenne he participated in the suppression of the Fronde, and later in the war with Spain. In 1655, Mazarin's government entered into an agreement with Cromwell and members of the English royal family were forced to leave France. The Duke of York entered Spanish service: he commanded a regiment of English and Irish emigrants stationed in Flanders.
In 1660, the monarchy was restored in England and Charles II Stuart became king. The Duke of York returned to his homeland and headed the English Admiralty. Under his leadership, measures were taken to reorganize the maritime department. The renewed British fleet performed well during the Anglo-Dutch wars. The Duke himself took part in naval battles during the wars with the Dutch. Commanding the fleet, in 1665 he defeated Admiral Ondam, and in 1672 he fought with Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. Personal participation in hostilities gained Jacob popularity in England.
At the same time, the Duke of York's loyalty to the Catholic religion alienated the British, mostly Protestants, from him. His devotion to Catholicism is explained by both his upbringing and the circumstances of his life. James was convinced that the horrors of the revolution punished England for betraying Catholicism, and was grateful to the Catholic Church and the Catholic powers for the shelter they provided to the expelled Stuarts. While still in exile, James secretly became engaged to the Catholic Anna Hyde (1638-1671), daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, the closest adviser and later minister of Charles II. Anna was one of the court ladies of Mary Stuart, the wife of the ruler of Holland, William II of Orange. Returning to England, the Duke of York married her, although King Charles II objected to the marriage. Jacob Stuart and Anna Hyde had two daughters - Mary (1662-1694), who later became the wife of William III of Orange, and Anna (1665-1713), who married the Danish Prince George. In 1668, the Duke of York officially converted to Catholicism, but at the insistence of the king, both of his nieces - Anne and Mary - were raised in the Anglican faith. In 1671, Anna Hyde died, but Jacob remarried a Catholic, the daughter of the Duke of Modena, Maria (1658-1718).

Accession to the throne

A significant blow to the reputation of the Duke of York was the discovery of a conspiracy in 1679, during the investigation of which the Whigs accused him of preparing the murder of Charles II. The king was forced to order his brother to leave England, where a campaign began to deprive James of the right to inherit the throne. The Duke of York was forced to spend several months in Brussels; Then Charles II returned his younger brother from exile, but, not daring to allow him to live in London, appointed James as his viceroy in Scotland. In 1681, passions calmed down a bit, the disgraced Duke returned to London and actually headed the government in the last years of the reign of Charles II. It is with the influence of the Duke of York that the dissolution of parliament in 1681 is associated, which refused to recognize James as heir to the throne. By the time of the death of his elder brother, all the levers of power were in the hands of the Duke of York and he unhinderedly ascended the throne under the name of James II Stuart.
In general, English society reacted negatively to the new king, a well-known champion of absolute monarchy and a devoted papist. However, the accession of James II to the throne was not opposed. The newly convened parliament, for the most part, consisted of Tories, who were ready to support the king in the fight against the opposition Whigs. Using the support of parliament, James II decided to create a regular army and limited the freedom of the press by a number of decrees, which was supposed to curb the influence of the Whigs.
Just a few months after his accession to the throne, armed uprisings began in Britain against the power of James II. The Scots, led by Earl Archibald of Argyll (1629-1685), were the first to rise up against the new king in May 1685. The rebels hoped to raise all of Southern (valley) and Northern (mountainous) Scotland against the Catholic king and the English authorities. However, there was no general uprising; the forces of the rebels turned out to be too weak and were quickly defeated. The conspirators, including Argyll, were captured and executed.

Reign crisis

In June 1685, a rebellion broke out in the southwestern English counties of Devonshire, Somersetshire and Dorsetshire under the leadership of the Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles II. Even during his father's lifetime, the Whigs predicted Monmouth for the throne. In addition to the Whigs, local peasants and artisans came over to his side in large numbers. As the leader of the uprising, Monmouth showed indecisiveness, missed the time to march on London and gave James II the opportunity to gather superior military forces. On July 6, 1685, in a battle near the town of Bridgewater in Somersetshire, the rebels suffered a crushing defeat. Monmouth was captured and soon executed.
The successful suppression of the rebellions increased the king's self-confidence. James II openly began to pursue absolutist policies. A wave of terror overtook the former rebels, more than a hundred people were executed, eight hundred were sent to the West Indies on plantations. The basis of the king's power was a permanent army of thirty thousand, the number of which was soon increased to 40 thousand people. Not only the British, but also foreign mercenaries served in it. In November 1685, parliament was dissolved.
In foreign policy, James II tried to pursue an independent policy and, unlike his older brother, did not look back at powerful France. Being the father-in-law of the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange and considering him as a future heir, he was wary of French plans of conquest in the Netherlands. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes was used by James II for pragmatic purposes. Despite the displeasure of Louis XIV, Bourbon granted refuge in England to many wealthy French Huguenots who left France after 1685.

Declaration of Tolerance

Being a zealous Catholic, the king sought to equalize the rights of his subjects - Protestants and Catholics. He got judges to recognize the right to suspend laws that prohibited Catholics from holding official positions. As a result, Catholics began to occupy military and judicial positions. The king spared no effort and money on Catholic preaching in the country: Catholic priests returned to England, Jesuit schools appeared in London. James II did not seek an immediate and complete conversion of the country to Catholicism; his relations with Pope Innocent XI were cool, but the spread of Catholicism was viewed with suspicion by his subjects.
The “Declaration of Toleration” of April 2, 1687 repealed the repressive laws that had previously been issued in England against all dissenters, including Catholics. In English society, the act was perceived as another step towards restoring the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church, towards the transformation of Catholicism into the state religion. The declaration, repeated in 1688, caused a wave of protest from the Tory nobles, most of whom belonged to the Church of England. The bishops of the Anglican Church addressed the king with a petition expressing their disagreement with the religious policy of the monarch. In response, James II ordered the arrest of seven bishops and accused them of distributing anti-royal pamphlets. This case rallied the Tories and Whig oppositionists against the king. The protest spread not only to London, but also to the counties.
The restoration of Catholicism was opposed by wide sections of English society, primarily by the priests of the Church of England and the Puritan bourgeoisie, who had been fighting the Roman Curia for decades. Even conservative landlords feared that they would have to return the secularized lands of Catholic monasteries. Catholicism for the British was a foreign religion - the religion of the French and Spaniards, with whom England had been at enmity for centuries. Thus, on anti-Catholic grounds, an alliance was formed against the king, which united representatives of the most diverse political and religious movements. Everyone wanted to get rid of the papist king as quickly as possible.

Dethronement

On June 10, 1688, Queen Mary of Modena gave birth to James II's heir, Prince James (James). This event seriously changed the political balance of power. If earlier the eldest daughter of James II, the Protestant Mary, and her Protestant husband William of Orange were considered the heir to the throne, then with the advent of an heir, whose upbringing would be carried out by Catholics, the prospect of England returning to Catholicism began to seem quite real. In the summer of 1688, almost the entire nobility took up arms against the king, with the exception of a small layer of Catholics. James II tried to reach a compromise with the opposition, announcing free elections to parliament, and to reconcile with the Anglican bishops, but his efforts were too late.
On June 30, 1688, the leaders of the Whigs and Tories turned to the son-in-law of James II, Prince William III of Orange, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, with an invitation to come to England with an army and, together with his wife Mary, the daughter of James II, to take the royal throne, guaranteeing his subjects the preservation of religion and the rights of parliament. This coup plan involved changing the monarch with maximum respect for legitimate forms, through a “family reshuffle” of the reigning persons. Having recruited a mercenary army of twelve thousand, in early November 1688, Prince William landed in Torbay, one of the harbors in southwest England. On November 8, he entered the city of Exeter and from there headed for London.
Officers and soldiers of the royal army went over to William's side, and the courtiers did the same. Princess Anne supported the claims of sister Mary and her husband. In the north, in Cheshire and Nottinghamshire, uprisings began against the authority of James II. All major cities in England supported the invasion. In December 1688, James II was forced to flee to France, where his wife and son were sent in advance. Louis XIV provided the exile with the Saint-Germain Palace and provided a generous allowance. Mary III Stuart and William III of Orange became the new kings of England and Scotland.
Overthrown from the throne, Jacob did not give up hopes of regaining power. France, which was waging a war with England for the Palatinate inheritance, provided support to the deposed king. In 1689, James II sailed to Ireland and roused the country's Catholic population against William III, but his forces were defeated in 1690. In 1691, France's attempt to support James II with an amphibious landing ended in the defeat of the French fleet. Subsequently, the former English king tried to organize a pan-European alliance against William III, but Louis XIV, who concluded the Peace of Ryswick with England in 1697, refused to support the claims of James II.
In the last years of his life, James II completely turned to religion, spending most of his time in Parisian monasteries. He was distinguished by a stern and domineering character. During military campaigns he showed personal courage. Unlike his older brother Charles II, who was ready to make compromises in order to maintain power, James II, under any circumstances, remained faithful to his principles, beliefs, word and friends. After his death he was buried in the parish church of Saint-Germain. During the French Revolution, the burial place of James II was destroyed.

So, in 1662, Charles II Stuart married Catherine, Infanta of Portugal. This marriage turned out to be childless, which is why, after the death of Charles II, his throne was inherited by his only brother, the Duke of York, who ascended the throne of Great Britain under the name James II.

Unfortunately, James II, a devout Catholic, was a man wholly devoted to the interests of the Roman Catholic Church (papacy), and all the efforts of Charles II to force him to change his beliefs came to nothing. In turn, the English Parliament made every effort to convince Charles II of the need to change his last will and deprive his brother of the right of succession to the throne on the grounds that a Catholic king was as unacceptable to Great Britain as a Protestant king was to France or Spain.

However, Charles II, who doted on his brother and tried by all means to delay the resolution of the issue, was very successful in this and died calmly, without giving consent to such an act. Therefore, no one could resist the proclamation of James II as king and his accession to the throne of Great Britain.

Dreaming of the return of the papacy, James II appointed a papist professor at Oxford, openly received the papal legate, persuaded several of his papists to convert to Catholicism, and also intended to cancel the measures directed against the papists, in other words, he committed actions that caused discontent and murmur among the people. It should be noted that during the period of exile, Charles II had a son, who was named James and given the title of Duke of Monmouth. This James, objecting to being considered a bastard or illegitimate son, in view of Charles II.'s promise to marry his mother, laid claim to the English throne. Gathering a small force, in 1685 he landed on the west coast of England and proclaimed himself king. Having suffered, however, defeat at the very first clash with the royal troops, he was captured, taken to the Tower and a few days later publicly beheaded on Tower Hill, which greatly contributed to strengthening the position of the king, who was ready to implement the Roman policy with even greater firmness. -Catholic Church.

The wife of James II, Queen Mary, from the Modena family, did not please him for a long time with the appearance of an heir. Finally, on June 10, 1688, the queen was successfully resolved by the prince, whom the king named James, granting him the title of Prince of Wales. The king notified all those in power in neighboring states about the joyful event, causing rejoicing among the papists, who believed that the time was not far off when Great Britain would return to the fold of the Catholic Church. The endless stream of congratulations addressed to the royal couple, at first glance, was encouraging: it seemed that all the English were happy to consider the newborn prince as their future ruler. In reality, the most vile fakes were spread, containing speculation about the prince’s belated birth. In order to suppress such misunderstandings, on October 27, 1688, the king ordered all courtiers who were present in the palace during the birth to appear in order to certify the birth of a son, whom he, James II, considered his legal heir.

From his first marriage, the king had two daughters, raised in the traditions of the Anglican Church. The eldest, Maria, born in 1662, married William, Prince of Orange in 1677, and the youngest, Anna, born in 1664, married George, Prince of Denmark in 1683. William, Prince of Orange, born in 1650, the son of Mary, daughter of the beheaded King Charles I, could rightfully lay claim to the English throne, so some lords and princes of the church, having entered into secret negotiations with him, conveyed to him the news of the danger threatening England of falling again under the influence of the Pope, while expressing unequivocal concern about the illegal deprivation of William's inheritance rights to the British crown. William of Orange, instantly realizing what they were getting at, turned for help to the united provinces of the Netherlands, who immediately equipped him with a navy, and already in November 1688 the prince departed from the Dutch harbor, initially heading north to send the spies on the wrong trail , and only then turned to the west, towards the strait. For some time the flotilla moved along the English coast in the same direction, while dispatches were constantly sent from all English ports in London with messages about the passage of the Dutch fleet. There was no way for couriers to get into the city without passing the Great London Bridge, which is why the bridge was crowded both with couriers following almost one after another, and with curious townspeople greedy for news. The size of William of Orange's flotilla easily convinced the Londoners of the pointlessness of any resistance on the part of James II, which is why they decided to make every effort to prevent an armed conflict. Similar work was carried out in the army of King James, where a decision was made to refuse to assist him in the fight against the prince, who landed in the west of England and headed straight towards London. Abandoned by everyone, James the Second sent the queen and her six-month-old child to France, and then he himself followed them.

The flight of the king gave Parliament the opportunity to declare that the king had abdicated the throne, and on February 13, 1689, the Prince of Orange was proclaimed king of Great Britain under the name of William III. The people did not hide their joy. Bonfires blazed in the city, on which the jubilant crowd, with wild gloating, burned images of the Pope and the Jesuit Petersen, confessor and adviser to James II. Nostradamus mentions this in the 80th quatrain of the 3rd century:

"The unworthy will be expelled from the English throne,
His advisor will be thrown into the fire out of gloating:
His supporters will act so cleverly
That Bastard will be half approved.”

As for the expression “Unworthy” (as Nostradamus calls King James II), it should be noted that this expression occurs in the first centuries editions published in France, but in later editions and, especially those published in England, instead of “Unworthy” the expression “Worthy” appeared. By the way, the poetic meter allows for both, according to the assessment of the king by different parties: the most worthy of all contenders for the throne, from the point of view of the papists, James II remained unworthy for the Protestants.

Let us turn to the 89th quatrain of the 4th century:

“The armed militia of London entered into a secret conspiracy
During an exchange of views on the bridge regarding the enterprise being prepared against their king,
His satellites will taste death,
Another king will be elected, blond, originally from Frisia.”

Born on November 14, 1650 in The Hague, King William came from a province called Holland, or West Frisia. In his youth, he may have had blond hair, but there may also be an allusion to his name (Guillaume is spelled "Guillaume" in French). As for the unfortunate companions of King James II, everyone who became papists to please him had to, following his sad example, leave England and emigrate to Ireland, where, as a result of a bloody war, they were finally broken by King William, and most of them cost a life. James II managed to escape this time too; he went to France, where he died in September 1701. And six months later, on March 8, 1702, King William also passed away after him. Thus, none of the Protestant descendants of the beheaded King Charles I remained alive, with the exception of Princess Anne, who was at that time married to George, Prince of Denmark, and who was immediately proclaimed Queen of Great Britain.
Her only son, William, Duke of Gloucester, who showed the most brilliant hopes, to everyone's surprise, died suddenly in his eleventh year on July 30, 1700, i.e. three years before this event. The death of his son prompted the then living King William to show commendable concern for preserving the right of succession to the throne for the Protestant line of the Stuart dynasty, forever excluding the papists from it. Thus, on March 22, 1701, Parliament passed a law according to which, in the event of the extinction of the line of Charles and the Protestant line of King James I, in the absence of direct heirs of William and Anna, the throne of Great Britain would be inherited by representatives of the line of Elizabeth in the person of Elizabeth’s then still living daughter, Sophia, Elector Brunswick, Luneburg and Hanover with all its descendants, considered as the nearest and legitimate heirs of the British crown.

Thus, this legal succession along the Protestant line was subsequently once again confirmed
Parliament during the reign of Queen Anne, in particular in 1707, when England and Scotland were solemnly transformed into a single state with a single parliament, the adopted order of succession was legally assigned to Elector Sophia and her direct descendants. Note that Elector Sophia, granddaughter of King James I and mother of King George I, who died in May 1714 in her eighty-fourth year, shortly before the death of Queen Anne, was born on October 13, 1630 in The Hague (Holland or West Frisia), in other words in the same place as King William, a Frisian by birth. Thus, Nostradamus’s prediction was fulfilled twice: the first time in the person of the king, and the second time in the person of the one whom he appointed as his heir.
Note that England, a country where the right of succession to the throne is regulated by the law of inheritance, twice found itself in such a crisis that Parliament, seeing no other way out, was forced to make a decision to legislate the right to the British crown (indicating a specific person) behind the Protestant line, setting religious affiliation as the main condition.

JAMES II(James II) (1633–1701), in 1685–1688 king of England, Ireland and (as James VII) Scotland, the last English monarch of the Stuart dynasty in the direct male line. The son of King Charles I and Henrietta Maria, the younger brother of the future Charles II, James was born at St. James's Palace in London on October 14, 1633, receiving the title Duke of York in January 1634.

After the surrender of Oxford in 1646, he was captured by parliamentary troops, but in 1648 he managed to escape. At first, Jacob was in The Hague, and in 1649 he was reunited with his mother in Paris. In 1652, Jacob joined the French army, but in 1657 he was forced to go into service with the Spaniards, as this was demanded by his brother Charles, who had concluded an alliance with Spain. Jacob commanded the English contingent, which fought steadfastly against the French and did not give up their positions in the so-called. Battle of the Dunes (near Dunkirk) June 14, 1658.

He returned to England in 1660, at the time of the Restoration, with his brother Charles II, who had ascended the throne, and was appointed Lord High Admiral. In this post, Yakov showed great zeal and a sincere desire to improve the condition of the navy. He also proved to be a good naval commander, as evidenced by his victories over the Dutch at Lowestoft in 1665 and at Southwold Bay in 1672. New Amsterdam, which the British took from the Dutch in 1664, was named New York in his honor.

In 1660 James married Anne Hyde, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon. Shortly before her death in 1671, she converted to Catholicism, which probably accelerated the conversion of James himself to Catholicism, which he openly announced in 1672. James was a supporter of a close alliance with Catholic France and naturally approved of the Declaration of Toleration issued by Charles in 1672. In 1673, in accordance with the Test Act, was forced to resign all his public posts. The hysteria that the alleged “Papist Conspiracy” caused in society made Jacob’s position in England very difficult, and although he retired to the Netherlands, the House of Commons adopted the so-called. The "Removal Bill", which was supposed to prevent his ascension to the throne. However, this bill was rejected by the House of Lords, and when Charles died in 1685, James became king (as James II) with a parliament that was ready to cooperate with him on all issues except one: relief for Catholics and their admission to public office.

However, James, sincere, but stubborn and straightforward in character, decided to patronize the Catholics with all the means at his disposal. Repressive policies and the birth of a son (James Stuart) by James's second wife, the Catholic Mary of Modena, after which many began to fear that the English crown would pass to the Catholic dynasty, hastened the invitation sent by a group of conspirators to his son-in-law, William of Orange, to come to England and rule it in as a king. Few people sympathized with William as a future king, but by his reluctance to give up patronage of Catholics, James missed the chance to reconcile the English nobility with himself and was forced to flee to France.

With the support of France, he tried to regain his throne by landing in Ireland and relying on the local Catholics, but was defeated on the Boyne River on July 1, 1690. Louis XIV gave James a residence in Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris, where he remained until his death. death on September 6, 1701. Mary and Anna, daughters of James from his first wife (both of them were raised as Protestants at the insistence of their brother Charles), became queens of England, the first ruled jointly with her husband William III. His son James (James Stuart), who claimed the throne as James III, is known to history as the Old Pretender.

As the second son of the King of England, James bore the title Duke of York. The years of his childhood and youth fell on the era of the English Revolution. During the First Civil War, the prince was next to his father. After the defeat of the royalists (1646), Jacob found himself under the supervision of parliament, but later it was possible to organize his escape to Holland. The Duke of York, his sisters and Queen Henrietta Maria found refuge in France. Having matured, Jacob entered military service with the King of France. He proved himself to be a brave warrior, under the command of Marshal Turenne he participated in the suppression of the Fronde, and later in the war with Spain. In 1655, Mazarin's government entered into an agreement with Cromwell and members of the English royal family were forced to leave France. The Duke of York entered Spanish service: he commanded a regiment of English and Irish emigrants stationed in Flanders.

In 1660, the monarchy was restored in England and Charles II Stuart became king. The Duke of York returned to his homeland and headed the English Admiralty. Under his leadership, measures were taken to reorganize the maritime department. The renewed British fleet performed well during the Anglo-Dutch wars. The Duke himself took part in naval battles during the wars with the Dutch. Commanding the fleet, in 1665 he defeated Admiral Ondam, and in 1672 he fought with Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. Personal participation in hostilities gained Jacob popularity in England.

At the same time, the Duke of York's loyalty to the Catholic religion alienated the British, mostly Protestants, from him. His devotion to Catholicism is explained by both his upbringing and the circumstances of his life. James was convinced that the horrors of the revolution punished England for betraying Catholicism, and was grateful to the Catholic Church and the Catholic powers for the shelter they provided to the expelled Stuarts. While still in exile, James secretly became engaged to the Catholic Anna Hyde (1638-1671), daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, the closest adviser and later minister of Charles II. Anna was one of the court ladies of Mary Stuart, the wife of the ruler of Holland, William II of Orange. Returning to England, the Duke of York married her, although King Charles II objected to the marriage. Jacob Stuart and Anna Hyde had two daughters - Mary (1662-1694), who later became the wife of William III of Orange, and Anna (1665-1713), who married the Danish Prince George. In 1668, the Duke of York officially converted to Catholicism, but at the insistence of the king, both of his nieces - Anne and Mary - were raised in the Anglican faith. In 1671, Anna Hyde died, but Jacob remarried a Catholic, the daughter of the Duke of Modena, Maria (1658-1718).

A significant blow to the reputation of the Duke of York was the discovery of a conspiracy in 1679, during the investigation of which the Whigs accused him of preparing the murder of Charles II. The king was forced to order his brother to leave England, where a campaign began to deprive James of the right to inherit the throne. The Duke of York was forced to spend several months in Brussels; Then Charles II returned his younger brother from exile, but, not daring to allow him to live in London, appointed James as his viceroy in Scotland. In 1681, passions calmed down a bit, the disgraced Duke returned to London and actually headed the government in the last years of the reign of Charles II. It is with the influence of the Duke of York that the dissolution of parliament in 1681 is associated, which refused to recognize James as heir to the throne. By the time of the death of his elder brother, all the levers of power were in the hands of the Duke of York and he unhinderedly ascended the throne under the name of James II Stuart.

In general, English society reacted negatively to the new king, a well-known champion of absolute monarchy and a devoted papist. However, the accession of James II to the throne was not opposed. The newly convened parliament, for the most part, consisted of Tories, who were ready to support the king in the fight against the opposition Whigs. Using the support of parliament, James II decided to create a regular army and limited the freedom of the press by a number of decrees, which was supposed to curb the influence of the Whigs.

Just a few months after his accession to the throne, armed uprisings began in Britain against the power of James II. The Scots, led by Earl Archibald of Argyll (1629-1685), were the first to rise up against the new king in May 1685. The rebels hoped to raise all of Southern (valley) and Northern (mountainous) Scotland against the Catholic king and the English authorities. However, there was no general uprising; the forces of the rebels turned out to be too weak and were quickly defeated. The conspirators, including Argyll, were captured and executed.

In June 1685, a rebellion broke out in the southwestern English counties of Devonshire, Somersetshire and Dorsetshire under the leadership of the Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles II. Even during his father's lifetime, the Whigs predicted Monmouth for the throne. In addition to the Whigs, local peasants and artisans came over to his side in large numbers. As the leader of the uprising, Monmouth showed indecisiveness, missed the time to march on London and gave James II the opportunity to gather superior military forces. On July 6, 1685, in a battle near the town of Bridgewater in Somersetshire, the rebels suffered a crushing defeat. Monmouth was captured and soon executed.

The successful suppression of the rebellions increased the king's self-confidence. James II openly began to pursue absolutist policies. A wave of terror overtook the former rebels, more than a hundred people were executed, eight hundred were sent to the West Indies on plantations. The basis of the king's power was a permanent army of thirty thousand, the number of which was soon increased to 40 thousand people. Not only the British, but also foreign mercenaries served in it. In November 1685, parliament was dissolved.

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In foreign policy, James II tried to pursue an independent policy and, unlike his older brother, did not look back at powerful France. Being the father-in-law of the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange and considering him as a future heir, he was wary of French plans of conquest in the Netherlands. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes was used by James II for pragmatic purposes. Despite the displeasure of Louis XIV, Bourbon granted refuge in England to many wealthy French Huguenots who left France after 1685.

Being a zealous Catholic, the king sought to equalize the rights of his subjects - Protestants and Catholics. He got judges to recognize the right to suspend laws that prohibited Catholics from holding official positions. As a result, Catholics began to occupy military and judicial positions. The king spared no effort and money on Catholic preaching in the country: Catholic priests returned to England, Jesuit schools appeared in London. James II did not seek an immediate and complete conversion of the country to Catholicism; his relations with Pope Innocent XI were cool, but the spread of Catholicism was viewed with suspicion by his subjects.

The “Declaration of Toleration” of April 2, 1687 abolished the repressive laws that had previously been issued in England against all dissenters, including Catholics. In English society, the act was perceived as another step towards restoring the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church, towards the transformation of Catholicism into the state religion. The declaration, repeated in 1688, caused a wave of protest from the Tory nobles, most of whom belonged to the Church of England. The bishops of the Anglican Church addressed the king with a petition expressing their disagreement with the religious policy of the monarch. In response, James II ordered the arrest of seven bishops and accused them of distributing anti-royal pamphlets. This case rallied the Tories and Whig oppositionists against the king. The protest spread not only to London, but also to the counties.

The restoration of Catholicism was opposed by wide sections of English society, primarily by the priests of the Church of England and the Puritan bourgeoisie, who had been fighting the Roman Curia for decades. Even conservative landlords feared that they would have to return the secularized lands of Catholic monasteries. Catholicism for the British was a foreign religion - the religion of the French and Spaniards, with whom England had been at enmity for centuries. Thus, on anti-Catholic grounds, an alliance was formed against the king, which united representatives of the most diverse political and religious movements. Everyone wanted to get rid of the papist king as quickly as possible.

On June 10, 1688, Queen Mary of Modena gave birth to James II's heir, Prince James (James). This event seriously changed the political balance of power. If earlier the eldest daughter of James II, the Protestant Mary, and her Protestant husband William of Orange were considered the heir to the throne, then with the advent of an heir, whose upbringing would be carried out by Catholics, the prospect of England returning to Catholicism began to seem quite real. In the summer of 1688, almost the entire nobility took up arms against the king, with the exception of a small layer of Catholics. James II tried to reach a compromise with the opposition, announcing free elections to parliament, and to reconcile with the Anglican bishops, but his efforts were too late.

On June 30, 1688, the leaders of the Whigs and Tories turned to the son-in-law of James II, Prince William III of Orange, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, with an invitation to come to England with an army and, together with his wife Mary, the daughter of James II, to take the royal throne, guaranteeing his subjects the preservation of religion and the rights of parliament. This coup plan involved changing the monarch with maximum respect for legitimate forms, through a “family reshuffle” of the reigning persons. Having recruited a mercenary army of twelve thousand, in early November 1688, Prince William landed in Torbay, one of the harbors in southwest England. On November 8, he entered the city of Exeter and from there headed for London.

Officers and soldiers of the royal army went over to William's side, and the courtiers did the same. Princess Anne supported the claims of sister Mary and her husband. In the north, in Cheshire and Nottinghamshire, uprisings began against the authority of James II. All major cities in England supported the invasion. In December 1688, James II was forced to flee to France, where his wife and son were sent in advance. Louis XIV provided the exile with the Saint-Germain Palace and provided a generous allowance. Mary III Stuart and William III of Orange became the new kings of England and Scotland.

Overthrown from the throne, Jacob did not give up hopes of regaining power. France, which was waging a war with England for the Palatinate inheritance, provided support to the deposed king. In 1689, James II sailed to Ireland and roused the country's Catholic population against William III, but his forces were defeated in 1690. In 1691, France's attempt to support James II with an amphibious landing ended in the defeat of the French fleet. Subsequently, the former English king tried to organize a pan-European alliance against William III, but Louis XIV, who concluded the Peace of Ryswick with England in 1697, refused to support the claims of James II.

In the last years of his life, James II completely turned to religion, spending most of his time in Parisian monasteries. He was distinguished by a stern and domineering character. During military campaigns he showed personal courage. Unlike his older brother Charles II, who was ready to make compromises in order to maintain power, James II, under any circumstances, remained faithful to his principles, beliefs, word and friends. After his death he was buried in the parish church of Saint-Germain. During the French Revolution, the burial place of James II was destroyed.

Abstract on the topic:

James II (King of England)

Plan:

Introduction

• 1 Duke of York
• 2 Reign
• 3 Overthrow and emigration
• 4 Offspring
• 5 In culture

Introduction

James II Stuart(English) James II , October 14, 1633( 16331014 ) - 16 September 1701) - King of England, Scotland and Ireland, as a Scottish monarch bore the dynastic number James VII(1685-1688), grandson of James I, second son of Charles I and younger brother of Charles II. Britain's last Catholic king; overthrown by the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

1. Duke of York

Received the title Duke of York from his father (1644). During the civil war, after the capture of York by parliamentary troops in 1646, Jacob and his brothers and sisters were taken into custody; in 1648 he fled to the continent. Served under the banner of the French Marshal Turenne (1652); later fought against him in the ranks of the Spanish army.

After the Stuart Restoration he also bore the Scottish title Duke of Albany (1660). Received, as admiral general, command of the naval forces of England; in 1665 he defeated the Dutch fleet at Gardwich. Along with his penchant for Catholicism, Jacob's friendship with Louis XIV, hatred of Holland, and intention to establish an absolute monarchy grew stronger.

Jacob was the soul of the Cabal Ministry, which since 1670 has pursued these goals. After the death of his first wife, Anna, daughter of Clarendon, Jacob converted to Catholicism. In the subsequent war against Holland, he commanded the fleet in two major naval battles.

The increased influence of parliament as a result of the unsuccessful war, expressed in the publication of the “Act of Oath,” forced Jacob to retire from state affairs. Contrary to his wishes, the eldest of his two daughters from his first marriage, Maria (the presumptive heir to the throne, since Charles II was childless and James did not have sons at that time), was married to William of Orange (1677).

James's second wife, Mary of Modena, a devout Catholic, made James an even more zealous adherent of Catholicism. When in 1679 rumors spread about a Catholic conspiracy allegedly headed by Jacob, he was forced to leave England; there was even a question about removing him from the succession to the throne, but this was precisely what caused a reaction against the Whigs, and after the death of Charles, Jacob ascended the throne without hindrance.

2. Reign

The uprisings of Monmouth in England and Lord Argyll in Scotland were easily suppressed and punished with terrible cruelty. Judge Jeffries showed particular fanaticism in the trials of the rebels. Encouraged by the success, James planned, through a broad interpretation and application of the dispensational power (see Dispensation), to fill all major positions (military and civilian) with persons of non-Anglican faith. At the same time, he placed special hopes on the doctrine of unconditional obedience, which was then professed by a significant majority of the Anglican clergy.

James humbled the protesting clergy through the so-called “high commission”, patronized all directions hostile to the dominant church, and set as his goal the establishment of an absolute Catholic monarchy through almost undisguised propaganda of Catholicism and a close alliance with Louis XIV. Even the king's most faithful servants, the Anglican bishops, were tried but acquitted by the jury. Hoping that after the death of Jacob, in the absence of male offspring, the reign would pass into the hands of his daughter, loyal to Protestantism, the people restrained their indignation and things did not come to an uprising.

When the birth of the Prince of Wales was announced on June 10, 1688, many did not want to believe in the reality of this fact and suspected forgery. Having lost hope of a peaceful change for the better, the leaders of both major parties, the Whigs and the Tories, invited the Dutch prince William of Orange to take the throne in England. Yakov wanted to make concessions, but it was too late.

3. Overthrow and emigration

In November 1688, the Prince of Orange landed in England, and in December the king with his illegitimate son, the Duke of Berwick, abandoned by his daughter Anne and his closest advisers, fled to France, where Louis XIV placed the Saint-Germain Palace at his disposal. In February 1689, Parliament proclaimed William and Mary king and queen of England. James of France maintained constant relations with his adherents (Jacobites), who were plotting in England and openly rebelling in Scotland and Normandy. In 1689, Jacob arrived in Ireland and became the head of the conspirators supported by French troops, but was defeated in 1690 at the Boyne.

His descendants (son, James the Old Pretender, and grandsons, Charles the Young Pretender and Cardinal Henry Stuart) continued to claim the English and Scottish thrones and lead the Jacobite party until the suppression of the House of Stuart (1807).

4. Offspring

James was married twice: to Anne Hyde (1638-1671), daughter of the statesman and historian Earl of Clarendon, and to Maria of Modena (1658-1718), daughter of the Duke of Modena Alfonso IV. From his first marriage he had 8 children, of whom two daughters survived, the future queens Maria II and Anna, and all 4 sons and 2 more daughters died in childhood. From the second marriage, 7 children were born, of whom two also survived: son Jacob “Old Pretender” and daughter Louise Stewart, born in France (died at the age of 19 from smallpox). The legitimate descendants of James II were cut short in 1807.

In addition to offspring from two legitimate wives, James (while Duke of York) also had children from two mistresses. From Arabella Churchill, sister of the famous commander John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, he had two sons, James and Henry, who followed their father to France, and two daughters, Henrietta and Arabella; they all bore the surname FitzJames, with the prefix fitz, traditional for illegitimate children of the nobility. From Catherine Sedley, to whom James gave the title of Countess of Dorchester after his accession to the throne, he had a daughter, also Catherine, a marquis in her first marriage, and a duchess in her second. The offspring of James II's illegitimate children survive to the present day; in particular, the descendants of Henrietta Fitzjames (through her mother Diana) are Elizabeth II's grandchildren, Princes William and Harry.

5. In culture

James II is a character in many historical novels and films, most notably Richard Blackmore's Lorna Doone. In film adaptations of the novel, his role was played by George Curzon (1934), Hugh Fraser (1990), Robert Eddy (2000). In the 2000 TV series Charles II, James was played by Charlie Creed-Miles.

When writing this article, material was used from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron (1890-1907).

1. In English his name sounds like James, in the Russian historical tradition there is a variant Jacob.

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This abstract is based on an article from Russian Wikipedia. Synchronization completed 07/09/11 08:41:15
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