King James II of England

NAME James II of England and Ireland (James VII of Scotland).

WHAT FAMOUS FOR He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over England, Scotland, and Ireland. His attempts to establish religious liberty for his fellow Catholics and Protestant nonconformists ultimately backfired, leading to his deposition during the Glorious Revolution of 1688. His overthrow established the principle that Parliamentary sovereignty, rather than divine right, governed the British monarchy.

BIRTH James was born on October 14, 1633 (Old Style), at St. James's Palace, Westminster, London. He was baptised by William Laud, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, shortly after birth. (1) 

FAMILY BACKGROUND James was the second surviving son of King Charles I of England and his French queen, Henrietta Maria of France, a Catholic princess and daughter of King Henry IV of France. He was named after his grandfather James I of England. He was the younger brother of King Charles II, who preceded him on the throne. (2) 

At birth he was created Duke of York and invested with the Order of the Garter in 1642. 

James with his father, Charles I, by Sir Peter Lely, 1647

CHILDHOOD James was eight years old when the English Civil War broke out in 1642. He and his brother Charles were present at the Battle of Edgehill in October of that year and narrowly escaped capture by Parliamentarian cavalry. 

He spent much of the next four years in the Royalist wartime capital of Oxford, where he was made a Master of Arts by the University on November 1, 1642, and served as colonel of a volunteer regiment of foot. 

After Royalist Oxford surrendered in June 1646, James was taken to London and held at St. James's Palace with his younger siblings. In April 1648, on his father's orders, he managed to escape his guards and cross the North Sea to The Hague, in the care of his sister Mary and her husband, William II of Orange. 

Following the execution of Charles I in January 1649, James went into exile in France with his mother. His father's fate and his years in continental exile would render him, in the view of historians, more inflexible and authoritarian in outlook than his older brother, and less patient with the complexities of English politics. (3)

EDUCATION James was educated by private tutors alongside his older brother, the future Charles II, and the two sons of the Duke of Buckingham, George and Francis Villiers. His formative education was as much military and practical as academic: his years serving in the French and Spanish armies gave him a thorough grounding in the arts of war, naval administration, and statecraft.

He was made a nominal Master of Arts by Oxford University in 1642 during the Civil War. 

CAREER RECORD 1652: He entered French military service under Marshal Turenne, fighting against the Spanish forces during the Fronde civil wars and proving himself a brave and highly capable officer. 

1656: After his brother Charles II made an alliance with Spain, James changed sides and joined the Spanish army under the Prince of Condé, commanding the rebel English royalist forces in Flanders. 

1660: Following the restoration of the monarchy, he returned to England and was appointed Lord High Admiral. He completely reorganized the Royal Navy, showing great administrative talent and personally commanding the fleet during the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars. 

1673: He was forced to resign as Lord High Admiral due to the Test Act, which barred Catholics from holding public office following the public revelation of his conversion. 

1685-1688: He ascended the throne upon the death of Charles II on February 6, 1685. His brief reign was dominated by efforts to suspend penal laws against Catholics and dissenters, which alienated the political elite and resulted in his eventual deposition.

APPEARANCE  James was described as "something above middle stature, well-shaped, very nervous and strong." 

The Italian diplomat Lorenzo Magalotti, who observed him in 1667, gave a precise account: "His complexion may be called light in colour, all the outlines of his face are prominent: a square forehead, the eyes large, swollen, and deep blue, the nose curved and rather large, the lips pale and thick, and the chin rather pointed." 

Unlike his older brother Charles II, who was dark and swarthy, James had a noticeably fairer complexion, and wore a large, elaborate full-bottomed wig throughout his adult life, as seen in portraits by Sir Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey Kneller.

James was described as "something above middle stature, well-shaped, very nervous and strong." 

A 1702 anonymous account noted that "his outward carriage was a little stiff and constrained." (4) 

James II by Peter Lely

FASHION Like other Stuart monarchs, James dressed in the opulent fashion of the late 17th century, favouring rich fabrics, lace, and the full-bottomed wig that was the defining accessory of the period. Surviving portraits show him in ducal robes, armour as Lord High Admiral, and lavish court dress. (2) 

When he was depicted in his coronation robes in a full-length portrait held at the Royal Museums Greenwich, he wore a brown, full-bottomed wig with his right hand at his breast and his coronet resting on a table beside him — typical of the grandeur expected of a Stuart king. (5)

CHARACTER James was widely regarded as stubborn, hot-tempered, and inflexible — qualities that proved fatal to his reign. An anonymous account of 1702 noted that "his temper was naturally hot and choleric." (4) 

Where his brother Charles II was charming, pragmatic, and politically nimble, James was rigid, authoritarian, and unable to compromise.  His continental exile and the trauma of his father's execution had instilled in him a fierce belief in divine right and absolute monarchy that proved disastrously ill-suited to the England of his day. 

He was, however, genuinely brave in battle, and sincerely devoted to his religious faith and to those who served him loyally. Historians have debated whether he was primarily an absolutist tyrant or a sincere advocate of religious tolerance; most modern scholars take a middle ground. (3) 

SPEAKING VOICE No detailed account of James's speaking voice has survived, though his stiff and constrained public bearing suggests a formal manner of address in keeping with his character. (4) 

James was capable of direct and blunt speech: during his 1687 speaking tour of western England, he gave a notably plain-spoken speech at Chester comparing religious discrimination to imprisoning "all black men" as equally unreasonable — a remarkably direct analogy for the era. (6)

SENSE OF HUMOUR James was not noted for his wit or levity, in sharp contrast to his brother Charles II, who was famous for his easy charm and sharp humour. Where Charles cultivated his court with banter and bonhomie, James was earnest and serious. His character has been described as stiff and constrained, and contemporary accounts suggest he lacked his brother's natural gift for disarming people. 

RELATIONSHIPS James's first wife was Anne Hyde, daughter of Charles II's Lord Chancellor, Edward Hyde. She had been maid of honour to James's sister Mary. James had seduced her with promises of marriage while she was in his service, and she became pregnant in 1660. Though almost everyone at court — including Anne's own father — urged against the match, James honoured his promise. A visibly pregnant Anne married James in an official but private ceremony in London on September 3, 1660, following the Restoration. (2) 

The couple had eight children, but six died in early childhood. The two who survived to adulthood were Mary (born April 30, 1662), who later reigned as Mary II, and Anne (born February 6, 1665), who became Queen Anne, the first monarch of Great Britain. 

A portrait of Anne, James and their two daughters, Lady Mary and Lady Anne by Peter Lely

Anne Hyde died of breast cancer on March 31, 1671, aged 34, never recovering from the birth of her eighth child, Catherine, earlier that year. (1) (2)

James was also a notorious womaniser. His mistresses included Arabella Churchill, sister of the future Duke of Marlborough, and Catherine Sedley. Samuel Pepys noted drily in his diary that James "did eye my wife mightily." The sharp-tongued Bishop Gilbert Burnet memorably remarked that James's mistresses must have been "given [to] him by his priests as a penance." (7)

James married his second wife, Mary of Modena, a fifteen-year-old Italian Catholic princess, by proxy in a Catholic ceremony on September 20, 1673. Many British people, deeply distrustful of Catholicism, regarded the new Duchess of York as an agent of the Pope, and there was fierce opposition to James's potential succession to the throne. (2) 

With Mary, James had several children; most died in infancy, but the birth of a son, James Francis Edward Stuart (the "Old Pretender"), on June 10, 1688, was the event that triggered the Glorious Revolution, as it raised the prospect of a permanent Catholic dynasty. 

MONEY AND FAME After the Restoration, the office of Lord High Admiral, combined with revenues from post office and wine tariffs granted him by Charles II, gave James enough money to maintain a sizable court household. 

His position on ascending the throne was financially strong: he had standing armies of nearly 20,000 men and a revenue of around £2 million. Parliament granted him a generous life income including the proceeds of tonnage, poundage, and customs duties. (8) 

In exile, he depended entirely upon the generosity of Louis XIV of France, who provided him with a palace at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and a pension.

FOOD AND DRINK An illuminating glimpse into royal dining comes from the Lord Steward's accounts: when James II was camped at Hounslow Heath on annual military manoeuvres in 1686, he and his officers consumed twelve dishes of ice cream at £1 each — equivalent to roughly £80 (around $130) in today's money. (2) 

James II and his officers eating ice cream by Gemini

In his later years in exile, James adopted an increasingly ascetic and penitent lifestyle, in stark contrast to the luxurious court life of his earlier career. (5)

MUSIC AND ARTS James was a patron of the arts in keeping with the cultural richness of the Restoration court. He sat for numerous portraits, including works by Sir Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey Kneller, some of the most celebrated painters of the era. His portraits by Kneller and Lely now hang in major collections including the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Royal Museums Greenwich. 

The Restoration court under both Charles II and James was notable for its love of music, theatre, and spectacle, though James himself was not particularly celebrated as a personal practitioner of the arts. 

LITERATURE James left behind several significant written works, most notably his autobiography and Memoirs, compiled from his own papers (later published as Life of King James II in 1816). 

In his final years in exile, he wrote a detailed memorandum for his son advising him on how to govern England, specifying the balance of Catholic and Protestant offices to be maintained.

His papers have been drawn upon extensively by historians seeking to understand his motivations and outlook.

NATURE James was an enthusiastic huntsman in the Stuart tradition, in keeping with the culture of the Restoration court where hunting was a primary aristocratic pursuit. (9)

His time on military campaigns and at sea gave him an affinity with the outdoors and the natural world, though he is not particularly noted for scientific or botanical interests.

PETS James shared the Stuart family's celebrated passion for small toy spaniels. He and his brother Charles II had an agreement to carry on breeding their spaniels in the event of either's death, and James was described by the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club as "an owner and great lover of small toy spaniels." 

James and toy spaniels by Perplexity

The most famous episode involving James and his dogs was the wreck of HMS Gloucester on May 6, 1682, when the ship struck a sandbank off the Norfolk coast and sank within an hour, killing between 130 and 250 people. James's critics circulated stories that he had prioritised saving his pet dogs over the drowning crew, a claim that damaged his reputation severely. However, there is evidence this was largely anti-James propaganda: his dog Mumper apparently drowned in the disaster, suggesting the story was false. The real controversy was that James's delay in leaving the ship — royal protocol forbade anyone disembarking before him — cost many lives

HOBBIES AND SPORTS James was physically active and sporty. Like his brother Charles II, he enjoyed real (or royal) tennis, one of the most fashionable sports at the Restoration court. (9) 

His primary passion was the sea and naval affairs: he threw himself into the administration and command of the Royal Navy with genuine enthusiasm and was described by Samuel Pepys — who worked closely with him — as a diligent and capable administrator. (5)

In his years in Scotland he took a keen interest in horse racing on Leith Sands.

SCIENCE AND MATHS James had a practical, empirical interest in navigation, cartography, and naval technology, as befitted a man who commanded fleets in two wars. He was a fellow investor and active participant in several commercial enterprises, including the Royal African Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, which required a grasp of trade, geography, and logistics. (

REIGN James II managed the rare historical feat of losing three kingdoms in less time than it takes most people to renovate a kitchen. He reigned as King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from February 1685 until December 1688 — not quite four years altogether — yet in that brief and rather frantic interval he helped permanently redefine the relationship between monarchy and Parliament in Britain. It was one of those reigns that began with every appearance of stability and ended with the political equivalent of a piano falling through the ceiling.

When James came to the throne, he inherited a remarkably strong position. He had nearly 20,000 soldiers spread across his kingdoms, annual revenues of about £2 million, and — perhaps most importantly — a population exhausted by decades of civil wars, plots, panics, and religious hysteria. People wanted calm. James, at first glance, looked reassuringly solid, like a man who owned several hunting dogs and knew how to discipline servants with a glance.

His Catholicism was well known and widely distrusted, but most English subjects comforted themselves with the thought that it was only a temporary inconvenience. His heirs were his Protestant daughters, Mary and Anne, so England could simply endure a Catholic king for a while and then return to normal, much as one waits out a leaking roof.

His first challenge came almost immediately when the Duke of Monmouth — the illegitimate son of Charles II and a man with the unfortunate confidence common to handsome rebels — landed in the West Country and declared himself king. The rebellion ended at the Battle of Sedgemoor in July 1685, the last pitched battle ever fought on English soil. Monmouth was captured, executed, and followed into oblivion by hundreds of supporters after Judge Jeffreys conducted the infamous “Bloody Assizes,” a judicial tour notable for combining legal procedure with the atmosphere of a public hanging festival. Around 250 rebels were executed and many hundreds more transported overseas.

The crushing of Monmouth’s rebellion convinced James of something disastrously wrong: namely, that the nation supported him wholeheartedly. This is a recurring problem in history. A ruler survives one crisis and immediately concludes he is a genius.

James interpreted his smooth accession and military success as permission to advance Catholic interests aggressively. He expanded the standing army and appointed Catholic officers in defiance of existing law, alarming Parliament, which already regarded standing armies with the same affection normally reserved for outbreaks of plague.

When Parliament objected, James simply prorogued it in November 1685 and never called it back again. This was bold in the manner of a man sawing through the branch on which he is sitting.

He proceeded to appoint Catholics to important offices throughout government, the military, and universities, overriding statutes at Oxford and Cambridge with cheerful disregard. In 1687 he issued the Declaration of Indulgence, suspending penal laws against Catholics and Protestant dissenters alike by royal prerogative. The idea of religious toleration was not itself unpopular; the problem was that James insisted on achieving it by behaving as though laws were optional suggestions.

Then came the affair of the Seven Bishops. When several Anglican bishops politely petitioned the king to reconsider forcing clergy to read the Declaration from their pulpits, James had them prosecuted for seditious libel. The bishops were acquitted to scenes of public jubilation so widespread that it became painfully obvious the king had managed the remarkable feat of alienating both religious extremists and moderates simultaneously.

For a while, many Englishmen still assumed matters would sort themselves out upon James’s death. Then, on June 10, 1688, Queen Mary of Modena gave birth to a son.

This changed everything.

A Catholic male heir meant that England now faced not a temporary Catholic monarch but the prospect of an enduring Catholic dynasty. Panic spread with astonishing efficiency. Within weeks, seven prominent politicians — Whigs and Tories together, proving that terror can achieve bipartisanship where reason cannot — secretly invited William of Orange to invade.

William landed at Devon on November 5, 1688. James still possessed a large army, but armies are only useful if they remain loyal, and his began evaporating with extraordinary speed. Commanders defected. Noblemen defected. Even James’s own son-in-law defected. It was less a military collapse than a prolonged public unfriending.

James himself appeared to suffer a complete emotional unraveling. He endured severe nosebleeds, bouts of indecision, and periods of paralysis that suggest a man watching his authority dissolve hour by hour. Finally, on December 23, 1688, he fled to France. Parliament obligingly interpreted his departure as an abdication and invited William and Mary to rule jointly in February 1689.

Thus ended one of the shortest and most consequential reigns in British history.

James was not quite finished. With French backing from Louis XIV, he landed in Ireland in 1689 in a final attempt to recover his throne. The Irish Parliament declared him the rightful king, and for a moment it looked as though the struggle might become a genuine European crisis.

Instead, it culminated at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690, where William III decisively defeated James’s forces. James promptly fled back to France

He spent the remaining eleven years of his life at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye as the pensioned guest of Louis XIV, growing steadily more devout and penitential, which is often what happens to deposed monarchs once they run out of armies.

James II failed as a king, but in doing so he transformed Britain permanently. His overthrow produced the Bill of Rights in 1689, which sharply limited royal authority and established Parliament as the dominant force in government. The Act of Settlement of 1701 barred Catholics from the throne, a provision whose echoes survive even now in the constitutional machinery of Britain.

In effect, James accomplished by failure what many rulers could not accomplish by skill: he convinced the British political class that monarchy needed rules, limits, and supervision. It was an extraordinarily influential disaster.

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Religion was arguably the single most important force in James's life. Originally raised an Anglican, he was exposed to Catholicism during his years in exile in France, and both he and his first wife Anne Hyde were drawn to the Roman Catholic faith. James converted to Catholicism and received Catholic Eucharist in 1668 or 1669, though he kept his conversion secret for years and continued attending Anglican services until 1676. His conversion only became public when he resigned the post of Lord High Admiral rather than take the Protestant oath required by the 1673 Test Act. (2) 

His Catholic faith was the central and defining fact of his reign, driving his attempts to extend toleration to Catholics and ultimately causing his downfall. He was once heard to remark: "If occasion were, I hope God would give me his grace to suffer death for the true Catholic religion as well as banishment." (7)

In exile, he became ever more devout, living as an austere penitent; the Archbishop of Paris even heard evidence in 1734 to support his possible canonisation, though nothing came of it. 

POLITICS  James was a firm believer in the divine right of kings and in royal absolutism, modelled in part on the example of Louis XIV of France. 

His political career was dominated by the Exclusion Crisis of 1678–1683, during which Whig politicians — led by the Earl of Shaftesbury — repeatedly attempted to bar him from the succession by Act of Parliament. This crisis gave birth to the English two-party system: those who supported James and the legitimate succession were called "Tories," while those who supported the Exclusion Bill were called "Whigs." (2) 

As king, James attempted to pack Parliament with supporters, dismissed judges who ruled against him, and issued the Declaration of Indulgence (1687) using the royal prerogative to nullify Acts of Parliament — all moves that were seen as threats to the constitutional order. His attempts to promote Catholic officers in the army, to override university statutes, and to prosecute the Seven Bishops for merely petitioning him finally turned the political nation against him. (8)

SCANDAL The greatest scandal of James's life and reign was, in Protestant eyes, his conversion to Roman Catholicism — and his determination to impose Catholic toleration on a deeply Protestant nation by royal prerogative. 

His womanising was a further source of notoriety: his string of mistresses was remarked upon throughout his life, and Bishop Burnet's cutting quip that they must have been "given [to] him by his priests as a penance" became one of the most famous put-downs of the era. (

The "warming pan scandal" of 1688 — when Protestant opponents circulated rumours that the newborn Prince of Wales had been smuggled into Queen Mary's bed in a warming pan to fake an heir — was technically a scandal aimed at him, reflecting how completely he had lost the confidence of his subjects. 

MILITARY RECORD James was, by any measure, a genuinely brave soldier and capable naval commander. He served in the French army under Marshal Turenne from 1652, fighting in multiple campaigns across the Low Countries and gaining valuable battlefield experience. He was personally commended by Turenne as a soldier who "ventures himself and chargeth gallantly where anything is to be done," and was raised to Lieutenant-General by 1654. (7)

He later served with Spanish forces at the Battle of the Dunes in 1657. 

As Lord High Admiral after the Restoration, he commanded the English fleet in person at the Battle of Lowestoft (1665) and at the Battle of Solebay (1672), displaying conspicuous personal courage in both engagements — standing firm on the deck even as men were killed beside him. He was removed from active naval command after both battles, as Charles II was unwilling to risk losing the heir to the throne. 

After becoming king he crushed the Monmouth and Argyll rebellions in 1685. 

However, his military nerve famously deserted him in 1688, when — despite having a numerically superior army — he declined to engage William of Orange's invading force, panicked, and fled to France. His subsequent campaign to reclaim his throne via Ireland ended in defeat at the Battle of the Boyne on July 1, 1690. 

Battle of the Boyne by Huchtenburg

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS   His years of military campaigning, active naval service, hunting, and tennis all point to a man who remained physically capable well into middle age. He ascended the throne at 51 and was reportedly robust. 

HOMES James was born at St. James's Palace, London, and spent his early years between royal palaces. 

During the Civil War, he was held at St. James's Palace and later spent time in Oxford. He then lived for years at The Hague and at the French court in exile. 

After the Restoration, his primary residence as Duke of York was in London. 

As Lord High Commissioner of Scotland (1679–1682) he resided at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. 

As king from 1685, he occupied the royal palaces, including Whitehall Palace. 

After his flight in 1688, Louis XIV provided him with the magnificent royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, outside Paris, where he spent the last thirteen years of his life in exile. (

TRAVEL James's life was defined by movement and displacement. As a child he was shuttled between royal palaces; as a young man in exile he lived at The Hague, Paris, and with Spanish forces in Flanders. As Lord High Commissioner he travelled to Scotland. (

He visited the western counties of England on a speaking tour in 1687. 

After the Glorious Revolution, he travelled to France, then to Ireland in 1689 in his attempted reconquest, before making his final journey back to France after his defeat at the Boyne in 1690. 

DEATH James II died of a brain haemorrhage on September 16, 1701, at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye in France, aged 67. 

His death was marked by the extraordinary disposal of his remains: his heart was placed in a silver-gilt locket and given to the convent at Chaillot; his brain was placed in a lead casket and given to the Scots College in Paris; his entrails were divided between two gilt urns sent to the parish church of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the English Jesuit college at Saint-Omer; and the flesh from his right arm was given to the English Augustinian nuns of Paris. 

The rest of his body was laid to rest in a triple sarcophagus (consisting of two wooden coffins and one of lead) at the Chapel of Saint Edmund in the Church of the English Benedictines, Rue Saint-Jacques, Paris, with a funeral oration delivered by Henri-Emmanuel de Roquette. Lights were kept burning around his coffin until the French Revolution, when his tomb was raided.

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA  James II has appeared as a prominent character in numerous historical dramas focusing on the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution. He is portrayed in the 2003 BBC miniseries Charles II: The Power and the Passion (played by Charlie Creed-Miles) and features prominently in historical novels by authors such as Neal Stephenson in his Baroque Cycle series

James II appears in John Dryden's political allegory Absalom and Achitophel (1681), in which he appears thinly veiled as the Duke of York. 

ACHIEVEMENTS Despite the ultimately catastrophic nature of his reign, James's career contained genuine achievements: 

As Lord High Admiral, he oversaw a major rebuilding and reorganisation of the Royal Navy, earning the admiration of Samuel Pepys, and commanded fleets with personal bravery in two Dutch wars.

He expanded England's colonial reach, leaving a permanent legacy when the captured Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam was renamed "New York" in his honor as the Duke of York. 

He is credited by some historians as a genuine early advocate of religious toleration — his Declaration of Indulgence extended protections to Protestant dissenters as well as Catholics.

His deposition, paradoxically, was his most enduring contribution to history: the Glorious Revolution permanently established parliamentary supremacy, produced the Bill of Rights (1689), and set Britain on the path to constitutional monarchy.

His daughters Mary II and Anne both reigned as Queens regnant — an unusual dynastic legacy — and Queen Anne became the first monarch of Great Britain following the Acts of Union in 1707.

Sources: (1) Wikipedia — James II of England (2) Encyclopaedia of Trivia — James II of England (3) Encyclopedia Virginia — James II (1633–1701) (4) National Portrait Gallery — Later Stuart Portraits Catalogue (5) Royal Museums Greenwich — James II Portrait (6) Sowerby, Scott. *Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution*. Harvard University Press, 2013. (7) Miller, John. *James II*. Yale University Press (The English Monarchs Series), 2000. (8) The Royal Family — James II (9) Pleasure and Pastime: Leisure at the Court of Charles II