James VII and II

(1633–1701)

   Monarch.

   James was the son of King Charles I of England and Princess Henrietta Maria of France. He succeeded to the English throne on the death of his brother King Charles II. A committed Roman Catholic, he had spent much of his youth abroad. There had been attempts to exclude him from the succession on the grounds of his Catholicism, but these had been rejected by the House of Lords. In the event, he alienated influential members of the Church of England by appointing Catholics to high office. He even imprisoned the Archbishop of Canterbury William sancroft and six other Bishops, when they refused to publish his Declaration of Liberty of Conscience from the pulpit. He was deposed in 1688 by his son-in-law, William of Orange. William with his wife Mary ruled jointly in his place and Parliament passed an Act declaring that no future British monarch could either be or marry a Roman Catholic.

   J. Miller, James II: A Study in Kingship (1978);

   D. Ogg, England in the Reigns of James II and William III (1955).