Reign of King James II

Historical Context Essay

Nicholas Seager (University of Keele)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.04: English Writing and Culture of the Seventeenth Century, 1625-1688.
Vol. editors: Jennifer Brady (Rhodes College), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Neil Forsyth (Université de Lausanne), Claire Preston (Queen Mary, University of London), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University)

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Changes of government, elections and reigns

Dates

Date of occurrence 1685-02-06-1688

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United Kingdom (Location)

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The second surviving son of King Charles I and Henrietta Maria, James Stuart was born at St James's Palace in 1633, and when his elder brother, King Charles II , died in 1685 he succeeded to the English throne as James II, and to the Scottish as James VIII. James was a convert to Roman Catholicism, which alienated the Anglican majority during his reign, as well as a proponent of the monarch's Divine Right (

jure divino

) at a time when the city merchants and landed oligarchs in Parliament were becoming ascendant. Consequently, James was forcibly removed from royal office by the Glorious Revolution in 1688, whereby Parliament invited William of Orange and James's daughter Mary onto the throne as guarantors that the English crown would remain Protestant. James thereafter kept an exiled court…

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1831 words

Citation: Seager, Nicholas. "Reign of King James II". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 February 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=643, accessed 26 November 2024.]

Reign of King James II

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