James Ii

JAMES II. king of Great Britain and Ireland, second surviving son of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, was born on Oct. 14, 1633, and created duke of York in January, James was at Oxford when the city surrendered in 1646, and by the terms of capitulation was handed over to the Parliamentarians.

He was sent to London and, with his younger brother and sister, placed in St. James's Palace. He escaped on April 20, 1648, in disguise, took ship at Greenwich, and settled at The Hague with his sister the princess of Orange. His mother sent for him at Paris, and after some time spent in the poverty and squabbles of the exiled court he entered the French army. He was now nineteen, he liked a soldier's life, and showed not only consummate courage but a keen scientific interest in his profession which won him the praise cf Conde. He then spent some time in the Spanish service. At the Restoration, therefore, when he returned to England with his brother, he was already an experienced and able soldier. He was now appointed Lord High Admiral and Warden of the Cinque Ports. Pepys, who was secretary to the navy, has recorded the patient industry and unflinching probity of his naval administra tion. Indeed, James improved memorably the organization of the British navy. The fleet was provisioned, the naval arsenals put in repair, and he created a permanent and professional body of naval officers. He arranged for the regular recruitment of officers from young lads trained on board ship and overhauled and reorganized the administration. His victory over the Dutch in 1665 and his drawn battle at Southwold bay with De Ruyter in 1672 show that he was a good commander as well as an excellent administrator. In December 166o he admitted having contracted a secret mar riage with Anne Hyde (1637-1671), daughter of Lord Clarendon, in the previous September. Both before and after the marriage he seems to have been a libertine as unblushing, though not so fastid ious, as Charles himself.

1672 he made a public avowal of his con version to Roman Catholicism. His wife, who had a strong hold over him, had died on March 31, 1671, and before her death had been received into the Roman Catholic Church. At what date James's reception took place is unknown, but it was probably in 1671. The passage of the Test Act (1673), nominally directed against both Non-Conformist and Roman Catholic officials, was, in fact, since it demanded repudiation of the doctrine of transubstan tiation, an absolute bar to Catholics. James had to choose between his life work at the Admiralty and his religion. He resigned. On Sept. 3o he married a Catholic princess, Mary of Modena. Both his children by Anne Hyde, Mary and Anne were, however, brought up as Protestants, and in November 1677 he assented reluctantly to Charles II.'s insistence on the marriage of Mary to William, prince of Orange. The hysterical excitement which at tended the disclosures of the Popish plot made James's position extremely difficult. In Oct. 1678 Shaftsbury demanded his removal from the council. He withdrew to Antwerp, The Hague, and then to Brussels. Meanwhile, the second reading of the exclusion bill (May 1679) threatened his exclusion from the succession. But many Whigs who detested James feared the influence of the duke of Monmouth on his father Charles II. ; they were not pre pared to see the succession fall to him, and when Charles fell ill in August, James was recalled.

He was made High Commissioner in Scotland, with the idea of removing him from English politics, and seems to have been at first acceptable to the Scots. In Feb. 168o he returned to England, but his enemies demanded his return to Edinburgh, and in October he again left London. The Oxford parliament of 1681 rejected the compromises suggested by Halifax and insisted on the duke's abso lute exclusion. Charles dissolved it. James's administration in Scotland now became more severe, and Argyll who opposed the rigorous tests applied under the Test Act passed through the Scot tish parliament in 168o, was sentenced to death, but escaped from his prison in Edinburgh castle. Discontent in the west showed itself in the holding of armed conventicles. In 1682 James re turned to London and became a powerful personage at court. The exclusionists were finally vanquished, and James became once more Lord High Admiral (1684). On Feb. 6, 1685, Charles died; before his death James had secured the admission to his bedside of a priest, and he was received into the Catholic Church.

As King.

James's accession took place without incident on the same day. Parliament was summoned for May 19 and showed a large Tory majority. Relations with Louis XIV. showed a certain coolness, for Louis disapproved the summoning of parliament, and the payments under the Treaty of Dover, though they were con tinued for a few months, soon ceased. James showed unremitting attention to public business, especially to the affairs of the army and of the navy. The administration of the navy was strengthened according to the plans laid down by Pepys. The nation showed its loyalty by its firm adherence to James during the rebellions of the duke of Argyll (q.v.) in Scotland and of Monmouth (q.v.) in England (1685). The savage reprisals on their suppression, espe cially the "Bloody Assizes" of Jeffreys, who was rewarded for his services with the chief justiceship, caused a revulsion of public feeling. The Tory supporters of James were horrified. Moreover, the death of Monmouth removed the objection which the Whigs had felt to the exclusion of James. They had desired to exclude James but not to substitute Monmouth for him. The way was now clear for the prince of Orange.

James was not a mere tyrant or bigot, as the popular imagina tion speedily assumed him to be. He was rather a mediocre and obtuse man, who lacked political judgment and had never learned to understand his fellow-men. Thus he greatly underrated the strength of the Establishment, and preposterously exaggerated that of Dissent and Catholicism. He perceived that opinion was seriously divided in the Established Church, and thought that a vigorous policy would soon prove effective. He thought the hatred of high churchmen for dissent indicated a leaning to the older Church. Hence he publicly celebrated Mass, prohibited preaching against Catholicism, and showed exceptional favour to renegades from the Establishment. By undue pressure he secured a decision of the judges, in the test case of Godden v. Hale (1687), by which he was allowed to dispense Catholics from the Test Act. Catholics were now admitted to the chief offices of the army, and to some important posts in the state, in virtue of the dispensing power of James. The judges had been intimidated or corrupted and the royal promise to protect the Establishment violated. The army had been increased to 20,000 men and encamped on Hounslow Heath to overawe the capital. James put implicit and, as the event proved, mistaken confidence in his army. Public alarm was speedily manifested and suspicion to a high degree awakened. Halifax had been dismissed in Oct. 1685, and Father Petre became

one of James's chief advisers. Rochester resigned in Jan. 1687.

Toleration.

James now made a bid for the support of the Dissenters by advocating a system of joint toleration for Cath olics and Dissenters. In April 1687 he published a Declaration of Indulgence, exempting Catholics and Dissenters from penal statutes. No doubt the immediate political motive was to favour the Catholics, but in his later years, when he was an exile, he con tinued to advocate toleration. In this he was in advance of his time. He followed up the Declaration of Indulgence by dissolving parliament and by antagonizing the universities. He had sought to impose Roman Catholic fellows on the colleges; he introduced Catholics and Dissenters into all departments of State and into the municipal corporations. The Declaration was destructively analysed in Halifax's Letter to a Dissenter. In April 1688 James took the suicidal step of issuing a proclamation to force the clergy and bishops to read the Declaration in their pulpits and thus personally advocate a measure they detested. Seven bishops re fused, were indicted by James for libel, but acquitted ( June 30, 1688), amid the enthusiasm of the populace. Prominent English gentry, enraged at the tolerant policy of James, had been in touch with William of Orange since 1687. In that year William's envoy, Dykvelt, sent over a polite mission to James, met Halifax, Danby, Shrewsbury and others to ascertain their views on the Declaration and other matters. He seems to have informed James of their views, so that there was no question of conspiracy. But from that time William knew where he was likely to find support. The birth of a son to James ( June o), which was likely to ensure a Cath olic succession, and the trial of the seven bishops, now induced the Whig lords to send William a definite invitation ( June 30). The letter was carried by Admiral Herbert.

Meanwhile, James, relying on his navy, refused the proffered help of Louis XIV., who warned him repeatedly of danger. He was determined not to accept foreign help against his subjects.

Louis was offended, and turned his army, not against Holland, but towards the Rhine. In August James ordered all officers in the army and navy to be at their posts. On Sept. 21 he issued a procla mation that Roman Catholics would be ineligible for the coming parliament; on the 29th he issued a general pardon, but made the blunder of excluding the clergy. The pardon was issued on the day cf the Declaration of William of Orange to the people of England.

William landed at Tor bay (Nov. 5, 1688) and swept all before him. Churchill went over to the enemy on Nov. 24. James, who had been with the army at Salisbury, returned to London on Nov. 26 to find that his daughter Anne had fled with Lady Churchill. James pretended to treat, and in the midst of the negotiations started for France (Dec. Io–i 1). He was intercepted at Faver sham, and brought back (Dec. i6), but the politic prince of Orange allowed him to escape a second time (Dec. 23, 1688). Louis XIV. gave him a home at St. Germain.

Manoeuvres in Exile.

At the end of 1688 James seemed to have lost his old courage. He had been in touch with Tyrconnell in Ireland, and on March 12, 1689, he landed at Kinsale, and pro ceeded to Dublin, where he summoned a parliament. After his defeat by William at the Boyne ( July 1, 169o), he left Ireland, where he had shown none of his former military capacity. His proclamations and policy towards England during these years show unmistakable traces of the same incompetence. On May 17, 1692, he saw the French fleet designed for England destroyed before his very eyes off Cape La Hogue. He was aware of, though he did not advocate, the "assassination plot" which was directed against William. By its revelation and failure (Feb. Io, 1696), the third and last serious attempt of James at his restoration failed.

He refused in the same year to accept the French influence in favour of his candidature to the Polish throne on the ground that it would exclude him from the English. Henceforward he ceased to be a political factor. A mysterious conversion had been effected in him by a Cistercian abbot. He was transformed into an austere penitent, who worked miracles of healing. He died at St. Germain on Sept. 17, 1701.

The political ineptitude of James is clear ; he often showed firm ness when conciliation was needful, and weakness when resolution alone could have saved the day. Moreover, though he mismanaged almost every political problem with which he personally dealt, he was singularly tactless and impatient of advice. At no point in his life did he display any real judgment of men. But in general political morality he was not below his age, and in his advocacy of toleration far in advance of it. He was more honest and sincere than Charles II., more genuinely patriotic in his foreign policy, and more consistent in his religious attitude. That his brother retained the throne while James lost it is an ironical demonstration that a more pitiless fate awaits the ruler whose faults are of the intellect than the one whose faults are of the heart.

By Anne Hyde James had eight children, of whom two only. Mary and Anne, both queens of England, survived their father. By Mary of Modena he had seven children, among them being James Francis Edward (the Old Pretender) and Louisa Maria Theresa, who died at St. Germain in 1712. By one mistress, Arabella Churchill (1648-173o), he had two sons, James, duke of Berwick, and Henry (1673-1702), titular duke of Albemarle and grand prior of France, and a daughter, Henrietta (1667-173o), who married Sir Henry Waldegrave, afterwards Baron Waldegrave; and by another, Catherine Sedley, countess of Dorchester (1657-1717), a daughter, Catherine (d. who married James Annesley, 5th earl of Anglesey, and afterwards John Sheffield, duke of Buck ingham and Normandy.

authorities: See the sources indicated in Camb. Mod. Hist. and in A. W. Ward's article in Dict. Nat. Biog.; also Gilbert Burnet, Supplement to History, edit. H. C. Foxcroft (Oxford, 1902) ; J. Macpherson, Original Papers (2 vols., 1775) ; J. S. Clarke, Life of James II. (1816), contains many unpublished documents; Somer's Tracts, vols. ix.-xi. (1823) ; Earl of Clarendon and Earl of Rochester, Correspondence, vol. ii. (1828) ; Sir John Reresby, Memoirs, edit. A. Ivatt (19o4) ; John Evelyn, Diary and Correspondence and Life, edit. Bray and Wheatley (1906). Modern Works: L. von Ranke, History of England, vols. iv.-vi. (Oxford, 1875) ; Onno Klopp, Der Fall des Hauses Stuart, Bde. i.-ix. (Vienna, 1875-78) ; M. Brosch, Ge schichte von England, Bd. viii. (Gotha, 1903) ; Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History, pp. 195-276 (1906) ; Hilaire Belloc, James II. (1928).