History of the Stewarts | Battles and Historic Events
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James II & VII (14 October 1633 – 16 September 1701) was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
Members of Britain´s political and religious elite increasingly opposed him for being pro-French and pro-Catholic, and for his designs on becoming an absolute monarch. When he produced a Catholic heir, the tension exploded, and leading nobles called on William III of Orange (his son-in-law and nephew) to land an invasion army from the Netherlands, which he did. James fled England (and thus was held to have abdicated) in what is known as the ´Glorious Revolution´ of 1688.
James was replaced by William of Orange who became king as William III, ruling jointly with his wife (James´s daughter) Mary II. William and Mary, both Protestants, became joint rulers in 1689.
In 1689 the Scottish parliament voted to give the crown of Scotland to William & Mary. In response Viscount Dundee raised mainly Highland forces under the standard of James VII(II) in the first Jacobite rebellion against the newly installed monarch. They were supported by a small force of Irish troops. A Scottish government army was raised to counter the rebellion. This army comprised Lowland Scottish, English and Dutch forces, under General Mackay. On 27th July 1689 they intercepted the rebels just to the north west of the Killicrankie Pass, on the key strategic communications route into the Highlands from Perth to Inverness.
This was the first and most significant of the battles of the first Jacobite rebellion. Although it was an important victory for the Jacobites, it also resulted in the death of the rebel leader, Viscount Dundee, a major factor in the subsequent collapse of the uprising.
James made one serious attempt to recover his crowns, when he landed in Ireland in 1689 but, after the defeat of the Jacobite forces by the Williamite forces at the Battle of the Boyne in the summer of 1690, James returned to France.
In France, James was allowed to live in the royal château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.James´s wife and some of his supporters fled with him, including the Earl of Melfort; most, but not all, were Roman Catholic. In 1692, James´s last child, Louisa Maria Teresa, was born.Some supporters in England attempted to assassinate William III to restore James to the throne in 1696, but the plot failed and the backlash made James´s cause less popular. Louis XIV´s offer to have James elected King of Poland in the same year was rejected, for James feared that acceptance of the Polish crown might make him ineligible for the crown at home. After Louis concluded peace with William in 1697, he ceased to offer much in the way of assistance to James.
During his last years, James lived as an austere penitent. He wrote a memorandum for his son advising him on how to govern England, specifying that Catholics should possess one Secretary of State, one Commissioner of the Treasury, the Secretary at War, with the majority of the officers in the army.
He died of a brain haemorrhage on 16 September 1701 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. His body was laid to rest in a coffin at the Chapel of Saint Edmund in the Church of the English Benedictines in the Rue St. Jacques in Paris, with a funeral oration by Henri-Emmanuel de Roquette. James was not buried, but put in one of the side chapels. Lights were kept burning round his coffin until the French Revolution. In 1734, the Archbishop of Paris heard evidence to support James´s canonisation, but nothing came of it. During the French Revolution, James´s tomb was raided.
Reference: The Lament for the Departure of James II