James II of England
James II succeeded his brother Charles II in 1685 and immediately faced the Monmouth Rebellion — the Protestant Duke of Monmouth's uprising — which he crushed with the Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffreys, executing or transporting hundreds. An openly professing Catholic, he pursued aggressive policies of religious toleration that threatened the Anglican establishment: his Declarations of Indulgence (1687, 1688) suspended the Test Acts and filled the army and civil service with Catholics. When his second wife Mary of Modena gave birth to a Catholic male heir in June 1688, the prospect of a permanent Catholic succession prompted seven leading peers to invite the Protestant William of Orange to invade — the 'Glorious Revolution.' James fled to France in December 1688 without serious resistance, and William and Mary were crowned jointly in his place. He made one last attempt to recover his throne via Ireland, landing there in 1689, but was decisively defeated at the Battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690 by William III. He spent his remaining years as a pensioner of Louis XIV at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he died in 1701.
- Lived: 1633 CE – 1701 CE
- Nationality: british
- Roles: king, ruler, admiral
