James II of England
James II lost three kingdoms in three years by being unable to imagine that anyone could reasonably disagree with him. Born in 1633, the second son of Charles I, he was fourteen when his father was defeated, escaped to the continent in disguise, and served with distinction in the French and Spanish armies — he was a genuinely capable soldier and, as Lord High Admiral after the Restoration, a competent administrator of the navy. He converted to Catholicism in the late 1660s and stopped concealing it in 1673, when the Test Act forced him out of office. The attempt to exclude him from the succession ran through three parliaments between 1679 and 1681 and produced the first Whigs and Tories, and Charles II saw it off by dissolving them and governing without. James succeeded in 1685 with a great deal of goodwill and destroyed it in three years. Monmouth's rebellion was crushed at Sedgemoor and followed by the Bloody Assizes, with some 300 hanged and 800 transported. He kept a standing army camped at Hounslow with Catholic officers commissioned in defiance of statute, claimed a power to dispense with laws, prosecuted seven bishops, and packed the corporations. The birth of a son in June 1688 turned a problem that would end with him into a dynasty. William landed in November, and James's nerve and his army both failed. He tried to recover Ireland in 1690 and lost at the Boyne, and spent the rest of his life at Saint-Germain becoming increasingly devout. He died in 1701.
- Lived: 1633 CE – 1701 CE
- Nationality: British
- Roles: king, ruler, admiral
