King of England and Scotland James Stuart, II & VII
1633 - 1701 (67 years)
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Name James Stuart [1] Title King of England Prefix and Scotland Suffix II & VII Relationship 
with Kathleen Alice Jones-Rouse Birth 14 Oct 1633 St. James Palace, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom 
Gender Male Occupation King of England - reigned 1685 to 1688 King of Scotland reigned 1685 to 1689 Stories and Notes James II was the second surviving son of Charles I and younger brother of Charles II. He was created Duke of York, and was in Oxford during the Civil War. After the defeat of the Royalists he escaped with his mother and brother to The Hague and then exile in France. His father was executed in 1649. James served in the French army and later in the Spanish Army. After the death of Cromwell and the restoration of the monarchy he returned to England where his brother had been crowned Charles II.
James was created Lord High Admiral and warden of the Cinque Ports, and commanded the Royal Navy during the 2nd and 3rd Anglo-Dutch wars. He created controversy when in 1660 he married Anne Hyde a commoner and daughter of Charles’s chief minister Edward Hyde. They had 7 children but only two survived infancy - Mary (later Queen Mary II) and Anne (later Queen Anne). His daughters were raised as Protestants but, influenced by his time in France and Spain, James converted to Catholicism in 1670. Following Anne Hyde’s death in 1671, he married Mary of Modena a 15 year old Italian Catholic princess. James’s critics described her as ‘an agent of the Pope’.
Parliament became alarmed at the prospect of Catholic succession and in 1673 passed the Test Act which excluded Catholics from political office. In 1679 Shaftesbury attempted to introduce an Exclusion Bill to exclude James from the succession and substitute Charles’s illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth, but this was rebutted by Charles who dissolved Parliament. James became King James II on the death of his brother in 1685. He soon faced two rebellions intent on removing him in Scotland by the Duke of Argyll, and from an army raised by the Duke of Monmouth which was defeated by John Churchill (6th great grandfather of Winston Churchill) in July 1685 at the Battle of Sedgemoor in Somerset. The Monmouth rebels were brutally punished by Judge Jeffrey’s Bloody Assizes. James, believing his Divine Right as King, issued the Declaration of Indulgence to suspend the Test Act and promote his Catholic supporters in Parliament. The Archbishop of Canterbury and seven other bishops were arrested and tried for sedition. Amidst widespread alarm, the birth in 1688 of his Catholic heir James (James Edward Stuart) prompted a group of nobles to invite Prince William of Orange (who had married James daughter Mary) from the Netherlands to England to restore Protestantism and democracy.
William of Orange landed at Torbay on 5 November 1688 in 463 ships unopposed by the Royal Navy, and with an army of 14,000 troops which gathering local support grew to over 20,000 and advanced on London in what became known as ‘The Glorious Revolution’. Many from James’s army including Churchill and James’s daughter Anne defected to support William. James lost his nerve and fled to France throwing the Great Seal of the Realm into the River Thames. His daughter Mary was declared Queen, but she insisted on joint rule with her husband and they were crowned King William III and Queen Mary II. James and his wife and son lived in exile in France as guests of Louis XIV. James landed in Ireland in 1689 with French troops in an attempt to regain the throne and advanced on Londonderry, but was defeated by William at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. He lived the rest of his life in exile. His son James Edward Stuart (The Old Pretender) and grandson Charles (Bonnie Prince Charlie) made unsuccessful attempts to restore the Jacobite throne in 1715 and 1745.To Lady Kathleen 8 x cousin 12 times removed Death 6 Sep 1701 St. Germain-en-Laye, France Person ID I3315 Enchanted Family Tree Last Modified 6 Sep 2020
Father King of England and Scotland Charles Stuart, I, b. 19 Nov 1600, Dunfermline Palace, Dunfermline, , Fife, Scotland, United Kingdom d. 30 Jan 1649, Whitehall Palace, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom (Age 48 years) Mother Henrietta Maria De Bourbon, b. 26 Nov 1609, Hotel du Louvre, Paris, France d. 31 Aug 1669, Chateau St Colombes, Near Paris, France (Age 59 years) Marriage 13 Jun 1625 St. Augustine's Church, Canterbury, Kent, England, United Kingdom Family ID F1811 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family Anne Hyde, b. 12 Mar 1637, Cranbourne Lodge, Windsor, England, United Kingdom d. 31 Mar 1671, St. James Palace, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom (Age 34 years) Marriage 24 Nov 1659 Breda, , Noord-Brabant, Netherlands Children 1. Queen of England and Scotland Mary Stuart, II, b. 30 Apr 1662, St. James Palace, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom d. 28 Dec 1694, Kensington Palace, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom (Age 32 years)2. Queen of England and Scotland Annie Stuart, b. 6 Feb 1665, St. James Palace, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom d. 1 Aug 1714, Kensington Palace, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom (Age 49 years)Family ID F1812 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 14 Mar 2012
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Event Map 
Birth - 14 Oct 1633 - St. James Palace, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom 
Marriage - 24 Nov 1659 - Breda, , Noord-Brabant, Netherlands 
Death - 6 Sep 1701 - St. Germain-en-Laye, France = Link to Google Earth
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Photos James II of England
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Sources - [S4] The Complete Peerage, v.XII pII, (Reliability: 3).
- [S4] The Complete Peerage, v.XII pII, (Reliability: 3).