# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/James II of England

​JAMES II (1633–1701), king of England, Scotland, and Ireland, second son of Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, was born at St. James's Palace 14 (not 15) Oct. 1633. Soon after his christening he was created duke of York and Albany. At Easter 1642 he was, in defiance of the prohibition of parliament, taken by the Marquis of Hertford to York, whence he was, 22 April, sent forward to Hull, with the object of facilitating the king's entrance on the following day. He was allowed to return unmolested with his father, when admission was refused (Clarendon, Rebellion, ii. 385). After narrowly escaping capture at Edgehill, he accompanied the king to Oxford, where he remained almost continuously till the surrender of the city, 24 June 1646. In accordance with the articles of capitulation, he was handed over to the parliamentary commissioners. Sir George Ratcliffe remained in attendance upon him till he was removed to London, when all his servants, down to a favourite dwarf, were dismissed. He was now, with the Duke of Gloucester and the Princess Elizabeth, placed under the guardianship of the Earl of Northumberland (Life, i. 29–30). The children were allowed to visit their father in June 1647 at Caversham, and in August at Hampton Court and Sion House (Clarendon, Rebellion, v. 453–4, 471; cf. Life, p. 51). Attempts, made at the king's instigation, to effect the Duke of York's escape in the winters of 1646–7 and 1647–8 failed. The duke was examined by a committee of both houses, and permitted to remain at St. James's Palace, where he discreetly refused to receive even a secret letter from the queen. His escape was effected under cover of a game at hide and seek, 20 April 1648. He was taken to the river and, disguised in women's clothes, to Middelburg and Dort. He settled at the Hague with his sister the Princess of Orange, which led to a coolness between him and his brother Charles, and many quarrels followed among his attendants (Life, i. 33–7, 43–4; Clarendon, Rebellion, vi. 33–6, 139–40; arts. supra, Bampfield, Joseph, and Berkeley, John, first Lord of Stratton).
Early in January 1649 James, by his mother's orders, quitted the Hague for Paris, which he reached 13 Feb., and spent some months there and at St. Germains. On 19 Sept. he accompanied Prince Charles to Jersey, and showed some seamanship on the occasion (Life, i. 47). At Jersey he spent nearly a twelvemonth, in the course of which he lost another favourite dwarf, ‘M. Bequers’ (Chevalier, Journal ap. Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. App. (1871), p. 164). On his return he soon tired of his dependence upon the queen-dowager (Evelyn, Correspondence, iv. 203). It is quite unproved that his mother at this time sought to convert him (Sir Stephen Fox, p. 17). He disliked Sir Edward Herbert and Sir George Ratcliffe, while Lord Byron's moderating influence was overpowered by Berkeley (Clarendon, Life, i. ​284–6). Thus James allowed himself to be persuaded to leave Paris in October 1650 for Holland, against his mother's desire. The Princess of Orange declining to receive him, he spent some time at Brussels and in the queen of Bohemia's house at Rhenen, in great want of money, while his followers talked of a futile project for a match with a natural daughter of the Duke of Lorraine. In January 1651 he was received at the Hague, and remained there and at Breda till peremptorily summoned back to Paris by Charles. At Paris the queen received him about the end of June, ‘without reproaches’ (Clarendon, Rebellion, vi. 471–84; cf. Life, pp. 48–51).
After Worcester the royal cause seemed hopeless, and the ‘sweet Duke of York’ (Evelyn, Correspondence, iv. 344) was eager to provide for himself. Berkeley vainly suggested a match with the only daughter and heiress of the Duke of Longueville (Life, i. 54; cf. Clarendon, Rebellion, pp. 588–92). James now resolved to take service in the French army as a volunteer. Accompanied only by Berkeley, Colonel Worden, and a few servants, the duke joined Turenne's army at Chartres, 24 April 1652. James has himself lucidly described the campaign against the Fronde which ensued (Life, i. 64–157). He was for a time in personal attendance upon Turenne; and on the capture of Bar-le-Duc (December), Mazarin allowed him to incorporate in the ‘regiment of York’ under his command an Irish regiment taken from the Duke of Lorraine. At the close of the campaign James returned to Paris (February 1653). In June 1653 he eagerly entered on his second campaign under Turenne, against Spain and Lorraine as the allies of Condé. At the siege of Mousson he was nearly killed; but he soon returned with the court from Châlons-sur-Marne to Paris (December), ‘full of reputation and honour’ (Hyde to Browne in Evelyn, Correspondence, iv. 298; cf. Life, i. 159–91). In 1654 and 1655 James joined Turenne's army as lieutenant-general, and was left in command of the army at the time of the conclusion of the treaty with Cromwell, which provided for the removal of the English royal family from France. Mazarin was anxious to obviate the loss of the Irish troops in the French service, and accordingly arrived at an understanding with the Protector which enabled James to become captain-general under the Duke of Modena over the forces of the French and their allies in Piedmont (ib. pp. 245–266; cf. Clarendon, Rebellion, vii. 229–30). Charles, however, refused his brother's request to remain in the French service. Their mutual jealousy had been fomented by rival factions among the duke's household, headed by Berkeley and Sir Henry Bennett. James obeyed his brother's summons, but against his express desire brought Berkeley with him to Bruges. A serious misunderstanding was removed with the aid of the Princess of Orange in January 1657; and, in defiance of the queen-mother's faction, James took service under the Spanish crown (Life, i. 275–97).
When in the same year he joined the Spanish forces in Flanders, he claims to have stood at the head of a contingent of two thousand of his brother's subjects ‘drawn out of France.’ A project to surprise Calais failed, and the siege of Ardres, in which James took part with his younger brother, was raised. James's exposure of himself at the siege met with Don John's disapproval. James's dissatisfaction with the stolid inactivity of the Spaniards increased during the successful siege of Mardyke by the French and English. Before the Spanish army went into winter quarters, January 1658, he had an interview with the English commander, Reynolds, which aroused grave suspicions in Cromwell (ib. i. 297–329). After the fall of Dunkirk, in June, James was put in command of Nieuport. Here he received the news of Oliver's death, and speedily quitted the army for Brussels and Breda (ib. i. 334–68; Clarendon, Rebellion vii. 284; Pepys, ii. 481–2).
On the news of the rising of Sir George Booth in Cheshire (August 1659), James hastened to Boulogne, where he remained, in a very hazardous incognito, in correspondence with his elder brother at Calais. At Amiens he entered into a negotiation with Turenne, who was eager to command an expedition to England for the restoration of Charles; but on the news of Booth's defeat James returned to Brussels (Life, i. 378–9), and probably soon afterwards refused an offer made to him by the Spanish government of the post of high admiral, with the command against Portugal (ib. i. 381). Clarendon adds that the acceptance of this offer would have involved James's becoming a catholic (Rebellion, vii. 363–4). At Breda, 24 Nov. 1659, he contracted, in sufficient time to legitimatise the eldest child afterwards born to them (Pepys, i. 362), a secret promise of marriage with Anne, daughter of Sir Edward Hyde [see Hyde, Anne].
A few days before he and Charles sailed for England, James received a gift of seventy-five thousand guilders from the States of Holland (Sir Stephen Fox, pp. 83–4, cf. ib. pp. 53, 62), as well as another of 10,000l. brought by the committee of the lords and commons. He was named lord high admiral ​of England 16 May; and, when the English fleet arrived off Schevening, he was enthusiastically received on board (23 May; Pepys, i. 127; cf. Clarendon, Rebellion, vii. 498). He hoisted his flag on the London, landed with the king at Dover on 25 May, and accompanied him to London.
It was proposed in parliament to raise estates for James and the Duke of Gloucester ‘out of the confiscations of such traitors as they daily convict’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. App. to 5th Rep. pp. 18, 205). In the end (1663) it proved more convenient to settle on him the revenues of the post-office, amounting to 21,000l. a year (Thomas, Historical Notes, 1856, ii. 732). Although James had not yet caused public scandal in his relations with women, like his brother, he gave proof of a similar temperament with less discrimination. His amour with Lady Anne Carnegie (afterwards Lady Southesk), according to Pepys (v. 250), dated from the king's first coming-in; and soon after the acknowledgment of his marriage with Anne Hyde (concluded 3 Sept. 1660), he engaged in fresh inconstancies [for circumstances of this marriage, see Hyde, Anne]. But the duchess gradually obtained a strong ascendency over him. The marriage was certainly unpopular, and James attributed to it much of the opposition soon excited against himself. Meanwhile James paid unrequited attentions to the beautiful Miss Hamilton, to the elder Miss Jennings—afterwards married to Tyrconnel, who, as Dick Talbot, was (according toBurnet, i. 416) looked upon as the chief manager of the duke's intrigues—to Lady Robarts, and to Lady Chesterfield (Pepys, ii. 76, 117, 130; cf. Memoirs of Grammont).
James took a keen interest from the first in public affairs. Early in 1661 he was in London during the outbreak of Venner's plot, and at his recommendation the disbandment of the troops was stayed; this proved the beginning, under the name of guards, of the regular army (Hallam, Constitutional History, 10th edit. ii. 314–15). He was, however, chiefly interested in the affairs of the navy. On his appointment as lord high admiral the navy board was reconstituted and enlarged. Sir William Coventry [q. v.] became secretary. Otherwise few changes were made among the heads of the official body. In January 1662 were issued his general ‘Instructions,’ afterwards (1717) printed from an imperfect copy as ‘The Œconomy of H.M.'s Navy Office.’ They are stated to have remained in force till the reorganisation of the admiralty at the beginning of the present century. His general interest in naval matters is acknowledged by Pepys, and is shown by his ‘Original Letters and other Royal Authorities,’ published under the pretentious title of ‘Memoirs of the English Affairs, chiefly Naval, 1660–73,’ probably the handiwork of Pepys. He was unable to remedy the flagrant evils in the administration of the navy, more especially as they were largely caused by want of money (Pepys, i. 314). About 1663 he obtained a grant of 800,000l., which was chiefly spent in naval stores (Life, i. 399). The inefficiency caused in the service by the employment of land-officers was distinctly encouraged by James's own example (cf. Burnet, i. 306–7, Clarendon, Life, ii. 326, and Wheatley, Samuel Pepys, 1880).
Particular inquiries were made by the duke in the early part of 1664 into the condition of the fleet (Pepys, ii. 453, 473), when he was advocating a Dutch war, in opposition to Clarendon (Clarendon, Life, ii. 237 seqq.). Besides his sympathy with the house of Orange, he had become governor of the Royal African Company (about 1664), and was thus particularly alive to the prevailing mercantile jealousies (ib. ii. 234–6; cf. Life, i. 399). As early as 1661 the name of Jamesfort had been given to a fort taken from the Dutch on the Guinea Coast by Sir Robert Holmes [q. v.] , and when in 1664 the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam on Long Island was reduced, Charles II in March granted his brother a patent of it, and renamed it New York. While De Ruyter was making reprisals, the duke took advantage of the zeal for naval service among the young nobility by admitting as many volunteers as possible on his flagship (Clarendon, Life, ii. 356). Mutual declarations of war having been issued (January and February 1665), the English fleet, commanded by the Duke of York, set sail for the Texel; but after maintaining a blockade of the Dutch ports for about a month, was driven home by stress of weather. Hereupon the Dutch put to sea in great force under Opdam, and gave battle to the duke in Solebay off Lowestoft early in the morning of 3 June. After a protracted conflict, in which the duke's ship, the Royal Charles, closely engaged Opdam's, which finally blew up, the Dutch fell into hopeless confusion, and only a portion of their fleet was brought off by Van Tromp. The English losses were small, and the victory if pressed home might very probably have ended the war. The duke, who had borne himself bravely in the fight, had gone to bed, leaving orders that the fleet should keep its course. Henry Brouncker, a groom of his bedchamber [see under Brouncker, William], afterwards delivered an order purporting to come from James, to slacken sail and thus allow the ​Dutch to escape. The duke, when the question was discussed some months later, disavowed the order, and dismissed Brouncker, but employed him subsequently in most disgraceful services (Pepys, iii. 474, cf. iv. 117, 389, 486, v. 62–4; Life, i. 422–30, ii. 408–20; Clarendon, Life, ii. 384–8; Campbell, Naval Hist. of Great Britain, 1813, ii. 146–52; Burnet, i. 397–9; and cf. Denham, ‘Directions to a Painter,’ 1667, in State Poems, p. 26).
The Duke of York was voted 120,000l. by the House of Commons. But Coventry's counsel prevailed (Pepys, iii. 180–1), and he had no share in the following battles. In 1665 he had been sent to York to prevent an expected republican rising (Life, i. 422; Clarendon, Life, ii. 454–60; Memoirs of Grammont, p. 280). In 1666 he joined the king in his endeavours to arrest the great fire of London (Life, i. 424; cf. Pepys, iv. 67, 70). The brothers were still on bad terms (ib. iii. 284–285, 308). Charles was vexed by the report of the duke's passion for Miss Stewart (ib. iii. 308), while about the same time James began his amour with Arabella Churchill [q. v.] (Memoirs of Grammont, p. 274). His mistress, Lady Denham [see under Denham, Sir John, (1615–1669)], died on 6 Jan. 1667 (Pepys, iv. 201). The duke's license and the duchess's extravagance brought their household into such disorder that a commission of audit, appointed by James himself, certified that his estate showed an annual deficit of 20,000l. (ib. pp. 389–90, and cf. p. 142).
James still exercised a real authority over his office (ib. pp. 223, 246). In November 1666 Pepys submitted to him a report ‘laying open the ill condition of the navy’ (ib. pp. 160, 242). In March 1667, in prospect of a Dutch blockade of the Thames, he obtained half a million, and made some attempt to strengthen Sheerness and Portsmouth (ib. pp. 260–1, 268, 287). He even (Life, i. 425) advocated the sending out of a fleet to sea. When De Ruyter was in the river, the duke ran ‘up and down all the day here and there,’ giving orders, and superintending defensive measures (Pepys, iv. 367–8; Evelyn, ii. 219); but he showed no capacity for averting disgrace, nor even any becoming sense of it (Pepys, iv. 389–90, 394). When the war was over, Pett served as the momentary scapegoat (ib. v. 319, 333, 335, 380), and letters drawn up by Pepys, and signed by the duke, admonishing his subordinates, were read to the navy board, 29 Aug. and November 1668 (ib. v. 343–7, 362, 380, 395; cf. Wheatley, pp. 139–42). The prevalent indignation, however, was concentrated on Clarendon. The duke, though never on cordial terms with Clarendon, spoke in the House of Lords against his banishment (Clarendon, Life iii. 293–4, 308–9; cf. Life, i. 433–4). Clarendon and James were both reported to have plotted with the king for overthrowing parliamentary government by means of an army (Pepys, iv. 423, 441, 447, 452). A fresh estrangement ensued between the brothers (ib. v. 18, 20), and the duke's authority sank. Coventry was dismissed from his service (Clarendon, Life, iii. 293). In the midst of the transactions connected with the fall of Clarendon, James had a slight attack of small-pox (ib. iii. 320; Pepys, v. 37–8, 114).
The birth of a son to the Duke of York (14 Sept.; an elder son had died in the previous June) suspended the rumours of the king's intention to legitimatise Monmouth; but though the brothers embraced over the bottle, the coolness continued (ib. v. 29, 93). Charles was beginning, behind the backs of his ministers, the policy of a French alliance. James, who really loved France, and whose interest it was at any cost to enter into his brother's most secret political designs, had a special motive for taking the same line. It is not known at what date he began to turn towards the church of Rome. He had been thought rather to favour the presbyterians (Reresby, pp. 81–2; and cf. Life, i. 431; Sidney, Diary, ed. Blencowe, i. 3–4, and notes). But when in the winter of 1668–9 Charles expressed to James his resolution to be reconciled to the church of Rome (Macpherson, i. 50), James inquired of the jesuit Symond whether he could obtain a papal dispensation for remaining outwardly a protestant after joining the church of Rome. Symond said that he could not, and was confirmed in his reply by Pope Clement IX. The agreement with France, formulated in the secret treaty of Dover (20 May 1670), included the restoration of England to the catholic church. James's adversaries proclaimed him a ‘partner’ to the secret treaty when it was brought to light (see e.g. ‘An Account of the Private League,’ &c., in State Tracts, 1705, i. 37–44; cf. Secret History of Whitehall, letter xix.), and connected his subsequent conversion with its conclusion (Reresby). But, however that may have been, of the Anglo-French alliance he undoubtedly fully approved.
In the summer of this year (1670) James was seriously ill (Life, i. 451). The death of his duchess (31 March 1671), as a professed catholic, naturally hastened his own conversion, which probably took place before the outbreak of the third Dutch war (March 1672) (cf. ib. i. 455). James eagerly threw himself into the war when once declared, and hoped to redeem the reputation of the ​navy. Without the help of the French the duke gained a victory in Southwold Bay over De Ruyter's superior numbers (28 May). James, who had been obliged to change his ship during the battle, next morning ordered the fleet home for refitting. De Ruyter's attempt to renew the fight ended in his withdrawal in a fog, and the duke's hopes of prolonging the campaign were destroyed by the revolution in Holland (ib. i. 457–81; cf. Burnet, i. 612).
The breakdown of the attempt to crush the Dutch republic was followed by the revocation of the Declaration of Indulgence and the passing of the Test Act (March 1673). In consequence of the Test Act, the duke, who at Christmas 1672 had refused to receive the sacrament with the king according to the anglican rite (Life, i. 482–3; cf. Evelyn, ii. 290), resigned the admiralty (Reresby, p. 88). In the same year (1673) he married again (cf. Burnet, ii. 16; cf. Jesse, iii. 297–300). Negotiations for a marriage between him and the Archduchess Claudia Felicitas, begun in the summer of 1672 by the Emperor Leopold I, were crossed by Louis XIV, who, after other suggestions, urged a match with one of two princesses of Modena, Eleanor, aunt of the reigning duke, Francis II, or his sister, Mary Beatrice. Early in 1673 the Austrian negotiation was broken off, the emperor having resolved to marry the lady himself. About the end of July, Peterborough, who had inspected several other candidates, was ordered to Modena to ask for the hand of Mary Beatrice. She was married to him as the duke's proxy, 30 Sept. [see Mary Beatrice]. Soon afterwards she was received by her husband at Dover, and their marriage was ‘declared’ lawful by Crew, bishop of Oxford (21 Nov.; Life, i. 486). This marriage finally bound James to the policy of Louis XIV. Violent addresses were passed against it by the House of Commons (cf. Burnet, ii. 17). The fall of the cabal, the accession to office of an anti-French and church of England administration, and the conclusion of peace with the United Provinces (January–February 1674), were followed by a dead-set against the Duke of York (see Klopp, i. 350–8; Supplement to the Life of James, 3rd edit. 1705, pp. 11–41; also Les derniers Stuarts, i. 1–134).
James was advised to retire with his wife to the country (Life, i. 487). But he courageously refused (Macpherson, i. 81). The attempt of Burnet and Stillingfleet to reconvert him (ib. pp. 24–30) was repeated by Archbishop Sancroft in February 1678, with the help of Bishop Morley of Winchester and with the cognisance of the king (Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 465–71; cf. Life, i. 539–40). James did not yield, but allowed both his daughters to be brought up as members of the church of England, and assented reluctantly to the marriage of the elder to the Prince of Orange (November 1677). Both before and after the secret treaty with France of May 1678 he was in constant correspondence with the prince (Dalrymple, ii. 175 seqq., 208 seqq.).
James's right of succession was now endangered by the pretensions of the Duke of Monmouth [see Scott, James, Duke of Monmouth]. James (cf. Life, i. 499–500) displayed on the whole a judicious moderation, and preserved an attitude of submissive loyalty. Occasionally he received in return tokens of goodwill, such as the title of generalissimo, after a commission as general of the forces had been bestowed upon Monmouth (ib. p. 497). Closer observers, like Halifax, perceived that James remained true to the French interest, and to the cause of Rome, which he sought to strengthen by advocating toleration for dissenters in general (Reresby, p. 116). His position became perilous as the unpopularity of his cause increased. In March 1678 he warned his friends in the commons of ‘a design to fall upon him and the lord treasurer’ (ib. p. 130); and soon after Oates's first informations the duke prudently handed to the king certain letters which had been addressed to his confessor, Bedingfield (Burnet, ii. 149–50). Oates seems at first to have wavered about bringing charges against the duke (Bramston, p. 179). But papers discovered in the house of Edward Coleman [q. v.], secretary to the duchess, showed that a correspondence with Louis's jesuit confessor, La Chaise, had been carried on with the duke's cognisance (notwithstanding his attempted denial, Reresby, p. 146). It treated of the scheme for the conversion of England agreed upon at Dover, though it did not confirm the existence of the plot ‘revealed’ by Oates (ib. p. 169). The letter from the duke himself, discovered with the rest, and printed by order of the House of Commons, was dated 1675 (State Papers of Charles II, pp. 137 seqq.). Soon after the meeting of parliament (October 1678) Shaftesbury demanded the removal of the Duke of York from the king's counsels and from public affairs. James perceived his peril (Les derniers Stuarts, i. 229). He consented, at the king's request, to absent himself from the council; but the commons voted another and more stringent address against him. A conciliatory speech from the king in person delayed the passing of this address and secured the duke's exemption from the operation of a bill disabling papists from sitting in parliament. ​The public agitation increased, and even the catholic lords imprisoned in the Tower sent a message to James entreating him to withdraw into some neighbouring country, France excepted (Life, i. 536). The king himself finally ordered his brother's withdrawal, in a letter couched in affectionate terms (28 Feb. 1679; ib. i. 541–2; Kennett, iii. 369). After excusing himself to Barillon for not retiring to France (Les derniers Stuarts, i. 245), James sailed on 4 March for Antwerp, and thence to the Hague (Pepys, Correspondence, vi. 125).
James met with little civility at the Hague (Sidney, Diary, i. 41, 142, 179), but was well received at Brussels (Burnet, ii. 198 n.). A vote of distrust was hurled after him by the House of Commons (27 April), and three days later the king offered to compromise matters by strictly limiting the powers of a popish successor. But the commons were not satisfied, and the second reading of the Exclusion Bill, brought in for the first time on 5 May, was carried on 21 May by a large majority. The duke's satisfaction at the consequent prorogation and dissolution of parliament was marred, both by his inability to induce the king to order decisive measures of repression and by his jealousy of Monmouth (Dartmouth's note to Burnet, ii. 228; cf. Reresby, p. 172). His friends in England continued to urge his conversion (so the ‘old cavalier’ who published a letter under the signature ‘Philanax Verus;’ and cf. Clarendon Correspondence, i. 45, 46, 51; Life, i. 560; Sidney, Diary, i. 13); while a notion was started of making him king of the Romans (ib. i. 22, 23, 129). Charles continued to forbid his return. When in August 1679 Charles was unexpectedly seized by a succession of ague fits, he, at the suggestion of Halifax, Essex, and others, who feared the ascendency of Monmouth and Shaftesbury, sent for the duke (Temple ap. Sidney, Diary, i. 137 n.; Reresby, p. 177). The king was now much better, and it was agreed that Monmouth should be sent away from court and the Duke of York appointed high commissioner in Scotland. James returned to Brussels to fetch the duchess, and reached England in October (ib. p. 179; Sidney, Diary, i. 163, 171). On the 27th, notwithstanding the opposition of Shaftesbury (ib. p. 181), they left for Scotland.
In Scotland, where Lauderdale had organised a loyal reception, and where the duke took his seat on the privy council without being tendered the oath of allegiance, he bore himself impartially and moderately (see his letter ap. Sidney, Diary, i. 385, and cf. Life, i. 580, 587; Burnet, ii. 292). But the persistency of Monmouth and symptoms of a reaction against the whigs induced him to return to London, which he reached by sea on 24 Feb. 1680, and where he was well received (Reresby, p. 181; Silvius to Sidney ap. Sidney, Diary, i. 285–6; cf. ib. p. 303 n.). He now bore himself with much tact (ib. ii. 25), and visibly began to establish a commanding influence over the king (Reresby, pp. 182–3), which he used to prevent the meeting of parliament. Shaftesbury presented him as a recusant to the Middlesex grand jury (16 June), but Chief-justice North removed the indictment from the Old Bailey to the king's bench, ‘in order to a non pros.’ (Lives of the Norths, i. 399; Life, i. 675). Soon afterwards the Duchess of Portsmouth turned against him (Burnet, ii. 249); and when in August the king gave way to the cry for a parliament, James was obliged again to withdraw to Scotland (21 Oct.), having in vain sought to obtain from the king a pardon safeguarding him against the consequences of impeachment (Life, i. 597; cf. ‘Reasons for the Indictment of the Duke of York,’ &c., in State Papers, under Charles II, i. 466 seqq.). He was now willing to entertain a project of civil war, in which he was promptly encouraged by Louis XIV (Barillon ap. Dalrymple, ii. 334 seqq.). A resolution against a popish successor was passed by the commons, and an exclusion bill brought in (4 Nov.), and rapidly carried up to the lords, where it was finally thrown out on the second reading, through the influence of Halifax (Kennett, iii. 388). But on the following day (16 Nov.) Halifax proposed the banishment of the Duke of York, and important limitations in his royal authority should he succeed. These proposals were rejected as futile, but James never forgave Halifax (Historical MSS. of the House of Lords, 1678–88, p. 209; cf. Burnet, ii. 340; Life, i. 619; State Papers from 1660 to 1689, ii. 91–2). The commons retorted upon the lords by bringing in a bill for a protestant association, aimed directly against the duke's succession; and, in reply to a firm speech from the king, passed an address insisting on the principle of the exclusion (20 Dec.). On 18 Jan. 1681 the parliament was dissolved and a new one summoned to Oxford for 21 March. At Oxford the king made one more attempt at compromise by a bill of security, which would have entrusted the substance of power to the Prince of Orange, and in the meantime banished the Duke of York; but the commons adhering to the plan of simple exclusion, the parliament was dissolved on 28 March. In August 1681, after many representations had been made to the duke from his friends at home to declare himself a protestant (Life, i. 626 seqq., 657–8), ​Hyde was sent to Edinburgh to declare that the king could no longer uphold his brother unless he conformed, at least so far as to attend church (ib. i. 699; cf. Macpherson, Original Papers, i. 129, and Ranke, vii. 149).
In Scotland, though James adhered in substance to the line pursued by Lauderdale, he adopted the conciliatory tone sanctioned by the king (Story, William Carstares, 1874, p. 50). His courtesy was valued by the nobility and gentry; while his attitude was conciliatory towards the presbyterians. He even discouraged a rigid enforcement of the laws against conventicles. But no actual change of system seems to have taken place, and in 1681 James's rule became more severe. The parliament, opened by him in July, passed an act completely securing the legitimate succession, any difference of religion notwithstanding, and another imposing a complicated test in favour of the royal prerogative (Dalrymple, i. 71). Argyll, after attempting to take it with a reservation, was prosecuted by the duke's orders, and sentenced to death, but escaped from prison (Burnet, ii. 300 seqq., 326–7; cf. Life, pp. 694 seqq., 702 seqq.). Great severity was shown in the application of the Test Act, though even Macaulay admits that the degree of James's personal responsibility is doubtful. Macaulay's general description (i. 270–1) is clearly overdone; the grotesque charge against him of having taken pleasure in the spectacle of the administration of torture appears to be founded solely on Burnet, ii. 426–8 (see Lockhart Papers, 1817, i. 600).
The duke's withdrawal from Scotland was the work of the Duchess of Portsmouth, who was intent upon a job for settling upon herself a portion of the post-office revenues enjoyed by him (Macpherson, Original Papers, i. 129, 132–4; Life, i. 722–7). He sailed from Leith on 4 March 1682 for Yarmouth, and on 11 March reached Newmarket, where he was very kindly received by the king (Reresby, p. 243; Pepys, vi. 138). Though the duchess's job could not be managed, the king was gratified by his brother's complacency. James sailed on 3 May to fetch home his duchess from Scotland in the Gloucester frigate (a ‘third rate’). The Gloucester [see under Berry, Sir John] was wrecked off the Yorkshire coast with great loss of life. James was afterwards accused of having taken particular care of his strong-box, his dogs, and his priests, while Legge with drawn sword kept off other passengers (Burnet, ii. 324–325; Clarendon Correspondence, i. 67–9, 71–4; Pepys, Diary and Correspondence, vi. 141–4; Ellis, Orig. Letters, 2nd ser. iv. 67 seqq.).
After his return to England (June), the political ascendency of James was fully established. Notwithstanding his pretence of impartiality (Reresby, p. 271), his influence was thrown altogether on the side of Rochester in the ensuing struggle for supremacy between him and Halifax; while, by making his peace with the duke, Sunderland contrived to be restored to his secretaryship (Burnet, ii. 338; Reresby, p. 269). The design of the Rye House plotters was directed against him equally with the king, and rumour connected him with the death of Essex (Secret Hist. of James II, p. 179; cf. Life, ii. 314). He had to consent to the restoration of Monmouth to the king's favour, which he persisted in attributing to Halifax (Reresby, pp. 286–90; cf. Burnet, ii. 411–12), and to the discharge of Danby (Reresby, p. 295). But his influence steadily rose. In May 1684 he regained the powers, if not the full dignity, of the admiralty (ib. p. 303; but see Life, ii. 81). (He had just before assented to the marriage of his daughter Anne with George of Denmark; Life, i. 745.) He was freely admitted to the deliberations of the cabinet (Lives of the Norths, i. 65). In accordance with his wishes greater severity was introduced by Perth in Scotland. James was present at the administration of the last sacrament to Charles II by John Huddleston [q. v.] , and after the death of Charles published, with an attestation from his own hand, the two papers found in his brother's strong-box (Kennett, iii. 429–30; cf. the Defence of the Papers written by the late King and the Duchess of York, &c., 1686).
In the reign of James II three periods are clearly distinguishable:
I. From his accession, 6 Feb. 1685, to the autumn of the same year. During this period James was supported by all moderate men, and the whigs remained mute. In the speech delivered by him to the privy council on quitting his brother's deathbed, he gave promise of support to the church of England (Clarendon Correspondence, i. 115; Life, ii. 4–5; cf. Evelyn, ii. 445 seqq.). At first he took no step to the contrary. From an early date, however, the doors of the queen's chapel at St. James's, where he heard mass, were thrown open, and on Easter Sunday he attended the catholic service in full official pomp. At his coronation on St. George's day James curtailed the anglican rites, but submitted to be crowned by the primate (see State Tracts under William III, 1706, ii. 94). No discontent was aroused by the proceedings against Oates and Dangerfield, or by the release of large numbers of quakers and Roman catholics. James's policy was still undecided, though Louis XIV urged upon him the im​mediate proclamation of liberty of worship (C. J. Fox, Appendix, xxiv). In Scotland parliament annexed the excise to the crown for ever, and voted James a revenue exceeding by nearly one-third that enjoyed by his brother (March and April) (Lingard, x. 66). The bestowal in Ireland of a regiment upon the catholic Talbot (April), in defiance of the Test Act, appears to have excited definite apprehensions (Fox, lxvi–vii).
The ministerial changes made by James within the first fortnight of his reign seemed even less significant than they were. Rochester, who was made lord treasurer, and who with Godolphin and Sunderland formed the inner cabinet, was the favourite of the church party. Although (12 Feb.) the king illegally declared his intention of levying the customs duties on his own authority, the convenience of the professedly temporary encroachment recommended it to the mercantile community. When parliament met on 19 May it contained an overwhelming tory majority. A revenue equal to that of Charles was at once settled on the king for life, certain additional taxes being imposed at his request, and, though the committee of religion passed a resolution calling upon him to execute the penal laws against nonconformists, it was revoked when it was understood to be offensive to him (Macaulay, i. 514). Probably public feeling had been further gratified by certain reforms in the condition of the court, which were facilitated by the banishment of the Duchess of Portsmouth. The attempt made by James at the same time to dismiss his own mistress, Catharine Sedley, failed (Venetian despatch in Les derniers Stuarts, ii. 19). James, although economical, received ambassadors with more dignity than Charles, and gratified English pride by asserting his equality with the king of France on ceremonial occasions (Klopp, iii. 30–1; cf. Burnet, iii. 12).
The crucial question in foreign affairs was that of the French alliance. Charles had become weary of Barillon's influence. James was in a more independent position. His first communication to the ambassador was his intention to summon a parliament, but he avowed his continued adhesion to the alliance with Louis. Louis had transmitted the arrears (five hundred thousand livres) due to Charles; according to Barillon, James received the sum with tears, and sent Churchill as ambassador to Paris to ask for more. But Louis, on hearing of the summoning of parliament, repented (Klopp, iii. 13, citing Mazure, ii. 43), and, though a fund four times as large had been entrusted to Barillon, rarely allowed him to use any part of it. Louis was no doubt disturbed by the efforts of the Prince of Orange to keep up friendly relations with his father-in-law. James met these overtures halfway, and William in return consented to receive Skelton as ambassador, and sent Monmouth away from the Hague. The general impression that a complete reconciliation had taken place between them (Dalrymple, ii. 142–4; cf. Klopp, ii. 20–1) induced Spain and the emperor to attempt to gain the confidence of James, who was still demanding money while failing to break with William. This double position and the loyalty of his parliament seem for a moment to have suggested to James II the thought of playing the part of general pacificator of Europe (Count Thun ap. Klopp, i. 37–8). In return Louis drew the pursestrings tight (C. J. Fox, Appendix, xcv, xcvii–viii). The loyal conduct of William of Orange during Monmouth's rebellion led to the formal renewal of the old treaties between England and the United Provinces (August), though there never was any question of James joining a coalition against France (Burnet, iii. 20; cf. Macaulay, ii. 2). Louis's disputes with Pope Innocent XI contributed to the coolness. After 1 Nov. 1685 Barillon's payments, which had amounted to 60,000l., ceased altogether (C. J. Fox, Appendix, cxxi; cf. Lingard, x. 65).
In spite of the landing of Argyll (14 May) and of Monmouth (11 June), the loyalty of parliament remained unimpaired. James, as a matter of course, assented to the bill of attainder against his nephew, while an extraordinary vote of supply and a bill for the preservation of the king's person were also passed. Parliament was prorogued 2 July, and four days later the insurrection came to an end at Sedgemoor. James has been accused of inhumanity for granting the captive Monmouth an interview without intending to pardon him (Macaulay, i. 616; but see Life, i. 34–5). It was thought that the publication by his orders of the narrative of Monmouth's capture and execution proved the truth of the saying, that, ‘though it was in his power, it was not in his nature to pardon’ (Dalrymple, i. 146). The cruel treatment of the rebels bears more heavily upon him. His satisfaction in the Bloody Assizes (The Western Martyrology, 5th edit. 1705) was proved by the elevation of Jeffreys to the lord chancellorship, and by remarks in his letters to William of Orange (10 and 24 Sept., Dalrymple, ii. 53). The executions in London and the general rigour with which the penal laws were enforced against protestant nonconformists spread the terror beyond the seat of the rebellion. But there are few signs of ​a reaction against James's government such as Burnet attributes to the horror excited (iii. 68–9). The power of James at home and abroad had reached its climax.
II. From the second meeting of the first parliament (November 1685) to the acquittal of the seven bishops, 30 June 1688.
By keeping up the military force raised against Monmouth, and thereby increasing the standing army more than threefold, as well as by granting commissions in the newly raised regiments to Roman catholics, in defiance of the Test Act (Lives of the Norths, ii. 150), James entered upon an aggressive policy. In the speech with which he opened parliament (Life, ii. 48–50) he confidently demanded sufficient supplies for his augmented army, and announced that he should maintain his illegal appointments. The commons sent Coke to the Tower for language disrespectful to the king, but when the lords showed a spirit of opposition, he prorogued parliament forthwith (19 Nov.). The king's displeasure with several members was so marked that even a courtier like Reresby (p. 349) perceived a crisis to have arrived ‘for every thinking man.’ The Scottish parliament, which met April 1686 and showed itself unwilling to meet the king's wishes as to his catholic subjects, was likewise prorogued.
The dismissal of Halifax from office and from the privy council (21 Oct. 1685) secured the ascendency of Sunderland. A catholic cabal, of which Sunderland, Father Petre, Henry Jermyn (Dover), and Richard Talbot (Tyrconnel) (Life, ii. 77) were the principal members, was set on foot for the management of catholic affairs, which soon came to involve affairs at large. James now dropped his caution, and took a line too decided for many of the English catholics and for Pope Innocent XI. The jesuits, with few exceptions, supported, like their patron Louis XIV, an active policy (Clarendon Correspondence, ii. App. 507–8). James's confessor, the capuchin Mansuete, resigned (Ellis Correspondence, i. 47), and was succeeded by the jesuit Warner, a nominee of Father Petre (Lingard, x. 127; cf. Reresby, p. 363; Ellis Correspondence, i. 35). At the beginning of 1686 James appears to have been above all desirous to prevent public discussion of his religious policy (ib. i. 23).
The queen and the catholics at large were offended by the ennoblement as Countess of Dorchester (January) of their antagonist Catharine Sedley (Evelyn, iii. 15; cf. Ellis Correspondence, i. 23); but the king was ultimately brought to regard this connection as unfavourable to his designs. She left for Ireland and returned in August (Clarendon Correspondence, i. 544, 552), but did not regain her former ascendency (ib. ii. 279). James henceforward arranged his amours more decently than was usual with contemporary sovereigns. He was much occupied in the ‘modelling’ of his army, and held frequent reviews in the encampment established by him on Hounslow Heath (Ellis Correspondence, i. 60, 125; Reresby, p. 360; Bramston, p. 234; cf. Life, ii. 71). About the same time the administration of the navy was reorganised in accordance with the plans of Pepys (Ellis Correspondence, i. 73). James showed throughout unusual bodily activity and a restless devotion to business (ib. pp. 125, 272; Reresby, p. 362; Bramston, pp. 226–228).
His religious policy first became unmistakable in Ireland, where Clarendon was early in 1687 superseded by Tyrconnel. In Scotland the royal letter recommending the removal of religious tests made a subservient parliament unmanageable, and was followed by the arbitrary admission of catholics to offices and honours (cf. Balcarres, p. 3). Early in 1686 James published the late king's papers, and naïvely pressed the primate to indite a ‘gentlemanlike and solid’ reply (Life, ii. 9). He sent Lord Castlemaine to Rome (February) as ambassador, with no definite mission except that of obtaining a red hat for Father Petre, and began the proceedings which aimed at the removal of catholic disabilities by means of the dispensing power. Changes on the bench insured a favourable judicial decision on the subject (June); and, according to Burnet (iii. 103), steps had been taken beforehand to insure nonconformist support even in the west. In July four catholics were admitted into the privy council (Reresby, p. 364). In May leave had been given to a catholic convert to retain his London benefice; another, Obadiah Walker, continued to hold the mastership of University College, Oxford; and a third catholic, John Massey, was actually named dean of Christ Church. In July the court of high commission was revived, and suspended the Bishop of London [see Compton, Henry]. Disturbances ensued in London and in other towns. The clergy of the established church were now awake, and a very lively ‘controversial war’ (Burnet, iii. 305) began. The king's scheme was at last openly carried out, catholics being placed on the commissions of the peace, and freely introduced as officers into the army (Bramston, p. 251). On Christmas day 1686 the new chapel at Whitehall, dedicated by the king, was opened (ib. p. 253) and put into the hands of Father Petre; many other catholic chapels were ​opened, but the anglican churches were left unmolested (Life, ii. 79), except that Benedictines were settled in St. James's Chapel. The court in October was said to be deserted by all not called thither on actual service (Klopp, iii. 261). On 5 Jan. 1687 Rochester, whom the king had in vain attempted to convert, succumbed to the cabal [see Hyde, Laurence].
In Scotland a proclamation, issued 18 Feb. 1687, granted the right of public worship to all nonconformists, though with reservations burdensome to the presbyterians, and suspended all penal law against the catholics. In London a preliminary attempt was made to secure by royal ‘closetings’ as many distinguished recruits as possible for Rome (Bramston, pp. 268–70; cf. Ellis Correspondence, i. 265); while in the country the judges on assize were instructed to feel the pulse of members of parliament (Reresby, p. 370). At court Penn was frequently admitted to the presence (Ellis Correspondence, i. 269), and on 4 April the fateful Declaration of Indulgence appeared (see ib. ii. 285; Evelyn, iii. 39). On 3 July James publicly received at Windsor the papal nuncio (Count Ferdinand d'Adda). To the deep annoyance of the king (Les derniers Stuarts, ii. 148), the pope left Father Petre unpromoted, but conferred a cardinalate upon Mary of Modena's brother Rinaldo, and named him protector of the English nation at Rome. Father Petre, appointed to the privy council, in November 1687, the convert Sir Nicholas Butler, and Sunderland now formed the triumvirate in control of affairs.
On the day after the nuncio's reception the dissolution of parliament was proclaimed (4 July 1687). James II tried to secure a more subservient body by a manipulation of the surrendered municipal charters (Burnet, iii. 191), and by managing the counties with the aid of a renovated lord-lieutenancy. The universities were likewise attacked. On the deprivation of the vice-chancellor of Cambridge (May) followed the expulsion of the fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford (December), and its conversion into a catholic seminary. In the Magdalen case James intervened personally (Diary of Bishop Cartwright of Chester, pp. 83, 86–93 et al.; cf. Bramston, pp. 284 seqq.).
The determination of the king stiffened as his manœuvres failed, and on 27 April 1688 he put forth his second Declaration of Indulgence, which, while reiterating his religious policy, announced his intention of assembling parliament in November at the latest. This declaration was (4 May) ordered to be read in church on two specified successive Sundays, after being previously distributed by the bishops in their dioceses. When seven bishops petitioned him (18 May) against the declaration, James told them that they had raised the standard of rebellion. A fortnight afterwards they were consigned to the Tower (Burnet, iii. 189–90; Clarendon Correspondence, pp. 177, 179–80). The acquittal of the bishops (30 June 1688) naturally disturbed the king, though he appears to have preserved his self-control when the news reached him in the camp at Hounslow Heath (Reresby, p. 397; Ellis Correspondence, ii. 24–5; cf. Life, ii. 165).
The confidence shown by James was partly due to the birth of a prince of Wales (10 June); for the doubtfulness of the succession had been an element of weakness in his position. The significance of the birth of an heir was soon apprehended, and little art was needed to prompt and develope the suggestion that the child was supposititious. Although James was only in his fifty-fifth year, while the queen had already given birth to four children (who died young), the story found willing listeners in the Princesses Mary and Anne and among the public at large [see James Francis Edward Stuart].
III. From the summer to the autumn of 1688 the relations between James II and the Prince of Orange had been uneasy. The fear that James would renew Charles's offensive alliance with France easily became a belief that such an alliance had been actually concluded (Klopp, iii. 275–6), and that a league, more or less resembling the treaty of Dover, had been concluded between James and Louis. The literature on the subject is enormous (by way of example see ‘An Account of a Private League,’ &c., in Harleian Miscellany, i. 37 seqq.). The officiousness of Skelton, the English envoy, had personally irritated William against James, who in his turn was annoyed by the favourable reception given at the Hague to Burnet (Burnet, iii. 137–9), though by James's desire he ceased to be received at court. In January 1687 James sent to the Hague in Skelton's place Albeville, a catholic Irishman in the pay of France. William hereupon sent Dykvelt to England, who, besides warning the king against the repeal of the Test Act, communicated with all the statesmen, by whom William was afterwards invited to England. During the summer of 1687 the irritation between the English and Dutch governments increased. James, who about this time declined to oblige the emperor by coming forward on behalf of the peace of Europe, was more isolated than ever in his foreign relations. After the dissolution of parliament Zuylesteen was sent to ​England to sound the situation and to take up the threads of Dykvelt's correspondence. At this conjuncture (September) it was suggested to James, through Sunderland (Dalrymple, iii. 134 seqq.), to transfer to the service of the French government, for his own eventual use, the regiments in the Dutch service in his pay. But, though Louis offered to facilitate the proposal by maintaining part of these troops in England (Macaulay, ii. 260), their recall was delayed, and the Prince and Princess of Orange declared their loyalty towards James, while recommending a more moderate policy (Burnet, iii. 215–17). At last, after vainly demanding the extradition of Burnet, James ordered the recall of the six regiments from the service of the states (27 Jan. 1688). The states refused compliance, and finally only some officers returned (Bramston, p. 305). In England prices fell, and warlike preparations began in the Netherlands, where the action of James had brought about cordial relations between the states and the Prince of Orange, and where Louis XIV was suspected of planning an immediate invasion. James had not yet thought of offensive war. On 3 April he issued a proclamation recalling all his subjects in the Dutch service, and authorising their forcible removal after a certain date from Dutch ships. Louis, however, urged the equipment of an English fleet equal in strength to the Dutch (Barillon ap. Mazure, iii. 92, undated). He empowered Barillon to offer James a sum of—in the extreme case—six hundred thousand livres. On 29 April an agreement was concluded, Louis promising five hundred thousand livres for an English fleet and the maintenance of two thousand English troops recalled from the provinces (ib. p. 99). In the meantime Albeville at the Hague strove to keep up the tension between his master and the Dutch government. The issue of the second Declaration of Indulgence, followed by the order to the clergy, furnished William with his opportunity. Zuylesteen was sent over on the pretext of congratulating James on the birth of the Prince of Wales, and on the day of the acquittal of the bishops the letter was signed which invited William of Orange to England (30 June). James, still unaware of his danger, had just declined Louis's offer of sixteen men-of-war, and this offer was not renewed. It was not till 30 Sept. that Louis offered a joint declaration against Holland, which James declined. Thus, when the expedition of William of Orange sailed, England, Holland, and France were all at peace, and there was no alliance, despite the popular belief, between England and France.
During July and August James held reviews at the Nore and at Portsmouth (Ellis Correspondence, ii. 63, 128), without neglecting the camp on Hounslow Heath (ib. ii. 24, 116). On 27 Aug. all governors and other officers were ordered to repair to their respective commands (Dartmouth MSS. p. 145). Till the latter part of September, however, appointments were made and honours bestowed in the sense of James's previous policy. On 23 Aug. he and the queen were loyally entertained at Bulstrode by Jeffreys (Ellis Correspondence, ii. 139), while the troops near London were reinforced by a small body of Irish soldiery (Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 190). On 21 Sept., however, a proclamation announced that in the approaching election catholics should remain ineligible as members of parliament, and the king thought of summoning the peers in order to apprise them of his design to undo his innovations. On 22 Sept. he informed the Bishop of Winchester of his intention to support the church of England (ib. pp. 189–91). On the same day a royal proclamation appealed to the country for support against the imminent Dutch invasion, and stated that the king found himself forced to recall the parliamentary writs, as his present place was at the head of his army (Life, ii. 185). On the 29th, the day on which came out a general pardon, from which, with blundering pedantry, the clergy were corporately excepted (Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 192), was also issued the declaration of the Prince of Orange. On the following day its circulation was prohibited (Bramston, p. 329; cf. Evelyn, iii. 59), and the king had interviews concerning it with both bishops and suspected temporal peers (Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 199–201). The westerly winds appeared to allow him time for concessions. He restored a number of displaced officials in church and state, beginning with Bishop Compton (30 Sept.), personally restored their old charter to the mayor and aldermen of the city of London (2 Oct.), restored other municipal charters (Dartmouth MSS. p. 175), gave audience to the bishops in London, and within a few days abolished the high commission, and virtually empowered the Bishop of Winchester, as visitor of Magdalen, to re-establish the old order of things there.
But no enthusiasm was roused. James, in answer to an accusation of ‘fraud’ in William's ‘Declaration,’ made a formal declaration, supported by evidence, of the genuineness of the birth of the Prince of Wales to an extraordinary council of peers and high dignitaries summoned for the purpose (22 Oct.). Two days afterwards Sunderland ​was dismissed from the secretaryship of state, and Preston appointed in his place.
Meanwhile active preparations of defence went on. French aid was disdained (Life, ii. 186); but thirty ships of the line, with sixteen fireships, were collected under the command of Dartmouth; and the king, with the aid of Pepys, was active in remedying shortcomings (Dartmouth MSS. pp. 152, 154, 178). The army was augmented so as to amount, according to the king's computation, to forty thousand men (cf. Reresby, p. 409; see History of Desertion, pp. 59–61).
The news of William's landing at Torbay reached James 6 Nov., on which date he had an unsatisfactory interview with the bishops. On 9 Nov. he acquitted Dartmouth of any shortcoming in letting the Dutch fleet pass, and on the 12th sent him some seamanlike suggestions for the future (Dartmouth MSS. pp. 198, 202–3, 206, 230). For about a week no person of consequence joined the prince's army, but desertions began as the armies approached one another. James assembled the principal officers still in London before leaving for the field, and was warmly received. About the same time he ungraciously promised a deputation of peers, headed by the primate, to call a parliament so soon as the invasion and rebellion were over (Life, ii. 212; cf. History of Desertion, p. 44; Macaulay, ii. 502; Les derniers Stuarts, ii. 331 seqq.). Before leaving for Salisbury he sent the Prince of Wales under the guard of Irish dragoons to Portsmouth, where Berwick was in command; the queen seemed safe in London under the protection of six thousand troops. He committed the government to a council of five, Jeffreys, Godolphin, and three catholics; Father Petre, however, left for France (Life, ii. 222). James resolved to strike a crushing blow against the enemy in the west. He was detained at Salisbury, where he arrived 19 Nov., by a violent bleeding at the nose. He had to relinquish his intention of visiting his advanced posts at Warminster, and thus in his own belief escaped falling a victim to a plot laid by Churchill and others to seize him and deliver him up to the enemy (Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 211; Life, ii. 222–3; Macpherson, Original Papers, i. 280 seqq.; cf. Berwick, i. 330). The delay facilitated treason. Churchill's and Grafton's desertion, and Kirke's recalcitrance, induced him to fall back as far as Andover (23 Nov.). On the same evening Prince George of Denmark, Ormonde, and Drumlanrig, Queensberry's eldest son, rode off into the enemy's camp. There was no longer doubt of a conspiracy in the army, and on his return to London at 5 P.M. on 26 Nov. James heard of the flight of the Princess Anne in Lady Churchill's company (Dartmouth MSS. pp. 214–15). Next day a council of between forty and fifty peers, including nine bishops, met in Whitehall at the king's summons chiefly to discuss the question of summoning a parliament. The king assented to the issuing on the following day of writs for a meeting of parliament on 13 Jan., but demanded a night to consider the other proposals made to him. He would not, he said, see himself deposed like Richard II (Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 208–11). During the next few days all Halifax's suggestions were agreed to, a general amnesty was proclaimed, and Halifax himself, Nottingham, and Godolphin were named commissioners to treat with the prince. James meanwhile assured Barillon that his promises were merely feigned in order to insure the safety of the queen and prince, when he would withdraw to Ireland or Scotland, or, if necessary, to France (Mazure, iv. 46; Dartmouth MSS. pp. 228, 283–6; cf. Les derniers Stuarts, ii. 413). The removal of the queen and her son was managed by Lauzun and other foreign helpers (ib. pp. 381 seqq.).
Meanwhile the spirit of defection spread, and London was full of confusion. On 8 Dec. William met the royal commissioners at Hungerford. He accepted terms which recognised him as a victorious belligerent, and, while referring the points in dispute to parliament, imposed upon James the dismissal of all papists. James could hardly meet parliament with any advantage to himself after accepting the Hungerford terms, and was inclining towards flight. On 10 Dec., assured that his wife and son were fairly on their way to safety, he addressed two letters to Dartmouth, announcing his imminent withdrawal. He directed that faithful sailors should repair to Ireland, and there take orders from Tyrconnel (Dartmouth MSS. p. 234). In the same spirit he wrote a letter to Feversham, which left the latter little choice but to disband his forces (Kennett, iii. 500; cf. Burnet, iii. 345). James took many precautions to conceal his plan, and assured the city authorities of his intention to remain (Macaulay, ii. 546). At the same time he confided nine volumes of manuscript memoirs to Terriesi, the Tuscan ambassador, together with three thousand guineas (Life, ii. 242–4; cf. Les derniers Stuarts, ii. 377). On the morning of 11 Dec., between two and three o'clock, the king left Whitehall by a secret passage. A hackney coach, in which Sir Edward Hales was waiting, carried him to Millbank, whence he crossed to Vauxhall. From the place where it was afterwards found the great seal was ​there supposed to have been thrown by him into the river (Reresby, p. 421, is clearly in error). He continued his journey in a carriage to Sheerness, where he had appointed a custom-house hoy to be in readiness. ‘With this,’ says Burnet (iii. 345), ‘his reign ended.’
James did not venture to reveal himself to the commander of the hoy. Moreover a gale was blowing; ballast had to be taken in; and thus it was that at 11 P.M., when the vessel was on the point of putting out again from Sheppey Island, she was boarded by fifty or sixty fishermen (Reresby). James was roughly handled, was brought to Faversham, where his identity was discovered, and escorted by ‘seamen and rabble’ to the mayor's house. He was detained there for two days under arrest (Life, ii. 251–6; Hist. MSS. Comm. App. to 5th Rep. (1876) p. 319).
The news of the king's detention arrived in London 13 Dec., in a letter unaddressed but written in his own hand. The council of lords under Halifax immediately despatched Feversham with a troop of life-guards to set him at liberty. Middleton and a few others sent by the lords found their way to him even sooner. James was allowed to take his departure to Rochester, but William sent Zuylesteen to bid him remain there. On the afternoon of the intervening Sunday (16 Dec.) James was back in London. Accounts differ as to his reception (Macaulay, ii. 572 n.; Life, ii. 272; Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 230; Diary of Sir Patrick Hume, ib., 231 n.; see also Dartmouth MSS. p. 244), but it raised his spirits for the moment. After his arrival he went to mass and dined in public, a jesuit saying grace (Evelyn, iii. 61). He also held a council, at which he ‘refused all proposals’ (ib.). But he assented to the introduction of William's Dutch guards into St. James's (Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 226n.; cf. Macaulay, ii. 574); declined to reassemble his disbanded army, and told Balcarres and Dundee, who had come from Scotland with projects of aid, that he was bound for France (Memoirs of Colin, Earl of Balcarres, pp. xv–xvi; Les derniers Stuarts, ii. 431; Mazure, iv. 71). The lords at Windsor, 16 Dec., concluded that he should take up his abode outside London. On 17 Dec. James was sent back to Rochester.
Here he received numerous messages entreating him to yield, including an address from the primate and the bishops (Life, ii. 270–2); Middleton and Dundee advised him to stay. On the night of the 22nd he left Rochester with Berwick, passing by a back door to the Medway, and on the morning of the 23rd boarded a smack which took him out of the Thames (Berwick, p. 334). He left behind him a paper, in which he charged the Prince of Orange with having, while posting his own guards at Whitehall, given him notice to quit on the following morning (cf. Bramston, pp. 341–2; Life, ii. 263 seqq.; ‘Reflections on “H.M.'s Reasons for withdrawing himself from Rochester,”’ in State Tracts of Revolution and Reign of William III, 1705, i. 126–8). James also dwelt, not without dignity and force, on the accusations connected with his son's birth (Life, ii. 273–5). Various accounts circulated as to James's immediate motives. Halifax was said to have terrified him by statements as to personal violence intended against him by the Prince of Orange (Reresby, pp. 433–4–6). The fiction, according to which the reign of James II in England and in Scotland was supposed to have terminated by his flight from Whitehall, 11 Dec. 1688, was consummated by William's acceptance of the Declaration of Right, 13 Feb., and of the Claim of Right, 11 April 1689.
At 3 A.M. on Christmas day 1688, James, after a rough voyage, landed at Ambleteuse, under the guns of a French man-of-war. After hearing mass he received the Duke d'Aumont, with whom he dined at Boulogne (Les derniers Stuarts, ii. 456–8). He received a warm welcome on his journey through France. He had intended to proceed to Versailles; but Louis insisted on receiving him at St. Germains, where the queen and Prince of Wales had already found shelter. The reception has been often described (by Mme. De Sévigné, edit. 1862, viii. 399–401; Dangeau, ii. 292–5; Mme. De La Fayette, pp. 205–8; cf. Les derniers Stuarts, ii. 390–2). St. Germains was freely assigned to the English royal family, with a monthly pension of between forty and fifty thousand francs and fifteen thousand scudi; other courtesies were heaped upon them. While the queen was generally admired, James looked old, fatigued, and dull (ib. ii. 471, 477). He paid visits at Paris to the jesuits and Carmelites (ib. pp. 481–2; cf. La Fayette, pp. 211, 225 seqq.).
James's first political efforts were feeble. On 2 Feb. 1689 his equerry, Ralph Sheldon, arrived in London to fetch away the king's equipage (Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 251; Dartmouth MSS. p. 260). But he also carried with him a long epistle from James to the peers at Westminster. Though not allowed to be read to the house it was generally known there, and is preserved among the papers (MSS. of the House of Lords, 1689–90, p. 19). A postscript, dated 26 Jan., offered a free pardon to all who had taken part against him, accompanied, however, by ​an announcement of exceptions, to which Macaulay (ii. 642) attributes a decisive influence upon the debates of the Convention parliament (see Kennett, iii. 509). Other diplomatic overtures made by James and Melfort, who acted as his prime minister, were equally unsuccessful. Help from Louis XIV was out of the question until the French king was at peace with the emperor (Les derniers Stuarts, ii. 514). James's vice-chamberlain, Colonel Porter, was sent (February 1689) to Rome to request the support of Pope Innocent XI (ib. pp. 482 seqq., 489–490, 492–4). James also appealed to the Emperor Leopold I (ib. ii. 495 seqq.), and applied to several Italian courts (ib. pp. 515 seqq.). The project of a European crusade on his behalf proved one of James's most complete delusions (ib. ii. 498–501; cf. State Papers, 1660–89, pp. 446; Life, ii. 326–7). In August William III joined the grand alliance.
Some English statesmen were equally deluded in believing that James might be restored if only he would desert the papists. A reaction undoubtedly set in, and competent observers thought a landing by James in either England or Scotland had even chances of success (Hoffmann ap. Klopp, iv. 388). Louis XIV, however, urged an expedition to Ireland.
In January 1689 James was in communication with Tyrconnel in Ireland. The French government sent thither an agent in whom James placed great confidence (St. Ruth), and James soon followed in person. Accompanied by Berwick, Powis, Doncaster, Dover, Melfort, d'Avaux, the French ambassador, Bishop Cartwright, and half a dozen inevitable jesuits (Les derniers Stuarts, ii. 527), he sailed from Brest on 17 March with ships and men furnished by Louis. While on board he addressed a tardy manifesto to his Scottish subjects, peremptorily ordering a return to their allegiance by the end of the month (Life, ii. 325, 342–3). He landed at Kinsale 12 March, and two days later was met at Cork by Tyrconnel, who inspired him with great hopefulness (Les derniers Stuarts, ii. 278). On 24 March he made his entry into Dublin; on the following day summoned a parliament for 7 May, and then left Dublin to take part in the siege of Londonderry. He twice changed his mind on the way, and finally, when his summons of surrender was refused, returned to Dublin, where he ordered a Te Deum for a naval skirmish in Bantry Bay. On 7 May he opened the Irish parliament with a speech insisting on his intention to grant liberty of conscience and asking for the relief of those injured by the Act of Settlement (Life, ii. 355–6). An act of toleration was accordingly passed, followed by a corresponding declaration. Other acts annulled the supreme authority of the English parliament, and transferred the greater part of the tithes to the catholic clergy. Very numerous confiscations followed. After temporising, he assented to the repeal of the Act of Settlement and to the wholesale Act of Attainder. The persecutions and emigrations which ensued, the raising of the siege of Londonderry (1 Aug.), the almost simultaneous defeat of the Irish army and consequent raising of the siege of Enniskillen, and the news from Scotland of the dispersion of the clans after Killiecrankie impaired the strength of the Jacobite cause, and in the middle of August Schomberg landed at Belfast.
James's exchequer was empty, notwithstanding the debasement of the coin (see Macpherson, i. 304–8), and he was a helpless, though reluctant, tool in the hands of the Irish party. James joined his army at Drogheda (10 Sept.), but Schomberg refused to give battle to his superior forces, and in November both armies went into winter quarters. James hopefully contemplated a descent upon Scotland or England in the spring (Dangeau, iii. 36). But he did nothing to improve the discipline of his troops, though in the spring of 1690 they were reinforced by a French force under Lauzun. Shortly after the opening of the campaign William III himself took the command of his army. James, in deference to Lauzun's advice, left Dublin 16 June and advanced as far as Dundalk. He then fell back to encamp, about twenty-six thousand strong, in a better position on the south side of the Boyne, pitching his own tent on the height of Donore. In the battle of the Boyne (1 July) James, by his own showing (Life, ii. 395–401), played an irresolute part. When the day was decided he was prevailed upon by Lauzun to quit the field, and he reached Dublin the same night. He hastily summoned the members of his council present in Dublin, and early on the following evening bade farewell to the lord mayor and chief catholic citizens. He then rode, ‘leisurely’ (ib. p. 403), to Bray and through the Wicklow hills to Arklow, where alarming rumours induced him to ‘mend his pace.’ From Waterford, which he reached early on 3 July, he sailed to Kinsale, where he found a squadron of small French vessels. He landed about 23 July at Brest (Dangeau, iii. 179), and there he heard of the French victory off Beachy Head (30 June). This, as he afterwards declared, convinced him of the wisdom of his plan of withdrawing from Ireland in order to attempt a landing in England (Life, ii. 408–9; cf. ib. p. 401). Louis XIV ​received the project coldly, and it fell to the ground (ib. pp. 411–13; cf. Macpherson, i. 234-5).
After his departure from Ireland James did not altogether abandon his schemes, but by 1692 (Life, ii. 472 seqq.) he seems to have become less confident of a speedy return. About this time he placed his court upon a more permanent footing (ib. ii. 411 n.; and cf. Les derniers Stuarts, i. 31 seqq.). His most confidential dealings with Versailles are said to have been conducted through the Abbé Thomas Innes [q. v.] (Biscoe, p. 172). There is reason to distrust the current description of the life at St. Germains, which the literary and artistic tastes of James and his consort can hardly have left in persistent gloom (see Les derniers Stuarts, i. 44 seqq.). On 28 June 1692 Mary bore James a daughter; he had summoned a number of ladies from England to be present on the occasion (Life, ii. 474–5; Evelyn, iii. 102).
James did not again take an active part in the conflicts of the time. In the months preceding the discovery of Preston's plot (31 Dec. 1690) he was distracted more than ever by the factions at St. Germains, by demands for money from Scotland and Ireland, and by the quarrels between Tyrconnel and his opponents (Life, ii. 421–41). To this time probably belongs the preamble of a declaration averring the king's experience to be adverse to the making of any further declarations at all (Macpherson, i. 385). But the intrigues with English Jacobites continued, and between January and May James was in actual correspondence with Marlborough. The scheme was, however, betrayed (January 1692), and came to nothing. The correspondence between James and Marlborough was not broken off, and led to a letter from Anne to her father, which he did not receive till he was at La Hogue. This reconciliation, together with the fall of Mons (October 1691) and the death of Louvois, favoured the resumption of James's scheme of an invasion of England; and early in 1692 he pressed it upon Louis XIV in two elaborate minutes (ib. i. 400–11). In the spring an expedition on a large scale was accordingly fitted out by the French government. James also trusted in the supposed disaffection of the English fleet and the discontent of its commander, Edward Russell (Orford), with whom he had been in correspondence. Before leaving St. Germains (21 April) he issued a declaration excepting from the prospective indemnity a number of persons, including the fishermen who had insulted him at Faversham (Macaulay, iv. 288; State Tracts under William III, vol. ii.). At La Hogue James found all the Irish regiments in the French service, besides ten thousand French troops, while Tourville lay at Brest with forty-five men-of-war and numerous transports. The French fleet was defeated (19 May), and (24 May) thirteen ships were destroyed on the shore of La Hogue under the very eyes of James. Dangeau (iv. 98) says that he was unable to conceal his satisfaction at the gallantry of the English. After this catastrophe Louis XIV sent forth no further armament on behalf of James, but the exile continued to receive most honourable treatment at St. Germains.
On 17 April 1693 James issued a declaration in accordance with propositions brought by the protestant Middleton from some English Jacobites. It promised various concessions as to the dispensing power and so forth. James had taken the opinion of ecclesiastics, including Bossuet, before signing it (Life, ii. 506 seqq.), but it gave deep offence to the advocates of an opposite policy (Macpherson, i. 446; cf. An Answer, &c., in State Tracts under William III, ii. 349 seqq.; Evelyn, iii. 109). The victory of the ‘compounders’ over the ‘non-compounders’ was marked by Middleton's supersession of Melfort as prime minister. The news of Queen Mary's death (20 Dec. 1694) was received by her father without emotion (Biscoe, p. 189), and he requested the French court to abstain from the customary mourning. The event inclined his daughter Anne to a reconciliation with King William, while it increased the activity of the Jacobite plotters. After the fall of Namur (4 Aug. 1695), direct encouragement was given by Louis to a plan for the invasion of England. Ultimately, Berwick was sent over to prepare an insurrection (Mémoires de Berwick, i. 392), and learnt of the Assassination plot against King William. One of the conspirators was Sir George Barclay [q. v.], whom James had commissioned in November 1695 ‘to do from time to time such acts of hostility against the prince as should most conduce to the royal service’ (Life, ii. 547). Berwick returned to France without delay. At Clermont he met his father on his way to Calais, where a French fleet had assembled (Lexington Papers, p. 177). A signal was expected from England but it never arrived, and James, at the request of Louis (Berwick, i. 394), remained on the French coast with Middleton, hoping in vain from the beginning of March to the end of April. According to the ‘Life’ (ii. 545), James had no complicity in the Assassination plot, which is said to have marred all his projects, and three cases are mentioned in which, during 1693–5, he re​jected proposals of violence against the Prince of Orange (cf. Biscoe, p. 237). Macaulay takes the opposite view (iv. 648 seqq.), and strains the commission to Barclay, who was not dismissed from the service of King James (Klopp, vii. 192).
James's disappointment was perhaps connected with his illness in the following year (Dangeau, vi. 83). After his return some time passed before the intercourse with England could be resumed (Macpherson, ii. 555); and the illness of William III only brought the certainty that the Princess Anne would not sacrifice her interests to his (Life, ii. 559–560). It soon became evident that the abandonment of his claims by France would be a condition of peace between the two countries. Preliminaries signed by Louis's envoys at the Hague included the recognition of William III (10 Feb.), and James issued vain protests to the catholic and protestant princes of Europe (ib. ii. 566 seqq.; cf. {sc|Macpherson}}, i. 561). He was refused a representative at the congress of Ryswick (May), and publicly disclaimed all acknowledgment of its resolutions (Life, ii. 572 seqq.; {sc|Macpherson}}, i. 569–571). Louis steadily refused to assent to the demand for the removal of James beyond the French frontier, and after promising not to countenance any attempt to subvert William's government, contrived that no mention of James should be made in the treaty. An arrangement suggested by Louis, whereby after the death of William the Prince of Wales should succeed to the throne, liberal allowance being made to James, was rejected by both James and his consort (Berwick, i. 409; Life, ii. 574–5; {sc|Macpherson}}, i. 557–8, 569).
The peace of Ryswick deprived James of political occupation, and he gave himself up to religious exercises. About 1695 he had first begun to practise austerities indicative of his wish to sever himself from the world, and had ‘turned St. Germains into a sort of solitude’ (Life, ii. 528). Besides his diligent attendance on the great ecclesiastical solemnities at Paris, he occasionally went into retreat in religious houses for periods of seven or eight days, and attended the night offices of Easter week. He was especially impressed by periodical retreats of three or four days to La Trappe, which he had commenced after his return from Ireland (ib. pp. 527–9, 582–3; Les derniers Stuarts, i. 77–80). He composed religious treatises, inveighing against worldly dissipations, but to avoid the appearance of affectation, he took part in hunting and other diversions of the French court (ib. i. 582 seqq.). His charities, so far as his means went, seem to have kept pace with his austerities ({sc|Macpherson}}, i. 591 seqq.).
In March 1701 James had an attack of partial paralysis, and the waters of Bourbon proved ineffectual (St.-Simon, ii. 448, iii. 22; Life, ii. 591–2). After a final illness of a fortnight he died at St. Germains, ‘like a saint,’ on Friday, 6 Sept. (Dangeau, viii. 184, 194). He exhorted Middleton and his other protestant followers to embrace the catholic faith; took loving farewell of his wife and son; repeatedly asseverated his forgiveness of his enemies, among whom he specified the Prince of Orange, the Princess Anne, and the Emperor Leopold, and in the second of two interviews with Louis obtained his promise to recognise the Prince of Wales as king of England (Life, ii. 592 seqq., 601–2; cf. St.-Simon, iii. 188–91; Berwick, i. 407-408; Empress Sophia, Briefe an die Raugräfinnen, &c., 1888, p. 217; see also ‘An Exact Account of the Sickness and Death of the late King James II,’ 1701, in Somers Tracts, xi. 339 seqq.; and his ‘Last Dying Words to his Son and Daughter and the French King,’ ib. pp. 342–3).
Though James had expressed a wish to be buried in the parish church at St. Germains, his remains were ‘provisionally’ transported to the English Benedictine church of St. Edmund, in the Faubourg St. Jacques, where miraculous cures were reported to have been performed through his intercession ({sc|Macpherson}}, i. 596 seqq.). He had largely touched for the king's evil in the course of his reign (see e.g. Cartwright, Diary, p. 74; and cf. Bramston, p. 231), and continued the practice at the Petit Couvent des Anglaises in Paris. His heart was deposited in the Convent of the Visitation at Chaillot; his brain was bequeathed to the Scots College at Paris; while his bowels were divided between the English College at St. Omer and the parish church of St. Germains. His corpse remained in its original resting-place, awaiting transportation to Westminster Abbey, till the first French revolution, when the coffin was broken up for the sake of the lead, and its contents were carried away—it was said to be thrown into the fosse commune. His other remains disappeared, with the exception of those in the church at St. Germains, which, being discovered in 1824, were, in pursuance of orders by George IV, solemnly reinterred in September of that year, a temporary inscription being placed over them (Les derniers Stuarts, i. 99). The king's letters and autographs, entrusted to the Benedictine fathers, disappeared during the French revolution, though some of them at all events seem to have fallen into ​the hands of the commissaries of the republic (ib. pp. 91 seqq.). The manuscripts of the king's ‘Original Memoirs,’ carried to France by Terriesi in 1688, and continued by James in his exile, were during the revolution cleverly carried for transmission to England as far as the house of a trustworthy person living near St. Omer, and there destroyed in a panic by the man's wife (preface to C. J. Fox, Hist. of James II; and cf. Les derniers Stuarts, i. 113 seqq.). But most of the documents are printed in the ‘Life of James II,’ by Clarke. The last will of James, dated 6 Sept. 1701, and signed for the king by Middleton, exists in a copy in the French foreign office, and in draft among the ‘Nairne Papers’ at Oxford (ib. p. 118). He advises his son not to trouble his subjects in the enjoyment of their religion, rights, and liberties. The advice bequeathed by James to his son (ib. pp. 617–42), and deposited by him in the Scots College, is said by Macpherson (i. 77 n.) to have been drawn up by him when in Ireland in 1690.
James II had by his first wife eight, and by his second wife seven, children, of the latter of whom only James (the subsequent ‘Old Pretender’) and the youngest, Louisa Maria Theresa, whose death in 1712 caused so profound a sorrow at St. Germains, survived him (see W. A. Lindsay, Pedigree of the House of Stuart, 1889). His acknowledged illegitimate children were—by Arabella Churchill: (1) James Fitzjames, duke of Berwick, born 1670; (2) Henry Fitzjames, duke of Albemarle, ‘the Grand Prior,’ born 1673; (3) Henrietta, married to Sir Henry (afterwards Lord) Waldegrave, her father's ‘ambassador’ in France; and (4) another daughter, who died a nun; by Catharine Sedley (Lady Dorchester), a daughter known as Lady Catharine Darnley, married to Lord Anglesey, and after being divorced from him to Sheffield, duke of Buckinghamshire [q. v.]
James had in his youth the worst possible training; and through the greater part of his life he was the slave of the immorality then universal in his rank, in which he contrived to caricature the excesses of his brother. He neither gamed nor drank, and his early service in the field, his love of the sea, and his fondness for outdoor exercises, prevented him from becoming a ‘saunterer’ like Charles. He showed personal courage in his youth, and in the two great sea-fights in which he held the command. His seamanship was by no means titular only, but shows itself in much of his correspondence with Dartmouth and others (cf. Pepys, v. 246). He was capable in the details of business, and possessed some literary ability. Although the breakdown of the naval administration under him has no parallel in shamefulness, it is certain that he both sought to improve the management of the navy, and to awaken king and parliament to a sense of its defects. He is said to have kept a journal from the time of his stay in the Scilly Isles. In his later years his pen was never out of his hands, as his numerous declarations attest. In the last period of his life he fell back, apparently with unabated zest, upon religious composition. His patronage of Wycherley may be attributed in some degree to his literary insight as well as to his sympathy with the ‘supposed virtues’ of the ‘Plain Dealer’ (Leigh Hunt). The charge of personal cruelty rests mainly on the severities in Scotland, on his supposed injunctions to Jeffreys for the Bloody Assizes, his callousness at the wreck of the Gloucester, and one or two isolated anecdotes (Bramston, p. 273). On the whole it seems insufficiently made out. He was obviously a political and a religious bigot. In the early days of Charles II's reign his firmness was favourably contrasted with the fickleness of the king; but Clarendon concluded that it was due to obstinacy of will rather than to intellectual conviction (Clarendon, Life, iii. 64). ‘The king,’ said Buckingham, ‘could see things if he would; the duke would see things if he could’ (Burnet, i. 304). His fidelity to old servants might be amply illustrated. His confidence once gained was estranged with even too much difficulty. To his brother he was always loyal. He was an affectionate father, and was cut to the heart by the conduct of his two eldest daughters.
His conversion to the church of Rome made the emancipation of his fellow-catholics in the first instance, and the recovery of England for catholicism in the second, the governing objects of his policy. During his brother's reign the alliance with France was for James but the means to an end; in his own he thought himself strong enough to accomplish that end without joining Louis in an offensive war against the United Provinces. In the crisis of his destinies his judgment deserted him, and by his fatuous flight he placed his throne in William's power. But even when he was in conflict with the de facto government of his country, tradition credited him with a vein of patriotic sentiment of which no part of his career shows him devoid.
In person James was rather above the middle height and of a commanding appearance. He was stiffer and more constrained than his brother, whom he resembled in the cast of his features, although his complexion was fair. He was not incapable of a graceful courtesy or a kindly warmth if he chose ​to display either. The portraits of him in the National Portrait Gallery are by Kneller and John Riley. In the Stuart Exhibition (1889) were exhibited portraits of him, at various stages of his life, by Vandyck, Lely (cf. Evelyn, ii. 101), Kneller, Dobson, and painters unknown, including one as lord high admiral, together with various miniatures and autographs. There is also a portrait of him by Faithorne. On Christmas day 1686 a large statue of James in Roman habit, by Grinling Gibbons, was erected in the court of Whitehall, facing the new catholic chapel, at the cost of the loyal Toby Rustat. It still stands in Whitehall Gardens (Ellis Correspondence, i. 214 n.; cf. Bramston, p. 253).
[The chief source for the biography of James II is the Life of James II collected out of Memoirs writ with his own Hand, edited from the original Stuart MSS. in Carlton House, by command of the Prince Regent, by his historiographer James Stanier Clarke [q. v.] (2 vols. 4to, London, 1816), with which should in part be compared the extracts in Macpherson's Original Papers, 1775, i. 1–600. This Life, compiled soon after the death of James II by order of his son, was mainly based on the Original Memoirs said to have been finally burnt near St. Omer; it was read and frequently ‘interlined’ by the Old Pretender, from whose hands it ultimately came into those of the Prince Regent. Ranke, in a remarkable appendix to his English History, analyses the sources, and estimates the authenticity, of its several portions. Of part i., down to the Restoration, the bulk was, with James's consent, translated into French, and afterwards authoritatively printed in Ramsey's Vie de Turenne; it chiefly consists of a narrative of the duke's early campaigns. Part ii., which reaches to the death of Charles II, and part iii., comprising the reign of James II, were, like part iv. and last, compiled from his original memoranda and correspondence and from other materials; but he seems to have only superintended the selection as far as 1678. In part iv. the passages quoted from his memoirs, more especially in reference to the war in Ireland, are particularly numerous. Of the materials used by the compilers genuine remains exist in the extracts made from the Memoirs by Carte, and incorporated in his Life of Ormonde (new ed., 6 vols. Oxford, 1851), as well as in those by Macpherson, published in vol. i. of his Original Papers (London, 1775). Carte also came into possession of the papers of Thomas Nairne, now in the Bodleian Library, from which and other sources extracts are likewise supplied by Macpherson. A French translation of the Life was edited by Guizot (4 vols. Paris, 1824–5). The most important among the other sources are the despatches of Barillon in the Paris archives, first largely used by Sir John Dalrymple in his Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, &c. (here cited in 4th ed., 3 vols. 1773), then partly printed by C. J. Fox in the Appendix to his History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II (London, 1808), and since largely used by Mazure, Histoire de la Révolution de 1688 en Angleterre (2nd ed., 4 vols. 1843), and other historians; and, more especially for the Irish episode, the despatches of d'Avaux, of which a collection was printed for the English foreign office. To these materials large additions have been made in the Marquise Campana de Cavelli's monumental Les derniers Stuarts à St. Germain-en-Laye (Paris, 1871, only 2 vols. issued). Other extracts from the Vienna archives are added in O. Klopp's Fall des Hauses Stuart (vols. i–ix., Vienna, 1875–1881), the most exhaustive diplomatic history of the period, written from an imperialist point of view. Many confidential letters from James to the Earl of Dartmouth are cited in Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. pt. v. (1887); valuable information is likewise contained ib. pt. ii. (1887), and 12th Rep. pt. vi. (1889), MSS. of the House of Lords, 1678–88 and 1689–90. The Caryll Papers in the possession of Sir Charles Dilke and those of d'Albeville are known in extracts only; some letters from the latter and Tyrconnel are among the manuscripts of Sir A. Malet described in Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. pt. i. (1876). Of contemporary memoirs, diaries, and correspondence, since Anne Hyde's Life of her husband shown by her to Burnet has perished, Burnet's History of his own Time (here cited in the Clarendon Press edition, 6 vols. 1833) is the most important, but one of the least safe, of text-books. The same reservation applies, for the period to 1667, to Clarendon's Life and passages in his Rebellion (here cited in the editions of 1826 and 1827), and, though in a less degree, to the Diary and Correspondence of his sons Clarendon and Rochester (ed. S. W. Singer, 2 vols. 1828). In the Appendix to the last-named are printed several of Archbishop Sancroft's MSS. in the Bodleian concerning the crisis of 1688. The Diary and Correspondence of Pepys (ed. M. Bright, 6 vols. 1875–9) is the chief source for our knowledge of the Duke of York's naval administration up to 1669; his official papers, published under the absurd title of Memoirs of the English Affairs, chiefly Naval, from 1660 to 1673 (London, 1729), were doubtless also edited by Pepys. H. B. Wheatley's chapter on the navy in Pepys and the World he lived in (1880) usefully supplements his author. Other serviceable memoirs and correspondences are Sir John Reresby's Memoirs (1634–89), ed. J. J. Cartwright, 1875; Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence, ed. W. Bray and H. B. Wheatley, 4 vols. 1879; the Ellis Correspondence (1686–8), ed. G. A. Ellis, 2 vols. 1829; and, to a less extent, the Memoirs of the Count de Grammont; H. Sidney's Diary of the Times of Charles II, ed. R. W. Blencowe, 2 vols. 1843; Memoirs of the Life of Sir Stephen Fox, 1717; and—out of the court sphere—the Life of Lord Guilford, in Roger North's Lives of the Norths, 3 vols. 1826; the Autobio- ​
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