page_title: Mary II of England
section_title: James's reign
hierarchical_section_title: Mary II of England / James's reign
context_page_description: Mary II was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, co-reigning with her husband, King William III & II, from 1689 until her death. Popular histories usually refer to their joint reign as that of William and Mary.
  Although their father James, Duke of York, was Roman Catholic, Mary and her younger sister Anne were raised as Anglicans at the wishes of their uncle, King Charles II. Charles lacked legitimate children, making Mary second in the line of succession. She married her Protestant first cousin, William of Orange, in 1677. Charles died in 1685 and James took the throne, making Mary heir presumptive. James's attempts at rule by decree and the birth of his son, James Francis Edward, led to his deposition in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the adoption of the English Bill of Rights.
  William and Mary became king and queen regnant. Mary mostly deferred to William, a renowned military leader and principal opponent of Louis XIV, when he was in England. She did, however, act alone when William was engaged in military campaigns abroad, proving herself to be a powerful, firm, and effective ruler.
context_section_description: Upon the death of Charles II without legitimate issue in February 1685, the Duke of York became king as James II in England and Ireland and James VII in Scotland. Mary was playing cards when her husband informed her of her father's accession, and that she was heir presumptive.
  When Charles's illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth assembled an invasion force at Amsterdam, and sailed for Britain, William informed James of the Duke's departure, and ordered English regiments in the Low Countries to return to Britain. To William's relief, Monmouth was defeated, captured and executed, but both he and Mary were dismayed by James's subsequent actions.
  James had a controversial religious policy; his attempt to grant freedom of religion to non-Anglicans by suspending acts of Parliament by royal decree was not well received. Mary considered such action illegal, and her chaplain expressed this view in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Sancroft, on her behalf. She was further dismayed when James refused to help when the Catholic King of France, Louis XIV, invaded Orange and persecuted Huguenot refugees there. In an attempt to damage William, James encouraged his daughter's staff to inform her that William was having an affair with Elizabeth Villiers, the daughter of her childhood governess Frances Villiers. Acting on the information, Mary waited outside Villiers's room and caught her husband leaving it late at night. William denied adultery, and Mary apparently believed and forgave him. Possibly, Villiers and William were not meeting as lovers but to exchange diplomatic intelligence. Mary's staff was dismissed and sent back to Britain.
caption: Mary's father, James II and VII, was the last Catholic monarch in Britain. Portrait by Nicolas de Largillière, c 1686.
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