James II. of England and VII. of Scotland (1685–88) was the second surviving son of Charles I., and was born 14th October 1633. A short time before his father's execution he escaped to Holland, and shortly after went to France. He served for some time in the French army under Turenne, and when he was obliged to leave the French territory on the conclusion of peace between the English Commonwealth and Louis XIV. he entered the military service of Spain. At the Restoration (1660) James was recognised as Duke of York, and was made Lord High Admiral of England. In November 1659 he had married Anne Hyde, daughter of the Chancellor, afterwards Earl of Clarendon. He had some skill in maritime affairs, and in 1665 he commanded an English squadron which gained a signal victory over a Dutch fleet under Admiral Opdam. In 1671 he again encountered, off the coast of Suffolk, the Dutch led by the celebrated De Ruyter, and the conflict, which was obstinately contested, terminated at nightfall in a drawn battle. On the death of Anne Hyde in 1671 James made a public avowal of his conversion to the Roman Catholic faith. In 1673 the English parliament passed the Test Act, requiring all civil and military officers to subscribe a declaration against transubstantiation, and to receive the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. James was consequently obliged to resign the office of Lord High Admiral. Shortly after he married Mary, daughter of the Duke of Modena. The national ferment occasioned by the supposed Popish Plot became so formidable that he was under the necessity of retiring to the Continent, and during his absence an attempt was made to exclude him from the throne. He returned at the close of 1679, but King Charles found it necessary to require him to remove again from the court, and he was sent down to Scotland to take the management of its affairs. The cruelties which he inflicted on the Covenanters have left an indelible stain upon his memory. Meanwhile the Exclusion Bill was again introduced, and was twice passed by the Commons, but in the first instance it was rejected by the Lords, and on the second occasion it was lost by the dissolution of the parliament. James then returned to England, and in direct violation of the law took his seat in the council, and resumed the direction of naval affairs.
At the death of Charles in 1685 James ascended the throne, and on taking his seat at the head of the council board he declared his resolution to maintain the established government both in church and state, and to respect the liberties of the people. But immediately after his accession he proceeded to levy, on his own warrant, without waiting for the meeting of parliament, the customs and excise duties which they had granted to Charles only for life. He sent a mission to Rome, heard mass ostentatiously in public with regal splendour, became, like his brother, the pensioned slave of the French king, and made the interests of his kingdom subservient to the arbitrary and ambitious designs of that monarch. In Scotland, at his instance, the persecution of the Covenanters was renewed with increased severity and cruelty, and a law was passed enacting that attendance at a conventicle, either as a preacher or a hearer, should be punished with death and confiscation of goods. After the futile rebellion of James's nephew, Monmouth (q.v.), came the 'Bloody Assize,' presided over by the infamous Jeffreys, in which 320 persons were hanged; the judicial murder of Alice Lisle and Elizabeth Gaunt produced an especially strong impression on the public mind. The suspension of the Test Act by the king's own authority, his prosecution of the seven bishops on a charge of seditious libel, his conferring ecclesiastical benefices on Roman Catholics, his violation of the rights of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, his plan for packing parliament, and numerous other arbitrary and despotic acts showed his fixed determination to destroy the constitution and to overthrow the church. The indignation of the people was at length roused against him, and it became evident that his expulsion from the throne was necessary for the welfare and safety of the nation. The interposition of William, Prince of Orange, James's son-in-law, was formally solicited by seven influential politicians, and was readily granted. He landed at Torbay on the 4th of November 1688 at the head of a powerful army, and began his march towards London. He was everywhere hailed as a deliverer, while James was deserted not only by his ministers and troops, but even by his daughter the Princess Anne. The unfortunate king, on the first appearance of danger, had sent his wife and infant son to France, and he soon after made his escape from the country and joined them at St Germain. He was hospitably received by Louis XIV., who settled a pension on him. In the following year, aided by a small body of French troops, he proceeded to Ireland and made an ineffectual attempt to regain his throne. He was defeated at the battle of the Boyne, and returned to St Germain, where he resided until his death, 6th September 1701, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. He left two daughters—Mary, married to the Prince of Orange, and Anne, afterwards queen—and one son by his second wife, James Francis Edward, usually designated the Chevalier de St George (see JACOBITES). He had also several illegitimate children—one of whom, Marshal Berwick, was a renowned military commander.
See the histories of England by Macaulay, Ranke, Lingard; Burnet's History of his Own Time; Macpherson's History of Great Britain (1775) and Original Papers (1775); the Lives by C. J. Fox and Clarke (1816); Wellwood's Memoirs, and Luttrell's Relation of State Affairs; Wilson's James II. and the Duke of Berwick (1876); Campana de Cavelli, Les Derniers Stuarts à St Germain (Paris, 1871); Bloxam's Magdalen College and James II. (1886); works cited at CHARLES II.; and articles SEVEN BISHOPS, &c.