Accession of Queen Anne of England, Scotland and Ireland. Part IV.

Tags

Bill of Rights 1689, Duke of Gloucester, Duke of Marlborough, Glorious Revolution, James VII of Scotland, King James II of England, Prince William, Queen Anne of England, Sarah Churchill, William and Mary, William III of Orange

William of Orange invaded England on November 5, 1688 in an action known as the Glorious Revolution, which ultimately deposed King James II-VII of England, Scotland and Ireland. Forbidden by James to pay Mary a projected visit in the spring of 1687, Anne corresponded with her and was aware of the plans to invade.

On the advice of the Churchills, Anne refused to side with James after William landed and instead wrote to William on November 18, declaring her approval of his action. Churchill abandoned the unpopular King James on the 24th. Prince George followed suit that night, and in the evening of the following day James issued orders to place Sarah Churchill under house arrest at St James’s Palace.

Anne and Sarah fled from Whitehall by a back staircase, putting themselves under the care of Bishop Compton. They spent one night in his house, and subsequently arrived at Nottingham on December 1.

Two weeks later and escorted by a large company, Anne arrived at Oxford, where she met Prince George in triumph. “God help me!”, lamented James on discovering the desertion of his daughter on November 26, “Even my children have forsaken me.”

On December 19, Anne returned to London, where she was at once visited by William. James fled to France on the 23rd. Anne showed no concern at the news of her father’s flight, and instead merely asked for her usual game of cards. She justified herself by saying that she “was used to play and never loved to do anything that looked like an affected constraint”.

In January 1689, a Convention Parliament assembled in England and declared that James II-VII had effectively abdicated when he fled, and that the thrones of England and Ireland were therefore vacant. The Parliament or Estates of Scotland took similar action, and William and Mary were declared joint monarchs of all three realms as King William III-II and Mary II of England, Scotland and Ireland.

The Bill of Rights 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 settled the succession. Anne and her descendants were to be in the line of succession after William and Mary, and they were to be followed by any descendants of William by a future marriage.

On 24 July 1689, Anne gave birth to a son, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, who, though ill, survived infancy. As King William III-II and Queen Mary II had no children, it looked as though Anne’s son would eventually inherit the Crown.

William III-II and Mary II

Soon after their accession, William and Mary rewarded John Churchill by granting him the Earldom of Marlborough and Prince George was made Duke of Cumberland. Anne requested the use of Richmond Palace and a parliamentary allowance.

William and Mary refused the first, and unsuccessfully opposed the latter, both of which caused tension between the two sisters. Anne’s resentment grew worse when William refused to allow Prince George to serve in the military in an active capacity.

The new king and queen feared that Anne’s financial independence would weaken their influence over her and allow her to organize a rival political faction. From around this time, at Anne’s request she and Sarah Churchill, Lady Marlborough, began to call each other the pet names Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman, respectively, to facilitate a relationship of greater equality between the two when they were alone.

In January 1692, suspecting that Marlborough was secretly conspiring with James’s followers, the Jacobites, William and Mary dismissed him from all his offices. In a public show of support for the Marlboroughs, Anne took Sarah to a social event at the palace, and refused her sister’s request to dismiss Sarah from her household.

Princess Anne with her son, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester

Lady Marlborough was subsequently removed from the royal household by the Lord Chamberlain, and Anne angrily left her royal lodgings and took up residence at Syon House, the home of the Duke of Somerset. Anne was stripped of her guard of honour; courtiers were forbidden to visit her, and civic authorities were instructed to ignore her.

In April, Anne gave birth to a son who died within minutes. Mary visited her, but instead of offering comfort took the opportunity to berate Anne once again for her friendship with Sarah. The sisters never saw each other again. Later that year, Anne moved to Berkeley House in Piccadilly, London, where she had a stillborn daughter in March 1693.

When Queen Mary II died of smallpox in 1694, William III-II continued to reign alone. Anne became his heir apparent, since any children he might have by another wife were assigned to a lower place in the line of succession, and the two reconciled publicly.

William III-II restored her previous honours, allowed her to reside in St James’s Palace, and gave her Mary’s jewels, but excluded her from government and refrained from appointing her regent during his absences abroad. Three months later, William restored Marlborough to his offices. With Anne’s restoration at court, Berkeley House became a social centre for courtiers who had previously avoided contact with Anne and her husband.

According to James II-VII, Anne wrote to him in 1696 requesting his permission to succeed William, and thereafter promising to restore the Crown to James’s line at a convenient opportunity; he declined to give his consent. She was probably trying to ensure her own succession by attempting to prevent a direct claim by James II-VII.

The Life of James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth (1649-1685)

Tags

1st Duke of Monmouth, Duke of York, English Civil War, Illegitimate, James Scott, King Charles II of England, King James II of England, Lucy Walter, Rebellion, Royal Bastard

James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, 1st Duke of Buccleuch (April 9, 1649 – July 15, 1685) was a Dutch-born English nobleman. Originally called James Crofts or James Fitzroy, he was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the eldest illegitimate son of Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland with mistress Lucy Walter

During the summer of 1648, Charles, Prince of Wales was in exile as the English Civil War was being played out. The Prince of Wales captivated by Lucy Walter, who was at The Hague for a short while about this time. He was only eighteen, and she is often spoken of as his first mistress, but they may have had a tryst as early as 1646.

James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, 1st Duke of Buccleuch

Charles moved to The Hague during 1648, during the Second English Civil War, where his sister Mary and his brother-in-law William II, Prince of Orange, were providing more support to his father Charles I‘s cause than his French relations.

James was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, then spent his early years in Schiedam.

There is some question to whether or not Prince Charles was the father of James Scott. Research by Hugh Noel Williams suggests that Charles had not arrived at The Hague until the middle of September 1648 – seven months before the child’s birth, but that he had met Lucy in July. Some voices later whispered that in the summer of 1648 Lucy had been the mistress of Colonel Robert Sidney, a younger son of the Earl of Leicester. When the child grew to manhood, those loyal to the Duke of York (whom the exclusionists wished to replace as heir to the throne) publicly put about the story that they saw a semblance to Sidney.

Charles II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland. Father of The Duke of Monmouth.

These voices may have been encouraged by the Duke of York himself, brother of King Charles II, who was afraid of any of the acknowledged fourteen royal bastards’ possible claims to the throne, Charles having no legitimate surviving children. In 2012, a DNA test of Monmouth’s patrilineal descendant the 10th Duke of Buccleuch showed that he shared the same Y chromosome as a distant Stuart cousin; this is evidence that Charles II was indeed Monmouth’s father.

Lucy Walter, mistress of King Charles II and Mother of the Duke of Monmouth.

As an illegitimate son, Monmouth was ineligible to succeed to the English or Scottish thrones, unless he could prove rumours that his parents had married secretly. Monmouth came to maintain that his parents were married and that he possessed evidence of their marriage, but he never produced it. Charles II, as King, later testified in writing to his Council that he had never been married to anyone except his queen, Catherine of Braganza.

On February 14, 1663, at the age of 13, shortly after having been brought to England, James was created Duke of Monmouth, with the subsidiary titles of Earl of Doncaster and Baron Scott of Tynedale, all three in the Peerage of England, and on 28 March 1663 he was appointed a Knight of the Garter.

On April 20, 1663, just days after his 14th birthday, he was married to the heiress Anne Scott, 4th Countess of Buccleuch. James took his wife’s surname upon marriage. The day after his marriage, the couple were made Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, Earl and Countess of Dalkeith, and Lord and Lady Scott of Whitchester and Eskdale in the Peerage of Scotland. Monmouth, as he became known, was popular, particularly for his Protestantism, whereas the official heir presumptive to the throne, the King’s brother James, Duke of York, had openly converted to Roman Catholicism.

In 1665, at the age of 16, Monmouth served in the English fleet under his uncle, Prince James, the Duke of York in the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In June 1666, he returned to England to become captain of a troop of cavalry. On September 16, 1668 he was made colonel of the His Majesty’s Own Troop of Horse Guards. He acquired Moor Park in Hertfordshire in April 1670.

James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, commanding the English against the Dutch in 1672, by Jan Wyck

In June of this 1679. It was at about this time that he was first seriously proposed as the rightful heir to the Crown, despite the obvious problem of his illegitimacy, and his father’s refusal to acknowledge that he had married Lucy Walter. Monmouth may have come to sincerely believe that his parents had been married.

Rebellion

As his popularity with the masses increased, Monmouth was obliged to go into exile in the Dutch United Provinces in September 1679. Following the discovery of the so-called Rye House Plot in 1683, which aimed to assassinate both Charles II and his brother James, Monmouth, who had been encouraged by his supporters to assert his right to the throne, was identified as a conspirator. On King Charles II’s death in February 1685, Monmouth led the Monmouth Rebellion, landing with three ships at Lyme Regis in Dorset in early June 1685, in an attempt to take the throne from his uncle, James II-VII.

He published a “Declaration for the defence and vindication of the protestant religion and of the laws, rights and privileges of England from the invasion made upon them, and for delivering the Kingdom from the usurpation and tyranny of us by the name of James, Duke of York”: King James II and VII responded to this by issuing an order for the publishers and distributors of the paper to be arrested.

Coat of Arms of the 1st Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch: The royal arms of King Charles II differenced with a baton sinister argent overall an inescutcheon of pretence of Scott (Or, on a bend azure a mullet of six points between two crescents of the field).

Monmouth declared himself as the rightful King at various places along the route including Axminster, Chard, Ilminster and Taunton. The two armies met at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685, the last clear-cut pitched battle on open ground between two military forces fought on English soil: Monmouth’s makeshift force could not compete with the regular army, and was soundly defeated.

Capture

Following the battle a reward of £5,000 was offered for his capture. On 8 July 1685, Monmouth was captured and arrested near Ringwood in Hampshire,

Following Monmouth’s capture, Parliament passed an Act of Attainder, 1 Ja. II c. 2:

Treason. ¶Whereas James Duke of Monmouth has in an hostile Manner Invaded this Kingdome and is now in open Rebellion Levying Warr against the King contrary to the Duty of his Allegiance, Bee it enacted by the Kings most Excellent Majestie by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons in this Parlyament assembled and by the Authoritie of the same, That the said James Duke of Monmouth Stand and be Convicted and Attainted of High-Treason and that he suffer Paines of Death and Incurr all Forfeitures as a Traitor Convicted and Attainted of High Treason.

The King took the unusual step of allowing his nephew an audience, despite having no intention of extending a pardon to him, thus breaking with a longstanding tradition that the King would give an audience only when he intended to show clemency. The prisoner unsuccessfully implored his mercy, and even offered to convert to Catholicism, but to no avail. The King, disgusted by his abject behaviour, coldly told him to prepare to die, and later remarked that Monmouth “did not behave as well as I expected”. Numerous pleas for mercy were addressed to the King, but he ignored them all, even that of his sister-in-law, the Dowager Queen Catherine.

James II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland. Uncle of The Duke of Monmouth.

Monmouth was beheaded by Jack Ketch on July 15, 1685, on Tower Hill. Shortly beforehand, Bishops Turner of Ely and Ken of Bath and Wells visited the Duke to prepare him for eternity, but withheld the Eucharist, for the condemned man refused to acknowledge that either his rebellion or his relationship with Lady Wentworth had been sinful.

It is said that before laying his head on the block, Monmouth specifically bade Ketch finish him at one blow, saying he had mauled others before. Disconcerted, Ketch did indeed inflict multiple blows with his axe, the prisoner rising up reproachfully the while – a ghastly sight that shocked the witnesses, drawing forth execrations and groans. Some say a knife was at last employed to sever the head from the twitching body. Sources vary; some claim eight blows, the official Tower of London fact sheet says it took five blows, while Charles Spencer, in his book Blenheim, puts it at seven.

James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, 1st Duke of Buccleuch

Monmouth was buried in the Church of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. His Dukedom was forfeited, but his subsidiary titles, Earl of Doncaster and Baron Scott of Tindale, were restored by King George II on March 23, 1743 to his grandson Francis Scott, 2nd Duke of Buccleuch (1695–1751).

This date in History. September 16, 1701: Death of King James II-VII of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Tags

Duke of York, Glorious Revolution, King James II of England, King James II-VII of England and Scotland, Louis XIV of France, Mary II of England, Saint Germaine-en-Laye, William III and Mary II, William III of England

James II-VII (October 14, 1633 – September 16, 1701) was King of England and Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from February 6, 1685 until he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The last Roman Catholic monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland, his reign is now remembered primarily for struggles over religious tolerance.

However, it also involved the principles of absolutismand divine right of kings and his deposition ended a century of political and civil strife by confirming the primacy of Parliament over the Crown.

King James II-VII of England, Scotland and Ireland.

James inherited the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland from his elder brother Charles II with widespread support in all three countries, largely based on the principle of divine right or birth. Tolerance for his personal Catholicism did not apply to it in general and when the English and Scottish Parliaments refused to pass his measures, James attempted to impose them by decree; it was a political principle, rather than a religious one, that ultimately led to his removal.

In June 1688, two events turned dissent into a crisis; the first on June 10 was the birth of James’s son and heir James Francis Edward, threatening to create a Catholic dynasty and excluding his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William III of Orange. The second was the prosecution of the Seven Bishops for seditious libel; this was viewed as an assault on the Church of England and their acquittal on June 30, destroyed his political authority in England. Anti-Catholic riots in England and Scotland now made it seem only his removal as monarch could prevent a civil war.

Representatives of the English political elite invited Willem III of Orange to assume the English throne; after he landed in Brixham on November 5, 1688, James’s army deserted and he went into exile in France on December 23. In February 1689, Parliament held James II-VII had ‘vacated’ the English throne and installed Willem III of Orange and Princess Mary as joint monarchs, establishing the principle that sovereignty derived from Parliament, not birth.

James landed in Ireland on March 14, 1689 in an attempt to recover his kingdoms but despite a simultaneous rising in Scotland, in April a Scottish Convention followed their English colleagues by ruling James had ‘forfeited’ the throne and offered it to William III and Mary II. After defeat at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690, James returned to France where he spent the rest of his life in exile at Saint-Germain, protected by Louis XIV of France and Navarre (who was also his first cousin).

In France, James was allowed to live in the royal château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. James’s wife, Maria of Modena, and some of his supporters fled with him, including the Earl of Melfort; most, but not all, were Roman Catholic. In 1692, James’s last child, Louisa Maria Teresa, was born. Some supporters in England attempted to assassinate William III to restore James to the throne in 1696, but the plot failed and the backlash made James’s cause less popular. Louis XIV’s offer to have James elected King of Poland in the same year was rejected, for James feared that acceptance of the Polish crown might (in the minds of the English people) render him incapable of being King of England. After Louis concluded peace with William III in 1697, he ceased to offer much in the way of assistance to James.

The Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, James’s home during his final exile

During his last years, James lived as an austere penitent. He wrote a memorandum for his son advising him on how to govern England, specifying that Catholics should possess one Secretary of State, one Commissioner of the Treasury, the Secretary at War, with the majority of the officers in the army.

He died aged 67 of a brain haemorrhage on 16 September 1701 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Had James remained king this entire time he would have reigned in all three kingdoms for 16 years, 7 months, 10 days. James’s heart was placed in a silver-gilt locket and given to the convent at Chaillot, and his brain was placed in a lead casket and given to the Scots College in Paris. His entrails were placed in two gilt urns and sent to the parish church of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the English Jesuit college at Saint-Omer, while the flesh from his right arm was given to the English Augustinian nuns of Paris.

The rest of James’s body was laid to rest in a triple sarcophagus (consisting of two wooden coffins and one of lead) at the Chapel of Saint Edmund in the Church of the English Benedictines in the Rue St. Jacques in Paris, with a funeral oration by Henri-Emmanuel de Roquette. James was not buried, but put in one of the side chapels. Lights were kept burning round his coffin until the French Revolution. In 1734, the Archbishop of Paris heard evidence to support James’s canonisation, but nothing came of it. During the French Revolution, James’s tomb was raided.

One this date in History: William & Mary declared joint sovereigns.

Tags

Glorious Revolution 1689, King James II of England, King James II-VII of England and Scotland, Kings and Queens of England, kings and queens of Scotland, Mary II of England, Parliament, William & Mary, William III and Mary II, William III of England

One this date in History: February 13, 1689. William III-II & Mary III declared joint sovereigns of England, Scotland and Ireland.

William III (Dutch: Willem; November 4, 1650 – March 8, 1702), also widely known as William of Orange, was sovereign Prince of Orangefrom birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from 1672 and King of England, Ireland and Scotland from 1689 until his death in 1702. It is a coincidence that his regnal number (III) was the same for both Orange and England. As King of Scotland, he is known as William II. He is sometimes informally known in Northern Ireland and Scotland as “King Billy”.

William inherited the principality of Orange from his father, William II, who died a week before William’s birth. His mother, Mary, was the daughter of King Charles I of England. In 1677, he married his fifteen-year-old first cousin, Mary, the daughter of his maternal uncle James, Duke of York.

Mary II (April 30, 1662 – December 28, 1694) was joint monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland with her husband and first cousin, William III of Orange, from 1689 until her death. William and Mary, both Protestants, became king and queen regnant following the Glorious Revolution, which resulted in the adoption of the English Bill of Rights and the deposition of her Roman Catholic father, James II-VII. William became sole ruler upon her death in 1694. Popular histories usually refer to their joint reign as that of “William and Mary”.

Mary, born at St James’s Palace in London on 30 April 1662, was the eldest daughter of the Duke of York (the future King James II-VII), and his first wife, Anne Hyde. Mary’s uncle was King Charles II, who ruled the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland; her maternal grandfather, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, served for a lengthy period as Charles’s chief advisor. She was baptised into the Anglican faith in the Chapel Royal at St James’s, and was named after her ancestor, Mary, Queen of Scots. Her godparents included her father’s cousin, Prince Rupert of the Rhine. Although her mother bore eight children, all except Mary and her younger sister Anne died very young, and King Charles II had no legitimate children. Consequently, for most of her childhood, Mary was second in line to the throne after her father.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was when Parliament became supreme and limited the power of the Crown.

The Revolution resolved the struggle between Crown and Parliament and it also helped settle the religious struggles within the country. Basically at its heart it was a revolution that deposed King James II-VII of England and Scotland. In 1679 Parliament wanted to exclude James from the succession due to his Catholicism. To be Catholic in a Protestant England at that time was troublesome even if you were the king. During his reign James did not do what others feared, nor what his predecessor Mary I did, and tried to revive Catholicism and make it the official religion of England. No, James did what his brother Charles II did and promoted religious tolerance. Sadly these enlightened kingly brothers were way ahead of their times. England had little tolerance for religious tolerance if that religious tolerance included acceptance of Catholics.

What kept James II-VII on his throne was the knowledge that eventually his Protestant daughter, Princess Mary, would succeed him. Mary was married to her first cousin Prince William III of Orange, who was next in line to the throne after Mary and her sister, Princess Anne.

In 1673 as the Duke of York, James married his second wife, Mary Beatrice d’Este of Modena, the elder child of Alfonso IV, Duke of Modena, and his wife, Laura Martinozzi. The new Duchess of York was a devout Catholic and numerous pregnancies ended in either miscarriages or sickly children that did not live long which seemed to assure a Protestant succession. However, after James came to the throne Mary-Beatrice delivered a healthy son, Prince James Francis Edward, shortly thereafter created Prince of Wales. This solidified the fact that the successor to James II-VII would be another Catholic king. This was not acceptable to many people including Parliament and Prince William III of Orange himself who was considerably anti-Catholic and did not want to see his wife’s chance on the throne (and his) slip away.

It is interesting to note that historians greatly debate whether or not the birth of a Catholic Prince of Wales was the reason for James being overthrown. The truth it seems is that James was so unpopular that William III of Orange was planning to invade England prior to the birth of the Catholic heir. William did not want to be seen as an invader and therefore asked members of Parliament to conduct an act of treason by inviting him to come to England and take the throne. When seven brave members of Parliament achieved this honor, William began assembling his fleet and waited for the right moment to invade. When France was engaged in a battle in Germany William sailed his fleet to England and came ashore on 5/15 November 1688. James II-VII showed little resistance and on December 10, 1688 the king, queen and Prince of Wales fled to France.

With James II-VII now exiled in France William took control of the provisional government and called for a Conventional Parliament. His legal right to do so was questionable but this was a time of revolution. This new Parliament consisted of many loyal monarchists who had sat in Parliament under Charles II. The English Convention Parliament was very divided on the issue of who should wear the crown. The radical Whigs in the Lower House proposed to elect Willem as a king (meaning that his power would be derived from the people); the moderates wanted an acclamation of William and Mary together; the Tories wanted to make him regent only and acclaim Mary as Queen.

On January 28 a committee of the whole House of Commons promptly decided by acclamation that James II-VII had broken “the original contract” had “abdicated the government” and had left the throne “vacant.” The House of Lords rejected the wording of the acclimation and what followed were weeks of debate on the wording of the acclimation and who should be the monarch. Princess Anne, next-in-line after her sister, declared that she would temporarily waive her right to the crown should Mary die before William. Mary, for her part, refused to be made queen without William as king by her side, paving the way for the inevitable mounting of the throne of William III of Orange onto the English & Scottish thrones. The Lords on February 6 changed their minds and avoiding a possible civil war now accepted the words “abdication” and “vacancy.” in the House of Commons acclimation.

On February 13, 1689 Willem III of Orange along with his wife were offered the Crown by Parliament and then became joint sovereigns as King William III-II and Queen Mary II of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Parliament had decided the succession and the power to name the monarch and regulate the succession has been in their hands ever since.

February 5…1649, 1685, 1952 & 1981.

Tags

Charles II, Charles II of England and Scotland, English Civil War, February 5 1952, Frederica of Greece, James VII King of Scots, King George VI of the United Kingdom, King James II of England, King James II-VII of England and Scotland, Kingdom of the Hellenes, Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, Queen Elizabeth II, Scotland

On this Date in History. February 5. This date has some significant events throughout European Royal History.

1. On the morning of February 6, 1952 King George VI of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was found dead in bed at Sandringham House in Norfolk. He had died from a coronary thrombosis in his sleep at the age of 56. His eldest daughter succeeds as Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Her Majesty The Queen has been on the British throne for 66 years. This is a day she does not celebrate.

2. On this date February 5, 1649, the the Covenanter Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II “King of Great Britain, France and Ireland” at the Mercat Cross, Edinburgh, but the Scottish Parliament also refused to allow Charles to enter Scotland unless he accepted the imposition of Presbyterianism throughout Britain and Ireland. This event occurred a week after his father, King Charles I, was beheaded for treason by the English Parliament at the end of the Civil War.

At this time England, Scotland and Ireland were not politically united (the title of “King of Great Britain” was not recognized even when the monarchy was extant) and though the monarchy had been abolished in England it had not been abolished in Scotland. The Scots had a difficult relationship with their potential king and in spite being independent from England, in spirit only, England fought against Charles II mounting the Scottish throne. This conflict culminated with the Instrument of Government passed by Parliament, December 1653, where Oliver Cromwell, as Head of State, was appointed The Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, effectively placing the British Isles under military rule. The creation of Cromwell as Lord Protector replaced the First Council of State which held executive power. Charles II was exiled to the Netherlands.

3. On May 29, 1660 Charles II was formally restored to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles II passed away on February 5, 1685 at the age of 54 after a reign of 24 years, 253 days. Charles suffered a sudden apoplectic fit on the morning of February 2, 1685, and died aged 54 at 11:45 am four days later at Whitehall Palace. The suddenness of his illness and death led to suspicion of poison in the minds of many, including one of the royal doctors; however, a more modern medical analysis has held that the symptoms of his final illness are similar to those of uraemia (a clinical syndrome due to kidney dysfunction). In the days between his collapse and his death, Charles endured a variety of torturous treatments including bloodletting, purging and cupping in hopes of effecting a recovery.

On his deathbed Charles asked his brother, James, to look after his mistresses: “be well to Portsmouth, and let not poor Nelly starve”. He told his courtiers, “I am sorry, gentlemen, for being such a time a-dying”, and expressed regret at his treatment of his wife. On the last evening of his life he was received into the Catholic Church, though the extent to which he was fully conscious or committed, and with whom the idea originated, is unclear. He was buried in Westminster Abbey “without any manner of pomp” on 14 February. Charles II did not have any legitimate issue with his wife, the Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza and there for Charles was succeeded by his brother, who became James II of England and reland and James VII of Scotland.

4. February 5, 1981. The death of Queen Frederica of the Hellenes age 63. She was the wife of King Pavlos of the Hellenes (1901-1964).

Born Her Royal Highness Princess Frederica of Hanover, of Great Britain and Ireland, and of Brunswick-Lüneburg on April 18, 1917 in Blankenburg am Harz, in the German Duchy of Brunswick, she was the only daughter of Ernest Augustus, then reigning Duke of Brunswick, and his wife Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia, herself the only daughter of the German Emperor Wilhelm II, King of Prussia. Both her father and maternal grandfather would abdicate their crowns in November 1918 following Germany’s defeat in World War I, and her paternal grandfather would be stripped of his British royal dukedom the following year. As a descendant of Queen Victoria, she was, at birth, 34th in the line of succession to the British throne.

Marriage

Prince Pavlos of Greece, her mother’s paternal first cousin, proposed to her during the summer of 1936, while he was in Berlin attending the 1936 Summer Olympics. Pavlos was a son of King Constantine I and Frederica’s grand-aunt Sophia. Their engagement was announced officially on September 28, 1937, and Britain’s King George VI gave his consent pursuant to the Royal Marriages Act 1772 on December 26, 1937. They married in Athens on January 9, 1938. Frederica became Hereditary Princess of Greece, her husband being heir presumptive to his childless elder brother, King George II.

Frederica died on February 6, 1981 in exile in Madrid during ophthalmic surgery. In its obituary of the former Queen, The New York Times reported that she died during “eyelid surgery,” which led to frequent but unsubstantiated rumours that she died while undergoing cosmetic surgery. Other sources state that her cause of death was a heart attack while undergoing the removal of cataracts. She was interred at Tatoi (the Royal family’s palace and burial ground in Greece). Her son, exiled King Constantine II of the Hellenes, and his family were allowed to attend the service but had to leave immediately afterwards. Queen Frederica was also the mother of Queen Sofia of Spain wife of King Juan-Carlos and mother of Spain’s current king, Felipe VI.

James II-VII Flees England.

Tags

England, Glorious Revolution, Ireland, King James II of England, King James II-VII of England and Scotland, King Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV, Prince of Orange, Scotland, William III of England

On this day in 1688. James II-VII King of England, Scotland and Ireland attempted to flee England during the Glorious Revolution. On the way, he threw the Great Seal into the Thames, preventing a Parliament from being called. He was caught by a fisherman in Kent and returned to London on Dec. 16 and placed under Dutch protective guard. Having no desire to make James II-VII a martyr, Prince Willem IIII, Prince of Orange, let him escape on December 23. James II-VII was received by his maternal first cousin and ally, King Louis XIV of France and Navarre (1643-1715) offered him a palace and a pension.

Royal Conspiracy Theories

Tags

Conspiracy Theories, House of Hanover, James Francis Stuart, King George I of Great Britain, King James II of England, Kings and Queens of England, Marie-Beatrice of Modena, Scotland, The House of Stuart

Conspiracy theories. There are so many out there and the vast overwhelming  majority of them are pretty laughable. In the US we have people that deny that men landed on the moon and they think it was all fake. Many of the same folk think that Curiosity, the rover currently scouring the planet Mars, is also a fake. They believe hat the real rover is in Are 51 and through special effects these images are being broadcast around the world. There are people who believe that 9/11 was an inside job perpetrated by the US Government. There even is a faction of 9/11 conspiracy theorists who think that there were not any planes that crashed into buildings on 9/11 and that the planes were added to film footage via special effects. Then we have the Birthers who think President Barrak Obama was born in Kenya and not the US. I also cannot forget the small minority of people who still think the Earth is flat and any picture that shows the Earth is round is being duped by NASA and the US Government. Google the Flat Earth Society. Crazy stuff! 

James II-VII of England and Scotland

I have come to learn through the years there have also been conspiracy theories in royal circles. Currently I am reading The Last of the Stuarts by James Lees-Milne. The book was published in 1983 and as I am reading it I discover that there are some conspiracy theories surrounding the last few heirs to the Stuart Dynasty. One of the more well known conspiracy theories is the theory of the “changeling,” that the Prince of Wales, Prince James Francis Stuart, son of King James II-VII of England and Scotland and his second wife Prince Marie-Beatrice of Modena, was smuggled into the palace in place of a still-born son. For centuries after this theory sprung forth an official minister from the government had to be present at the birth of all princes and princess in line for the throne.

England and Scotland were in difficult political times. The king was not popular and his Catholicism almost cost him his throne when he was the heir to his brother, Charles II. It was only the fact that his two surviving Protestant daughters would succeed him which lead to the king being tolerated. When his wife produced a healthy male heir who would undoubtedly be raised Catholic this sent in motion a crisis which lead to James II-VII being deposed. The interesting speculation at the time which added to the conspiracy theory was the thought that the Queen was never pregnant. One of the claims was that the King, who had fathered many children both legitimate and illegitimate, was incapable of fathering another child at the “ripe old age” of 55. Now to the modern ear 55 is not too old. However, in 1688 with health care not being what it is today and life expectancy at a much lower rate, there may have been some truth to this. Another aspect of the theory are the reports that Queen Marie-Beatrice, who had had several miscarriages and had been in poor health in the previous months prior to her becoming pregnant, was too ill and too old herself to conceive. The queen was only 30 at the time but it does raise the question of fertility and childbearing difficulties as women aged in the 17th century. In 1688 was it difficult for a woman in her 30s to conceive?

Queen Marie-Beatrice 

I really do not believe these theories but they are interesting to think about. One of the things punching a whole in this conspiracy theory is the fact that there are many original sources from those at court and ambassadors at other courts who had seen the queen did report that she was indeed pregnant. Also, the claims that the young Prince of Wales was a changeling sounds more like political propaganda espoused by those who were against the king than having any basis in reality.

Even the young Prince of Wales, claiming the throne of England and Scotland as James III-VIII,  had his own conspiracy theory. He was sure that he was the target of assassination by those close to and loyal to King George I of Great Britain.

James Frances, the Old Pretender

I see that conspiracy theories are part of the human condition and even royalty cannot escape this strange and odd phenomenon.

 

Bad Kings.

Tags

Bad Kings, King Edward II of England, King Henry VI of England, King Henry VIII of England, King James II of England, King John of England, Queen Mary I of England, William II of England

Since I am going on vacation next week I thought I would not stick to my usual schedule and do some fun lists for the next couple of days. When I get back on September 17, I will go back to my normal schedule.

So here is a list of few of the “bad” Monarchs of England. I will just limit myself to the kings and queens from the post-conquest era until the union of England and Scotland. These are in Chronological order.

William II 1087-1100. He was at constant war with his brothers and the Church. He had a ruthless temper and was killed while hunting. Was it an accident? Historians do not know for sure. Never the less he was not mourned much.

John 1199-1216. The infamous King of the Robin Hood mythos. He had better point than is depicted in fiction but he wasn’t forced to sign the Magna Carta for nothing!

Edward II 1207-1227. He was a weak king and ineffectual. He was deposed by his wife and her lover in favor of his son, Edward III, and came to a brutal and horrific end (a red-hot poker thrust into his anus) after he was forced to abdicate. Historians now question if his brutal death actually happened as the legend goes.

Henry VI 1422-1461 & 1470-1471. He came to the throne at the age of 9. When he took the reigns of government over in 1437 it was the middle of the 100 Years War with France. Henry VI was soon dominated by the nobility and his wife, Margaret of Anjou. He later suffered a mental breakdown.

Richard III 1483-1485. It is still questioned if he was a bad administrator. Was he responsible for the death of his nephews, the young King Edward V and his brother, Richard, Duke of York? We may never know. After two short years as king he was killed in the battle of Bosworth Field and the Plantagenet Dynasty came to an end bringing the Tudor dynasty to the throne.

Henry VIII 1509-1547. He is your typical tyrant. Too much power and it corrupted him. Many beheadings under his rule including two wives and Sir Thomas More among them. Just surfing the web I found this information so take it with a grain of salt. The exact figure may never be known, but according to Raphael Holinshed, an English Chronicler who died in 1580, the number of executions in this 38 year reign amounted to 72,000. (Although this is considered to be an exaggeration as it is hard to imagine this would have been tolerated by the people) Source: Tudor Wiki.

Mary I 1553-1558. Daughter of Henry VIII and a chip off the old chopping block. 😉 A radical and zealous Catholic had an estimated 284 Protestants murdered giving her the well deserved sobirquet. Bloody Mary.

James II & VII 1685-1688. His zeal for the Catholic faith also cost him his throne. He was tolerated as long as his heir was Protestant but as soon as his wife gave birth to a Catholic heir it was an excuse to get rid of him.

There you have it. A simple and brief look at some bad kings and queens of England. Sure, George I and George IV may not have been considered good kings but by then the wind had been taken out of their sails and a lot of what went wrong can be also attributed to their ministers.