The Fall of James II

On a phantasmal level, Catholicism was associated by slope protestants with the monarchical absolutism of the papacy. " Roman" and "Popery" were the usual terms used to refer to Catholics and Catholicism. Protestant propagandists laid bully stress on the Catholic Church's claims to infallibility in matters of doctrine--though neither the Church of England nor the Puritans had shown themselves to be champions of freedom of conscience.

On a more secular and political level, the English associated Catholicism with the absolutism of Louis xiv of France. Although in reality the Papacy and the french monarchy were no allies, in the English public mind they were two accouterments of one and only(a) great conspiracy, the victory of which would lead to all the horrors associated in popular tradition with c over Mary and the Spanish Inquisition. convertible horrors were (in the Protestant view) on display in contemporary France, where Louis XIV had revoked of the Edict of Nantes, which had given Protestants freedom of worship for n wee a century. The dragonnades; Huegenots sent to the galleys; thousands of others driven into exile; all formed the English im while of what would be in store for them under absolutist Catholic rule. Diarist John Evelyn would write starkly, in early 1686, of "Unheard-of cruelties to the persecuted Protestants of France, such as hardly any age has seen the like, even among the Pagans.

On November 5, 1688--Guy Fawke's day, the traditional Protestant holiday--William landed at Torbay. In the wake of the Bloody Assizes, there was no general rising, plainly pack open that he could not rely on his own troops. Indeed, one of his generals, the same John Churchill whom he had dismissed from command during Monmouth's rebellion, went over to the other side. James had often shown great personal courage, but the memory of his father's death perhaps weighed on him, and in the revoke he fled without a battle. Four years later an essay restoration with the support of a French fleet was forestalled when the French were defeated at sea.

James came to manhood in exile, and amid the argue to regain the throne.

By the age of eighteen he was avail in the field as a soldier. His role was more military and less political than his brother's, and this too may form influenced the formation of his character, leaving him sterner in his outlook and less lean to political maneuver and compromise.

Aubrey, Philip. The Defeat of James Stuart's Armada, 1692. Bath, UK: Leicester University, 1979.

None the less, Charles II never pushed matters to the breaking point through a quarter-century of rule, whereas James II did so in little more than ternary years. The difference was evidently a matter of personal character. Charles II was a political realist. Even more fundamentally, perhaps, he was kind of lazy; at the time of Charles's death, John Evelyn wrote in his journal of his "too easy nature." But the combination of the two ensured that he lacked the inclination to push his own claims to the limit, and would take no great risks for the sake of abstract principle. James II, to his cost, lacked his brother's saving grace of laxness.

Trench, Charles Chenevix. The westward Rising: An Account of the Rebellion of James Scott, Duke of Monmouth. London: Longman's, 1966.

Evelyn, John. The daybook of John Evelyn. V. 2. New York: Dutton, 19
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