Historical
and Commemorative Medals
Collection of Benjamin Weiss
JAMES II DASSIER, Jean: England, 1731, Bronze, 41 mm James II (1633 - 1701), Duke of York (1634-1685), and
King of England, Scotland and Ireland (1685-1688), was the third son to
Charles I and Henrietta Maria. During the Civil War he fled to France but
returned to England and became king after the death of his older brother
Charles II, who had been restored to the throne after Cromwell's
Commonwealth collapsed. Unlike his brother, James maintained a strong
adherence to the Roman Catholic faith. He married a Roman Catholic princess,
Mary of Modena, and tried to convert England to Catholicism. His zealous
piety and his determination to impress Catholicism on his subjects was to
prove his nemesis. Within days of James' accession, Protestants began
rallying around Charles' son, James, Duke of Monmouth, whom they believed
should be king. The rebellion was easily quashed and Monmouth was beheaded.
Continuing his religious campaign, James had Catholics promoted to
high-status positions while he appointed the 'Bloody Assizes' to execute,
torture or enslave Protestant rebels. The Declaration of Indulgence (1687)
granted tolerance of Catholics and non-conformists. In response, both Tories
and Whigs turned against the king. On the birth of his son, James was deposed in the
Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Protestant Parliament having allied
themselves with James' Protestant daughter Mary (Mary was the daughter of
James’ first wife Anne Hyde, a Protestant who raised her daughter in the
same faith), and her husband William of Orange, who eventually took the
throne of England as William and Mary. That revolution, engendered by James’
Roman Catholicism, permanently established Parliament as the ruling power of
England. James died an exile in Saint-Germain, the last Stuart monarch in
the direct male line (Queen Anne being the last Stuart monarch). (From
www.bbc.co.uk) LINK to
Medals of the Glorious Revolution by Benjamin Weiss
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