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Mary II of England

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History
1500-1750; Monarchs of Great Britain

                 Queen Mary II
                    Mary II
   Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland
   Reign       13 February 1689 - 28 December 1694
               (with William III)
   Born        30 April 1662
               London
   Died        December 28, 1694 (aged 32)
   Buried      Westminster Abbey
   Predecessor James II
   Successor   William III (alone)
   Consort     William III (joint monarch)
   Royal House Stuart
   Father      James II
   Mother      Anne Hyde

   Mary II ( 30 April 1662– 28 December 1694) reigned as Queen of England
   and Ireland from 13 February 1689, and as Queen of Scots (as Mary II of
   Scotland) from 11 April 1689 until her death. Mary, a Protestant, came
   to the thrones following the Glorious Revolution, which resulted in the
   deposition of her Roman Catholic father, James II. Mary reigned jointly
   with her husband and first cousin, William III, who became the sole
   ruler of both countries upon her death in 1694. Popular histories
   usually refer to the joint reigns as those of "William and Mary". Mary,
   although a sovereign in her own right, did not wield power during most
   of her reign, instead ceding it to her husband. She did, however,
   govern the realms when William was engaged in military campaigns
   abroad.

Early life

   Mary, born at St. James Palace in London on 30 April 1662, was the
   eldest daughter of James, Duke of York (the future James II of England)
   and of his first wife, Lady Anne Hyde. Mary's uncle was King Charles
   II; her maternal grandfather, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon,
   served for a lengthy period as Charles's chief advisor. Although her
   mother bore eight children, only Mary and her younger sister Anne
   survived into adulthood.

   The Duke of York converted to Roman Catholicism in 1668 or 1669, but
   Mary and Anne had a Protestant upbringing, pursuant to the command of
   Charles II. Mary's mother died in 1671; her father married again in
   1673, taking as his second wife the Catholic Mary of Modena, also known
   as Mary Beatrice d'Este.

   At the age of fifteen, Princess Mary became betrothed to the Protestant
   Stadtholder, William, Prince of Orange. William was the son of her
   aunt, Mary, Princess Royal, and Prince William II of Nassau. At first,
   Charles II opposed the alliance with a Dutch ruler — he preferred that
   Mary marry the heir to the French Throne, the Dauphin Louis — but
   later, under pressure from Parliament and with a coalition with the
   Catholic French no longer politically favourable, he approved the
   union. Pressured by Parliament, the Duke of York agreed to the
   marriage, falsely assuming that it would improve his popularity amongst
   Protestants. The first cousins Mary and William married in London on 4
   November 1677; Mary reportedly wept throughout the ceremony.
      British Royalty
      House of Stuart
   Mary II & William III
          Mary II

   Mary went to the Netherlands, where she lived as William's consort.
   Although she was devoted to her husband, the marriage was often
   unhappy; her three pregnancies ended in miscarriage or stillbirth, and
   her childlessness would be the greatest source of unhappiness in Mary's
   life. Her animated and personable nature made her popular with the
   Dutch people, but her husband was often cold and neglectful, and long
   maintained an affair with Elizabeth Villiers, one of Mary's
   ladies-in-waiting, though over time he became more relaxed in Mary's
   company.

The Glorious Revolution

   Upon the death of Charles II without legitimate issue in 1685, the Duke
   of York became King as James II in England and Ireland, and as James
   VII in Scotland. He had a controversial religious policy; his attempt
   to grant freedom of religion to non-Anglicans was not well-received, as
   the technique he chose was to annul acts of Parliament by royal decree.
   Several Protestant politicians and noblemen entered into negotiations
   with Mary's husband as early as 1687. After James took the step of
   forcing Anglican clergymen to read the Declaration of Indulgence—the
   proclamation granting religious liberty to dissenters—from their
   churches in May 1688, his popularity plunged. Alarm amongst Protestants
   increased when his wife, Queen Mary, gave birth to a son— James Francis
   Edward—in June 1688, for the son would, unlike Mary and Anne, be raised
   a Roman Catholic. Some charged that the boy was "supposititious",
   having been secretly smuggled in to Queen's room in a bed-warming pan
   as a substitute for her stillborn baby. Although there was no evidence
   to support the allegation, Mary publicly challenged the boy's
   legitimacy, sending a pointed list of questions to her sister, Anne,
   regarding the circumstances of the birth.

   On 30 June, the Immortal Seven secretly requested William—then in the
   Netherlands with Mary—to come to England with an army. At first,
   William was reluctant; he was jealous of his wife's position as the
   heiress to the English Crown and feared that she would become more
   powerful than he was. Mary, however, convinced her husband that she did
   not care for political power, telling him "she would be no more but his
   wife, and that she would do all that lay in her power to make him king
   for life". William agreed to invade and issued a declaration which
   referred to James' new-born son as the "pretended Prince of Wales". He
   also gave a list of grievances of the English people and stated that
   his proposed expedition was for the sole purpose of having "a free and
   lawful Parliament assembled". The Dutch army finally landed on 5
   November, having been turned back by a storm in October. The
   disaffected English Army and Navy went over to William, and English
   people's confidence in James stood so low that they did not attempt to
   save their King. On 11 December, the defeated King attempted to flee,
   but was intercepted. A second attempt at flight, on 23 December, was
   successful: James escaped to France where he lived in exile until his
   death.

   Mary was upset by the circumstances surrounding the deposition of her
   father, but William ordered her to appear cheerful on their triumphant
   arrival in London. As a result she was criticised for appearing cold to
   her father's plight. James too wrote a diatribe against her criticising
   her disloyalty, an action which deeply affected the pious Mary.

   In 1689, a Convention Parliament summoned by the Prince of Orange
   assembled, and much discussion relating to the appropriate course of
   action ensued. William of Orange felt insecure about his position; he
   wished to reign as a King, rather than function as a mere consort of a
   Queen. The only precedent for a joint monarchy dated from the sixteenth
   century: when Queen Mary I married the Spanish Prince Philip, it was
   agreed that the latter would take the title of King. But Philip II
   remained King only during his wife's lifetime, and restrictions were
   placed on his power. William, however, demanded that he remain King
   even after his wife's death. Although some prominent statesmen proposed
   to make her the sole ruler, Mary, remaining loyal to her husband,
   refused.

   On 13 February 1689, Parliament passed the Declaration of Right, in
   which it deemed that James, by attempting to flee on 11 December 1688,
   had abdicated the government of the realm, and that the Throne had
   thereby become vacant. Parliament offered the Crown not to James's
   eldest son, James Francis Edward (who would have been the heir-apparent
   under normal circumstances), but to William and Mary as joint
   Sovereigns. It was, however, provided that "the sole and full exercise
   of the regal power be only in and executed by the said Prince of Orange
   in the names of the said Prince and Princess during their joint lives."
   The declaration was later extended to exclude not only James and his
   heirs from the throne, but all Catholics, since "it hath been found by
   experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this
   Protestant kingdom to be governed by a papist prince".

   The Bishop of London, Henry Compton, crowned William and Mary together
   at Westminster Abbey on 11 April 1689. Normally, the Archbishop of
   Canterbury performs coronations, but the Archbishop at the time,
   William Sancroft, although an Anglican, refused to recognise the
   validity of James II's removal. On the day of the coronation, the
   Convention of the Estates of Scotland — which was much more divided
   than the English Parliament — finally declared that James was no longer
   King of Scotland. William and Mary were offered the separate Scottish
   Crown (the two kingdoms were not united until the Acts of Union in
   1707); they accepted on 11 May.

   Even after the declaration, there was still substantial support for
   James in Scotland. The Viscount of Dundee raised an army, and won a
   convincing victory at Killiecrankie on 27 July. The huge losses
   suffered by Dundee's troops, coupled with his fatal wounding at the
   start of the battle, served to remove the only effective resistance to
   William and the uprising was quickly crushed, suffering a resounding
   defeat the next month at the Battle of Dunkeld.

Reign


                                            Monarchical Styles of
                                            Mary II as Queen of England
                                             Reference style  Her Majesty
                                              Spoken style    Your Majesty
                                            Alternative style Ma'am


                                              Monarchical Styles of
                                              Mary II as Queen of Scotland
                                               Reference style  Her Grace
                                                Spoken style    Your Grace
                                              Alternative style Ma'am

   In December 1689 Parliament passed one of the most important
   constitutional documents in English history, the Bill of Rights. This
   measure — which restated and confirmed many provisions of the earlier
   Declaration of Right — established restrictions on the royal
   prerogative; it declared, amongst other things, that the Sovereign
   could not suspend laws passed by Parliament, levy taxes without
   parliamentary consent, infringe the right to petition, raise a standing
   army during peacetime without parliamentary consent, deny the right to
   bear arms to Protestant subjects, unduly interfere with parliamentary
   elections, punish members of either House of Parliament for anything
   said during debates, require excessive bail or inflict cruel or unusual
   punishments. The Bill of Rights also addressed the question of
   succession to the Throne.

   Following the death of either William III or Mary II, the other was to
   continue to reign. Next in the line of succession would be any children
   of the couple, to be followed by Mary's sister Anne and her children.
   Last in the line of succession stood any children William III might
   have had from any subsequent marriage.

   From 1690 onwards, William often remained absent from England, at first
   fighting Jacobites in Ireland. Whilst her husband was away, Mary
   administered the government of the realm. She proved a firm ruler,
   ordering the arrest of her own uncle, Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of
   Clarendon, for plotting to restore James II to the throne. In 1692, she
   dismissed and imprisoned the influential John Churchill, 1st Earl of
   Marlborough on similar charges; the dismissal somewhat diminished her
   popularity and harmed her relationship with her sister Anne who was
   strongly influenced by Churchill's wife, Sarah. Anne appeared at court
   with Sarah, obviously supporting the disgraced Churchill, which led to
   Mary angrily demanding that Anne dismiss Sarah and vacate her lodgings.
   Mary later failed to visit Anne during her pregnancy and relations
   remained strained until Mary's death.

   William had crushed the Irish Jacobites by 1692, but he continued with
   campaigns abroad in order to wage war against France in the
   Netherlands. When her husband was away, Mary acted in her own name but
   on his advice; whilst he was in England, Mary completely refrained from
   interfering in political matters, as had been agreed in the Bill of
   Rights. She did, however, participate in the affairs of the Church -
   all matters of ecclesiastical patronage passed through her hands. She
   died of smallpox at Kensington Palace on the 28th December 1694 and was
   buried at Westminster Abbey. Upon her death, baroque composer Henry
   Purcell of England was commissioned to write her funeral music,
   entitled Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary. The ominous March
   (catalogued as Z860 A) has subsequently been used in other media, such
   as the title theme in the movie A Clockwork Orange. William, who had
   grown increasingly to rely on Mary, was devastated by her death,
   reportedly said that "from being the happiest" he was "now going to be
   the miserablest creature on earth".

Legacy

   After Mary II's death, William III continued to rule as king. Princess
   Anne's last surviving child, William, Duke of Gloucester, died in July
   1700, and, as it was clear that William III would have no more
   children, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement 1701, which provided
   that the Crown would go to the nearest Protestant relative, Sophia,
   Electress of Hanover and her Protestant heirs. When William III died in
   1702, he was succeeded by Anne, and she in turn was succeeded by the
   son of the deceased Electress Sophia, George I.

   Mary endowed the College of William and Mary (in the present day
   Williamsburg, Virginia) in 1693. She also founded the Royal Hospital
   for Seamen, Greenwich.

Ancestors

   CAPTION: Mary II's ancestors in three generations

   Mary II of England Father:
   James II of England Paternal Grandfather:
   Charles I of England Paternal Great-grandfather:
   James I of England
   Paternal Great-grandmother:
   Anne of Denmark
   Paternal Grandmother:
   Henrietta Maria of France Paternal Great-grandfather:
   Henry IV of France
   Paternal Great-grandmother:
   Marie de' Medici
   Mother:
   Anne Hyde Maternal Grandfather:
   Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon Maternal Great-grandfather:
   Henry Hyde
   Maternal Great-grandmother:
   Mary Hyde
   Maternal Grandmother:
   Frances Hyde, Countess of Clarendon Maternal Great-grandfather:
   Sir Thomas Aylesbury
   Maternal Great-grandmother:
   Anne Aylesbury

Style and arms

   The joint style of William III and Mary II was "William and Mary, by
   the Grace of God, King and Queen of England, France and Ireland,
   Defenders of the Faith, etc." when they ascended the Throne. (The claim
   to France was only nominal, and had been asserted by every English King
   since Edward III, regardless of the amount of French territory actually
   controlled.) From 11 April 1689 — when the Estates of Scotland
   recognised them as Sovereigns — the royal couple used the style
   "William and Mary, by the Grace of God, King and Queen of England,
   Scotland, France and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, etc.".

   The arms used by the King and Queen were: Quarterly, I and IV
   Grandquarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lis Or (for France) and Gules
   three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion
   rampant within a tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III
   Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland); overall an escutcheon
   Azure billetty and a lion rampant Or.
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