: 



JAMES IL (OF ENGLAND). 



JAMES II. (OF ENGLAND). 



lished at Oxford, 12mo. 1691. in which IIOWCTCF, according to hi* 

 funeral MTUIOD, preached by liiihop Williams, ha bad only proceeded 

 as far as the thirty-tint P<alm at bis death. It ought Uo not to bo 

 forgotten, that the authored translation of the Bible was oom- 

 metxwd and completed under hi* auipicea. 



Of the change* in the law introduced in thU reign the most 

 important were effected by certain act* of the parliament which mot 

 IB February 1823. By one of there (the ttatute 21 Jac. I., c. 2), 

 entitled ' An Act for the General Quiet of the Subject* against all 

 Pretence* of Concealment (of Land* belonging to the Crown) what- 

 ever,' it wa* enacted that no person could in future be *ued or 

 impeached by the king fur any manors, land*, revenue*. &c., uule** 

 it might be proved that he or hii progenitor* bad a title to them 

 within lixty yean before the meeting of that parliament This wa* 

 a very valuable modification of the old law maxim, ' Nulluui tempus 

 oecnrrit regi.' By another of theie act* (the statute 21 Jac. L, c. 3), 

 entitled 'An Act coucerning Monopolies and Dispensations with 

 Prual Law*,' it wa* declared that all charters, licences, and letters 

 patent granted to any person by the crown to dispense with any law 

 or statute should be void, and that all licences and privilege* for the 

 sola buying, selling, or working of anything should be void, except 

 patent* for a term not exceeding fourteen yean to the author* of 

 new invention*, and a few other existing patents, which were npocially 

 enumerated. This abolition of the dispensing power, and of the 

 power of granting unlimited monopolies, both of which had hitherto 

 been considered to be vested in and had been extensively exercised 

 by the crown, was the extinction of two great practical evils. Black- 

 atone enumerates as the chief improvements made in the administra- 

 tion of private justice in this reign, the abolition of sanctuaries and 

 the extension of the bankrupt laws, the limitation of suits and actions, 

 and the regulating of informations upon penal statutes. To thii 

 short lint, it has been observed, may be added "the statutes for 

 extending the benefit of clergy to women in certain offences, the 

 restriction upon cost* in certain frivolous actions, and the salutary 

 asUt:inco afforded to inn- 1st rates in their defence to actions brought 

 against them for thing* done in the execution of their office." Note 

 by Mr. Justice Coleridge to Com. IV., 436. 



JAMKS II. of England and VII. of Scotland, was the second sur- 

 viving son of Charles I. by hU queen, Henrietta Maria of France, and 

 was born at St. James's on the 15th of October 1633. He was imme- 

 diately declared Duke of York, but not formally created to that dignity 

 till January 27th 1643. After the surrender of Oxford to Fairfax in 

 June 1646, the duke, with his younger brother Henry, afterwards 

 created Duke of Gloucester, and his sister Elizabeth, was committed 

 by the parliament to the care of the Earl of Northumberland, and he 

 continued in the custody of that nobleman till the 21st of April 1648, 

 when he made bis escape from St. James's Palace disguised in female 

 attire, and took refuge in Holland with his sister Mary, princes* of 

 Orange. Here he immediately joined a part of the English fleet which 

 bad revolted from the parliament, and was then lying at Helvoetsluys ; 

 but although at first received on board a* admiral, he soon after 

 resigned that post to his brother, the Prince of Wales, on the arrival 

 of the latter from Paris, and returned to the Hague. When Charles, 

 DOW styled king by his adherents, arrived at Jersey in September 

 1649, he was accompanied by the Duke of York, who remained with 

 him during bis stay of three or four months. He then returned to 

 the Continent, and resided for some time with his mother at Paris. 

 " Never little family," says Clarendon, who had an interview with him 

 at Breda in 1650, "was torn into so many pieces and factions. The 

 duke was very young, yet loved intrigues so well that ha was too 

 much inclined to hearken to any men who hod the confidence to make 

 bold propositions to him. The king had appointed him to remain 

 with the queen, and to obey her in all things, religion only excepted. 

 The Lord Byron was bin governor, ordained to be so by his father, and 

 very fit for that province, being a very fine gentleman, well bred both 

 in France and Italy, and perfectly versed in both language*, of great 

 courage and fidelity, and in all respects qualified for the trust ; but 

 hi* being absent in the king's service when the duke mode his escape 

 out of Kngland, and Sir John Berkley being then put about him, all 

 pains bad been taken to lessen hi* esteem of the Lord Byron ; and Sir 

 John Berkley, knowing that he could no longer remain governor when 

 the Lord Byron came thither, and hearing that he wag on bis journey, 

 infused into the duke's mind that it wa* a great lessening of hi* dignity 

 at that age (when he wa* not above fourteen years of age, and book- 

 ward enough for that age) to be under a governor ; and so, partly by 

 diseateeming the person, and partly by reproaching the office, he grew 

 lea* inclined to the person of that good lord than he should have 

 been." (' Life,' L 284, edition of 1827.) Shortly before hi* meeting 

 with Clarendon it had been reported that Cbarle*, then in Scotland, 

 wa* dead ; upon which the duke, looking upon himself a* almost 

 already king, had stt hi* mother'* authority at defiance, and left Paris 

 for Brunei*, with the view of taking counsel with the Duke of Lorraine 

 a* to what he ought to do. When the falsehood of the intelligence 

 about Charles was discovered, be and the advisers by whom he wo* 

 attended resolved upon going to the Hague ; " and when they had 

 wearied all people there," aays Clarendon, " they came to Breda, where 

 the chancellor had met them. The duke himself was so young that 

 he was rather delighted with the journey* he bad made than sensible 



that he bad not entered upon them with reason enough ; and Ouy kttd 

 furtitied Aim wilk a /rm rttolutim never to acknowledge ikat he kad 

 committed any error." (Ibid., p. 290.) In the end he found himself 

 obliged to return to his mother at Paris, and there he chiefly raided 

 till he attained hi* twentieth year, when he received a command in the 

 French army, and served for some time under Marshal Turenoe. The 

 peace concluded with Cromwell however in October 1655 compelled 

 him, with his elder brother, to quit France ; upon which, on tha invi- 

 tation of Don John of Austria, the governor of the Low Countries, ho 

 retired thither, and entered the Spanish service. Both he and hii 

 brother, the Duke of Gloucester, fought on the Spanish side at the 

 tiege of Dunkirk, which surrendered to the French in June 1658. 



At the Restoration (May 1600) the Duke of York returned to 

 England with the king, and wa* immediately made lord high-;. 

 and lord-warden of the Cinque Ports. The course of hU conduct f.>r 

 the next twenty-five years forma an important port of the public 

 history of hi* brother's reign, but only the leading incidents can be 

 shortly noticed here. In September 1660, he married Anne, the 

 eldest daughter of the Chancellor Hyde (afterward* Earl of Clarendon), 

 to whom it was affirmed that he had been married, or at least con- 

 tracted, at Breda about a year before. The lady was at any rate for 

 gone with child when the present marriage took place, and produced 

 a sou in about six weeks, a circumstance which makes her father's 

 professed ignorance and want of suspicion as to the whole affair the 

 more extraordinary. For some curious detail* touching hi* behaviour 

 when the matter was first communicated to htm by the king, his 

 'Life,' written by himself, may be consulted. It is asserted by 

 Burnet that the duke endeavoured to avoid the marriage, and that 

 " he thought to have shaken her from claiming it by great promises 

 and 08 great threatening* ; but she was a woman of great spirit, and 

 would have it known that she was so, let him use her afterwards aa 

 he pleased." This is altogether opposed to her father's account, 

 according to whom the duke petitioned the king to give his consent 

 to the marriage with a " passion which was expressed in a very 

 wonderful manner, and with many tears, protesting tuat if his majesty 

 would not give his consent he would immediately leave the king- 

 dom, and must epend his life in foreign parts." But the delay of the 

 step till so near the last moment doot not louk much like impatience 

 on the duke's side, and rather gives ground for suspecting that there 

 wo* some reluctance which it required great exertions to overcome. 



The Duke of York took an eager port in promoting the war with 

 Holland, which broke out in the close of 1664, and as lord-high- 

 aduiiral he assumed the command of the fleet which WHS fitted out, 

 and which put to sea even before any declaration of hostilities. The 

 motive that has been sometimes assigned for the conduct of both tha 

 brothers on this occasion is their wish to crush the Dutch as a 

 Protestant people, and to disable them from interfering to prevent 

 the re-establishment of popery in England. On the 3rd of June 1665, 

 the duke gained a great victory off Harwich over the Dutch fleet 

 commanded by Admiral Opdam, who was killed, and nineteen of 

 whose ships were taken or gunk, with the loss of only one on the 

 part of the English. The death of the Duchess of York took placo 

 in the thirty-fourth year of her age, on the 31st of March 1671, 

 hastened, aa is supposed, by the neglect, if not the positive ill-usage 

 of her husband, who, notwithstanding his professions of zeal for 

 religion, indulged himaelf in a large share of the reigning licentious- 

 ness, and kept a mistress almost from the date of his marriage. A 

 few months before her death the duchess hod signed a declaration of 

 her reconciliation to the ancient religion ; and immediately after that 

 event the duke also publicly avowed his conversion to popery, an act 

 which, although his concealed inclinations had been long suspected, 

 did not fail to create a great sensation, especially as, from his brother's 

 want of issue, he was now looked upon aa Charles's probable successor 

 on the throne. 



When war was anew declared against Holland, in March 1672, the 

 Duke of York again took the chief command at sea. The most 

 remarkable event of this contest wo* the action fought 28th of May 

 1672, in tiolebay, off the coast of Suffolk, between the combined 

 English and French fleets under the duke and Count D'Estrees, and 

 the Dutch fleet commanded by De Uuyter, who attacked the allies 

 with a very inferior force, and was not driven off till the engagement 

 had lasted the whole day, and the English fleet had been so shattered 

 as to bo disabled from pursuing him. The French are accused of 

 having token little part in the affair ; the object of their government, 

 it is conjectured, having been to allow the English and Dutch to 

 destroy each other. On the passing, iu the beginning of the following 

 year, of the Test Act, which required all officers, civil and military, 

 to receive the sacrament according to the usage of the Established 

 Church, the duke necessarily resigned both tho command of the fleet, 

 in which ho was succeeded by Prince Kupert, and the office of lord- 

 high-admiral, which however was assigned to a board of commis- 

 sioners consisting of his friends and dependants, so that he still 

 remained substantially at the head of the naval affairs of the country. 

 On the 21st of November 1673, he married Mary Beatrix Eleanors, 

 daughter of Alphuuso IV., duke of Modcua, a lady then only in her 

 fifteenth year. Before concluding this union ho had paid his addrease* 

 to Susan, Lady Belosye, daughter of Sir William Armiue, Bart, and 

 widow of Sir William Belasye, the *ou of Lord Belaiye; but that 



