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- [00:01]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Want to walk the halls of Anne Boleyn's childhood home? Or explore the castles that made up Henry VIII's English stronghold? With a subscription to History Hit, you can dive into our Tudor past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.
- [00:35]
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- [01:17]
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- [02:31]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
Help is always ready before, during and after your stay. We've planned for the plot twists, so support is always available because a great trip starts with peace of mind.
- [02:49]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb, and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but Most definitely. Also the Tudors. All this month on Not Just the Tudors, we are delving into the stories of the monarchs of the Restoration. The kings and queens who followed Charles II after he returned from exile to reclaim the throne in 1660 and transform a war weary Puritan nation into a vibrant world of theatre, science, politics and pleasure. So far, we've looked at why Oliver Cromwell's republic failed and the life and times of the merry monarch himself. Do go back and listen to those episodes if you haven't done so already. Today, we turn our attention to the brief reign of Charles II's brother, James II. When we hear about James ii, it's often accompanied by a tone of inevitability. The king who lost his throne, the Catholic who didn't fit, the ruler swept aside by the Glorious Revolution. But what of James's story is far more gripping and far more human than that familiar ending suggests. James was shaped by war, exile and lost long before he ever wore the crown. As a child of the Stuart dynasty, he witnessed civil war tear Britain and Ireland apart, saw his father executed and spent years moving between foreign courts as a royal refugee. Those early experiences left deep marks, helping to forge a man who believed fiercely in kingship, loyalty and divine right, and who struggled to adapt to a political world that was changing faster than he could. Today's guest, Dr. Breeze Barrington, joins us to explore James II through fresh eyes. We've spoken to Breeze before about Maria of Moderna, the Catholic princess sent from Italy to marry James II and reunite England with Rome. And that episode is, of course, well worth revisiting. But today we'll follow James from Traumatire's royal child to hardened soldier, from restoration prince navigating factional politics to a king whose Catholic faith made him the focus of profound national fear. We'll look at the choices that defined his reign. The brutal response to rebellion, the refusal to compromise with Parliament, and the miscalculations that led to his dramatic fall. And we won't stop there. James story doesn't end in 1688. His attempts to reclaim his throne in Ireland, his final exile in France, and his intense turn to religious devotion. And reveal a tragic figure. Principled, stubborn and ultimately out of step with his times. This is a story of a man who didn't just lose a crown, but helped reshape the monarchy forever. I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and this is not just the Tudors from history hit. Dr. Breeze Barrington, what a joy to speak to you again and on such a thorny topic.
- [06:14]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
Yes, absolutely. I Think that what you were saying just then about James really sums him up so well. I mean, out of step with his times is one of the main things I always think when I think about him and his whole approach to being a monarch. He simply didn't understand that he wasn't living in the world basically of a hundred years before, or living in France or in Spain where he'd been in exile. The monarchies he'd grown up with was not the monarchy he inherited.
- [06:40]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Out of step with his time and geography, by sounds of things.
- [06:43]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
Absolutely.
- [06:44]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So what was the legacy that he inherited when he came to the throne?
- [06:49]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
Quite a complicated one, I think. The Stuart dynasty had first come into power a bit more than 80 years before he became king with James I and VI of Scotland. And that sort of initial transference of power from tutor to steward was, was perhaps a bit more straightforward in the moment than might have been expected. And James came along as an established king of Scotland. He knew how to be king. He had two sons, an heir and a spare. This is a very good thing, marriageable daughter. There are these things that he brings to England which are very much in his favor. And of course he's a Protestant. But this Stuart dynasty was far from plain sailing. Once James I dies, his son Charles I becomes king. Charles had been that second son, his elder brother, who had much promise, had died young. So Charles is this sort of unexpected king and by the end of his reign, the country has been embroiled in the civil war. He's had a public trial and execution and there has then been a 10 year protectorate under Oliver Cromwell before Charles II comes to regain the throne in 1660. Although this is an established Stuart dynasty, it is not straightforward at all. And when James II came to be crowned in 1685, it was with this very peculiar legacy. In some ways, I think you could argue it's one of the most difficult legacies that a king could come up with as being part of an established dynasty, but not one that's been at all secure. It's not, say when Henry VII became king. That's quite an intense start to a reign, but he a new dynasty and that has its own challenges. James is this borderline, he's an established royal, but he's come from this very difficult, tense, uncertain background, if you like. And the country as a whole was extremely divided.
- [08:42]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So what were those problems?
- [08:44]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
I think there were lots of policy problems, lots of religious problems which had not been worked through fully. When he's crowned king, he's a Catholic in a Protestant country, which is very intolerant of Catholicism. There are lots of different factions of Protestantism around. There are divisions between sort of Parliament, that Parliament has turned into these two parties of the Whigs and the Tories. You have a very divided country in lots of different ways. So as well as the sort of longer term legacy that he's dealing with, this is a sort of boiling pot, if you like, of all of the things that have been built up over the last century that he's then being faced with.
- [09:22]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
I'm very much a child of the therapeutic era and believe in formative experiences shaping who we are as adults. And I was alluding to that earlier. How important do you think James's early experiences were in creating the type of ruler that he came to be?
- [09:38]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
Extremely. In one word, that's the sort of. The simple answer. The important thing to remember is that James grew up at a time of great political turbulence, and he grew up essentially in different kinds of exile. So when he was born in 1633, his life was fairly straightforward. He's the second son. Charles I and Henrietta Maria were considered to be much closer to their children than previous monarchs might have been. He grows up in quite a strong family environment and quite a happy environment. But by the time he's nine years old, the Civil War had started and it would continue on throughout the 1640s. When it first started, James was actually captured and he was taken prisoner for a little while before being released. And after that he lived for a few years in Oxford Colleges. Oxford was considered to be was a royalist stronghold, so that sort of became the centre of power once London had fallen to the parliamentarians. But during these years that he's at Oxford, his father and elder brother Charles are off fighting for the Crown. They're on battlefields. And James even was at some of these battles himself. He was at the Battle of Edgehill, for example, and then he was captured again. He was taken prisoner again. He was prisoner at St James Palace. He was with his siblings then, and he was able to see his father occasionally, his father, who was also captured and under a kind of arrest. And James then escaped in 1648. He was able to escape to the Continent to his sister Mary, who was married to William of Orange. So these are very turbulent years and they're years of great uncertainty. And then he spends the next 12 years of his life in exile in France, in the Spanish Netherlands, until the rest of Restoration comes in 1660. And all that time that he's in exile, he's living a sort of life, of poverty. I mean, he's this Prince of England, but there's no crown for him and his brother, and he's really maintaining himself by fighting in the armies of France and Spain.
- [11:33]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So this isn't the life he expected to have, and it's not the world that he was born into.
- [11:38]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
Absolutely. Between the ages of 9 and 27, his life was one of extraordinary upheaval and real instability. And of course, what we have to remember is during this time as well, his father has been publicly tried and executed. This is a blow on every front. It's this much loved father. It is the sort of symbol of what they stand for and it's a lot of their sort of hopes for the future. So when he returned in 1660, this is his background, and I think all of this had a huge effect on him. What he seems to have taken home from these experiences completely shaped his personality, and they probably didn't stand him in very good stead for when he was Duke of York and then King of England. In some ways, I think you could argue that either he learned all the wrong lessons from it, or else his sort of general personality meant that he wasn't able to apply the lessons very well.
- [12:32]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Why so.
- [12:33]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
So he'd fundamentally believed that his father had been executed and tried and had been in this position because he hadn't stood up properly to Parliament. So when he comes to be king, he thinks, okay, I need to just stand up to everyone and basically always show who's boss, because if my father had shown who was boss, he wouldn't have been executed and none of this would have happened. So that's the first thing he learns. The second thing he learns is that all of Parliament are Republicans, and he thinks anyone who disagrees with him is absolutely against him. So everything's very black and white for James. And I think that's formed at this time. I think that's formed in these early years of insecurity, that there's right and there's wrong and there's good and there's bad and there is no grey area.
- [13:17]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So it's almost like he learned the wrong lesson from his father.
- [13:21]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
I think he learns completely the wrong lessons. I think that had he taken the approach of, okay, I need to be stronger, okay, I need to be sceptical of how people are approaching my rule, had he taken the nuance of those lessons, then I think he could have adapted that quite well. But he's a person who lacks nuance almost entirely. He's a one thing or Another kind of person. So, yes, I think he learns the wrong lessons or. Or at least completely misapplies the lessons that he learns.
- [13:47]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And the other thing I suppose we should think about in terms of context is the fact that in his reign we have religious crises and chaos pretty much engulf his reign. But the origins of these crises and this chaos goes some way back. How far back do you think we should trace them?
- [14:05]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
I mean, I would argue you can trace it all the way back to the Reformation, the Reformation under Henry viii. If we think about that break with Rome as the beginning of the serious Catholic Protestant div in England, that's clearly an important one for James in terms of the religious chaos which engulfs his reign and the way that in subsequent generations that split, for good reasons, was not completely coped with. The different factions that existed within England and within different power bases of England were definitely not coped with. You can look back to sort of Elizabeth I, you can look back to Charles I, you can look back to Cromwell's Protectorate, and you can definitely think of Charles II as this. Different points where this has been worked out, but never fully resolved, never fully dealt with. So these are all things which he's then faced with himself. The other thing I think, which really can be traced back to the Reformation, is the rise of the House of Commons. This is arguably not a problem overall, but it's certainly a problem for James, because James II is not the kind of king who wants to share his power fully. He's not against having a parliament, but he doesn't want all of those checks and balances. He doesn't want to see himself as what his wife, Maria Beatrice Lucio would call an hor della Carta, a paper king. He wants to be able to do the things that matter to him. He wants to be able to put through the laws he wants to put through without too much problem from Parliament, and he doesn't want to ask them for money. There are all these sort of things that he doesn't like, and I think we can trace that back to the Reformation as well.
- [15:34]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And of course, the Reformation raised so many questions about who people owe their allegiance to, who really holds power, to whom authority is due, are these things that are constantly under debate after that point.
- [15:48]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
So these are things which are constantly under debate during the reign of Charles ii. We see them really playing out in that short reign of James ii around the King is the head of the Church, the king who sits on the throne, who are people having to pledge their main allegiance to, is It. God, is it to the king? Is it to the state? There are so many these sort of different power bases that make this very complicated. And James is very much part of those discussions under Charles ii throughout the 1660s of what the Church of England should be, of how power is going to operate, of who we should or shouldn't have toleration. And this is a very complicated time. But, yes, I think we can trace it right back to that point in the 1500s.
- [16:27]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
One thing I suppose we should note about this period when he's in exile is that he becomes a disciplined soldier under French command. And this military experience probably was also very important in shaping his views on leadership, for example, and loyalty. What can you make of that?
- [16:48]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
I think that this was more than just a significant time in his life, but a significant set of experiences. As you say, he became a soldier. He fought initially in the French army and then in the Spanish army against the French. He has to be a soldier for hire during this time, this period of exile, where he has to live on the kindness of others, he has to live by his sword. He's very much for hire. He really enjoyed being in the military. It's worth saying here that actually, even as a child, his father was often telling him that if he had to apply himself to his books as much as he did to his gun, he was always really keen on war. He was always keen on playing war, he was always keen on hunting. He's a very physical, athletic man. Being in the military suited him very well and he admired the people he met there. So when he was in the French army and he served under Turenne, he thought Touraine was this absolutely incredible person, a wonderful, great leader, and he admired his presence of mind, his flexibility, his ability to make really good decisions under pressure. These are all things that James thought were absolutely marvellous and absolutely key in a leader, whether a military leader or a monarch. James himself, though, found all of these things quite hard to do. He wasn't of that temperament, so he's not necessarily able to apply that to his own life. But he's seeing this example and he's thinking, it's brilliant. And James as a soldier was really known for his bravery. He was someone who wouldn't give in. He was someone who would fight to the end with no sense of his own safety. And he was known to be fearless. This is a really big time for him in his life, so I think that shaped him enormously.
- [18:23]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And did the hierarchy of the army appeal to him?
- [18:25]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
Yes. So this is the Other thing that we see is James finding that system of everyone having a place and knowing their place and sticking to their place very comforting. And even though he's not top dog in this, he's happy not to be. He's happy to take orders from people who he admires and respects. So I think he also thinks this is how a monarchy should probably function, this is how a country should probably function, that everyone's got their stage, everyone's got their sort of tier and they stick to it and they know who they're getting their orders from. So I think that's another thing he takes away from this time in the army, and this is what he hopes to implement as king, but is clearly not how it's going to work. As king, he can't be the sort of the top dog in that same sense. The other way that the military had a huge sort of impact on him was actually when he returned to England, when he was only three years old, he'd actually been made Lord Admiral of the Fleet, Lord High Admiral of the Fleet. But when he came back from exile in the 1660, he could actually do something with this. He was an adult and he really worked hard at this role, and that also made him very happy. That was also somewhere where he felt he'd found his place. But this was something he had to give up in 1673 when Parliament brought in the Test Act. So the Test act was something which anybody who had a public role, whether it was in the military or in Parliament, they had to take this oath, essentially, which denied transubstantiation. You had to pledge an oath of allegiance to the English Church in 1673. This was no longer something that James II could do because he had converted to Catholicism. So he had to give up this role of Lord Admiral of the Fleet and with it, his kind of sense of purpose. So the army, which throughout his adult life had been this anchor, this route, this place where he understood how it all worked and it suited him. This was something he had to step back on. And this had a huge effect on him.
- [20:15]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Given the Test act, given it was possible to exclude him from military service because of his faith, how did Parliament fail to exclude him from the throne?
- [20:27]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
That's a very good question. They tried very hard and in all honesty, they very nearly succeeded. In some ways, it's more strange that they didn't succeed. The attempts by Parliament to exclude James from the throne really took place between 1679 and 1681. That's where the exclusion crisis, as it became known that's when this was really played out. And when it came to a head, it came to a head in part because of events leading up to it, which we now call the Popish Plot, which was a series of accusations made against Catholics in England. It was this made up plot, basically, that said that Catholics were organising to kill King Charles II to put James on the throne. A bit big Catholic insurgents, which had its sort of roots in the highest echelons of the court and of society. This was brought up by a man called Titus Oates and none of it was true, but it really took hold and James was actually sent into another exile during this time. And the court was really purged of Catholics at this time. It was a very tense moment. People were executed for their perceived role in this plot and it was an absolute frenzy at this time. So this is the context in which the exclusion crisis move forward. This made a lot of people hyper aware, if you like, that the only thing that stood between them and a Catholic monarch and a future Catholic dynasty was this King Charles ii. And he could die at any time, he wasn't old, but anything can happen, especially when apparently people are plotting to kill him. So there were members of Parliament which were really headed by a man called Anthony Ashley Cooper, who was the Earl of Shaftesbury. Cooper had been a turncoat during the war, so he'd initially supported the Royalists and he'd supported Parliament and he'd held high positions under Cromwell. He had then made overtures to the exiled Stuarts and he had been instrumental in the Restoration, so he was rewarded for that. But he's always a slightly slippery figure to the Stuarts at this time. And he was part of the emerging Whig faction at court and it was really the Whigs, who were mostly pro exclusion.
- [22:33]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And did the actual democratic process change the makeup of Parliament at this time?
- [22:38]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
So during these years of 79 to 81, there were actually three different general elections. And these elections bring through a lot more Whigs into positions of power, into Parliament. And so Parliament is full of exclusionists at this time. And so when this bill is first brought through, which is to exclude James from the line of succession, to essentially bypass him entirely. So to say that when Charles II died, the next monarch would be Mary, James's daughter, who was Protestant, who was married to William of Orange in Holland, that she would just automatically then become Queen. So this is the straightforward way of seeing what this Exclusion bill was doing. Of course, in practice, among the exclusionists, there were quite a lot of different factions, so some of the Whigs wanted Mary. Some of the Whigs wanted Charles just to divorce Catherine of Braganza, his wife, and to marry someone else and hopefully have sons. There were other ones who wanted to put his illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, on the throne. So, actually, in practice, it's a bit more complicated. But the bill is essentially brought forward to exclude James from the throne, and it passes with great numbers, and it's brought forward on three separate occasions every time it passes with serious numbers. And so Charles II basically has very little option. He does not want to exclude James from the throne. He knows James will not be a very good king because he knows his temperament. He says many times that he doesn't think that when he dies, James will be able to stay king in England for very long. He can see forward, he can see James being pushed out. But for Charles, that line of succession matters. The idea of being able to remove someone from it because they're a Catholic or for any other reason destroys the whole concept of hereditary monarchy. And that's something that he just can't do because he believes in the hereditary principle. So he's absolutely devoted to keeping that line of succession intact. And so he dissolves Parliament, he just chucks them all out and says, we're not talking about this anymore. And so Parliament can't pass this bill. And that's essentially what happens. That's essentially why they fail to exclude him, because Charles prevents them.
- [24:46]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
That's really interesting. So one thing I'd like to tease out a bit more, though, is what did people fear about having a Catholic monarch for Parliament?
- [24:56]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
I think the fear is around a loss of power and a loss of authority. So for people at this time in England, they believed Catholicism was bound up with an idea of an authoritarian rule which would hugely deplete the power of Parliament to be able to prevent the monarch doing anything they wanted. And more broadly, I think they fear persecution as well. There's a lot of propaganda that circulates at this time which paints Catholics in an incredibly brutal light. Lots and lots of packets of paying cards from this time had images of kind of anti Catholic propaganda on them. So you have images that show the Gunpowder Plot, you have images that show the Great Fire of London, which one of the conspiracy theories around that was that it had been started by Catholics. And you have images too, from the Spanish Armada. These are all things which are just part of everyday life. Just these images, people playing cards, and on those cards are just stoking up this anti Catholic hatred, this fear of what Catholics Might do. There's an underlying belief that this really very tiny percentage of the population, it's something like 4% of the population at this time are Catholic. But there's this sort of underlying belief that this population are constantly plotting, plotting to take over, and that they're plotting to slaughter Protestants in the street. They're being told that Catholicism equals bloodbath to some extent. So throughout James's life in England, this kind of hysteria is just bubbling away in the background, and sometimes it bubbles over and it's really frightening when it does. There's also, I think, a fear of England's connection to France and a kind of Catholicism which goes on in France. A lot of people in England at this time think that Louis XIV wants to make himself king of everything and that they'll become slaves to Fr. And this word slavery is bandied about a lot in relation to a Catholic rule at this time. And, of course, James and Charles II are both very closely allied to France, and that does absolutely nothing to quell these fears. So I think there are several things that people are fearing, but it's mainly around a kind of fear of an authoritarian regime, the kind of absolutism that they thought was in the past, and a sense that they're going to have something pushed onto them. I mean, at a sort of, perhaps a more reasonable level. People also just don't really want to change their religion, and there is going to be this question of conscience and of sin and of hell and of being forced to do something that's against their own code, I would say.
- [27:23]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So, despite Parliament's objections, Charles steps in and James comes to the throne. What is the first challenge he faces?
- [27:31]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
The big challenge straight away is the Monmouth Rebellion. It's worth saying that when James came to the throne, despite the fact that as Duke of York, he'd had a lot of trouble, he'd had the Popish bull, he'd had the exclusion crisis, he'd lived in exile. There had been a lot of negative things surrounding his person and surrounding his belief system. But when he became king in 1685, he was unexpectedly popular and unexpectedly welcomed. And I think in part it's because he spoke very well. When he first called Parliament, he basically made a promise that he wasn't going to change anything. He promised not to interfere in the Church, he promised not to do anything differently to what Charles had been doing. There are lots of good things that he said, and Parliament feel quite happy about this. He also doesn't do what they expect, and I think they Expected him to oust a lot of people who had been close to Charles or who'd stood against him, which he didn't. Lots of people who were. Who were really gunning for him in the exclusion crisis. They keep their positions and some people are even promoted. So he has a really forgive and forget, let's draw a blank on the past, let's move forward in the future together approach initially, and I think everyone is hugely relieved by this, and Parliament settle on him a really large income, a much bigger one than they'd given to Charles II on his arrival, and they also grant it to him for life. So this isn't subject to change, which is also new for Charles. Charles often had to renegotiate his finances with Parliament. James is told he's never going to have to do that. So this is a really good start. In part, they probably do that maybe as a slight bargaining chip. They're probably thinking, let's try and keep him sweet. He said nice things, let's do a nice thing, maybe we can all get along. It's very optimistic, if you like. So this is the very beginning. Then comes the Monmouth rebellion. So the Duke of Monmouth, James Scott, is the eldest illegitimate child of Charles ii. As I said before, in the exclusion crisis, there were people who wanted him to become king. Next. Then he was a very popular person. He's very handsome, he's very charming, he's good fun, he's got a lot of energy. He's, on the face of it, he's a great sort of Stuart prince, if you like.
- [29:46]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And where is Monmouth all this time?
- [29:48]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
At this time, he's living in exile in Holland. He had been involved in various plots to overthrow even Charles, but certainly to try and put himself into that line of succession. So he had been living in exile with Mary and William in Holland at this time, overtures are made to him by some people who don't particularly want James to become king. And he says very much against his will. I mean, that could be up for grabs, I think. He invades England with an army and he declares himself king and he says he's there to take over. This is the big moment for James. This is the point at which people could definitely rise up for Monmouth. People love Monmouth. And as we said before, James accession to the throne was by no means guaranteed to be a great success. But the people don't come out for him, or at least the nobles don't come out from on mirth. I think a lot of the people did, but there's not very Much you can do with people who are not armed, people who are literally coming out of their villages with pitchforks, is not going to win a battle against the very skilled, very capable royal army, which is led by people like John Churchill, the fugitive, the Duke of Marlborough, who was a great military hero, great military strategist. The common people, if you like, are not going to beat that. And because the nobles decide to back James instead, they don't bring their private armies to fight against him. People don't want another civil war. People think, James seems to be fine, actually. Let's just see what happens here. And so Monmouth is defeated. So this is the big point at which I think James thinks he's secure, is when the people come out for him, if you like, when he is backed, he thinks, okay, this is it. I've got the throne here. And does that cement his reputation? I think what happens after the Monmouth Rebellion is probably his first big mistake. He's had this good victory. He's defeated the handsome, charming, lovely, young, almost prince. And then rather than just say, thank you, everyone, for coming out for me, we'll probably have to execute the Duke of Monmouth, but as long as you pledge your allegiance to me, we'll all get along again. Instead of doing that, he goes, the west country is where Monmouth had come, where the battles had taken place. He basically goes there and has all of the rebels rounded up, arrested, and what follows became known as the bloody assizers. So this is led by a man called Judge Jeffreys, who was. I mean, to say that he was a brute of a man is to massively understate what went on. So Some sort of 1500 people, I think it is, around it up and put on trial. And these are people who fought, certainly. These are also people who were just considered accessories. So people who maybe hid people in their homes or something like that, people who were just there and involved. There's no distinction made between people who fought and people who hid or anything like that. Just everyone is a rebel, Everyone has done the bad thing.
- [32:35]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So what happened to them?
- [32:37]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
So of those people, the majority were found guilty. Around 300 or so were executed as traitors, which means they were hung, drawn and quartered. A smaller percentage were beheaded, and basically the rest were transported to the West Indies. And really, that is a terrible punishment. Most people would have died before they arrived if they didn't. They were basically worked to the death. So this is a brutal response to what happened. And I think this is a mistake because people are quite shocked, I think, by the Lack of mercy. And it really shows James's colours how unambiguously he'll punish people who go against him. It will really show how much he'll punish people who disagree with him. It really shows how authoritarian he wants to be. He's trying to rule with fear rather than with love, in a sense, but you need to have a lot more power to rule with fear than he has. And so this is a massive mistake on his part to really show his cards like that so early on.
- [33:42]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Is it the reason why seven English nobles invite William of Orange to invade England?
- [33:49]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
I would say no. Even after this, he could have come back. It shows his colours, but it's not the end of things for him. Things go downhill from there. James, throughout his reign, I think, really tries to do things that he shouldn't do, and he tries to do them in ways he shouldn't do them. So this initial promise he'd made of maintaining the status quo does not last for very long, because remember what happened with Monmouth was still within the law. He's allowed to do that. These are people who've rebelled against him. He's allowed to punish them, he's allowed to call that treason. Where he really oversteps is where he stretches, if you like, the royal prerogative beyond what is allowed. So he starts to try to do things without Parliament. What he really wants is for Parliament to repeal the Test Act. So what he wants is for Parliament Catholics to be able to hold office, and not just Catholics. He extends this to all dissenters. He wants everybody to be able to worship freely. He wants everybody to be able to hold positions of power, regardless of their religion. So he's really calling for tolerance. These are things which have come up under Charles II's reign too, but were mostly rejected.
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- [36:50]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
El Programa Nacional de Becas Hacer the McDonald's a beneficiado mas de miles. Esta esma Historia de generaciones.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And McDonald's Punta com yagonal a ser.
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Dr. Breeze Barrington
Land, a Viking longship on island shores.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
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- [38:15]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So when Parliament refuses to do this, what other ways does he try to push his power?
- [38:21]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
So one of the things he does was he tries to rig elections, if you like. There's a royal prerogative which allows the king to veto parliamentary candidates. So essentially, it means that he can populate the government with his people. He does that a lot more than he probably should. So he ends up with quite a loyal parliament. But they're still not wanting to repeal the Test Act. So instead, he issues this thing called the Declaration of Independence. And this is not constitutional, this is not legally binding, but he issues it. He issues it in 1687. Initially, the Declaration of Indulgence basically says that Catholics and dissenters and people of any religion really can hold any office they want. They don't have to take this oath. And at the time, people are thinking, this isn't really okay. People don't really want to do all that much about it. It doesn't seem that big a deal. Fast forward to 1688. His wife, Maria Beatrice, is about to give birth. She's heavily pregnant. And suddenly we have the sense that there might be a Catholic heir, there might be a future to this Catholic dynasty. It's no longer James and then his Protestant daughter Mary. And so when, in April 1688, he decides to reissue this Declaration of Independence, and he tells the clergy to read it in their pulpits, in their churches on Sunday, this takes on quite a different meaning. This is a very different political landscape than the year before. Lots of the clergy refuse. And what happens really, is that the seven bishops write to James and they say very politely, very reasonably, we don't really think this is legal. We don't really think we can do this. This hasn't been sanctioned by Parliament. This is not the process, and we don't feel comfortable doing it. And they try to open negotiations. James says, this is absolutely treasonous. He wants Parliament to have them all arrested. Parliament says no, it's not really very constitutional. He dissolves Parliament. He has these bishops rounded up, he has them sent to the Tower of London.
- [40:21]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And this is another enormous mistake.
- [40:23]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
Absolutely. And as these bishops are being shipped down the Thames on their barges to the Tower, people come out, they're lining the banks, they're asking the bishops for blessings, they're crying, they're lamenting, they're thinking, this is the most. How can this be happening? So this is a real proper turning point. Maria Beatrice gives birth to a healthy baby boy on June 10, while these bishops are in prison. But what James does after the baby's born is he thinks, okay, great, we've got a son. Now this is a cemented position. Let's bring this trial forward. And he hopes that these bishops will be found guilty and he'll prove his point, and everything will be plain sailing from then. The bishops are very quickly found innocent and they're released. And there's great public rejoicing. And there are bonfires everywhere. There are celebrations everywhere. On the bonfires, they're even burning effigies of this new Prince of Wales. They are not on James's side at this point. James has massively overplayed his hand. And I think what you really see here is the limits of his power, that he has this sense that he can do what he likes. And because he's king, people must be loyal, people must follow. And he's wrong. He has no authority to do these things. And if he's not going to work with Parliament, then he's against Parliament and he sees it as the other way around. He thinks if Parliament don't work with him, they're against him. But the power balance at this time is actually not really in his favour. The problem for him as well is that this baby that's been born is shrouded in scandal, in rumor, and people are saying, people have been saying throughout the pregnancy that it's not a real Stuart child. They're saying she wasn't really pregnant, or they're saying mostly that the baby which they're calling the Prince of Wales was not born of the Queen, whether she was never pregnant or whether she's had a girl is up for grabs. But they're all saying that this baby was smuggled in to the birthing chamber in a warming pan and so it is not a legitimate heir. These are the things which come together, which allow or push these seven nobles to invite William of Orange over to invade. The catalyst is that birth of the baby, which they can say, look, they're trying to push a Stuart Catholic dynasty, Look, they're hoodwinking us. This is scandalous, this is untrue. You've got to come and save us, you've got to come and protect our liberties. That's the catalyst. But there's been all of this build up before that. The trial of the bishops is sort of the last example, if you like, of several of these kinds of things that James has been doing over the last three years.
- [42:52]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So do you think it would be fair to say that James bears responsibility for the so called glorious revolution taking place?
- [43:02]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
If we think of the literal moment of the invasion and the fact that he wasn't able to win those initial opportunities of battle, then I think that's probably not his fault in some ways. When William landed in 1688, on 5 November, as a particular day, to stoke up extra kind of Catholic hatred, I think James was very unprepared and people blamed him for that. But James never quite believed that his son in law and nephew, which is what William of Orange was, would actually do that to him. So even though he did have intelligence that said that William was preparing for something, he didn't believe it was going to be aimed at him. I think right up until that last moment, he didn't quite think that William was setting sail to depose him. I think he was very naive in that, but I think that's what he believed. I think he also believed, once he realised that William probably was building this army for something. He also thought it's not really in the campaigning season, winter's approaching, he's probably not going to set sail now, the weather's against him. These kinds of things, they're all actually fairly reasonable things to have believed. So I think that being unprepared in the moment is not his fault. And the fact that when his army and William's armies were poised to meet, he started having these sort of epic nosebleeds. He wasn't able to go and see his troops, people couldn't see the King that they were meant to be fighting for. That's also not quite his fault. The fact that lots of his important generals were deserting people like John Churchill, who he'd really raised through the ranks, who he was very close to, people like his illegitimate nephew, his son in law by George of Denmark, who was Princess Anne's husband. These people very close to him desert him on the battlefield. That probably is going to be his fault because there are going to be things that he's done up to that point. These are people who ought to have been loyal and who were quite loyal, people who couldn't quite countenance what he'd been doing. And certainly these sort of the things I've been talking about, this overstretching of the royal prerogative, this inability to even try to work with Parliament, to always listen to the advice of flatterers, people who were just using him for position, he was just the worst judge of character. He couldn't take advice that didn't agree with him. These things are his responsibility, these things are his fault. That being said, if Maria Beatrice had never had a son, if she just hadn't got pregnant, hadn't given birth, if it had been a girl, I'm not convinced that the Glorious Revolution would have happened. People were willing to put up with an awful lot while there was still the possibility of a Protestant. And really what things like the Trot of the Seven Bishops shows is that he couldn't really do that much. I mean, perhaps in the future he would have found other ways. It's difficult to do that sort of what if scenario. But what's clear is that baby is that catalyst. That baby is the thing that everyone can get behind and say, okay, that's it, enough is enough. I don't know. It's a complicated question with quite a complicated answer. But my sense is yes and no, if that helps.
- [46:03]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
It's really interesting. What if. So once ousted, how did he act? How did he try to regain the throne.
- [46:11]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
So once ousted, he goes into exile in France. We're really seeing this reversal of his fortunes. Just as he'd ended up in France as an exile during the 1650s, he's approaching exile in France again as the 1690s draws on. So, initially, what he does, he's very shocked by what's happened. This entire time, he has believed that God was on his side, that he was acting in God's will, that God wanted him to do these things. And he's just been invaded and he's just had to go into exile. This doesn't make sense to him. So he's very shocked and he turns up in France this. This completely disconsolate king without a crown again. So it's very much in Louis interest to get James back on the throne, because one of the reasons that William has invaded, really, is that he's not so interested in being King of England, in a way, he's not being King of Holland, he doesn't really care about that sort of power. What he wants really is England's military. He wants their navy, he wants it in his battles with France, he wants to beat France, he's been at war with France for a long time and he wants to win. So it's very much in Louis's interest to get James back on the throne, because Louis doesn't want to be fighting both the English and the Dutch fleets. That's not in his interest at all.
- [47:27]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So what does Louis do?
- [47:29]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
So he agrees to give James some money and an army, essentially to try to get the throne back. And the intelligence he receives is that the best way of doing this is for James to go to Ireland. So James has only been ousted from England, Remember, he's still notionally King of Scotland and of Ireland. Scotland very quickly stand up for William. They are very happy to be ruled by William and not by James. So that's out. They have this intelligence that in Ireland he can go and land. And the person who's governing Ireland at this time is a man called Lord Tyrconnel, who is an Old English Catholic. And in Ireland, unlike the other parts of James's kingdom, Catholics are in a majority in Ireland. So there's a kind of sense here that maybe James will be better received. And essentially that's true. But what happens when he gets there is he finds that the information they've had is wrong, that although people will fight, there's not really a kind of a well organised army, they don't really have proper arms. There isn't this ability to actually get a battle going, certainly not one that's going to rival what they have in England. So that's the first kind of problem is he's got to try and get this army together and clobber this army together and incorporate these French army that's gone with him. So that in itself is quite a big problem. Another problem is that Lord Tyrconnell has quite different ideas to James. James wants his crown back. James doesn't care very much about Ireland. James wants to get back to England. James wants England back. Tyrconnell wants Ireland to be in a position where if James gets back, great and if he doesn't, they can actually just split off from England altogether and maybe align themselves with France or something like that. He wants the position of Catholics in Ireland, especially English Catholics in Ireland, to be very strong and completely basically unbreakable, no matter what happens. So we're already having this kind of split between what people want from this battle in the first place. Added to that, the Protestants in Ulster do not want them to be able to pass through, which they're going to need to do if they're going to wage any sort of war for Scotland or England. So they become embroiled in this uprising and in fighting that. When William's army lands in sort of 1690 and we see the Battle of the Boyne, very famous battle, and James is completely outmaneuvered, completely out armied and he completely loses that. That isn't the last time they fight, but that really is that moment where had that gone in James favor. He could have got back, but it completely didn't. That was really his big opportunity, I would say, because remember we talk about the Glorious Revolution now, I think, as though it's some sort of foregone conclusion, as though it's inevitable, as though, of course then William landed, William and Mary become King. We have the Constitution is put in place, we have all of these reforms. Bank of England, dog dumb. It's not like that at all. In the moment, in the moment anything could still happen in the moment. James could go back to being King. James even expects that he might be invited back to be King and certainly parliament aren't 100% happy. In those early days with William there are cracks, there are opportunities if James could capitalise on them, but he just never can. So the opportunities just ebb away, essentially.
- [50:43]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So it's the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 which you think is the turning point. That's the point of no return, I.
- [50:51]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
Think so I think so. I think that had he been able to really rally the troops in Ireland and had that been an order organized operation with everyone on the same side and with a really well organized army, I think, and he'd been able to win that, then I think that he would have stood a decent chance of coming back. I think when he goes back to France, having failed, that it isn't just that Louis is a bit less keen to give more troops. He's got other wars to be fighting and he will help, but only up to a point. James also just loses entire faith in the whole thing. He really believes God is punishing him. He gets to this point where he thinks, of course, I was so sinful in my youth. I had all these mistresses all the time. He's definitely punishing me. And he becomes obsessed with penance. He is more than just a hair shirt. I mean, he wears studded chains around his legs, piercing his skin. He goes into a hardcore sort of penance in which. And he blames himself for everything in this sort of belief that God has deserted him and that actually he just needs to pay penance back to God. He even entertains this idea of not leaving money for prayers after his death, which would mean that his stay in purgatory would be infinite. He has a sense that he needs to atone, like he needs to be punished. So I think also the fight's gone out of him. And I think that where his wife, for example, Miri Beatrice, where she is still trying to remind him about his son's birthright and things like that, there is still a sense of obligation. I think for him the fight's kind of gone after that.
- [52:31]
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- [54:35]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Some admire James for his convictions, even though politically they made him very inflexible. Do you think that's a fair assessment? How, in the end do you think we should characterize him?
- [54:48]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
I think it's difficult to say in some ways. I think that lots of his personality traits are very admirable. I think he shows himself at various points in his life to be exceptionally loyal, for example, and even to people who in the past, I'm thinking particularly somebody like the Earl of Clarendon, who was his father in law, who he wasn't always on good terms with, but who was family and who, when he was being ousted, James really stuck to. He has a certain code and certain kinds of loyalty are a big part of that. And I think that's admirable. I think that there are other qualities which in different circumstances would have made us say that he was quite a good king. I think although he was inflexible, he was also very certain. I think that had he been in agreement with Parliament, if he hadn't been a Catholic, if he had wanted the same kinds of rule as Parliament had wanted, then we would say that he was strong. The word changes depending on the circumstance, doesn't it, that we use for him. And I think that if you compare him to other monarchs, lots of the things he did weren't really so different. I mean, things like wanting to repeal the Test Act. Charles II tried to repeal the Test act too, in 1672. It's just that he realized he couldn't. The lots of things he's trying to do with things that monarchs have tried to do before. I think it's just the context is so different. I think James also creates a lot of questions for us around what makes a good or a bad monarch? Is a reign a success when it lasts a long time or when it's passed on to a legitimate, probably at this time, male heir. Is it about surviving, if you like people like Charles ii, Elizabeth I, you know, these are monarchs who really survived and in ways which you think are unusual, maybe considering different circumstances. Is that the sign of a good monarch? Is it about how they rule the country? Is it about how the country's left in terms of what the normal people, if you like, have experienced under them? I think that James throws all of these things up in terms of what we taught them. You mean that someone was good at it? I also think the successful monarchs, if you look back, tend to work more with Parliament, and to have to dissolve Parliament and to rule without them is usually a sign of some sort of weakness or some sort of failure. And if you look back at monarchs like Charles I, you can see roots of that. So I think you can see his inflexibility in these circumstances as being negative. What James really didn't believe in was compromise. And again, I think that could have been seen as a positive trait if he had been on the other side, but in his case, it's a negative trait. So it's all really about context, I would say. It's also, again, if he had been king at the time where Henry VIII was king again, it would have come across differently. If he had been a king in France instead of Louis xiv, it would have come across differently. I think it's all to do with context.
- [57:31]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Yes. It's so interesting. We're back to where we started, about him being out of time, although along the way you've taught us that he was out of time in part because he wanted something that was of the future, which was tolerance.
- [57:43]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
Yeah, I certainly. I really think so. And I think what's so interesting is he's really. He must have gone down in history as one of the worst kings. But for modern sort of sensibility, if you like, what is he asking for? He's asking for everybody to be able to worship how they think fit. And I think there are a lot of people who think he probably would have pushed further had he been king for longer. I'm not convinced he would. What he really believed was that if people were just exposed more to Catholicism, they would see that it was the right thing. He was never very interested in forming forced conversions. He thought people would come to it by themselves. And I don't think that on the whole, although I think I probably have painted him as somebody who did like to push his will, and I'm sure he did. I think in terms of conscience, I don't think he was so like that. I think he just genuinely believed it was the obvious thing and it was what people would want to do. So I think actually this sense of give everyone the opportunity and they'll find their own way is actually not an unpalatable one on the whole. And yes, perhaps he was in some ways too ahead of his time in that sense.
- [58:48]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Well, this has been a remarkable episode because you've really humanised this man. You've made us aware both of how difficult he was and the desperately bad decisions that were made during his reign. But also, in the end, we've come to pity him a little, at least. I have this great sense of shame that he had and the penance that he was facing towards the end of his life. So, Dr. Breeze Barrington, thank you so much for taking us through and helping us understand someone who is often just reduced to a caricature and just a reminder to go back and have a listen to the prelude to this series on the Restoration, on why Oliver Cromwell's republic failed, and to my in depth exploration of the life and reign of James II's brother, Charles II. Next time I'll be taking a deeper look into the reign of James II's daughter, England's first official joint sovereign, who ruled alongside her husband, William of Orange, at a moment when monarchy itself was being fundamentally rewritten. She's long been treated as the quieter half of a famous partnership, eclipsed by William's wars and diplomacy. But as we shall see, Mary emerges as politically alert, deeply religious, culturally influential, and far more active in shaping the new constitution constitutional monarchy than we might have previously assumed. Thanks for listening to Not Just the Tudors and to my producer, Rob Weinberg. And do join me, Professor Susannah Lipscomb next time for another episode of Not Just the Tudors From History Hit.
- [60:23]
Dr. Breeze Barrington
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