None of England’s achievements in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – none of the great literature, naval triumphs, or voyages of exploration – could compensate for the twin crimes of the dissolution of the monasteries and the execution of Charles I. King James II (1685-1701) made it his mission to resist and reverse this anti-Christian dynamic. He was born in 1633, Charles’s second surviving son, and his early years were marked by confinement, civil war (1642-1649), and exile (1649-1660). While abroad, he fought for the kings of France and Spain, and was deeply struck by the culture and spirituality of Catholic Europe. He returned to England at the Restoration in 1660 when his brother became Charles II. James then distinguished himself in the Royal Navy as Lord High Admiral, modernising the fleet and playing a key role in the taking of New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664.
James converted to Catholicism along with his wife, Anne Hyde, in 1670. This was controversial because as Charles was childless, James stood next in line for the throne. The commercial élite, whose power had grown immensely since the Civil War, were rattled by this as a Catholic king would surely restore the old conception of society as an organic, unified body, with all the mutual rights and responsibilities that came with that. The Protestant individualism which, when applied to economics, had made the acquisition of personal wealth so much easier than it had been in the Middle Ages, would no longer apply.
James greatly appreciated the sacrifice his father – the Royal Martyr – had made to save the English Church from Puritan fanatics and keep it at least somewhat Catholic in style. He had no intention of abolishing what was now the established religion and re-imposing Catholicism. But he did want Catholic worship to be tolerated again and he felt that it was the King’s right, as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, to order such a liberation if he wished.
He also wanted to ensure that the best men available were employed in the most important state positions. Barring good people from high office due to religion could never be in the nation’s best interests. The Test Acts of 1673 had made it illegal for Catholics to hold any kind of public role and James himself, despite his success and ability, had been stripped of his Admiralship. The oligarchs then sought to divest him of his royal titles and bar him from the succession, but King Charles craftily dissolved Parliament before legislation could be passed.
So when Charles died in 1685, James legally succeeded him and there was nothing the financiers could do. The Duke of Monmouth launched a rebellion straightaway, but James put it down with ease and at the age of fifty-two seemed set for a long and illustrious reign.
James oversaw a renaissance of Catholic life, with England once again connected to the mainstream of European thought and culture as in the days of Richard II and the Wilton Diptych. In 1686 he made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Winifrede’s Well in North Wales with his second wife, Mary of Modena. He prayed there for a son and heir, and two years later his prayer was granted with the birth of James Francis Edward. This was the last straw for James’s enemies and the moment they turned to open treason. Seven treacherous nobles contacted the Dutch Protestant prince, William of Orange, and invited him to seize the throne. James’s mainly Protestant army abandoned him, and the Divinely-appointed King of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland was forced into exile at the court of the French king.
The Irish, however, still regarded James as their king, so he gathered his forces and landed in Kinsale in 1689 with the hope of winning back his kingdoms. But he was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne the following year and returned to Paris with no hope of regaining the crown that rightfully belonged to him and to his descendants. An act of grand larceny had taken place, but the shameless traitors celebrated and called it the ‘Glorious Revolution’, guaranteeing their own damnation and a frightful future Day of Judgment for their country.
James, meanwhile, made no further attempts to regain the throne. He devoted himself – like King David of old – to a life of prayer, contemplation, and deep, sorrowful repentance, for he had taken many mistresses while his first wife was alive. He had also fathered eight children by her, only two of whom survived beyond infancy. So he prayed for their souls too He also did not wish to visit any more conflict and strife on his people. He accepted his fate in a humble, Christ-like manner and kept his focus on his own failings rather than the wrongs that others had so clearly done to him.
James II left this world in 1701. Though not physically martyred, he belongs nonetheless to that great lineage of English kings – Oswald of Northumbria, Edmund of East Anglia, Edward the Martyr, Edmund Ironside, Harold Godwinson, Richard II, and Charles I – who sacrificed their crowns and their lives for their country and their God. He is, so far, the last legitimate monarch this nation has had. William of Orange and all those who succeeded him, worthy and decent though many have been, were and are mere figureheads for the corrupt élites who gained full control of the levers of power with the banishment of Good King James.
The Inglorious Revolution, for that is what it was, opened wide the Gates of Hell and invited the powers of evil to make their home in the blessed land that had once welcomed the Holy Grail and Our Lord Himself. ‘Great Britain’, as they impiously call it, has paid grievously for this sin and will go on paying until the Day of the Great and Lasting Restoration.
‘Vengeance is mine saith the Lord and I will repay.’