British Monarch. He made his place in history as the last Roman Catholic and Stuart King of England. Born the second surviving son of Charles I and Henrietta Maria at St. James's Palace, he was created Duke of York in 1644. During the English Civil War, he stayed in Oxford, a Royalist stronghold. When the city surrendered in 1646, the Duke was confined in St James' Palace by parliamentary command. In 1648, he escaped, and went to the Netherlands in disguise. In 1660, his elder brother, Charles II, was restored to the English throne, and the Duke of York returned to England with him. He married Anne Hyde, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, with whom he had eight children, all but two of whom would die before their fifth year. Shortly before his wife Anne's death in 1671, he converted to Roman Catholicism sometime around 1668. In 1673, he married the staunchly Catholic Mary of Modena and, as a result of these actions, became increasingly unpopular in England. Efforts were made to exclude James from the succession. His brother, Charles II, supported him, however, preventing passage of the Exclusion Bill. Charles II died without legitimate heirs in 1685, and James succeeded him. He immediately faced an uprising led by his illegitimate nephew, the Duke of Monmouth, which was harshly put down. The severe reprisals of the Bloody Assizes increased the animosity toward James. The new king favored autocratic methods; his principal object seemed to be to fill positions of authority and influence with Roman Catholics. Dislike of him grew, and the birth of a son who would have precedence over his Protestant half-sisters, helped to bring the opposition to a head. A group of Protestant nobles asked that James' daughter Mary and her husband, William, Prince of Orange to come to England with an army. When the Prince of Orange arrived on November 5, 1688, all of the King's Protestant officers defected to support William and Mary. The unpopular, autocratic, Catholic king had few followers and was unable to defend himself. He fled, was captured, and was then allowed to escape to France. William and Mary then took the throne. The so-called Glorious Revolution was effectively over. James made an effort to restore himself by landing a force in Ireland in 1689, but the effort failed at the Battle of the Boyne. Other plots for restoration also failed, and he would end his life in exile under the protection of his cousin, Louis XIV. He died of a brain hemorrhage in 1701 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. He was the last Catholic and the last Stuart King of England. He was known as James II while being the King of England and Ireland and while as the King of Scotland would be James VII House of Stuart. The major portion of King James II's remains are interred at the Eglise Paroissiale in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, yet parts of his body were laid to rest elsewhere. His heart was removed and placed in a silver casket and given to a convent in Chaillot. His brain was placed in a lead urn and given to the Scots College in Paris. During the French Revolution, the chapel of Scots College was plundered, while seeking metal to make bullets. Most of the monument has survived and became a cenotaph for him, although the actually lead urn in which the brain was housed is missing, as well as some decorative elements.

Cenotaph