Little Arthur's history of England

The reign of James the Second was a very short one, but many things were done in it which we must remember. You know that he was son of King Charles the First, who sent him to his mother in France to be taken care of during the civil war. This was bad for James, who was taught in France to be a Roman Catholic, to hate the English parliaments, and to think that kings might do as they chose, and change the religion of the country they governed, or take money, or put men in prison, without thinking whether it was just or unjust.

James married, first, a daughter of that Lord Clarendon who would have given good advice to Charles the Second, as I told you; but neither Charles nor James would listen to him. James had two daughters when he came to be king; they were both married; the eldest to William, Prince of Orange, who was the king’s nephew, and the second to Prince George of Denmark. You will hear more of both these ladies by-and-by. King James’s second wife was an Italian lady, a princess of Modena, a Roman Catholic, proud and haughty, and disliked by the English.

Before James had been king a year, the Duke of Monmouth, a young prince, who was his nephew, landed in England with a small army, in hopes the people would make him king instead of James. But King James’s soldiers soon put an end to Monmouth’s army, and the young prince was sent to London, where his head was cut off.

The king sent two men to punish the rebels in the parts where Monmouth’s army was destroyed, Colonel Kirke and Judge Jeffries. These two men, by the king’s orders, committed the greatest cruelties; they hung some men on different church steeples; some they cut to pieces before they were quite dead. A kind and charitable old woman, Mrs. Gaunt, was burnt alive because she had once given shelter to a conspirator against King Charles; and Lady Lisle was put to death for the same reason. In short, King James soon showed that he was as cruel and wicked as any king that ever reigned in any country, and the people began to hate him.

The next things that made the English people wish to get rid of James as a king, were his trying to govern without a parliament; his trying to give all power in Church and State to the Roman Catholics; and his putting seven English bishops in prison because they entreated him not to make the clergy read in church during divine service an unlawful proclamation.

The king ordered the bishops to be tried, in hopes that the judges would condemn them to be punished; but the jury (which is, you know, made up of twelve or more men, appointed to help the judge to find out the TRUTH) said that the bishops were not guilty of anything for which the king could punish them; and as soon as the people heard this, all those who were in the street waiting to hear what the judges would say, and even the king’s own soldiers, set up such a shout for joy that the king heard it.

Instead of beginning a civil war, however, a number of the wisest and best English noblemen sent messages to William, Prince of Orange, who had married King James’s eldest daughter, Mary, and invited him to come and help them to put an end to James’s misrule and tyranny.

They asked William to come because he was a good Protestant, and the nearest relation to the king, next to his little son who was just born. Besides, William was a very brave prince, and had defended his own country against that grasping man, Louis the Fourteenth, King of France, who called himself Great because his army had won a great many battles and killed thousands of people.

William and Mary agreed to govern always by means of the parliament; to do equal justice to all their subjects; to listen to their complaints; and never to let the Pope have anything to do with the government of England.

When these things were agreed to, William came over to England with a great many ships, and a large army, and began to march from Torbay, where he landed, to London. In a few days the gentlemen and people, and most of the noblemen of England joined him. Even the king’s second daughter, the Princess Anne, with her husband, Prince George of Denmark, left King James, who found that he had hardly one friend in the world, no, not even his own children. The queen was hated even more than the king, so she made haste to run away, and the king put her, and a little baby boy that they had, into the care of a kind French nobleman, named Lauzun, who carried them to France, where King Louis received them kindly.

King James stayed a few days longer in England, in hopes to find some friends. But he had behaved too ill; no Englishman would take his part. So in less than four years from the time he became King of England he was obliged to leave it for ever, and William, Prince of Orange, was made king by the whole people. And Mary was made queen, to reign with him, not like a queen who is only called so because she is the king’s wife.