6568. Charles II , King of England
Charles II (1660-85)
The eldest surviving son of Charles I, Charles had been eight years old when Civil War broke out. He was with his father at the Battle of Edgehill and in Oxford, until ordered by him to seek the safety of France. The Scots were horrified when Charles I was executed in 1649, and while England became a republic, they proclaimed his son king, and invited him to come to Scotland. Agreeing to Presbyterian demands that he sign the National Covenant, he did so.
Cromwell then marched north, defeated the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar on 3 September 1650, captured part of southern Scotland and seized and removed the nation's public records, although he did not manage to take the Honours of Scotland (the Scottish regalia). On 1 January 1651, the Scots crowned Charles II at Scone (this turned out to be the last such Coronation at Scone). In July, the English army marched into Fife and then captured Perth, while the Scottish forces headed south into England, where they were defeated at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651. Charles II escaped, and fled to France once more. The English, meanwhile, moved on to take Stirling and Dundee.
6569. James II , King of England
James VII and II (1685-89)
James was the younger brother of Charles II. He escaped to the continent during the Civil War and had a distinguished military career in the French and Spanish armies before returning to London at the Restoration. Because of growing disquiet about James' Roman Catholicism, Charles told him that he must leave England temporarily, and after a period of exile in Holland, James went to Scotland as the King's Lord High Commissioner in 1679 and 1680. He stayed at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh and culture flourished in the capital under the patronage of his vice-regal Court.
James inherited the throne on Charles II's death in 1685 with little opposition in Scotland. A rising led by the Earl of Argyll was easily suppressed, although suspicions that James was trying to introduce Roman Catholicism increased when he made grants of religious toleration and converted the Abbey Church of Holyrood into a Roman Catholic Chapel Royal (it was also planned to be the Chapel of the Order of the Thistle, which James revived in 1687). Nevertheless, Scotland played a largely passive role in the revolution of 1688 until news of events in England and James' flight were followed by the collapse of the Scottish administration in late December.
William III of Orange , King of England
William II and III (1689-1702) and Mary II (1689-94)
William of Orange (part of what is now known as the Netherlands) had a double connection with the royal house of Stuart, for he was the son of Princess Mary, daughter of Charles I, and he married his cousin, another Princess Mary, the daughter of James VII and II (by his Protestant first wife Anne Hyde). William was a delicate, posthumous child, whose father had died a few days before his birth, but he grew up determined to defend his country against the threat from France on his southern border. He led his army in person, and carefully built up the Grand Alliance against the French.
He was on good terms with his uncles, Charles II and James, visiting them and corresponding regularly with them, but he became increasingly concerned about James VII's Catholicism and so he was prepared to accept the British invitation to displace his father-in-law in 1688. Having deposed James on 4 April 1689, the Scottish Convention of Estates voted to offer the crown to William and Mary. They were proclaimed on 11 April and accepted the crown on 11 May.
6695. Anne , Queen of England
Anne (1702-14)
Born in 1665, the younger daughter of James VII and II by his first wife, Anne Hyde, Queen Anne inherited the throne in 1702. She came to Scotland as a 15-year-old when her father was Lord High Commissioner at Holyroodhouse, enjoying the balls and entertainments, but poor health in later years meant that she never made the journey north again. She was married at 18 to Prince George of Denmark, whom she loved devotedly, but her 18 pregnancies all ended in miscarriage, stillbirth or the birth of babies who did not live beyond childhood. Only William, Duke of Gloucester survived his earliest years, but he suffered from hydrocephalus and died five days after his eleventh birthday.
During Queen Anne's reign, Scotland and England found it increasingly difficult to co-exist peacefully, for their separate parliaments had conflicting foreign and economic policies. Eventually, the situation became so unstable that the Union of the Crowns itself seemed to be in danger. In 1701, England settled the succession of the Protestant Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of James VI and I, but two years later the Scots declared that they were free to choose someone else, the implication being that they might select the exiled Jacobite claimant, James VII and II's son.
6697. William III of Orange , King of England
William II and III (1689-1702) and Mary II (1689-94)
William of Orange (part of what is now known as the Netherlands) had a double connection with the royal house of Stuart, for he was the son of Princess Mary, daughter of Charles I, and he married his cousin, another Princess Mary, the daughter of James VII and II (by his Protestant first wife Anne Hyde). William was a delicate, posthumous child, whose father had died a few days before his birth, but he grew up determined to defend his country against the threat from France on his southern border. He led his army in person, and carefully built up the Grand Alliance against the French.
He was on good terms with his uncles, Charles II and James, visiting them and corresponding regularly with them, but he became increasingly concerned about James VII's Catholicism and so he was prepared to accept the British invitation to displace his father-in-law in 1688. Having deposed James on 4 April 1689, the Scottish Convention of Estates voted to offer the crown to William and Mary. They were proclaimed on 11 April and accepted the crown on 11 May.
© 2001, Saul M. Montes-Bradley. All Rights Reserved