United Kingdom

Arthur Capel, 1st earl of Essex, detail from a diptych by Sir Peter Lely; in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, MunichCourtesy of Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

Algernon Sidney, detail of an oil painting after J. van Egmont, 18th century; in the National Portrait Gallery, LondonCourtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, LondonIn 1683 government informants named the earl of Essex, Lord William Russell, and Algernon Sidney as conspirators in the Rye House Plot, a plan to assassinate the king. Though the evidence was flimsy, Russell and Sidney were executed and Essex took his own life. There was hardly a murmur of protest when Charles II failed to summon a Parliament in 1684, as he was bound to do by the Triennial Act. He was now fully master of his state—financially independent of Parliament and politically secure, with loyal Tory servants predominating in local and national government. He died in 1685 at the height of his power.

James II (1685–88)

Church and king

James II, detail of a painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller, c. 1685; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London

Duke of Monmouth, oil painting after W. Wissing, c. 1683; in the National Portrait Gallery, LondonCourtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London

capture of the duke of MonmouthJames Scott, duke of Monmouth, captured after the Battle of Sedgemoor; undated engraving.Photos.com/JupiterimagesUnlike his brother, James II did not dissimulate for the sake of policy. He dealt plainly with friend and foe alike. James did not desire to establish Catholicism or absolutism and offered what looked like ironclad guarantees for the preservation of the Anglican church. James came to the throne amid declarations of loyalty from the ruling elite. The Parliament of 1685 was decidedly royalist, granting the king customs revenues for life as well as emergency military aid to suppress Monmouth’s Rebellion (1685). James Scott, duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II, was Shaftesbury’s personal choice for the throne had Exclusion succeeded. Monmouth recruited tradesmen and farmers as he marched through the West Country on the way to defeat at the Battle of Sedgemoor. The rebellion was a fiasco, as the local gentry refused to sanction civil war. Monmouth was executed, and more than 600 of his supporters were either hanged or deported in the brutal aftermath of the rebellion, the Bloody Assizes (1685).

The king misinterpreted Monmouth’s failure to mean that the country would place the legitimate succession above all else. During the rebellion, James had dispensed with the Test Act and appointed Catholics to military command. This led to a confrontation with Parliament, but the king’s dispensing power was upheld in Godden v. Hales (1686). James made it clear that he intended to maintain his large military establishment, to promote Catholics to positions of leadership, and to dispense with the penal code. He set out systematically to create a Catholic state. Over the three years of his reign, he sacked three-fourths of all justices of the peace, 11 of the 12 judges, and most lords lieutenant, and the tendrils of central bureaucracy spread throughout the land. Existing penal laws against Catholics were suspended. Moreover, Catholics and compliant Protestant Dissenters were appointed at all levels of government. A huge propaganda drive to make converts to Catholicism was launched, and many Catholic churches, schools, and colleges were set up by state action. James set out to appoint Catholic heads to one or more colleges in Oxford and Cambridge with a view to training a new generation of Catholic governors.

Unfortunately for James, as he was beginning on his program of action, in France Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, the legislation that had protected the rights of French Protestants for nearly a century. The repression of Huguenot congregations inflamed English public opinion. Thus, the king’s effort on behalf of Catholics was doomed from the start. He had vainly hoped that the Parliament of 1685 would repeal the Test Acts. He “closeted” himself with members of Parliament (MPs), one at a time, hoping to browbeat them into agreeing to a repeal of all anti-Catholic legislation, but met stoic noncommittal reactions that were masking real anger. Moreover, his effort to forge an alliance with Dissenters proved unsuccessful. When James showed favour to William Penn and the Quakers, his leading Anglican ministers, Henry Hyde, earl of Clarendon, and Lawrence Hyde, earl of Rochester, resigned.