13th February 2022
Today in 1689, England finally settled one of the monarchy’s biggest headaches in its line of succession. A choice between a woman, a usurper, and a Roman Catholic? Who would take the Crown?
James II (second son of Charles I) had two girls, Mary and Anne, and both princesses were raised as Protestants. But James was a convinced Roman Catholic. And when his first wife died, he married a 15-year-old Italian princess, Mary of Modena – another staunch Catholic.
James inherited the throne from his brother Charles II, who died without heirs, and despite a wave of anti-Catholic hysteria he was largely accepted. Then – after miscarriages and rumours of infertility – suddenly Mary of Modena gave birth to a son. A Roman Catholic Prince of Wales.
Immediately the Protestant paranoia went into overdrive, accusing the king and queen of smuggling in a changeling. This is the ‘baby in the warming pan’ scandal – when even Princess Anne wrote to her sister Princess Mary, that she did not believe the baby was a true son of the king. Princess Mary – and her husband William of Orange – saw their chances of inheriting the throne disappear, and plotted with the Protestant lords to invade England. James fatally dithered, and fled to France like his father before him – hoping to return as his brother had done.
A Convention Parliament assembled to debate the succession. Mary had a legitimate claim but – dominated by her bullying husband - she refused to take the throne alone. Parliament declared that James had deserted his people and offered the vacant throne to Mary and William in the first (and last) joint monarchy, winning a Bill of Rights and limits to the monarchy as part of the deal.
I’m all over this history at the moment as it is the background to my new novel coming later this year. Who doesn’t like a scandal with baby in a warming pan? Incidentally – the baby was a true son of King James and Mary and made several attempts to regain his throne.
Image: James II and Family, by Pierre Mignard, 1694, RCIN 400966, Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2022.Ceiling of the Painted Hall, detail of King William III and Queen Mary II, Sir James Thornhill, 18th century, via Wikimedia Commons.
