16/09/2026
OTD 16 September 1701,James VII and II died.
James was the second surviving son of Charles I and Henrietta Maria. He was created Duke of York at birth. His conversion to Catholicism in the 1660s caused growing concern, particularly during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679–81, when attempts were made by Whigs to exclude him from the succession on religious grounds. At the age of 51, James succeeded to the throne following the death of his elder brother, Charles II, with many believing that a Catholic monarchy would be temporary.
In June 1688, the birth of James's son and heir James Francis Edward Stuart on 10 June raised the prospect of a Catholic dynasty, displacing his Protestant daughter Mary, who had been heir presumptive.
Leading members of the English political class invited William of Orange, James's nephew and son-in-law, to assume the English throne. When William landed in Brixham on 5 November 1688, James's army deserted and he went into exile in France on 23 December. In February 1689, a special Convention Parliament held James had "vacated" the English throne and installed William and Mary as joint monarchs. James landed in Ireland on 14 March 1689 in an attempt to recover his kingdoms, but, despite a simultaneous rising in Scotland where the Jacobites were initially successful, in April a Scottish Convention followed England in ruling that James had "forfeited" the throne, which was offered to William and Mary.
After his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland in July 1690, James returned to France, where he spent the rest of his life in exile at Saint-Germain, protected by Louis XIV.
During his last years, James lived an austere life. James died on 16 September 1701 of a brain haemorrhage at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Against his wishes, his heart was placed in a silver-gilt locket and given to the convent at Chaillot, while his brain was placed in a lead casket and given to the Scots College in Paris. His entrails were divided between two gilt urns, sent to the parish church of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the English Jesuit college at Saint-Omer, and the flesh from his right arm was given to the English Augustinian nuns of Paris.The rest of James's body was laid to rest at the St Edmund's Chapel in the Church of the English Benedictines in the Rue Saint-Jacques, Paris. James was not buried, but put in one of the side chapels. Lights were kept burning round his coffin until the French Revolution. During the French Revolution, James's tomb was raided.
