Mary of Modena. Mary of Modena was queen consort of England, Scotland, and Ireland as the second wife of James II and VII.
A devout Roman Catholic, Mary married the widowed James, who was then the younger brother and heir presumptive of Charles II. She was uninterested in politics and devoted to James and their children, two of whom survived to adulthood: the Jacobite claimant to the thrones, James Francis Edward, and Louisa Maria Teresa. Born a princess of the northwestern Italian Duchy of Modena, Mary is primarily remembered for the controversial birth of James Francis Edward, her only surviving son.
It was widely rumoured that he was a changeling, brought into the birth chamber in a warming pan, in order to perpetuate her husband's Catholic Stuart dynasty. Although the accusation was almost certainly false, and the subsequent Privy Council investigation affirmed this, James Francis Edward's birth was a contributing factor to the Glorious Revolution, the revolution which deposed James II and VII and replaced him with his Protestant eldest daughter from his first marriage to Anne Hyde, Mary II. She and her husband, William III of Orange, would reign jointly as William and Mary.
Exiled to France, the Queen over the water-as the Jacobites called Mary-lived with her husband and children in the Chateau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, provided by Louis XIV of France. Mary was popular among Louis XIV's c
A devout Roman Catholic, Mary married the widowed James, who was then the younger brother and heir presumptive of Charles II. She was uninterested in politics and devoted to James and their children, two of whom survived to adulthood: the Jacobite claimant to the thrones, James Francis Edward, and Louisa Maria Teresa. Born a princess of the northwestern Italian Duchy of Modena, Mary is primarily remembered for the controversial birth of James Francis Edward, her only surviving son.
It was widely rumoured that he was a changeling, brought into the birth chamber in a warming pan, in order to perpetuate her husband's Catholic Stuart dynasty. Although the accusation was almost certainly false, and the subsequent Privy Council investigation affirmed this, James Francis Edward's birth was a contributing factor to the Glorious Revolution, the revolution which deposed James II and VII and replaced him with his Protestant eldest daughter from his first marriage to Anne Hyde, Mary II. She and her husband, William III of Orange, would reign jointly as William and Mary.
Exiled to France, the Queen over the water-as the Jacobites called Mary-lived with her husband and children in the Chateau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, provided by Louis XIV of France. Mary was popular among Louis XIV's c
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