The second surviving son of King Charles I and Henrietta Maria, James Stuart was born at St James's Palace in 1633, and when his elder brother, King Charles II , died in 1685 he succeeded to the English throne as James II, and to the Scottish as James VIII. James was a convert to Roman Catholicism, which alienated the Anglican majority during his reign, as well as a proponent of the monarch's Divine Right (jure divino) at a time when the city merchants and landed oligarchs in Parliament were becoming ascendant. Consequently, James was forcibly removed from royal office by the
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Citation: Seager, Nicholas. "Reign of King James II". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 February 2006 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=643, accessed 26 November 2024.]