Hello and welcome to today's history lesson.

My name is Mr. Merrett, and I'll be guiding you through today's lesson.

So let's get started.

Today's lesson is looking at James II's troubled early reign.

And by the end of the day's lesson, we'll be able to explain why James II's early reign was so troubled.

In order to do that, we need to use some key terms. And our key terms for today are Parliament, Anglican, and rebellion.

Parliament is an assembly of people with authority to make laws for a country.

And Anglican is a person who believes in the faith and practises of the Church of England.

And a rebellion is an act of armed resistance to an established government or leader.

Today's lesson will consist of three separate learning cycles, and our first learning cycle is then gonna answer the question who was James Stuart? Now James Stuart was born on the 14th of October 1633 and was the second son of King Charles I and his French Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria.

During the English Civil Wars, which range from 1642 to about 1651, that was between the parliamentarians and the royalists, James and his younger siblings lived in Oxford whilst his older brother, Charles, and his mother lived in France.

After Oxford surrendered in June 1646, James was taken by the parliamentarians to London and they actually considered crowning him king due to his father's refusal to negotiate.

His father, Charles I, believed that Parliament had no authority to question his actions as kings.

As a result, he was really quite difficult to try to come to terms with.

So in order to bypass that, parliament seriously considered just ignoring Charles altogether and crowning James the King instead.

And then they hoped that they could control him a little better than they could control his father.

The 14-year-old James though, escaped his captors in April 1648 and made his way to the hog in the Netherlands, in the modern day Netherlands, before later joining his mother and brother in France.

And together, the two Stuart boys were well known for their wild, carefree, and partying lifestyle in France.

They were notorious actually for their lifestyle.

James actually joined the French army as well, and he was praised for his bravery whilst he was in the army there.

However, in 1656, his older brother, Charles, made an alliance with Spain, which was an enemy of France at the time.

And so James therefore had to reluctantly leave the French army, and instead he joined the Spanish army, which were fighting against the French near Dunkirk.

It was believed that it was during this time that James became far more familiar with the beliefs of Catholicism.

His mother was a Catholic, so he certainly would've experienced some element of Catholicism, but necessarily lived together at all times.

James, though was living and fighting alongside other Catholics.

So we believe it was during this point in time, during his time in the French and especially the Spanish armies, when he became seriously interested in the practises and beliefs of Catholicism.

Now let's have a quick check for understanding.

So which two experiences did James have before the restoration in 1660? Did he join the French and Spanish armies? Did he party hard? Did he sell to the Americas, or did he try to assassinate Oliver Cromwell? Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose A and B, then very well done.

Those are the correct answers.

Now, on the 29th of May, 1660, the restoration of the English monarchy led to James becoming heir to his brother, who is now King Charles II.

Having said that, though, nobody seriously believed that James would become king though, as the 30-year-old Charles had already fathered several illegitimate children and presumably now had plenty of time to father some legitimate ones as well.

It's estimated that Charles fathered probably at least 14 illegitimate children.

The actual figure could well be much higher than that.

It's about 14 though, that he acknowledged as being his own.

Charles was also now married to a member of the Portuguese Royal family, a woman called Catherine of Braganza.

So there was no reason to seriously believe that Charles wouldn't discontinue his ways and have more children, but with Catherine of Braganza.

Now, James had a variety of different titles from a very, very young age.

He was the Duke of York, and he was also made the Lord High Admiral from a very young age, obviously far too young to do anything with it.

I think he was about three years old he was given that title, but it was more of a ceremonial title.

But now that he was old enough to do something with those titles, he actually took those titles very seriously and especially the title of Lord High Admiral.

And he successfully directed the actions of the Navy during the Anglo Dutch Wars.

There were about four different Anglo Dutch wars and James was in charge of the English fleet, and he, by all accounts, was a fairly competent naval commander.

Also, during the great five of London in 1666, it was James that actually took charge of the firefighting operations.

And the reason being is that the Anglican mayor of London effectively didn't really do anything.

He didn't want to.

What needed to be done was housing needed to be brought down to create fire breaks to stop the fire from spreading.

But in order to do that, people would've to lose their houses and willingly give up their houses.

And the mayor of London was unwilling to upset people by pulling down their houses.

So nothing was happening, the fire was spreading.

It was James that took decisive action and actually made those tough calls.

And he impressed people with his actions and his leadership during that period of time, but also just throughout Charles's reign as well.

Another thing that James is known for whilst he was Duke of York during the reign of his brother, Charles II is the city and states of New York was named after him.

Previously New York was known as New Amsterdam.

It was a Dutch Connolly.

It was taken from the Dutch Journal of the Anglo Dutch Wars.

And it was named after James in his role of Duke of York.

So that's why New York City and states are named the way they are.

Now, one aspect of James that did not impress everyone or in fact didn't impress most people at all were his religious beliefs.

In 1668 or 1669, James secretly converted to Catholicism and it was a very well kept secret at that point in time because a great many of the people that James socialised with were high ranking Anglicans.

So you would've thought if anybody would've known that he wasn't actually a practising Anglican, it would've been them, but nobody's any other wiser at that point in time.

In 1673, however, his secret became public knowledge.

People at the time were very worried about Catholics.

A new law was introduced to try and root out Catholics.

And James was indeed rooted out, and as a result, he had to give up his position as Lord High Admiral.

Having said that, though, he did continue to attend Anglican services up until 1676.

1673 was also the year that James married his second wife, who was a Catholic Italian princess by the name of Mary of Modena.

And his brother objected to James's religious conversion.

So King Charles II was not happy about it, and as a result, he ordered that James' two daughters from his first marriage, princess Mary and Princess Anne, was to be continued to be raised as Anglicans.

Now James wasn't overly happy about that, but he agreed to this as well as reluctantly agreeing to the marriage of his daughter, Mary, to his nephew, a Dutch Protestant by the name of Prince William of Orange in 1677.

Now, as I said, a wave of anti-Catholic hysteria had grouped the nation at this particular point in time.

And now that it was known that James was a Catholic and obviously a very high ranking Catholic at that, there were several attempts by members of parliament to exclude James from the line of succession.

And these MPs were known as exclusionist and they looked fairly likely at times to actually pass this law that would've prevented James as a Catholic from being able to become king of England.

However, whenever it was looking likely that these exclusionist would succeed in their aims to exclude James from these line of succession, Charles came to his brother's aid by simply just dissolving parliaments.

So parliament's over, no new laws can be made, and that's it.

And it was actually because of the third exclusionist crisis that Charles shut down parliament and they never actually met again during his reigns.

So it was quite a serious issue for Charles that James remain as heir.

James obviously wants to remain as heir as well, but even though he did succeed in remaining heir and obviously went on to become king, understandably, it soured James' fairly previously good relationship with Parliaments.

Now on the 6th of February, 1685, the worst fears of the exclusionist were realised when Charles II died without fathering any legitimate children.

It had been known for some time that he wouldn't father any legitimate children with his current wife, Catherine of Braganza, as she had reached her 40s and she had shown no sign of any recent pregnancies.

But the fact that Charles died when he did, did come as something of a surprise.

It was a fairly sudden death.

Fe suffered a seizure and then four days later, he died.

So that was a bit of a shock.

Obviously more shocking now is that England has a Catholic king.

Having said that though, James II was crowned King without a great deal of fuss.

Despite his religious beliefs, the people had not forgotten the good work he had done under Charles.

They're also quite happy that there wasn't any sort of fuss as a very clear and obvious heir, so no potential chance for a civil war.

And as well as that, it was also expected that the 51-year-old James would not live too long before passing on his throne to one of his Anglican daughters.

So in that respect, it's frustrating that England has a Catholic King, but it's very much a temporary measure in the minds of most people.

Well, let's do a check for understanding now.

So how much opposition was there to James II's succession considering he was a Catholic? Were there large scale uprisings? Was there quite a lot of opposition or was there very little opposition? So make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose C, very little, then very well done.

That is indeed the correct answer.

Right.

Let's go for our first task for today.

So I've got some thought bubbles there.

They look like speech bubbles, but they're supposed to be thought bubbles.

They suggesting how different groups of people may have felt about the succession of King James II in 1685.

And I've got there for you an exclusionist member of Parliaments.

So how do you think they would feel about the fact that James is now king? And I've also got a sailor as well.

So how do you think sailors, how do you think members of the Navy would feel about James becoming king? So pause the video whilst you do that task and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you've gone okay with that task, let's think about then what you could have said.

So in regards to the exclusionist members of parliament, you may have said something along the lines of, "Oh dear, James is going to punish me for trying to prevent him from becoming king.

I was trying to protect the country, but he's a Catholic and can't be trusted.

This is bad." And for a sailor, you may say something along the lines of, "Even though James is a Catholic, he was a great Lord High Admiral.

Under him, we fought hard against the Dutch.

I'm willing to give him a chance." If you've got something slightly different to me, that's absolutely fine.

But again, you wanna try and back up their thoughts with evidence.

So how would James becoming king affect these different groups of people? Right, let's go again with the same sort of task, but with two different groups of people now.

So now we have Protestant Londoners and Spanish Catholics.

So just the same again, fill in the thought bubble suggesting how they might feel about the succession of James II in 1685.

Pause the video while you do that and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got okay with that task.

Let's go through and think about what you could have said then.

So in regards to Protestant Londoners, you may have said something along the lines of, "I don't like his religious beliefs, but James worked hard to save the city during the Great Fire.

Our Anglican mayor was useless, but our new king was our saviour.

Let's give him a chance." And for Spanish Catholics, you may have said that, "This is great news for Spain.

James shares our religion and even fought for us whilst he was in exile.

He is bound to be a strong ally to Spain and the one true religion." Again, if you've got something a little bit different to me, that's absolutely fine, as long as you're justifying their thoughts with a little bit of evidence as well.

That's what I'm looking for here.

Okay, let's move on now then to our second learning cycle of today, which is looking at James II's second's early reign.

Now James II's second's Reign began with cautious optimism.

He called his first Parliament in May 1685 and worked hard to mend the rift between himself and Parliaments.

And he did this by forgiving most of the exclusionist and he also kept most of Charles's ministers in place.

And in return, the loyal parliament as it became known, provided James with a generous income.

However, the good relationship did not last long.

Two rebellions broke out in June 1685.

There were coordinated rebellions.

There was the Argyll Rebellion in Scotland and there was Monmouth's rebellion in the south of England.

Now the Duke of Monmouth was Charles II's eldest illegitimate son, and he'd also previously been involved in a plot to kill's father and uncle and have himself crowned King.

So he did have experience in plotting against the crown.

Both rebellions were put down quickly and Monmouth was executed.

In reality, neither served a genuine threat to James, but these events did actually have a deep impact on the king.

What followed was the bloodier sizes, which were court cases punishing the rebels, and 250 people were executed and more than 800 were transported to the Caribbean colonies to working conditions that were very, very close to slavery.

It is what it's known as indenture servitude.

So they go out there and they'd survey a set amount of time working effectively as a slave, but after that time, they'd be released.

A lot of people felt that James cracked down far too hard on these people.

Now a quick check for understanding.

Which rebellions did James II face in 1685? Was it Exeter Rebellion and the Dumfries Rebellion? Was it the Monmouth Rebellion and the Argyll Rebellion? Or was it the Plymouth Rebellion and the Sterling Rebellion? So make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose B, then very well done.

That's the correct answer.

So James though, after these rebellions had lost his trust in his subjects and from his own perspective, members of Parliament had tried repeatedly to prevent him from becoming king.

And then just a few short months after becoming king, there have been two separate but coordinated rebellions at either end of his kingdom.

So you can kind of understand why he's not an overly happy king at this point in time.

Now, in order to try and regain some faith, what he did was he expanded the size of the standing army and he placed Catholics in charge of the new regiments.

So he felt that he needed an army to protect himself, and he felt they couldn't trust Protestants to be in charge of this army, but he could trust Catholics.

So he's doing this out of a sense of his own.

Of trying to save himself effectively from any future rebellions or plots against him.

Now, the English though, were unaccustomed to a large standing army during peace time.

They didn't like it because more soldiers, generally speaking meant trouble, especially they had nothing to do at that point in time, and they was certainly unused to Catholics having this much power.

So tensions between James and his people were raised further, and when Parliament objected to these measures in November 1685, James simply dismissed Parliament and they never met again during his reign.

James also replaced some of his key ministers with Catholics, and he allowed the Pope to send his representative to courts, which further raised suspicions that James was preparing England for a return to Catholicism.

The most divisive action that James II took though was repeated calls for religious toleration, and this means just accepting other religions and letting them worship however they wanted to.

For some, mainly Catholics, although this also included non-Anglican Protestants, though were known as non-conformists, and that included groups such as Baptists and Quakers, James' efforts to allow people to worship however they wanted were celebrated.

It's good for them because obviously if you are an Anglican, you are the one true religion of England and everybody else is wrong.

But for Catholics and Baptists and Quakers and so on and so forth, actually you are the one true religion and you are not able to practise this correct religion properly in your own country.

So you might end up going to hell anyway, even though you follow the one true religion.

So for many, many people in England, this was a bad thing.

But for certain select minority groups, this was very much a good thing that he was doing.

For Anglicans though, as I said, the fact that the supreme head of the Anglican church, so James, even though he was a Catholic, was still the supreme head of the Catholic of the Anglican church.

And the fact that he wasn't an Anglican and he was also reducing the power of the Anglican church quite simply was just an outrageous situation and it definitely needed to be changed.

Right, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

I'd like you to choose two actions that James II took without Parliament's approval that caused concern within Parliament.

Did he raise taxes? Did he expand the size of the standing army? Did he appoint Catholics to important positions or did he declare war on the Netherlands? So choose two of his options now.

All right, if you chose B and C, then very well done.

Those are the correct answers.

Now let's go for our next task for today then.

So I'd like to write one positive action that James II took during his reign and one negative action that he took from the perspective of an Anglican.

And I got some sentence starters on the screen there to help you out as well.

So from an Anglican perspective, one positive action that James II took during his reign was.

Just choose one and explain it.

And then one negative action that James took was.

And again, choose another action, explain why it was negative.

So pause the video while you do that and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got okay with that task.

Let's think about what you could have written then.

So you could have said from an Anglican perspective, one positive action that James II took during his reign was forgiven the exclusionist members of Parliament so that Anglicans could continue to sit in Parliament.

So that's why Anglicans would've thought that that's a good thing.

One negative action that James II took was appointing Catholics to command the army, as most members of Parliament were Anglicans who thought that Catholics could not be trusted.

So again, that's a reason why they thought it was negative.

If you've got something different to me, that's fine, as long as you've explained why you've chosen your positive or negative effects.

Right, let's go for another task.

And again, it's very similar to the one we just done.

I'd like you to write two positive actions that James II took during his reign from the perspective this time of a Catholic.

And again, I got some sentence starters there, which are very similar to the first two.

So use those, pause the video whilst you do that, and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hope you got okay with that task.

Let's think about then what you could have written.

So you could have said from a Catholic perspective, one positive action that James second took during his reign was allowing people to worship however they wanted to.

So Catholics were no longer persecuted.

And then another positive action that James second took was his efforts to allow people, including Catholics, Quakers, and Baptists to worship however they wanted.

So from a Catholic perspective, it's great that they were no longer being persecuted, or at the very least, attempts were made to minimise the level of persecution the Catholics received.

But it's also pretty good that just all religions in general being tolerated at this point in time.

Some people felt that James was trying to bring Catholicism back to England.

Others felt that he was just generally quite happy for people to do whatever it is that they wanted to do in regards to religion.

So it was good from that perspective that allowed people to worship however they wanted.

You can kind of see there why they Anglicans might have been a bit concerned about it.

It's certainly reducing their power within their own country.

Right, Let's go for our third and final cycle for today, which is the beginning of the end.

Now, tensions came to the fore on the 27th of April 1688.

James reissued his Declaration of Indulgence, which he had previously issued the year before in 1687.

And that granted broad religious freedom in Britain, so it allowed people to worship however they wanted.

And in 1688, you just wanted to reiterate that just to kind of make it really hammer how the point you can worship however you want.

Now, it ended the punishment of people who did not publicly support the Anglican church.

It allowed people to worship however they wanted in their own homes, and if they had their own chapels, then in their own chapels.

And it also allowed non-Anglicans to gain employment in the government.

So previously, anybody who was not an Anglican was excluded from any sort of high rank, such as working for the government, sitting as an MP, or previously of course serving in the army or certainly serving as an officer in the army.

Now James ordered the clergy, members of the church, to read the declaration in their churches, but they rebelled against him.

Very few of them actually obeyed to the this command.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, along with six other bishops submitted a petition to the king declaring the declaration illegal.

In response, James had the bishops arrested and charged with seditious libel, which effectively means writing horrible things about the king.

And for many people, this was seen as a massive overreaction to the situation.

The bishops were found not guilty and released, and this effectively just destroyed James' political power.

But even more troubling events soon unfolded.

On the 10th of June, 1688, the Queen, Mary of Modena gave birth to a son who's called James Francis Edward Stuarts.

And this child raised the possibility that James' heir will be Catholic.

His mother was Catholic, his father was Catholic, and there's no reason that he himself wouldn't be Catholic.

And therefore, the fact that he have one Catholic king followed by another Catholic king who it was just a very young boy, could have reigned for decades, potentially that means that Catholicism would be brought back to England.

James' actions have been mostly tolerated when it was believed that he would only reign for a few short years before passing the throne to his Protestant daughters.

But the birth of his son created a panic within Anglican England.

Okay, let's go for a quick check for understanding now.

It's a discussion question.

I'd like to think what were some positives and negatives of the Declaration of Indulgence that was issued in 1587? So pause the video whilst you think of those and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Let's think what you could have said then.

So in regards to positives, you may have said that it allowed for greater freedom of religious expression.

It reduced or ideally removed persecution of some religious groups, and it allowed employment and promotion of people regardless of their religious beliefs.

If you've got other responses as well, then that's great, but hopefully you got some of those on the screen there in front of you as well.

And same again for negatives.

Let's think what we could have said here.

So you could have said that it increased suspicion of James II and Catholics in general, and also it reduced the power of the Anglican church, which obviously, if you are an Anglican, then that is a real negative.

And again, if you've got other negatives than I have, then that's fantastic, but maybe you've got some of the ones that are on the screen there as well.

Right.

Let's do another quick check for understanding now.

So why were people alarmed by the birth of James's son, James Francis Edward Stuarts in June 1688? Was it because England now had a concession crisis? Was it because England now had a Catholic for an heir? Or was it because England now had a half Italian for an heir? So make your choice now.

Okay.

If you chose B, then very well done.

That is indeed the correct answer.

Right.

Let's go into our final task for today now then.

So I'd like to read June's interpretation below, and he says, "The first few years of James II's reign were a disaster." Now, to what extent do you agree with June's interpretation? And I'd like to include at least two pieces of evidence to support your answer.

So pause the video while you do that task and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got okay with that task.

Let's think about then what you could have written then.

So you could have said that June's interpretation that James II's early reign was a disaster is correct.

And one piece of evidence to support this interpretation is that James suffered two rebellions simultaneously just a few months into his reign.

These were in Scotland and the south of England, which meant there was trouble at either end of his kingdom.

Another piece of evidence in support of this interpretation is that in 1688, three years after James came to the throne, he imprisoned the Archbishop of Canterbury and six other bishops because they disagreed with him.

This suggests that things were not going well as the leaders of the country's religion were fighting with each other.

If you've got other evidence to support June's interpretation, that's great, as long as you've actually explained how it supports.

That's a really key thing here as well.

Alternatively, you might think that June's interpretation was incorrect, and as a result, your answer may look something like this.

One piece of evidence to contradict June's interpretation is that even though James II was Catholic, his succession was smooth.

This was because the English people appreciated what he had done for them prior to becoming King.

For instance, his leadership during the Great Fire of London in 1666, and they were willing to give him a chance.

Another piece of evidence to contradict his interpretation is that before the Argyll Rebellion and Monmouth Rebellion, James II and his loyal parliament worked together well because James forgave those that tried to exclude him from the succession.

Again, if you've got different evidence that contradicts interpretation, that's absolutely fine.

The key thing once again is that you've actually explained how it supports your perspective.

That's what I'm looking for here.

Well, let's summarise today's lesson then.

So James joined both the French and Spanish armies before the Stuarts were invited back to become kings of England again.

As his brother's heir, James worked hard at every task he was given, which gained the respect of many people across the country.

James' succession went smoothly despite the fact that he was a Catholic.

Although James II's reign began well, two rebellions created distrust between him and the people, which caused him to work without Parliament to increase the size of the army and staff it with Catholics.

And Anglicans were upset with James' religious tolerance and very concerned by the birth of James' son, James Francis Edward Stuart, which meant England at a Catholic king and Catholic heir to the throne.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

Hopefully you've enjoyed yourself.

Hopefully you learned something, and hopefully I'll see you again next time.

Bye-bye.