The Stuarts & Their Times

The Stuarts (1603-1714) were the reigning family during the Baroque era in England. This blog mainly focuses on the lives and escapades of the first four British Stuart Kings (James VI/I, Charles I, Charles II, and James II) and their friends. If you have any questions, feel free to click on INQUIRIES and ask! I'll be more than happy to help you.

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16 September 1701 - James VII/II dies in exile at the age of 67

Although James VII/II had been very healthy for the majority of his life, as the seventeenth century slipped into the eighteenth, his health progressively worsened. On 4 March 1701, he had fallen in a "dead faint" at Mass, after hearing the words:

"Remember, Lord, what is come upon us: consider and behold our reproach. Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our house to aliens."

A few days later, he suffered from the first of his strokes, which affected only his right side. However, he recovered from that relatively quickly, although he continued to drag his right leg when walking. He spent the summer with Maria of Modena and their children, convalescing at St. Germaine.

James' health took yet another turn on 2 September 1701. Once again, he fainted while hearing Mass. He was bustled off to his apartments after the episode, where he rested. When he awoke on 3 September, he seemed to be much better. This respite only lasted for a day. On 4 September, he had a seizure and vomited blood. Presumably, he had suffered yet another stroke. At this point, the Prince of Wales was brought in to see his father for perhaps the last time. Little James burst into tears when he saw the sorry state of his father. Someone who was in the sickroom said King James had 'stretched forth his arms to embrace [the Prince of Wales]' and had begun talking to him so vehemently that it concerned those present. Still, James begged that they wouldn't take his son away from him, not until he was finished speaking and gave him his blessing.

James thought that his end was much nearer than it was. On the same day, the Blessed Sacrament was carried in for his Viaticum. James met the idea of his death with a 'the happy day has come at last.'

Maria of Modena was inconsolable. She was huddled down on the floor, completely immobile; it was said that she showed as little sign of life as James, and was in much greater anguish than he. James reported that seeing Maria in such distress was what made him suffer all the more, and he tried to comfort her, by telling her to be resigned to the will of God, as she always was.

That night, James was able to sleep peacefully and was not again taken ill, which raised hopes all around. On 8 September, Louis XIV paid a visit to his cousin, along with Madame Liselotte. The Duchess said "[she] found King James in a piteous state. His voice, it was true, was still strong as usual, and he recognised people; but he looks very bad and has a beard like a Capuchin."

The hopes of his recovery were soon dashed as it became evident that he was sinking once again. Around 13 September, Maria had been weeping by James' bedside once again. James told her "Madam, do not afflict yourself; I am going (I hope) to be happy." Maria replied that she knew this. She did not lament James' condition, but her own. With those last words to her husband, she began to faint, and James ordered those around her to carry her away.

On 13 September, Louis XIV announced that he was ready to proclaim James' son King James III as soon as the 'late English King' died. With those words, "everybody burs into tears and cries of gratitude." On that same day, James proclaimed that he forgave William of Orange from the bottom of his heart, and sent his blessing to his daughter, Anne. James was getting worse and worse every day, but was still able to receive Mass. After receiving Last Sacrament, he slipped into a coma.

As said by James' biographer, Meriol Trevor:

"The tempests and storms were over and gone, for now he was going to the safe harbour of Christ, whose call had cost him almost all he had and the crown of three kingdoms, but who had given him back love in hundredfold from his wife and children, servants and friends, and would now receive him into the kingdom that has no end."

On 16 September 1701, at 3:00pm, King James VII/II died in exile, silent and peaceful.

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Matthew Locke (1621-1677) was an English Baroque composer, working in the court of King Charles II. He also composed during the Interregnum, writing scores for various masques and balls. 

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Lucy Percy-Haye, Countess of Carlisle (1599-1660) was a Carolean noblewoman. Many poets of Charles I's court, including Carew, Cartwright, Herrick, and Suckling wrote poems about her wit and her beauty. She was born to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and Dorothy Devereux. At the age of 18, she married James Haye, who would be made Earl of Carlisle some years later.

Lucy was the favourite of Queen Henrietta Maria. She roused suspicion for introducing the young Queen to makeup in 1628. That was just the beginning of Lucy Haye's scandalous behaviour at King Charles' court. After her husband died in 1636, she became the mistress of two grandees; the doomed Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, and then John Pym. This is interesting, as Strafford was a strong Royalist, backing Charles I, and Pym was his Parliamentary opponent. Strafford's execution disillusioned Haye,  who had actually cared for him considerably. Because of this, she fell to Pym and divulged all sorts of the Royalist secrets to him in 1642. In fact, she even revealed that Charles intended on arresting traitorous MPs at Parliament. Pym made for their escapes, foiling Charles' plan.

However, she simultaneously supported both the Royalists and Roundheads, acting as a spy for both sides. After five years, she became more moderate, and stopped working as a bipartisan traitor. By the time the Second Civil War rolled around, she was fully standing by King and Queen. She sold her jewels to raise funds for the Royalist army, and acted as an intermediary between the Royalists scattered around the country and the estranged Queen across the Channel.

Due to her staunch loyalism, she was arrested two months after Charles I's execution. Even when she was locked in the Tower of London, she was sending messages in cipher to Charles II, who was a King with no throne, crown, money, nor kingdom. The Parliamentarian government threatened to torture her on the rack in order to extort information. She was released in September of 1649, and lived a quiet life, dying at the age of 61 soon after the Restoration.

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The Merry Gang was a dissolute band of courtiers at the Restoration Court, flourishing from 1665 to 1680. John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, the libertine poster-boy, was the ringleader of the group. The other major operatives were George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham; playwright George Etherege; the aged Cavaliers Harry Jermyn and Thomas Killigrew; John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave; actress and mistress of the King, Nelly Gwynne; poet, playwright (and prominent Whig!) Sir Charles Sedley; and William Wycherley. 

Although the King himself, Charles II, was not a Merry Gangster, he was highly amused by the wine-fueled, debauched antics of his courtiers. However, this amusement sometimes turned into anger, especially with John Wilmot, who repeatedly committed treason and sedition, be it in poetry (A Satyr on Charles II) or in action (punching Killigrew in the head near the King).

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During the winter of 1675/6, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647-1680) wrote An Allusion to Horace, the Tenth Satyr of the First Book. It was the earliest record of any sort of enmity between Rochester and another poet, John Dryden (1631-1700). Without any frilly language to ease the reader into the poem, Rochester starts it off with a scathing remark directed at Dryden:

"Well, sir, 'tis granted I said Dryden's rhymes/Were stol'n, unequal, nay dull many times./What foolish patron is there found of his/So blindly partial to deny me this?"

The poem progresses with criticism of not only Dryden and his patrons, but also of John Crowne, Elkanah Settle, and Thomas Otway. Dryden took the higher ground for a few years, and made no sort of reply to Rochester's attack. However, this changed when Dryden published his famous All For Love in 1676. He took revenge on his critics and politicians that he didn't like; both Buckingham and Shaftesbury were attacked with the quill. Rochester just so happened to be friends with Buckingham and Shaftesbury, so he attracted double the venom. Dryden’s goal was to completely demolish Rochester's station, literary reputation, and credibility. 

As Rochester's poem attacking Dryden was called An Allusion to Horace, Dryden wrote:

"Some of their little Zanies yet go farther; for they are Persecutors of Horace himself, as far as they are able, by their ignorant and vile imitations of him..."

Rochester took his revenge on Dryden a year later. In winter of 1679, Rochester sent a gang of thugs to Dryden's home in Covent Garden to attack him. Their rivalry lasted until Rochester's early death in 1680.

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The Great Fire of London: Day 6

5am: Samuel Pepys wakes up and records that “all is well”; although there is no more London, there are no more fires. John Evelyn, another diarist, takes a walk through the streets. He gets lost without any landmarks guiding him, and the hot cobblestones and rubble burn holes through his shoes. Charles withdraws his troops, and John Evelyn sees the harrowing scene of the homeless en masse, laying by heaps of their belongings.

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“Pay your respects to the Duchess of York. There she is.”

The marriage between the King's brother and the Lord Chancellor's daughter was not to any sort of popular acclaim. James, the highborn Duke of York, was considered by others to be too good for the more lowly Anne Hyde. However, the marriage was James' idea, and with that characteristic Stuart stubbornness, he carried on in making her his Duchess. The way he broke the news to the gentlemen of the court of Anne's new station was amusing. It began with their slandering of Anne, and ended in astonished silence. Recorded by contemporary Anthony Hamilton, the event went as follows:

"However Killigrew... said quite frankly that he had enjoyed [Anne's] favours. He had a spirited and mocking wit... He assured him that he had found satisfaction in a certain room built over the water for quite other reasons than amorous activity. Three or four swans had been witnesses of his good fortune, and they had doubtless been witnesses of the good fortune of many others in the same place, as Miss Hyde went there frequently and seemed to enjoy doing so.

The Duke of York considered this last accusation outrageous, as he was convinced that he had sufficient proof to the contrary... [He] went straight into the King's rooms.

When he had gone into the King's study, Lord Falmouth, who had followed him, told Lord Ossory -- whom he discovered with the King -- what had just happened. They had good cause to suspect what the two brothers were discussing, since their interview was a long one. The Duke of York looked so upset when he came out that they had no doubt that things were going badly for poor Miss Hyde. Lord Falmouth was beginning to pity her in her disgrace, and to repent the part he had played, when the Duke asked him to be present with the Earl of Ossory in the Chancellor's rooms in an hour's time.

They were, indeed, a little surprised that he should have been hard enough to choose to announce the crushing news in person. At the appointed time they found His Highness in Miss Hyde's room. Her eyes were wet with tears she was trying to keep back. The Chancellor was leaning against a wall, and seemed full of restrained emotion... Then the Duke of York, addressing them with the calm and happy air with which good news is usually announced, told them, 'As you are the two men at Court for whom I have most esteem, I wish you to be the first to have the honour of paying your respects to the Duchess of York. There she is.'

Surprise was profitless, and astonishment would have been entirely inappropriate. They were both so full of both these emotions that to hide them they instantly threw themselves on their knees to kiss the hand which she held out to them with as much grandeur and majesty as if she had been doing it her entire life."

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The Great Fire of London: Day 5

5am: Samuel Pepys leads a little pack of Navy men to a small fire in Bishopsgate. When this fire is extinguished, there are no more outbreaks of flames around the city.

12pm: King Charles addresses the throng of London refugees in Moorfields. He makes it very clear that this was an accident, and not a Papist doing. However, the people did not believe him. Some carts are brought in from all over Kent, Middlesex, and Surrey, to spread water on the ruins and clear the streets.

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George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628), is perhaps one of the most memorable characters at James VI/I's court. Although he had a rather lackluster martial and political record, he remained James' favourite from their first encounter in 1614, until the King's death in 1625. As he was indeed a Villiers, George stirred up a lot of controversy and scandal in Jacobean London. However, perhaps the most persistent scandal surrounding him even to this day was his relationship with the King. 

James had first encountered Buckingham while he was on the summer progress around England. At the time of their first meeting, Buckingham was a young man of 21 years, whereas James was already pushing 50. In stark contrast to the stout, spindly legged King with a patchy goatee and padded clothing, Buckingham was, as one contemporary said, "the handsomest-bodied in England; his limbs so well compacted and his conversation so pleasing and of so sweet a disposition". Another said that "everything in him [was] full of delicacy and handsome features". Again, Buckingham's polished demeanour was a foil in and of itself to James' more rugged, coarse, and admittedly crude diction. James was instantly smitten with the sparkling young man, and Villiers quickly became the King's favourite.

The rate at which Villiers' star rose was alarming to some of James' courtiers. James' favourite before VIlliers arrived on the scene was Somerset, who was becoming more and more worried about his station in the King's life. A few courtiers made a motion to comfort Somerset, and to tell him that Villiers would pass out of the King's eye soon enough. However, this was far from the truth, and Somerset was acutely aware of this. Besides, James was getting tired of Somerset's impudence and general attitude.

The next August, James was off on his progress once more. Before returning to London, he decided to make a stop by Farnham Castle, accompanied by Villiers. They spent the night together and parted ways. Years later, Villiers somewhat vividly recalled his experience in a letter written to his 'Dear Dad' and 'Master':

"Sir, all the way hither I entertained myself, your unworthy servant, with this dispute, whether you loved me now... better than at the time which I shall never forget at Farnham, where the bed's head could not be found between the master and his dog."

More letters were passed between King and Duke in the 1620s, the each of them giving an intimate look into their relationship.

"God bless you, my sweet child and wife, and grant that ye may ever be a comfort to your dear father and husband." James had wrote to Buckingham in 1623. The Duke had replied with a blunt "I naturally so love your person, and adore all your other parts, which are more than ever one man had... I desire only to live in the world for your sake... I will live and die a lover of you."

James would often hug and kiss Villiers in public, showing his affection in such a manner that thoroughly discomfited Prince Charles. Up until  James' death in 1625, Buckingham was constantly at his side. He had considerable sway over King James, and used his position to heighten his family's status in the world; both of these things soured public opinion of the stylish Duke. Because of his closeness to the King, it was widely held that he had poisoned James, who died in bed at the age of 58, after suffering acute gastrointestinal distress. However, it is highly unlikely that he poisoned James. The King was sickly and was already on his way out.

Buckingham also held sway over the new King, Charles I, although there was no sexual relationship between the two of them. He exercised such an amount of influence over Charles that he ended up being assassinated, five days shy of his 36th birthday.

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The Great Fire of London: Day 4

2am: Elizabeth Pepys wakes her husband to tell him that Barking Church, which was at the end of Seething Lane, was on fire. As their house was threatened, Pepys acted quickly and moved Elizabeth, Jane, and her friend Will Hewer to Woolwich, along with a good sum of money. Whitefriars is consumed by flames. The fire reaches Shoe Lane, and destroys Lambs Building in Middle Temple. Buildings all along the strand are blown up, and courtiers begin to evacuate Whitehall. 

7am: Pepys returns to London from Woolwich to find that neither Barking Church nor Seething Lane were on fire. Climbing the tower at Allhallows, Pepys reports that the fire stretches out in all directions, as far as anyone could see. King Charles orders that food be sent to the homeless scattered throughout the city. Moreover, he orders more markets to be set up amidst the rubble, to hand out food and other goods needed for living after the fire.

12pm: A fire at Holborn Bridge was extinguished, and most fires in West London are out. 

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The Great Fire of London: Day 3

12am: The houses at Whitefriars are destroyed overnight to stop the fire from progressing.

5am: The brothers, King Charles II and James, Duke of York, meet up once more in the heart of the city, helping the people and encouraging them. Charles even has a bag of 100 Guineas on his person, which he gives out as both awards and encouragement. London’s central street, Cheapside, catches fire.

6am: The Queen Mother, Henrietta Maria, flees London to go to Hampton Court. Some firefighters abandon their posts.

12pm: The flames now encroach upon Salisbury Court and Bridewell. The Guildhall is threatened by the flames, and there is a mad scramble to save thousands of records and documents in the crypts under the hall. Saint Paul’s School is reduced to rubble. The Royal College of Surgeons succumbs to the flames, but most of the documents, instruments, and portraits housed in it are saved. Another building of Old London is destroyed. Ludgate and Newgate now catch flames, and the crowd, still firmly believing it is a Catholic plot that the city is aflame, try to murder the Portuguese ambassador. However, some people still seek refuge in the Spanish ambassador’s house.

6pm: Fleet Street catches fire, and Whitehall is considered at risk. Charles, his family, and his courtiers send their goods along the river. Any buildings within the vicinity of Whitehall are demolished, or unroofed. 

7pm: Fleet Street is gone, and the flames now menace Chancery Lane. Samuel Pepys digs a hole in his garden and buries a bottle of wine and a block of Parmesan cheese. Saint Bride’s Cathedral is destroyed, and Pepys’ birthplace is reduced to rubble.

8pm: To the horror of many, the great St. Paul’s Cathedral goes up in flames. Many citizens believed that it was indestructible, so they had stored their goods in it. It was also encased in wooden scaffolding, as it was currently undergoing restoration. 

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3 September 1651 - Charles II’s army is defeated by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester

The Battle of Worcester officially ended the Third English Civil War with a decisive Parliamentary victory. The Royalist army was only 16,000 strong, whereas the New Model Army boasted 31,000 soldiers. At the conclusion of the battle, 200 Roundheads were injured or killed. There were 13,000 were causalities.

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3 September 1658 - Oliver Cromwell dies, and his son, Richard Cromwell, succeeds him as Lord Protector

Seven years to the date after his victory over Charles II and the Royalist forces at the Battle of Worcester, Oliver Cromwell succumbed to malaria. The treatment of quinine was offered, but he turned it down, as it was known as ‘Jesuit’s Bark’ in the 17th century. His son, also known as Tumble Down Dick, became Lord Protector. However, he proved himself to be very incapable of running the government, and soon, the atmosphere was right for the King’s return.

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3 September 1660 - James, Duke of York, and Anne Hyde are (officially) married

During the year of 1658, shortly after the death of Oliver Cromwell, James promised to marry Anne upon his brother’s restoration to the throne. In late 1659, Anne fell pregnant by James. They had lived together off and on for about a year before Anne's pregnancy. However, they both realised it was going to be a problem when they did return to England. When Charles’ Restoration did come around, many people had their quibbles and qualms over the prospect of a Stuart-Hyde marriage, the worst offenders being Edward Hyde and Henrietta-Maria. They had a private ceremony on 3 September 1660 in Worcester House, married by an Anglican chaplain. Now that they were wed, James came grovelling to Charles, begging him to allow them to publicly marry. Charles was tepid on the matter, but brought Edward Hyde to the foreground to pass judgement on the marriage. Edward Hyde was absolutely, violently, vehemently against this marriage. He responded by saying as soon as he got home, he would take his daughter and turn her out into the streets as a strumpet! Note that Edward Hyde said this, with no previous knowledge that she and James were, indeed, actually already married. Hyde fumed at this, saying he’d rather have Anne be Charles’ “whore” than to marry James, and if they were indeed already married, he would be in total agreement if Parliament was to imprison and execute Anne. Hyde even went as far as to say he would be the first man to propose Anne’s death warrant! [x]

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The Great Fire of London: Day 2

1am: The London Post Office on Cloak Lane is the next significant building to go up in flames. The owner and his family escape and take shelter in one of the many inns in the city.

4am: Samuel Pepys decides that it is high time to move his belongings from his house on Seething Lane to the house of a friend in Bethnal Green.

5am: The fire shows no sign of relenting, and waxes even larger as it reaches the eastern edge of Cannon Street. The London Gazette posts that thre is a rather large and threatening fire destroying the city -- a rather pointless publication! The flames take three more company victims, consuming the Parish Clerks’, the Plumbers’, and the Joiners’ companies. The fire heads across Thames Street and burns down two more churches. 

8am: King Charles II joins the firefighting effort, helping to pull down sidings and spray water on the burning buildings himself.

9am: Charles’ brother, James, Duke of York, takes command of the firefighter brigade. He establishes various “fire posts” throughout London City at five different locations. They are manned by 100 civilians and 30 infantrymen. Realising the city is lost, people begin to leave, headed north and east.

10am: The wealthiest district in London, Gracechurch, catches fire. The Dean of Westminster and his students are able to salvage the St. Dunstan’s-in-the-East from the fire. The flames are now fast encroaching on the Royal Exchange. A mad scramble begins. Citizens, along with the help of Charles and James, pull down the buildings in southern Cornhill to prevent the Exchange from catching flames. However, the streets were very dirty, and the rubbish catches fire. The whole of Cornhill is consumed by flames. 

2pm: The British militia finally arrive. They act as both riot police and firefighters. Despite all the effort, the Royal Exchange is destroyed, along with all of Cornhill. 

3pm: There is nothing left of Lombard Street. No one is allowed into the City at this point; people may leave, but no carts can come in. Threadneedle Street is aflame. At this point in the fire, 23 churches around the city are burning simultaneously.

5pm: Three more major London streets are gripped by the fire. Another Hall is razed to the ground. Sadly, Derby House, office of the Heralds, is alight. Luckily, most of the records of the knights are saved, and Charles allows them too be stored at the Palace. Now Bucklersbury, where most of the London apothecary trade happens, is ablaze.

9pm: Baynards’ Castle catches fire. The staffers of the London Gazette are forced to leave, forsaking all their printing equipment.  St. Mildred Poultry, St. Christopher-le-stocks, St. Bartholomew Exchange, Grocers’ Hall and Mercers’ Hall catch fire. Later, over 200lbs of silver was recovered from the wreckage of Mercers’. The flames are now threatening to lay ruin to the Clothworkers’ and Bakers’ Halls. However, it is stopped from progressing on its current path by a large brick wall, which housed a market, and martial warehouses. At this point in time, the fire is dangerously close to the Tower -- only 300 yards away. As the leader of the brigade, James sends the remaining fire engines to the Tower. 

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The Great Fire of London: Day 1

1am: The fire that would soon consume the city started at Thomas Ferriner’s bakery on Pudding Lane. It was here that the first of the surprising few deaths of the fire occurred; a farmer’s maid succumbed to the flames.

3am: Jane, Samuel Pepys’ maid, wakes him up to tell him that the whole of the city is one fire. Pepys at first dismisses it, as fires crop up in London all the time. He goes back to sleep, thinking that nothing is out of the ordinary. Lord Mayor Thomas Bludworth says a ‘woman might piss out’ this fire, and goes back to bed himself when he is informed of it.

7am: Jane finally manages to get Pepys out of bed, and tells him that 300 houses in the city have been razed to the ground. With Pudding Lane laying in smolders behind it, the fire now headed towards Fish Street and towards the Bridge. It was on this warpath that St. Magnus’ Church was burnt. Sadly, there was a waterhouse and some pipes on the top of the Church. With their destruction, the firefighting efforts were seriously hindered.

8am: Pepys hires a boat to float along the Thames, so he can better survey the scene. He arrives in time to see the fire swallowing up London Bridge. From here, it was able to cross the Thames and arrive in the other side of the city, arriving first in the Steelyard. Fishmonger’s Hall is burnt to the ground, the first of nearly four dozen company headquarters to be destroyed. Another Church is burnt, and people who live on the riverbanks in waterside houses begin to flee, sending their possessions to the north.

9am: This was not an ordinary fire, and news spreads throughout London. Fleet Street is thronging with nervous Londoners. A conspiracy theorist rides through the crowd, mounted, telling the people to arm themselves; it’s either the French of the Dutch who set this fire, he said, and they need to be prepared to fight back.

10am: Pepys takes the barge upstream to Whitehall, to warn the King, Charles II. Pepys tells Charles that he thinks the best course of action would be to pull down the wooden facing on the houses. Charles agrees, and tells Pepys to go and tell Bludworth to set to work on the city. Bludworth obeys his King, and the pulling down of houses all across the city begins. However, people in the parts so far untouched by the flames carry on as usual.

11am: Wholly convinced that this was a Dutch, French, and/or Catholic act of arson, mobs of Londoners begin to roam the streets, looking for any foreigners to attack for the setting of the fire. Someone else spreads word that there is a mob of 4,000 French Catholics ready to converge on the city and attack the people. The Londoners arm themselves to fight off this imaginary foe. 

12pm: The fire worked its way north, above Thames Street. The Lord Mayor complains to Pepys that its too much of an effort to take down the facings, and it is all for naught: “I have been pulling down houses. But the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it.” A grammar school catches fire, but the schoolmaster emerges from it unscathed, arms full of books. Luckily, his school was rebuilt some 18 months later. Soldiers are thick in the city, patrolling for any foreign arsonists. 

3pm: The royal brothers, King Charles II and James, Duke of York, get on a barge and float down  the river, to better survey the damage. Charles commands that various nobles go out and help Pepys and the Lord Mayor save the city. Charles and James witness one of their warehouses go up in flames, destroying all sorts of lucrative goods; the wine, oil, hemp, tar, coal, and timber all act as fuel for the fire.

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Although the royal nursery of Charles I and Henrietta Maria held seven children at its fullest, only five of those children lived to see the Restoration in 1660. However, Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester (picture 4) barely made it to see his brother's Restoration on 29 May, as he died of smallpox on 13 September of the same year. His death hit Charles II (picture 1) especially hard, as he was his favourite brother. Sadly, the Royal Family had no time to recover from their loss. On Christmas 1660, Princess Mary (picture 2) succumbed to smallpox as well. Henry's death was a pivotal moment in the fate of the dynasty, much like the death of his namesake, the Prince of Wales, in 1612. Henry was a Protestant, and a firm one at that. Had Henry survived longer into Charles' reign, he may have had Parliament's help in jostling his brother, James, out of the line of succession. 

The three surviving children of Charles I and Henrietta Maria made it through the 60s with no problem. Charles and James were close and on good terms; Charles, as older brothers are wont to do, both teased James and fretted over him. Charles also enjoyed corresponding with his littlest sister, his 'dearest Minette' (picture 5), who was shackled on the Continent in unholy matrimony to Louis XIV's decidedly flamboyant and homosexual brother, Philippe. Despite the massive age difference between Charles and Minette -- fourteen years -- they were very close to one another. Minette came to England to visit in 1670 to act as the middleman for an Anglo-Franco treaty between her brother and Louis XIV. She had felt unwell during her stay in England, but nothing severe came of it. Charles and James conducted her back to her boat in tears on the day it was time for her to return to the Continent.

However, a few days after return to France, Minette died of acute peritonitis, following the rupture of an ulcer in her duodenum. She said her greatest grief in dying was leaving Charles. Upon receiving the news of her death, Charles collapsed, and didn't come out of his bedchamber for days, prostrated with grief. James suffered just as bitterly as his brother; he was so shocked that he fell dangerously ill, to the point where the doctors and Charles thought that he would be the next to go; although he had just caught a cold, it was so severe that the doctors justly thought that it would turn into consumption. However, James did pull through his illness and made it out without damage. 

As 1670 drew to a close, Charles and James were the only surviving children of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, the latter of which who had died some months before Minette herself. Charles was 40 years old, and James was 37.

Charles himself died in 1685 at the age of 54, due to acute mercury poisoning, kidney failure, and a stroke. He lay dying for four days, and for the entirety of that time, James was tirelessly at his side, as if he were in a trance, one contemporary said. He was even criticised for weeping openly for most of the ordeal. Even before the courtiers could proclaim, 'The King is dead, God save the King!' James quickly retired to his chambers, to avoid the congratulations of his new station. Locked away in his suite of rooms for some time, it is reported that he wept bitterly, before reemerging later, to give thanks to the courtiers. The first thing he said, however, was how deeply he was wounded by Charles' death, and that he considered his late brother to be one of the kindest men James had ever known, and the best King that the Isles have ever seen. When James was banished to France, he made sure that Masses were said for Charles, and often spoke to anyone that would listen to him about how much he loved his brother, and how much good Charles II had in his heart.

James outlived his beloved brother by 16 years, dying of a stroke at the age of 68 in France, exiled on the Continent once more.