James II

Hardback | 264 pp.

A re-typeset premium edition of Belloc's classic text

In the twilight of the Restoration, the last king of England’s ancient monarchy inherited a throne which had been weakened by his brother’s work of saving it.

Honourable and determined, but blighted by poor judgement and naivety, James II faced insuperable odds against the money power.

When the king became a Catholic and moved for toleration his fate was sealed: the press circulated libel, and the House of Orange was invited to supplant him. William, his son-in-law, launched a Dutch invasion, and the nation’s dynasty was finally usurped.

Master historian Hilaire Belloc paints a portrait of the tragic, rigid monarch whose conversion to the Catholic faith was the final nail in English kingship. A great admiral who completed the Stuart project of the Royal Navy, James should have been confirmed a hero but instead was doomed to exile while the realm was set onto a new, inglorious course.