biography
| sex:
| female
|
| lived:
| (1662–94)
|
| biography:
| Queen of Britain and Ireland from 1689, born in St James's Palace, London, UK, the daughter of the Duke of York (later James II) and his first wife, Anne Hyde (1638–71). She was married in 1677 to her first cousin, William, Stadtholder of the United Netherlands, who in November 1688 landed in Torbay with an Anglo-Dutch army in response to an invitation from seven Whig peers hostile to the arbitrary rule of James II. When James fled to France, she came to London from Holland and was proclaimed queen, sharing the throne with her husband, who became William III. Both sovereigns accepted the constitutional revolution implicit in the Declaration of Rights. She was content to leave executive authority with William (except when he was abroad or campaigning in Ireland), but she was largely responsible for raising the moral standard of court life, and enjoyed a popularity which her husband never attained. She died of smallpox, and left no children. |
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