Mary II

Mary II (1662–94), queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1689–94). Mary was the elder daughter of James, duke of York, by his first wife Anne Hyde, daughter of the earl of Clarendon, Charles II's first lord chancellor. Her parents did not convert to catholicism until the end of the 1660s, and she and her sister Anne (born 1665) were brought up as protestants, one of their preceptors being Henry Compton, their lifelong adherent. Their protestant faith remained central to the sisters' lives. Mary was tall, of striking beauty and winning charm, and without Anne's vindictive tendencies. Her marriage to her cousin William of Orange in 1677, of such profound political consequence, initially filled Mary with misgivings; and it proved childless. But she overcame her reservations, and though William was unfaithful to her they shared a taste for simple domesticity, however ambitious their building and garden projects in Holland and Britain alike. Mary was soon at home in Holland, and her return to England as queen in February 1689 was her first since marriage.

Mary's willing submission to William ensured that he held the executive power in the joint monarchy; but her strong awareness of her hereditary right made Mary share in the widespread scepticism about the legitimacy of her half-brother James Francis Edward, born to James II on 10 June 1688, so assuring a catholic succession to the crown. Mary's relations with Anne were cool owing to Anne's intense resentment at William being joint monarch. Mary acted as regent during William's prolonged absences in Ireland and on the continent 1690–4, and he implicitly trusted her application and judgement. Her death from smallpox in December 1694 was widely mourned, not least by the king himself.

David Denis Aldridge