Little Arthur's history of EnglandCallcott, Maria, Lady
History
Little Arthur's history of England
Callcott, Maria, Lady
Great Britain -- History -- Juvenile literature
James married, first, a daughter of that Lord Clarendon who would
have given good advice to Charles the Second, as I told you; but
neither Charles nor James would listen to him. James had two
daughters when he came to be king; they were both married; the eldest
to William, Prince of Orange, who was the king’s nephew, and the
second to Prince George of Denmark. You will hear more of both these
ladies by-and-by. King James’s second wife was an Italian lady, a
princess of Modena, a Roman Catholic, proud and haughty, and disliked
by the English.
Before James had been king a year, the Duke of Monmouth, a young
prince, who was his nephew, landed in England with a small army,
in hopes the people would make him king instead of James. But King
James’s soldiers soon put an end to Monmouth’s army, and the young
prince was sent to London, where his head was cut off.
The king sent two men to punish the rebels in the parts where
Monmouth’s army was destroyed, Colonel Kirke and Judge Jeffries.
These two men, by the king’s orders, committed the greatest
cruelties; they hung some men on different church steeples; some they
cut to pieces before they were quite dead. A kind and charitable old
woman, Mrs. Gaunt, was burnt alive because she had once given shelter
to a conspirator against King Charles; and Lady Lisle was put to
death for the same reason. In short, King James soon showed that he
was as cruel and wicked as any king that ever reigned in any country,
and the people began to hate him.
The next things that made the English people wish to get rid of James
as a king, were his trying to govern without a parliament; his trying
to give all power in Church and State to the Roman Catholics; and
his putting seven English bishops in prison because they entreated
him not to make the clergy read in church during divine service an
unlawful proclamation.
The king ordered the bishops to be tried, in hopes that the judges
would condemn them to be punished; but the jury (which is, you know,
made up of twelve or more men, appointed to help the judge to find
out the TRUTH) said that the bishops were not guilty of anything for
which the king could punish them; and as soon as the people heard
this, all those who were in the street waiting to hear what the
judges would say, and even the king’s own soldiers, set up such a
shout for joy that the king heard it.
Instead of beginning a civil war, however, a number of the wisest and
best English noblemen sent messages to William, Prince of Orange, who
had married King James’s eldest daughter, Mary, and invited him to
come and help them to put an end to James’s misrule and tyranny.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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