[Sidenote: Death of Charles II., 1685.] The House of Stuart, those children of the Guises, was always Catholic at heart, and Charles was at no pains to conceal his preferences. A wave of Catholicism alarmed the people, who tried to divert the succession from James, the brother of the King, who was extreme and fanatical in his devotion to the Church of Rome. But in 1685, the Masks and routs and revels were interrupted. The pleasure-loving Charles, who "had never said a foolish thing, and never done a wise one," lay dead in his palace at Whitehall, and James II. was King of England. [Sidenote: Milton and Bunyan.] Three names have illumined this reign, in other respects so inglorious. In 1666 Newton discovered the law of gravitation and created a new theory of the Universe. In 1667 Milton published "Paradise Lost," and in 1672 Bunyan gave to the world his allegory, "Pilgrim's Progress." There was no inspiration to genius in the cause of King and Cavaliers. But the stern problems of Puritanism touched two souls with the divine afflatus. The sacred Epic of Milton, sublime in treatment as in conception, must ever stand unique and solitary in literature; while "Pilgrim's Progress," in plain homely dish served the same heavenly food. The theme of both was the problem of sin and redemption with which the Puritan soul was gloomily struggling. The reign of James II. was the last effort of royal despotism to recover its own. He tried to recall the right of Habeas Corpus;--to efface Parliament--and to overawe the Clergy, while insidiously striving to establish Papacy as the religion of the Kingdom. Chief Justice Jeffries, that most brutal of men, was his efficient aid, and boasted that he had in the service of James hanged more traitors than all his predecessors since the Conquest! The names Whig and Tory had come into existence in this struggle. Whig, standing for the opponents to Catholic domination, and Tory for the upholders of the King. But so flagrantly was the Catholic policy of James conducted, that his upholders were few. In three years from his accession, Whig and Tory alike were so alarmed, that they secretly sent an invitation to the King's son-in-law, William, Prince of Orange, to come and accept the Crown. [Sidenote: James II. Deposed.] William responded at once, and when he landed with 14,000 men, James, paralyzed, powerless, unable to raise a force to meet him, abandoned his throne without a struggle and took refuge in France. [Sidenote: William and Mary, 1689-1702.] The throne was formally declared vacant and William and Mary his wife were invited to rule jointly the Kingdom of England, Ireland and Scotland (1689).