Mary II

Early life and education

Mary was born on 30 April 1662 at St James's Palace in London, the eldest daughter of James, Duke of York (the future King James II and VII), and his first wife, Anne Hyde.^[1][2] Her birth occurred during the reign of her uncle, King Charles II, who ruled the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.^[1] Her maternal grandfather, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, served for a lengthy period as Charles's chief advisor and Lord Chancellor.^[1] Diarist Samuel Pepys recorded that her birth pleased nobody, as an heir male had been hoped for, their previous infant son Charles having died in infancy the year before Mary was born. Although her mother bore eight children, all except Mary and her younger sister Anne died in early childhood.^[3][4] Because Charles II lacked legitimate children, Mary remained second in the line of succession to the English, Scottish, and Irish crowns after her father throughout most of her youth.^[3][4] She was baptised into the Anglican faith in the Chapel Royal at St James's and was named after her ancestor Mary, Queen of Scots, and her paternal aunt Mary, Princess of Orange.^[1][2] Her godparents included her father's cousin Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the Duchess of Buckingham, and the Duchess of Ormond.^[1][2] Her parents spent part of her early childhood at a residence in Twickenham that had been presented to them as a wedding gift by Lord Clarendon, and between 1665 and 1667 she lived in York to escape the Great Plague of London.^[2]

The Duke of York converted to Roman Catholicism in 1668 or 1669, while the Duchess had converted approximately eight years earlier, but Charles II commanded that Mary and Anne be raised strictly as Anglicans to preserve popular Protestant support for the monarchy.^[5][6][7] The sisters were removed to their own establishment at Richmond Palace, where they were raised by their governess Lady Frances Villiers, wife of Colonel Edward Villiers, assisted by Henrietta Hyde and nurse Frances Langford.^[8][9][10] They lived in relative seclusion from their parents, making only occasional visits to St James's Palace or to their grandfather at Twickenham.^[8][9][11] Mary's religious instruction was directed by George Morley, Bishop of Winchester, Henry Compton, Bishop of London, and Edward Lake, archdeacon of Exeter.^[2] Her broader education from private tutors was largely restricted to music, dance, drawing, French, and religious instruction.^[12] She learned to play the lute and the clavecin.^[13] She received no tuition in Latin or Greek, and her instruction in mathematics and orthography was deficient, leaving her prone to frequent spelling errors in her written correspondence.^[10] Her drawing instructor was the dwarf artist Richard Gibson, who later accompanied her to the Netherlands, while Pierre de Laine provided her lessons in French. Her mother died in March 1671, and in 1673 her father remarried, taking as his second wife the Catholic princess Mary of Modena, who was only four years older than Mary.^[14][15] James introduced his new bride to his daughters with the remark that he had brought them a new playmate, and Mary soon formed a warm relationship with her stepmother, particularly while Mary of Modena grieved the loss of her infant daughter Catherine Laura in 1675.^[16][17][18]

Among Mary's childhood playmates were the daughters of her governess Frances Villiers, Anne Trelawney, Sarah Jennings, and Frances Apsley.^[11] From about the age of nine until her marriage, Mary maintained a passionate and romantic correspondence with Frances Apsley, the daughter of courtier Sir Allen Apsley.^[11][19][20] Mary assumed the pen name 'Mary Clorine' (or 'Mary Clovin') and cast herself in the role of a devoted husband writing to her friend, whom she addressed as 'Aurelia'.^[11][19] In time, Frances Apsley became uncomfortable with the emotional intensity of these letters and replied in a more formal and distant manner, though their correspondence endured after Apsley married and left court.^[19][20][21] At Christmas 1674, Mary participated at court in the performance of the masque Calisto, or the Chaste Nymph, written by John Crowne.^[10] Contemporaries described Mary as an intelligent student who learned quickly, possessing a tall, graceful figure and dark curls, reaching an adult height of five feet eleven inches (180 cm).^[10][11][22] In her leisure hours, she enjoyed embroidery, needlework, and card games.^[11]

Marriage and life in the Netherlands

Because Charles II had no legitimate offspring, Mary's marriage prospects carried substantial diplomatic and dynastic significance across Europe.^[3] In the winter of 1670–1671, the Protestant Stadtholder of Holland, William III of Orange, visited England and sought her hand, but her father rejected the proposed match. William was the son of Charles II's late sister Mary, Princess Royal, and Prince William II of Nassau, placing him fourth in the English line of succession after James, Mary, and Anne.^[23][24] In 1674, the marriage project was revived by Chief Minister Lord Danby, though a visiting English delegation was received coolly by William. Charles II initially favoured marrying Mary to the Dauphin Louis, the heir to the French throne, hoping to consolidate an alliance with Catholic France and improve the prospects of an eventual Catholic successor in Britain.^[25] Under pressure from Parliament and with a French alliance no longer politically viable, Charles abandoned the French plan and approved the union with William.^[25] The Duke of York consented after sustained pressure from Danby and the King, who mistakenly believed that the union would enhance James's popularity among English Protestants.^[6][26] When James informed the fifteen-year-old Mary on 21 October 1677 that she was to marry her cousin, she wept all that afternoon and all the following day.^[27][28][29] Her bridegroom was twelve years her senior, suffered from chronic asthma, possessed a hooked nose and blackened teeth, and stood about ten centimeters shorter than Mary, earning the derisive nickname 'Caliban' from Princess Anne.^[2][28]

William and a tearful Mary were married on William's twenty-seventh birthday, 4 November 1677, in the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace by Bishop Henry Compton.^[28][30][31] The traditional public bedding ceremony to verify the consummation of the marriage was attended by the royal family, with King Charles II personally drawing the bed curtains.^[28][32] On the following day, William presented his bride with the delayed state jewels.^[28] Mary was granted an annual annuity of £10,000 along with £2,000 in pin money, and received wedding jewels valued at £40,000.^[10][28] King Louis XIV of France was angered by the marriage and immediately halted his financial subsidies to Charles II.^[28] Mary was reluctant to depart England, lingering to attend a court ball on 15/25 November celebrating the thirty-ninth birthday of Queen Catherine of Braganza and waiting for her sister Anne to recover from smallpox. When Queen Catherine attempted to comfort the weeping Mary by noting that she too had arrived in a foreign land upon marrying Charles, Mary retorted that the Queen had come to England, whereas she was leaving it. Accompanied by maids of honour Anne and Elizabeth Villiers, Anne Trelawney, and Jane Wroth (who married William Nassau de Zuylestein in 1681), the couple journeyed via Canterbury, where bad weather detained them for four days before they sailed from Margate on 28 November. Severe sea conditions delayed their crossing, and ice blocked access to Rotterdam.^[33][34] They were forced to land at the small coastal village of Ter Heijde and walk through the freezing countryside until carriages arrived to convey them to the palace of Huis Honselaarsdijk.^[34][35] On 14 December 1677, they made their formal entry into The Hague in a grand civic procession.^[36][37]

In the Netherlands, Mary lived primarily at Huis ten Bosch near The Hague and at the newly constructed palace of Het Loo near Apeldoorn, which was completed during the 1680s. Her animated, approachable character made her well liked by the Dutch population, and her marriage to a Protestant prince was welcomed in Britain.^[38] She adapted to Dutch life, learned the language, and engaged in needlework, reading, and card games. She and her ladies frequently traveled by sloop along Dutch canals while engaged in sewing and listening to their chaplain read aloud, cultivating a reputation among the Dutch as an exemplary housewife. Despite her public popularity, her domestic life was marred by unhappiness.^[39] William was frequently absent on military campaigns, leading Mary's relatives in England to assume he was cold and neglectful.^[40] Within months of her arrival, Mary became pregnant, but while visiting William at the fortress city of Breda in early 1678, she suffered a miscarriage that may have permanently damaged her capacity to bear children.^[41][42] Further bouts of severe illness that were likely miscarriages occurred in mid-1678, early 1679, and early 1680.^[43][44] Her childlessness remained the greatest source of personal sorrow throughout her life.^[39][45] She also suffered from recurrent eye afflictions that occasionally left her unable to read or write.

Mary's household experienced religious and interpersonal strains during her years in the Dutch Republic. William initially attempted to steer Mary toward Presbyterian forms of worship, but her chaplain George Hooper, who served her for eighteen months, insisted that she attend services according to the liturgy of the Church of England and read orthodox Anglican authors such as Richard Hooker. Hooper's successor Thomas Ken, who served from 1679 to 1680, openly censured William for his neglect and marital infidelity. William maintained an affair with Elizabeth Villiers, one of Mary's maids of honour, an estrangement that caused Mary deep distress.^[45] Nevertheless, Mary remained devoted to her husband, and over time their shared commitment to Protestantism helped foster closer mutual trust.^[46] In October 1678, Mary was visited at The Hague by her stepmother and her sister Anne, and her father visited in February 1679. Suffused with chills from the damp Dutch climate, she traveled to Aachen to take the waters. James, Mary of Modena, and Anne visited her again in October 1679, marking the final personal meeting between Mary and her father. In February 1681, Mary and William were received enthusiastically on an official visit to Amsterdam. In October 1685, her chaplain John Covel was dismissed and expelled from the country after William intercepted a letter written by Covel to the English diplomat Bevil Skelton sharply criticising William's treatment of his wife; he was replaced by William Stanley, who praised Mary's virtue and dignity.

Reign of James II and growing estrangement

From May 1684, Charles II's illegitimate son James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, lived in exile in the Netherlands, where he was cordially entertained by William and Mary.^[47] Monmouth was regarded by English exclusionists as a potential Protestant claimant who could supplant the Duke of York in the line of succession.^[47] William correctly calculated that Monmouth lacked sufficient backing among the English political nation and the Anglican clergy to mount a credible challenge, but Mary enjoyed Monmouth's company and went ice skating with him in early 1685.^[7][47] When Charles II died without legitimate issue in February 1685, Mary was playing cards when William informed her that her father had ascended the throne as James II of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland, making her heir presumptive.^[48][49] One of James's initial demands was that Mary expel Monmouth from her court.^[2] Monmouth subsequently gathered an invasion force in Amsterdam and sailed for England to claim the throne.^[50] William notified James of Monmouth's departure and ordered the English regiments stationed in the Low Countries to return to Britain.^[50] Monmouth was decisively defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor, captured, and executed, but William and Mary were soon alarmed by James's subsequent governance.^[51][52]

James II embarked upon a contentious domestic and religious program, attempting to grant freedom of worship to Roman Catholics and dissenters by suspending acts of Parliament through royal prerogative.^[53][54] Mary considered the suspension of parliamentary statutes illegal, and her chaplain conveyed her disapproval in a letter to William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury.^[55][56] Mary was further disturbed when King Louis XIV of France invaded the principality of Orange and persecuted local Huguenots, and James refused to intervene on behalf of the displaced Protestants, whom Mary assisted financially.^[56][57] Seeking to undermine William's domestic standing, James encouraged members of Mary's household to inform her that William was conducting an adulterous affair with Elizabeth Villiers.^[57][58] Acting on this intelligence, Mary waited outside Villiers's bedchamber late at night and intercepted William as he emerged.^[57][58] William denied adultery, and Mary forgave him, though historians note that their meetings may have been held to exchange sensitive diplomatic intelligence rather than romantic liaisons.^[57][59][60] Mary subsequently dismissed the servants who had reported the encounter and sent them back to England.^[61][62]

In late 1687, James II tried to convert Mary to Catholicism, setting out in a detailed letter his reasons for his own conversion to the Catholic faith. His efforts failed: Mary remained true to her religious conviction, although she had read the notes her mother had left about her own conversion. She also pleaded with her father, without success, against the removal of Bishop Henry Compton, and protested by letter against the recall of the English regiments stationed in Holland. In April and May 1688, James ordered the Anglican clergy to read his Declaration of Indulgence from their pulpits.^[53][54] Archbishop Sancroft and six other bishops formally petitioned against the order; James had them arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London.^[63] Mary learned of the arrest of the Seven Bishops on 8 June 1688 while residing at Honselaarsdijk and was deeply shocked by her father's aggressive measures against the Anglican establishment.^[63]

The Glorious Revolution

On 10 June 1688, Queen Mary of Modena gave birth to a healthy son, James Francis Edward, displacing Mary as heir presumptive and raising the immediate prospect of a permanent Roman Catholic dynasty in Britain.^[64][65] Rumours quickly spread among Protestants that the infant was supposititious, having been smuggled into the bedchamber inside a warming pan to replace a stillborn child.^[64][65] Seeking first-hand information, Mary sent a detailed list of eighteen questions to her sister Anne, who had been absent at Bath during the delivery.^[66][67] Anne's sceptical reply, combined with circulating court gossip, reinforced Mary's conviction that the newborn child was not her natural brother and that her father had orchestrated a fraud to secure a Catholic succession.^[66][67][68] Mary publicly questioned the legitimacy of the child, which led to a breach with her father.^[10]

On 30 June 1688, seven prominent English statesmen, later celebrated as the 'Immortal Seven', secretly dispatched an invitation to William at The Hague, urging him to bring an army to England to depose James.^[69][70] Rear-Admiral Arthur Herbert delivered the message on 10 July while disguised as a common sailor. William had previously hesitated, harbouring concerns that if Mary became sovereign, she would outrank him in authority.^[71] According to Gilbert Burnet, Mary resolved his doubts by assuring him that she had no personal ambition for sovereign power, promising that she would always defer to his leadership as pledged in her marriage vows and do everything in her power to ensure he was made king for life.^{[10][72][73][74]} William assembled an expedition financed by loans totalling seven million guilders from the city of Amsterdam, Jewish financiers, and loans facilitated by continental anti-French interests. On 20 September 1688, he issued a formal declaration denouncing James's newborn son as the 'pretended Prince of Wales' and listing the grievances of the English people, declaring his sole objective to be the convocation of a free and lawful Parliament.^[75]

Meanwhile Mary spent most of her time withdrawn and alone at the newly completed palace of Het Loo, where she meditated. In October she went to The Hague to bid William farewell, but refused his suggestion that she marry again if he did not return. An initial sailing was driven back by severe autumn storms, but the Dutch fleet set sail again in November.^[76] Mary watched the fleet depart while standing upon the church tower of the Sint-Catharijnekerk at Brielle. William landed at Torbay on 5 November 1688 at the head of approximately 15,000 troops, while Mary remained behind in the Netherlands.^[76][77] Disaffected English officers, soldiers, and sailors rapidly defected to William's banner.^[78][79] On 11 December, James attempted to flee London, throwing the Great Seal into the Thames, but was apprehended in Kent.^[80] On 23 December, a second attempt at flight succeeded when William deliberately allowed James to escape to France, where he lived in exile for the rest of his life under the protection of Louis XIV.^[80][81]

Mary was conflicted by her father's deposition, torn between natural filial affection and her religious and marital duties, though she remained convinced that William's intervention was necessary to save the Anglican Church and the state.^[82][83][84] On 1 February 1689, Admiral Arthur Herbert arrived in the Netherlands to escort her to England, and she sailed on 10 February, arriving at London on the afternoon of 12 February.^[83][85] William ordered her to display a joyous countenance during their formal entry into London, which attracted public criticism from Sarah Churchill and John Evelyn, who viewed her cheerful demeanor as evidence of unfeeling coldness toward her father's misfortunes.^{[83][86][87][88][89]} James wrote a diatribe criticising her disloyalty, which deeply affected the devout Mary.^[90] When she requested the blessing of Archbishop Sancroft, he reportedly answered that she should first seek her father's blessing, without which his own was useless.^[10]

Accession and coronation

In January 1689, the Convention Parliament summoned by William met to determine the constitutional settlement of the realm.^[91][92] A Tory faction headed by Lord Danby argued that Mary, as the rightful hereditary heir, should reign as sole queen regnant, while William would serve merely as her consort.^[93][94] William adamantly rejected the role of consort, asserting that he would not be subordinate to his wife and threatening to return to the Netherlands with his army if denied the royal title.^{[93][94][95][96]} For her part, Mary refused to accept the crown alone, insisting that she wished to defer to her husband and live a quiet domestic life.^[97][98][99] On 13 February 1689, Parliament passed the Declaration of Right in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, resolving that James had abdicated the government by his flight and that the throne was vacant.^{[83][100][101][102]} The crown was offered jointly to William and Mary as co-monarchs, with the stipulation that the sole and full exercise of regal power would be carried out by William in their joint names during their shared lives.^[100][102] The declaration excluded all Roman Catholics from the succession, stating that historical experience proved a Protestant kingdom could not safely be governed by a Catholic prince.^[101][103]

William and Mary were crowned together in Westminster Abbey on 11 April 1689 by Henry Compton, Bishop of London.^{[104][105][106]} Archbishop Sancroft, though an Anglican, refused to acknowledge the legality of James's deposition and declined to officiate.^{[104][105][106]} During the ceremony, ten-year-old John von Collas carried Mary's train, and Gilbert Burnet, recently elevated to Bishop of Salisbury, delivered the coronation sermon.^[105] Neither sovereign enjoyed the prolonged service; Mary recorded that it was all vanity, and William dismissed it as Popish.^{[105][106][107]} On the same day, the Convention of the Estates of Scotland declared that James had forfeited the Scottish throne, that no Catholic could rule the realm, and that William and Mary were joint monarchs of Scotland, with executive power vested in William.^[100][108] They accepted the Scottish crown and took the coronation oath in London on 11 May 1689.^[100] A commemorative coronation medal depicted William as Jupiter casting a thunderbolt at James as Phaethon falling from his chariot; Jacobite propagandists countered by depicting Mary as Tullia driving her chariot over the body of her father.^[109]

In December 1689, Parliament gave statutory force to the constitutional settlement by passing the Bill of Rights.^[110][111] The act restricted the royal prerogative by declaring that the sovereign could not suspend laws, levy taxes without parliamentary approval, maintain a standing army in peacetime without consent, deny Protestants the right to bear arms, interfere in parliamentary elections, or impose excessive bail or cruel and unusual punishments.^[110][111] The Bill of Rights confirmed the line of succession: upon the death of either monarch, the survivor would continue to reign; their children would follow; then Princess Anne and her issue; and lastly any children William might have by a subsequent marriage.^[110][111] Despite the settlement, substantial support for James persisted among Jacobites, particularly in Scotland.^[108][112] John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount Dundee, raised a Highland army and defeated government forces at the Battle of Killiecrankie on 27 July 1689, but Dundee was mortally wounded during the engagement.^[112] Deprived of effective leadership, the Jacobite rising was crushed the following month by the Cameronians at the Battle of Dunkeld.^[113]

Governance and regency

From 1690 onwards, William was frequently absent from England conducting military campaigns from spring until autumn each year.^{[114][115][116]} In May 1690, Parliament passed the Regency Act, which formally empowered Mary to administer the government in her own name whenever William was out of the country.^[10][115] When William was in England, Mary completely refrained from political interference as agreed in the Bill of Rights, leaving affairs of state to her husband.^{[99][100][110][117]} To assist her, William appointed a council of nine members: the Marquess of Carmarthen, the Earl of Devonshire, the Earl of Dorset, the Earl of Monmouth, the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Marlborough, the Earl of Nottingham, John Lowther and Edward Russell; five were Tories and four were Whigs.^[2] Mary found the council members argumentative and untrustworthy, yet she managed them with political skill by playing their competing factional rivalries against one another.^[2] During her regencies, Mary issued thirty-seven royal proclamations, reviewed petitions, inspected troops, censored the press, summoned and dissolved parliament, made church appointments, and signed orders for arrests and executions.^[10] She reflected privately on her heavy burdens, observing that a woman felt helpless without a man's head and hands, yet she proved to be a resolute ruler in practice.^[10][118]

Mary exercised her first regency from June to September 1690 while William campaigned against Jacobite forces in Ireland.^[116][119] She acted decisively against domestic sedition, ordering the arrest of several prominent conspirators, including her own maternal uncle Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London for plotting James's restoration.^[120][121] In late June 1690, the French fleet under Tourville threatened the English coast and defeated an Anglo-Dutch fleet at the Battle of Beachy Head on 30 June / 10 July.^[2] English Admiral Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington, had hesitated to engage, but Mary, following the majority view of her council, ordered him to fight; after the defeat, she had Torrington confined in the Tower and secured the appointment of Richard Haddock, Sir John Ashby and Sir Henry Killigrew as his successors. News of William's victory over James at the Battle of the Boyne on 1/11 July 1690 reached Mary six days after the battle, and she was pleased because an invasion of England now seemed unlikely again. When William returned in September after failing to take Limerick, Parliament publicly thanked Mary for her prudent governance.^[10][119]

Mary governed England again from January to October 1691 while William waged the Nine Years' War on the continent.^[116][122] In January 1691 a Jacobite conspiracy involving Lord Preston was uncovered; Preston faced the death penalty but obtained his release in June through a full confession, and Mary was only marginally involved because William dealt with the matter himself during his brief return. On 6/16 February 1691, Mary held a court ball for Princess Anne's twenty-sixth birthday, and two months later she narrowly escaped a devastating fire at the Palace of Whitehall. In May 1691, on the Queen's order, which followed an instruction from William, Anne's husband Prince George of Denmark was not allowed to serve in the navy, and this led to a fierce quarrel between Mary and Anne. In 1692, Mary was horrified by reports of the Massacre of Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands, in which government soldiers had slaughtered members of Clan MacDonald; she actively sought an official inquiry to protect the King's reputation from accusations of cruelty.^{[7][123][124]}

In January 1692, William dismissed John Churchill, 1st Earl of Marlborough, from all his military and civil offices on suspicion of maintaining treasonous correspondence with the exiled James II.^{[125][126][127]} Princess Anne openly defied the monarchs by appearing at court accompanied by Marlborough's wife, Sarah Churchill, who was Anne's close companion.^{[125][126][128][129]} An incensed Mary demanded that Anne dismiss Sarah and vacate her royal apartments at the Cockpit in Whitehall.^{[126][128][129]} Anne refused and withdrew with the Churchills to Syon House.^[126] In May 1692, Marlborough was arrested and committed to the Tower based on allegations produced by an informer named Robert Young, but he was released five weeks later after Young was exposed as an impostor who had forged documents.^[130][131] When Mary fell ill with a fever in April 1692, she missed Sunday church services for the first time in twelve years.^{[123][126][132]} She was unable to visit Anne during a difficult childbirth; when Anne's infant son died shortly after birth on 17 April, Mary visited her sister, but utilized the visit to berate Anne for her continued association with Sarah Churchill.^[133][134] The two sisters never met again.^{[126][135][136]} Mary noted in her journal that their painful breach was a divine punishment for the irregularity of the Revolution.^[137][138]

At the end of April 1692, England faced the threat of a French invasion. Amid rumours that a number of naval officers planned to go over to her father's side with their crews, Mary wrote an urgent letter to Admiral Edward Russell stressing her confidence in the navy's loyalty, which led 64 naval officers to declare their loyalty. At the Battle of La Hogue (25 May / 4 June 1692), the combined Anglo-Dutch fleet under Russell defeated the French naval squadron under Tourville, extinguishing French invasion plans.^[139] In celebration, Mary distributed financial rewards among the sailors and announced the conversion of the royal palace at Greenwich into a hospital for wounded and retired seamen.^[139] When she conducted her regencies in 1693 (from 24 March to 29 October) and 1694 (from 6 May to 9 November), Mary contended with deepening parliamentary friction and Cabinet disagreements between Whigs and Tories, while experiencing chronic fatigue that curtailed her administrative energy.^[140]

Mary took an active part in the affairs of the Church of England, and all matters of ecclesiastical patronage passed through her hands.^[141][142] She combated clerical pluralism and took care in appointing bishops of integrity.^[142] William largely left Mary a free hand in appointing senior clergy; when bishops who refused the oath to the new monarchs were removed, Archbishop William Sancroft was replaced by the reluctant John Tillotson, and Henry Compton, Bishop of London, was disappointed not to receive the office. To William's displeasure, she elevated her former chaplain George Hooper to the deanery of Canterbury. Upon Tillotson's death in November 1694, Mary urged the appointment of Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, but William overruled her and appointed Thomas Tenison, Bishop of Lincoln.^[140] Devout in her private life, Mary attended prayers at least twice a day.^[143][144] She issued proclamations instructing magistrates to strictly enforce statutes against vice, profanity, drunkenness, and the desecration of the Sunday Sabbath, viewing personal piety as essential to preserve divine favour for the nation.^{[2][145][146]}

Patronage of arts, architecture, and gardens

Mary exerted a distinct cultural influence in England and the Netherlands through her patronage of architecture, decorative arts, and landscape design.^{[147][148][149]} Because of William's health, the court soon moved from Whitehall to Hampton Court Palace, and on 23 December 1689 the couple settled in Kensington Palace, which they had acquired from the Earl of Nottingham. Mary set interior design fashions by assembling an extensive collection of East Asian blue-and-white porcelain and Dutch Delftware, displaying items upon carved brackets, mantelpieces, and specialised cabinets.^{[147][150][151][152]} She commissioned court painter Sir Godfrey Kneller to produce a series of portraits depicting the principal beauties of her court, known as the 'Hampton Court Beauties', creating a visual continuity with Sir Peter Lely's earlier Windsor Beauties.^[150] The design trends she set reflected her taste and her commitment to elevating the cultural landscape of her time.^[147]

Mary took a personal interest in botany and garden design, introducing Continental formal landscaping to English royal residences.^{[148][151][152]} She oversaw the laying out of parterres, terraces, and waterworks at Het Loo in Apeldoorn and later influenced the horticultural layout at Hampton Court.^[151][152] During her years in the Netherlands she began collecting rare plants. Her enthusiasm for ornamental garden pools and water features helped popularize the keeping of goldfish as pets in England.^[151][152]

Mary was an engaged patron of Baroque music, maintaining a notable creative association with composer Henry Purcell.^[153] Purcell composed a succession of birthday odes for the Queen between 1689 and 1694, culminating in the 1694 ode Come, ye Sons of Art.^[154] Her patronage extended to sacred choral music within the Chapel Royal, where she commissioned anthems for royal ceremonies and thanksgiving services.^[155] Unlike her husband, who was primarily absorbed in military strategy and diplomacy, Mary regularly supported musicians and composers throughout her life.^[156]

Illness, death, and funeral

Despite her vigorous constitution and regular walking between Whitehall and Kensington Palace, Mary fell ill in late November 1694.^[22][157] When smallpox symptoms emerged in December, she ordered all members of her household who had not previously contracted the disease to leave the palace to prevent the infection from spreading.^[158][159] Her estranged sister Anne, who was again pregnant, sent a letter offering to visit Mary at any personal risk, but the request was turned down by Mary's Groom of the Stool, the Countess of Derby.^[160][161] Physician John Radcliffe initially believed Mary had measles after her skin lesions briefly receded; however, the rash had turned inward, signaling a virulent case of hemorrhagic smallpox.^[162] Aware of her imminent death, Mary spent her final days ordering her papers, burning portions of her private correspondence, and writing a farewell letter to William concerning his past infidelities, which she entrusted to Bishop Tenison to deliver after her death.^[163] She received the last rites from Archbishop Tenison and died at Kensington Palace shortly after midnight on the morning of 28 December 1694 at the age of 32.^[164][165]

William was devastated by Mary's death, having come to rely heavily on her emotional support and administrative competence.^[158][159] He collapsed in grief at her bedside and told Gilbert Burnet that having been the happiest of men, he was now the most miserable creature on earth.^[158][159] In his sorrow, William ended his liaison with Elizabeth Villiers and gave Mary's personal jewels to Princess Anne. While Jacobite polemicists portrayed her early death as divine retribution for breaking the fifth commandment by dishonouring her father, the English public mourned her deeply.^{[166][167][168]} At his court in exile at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, James II prohibited his courtiers from holding any memorial services or observing mourning for his daughter.^[167]

During an exceptionally bitter winter in which the River Thames froze solid, Mary's embalmed body lay in state at the Banqueting House in Whitehall from 21 February to 5 March 1695.^{[167][169][170]} On 5 March, she was interred in the Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey.^[167][169] Her funeral service was the first royal funeral in English history attended by all members of both Houses of Parliament.^{[167][169][170]} Archbishop Thomas Tenison preached the funeral sermon, and composer Henry Purcell provided the ceremonial setting Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, comprising an opening march, canzona, and choral funeral anthems.^{[167][171][172][173]} William remained king until his death in 1702, and the crown passed to Mary's younger sister, Anne.^[111][174]

Legacy, titles, and heraldry

In 1693, Mary endowed the College of William and Mary in Virginia, granting it a royal charter that made it the second institution of higher education established in British North America.^{[139][175][176]} She supported the missionary efforts of Thomas Bray, who subsequently founded the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.^[139][177] Following the naval triumph at La Hogue, she was instrumental in the establishment of the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich to care for disabled and retired sailors.^[139][177] After Princess Anne's sole surviving child, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, died in July 1700, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement 1701, stipulating that the crown would pass to Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant descendants to prevent a Roman Catholic restoration.^[178]

Jacobites depicted Mary as an unfaithful daughter who destroyed her father for her own and her husband's gain, but the assessment of her character that came down to posterity was largely that of a dutiful, submissive wife who assumed power reluctantly, exercised it with considerable ability when necessary, and willingly deferred it to her husband.^{[179][180][181][182]} Nahum Tate's A Present for the Ladies (1692) compared her governance to that of Queen Elizabeth I, while William Walsh's A Dialogue Concerning Women (1691) praised her diffidence by comparing her to Cincinnatus, who assumed authority when called upon by his country and willingly relinquished it.^{[183][184][185][186]} Although Mary destroyed many private papers prior to her death, her personal diaries and letters to William and Frances Apsley survived, portraying a reflective woman who exercised sovereign authority with competence and relinquished it without ambition.^{[163][180][182][187]}

From birth until her marriage, Mary was styled Her Highness The Lady Mary.^[188] Following her marriage in 1677, she was known as Her Highness (or Her Royal Highness) The Princess of Orange.^[100][189] Upon ascending the throne on 13 February 1689, she assumed the style Her Majesty The Queen. The joint style of the sovereigns in England was 'William and Mary, by the Grace of God, King and Queen of England, France and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, etc.' From 11 April 1689, following recognition by the Scottish Estates, their style was 'William and Mary, by the Grace of God, King and Queen of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, etc.'^[190] The joint royal coat of arms marshalled the Stuart royal arms with William's paternal arms: quarterly, I and IV grandquarterly France and England; II Scotland; III Ireland; overall an inescutcheon azure billetty a lion rampant or for the House of Orange-Nassau.^[191][192]

Mary has been portrayed in several film and television productions. She was portrayed by Lisa Daniely in the BBC television miniseries The First Churchills (1969); by Sarah Crowden in Sally Potter's film adaptation of Orlando (1992); by Rebecca Front in the biographical film England, My England (1995), which chronicled Henry Purcell's musical career; and by Victoria Wood in the fantasy film The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse (2005).^{[193][194][195][196]} Purcell's funeral march for Queen Mary was later adapted by electronic composer Wendy Carlos as the title theme for Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange.^[197]

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