Mary II
Maria II
Queen of England · Queen of Scotland · Queen of Ireland
1662 – 1694
Biography
Elder Protestant daughter of James II by his first wife, married at fifteen to her Dutch cousin William of Orange. When her father's Catholicism brought him down, parliament offered them the joint sovereignty that established the unique constitutional arrangement of co-monarchy in 1689. She governed effectively in her husband's frequent absences on the continent and reconciled the country to the new regime; she died of smallpox at thirty-two, leaving William to reign alone.
Events
An invitation from seven English peers brought William of Orange and a Dutch army ashore at Torbay on 5 November 1688. James II, lacking confidence in his own troops and forces, fled to France within weeks. Parliament declared the throne vacant by James's flight and offered it jointly to his daughter Mary and her husband William, on conditions later codified in the Bill of Rights. The settlement fixed parliamentary supremacy as the operating constitution of England.
Also there: James II and VII, Mary of Modena, William III
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