Mary of Modena

Queen of England (r. 1685-1688)

• Born: October 5, 1658
• Birthplace: Modena (now in Italy)
• Died: May 7, 1718
• Place of death: Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France

Selected by Louis XIV of France as a suitable Catholic bride for the future King James II of England, Mary of Modena provided her husband with support, might have influenced his religious policies, and ultimately provided him with a son and heir, an event that contributed significantly to the Glorious Revolution.

Early Life

The daughter of Duke Alphonso IV of Modena and Laura Martinozzi, Mary of Modena (MAW-day-nah) was raised to be a deeply pious Catholic and, until the age of fifteen, was focused upon entering the Visitation order of nuns. It came as a huge shock to her, therefore, when she was suddenly told that she was to marry the widowed James, duke of York, the brother of King Charles II of England and (since Charles had no legitimate children), the heir to the English throne. Mary was beside herself in grief and panic for two days and was only reconciled to the union through the personal intervention of Pope Clement X.

The duke of York, formerly a Protestant Anglican, had converted to the Roman Catholic faith. The pope and the powerful French king Louis XIV therefore saw the death of James’s first wife, Anne Hyde, as an opportunity. They hoped that, by marrying the English heir apparent to a Catholic bride, they could set in motion a chain of events that would lead to the birth of a Catholic heir and the foundation of an English Catholic dynasty, thereby reclaiming England as a Catholic nation.

This strategy represented the only hope for Clement and Louis, because James had already had two daughters with Anne Hyde, Mary and Anne, who were both baptized into the Anglican Protestant Communion at the insistence of their uncle, King Charles. Mary , the elder of the sisters, would marry her cousin, Prince William III of Orange, who was to become stadtholder of the Netherlands and was himself a staunch Dutch Reformed Protestant. Thus, the only way to institute a Catholic line of succession for England would be for James and his next wife to produce a Catholic son, who would take precedence over the elder, Protestant daughters.

King Louis, seeking eligible Catholic princesses for James, settled on Mary of Modena because of reports of her religious zeal and commitment, as well as her beauty. She was described as being dark-haired, dark-eyed, fine-featured, and of a sweet and gentle disposition. Persuaded finally by the pope that she was duty-bound to go through with the marriage to do what she could to bring England back into the Catholic fold, Mary was wed by proxy to the duke of York on September 30, 1673, in Italy, through the agency of the British envoy, Henry Mordaunt, second earl of Peterborough.

Life’s Work

Mary journeyed to London via Paris and met her husband on November 21; according to one report, she broke down and sobbed uncontrollably. She was only fifteen, and her new husband was forty. Settling in to life at King Charles’s rather eccentric court, Duchess Mary was well accepted by the king and by her husband’s daughters, and her marriage grew into a lasting and loving relationship (despite the intermittent, casual affairs James engaged in with other women at court, which would sometimes cause Mary to break down emotionally). She generally assumed a very low political profile but, notwithstanding, she was subject to harsh attacks from members of Parliament who believed that she was Louis XIV’s agent, sent to influence the court to follow a stronger pro-Catholic agenda. It certainly is true that she remained quite openly steadfast in her faith, and this could not have helped but to have had some effect upon her husband’s policy decisions.

Shortly after the arrival of Duchess Mary, some members of Parliament moved to declare the marriage null and void, and during the Exclusion Crisis of the 1670’s-1680’s, in which attempts were made to bar the duke of York from the line of succession, Madame East (as she was popularly dubbed) shared the same unpopularity as her husband. Accordingly, she accompanied him into exile for three years. The couple experienced great deal of personal tragedy as well: The duke and duchess’s first ten children died young: Catherine Laura (January 16-October 3, 1675); Isabel (August 28, 1676-March 2, 1680); Charles (November 7-December 12, 1677); Elizabeth (born & died at unspecified dates in 1678); Charlotte (August 15-October 6, 1682); and five unnamed infants, who were born and died, respectively, in: 1674, 1675, 1681, 1683 and 1684.

In 1681, the political tide began to turn against the pro-exclusionary forces, who by this time had been dubbed the Whigs, and their opponents, the so-called Tories, gained ground. Two years later, the Rye House Plot of 1683, hatched by Whig extremists to assassinate King Charles and his brother James (the latter newly returned from exile), completely discredited the Exclusionist cause. By the time of Charles II’s death on February 6, 1685, the duke of York was in such a strong position that there was no immediate opposition when he succeeded to the throne as King James II.

Mary of Modena’s life as queen was, if anything, even more challenging than it had been before: Her husband’s infidelities continued, and his absolutist and pro-Catholic actions made him increasingly unpopular, even among the loyal Tories. The queen continued to be the object of suspicion, and she was even credited as a major factor in urging increasingly restrictive and discriminatory measures against Protestants. There is, however, little evidence to show how her counsels influenced royal policy.

Nonetheless, opposition to King James was slow in forming; one of the chief factors contributing to the initially weak opposition was the fact that the king himself, who was nearing the age of fifty-five, could not last that much longer and that his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange were next in line to the throne and would reverse what James was doing. However, on June 10, 1688, Queen Mary gave birth to a healthy, robust male child who was christened into the Catholic faith as James Edward Stuart. This set James’s daughter Mary back in the line of succession and seemed to portend a potentially endless line of Catholic Stuart rulers, a prospect that frightened most of the king’s Protestant subjects.

Stories circulated that James Edward was not the actual son of King James and Queen Mary but really a local miller’s son who had been smuggled into the delivery room in a warming pan. These rumors seem to have been nothing more than desperate propaganda with no basis in fact whatsoever. Nevertheless, an increasingly vehement opposition movement gathered in support of William III and Mary, and in November, 1688, at the urging of both Whigs and Tories, William III’s forces landed on the southern English coast near Torbay.

James II’s actions when confronted with William’s forces and the role that Mary of Modena might have played in what was to be dubbed the Glorious Revolution of 1688 have been the subject of much debate. It seems undeniable that James suffered some sort of breakdown or failure of nerve. Queen Mary and Prince James Edward were obviously too valuable to risk falling into William’s hands, and they were sent to France. Later that same day, December 10, 1688, James himself fled Britain and joined his wife and son in exile. Mary of Modena has been variously depicted either as providing her husband with a source of purpose and sanity or as precipitating, through entreaties and persuasion, his disastrous decision to leave England and thus allow William III and Mary II to usurp his throne.

Whatever was the case, Mary of Modena was supportive of James’s attempts to regain the throne through the Siege of Londonderry (1689) and the succeeding War of the Two Kings in Ireland (1689-1691), but it was William and Mary who again prevailed, and the deposed royal family settled into permanent exile in France at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Their last child, Louisa Maria, was born there on June 28, 1692 (she would only live 19 years, passing away on April 18, 1712, whereas James Edward would survive until 1766).

After 1692 and the dashing of his last hopes at restoration by the naval defeat of the French fleet at La Hogue, James sank into depression and eventually lost his grip on reality. He died almost unnoticed on September 6, 1701. It was Mary of Modena who kept the Jacobite cause alive for the next generation, contributing large subsidies to Jacobite groups in Britain and Ireland, and who encouraged James Edward in his unsuccessful uprising in Scotland in 1715. She died of cancer on May 7, 1718.

Significance

Scholars disagree over whether Mary of Modena was, in the end, an asset or a liability to her husband and her adopted nation. Lack of documentation makes it hard to determine how profound her influence was. According to some historians, she was a tower of strength whose words and example could bolster her husband’s resolve. Her charm, piety, and moral character won continuing, dedicated support for the Jacobite cause on both sides of the English Channel. Others theorize that she made James even more fanatical in his Catholicism than he already was and that her behind-the-scenes prodding and suggestions may have precipitated his downfall by isolating him politically from all except Catholic supporters.

Bibliography

Callow, John. The Making of King James II: The Formative Years of a Fallen Monarch. Stroud, Gloucestershire, England: Sutton, 2000. Implies that James’s character had been fixed for a long time and that Mary’s influence may have been less than consequential.

Coward, Barry. The Stuart Age: England, 1603-1714. Harlow, Essex, England: Pearson Education, 2003. Thorough scholarly study of the Stuart monarchs. The author is, in the end, rather dismissive of Queen Mary.

Speck, W. A. James II. New York: Longman, 2002. The author concedes the presence and influence of a Catholic element at court led by Mary and Father Edward Petre but does not elaborate on the extent of its impact.