Mary II

On February 12, 1689, the British Customary Parliament announced that James II had renounced the throne and appointed Mary II and her husband William III as co-rulers of England.

James II

James II was born on October 14, 1633 at St. James's Palace, London, England, and died on September 16, 1701. He was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1685 to 1688. He was the last Catholic King of England. His subjects didn't trust his religious policies and opposed his autocracy, and he was stripped of the throne during the Glorious Revolution. The throne fell to his Protestant daughter Mary II and son-in-law William III. Those who believed that his son was the rightful king were called Jacobites. After James II abdicated, he was protected by King Louis XIV of France. Louis, his son James Francis Edward, and grandson Charles Edward Stuart continued to plot to restore the Jacobite throne, but ultimately failed.

Mary II

Mary II, Princess of Orange from November 4, 1677, and Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland from February 13, 1689 until her death. Mary, a Protestant, ascended the throne through the Glorious Revolution, because her fathers James II and VII insisted on restoring Roman Catholicism in the country, and was deposed by the English at the end of 1688. In 1689, Mary and her husband William III, Prince of Orange (also Mary's eldest cousin and ruler of the Netherlands) ascended the throne as Queen and King. William III, Prince of Orange, should not have become King of England, but taking advantage of Mary's accession to the throne, he used force as a backing to force the English Parliament to agree to his coronation (in exchange for signing the Bill of Rights). After Mary's death in 1694, William became the single ruler of England. Historical circles generally refer to the co-rule of the couple as "William and Mary."

Mary was not keen on governing. When her husband William stayed in England, she always took a back seat and ceded most of her power to William; however, when William went overseas to busy with military battles, Mary still had to rule England alone, and it turned out that she was a strong, decisive and powerful ruler. When William mobilized the British people and resources to fight the Grand Alliance War against France (1688-1697), he found that his legitimacy in England was insufficient. Only by relying on Mary, who was widely loved by the people, could he effectively exert his influence in Parliament and carry out military expansion and tax increases. As the supreme ruler of the Church of England, Mary was very active and active in the affairs of the Church of England; she set a good example with her own conduct and improved bad customs since the 1660s. Historians believe that although she shared the throne with her husband, Mary mainly exercised her power alone.

(Note: Customary councils usually convene when the throne is vacant, such as the one that awarded the throne to Charles II after the Civil War.)