 William III (1650-1702) was joint
monarch of England with his wife Queen Mary II (1689-1702). He
was born in The Hague, the son of the Prince of Orange and Mary,
the daughter of Charles I of England. William
married Mary, daughter and heir of the Catholic James II in 1677.
In
1688, to prevent King James from re-Catholicising England, seven
English peers invited William to invade England. James fled to
France. Parliament considered that he had abdicated, but MPs were
worried that if his daughter Mary became reigning queen, she could
have been considered a usurper. William for his part, had no
intention of becoming a King Consort. He had his own uses for
England and its resources, as financial aid in his fight to keep
Louis XIV of France from invading Holland. William therefore
insisted on becoming king and in 1689, he was offered the throne
jointly with Mary. The became England's only dual monarchy as
William III and Mary II.
Parliament,
however, imposed restrictions on their powers through the
introduction of constitutional monarchy. The exiled James was
still regarded as king in Ireland, but his attempt to win back his
crown was stifled by his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne in
1690. The Scots were also curbed by William's forces, though this
involved a tragedy. The recalcitrant Scots Highlanders were given
until 1st January 1792 to swear allegiance to King William, but
Alexander McIan MacDonald of Glencoe was inadvertently late in
doing so. The result was a fearful massacre at Glencoe in which
forty members of the clan were killed, including MacDonald.
Queen
Mary suffered a succession of miscarriages and stillbirths and she
and her husband remained childless. Mary died of smallpox in 1694,
to the deep grief of her husband. However, with the agreement of
Princess Anne, Mary's sister and the next direct heir to the
throne, William remained king until his death after a fall from
his horse in 1702. |
