| The Right To Wear White: What If A Catholic Could Succeed? |
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| Written by Dr. Janice Seto | |
| Monday, 10 September 2007 | |
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Page 2 of 4 THE WINDSORS v. THE JACOBEANS (Stuarts) Historians agree that James II was almost as intransigent as his father, the beheaded Charles I, and nowhere near as deft as his late brother, Charles II, when it came to his role as sovereign. James II as Duke of York had enjoyed some degree of respect and popularity, thanks in part to the fact his first wife, Lady Anne Hyde, was born an earl's daughter. These valuable commodities - which once gone are very hard to retrieve - were lost when, at the age of 40, James contracted marriage at age with the 15-year-old Catholic Italian, Maria di Modena (Mary of Modena).
But tragedy was to strike at the very heart of the Royal Family. In 1688, after giving birth to five sickly children who died young, resulting in no living heir - and five years after Mary of Modena's last pregnant - a healthy son was at last born. James, Prince of Wales, duly displaced his half-sisters, Mary and Anne, in the line of succession. 
This wonderment was fanned into skepticism, casting doubt on the likelihood of the event occurring without intervention. Questions were asked throughout society: 'Perhaps Mary of Modena had given birth to another stillborn – and perhaps they had a substitute ready and waiting in a warming pan?'
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