The marriage had urgent dynastic and political aspects. James had two
Protestant daughters,
Mary and
Anne, from his first marriage to
Anne Hyde. A son by James' second marriage would be king one day, a Roman Catholic king. Though Mary was beautiful and charming —
Charles II quickly came round to her — the people of England detested her for her Roman Catholicism. Scurvy wits lampooned her in
broadsheets under the name "Madame East." Rumours spread that she was an agent of the
pope, Clement X, who had pressed her case as a suitable bride. During the so-called "
Popish Plot" (
1678), to which her secretary Coleman was a victim, she and James discreetly went abroad.
The dynastic considerations demanded a son. Their first male child was
stillborn (
1674), and numerous others died in infancy or early childhood. Following James's accession to the throne in
1685, the question of whether Mary would ever bear a son became more significant, because such a child would be brought up in the Roman Catholic faith and would be heir to the throne.
In
1688, Mary finally gave birth to a living son,
James. The event caused much speculation. It was suggested that the child had been born dead and a changeling smuggled into the room in a
warming pan in order to conceal the death, or that the Queen had never actually been with child. Broadsheets depicting the queen stuffing pillows into her gown or cuckolding her husband with her confessor were common. For political reasons, a royal birth was a very public event, and many people would have had to be privy to this unlikely
conspiracy. Nevertheless the rumours were disquieting enough that James called two extraordinary sessions of his
Privy Council to hear testimony proving that the young Prince of Wales was his son by the Queen, though James's
Protestant daughters fervently disputed the child's
legitimacy.
Mary's influence with James, whose attention was diverted by a series of
mistresses, favoured the
Jesuits and
absolutism on the
French model.
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