Mary II 1662-94
Stuart Queen of Great Britain and Ireland

Born at St James's Palace, London, she was the daughter of the Catholic Duke of York (later James VII and II) and his first wife, Anne Hyde (1638-71), but was brought up a Protestant. She was married (1677) to her first cousin, William of Orange, Stadtholder of the Netherlands, who in 1688 landed in Torbay with an Anglo-Dutch army in response to an invitation from seven Whig peers hostile to the arbitrary rule of James II. When James fled to France, Mary went to London from Holland and was proclaimed queen (1689), sharing the throne with her husband, who became King William III. Mary left executive authority with William (except when regent during his frequent absences abroad), but she was largely responsible for raising the moral standard of court life, and she took great interest in church appointments. Naturally kind, gracious and sincere, she died, childless, of smallpox.