James II of England (also known as James VII of Scotland; 14 October 1633 – 16 September 1701) became King of England, King of Scots, and King of Ireland on 6 February 1685, and Duke of Normandy on 31 December 1660. He was the last Roman Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdom of Scotland, Kingdom of England, and Kingdom of Ireland. Many of his subjects distrusted his religious policies and supposed despotism, leading a group of them to depose him in the Glorious Revolution. He was replaced not by his Roman Catholic son, James Francis Edward, but by his Protestant daughter and son-in-law, Mary II and William III, who became joint rulers in 1689.
The belief that James — not William III or Mary II — was the legitimate ruler became known as Jacobitism (from Jacobus or Iacobus, Latin for James). James made one serious attempt to recover his throne, when he landed in Ireland in 1689. After his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne in the summer of 1690, he returned to France, living out the rest of his life under the protection of King Louis XIV. His son James Francis Edward Stuart (The Old Pretender) and his grandson Charles Edward Stuart (The Young Pretender and Bonnie Prince Charlie) attempted to restore the Jacobite line after James's death, but failed. James' personal motto was "A deo rex, a rege lex," Latin for "From God comes the King, from the King comes the Law."