The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

[Born in England, 1633. Died in France, 1701. Aged 68.] The second son of Charles I., whose fate he challenged by his obstinacy, wilfulness, and double dealing. He was a Roman Catholic, and in the blind defence and advocacy of his faith against the Constitution and laws of the country he governed, he perilled his crown which he lost, and his life which he ignominiously saved. He was not without good qualities. He was personally brave--not unmindful of the services of friends, and he exhibited devotion in the maintenance of the religious cause which he believed it his paramount duty to uphold. But he was bigotted, cruel, and wrongheaded. He could not be trusted whenever he was acting in the interests of the Pope. Louis XIV. in vain remonstrated with his royal cousin of England. James II. was too sincere a zealot to listen to reason. Louis Quatorze was too fine a gentleman, and too practised a courtier, to be betrayed into fanaticism. When James went a fugitive and an exile to France, Louis received him with a magnificence worthy of a triumphal progress. [From the well-known statue by Grinling Gibbons in Privy Gardens, Whitehall. Represented in the costume of a Roman Emperor, according to the taste of the day.]