The Making of King James II: The Formative Years of a Fallen King. - Review - book review

Contemporary Review, April, 2001

The Making of King James II: The Formative Years of a Fallen King. John Callow. Sutton Publishing. [pound]20.00/US$32.95. 373 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2398-9. The author's aim is to 'reconstruct James's career' by examining in detail his formative years, that is from his birth to his accession to the Throne in 1685.

Mr Callow begins with a good survey of writings on the King, starting with his own memoirs (lost during the honors of the French Revolution) and carrying on with a survey of how various historians have seen him over the centuries. His aim is to study James II in his own terms, 'free from later accretions and the hindsight provided by the knowledge of the events which toppled him from power'. The picture that emerges is not altogether flattering. James II was not the brave soldier and 'diligent administrator' but 'a flawed Commander, a quixotic and curiously out-dated politician, a prime mover in the establishment of English slavery and of a ruthless profiteer from the trade in human lives'. His collaps e in 1688-9 was not unique but fitted into a 'well-established pattern of personal and political failure'. This is revisionist history with a twist and the analysis put forward here will mean historians will need to take another look at this extraordinary and very flawed King.