otes on James Scott, Duke of
Monmouth, also called James Fitzroy and James Crofts,
illegitimate son of King Charles II and pretender to the British
throneBorn in the Netherlands, and reared on the Continent, James was brought to England, after the Restoration, in 1662, where Charles subsequently acknowledged him as his natural son and created him Duke of Monmouth. In 1663 he married Anne Scott, Countess of Buccleuch (1651-1732), and took her surname and the title Duke of Buccleuch. He was appointed Captain of the King’s troops in 1668. Monmouth was appointed Captain General of all English forces in 1678. He defeated the Scottish Covenanters (a small group of Lowlanders who where protesting against the persecution of their Presbyterian faith) at the so-called Battle of Bothwell Bridge in 1679. Charles II had no legitimate heirs. The English Protestant leaders tried to force the King to name Monmouth, also a Protestant, as successor, but Charles instead named his brother James, who was a Roman Catholic, and banished Monmouth from England. The initial success of the Exclusion Bill, a measure barring James from succession, permitted Monmouth to return to London, but he fled again in 1683 after the disclosure of the Rye House Plot. On his father's death in 1685, Monmouth returned to England to claim the Crown. He gathered followers and succeeded in capturing Axminster and Taunton, but was defeated by the English soldier John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough at the Battle of Sedgemoor. He was captured and executed for treason. {Burke’s Peerage and Chamber’s Biographical Dictionary} {Concise Dictionary of National Biography} [GADD.GED]
