Catherine of Braganza, Queen Dowager of England, 1685–1692: Catholicism and Political Agency

Gregory, Eilish

Abstract

This chapter assesses Catherine of Braganza’s political exercise of her queen dowagership from her widowhood in 1685 until 1692 when she left England to return to Portugal. Catherine’s new position as queen dowager offered her fresh prospects in her adopted homeland. Her brother-in-law James II was an openly Catholic monarch, and during his brief reign, anti-Catholic penal laws were suspended, and he was determined to push through religious toleration across the kingdoms. Most scholarly attention has focused on James’s style of Catholic profession, while Catherine of Braganza’s role in this narrative has been largely overlooked. Notwithstanding that she was a foreign-born Catholic princess who had no royal offspring, Catherine’s status, as queen dowager and as one of the most senior female ranking royals in the realm, meant that she exercised considerable influence at court, and she did not discontinue her already extensive patronage of British and Irish Catholics established when she was queen consort. This chapter examines the tensions that Catherine and “her family” faced after James fled England in 1688, when Catherine’s household was accused of Jacobite sympathies and conspiracies, and how she dealt with the challenges of rule under William III and Mary II in her final years in England.

Citation

Gregory, E. (2023). Catherine of Braganza, Queen Dowager of England, 1685–1692: Catholicism and Political Agency. In Later Stuart Queens, 1660-1735: Religion, Political Culture, and Patronage (45-70). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38813-2_3

• Online Publication Date: Jan 5, 2024
• Publication Date: 2023
• Deposit Date: Jan 7, 2024
• Pages: 45-70
• Series Title: Queenship and Power
• Book Title: Later Stuart Queens, 1660-1735: Religion, Political Culture, and Patronage
• ISBN: 9783031388125
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38813-2_3
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2115897