As William & Mary celebrates its 326th birthday, the 100th anniversary of coeducation and the inauguration of its first woman president, W&M News is taking a longer look at the university’s founding mother, Queen Mary II. A special exhibit with items related to Queen Mary II and King William III along with W&M’s office of the president and chancellor will be on display Feb. 7 from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Swem Library. – Ed.
Queen Mary’s ascension to the throne of England was anything but ordinary.
Historians might say that it was the end result of a 17th century Protestant power grab fueled by fear and religious bigotry that in more polite terms came to be known as “The Glorious Revolution.”
It began when Mary’s father, King James II, converted to Catholicism at the end of the 1660s. When his conversion became known, it infuriated and scared Protestant interests in England, but as his daughters and heirs Mary and Anne, were both raised Protestant, the traditional monarchy seemed safe.
