© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

interfering in political matters. She did, however, participate in the affairs of the Church; she found herself especially concerned with ecclesiastical appointments. She died of smallpox in 1694. Upon her death, baroque composer Henry Purcell of England was commissioned to write her funeral music, titled Music on the Death of Queen Mary. The ominous March (catalogued as Z860 A) has subsequently been used in other mediums such as the main theme in the movie A Clockwork Orange.

Legacy

After Mary II's death, William III continued to rule as king. Princess Anne's last surviving child, William, Duke of Gloucester, died in July 1700, and, as it was clear that William III would have no more children, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement 1701, which provided that the Crown would go to the nearest Protestant relative, Sophia, Electress of Hanover and her Protestant heirs. When William III died in 1702, he was succeeded by Anne, who was in turn succeeded by the deceased Electress Sophia's son, George I.

Mary endowed the College of William and Mary (in the present day Williamsburg, Virginia) in 1693. She also founded the Royal Hospital for Seamen, Greenwich.

The townland of Portlaoise, Co. Laois, Ireland, which used to be known as Maryborough, was named after her.

Style and arms

The joint style of William III and Mary II was "William and Mary, by the Grace of God, King and Queen of England, France and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, etc." when they ascended the Throne. (The claim to France was only nominal, and had been asserted by every English King since Edward III, regardless of the amount of French territory actually controlled.) From 11 April 1689 — when the Estates of Scotland recognised them as Sovereigns — the royal couple used the style "William and Mary, by the Grace of God, King and Queen of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, etc.".

The arms used by the King and Queen were: Quarterly, I and IV Grandquarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lis Or (for France) and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland); overall an escutcheon Azure billetty and a lion rampant Or.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oceania