This dissertation explores the role of James II's personality in his failures as King of England in 1688 and of Ireland in 1690. Its mains objective is to show that his setbacks in these two countries do not only originate from very complex religious, political and economic situations which became destabilized when a catholic King ascended the throne, but were also the result of a personality lacking leadership qualities. First of all, we studied the religious, political and economic contex in which James II became King in 1685. Our goal was to understand the issues and tensions at stake in the two countries before James II's enthronement to determine to what extent his governance had been doomed to failure or not. Despite many adverse situations, the presence of equally important elements to stabilize and even strengthen his authority and his supports at the beginning of his reign showed us that the reasons for the failure of King James II were also likely to be related to his psychology. Consequently we undertook a psychological analysis of James II in order to find out more about his most characteristic features and understand if they were compatible with his royal office. We found that the failure of King James II's reign was that of a man who was not only poorly adequate for kindship, but who, in addition, was stuck in personal values which made him make decisions which were most frequently at odds with the demands of his key allies in England and Ireland.
The failure of King James II's reign in England (1688) and in Ireland (1690) : the analysis of a personality in context