ABSTRACT
James II believed that God had brought him to power in the face of so many obstacles for the great purpose of converting England. Time was short. He was in late middle age and had no legitimate Catholic heirs and so he set a breakneck pace of religious change. His consistent objective was to 'establish' Catholicism: that is, to secure legal toleration that would survive his death and the Protestant successors, namely his daughter Mary and her husband (and James's nephew) the Dutch stadholder William of Orange. 1 His means of achieving that objective changed over time.
