By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA) England tore itself apart again. James II—Catholic, stubborn, authoritarian—had frightened Protestant elites into imagining he might create a French-style absolutist monarchy on English soil. When his Catholic son was born in 1688, they panicked. Whispers swept elite salons and military camps alike: A Stuart dynasty raised as Catholics—never. …








