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The House of Stuart was a royal house of Scotland, which ruled over England (and later Britain) from 1603 until 1649, and again from 1660 until 1714. James VI of Scotland had been crowned King of Scotland in 1567, at the age of thirteen months, and with the death of the childless Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, James became the King of England due to his family connections with the Tudor family. His reign over England oversaw the colonization of the Americas, the plantation of Ulster, and the Gunpowder Plot, and his writings are considered a great influence on the later works of Shakespeare. James I died in 1625, and was succeeded by his son Charles I. Charles was unpopular with Parliament and his marriage to a Catholic created a level of distrust among the English public, while his attempts to Anglicize the Scottish Church led to the Bishop's War and the subsequent English Civil War. He was captured and executed in 1649, and the monarchy was abolished.

The Interregnum

From 1649, Britain was ruled by a Rump Parliament, however the continued fighting in Scotland and Ireland and the sporadic anarchy in England and Wales caused its dissolution in 1654. From this point Oliver Cromwell, a prominent politician and military leader during the English Civil War, was named Lord Protector. Cromwell is a controversial figure in British history, as he was an effective ruler, yet his aggressive, dictator-like leadership and anti-Catholic policies (including the ethnic cleansing of towns along the Irish coast) mean that he is remembered differently by historians. During his illness and eventual death in 1658, the government (led by Oliver's son, Richard) once again found it difficult to maintain control, and the Cromwellian government was dissolved.

Restoration of the monarchy

The monarchy was reintroduced in 1660, with the appointment of Charles II (son of Charles I), and his happy personality, along with the return to normality, made him very popular among his subjects. Although Charles II had at least twelve illegitimate children, his wife had no children, therefore he was succeeded by his brother James II. James (the last Catholic monarch) was then deposed within three years and went into exile, and the Protestant political elite invited William of Orange (Who was amrried to James' daughter, Mary) to invade Britain and take control. William III was proclaimed king in 1689, eventually defeating James II for good at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland, 1690, cementing Protestant rule over England from this point onwards. The final Stuart monarch was Queen Anne, the other daughter of James II, who took the throne in 1702, and through the Act of Union 1707 became the first official monarch of Great Britain. Like her predecessor, she died without any legitimate heir, and control passed to her second-cousin, George II of the House of Hanover.