Anne Hyde

1637 – 1671 · Generation XXVII · House of Stuart

Anne Hyde (1637–1671). Married James II & VII Stuart in 1660. 2 of their children are recorded in this archive. A commoner who married a future king; both her daughters wore the crown. The eldest daughter of Edward Hyde, later Earl of Clarendon, she followed her family into exile after 1649 and served as maid of honour to Mary, Princess of Orange. There she met James, Duke of York, who promised in November 1659 to marry her; her own father opposed the match, but Charles II thought her strong character would steady his brother. Already pregnant, she married James privately at her father’s London house in September 1660. Of their eight children, six died in early childhood. Unpopular at court — Pepys thought her proud and extravagant — she reproached James over his many mistresses. She stopped attending Anglican services in 1669, and one historian credits her with the greatest single influence on her husband’s conversion to Catholicism. Stricken with breast cancer and never recovering from her last confinement, she died in 1671, refusing an Anglican priest, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Place in the family

Anne Hyde married King James II, a 4× great-nephew of King Henry VIII.

One of 17 people of House of Stuart (from 1371) in this archive. Scotland’s royal house for three centuries before James VI inherited England and wore both crowns.

Partners

Married King James II (1633 – 1701) in 1660 — 2 children together

Children

Queen Mary II (1662 – 1694)
Queen Anne (1665 – 1714)

Life

1637 — Born
1660 — Married James II & VII Stuart
1671 — Died