William And Mary

Mary (1662-94), daughter of James, Duke of York, heir to the English throne, then 15, is said to have wept for a day and a half when she was told she was to marry her cousin, William (1650-1702), son of William II of Orange (1626-50), Stadtholder of the Dutch republic, and Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I of England, who was eleven years older than her. In November 1677, on William's 27th birthday, they married in a private ceremony at St James's Palace. William was solemn, James gloomy, Mary in tears, and only King Charles appeared cheerful. This dual biography deals with both the 'life and times' of the monarchs, and with England's place in Europe. Interests of the subjects, outside the constitutional, are dealt with, as well as their personal relationships: William's rumoured homosexuality and Mary's hinted-at lesbianism; Mary's troubled personal relations with her father, James II; and the relationship between Mary and her sister and husband's successor Anne. The book also examines the personal and political relations between William and his uncle Charles II, and between William and Mary and Charles' illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth.

By the time of the American Revolution, the College of William and Mary was already into its eighth decade as the academic source of what the new nation would become and how it would relate to the larger world. Its land had been surveyed by George Washington, and its first honorary degree had been given to Ben Franklin. It would go on to educate two signers of the Declaration of Independence, three American presidents, and three justices of the Supreme Court. Chartered by British royalty in 1693, the college retains that connection to its roots into the 21st century. Remarkably through history, the College of William and Mary was, and remains, a public university¿one of 16 in the Commonwealth of Virginia. At a time in American history when the 18th-century thought and practice of Thomas Jefferson has become part of the contemporary conversation, the college from which he graduated in 1762 continues to pursue his simple notion that ¿worth and genius [be] sought from every condition of life.¿

The emigrant ship William and Mary departed from Liverpool with 208 British, Irish, and Dutch emigrants in early 1853. Captained by young American Timothy Stinson, the vessel was sailing for New Orleans when the ship wrecked in the Bahamas in mysterious circumstances. Instead of grounding the ship on a nearby shore or building rafts for the passengers, Stinson and the majority of his crew sneaked away in lifeboats murdering at least two of the emigrants with a hatchet as they did so and reported the ship sunk with all on board lost. But the passengers kept the ship afloat and two days later were rescued by heroic wreckers as the ship went down. Now, over 160 years on, the tale of the two murdered in Bahamian waters and the hundreds who escaped thanks to kindly wreckers can finally be told. Stinson is no longer getting away with murder.