The queen in the eye of a storm

She was an Italian Catholic in a ferociously anti-papist English court. An aspiring nun in a hotbed of hedonism. Breeze Barrington follows the extraordinary trials and tribulations of James II & VII's second wife, Maria of Modena

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Shortly after the queen rose on 10 June 1688, she felt a familiar swell of pain. "Send for the king!" she called, while her ladies helped her back into bed. Maria (Mary) of Modena was in labour. Soon the room in St James's Palace began to fill: some 70 people crowded in to watch the queen give birth. There was no screen to shield her, and the bedcurtains were kept open as she screamed in pain: "I die! Oh! You kill me! You kill me!"

Her cries were so terrible that many said they could hardly bear to listen. Yet the king - James II & VII - exhorted the members of his council to come nearer, to look more closely. He had heard the rumours that the pregnancy was fake, and was determined to ensure that no one could say this child was not born of the queen.

The sight of so many faces so close to Maria was overwhelming; she could not give birth with so many men looking on her, she said. But while James stooped to cover her face with his periwig, the rest of her body remained on full display - and everyone present witnessed that crucial moment.

That evening, the London Gazette reported the news to the citizens of the capital: "This day between 9 and 10 in the morning the Queen was safely delivered of a PRINCE." Protestant England now had a Catholic heir - and a constitutional crisis.

It did not take long for the crisis to unfold. To keep the queen warm as her labour began, a serving woman had placed a bedpan full of hot coals under the blankets. That simple act prompted whispers that a child had been smuggled in - and, whether or not anyone believed the rumour, it provided sufficient pretext for seven politicians and nobles to invite William of Orange to invade England, launching the episode now widely known as the 'Glorious Revolution'.