350 years ago today, on 25 September 1658, Mary of Modena, the second wife of King James II was born. She was married at the age of 15 to the 40 year old widower James, Duke of York. He succeeded to the throne 12 years later in 1685. 

She is best known for her "role" in the Warming-pan Plot of 1688. In her 15 years of marriage up to that date she had had 10 pregnancies of which only four had produced a living child and all four had died in infancy. Then in 1688 she gave birth to a healthy boy, this more than four years after her last pregnancy. To Protestant England this was a disaster, the Prince was baptised a Catholic with the Pope as one of his Godparents. So a rumour was put about that the child had been stillborn, like so many of her previous children and that the baby was the child of a serving girl smuggled into the bedchamber in a warming-pan. The story was accepted by many and helped in the bloodless overthrow of King James later that year.