In the summer of 1688, Protestant powers in England's Parliament launched a rebellion that forced the Catholic King James II off the throne. Their objection to James was rooted in the fact that he was an avowed Catholic who was the head of a national Protestant church in a Protestant country. The more serious problem was that James's young wife had recently given birth to a son who would be raised Catholic and become heir to the throne, thus leading to a Catholic succession. It seemed to the Protestant Lords and Commons of England that the nation was on the verge of reverting to Catholicism after a century and a half of almost uninterrupted Protestant control. In early June 1689, Parliament declared that James had vacated the throne and that James's daughter Mary II and her husband, William of Orange (William III), both steady Protestants, were now rulers of England. James fled into exile in France with his wife and infant son.