The House of Wittelsbach is a former Bavarian dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including the Electorate of Bavaria, the Electoral Palatinate, the Electorate of Cologne, Holland, Zeeland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Bohemia, and Greece. Their ancestral lands of Bavaria and the Palatinate were prince-electorates, and the family had three of its members elected emperors and kings of the Holy Roman Empire. They ruled over the Kingdom of Bavaria which was created in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918.
Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart was the elder son of James Francis Edward Stuart, grandson of James VII and II, and the Stuart claimant to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1766 as Charles III. During his lifetime, he was also known as "the Young Pretender" and "the Young Chevalier"; in popular memory, he is known as Bonnie Prince Charlie.
James Francis Edward Stuart, nicknamed the Old Pretender by Whigs, was the son of King James VII and II of England, Scotland and Ireland, and his second wife, Mary of Modena. He was Prince of Wales from July 1688 until, just months after his birth, his Catholic father was deposed and exiled in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. James II's Protestant elder daughter Mary II and her husband William III became co-monarchs. The Bill of Rights 1689 and Act of Settlement 1701 excluded Catholics such as James from the English and British thrones.
Henry Benedict Thomas Edward Maria Clement Francis Xavier Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York was a Roman Catholic cardinal, as well as the fourth and final Jacobite heir to publicly claim the thrones of Great Britain and Ireland. Unlike his father, James Francis Edward Stuart, and brother, Charles Edward Stuart, Henry made no effort to seize the thrones. After Charles's death in January 1788, the papacy did not recognise Henry as the lawful ruler of Great Britain and Ireland. It instead referred to him as the Cardinal Duke of York.
Charles Emmanuel IV was King of Sardinia and ruler of the Savoyard states from 16 October 1796 until 1802, when he abdicated in favour of his brother Victor Emmanuel I.
Duke of Cornwall is a title in the Peerage of England, traditionally held by the eldest son of the reigning British monarch, previously the English monarch. The Duchy of Cornwall was the first duchy created in England and was established by a royal charter in 1337. Prince William became Duke of Cornwall following the accession of his father, King Charles III, to the throne in 2022, and his wife, Catherine, became Duchess of Cornwall.
Maria Clementina Sobieska was a titular queen of England, Scotland and Ireland by marriage to James Francis Edward Stuart, a Jacobite claimant to the British throne. The granddaughter of the Polish king John III Sobieski, she was the mother of Charles Edward Stuart and of Henry Benedict Cardinal Stuart.
Duke of York is a title of nobility in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Since the 15th century, it has, when granted, usually been given to the second son of English monarchs. The equivalent title in the Scottish peerage was Duke of Albany. However, King George II and King George III granted the titles Duke of York and Albany.
The House of Stuart, originally spelled Stewart, was a royal house of Scotland, England, Ireland and later Great Britain. The family name comes from the office of High Steward of Scotland, which had been held by the family progenitor Walter fitz Alan. The name Stewart and variations had become established as a family name by the time of his grandson Walter Stewart. The first monarch of the Stewart line was Robert II, whose male-line descendants were kings and queens in Scotland from 1371, and of England, Ireland and Great Britain from 1603, until 1714. Mary, Queen of Scots, was brought up in France where she adopted the French spelling of the name Stuart.
A pretender is someone who claims to be the rightful ruler of a country although not recognized as such by the current government. The term is often used to suggest that a claim is not legitimate. The word may refer to a former monarch or a descendant of a deposed monarchy, although this type of claimant is also referred to as a head of a house.
Charlotte Stuart, styled Duchess of Albany was the illegitimate daughter of the Jacobite pretender Prince Charles Edward Stuart and his only child to survive infancy.
The Jacobite succession is the line through which Jacobites believed that the crowns of England, Scotland, and Ireland should have descended, applying primogeniture, since the deposition of James II and VII in 1688 and his death in 1701. It is in opposition to the legal line of succession to the British throne since that time.
From the 1340s to the 19th century, excluding two brief intervals in the 1360s and the 1420s, the kings and queens of England and Ireland also claimed the throne of France. The claim dates from Edward III, who claimed the French throne in 1340 as the sororal nephew of the last direct Capetian, Charles IV. Edward and his heirs fought the Hundred Years' War to enforce this claim, and were briefly successful in the 1420s under Henry V and Henry VI, but the House of Valois, a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty, was ultimately victorious and retained control of France, except for Calais and the Channel Islands. English and British monarchs continued to prominently call themselves kings of France, and the French fleur-de-lis was included in the royal arms. This continued until 1802, by which time France no longer had any monarch, having become a republic. The Jacobite claimants, however, did not explicitly relinquish the claim.
Maria Beatrice of Savoy was Duchess of Modena by marriage to Francis IV, Duke of Modena.
Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein, Count of Rietberg is the eldest child of Alois, Hereditary Prince of Liechtenstein, and his wife, Duchess Sophie Elizabeth Marie Gabrielle in Bavaria, He is also the eldest grandchild of the current ruling prince of Liechtenstein, Hans-Adam II, and Countess Marie Kinsky of Wchinitz and Tettau.
Maria Theresa Henriette Dorothea of Austria-Este was the last Queen of Bavaria. She was the only child of Archduke Ferdinand Karl Viktor of Austria-Este and Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska of Austria.
Anne Marie d'Orléans was Queen of Sardinia by marriage to Victor Amadeus II of Savoy. She served as regent of Savoy during the absence of her spouse in 1686 and during the War of the Spanish Succession. She is also an important figure in British history.
Adelaide of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg was the wife of the deposed king Miguel I of Portugal. As a widow, she secured advantageous marriages for their six daughters.
British history provides several opportunities for alternative claimants to the English and later British Crown to arise, and historical scholars have on occasion traced to present times the heirs of those alternative claims.
The following is the Jacobite line of succession to the English and Scottish thrones as of the death of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, on 1 August 1714. It reflects the laws current in England and Scotland immediately before the Act of Settlement 1701, which disqualified Catholics from the throne.
