James Francis Edward Stuart | |
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Prince of Wales | |
![]() Portrait from the studio of Alexis Simon Belle, c. 1712 | |
Jacobite claimant | |
Pretence | 16 September 1701 – 1 January 1766 |
Predecessor | James II and VII |
Successor | "Charles III" |
Born | St. James's Palace, London, England | 10 June 1688
Died | 1 January 1766 77) Palazzo Muti, Rome, Papal States | (aged
Burial | St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City |
Spouse | |
Issue | |
House | Stuart |
Father | James II and VII |
Mother | Mary of Modena |
Religion | Roman Catholicism |
James Francis Edward Stuart (10 June 1688 –1 January 1766), nicknamed the Old Pretender by Whigs, was the son of King James II and VII 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 (the prince's half-sister) Mary II and her husband (the prince's cousin) 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.
James Francis Edward was raised in Continental Europe and known as the Chevalier de St. George. After his father's death in 1701, he claimed the English, Scottish and Irish crowns as James III of England and Ireland and James VIII of Scotland, with the support of his Jacobite followers and his cousin Louis XIV of France. Fourteen years later, he unsuccessfully attempted to gain the British and Irish thrones during the Jacobite rising of 1715. A final attempt at restoration, the Jacobite rising of 1745, was led by his elder son Charles Edward Stuart (the Young Pretender).
Following James's death in 1766, Charles Edward Stuart continued to claim the British and Irish crowns as part of the Jacobite succession.
James Francis Edward was born on 10 June 1688, at St. James's Palace. He was the son of James II of England and Ireland (VII of Scotland) and his second wife, Mary of Modena, both Roman Catholics. [1] As first son of the reigning monarch he was automatically Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay, among other titles.[ citation needed ]
The prince's birth was controversial and unanticipated, coming five years after his mother's last pregnancy and three years since his father's reign started. His mother (then aged 29) had been considered past child-bearing age. [2] The birth reignited controversies of religion, as the new son would be raised Catholic. Wild rumours spread among British Anglicans: that the child had died stillborn, and that the baby feted as the new prince was an impostor smuggled into the royal birth chamber in a warming pan. [3] Protestants found it suspicious that everyone attending the birth was Catholic. [4] Another rumour was that James II had not been the father; he was said to be impotent after a bout with venereal disease years earlier. In an attempt to quash these rumours, James published the testimonies of over seventy witnesses to the birth. [5] [6] Centuries later, genetic testing of James Francis Edward's descendants confirmed he was indeed a Stuart. [4] The line of succession to the throne was thrust into doubt. James's younger daughters, Mary and Princess Anne had been raised as Protestants. [4] British Protestants had expected Mary, from his father's first marriage, to succeed their father. [7] This possibility had kept Protestants somewhat content, with his rule a temporary inconvenience. Now that Mary or Anne's succession was in doubt with this new Catholic son and heir, discontent grew, already stoked by James II's actions which had alienated Tory Anglicans who had previously been inclined to honour him as sovereign even if they differed in religion. This movement would become the Glorious Revolution; Mary's husband William of Orange landed in England, backed by an army of English and Scottish exiles, as well as Dutch soldiers. Much of the English army promptly defected to William's cause, causing James II and his family to flee rather than stay and fight. [4]
On 9 December, Mary of Modena disguised herself as a laundress and escaped with the infant James to France. Young James was brought up at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, [1] which Louis XIV had turned over to the exiled James II. Both the ex-king and his family were held in great consideration by the French king (who was his first cousin), and they were frequent visitors at Versailles where Louis XIV and his court treated them as ruling monarchs. [8] In June 1692 his sister Louisa Maria was born. [9]
His military education was overseen by Richard Hamilton and Dominic Sheldon, two veterans of his father's old Irish Army. [10]
On his father's death in 1701, James was recognised by King Louis XIV of France as the rightful heir to the English, Irish and Scottish thrones. [1] Spain, the Papal States, and Modena also recognized him as king of England, Ireland and Scotland and refused to recognise William III, Mary II, or Anne as legitimate sovereigns. As a result of his claiming his father's lost thrones, James was attainted for treason in London on 2 March 1702, and his titles were forfeited under English law. [11]
Though delayed in France by an attack of measles,[ citation needed ] James attempted invasion, trying to land at the Firth of Forth on 23 March 1708. The fleet of Admiral Sir George Byng intercepted the French ships, which, combined with bad weather,[ citation needed ] prevented a landing. [12]
James served for a time in the French army, as his father had done during the interregnum. Between August and September 1710, Queen Anne appointed a new Tory administration led by Robert Harley, who entered into a secret correspondence with de Torcy, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, in which he claimed to desire James's accession to the throne should James convert to Protestantism. [5] A year later, however, the British government pushed for James's expulsion from France as a precondition for a peace treaty with France. In accordance with the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Harley and Lord Bolingbroke, the Secretary of State, colluded with the French in exiling James to the Duchy of Lorraine. [5]
Queen Anne became severely ill at Christmas 1713 and seemed close to death. In January 1714, she recovered but clearly had not much longer to live. [13] [ page needed ] Through de Torcy and his London agent, Abbé François Gaultier, Harley kept up the correspondence with James, and Bolingbroke had also entered into a separate correspondence with him. They both stated to James that his conversion to Protestantism would facilitate his accession. However, James, a devout Catholic, replied to Torcy: "I have chosen my own course, therefore it is for others to change their sentiments." [5] In March came James's refusal to convert, following which Harley and Bolingbroke reached the opinion that James's accession was not feasible, though they maintained their correspondence with him.[ citation needed ]
As a result, in August 1714, James's second cousin,[ citation needed ] the Elector of Hanover, George Louis, a German-speaking Lutheran[ citation needed ] who was the closest Protestant relative of the now deceased Queen Anne, became king of the recently created Kingdom of Great Britain as George I. [12] James denounced him, noting "we have beheld a foreign family, aliens to our country, distant in blood, and strangers even to our language, ascend the throne". [14] [ page needed ] Following George's coronation in October 1714, major riots broke out in provincial England. [15]
The following year, Jacobites started uprisings in Scotland and Cornwall aimed at putting "James III and VIII" on the throne. On 22 December 1715, James reached Scotland after the Jacobite defeats at the Battle of Sheriffmuir (13 November 1715) and Battle of Preston (1715). [12] He landed at Peterhead and soon fell ill with fever, his illness made more severe by the icy Scottish winter.[ citation needed ] In January 1716, he set up court at Scone Palace. Reputedly Jane Stuart, a half-sister, came from Wisbech in England to visit him. [16] Learning of the approach of government forces, he returned to France, sailing from Montrose on 5 February 1716. The abandonment of his rebel allies caused ill-feeling against him in Scotland; [12] nor was he welcomed on his return to France. His patron, Louis XIV, had died on 1 September 1715, and the French government found him a political embarrassment.[ citation needed ] When France, hitherto his main protector, allied with Britain, this effectively secured the Hanoverian dynasty's monarchy over the Kingdom of Great Britain.[ citation needed ]
After the unsuccessful invasion of 1715, James lived in Papal territory, first at Avignon (April 1716 – February 1717), [17] then at Pesaro (1717) [18] and Urbino (July 1717 – November 1718). [19] Pope Clement XI offered James the Palazzo del Re [20] in Rome as his residence, which he accepted. Pope Innocent XIII, like his predecessor, showed much support. Thanks to his friend Cardinal Filippo Antonio Gualterio, James was granted a life annuity of 12,000 [21] Roman scudi. Such help enabled him to organise a Jacobite court at Rome, where, although he lived in splendour, he continued to suffer from fits of melancholy.[ citation needed ]
Further efforts to restore the Stuarts to the British throne were planned. In 1719 a major expedition left Spain but was forced to turn back due to weather. A small landing took place in the Scottish Highlands, but the Jacobite rising of 1719 was defeated at the Battle of Glen Shiel. James had gone to Spain in the hope he could take part in the invasion, but following its abandonment was forced to return to Italy.[ citation needed ] A further attempt was planned in 1722, [7] but following the exposure of the Atterbury Plot it came to nothing.[ citation needed ]
In exercise of his pretended position, James purported to create titles of nobility, now referred to as Jacobite Peerages, for his British supporters and members of his court, none of which have ever been recognized in Britain.[ citation needed ]
The court-in-exile became a popular stop for English travellers making a Grand Tour, regardless of political affiliation. [22] For many, it functioned as an unofficial consulate. Those in need of medical attention preferred being treated by one of their own countrymen. In 1735 court physicians tended to Edmund Sheffield, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, and thirty years later to James Boswell. [23] [ failed verification ]
James remained well-treated in Rome until his death. He was allowed to hold Protestant services at Court, and was given land where his Protestant adherents could receive a public burial. [23] [ failed verification ]
Louise Adélaïde d'Orléans (Mademoiselle d'Orléans), daughter of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, was at one time suggested as a wife for James, but nothing came of it.[ citation needed ] In March 1717, while James was visiting Modena, he became engaged to his cousin Benedetta d'Este, but her father Rinaldo III put an end to the engagement to preserve his relations with Hanover and Great Britain. [24]
On 3 September 1719, James married Maria Clementina Sobieska (1702–1735), granddaughter of King John III Sobieski of Poland. The wedding was held in the chapel of the Episcopal Palace in Montefiascone, near Viterbo. By his wife he had two sons:[ citation needed ]
Following James's failure, attention turned to his son Charles, "the Young Pretender", who led the major uprising of 1745. With the failure of this second rebellion, the Stuart hopes of regaining the British throne were effectively destroyed. [25] James and Charles later clashed repeatedly, and relations between them broke down completely when James played a role in the appointment of his son Henry as a cardinal. Henry then took holy orders, which required him to maintain celibacy, ending the possibility that he would produce a legitimate heir, infuriating Charles, who had not been consulted.[ citation needed ]
After the 1745 rising, there were no other plots to restore the Stuart dynasty except for when, in 1759, the French government briefly considered a scheme to have James (then aged 70) crowned King of Ireland as part of their plans to invade Britain, but the offer was never formally made to James. Several separate plans also involved Charles being given control of a French-backed independent Ireland, though that too was aborted after Charles showed up at a meeting with the French to discuss the plan late, argumentative, and idealistic in expectations, so that the French dismissed the possibility of Jacobite assistance. [26] [ full citation needed ]
After a lingering illness, James died aged 77 on 1 January 1766, at his home, the Palazzo Muti in Rome, [7] [27] and was buried in the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica in present-day Vatican City. His grave is marked by the Monument to the Royal Stuarts. His claimed reign had lasted for 64 years, 3 months and 16 days, longer than any British monarch until Queen Elizabeth II's reign surpassed it on 23 May 2016. [28]
Following James's death the pope refused to recognise the claim to the British and Irish thrones of his elder son Charles, which had severely exacerbated the hostility between England and the Catholic Church. Instead, from 14 January 1766, in stages over the next decade, Rome accepted the Hanoverian dynasty as the legitimate rulers of Britain and Ireland, accompanied by a gradual relaxation and reform of the anti-Catholic "penal laws" in Britain and Ireland.[ citation needed ] Two months after James's death, on March 14, the royal arms of England were removed from the doorway of the Palazzo Muti. [27] In 1792, the papacy specifically referred to George III as the "King of Great Britain and Ireland", which elicited a protest from James's younger son Henry, who was by then the Jacobite claimant. [29]
James was created Prince of Wales on 4 July 1688. [30]
As Prince of Wales, James bore a coat of arms consisting of those of the kingdom, differenced by a label argent of three points. [31]
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: CS1 maint: url-status (link)Jacobitism was a political movement that supported the restoration of the senior line of the House of Stuart to the British throne. The name derives from the first name of James II and VII, which in Latin translates as Jacobus. When James went into exile after the November 1688 Glorious Revolution, the Parliament of England argued that he had abandoned the English throne, which they offered to his Protestant daughter Mary II, and her husband William III. In April, the Scottish Convention held that he "forfeited" the throne of Scotland by his actions, listed in the Articles of Grievances.
Mary II was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, co-reigning with her husband, William III & II, from 1689 until her death in 1694.
William III, also widely known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from the 1670s, and King of England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1689 until his death in 1702. As King of Scotland, he is known as William II. He is sometimes informally known as "King Billy" in Ireland and Scotland. His victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 is commemorated by Unionists, who display orange colours in his honour. He ruled Britain alongside his wife and cousin, Queen Mary II, and popular histories usually refer to their reign as that of "William and Mary".
Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart was the elder son of James Francis Edward Stuart, grandson of James II and VII, 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.
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, but referred to him as the Cardinal Duke of York.
Mary of Modena was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland as the second wife of James II and VII. A devout Roman Catholic, Mary married the widower James, who was then the younger brother and heir presumptive of Charles II. She was uninterested in politics and devoted to James and their children, two of whom survived to adulthood: the Jacobite claimant to the thrones, James Francis Edward, and Louisa Maria Teresa.
The House of Stuart, originally spelt 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 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.
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 line of succession to the British throne in law 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 1801, by which time France no longer had any monarch, having become a republic. The Jacobite claimants, however, did not explicitly relinquish the claim.
John Drummond, 1st Earl of Melfort, styled Duke of Melfort in the Jacobite peerage, was a Scottish politician and close advisor to James II. A Catholic convert, Melfort and his brother the Earl of Perth consistently urged James not to compromise with his opponents, contributing to his increasing isolation and ultimate deposition in the 1688 Glorious Revolution.
James II and VII was King of England and Ireland as James II, and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was the last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His reign is now remembered primarily for conflicts over religious tolerance, but it also involved struggles over the principles of absolutism and the divine right of kings. His deposition ended a century of political and civil strife in England by confirming the primacy of the English Parliament over the Crown.
Events from the year 1688 in England. This was the year of the Glorious Revolution that overthrew King James II.
Louisa Maria Teresa Stuart, known to Jacobites as The Princess Royal, was the last child of James II and VII, the deposed king of England, Scotland and Ireland, by his second wife Mary of Modena. Like her brother James Francis Edward Stuart, Louisa Maria was a Roman Catholic, which, under the Act of Settlement 1701, debarred them both from succession to the British throne after the death of their Protestant half-sister Anne, Queen of Great Britain.
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.
The Jacobite rising of 1745, also known as the Forty-five Rebellion or simply the '45, was an attempt by Charles Edward Stuart to regain the British throne for his father, James Francis Edward Stuart. It took place during the War of the Austrian Succession, when the bulk of the British Army was fighting in mainland Europe, and proved to be the last in a series of revolts that began in 1689, with major outbreaks in 1708, 1715 and 1719.
The Jacobite rising of 1715 was the attempt by James Edward Stuart to regain the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland for the exiled Stuarts.
Lancelot Errington, also Launcelot or Lancelott, (1657–1745) was a master mariner noted for his capture of Lindisfarne during the Jacobite rising of 1715.
The Glorious Revolution in Scotland refers to the Scottish element of the 1688 Glorious Revolution, in which James VII was replaced by his daughter Mary II and her husband William II as joint monarchs of Scotland and England. Prior to 1707, the two kingdoms shared a common monarch but were separate legal entities, so decisions in one did not bind the other. In both countries, the Revolution confirmed the primacy of Parliament over the Crown, while the Church of Scotland was re-established as a Presbyterian rather than Episcopalian polity.
Dominic Sheldon, often written as Dominick Sheldon, was an English soldier. A leading Jacobite he served in James II's Irish Army during the Williamite War between 1689 and 1691. He was a noted cavalry commander, present at the Battle of the Boyne and Battle of Aughrim. Later after going into exile, he rose to the rank of lieutenant general in the French Army. He was also remained a prominent courtier at the Jacobite court in exile at Saint Germain.
Sir Thomas Sheridan (1684–1746) was a Jacobite courtier and conspirator of Anglo-Irish background, known mainly for his role as an advisor to Charles Edward Stuart during the Jacobite rising of 1745.