James Francis Edward Stuart
1688 – 1766 · Generation XXVIII · House of Stuart
James Francis Edward Stuart (1688–1766). “The Old Pretender” — the baby whose birth triggered the Revolution; claimant to the throne for sixty-four years. Gossip held that the true baby was stillborn and a substitute carried in by warming pan. Before he was six months old his mother, disguised as a laundress, fled with him to France, where he grew up at Saint-Germain-en-Laye as the honoured guest of Louis XIV. Proclaimed king by Louis on his father’s death in 1701, he tried to land in the Firth of Forth in 1708, fought for the French at Oudenarde, and would not buy the succession by turning Protestant. He reached Scotland in December 1715, after the rising had already suffered defeat, and sailed away within weeks, leaving bitterness behind. Settled in Rome at the Palazzo Muti on papal support, he married Maria Clementina Sobieska in 1719; their sons were Charles Edward, who led the 1745 rising, and Henry, who became a cardinal. He was buried in the crypt of St Peter’s Basilica.
Place in the family
- James Francis Edward Stuart was a 5× great-nephew of King Henry VIII.
One of 17 people of House of Stuart (from 1371) in this archive. Scotland’s royal house for three centuries before James VI inherited England and wore both crowns.
Line of descent: Owen Tudor → Edmund Tudor → King Henry VII → Margaret Tudor → King James V of Scotland → Mary Queen of Scots → King James I → King Charles I → King James II → James Francis Edward Stuart.
Parents
- King James II (1633 – 1701)
- Mary of Modena (1658 – 1718)
Siblings
- Queen Mary II (1662 – 1694) (half)
- Queen Anne (1665 – 1714) (half)