Mary of Modena
1658 – 1718 · Generation XXVII
Mary of Modena (1658–1718). Married James II & VII Stuart in 1673. One of their children is recorded in this archive. Born Maria Beatrice d’Este, a daughter of Alfonso IV, Duke of Modena, she was married by proxy just short of fifteen to a widower twenty-five years her senior; Protestant England called the Catholic bride “the Pope’s daughter.” Child after child died in infancy, and the Popish Plot drove the couple into spells of exile in Brussels and Edinburgh. The birth of a son, James Francis Edward, in 1688 was widely rumoured to be a fraud — a baby smuggled in by warming pan — and helped bring on the Glorious Revolution. That December she fled London in disguise with the infant and set up court with James at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where she was well liked by Louis XIV’s circle. After James died in 1701 she acted as nominal regent for their son, the Jacobite claimant. She later took refuge with the nuns of Chaillot and died of breast cancer in 1718.
Place in the family
- Mary of Modena married King James II, a 4× great-nephew of King Henry VIII.
Partners
- Married King James II (1633 – 1701) in 1673 — one child together
Children
- James Francis Edward Stuart (1688 – 1766)
Life
- 1658 — Born
- 1673 — Married James II & VII Stuart
- 1718 — Died