Stuart, Cardinal Henry Benedict

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Stuart, Cardinal Henry Benedict (1725–1807). The younger son of James Stuart, and latterly Jacobite cardinal-king, he was born in March 1725 in Rome and was his father's favourite son. He was kept ignorant about Franco-Jacobite intrigues in 1744, but did go to France to support his brother Charles in 1745. In 1747, in political despair, he accepted a cardinal's hat. Charles, who had not been informed, was embittered. Reconciliation came late. After the death of Charles in 1788, Henry styled himself ‘ Henry IX’. It was an empty title. When the French revolutionaries invaded Italy, confiscating his property, George III pensioned him. He died in Frascati in 1807, and is buried in St Peter's, Rome, with his father and brother. The monument was paid for by the prince regent, later George IV.

Bruce Philip Lenman

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