James Francis Edward Stuart

James Francis Edward Stuart 1688-1766, claimant to the British throne, son of James II and Mary of Modena ; called the Old Pretender. His birth, falsely rumored by Whigs at the time to be supposititious (i.e., of other parents than professed), helped to precipitate the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was brought up in France and on his father's death (1701) was recognized there as James III of England. In England, however, the Act of Settlement (1701) had excluded the male line of Stuarts from the succession. His restoration to the British throne was the object of numerous plots and rebellions by the Jacobites . After an abortive invasion of Scotland in 1708, James served in the French army at the battles of Oudenarde and Malplaquet, but in the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) Louis XIV was obliged to recognize the succession of the house of Hanover to the English throne, and James was forced to leave France. His hopes of succeeding Queen Anne were dashed by the peaceful succession (1714) of the Hanoverian George I . An uprising in his favor (1715), led by the 6th earl of Mar , brought him to Scotland, but, on the failure of the movement, James retired to France and finally to Rome. In 1719, James married Maria Clementina Sobieski, a Polish princess commonly called Princess Clementina. He did not take part in the Jacobite uprising of 1745, led by his son, Charles Edward Stuart , the Young Pretender.

Bibliography: See biographies by A. Shield and A. Lang (1907), A. N. Tayler and H. A. H. Tayler (1934), and B. Bevan (1967); see also bibliography under Jacobites.

Stuart, James Francis Edward (1688–1766) British claimant to the throne, called the ‘Old Pretender’. The only son of James II, his birth precipitated the Glorious Revolution (1688), and he was brought up in exile. On the death of his father in 1701, the Jacobites proclaimed James king. After an abortive attempt to depose Anne (1708) by invading from Scotland (where support for the Stuart cause was greatest), James served in the French army. The accession of George I (1714) prompted James to attempt a further unsuccessful uprising. His son was Charles Stuart.

Stuart, James Francis Edward (1688–1766), the ‘Old Pretender’. Son and heir of James VII of Scotland and II of England and Ireland by his second wife, Mary of Modena. The oddity of the catholic James II as head of the Anglican church-state was acceptable to protestant opinion only because his heir was the protestant Mary, daughter of a first marriage and wed to William of Orange. The birth of Prince James in June 1688 precipitated the Glorious Revolution. He was taken to France at his father's command in December 1688.

The propaganda querying his parentage was false, but the decision by Louis XIV to recognize him as heir to the British thrones when his father died in 1701 helped precipitate the War of the Spanish Succession. He participated in an abortive invasion of Scotland in 1708. In 1713 he was expelled from France to Lorraine. In late 1715 he joined the Scottish rising, fleeing from Montrose in the following spring. He was in Spain during the 1719 rising in the Highlands, returning to Italy to marry the Polish princess Clementina Sobieska, by whom he had two sons, Charles and Henry, and little happiness. He spent the last Jacobite rising, the '45, as a papal pensioner in Rome, happy to abdicate if Prince Charles succeeded. Latterly he had little to do except attend religious services. He died in January 1766.

Bruce Philip Lenman