James Francis Edward Stuart
James Francis Edward Stuart (10 June 1688 – 1 January 1766), nicknamed the Old Pretender by Whigs and the King over the Water by Jacobites, was the son of King James VII and II 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.
"Chevalier de St. George" redirects here. For composer and conductor, see Chevalier de Saint-Georges.James Francis Edward Stuart
16 September 1701 – 1 January 1766
10 June 1688
St. James's Palace, London, Kingdom of England
1 January 1766 (aged 77)
Palazzo Muti, Rome, Papal States
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 Louis XIV of France, a cousin of his father. 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.
End of papal support[edit]
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 following decade, Rome accepted the Hanoverian dynasty as the legitimate rulers of Britain and Ireland; this was accompanied by a gradual relaxation and reform of the anti-Catholic "penal laws" in Britain and Ireland. Two months after James's death, on 14 March, the royal arms of England were removed from the doorway of the Palazzo Muti.[28] 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.[30]
