No Plan Like Yours To Study History Wisely is a useful mnemonic: Norman, Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart, Hanover and Windsor.
The first Stuart was James I, crowned in 1603, and the last James II, deposed by William of Orange in 1688; file the Stuarts under 17th century. James II’s son, another James, and his elder son tried to regain the throne. They are often called the Old Pretender and the Young Pretender (aka Bonnie Prince Charlie). There is a second son, the Cardinal Duke of York, an unlikely combination of titles. All three are buried in St Peter’s Basilica and their memorial is by Canova.
They are depicted in profile (left to right: James, Henry, Charles) under the Stuart escutcheon (too high for my picture) and the inscription reads:
To James III, son of King James II of Great Britain, to Charles Edward and to Henry, Dean of the Cardinal Fathers, sons of James III, the last of the Royal House of Stuart. 1819.
Underneath two angels look suitably dolorous, guarding a door that suggests the entrance to the royal crypt below. Canova doesn’t have much scope with the Stuarts but can demonstrate his virtuosity with the angels.
This fine sculpture was paid for by public subscription with George IV magnanimously and generously contributing. The Old Pretender’s Polish wife, Maria Clementina Sobieska, has a fine memorial of her own in St Peter’s facing her husband and sons.
They are closer now than they were in their unhappy marriage. Puzzlingly her inscription reads:
MARIA CLEMENTINA M. BRITANN. FRANC. ET HIBERN. REGINA
Maria Clementina, Queen of Great Britain, France and Ireland
Puzzling because she wasn’t a queen of anywhere, least of all France which was a dead duck since (Plantagenet) Edward III claimed the French throne in 1340.
The invisible thread that links me to James Lees-Milne tugged me to St Peter’s, even making me queue for forty-five minutes to get in. (His book, The Last Stuarts was published in 1983.)
Surely Queen Anne was the last Stuart?
You are right. I forgot about her.
The fanlights of Ringsend used to be graced by ceramic King Billys on horseback. He was a Stuart on his mother,s side and of course married his cousin Mary Stuart. The train drivers and rail workers who then ruled that Dublin purlieu including bits of Irishtown would have been happy to know just how old regime Willem van Orange was. Masons and Orangemen to the last he was revered as a tough Dutchman out to vanquish the slave-hearts. “…a man just like Rommel”
This overheard by me in July 1971 in the Scotch House. Well,he wasn’t.