Attributed to Antonio David 1698-1750 Portrait of Prince James Francis Edward Stuart 1688-1766

Attributed to Antonio David 1698-1750 Portrait of Prince James Edward Stuart 1688-1766

oil on canvas, oval

30 x 25 in. (76 x 64 cm.)

James Francis Edward [James Francis Edward Stuart; styled James VIII and III; known as Chevalier de St George, Pretender, Old Pretender] (1688–1766), Jacobite claimant to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was born at St James's Palace, Westminster, on 10 June 1688, the only surviving son of James II and VII (1633–1701) and his second wife, Maria Beatrice d'Este of Modena [see Mary (1658–1718)]. His birth was highly controversial; his mother had last given birth in 1683 and none of her five earlier children had survived infancy. By the autumn of 1687, when it was generally assumed that the king and queen could not produce healthy children, it was widely feared that James II's policies were directed towards the formal re-establishment of Roman Catholicism as the state religion; in such circumstances the birth of a male heir, who would supersede his protestant half-sisters, Princess Mary of Orange [see Mary II (1662–1694)] and Princess Anne of Denmark [see Anne (1665–1714)], in the succession, would be highly convenient. From the moment the queen's pregnancy was formally announced in November 1687, protestants started a campaign to question its legitimacy and, where possible, avoided the queen's lying-in. Those who were obligated to be present, by virtue of their offices, took pains to stand with their backs to the queen's bed, so they could not be called upon to provide eye-witness testimony. James II attempted in vain to discredit the ‘warming pan’ fiction (so called after rumours that the child had been smuggled into the queen's chamber in such a device) by publishing the depositions of over seventy witnesses to the birth (Depositions made in council on Monday, 22 October 1688, concerning the birth of the prince of Wales), but the nation was prepared to disbelieve any evidence. When the king left London on 17 November to go to Salisbury to confront Prince William of Orange, James was sent to the fortress at Portsmouth, then under the command of his half-brother, James Fitzjames, duke of Berwick, but as soon as James II had decided to flee to France the prince was returned to London on 9 December, and that night with his mother was taken to Gravesend to embark for Calais. On their arrival Louis XIV ordered that they be transported to the château of St Germain-en-Laye, which was to be the prince's home for the next twenty-four years.

Exile and succession, 1689–1714

During the ensuing Nine Years' War, William III's Roman Catholic allies suggested a compromise which would allow William to remain king for his lifetime, to be succeeded by the prince of Wales. There is no evidence that William had any intention whatsoever of repealing the clause in the Bill of Rights of 1689 which barred all Roman Catholics from succession to the throne; Louis XIV, however, desperate for peace, apparently broached the idea with James II, who flatly refused to allow his son to be bred a protestant. When in July 1696 James II established an independent household for his son, he gave the prince's new governor, James Drummond, fourth earl of Perth, an extremely detailed set of rules, the burden of which was to ensure that the prince would not spend one moment without direct adult supervision (Stuart Papers, 1.114–17).

On 2/13 September 1701, three days before James II's death, Louis XIV visited St Germain and publicly announced that on the king's death France would recognize his son as king of England, Scotland, and Ireland. This recognition, in contravention of Louis's promises in the treaty of Ryswick (1697), infuriated the English public. In June 1701 parliament had passed an Act of Settlement which vested the succession in the next protestant heir, the dowager Electress Sophia of