Charles Edward Louis Philip Casimir Stuart
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- Charles Edward Louis Philip Casimir Stuart
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(1720 - 88), called The Young Pretender, e. s. of James Stuart, the Pretender; b. Rome, de jure P. of Wales; in France and Scotland 1744 - 6; in France and Germany 1746 - 66, with Clementina Walkinshaw 1752 - 60; suc. fa. 1766 as de jure Charles III, but sty. E. of Albany; m. 1772 Ps. Louise of Stolberg-Gedern (1752 - 1824, sty. Cts. of Albany).
1720 - 44 Rome, with visits to Gaeta (1734) and a tour made in 1737: Rome ( - 29 Apr.), Bologna, Parma, Genoa (11 - 18 May), Turin, Venice (28 May - 5 Jun.)
1766 - 88 Rome (1766 - 75), Florence (1775 - 85), Rome (1785 - 88)
The livelier and more frivolous of the Pretender's two sons, Charles was brought up in Rome in the Palazzo Muti.1 In 1734 he accompanied his cousin the Duke of Liria (later 2nd Duke of Berwick) at the siege of Gaeta (an episode in the successful Spanish campaign in Naples), and showed considerable spirit. From May to June 1737 he toured Italy (as the Count of Albany), being well received in Tuscany and Venice, the two powers which openly supported the Stuart cause. He was keen on music, and in his youth was an accomplished 'cellist; with his brother Henry he performed Corelli's Notte di Natale for Charles de Brosses in 1740. His portrait was painted by Antonio David (his father's painter) in 1723 and 1726, by L.-G. Blanchet in 1738 (for the Duchess of Parma, his mother's aunt) and in 1739 (Holyrood), and by Dupra in 1740; he was drawn by Giles Hussey c.1735 (BM), and in 1737 by Rosalba Carriera in Venice and by Liotard; his father thought the Liotard a better likeness than the Rosalba.2 Batoni is said to have given him drawing lessons.3
In 1741 he visited France and in January 1744 he left Rome to lead the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland. He never saw his father again. He rode in disguise through Caprarola and Massa to Genoa, and was in Paris by February. From Paris in 1744 he asked his father to have Pompeo [Batoni] copy for him his brother's portrait by Dupra.4 After the failure of the '45 rebellion he returned to Paris. In 1748, according to the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Charles left France for the Papal city of Avignon. He may have been in Venice in 1749, but for the next fifteen years he led a wandering and dissolute existence in Europe, in the course of which he had a daughter, Charlotte, by Clementina Walkinshaw.
He returned alone to Rome in January 1766 on his father's death, a decrepit figure, much given to drink. 'His person is tall, and rather lusty', an English observer wrote; 'His complexion has a redness in it not unlike the effects of drinking. He has a complaint in his legs which obliges him to wear a kind of half-boots'.5 Charles's sovereignty was not recognised by Pope Clement XIII who called him the Count of Albany and had the royal arms of England removed from the doorway of the Palazzo Muti. In 1766 Charles paraded daily through the streets of Rome accompanied by John Hay of Restalrig, with Andrew Lumisden, Captain Adam Urquhart and Stafford following in another carriage - but his passage was largely ignored.6
On 17 April 1772 he married at Macerata (near Ancona) the nineteen-year-old Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gedern who soon found him 'the most insupportable man that ever existed, a man who combined the defects and failings of all classes, as well as the vice common to lackeys, that of drink'. Pope Clement XIV denied them an audience (addressing them as Baron de Renfrew and his wife, a title Charles had used when living with Clementina Walkinshaw in France). Though Charles restrained his drinking for a year, his marriage foundered. In January 1773 Sir William Hamilton reported that Charles was 'universally looked upon as in a great degree out of his Senses, and would be deserted if a few people did not go to him out of compassion for his Wife, whom he never quits a moment'.7
In 1775 they moved to the Palazzo Corsini in Florence and in 1777 to the Palazzo Guadagni. His physical condition and behaviour grew steadily worse and in 1780 Louise, already under the spell of Count Vittorio Alfieri, left him. His 'pretty young wife has given him the slip', wrote Charles Parker; 'the poor old man is almost always asleep & has I believe but very little sense of his Misfortunes'.8 In October 1784 he was joined by his illegitimate daughter Charlotte, whom he created Duchess of Albany. She managed to reconcile Charles with his brother, the Cardinal-Duke of York, Henry Benedict, and in December 1785 Charles returned with her to the Palazzo Muti in Rome. In February 1787 he was seen during the Carnival in Rome driving in the Corso, 'lolling in his coach, the very image of a drunken Silenus, more asleep than awake'.9 He died in the Palazzo Muti on 30 January 1788, and was buried at Frascati, his brother conducting the funeral service.
Of his later portraits, Laurent P?cheux was appointed his painter in 1773; there are portraits by him and drawings by Ozias Humphry (one dated 1776 in SNPG) showing heavy and dispirited features.(10) The last portrait appears to be that by H.D. Hamilton of c.1785 - 8 (examples at Dundee, SNPG and NPG).
1. See J. Lees-Milne, The Last Stuarts. F. McLynn, Charles Edward Stuart. 2. Kerslake 1977, 38 - 45. 3. Stuart-Wortley MSS. 4. Clark/Bowron, p.55. 5. Blackburne, 696 - 7. 6. Elcho, Short Account, 200 - 1. 7. SP 93/28 (Hamilton, 12 Jan. 1773). 8. Parker letters MSS B2070 (2 Dec. 1782). 9. J.E. Smith, Sketch of a Tour on the Continent, 2:47. 10. Kerslake 1977, 44 - 5.