House of Stuart

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Image:Armoiries Grande-Bretagne 1603.png

The Coat of Arms of King James I, the first British monarch of the House of Stuart

The House of Stuart or Stewart was a royal house of the Kingdom of Scotland, later also of the Kingdom of England, and finally of the Kingdom of Great Britain. Mary Queen of Scots adopted the French spelling Stuart while in France to ensure that the Scots Stewart was pronounced correctly. The name itself originates from the ancient hereditary Scottish title High Steward of Scotland.

The House of Stuart ruled the Kingdom of Scotland for 336 years, between 1371 and 1707. After the death of Queen Elizabeth I of England, the last monarch from the House of Tudor, the House of Stuart also ascended the thrones of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Ireland, providing the head of all three states between 1603 and 1707, under a personal union. During this latter period, the Stuarts styled themselves "Kings/Queens of Great Britain", though there was no such political entity. Queen Anne, the last monarch of the House of Stuart, and of the separate kingdoms of Scotland and England, became the first monarch of a politically unified Kingdom of Great Britain, ruling until her death in 1714. The Stuarts were followed by the House of Hanover. Members of various cadet and illegitimate branches still survive today, the original Clan Stuart still extant.

1 History
2 Heads of the House of Stewart
- 2.1 Dapifers of Dol
- 2.2 High Stewards of Scotland
- 2.3 Scottish Monarchs
- 2.4 Scottish, English and Irish Monarchs
- 2.5 British Monarchs
- 2.6 Jacobite Claimants
3 See also
4 Further reading

History

The earliest known member of the House of Stewart was Flaald I (Flaald the Seneschal), an 11th century Breton follower of the Lord of Dol and Combourg. Flaald and his immediate descendants held the hereditary and honorary post of Dapifer (food bearer) in the Lord of Dol's household. His grandson Flaald II was a supporter of Henry I of England and made the crucial move from Brittany to Britain, which was where the future fortunes of the Stewarts lay (including an evolving, longstanding tradition of intermarriage with the (de) Ferrer noble family, originally from Normandy). Walter the Steward (died 1177), the grandson of Flaald II, was born in Oswestry (Shropshire). Along with his brother William, ancestor of the Fitzalan family (the Earls of Arundel), he supported Empress Matilda during the period known as the Anarchy. Matilda was aided by her uncle, David I of Scotland, and Walter followed David north in 1141, after Matilda had been usurped by King Stephen. Walter was granted land in Renfrewshire and the position of Lord High Steward. Malcolm IV made the position hereditary and it was inherited by Walter's son, who took the surname Stewart. The sixth High Steward of Scotland, Walter Stewart (1293-1326), married Marjorie, daughter of Robert the Bruce, and also played an important part in the Battle of Bannockburn currying further favour. Their son Robert was heir to the House of Bruce; he eventually inherited the Scottish throne when his uncle David II died childless in 1371.

In 1503, James IV attempted to secure peace with England by marrying King Henry VII's daughter, Margaret Tudor. The birth of their son, later James V, brought the House of Stewart into the line of descent of the House of Tudor, and the English throne. Margaret Tudor later married Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, and their daughter, Margaret Douglas, was the mother of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. In 1565, Darnley married his half-cousin Mary, the daughter of James V. Darnley's father was Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, a member of the Stewart of Darnley branch of the House. Lennox was a direct descendant of Alexander Stewart, 4th High Steward of Scotland, also descended from James II, being Mary's heir presumptive. Therefore Darnley was also related to Mary on his father's side and at the time of their marriage was himself second in line to the Scottish throne. Because of this connection, Mary's heirs remained part of the House of Stewart. Because of the long French residence at Aubigny, held by Darnley's branch in the Auld Alliance, the surname was altered to Stuart. In feudal and dynastic terms, the Scottish reliance on French support was revived during the reign of Charles II, who had an illegitimate son by Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. This descent received the main Stuart appanages of Lennox and Aubigny, as well as the main Tudor appanage of Richmond. In such a way, the Treaty of Perpetual Peace in addition to the Auld Alliance, was symbolically represented among the nobility as it had been in the British Royal Family itself.

French connections were notoriously unpopular and resulted in the downfall of the Stuarts, whose mutual enemies identified with the emergent Protestant Germanic nationalism and urban mercantilism as opposed to rural feudalism. The Wars of the Three Kingdoms and War of the Grand Alliance eventually drove the family into the heart of the British Isles underground, becoming ironic symbols of conservative rebellion and Romanticism. Prominent Stuart descendents continued to oppose the new order, but only succeeded so long as they did it on the terms of their new masters and were not in succession to the throne. Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond and Charles James Fox subverted the will of the reigning monarch George III of the United Kingdom in favor of the American Whigs. In this fashion, the old Stuart Tories became liberal and identified with the spirit of tolerance which James II had proposed in religious and social terms. Due to the identification of the Roman Catholic Church with the Stuarts, Catholic Emancipation was not passed until Jacobitism (as represented by direct Stuart heirs) was extinguished and King George IV would represent its legacy, for his own dynasty's success throughout Great Britain. Despite the Whig intentions of tolerance to be extended for Irish subjects, this was not the Germanic preference of Georgian Tories and their failure at compromise played a subsequent role in the present division of Ireland.

Heads of the House of Stewart

Dapifers of Dol

Flaithri I (died c.1080)
Alan I (died ?)
Alan II (died 1095)
Flaithri II (died c.1101-1102)
Alan III (died c.1121)

High Stewards of Scotland

Walter the Steward, 1st High Steward of Scotland (died 1177)
Alan Stewart, 2nd High Steward of Scotland (died 1204)
Walter Stewart, 3rd High Steward of Scotland (died 1246)
Alexander Stewart, 4th High Steward of Scotland (died 1283)
James Stewart, 5th High Steward of Scotland (died 1309)
Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland (died 1326)
Robert Stewart, 7th High Steward of Scotland (became Robert II, King of Scots)

Scottish Monarchs

Scottish, English and Irish Monarchs

James VI of Scotland and I of England (1603-1625) - Jacobean Age
Charles I of England and Scotland (1625-1649) - Carolean Age
During the period between Charles I and Charles II, England was a Republican Commonwealth, and then a Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell and Richard Cromwell.
Charles II of England and Scotland (1660-1685) - Restoration Age
James II of England and VII of Scotland (1685-1688) (continued to claim the English and Scottish thrones after his deposition in 1688 until his death in 1701)
Mary II of England and Scotland (1689-1694) - with William III of England and II of Scotland, of the House of Orange-Nassau, a descendant of Charles I

British Monarchs

Anne of England and Scotland (1702-1714) - Augustan Age

Jacobite Claimants

James Francis Edward Stuart, (called the "Old Pretender" by his detractors, and "the King Across the Water" by his supporters) claimed throne as James VIII of Scotland and III of England, (1701-1766)
Charles Edward Stuart, (called the Young Pretender by the English), claimed throne as Charles III, known to the Scots as Bonnie Prince Charlie, (1766-1788)
Henry Benedict Stuart, claimed throne as Henry IX, (1788-1807)