House of Stuart

House of Stuart
England Arms 1603.svg
Armorial of Stuart, 1603 onwards
Country Kingdom of Scotland, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Ireland, Kingdom of France,[1] Kingdom of Great Britain
Parent house Clan Stuart
Titles High Steward of Scotland, Earl of Lennox, Duke of Aubigny, Earl of Moray, Marquess of Bute, King of Scots, King of England, King of Ireland, Queen of Great Britain
Founder Robert II of Scotland
Final ruler Anne of Great Britain
Current head None agnatically. The current Jacobite claimant is Franz, Duke of Bavaria.
Founding year 1371
Dissolution 1714
Cadet branches Stewarts of Appin

Stewarts of Castle Stewart
Stewarts of Galloway
extinct
Stewart of Albany
Stewart of Darnley

The House of Stuart, also known as the House of Stewart is an important European royal house. Founded by Robert II of Scotland, the Stewarts first became monarchs of the Kingdom of Scotland during the late 14th century. Their direct ancestors had held the title High Steward of Scotland since the 12th century, after arriving by route of Norman England. Their Scottish Headquarters were located in Dundonald, Ayrshire. The dynasty inherited further territory by the 17th century which covered the entire British Isles, including the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Ireland, also upholding a claim to the Kingdom of France.

In total, nine Stuart monarchs ruled just Scotland by itself from 1371 until 1603. After this there was a Union of the Crowns under James VI of Scotland who had become the senior genealogical claimant to all of the holdings of the extinct House of Tudor. Thus there were five Stuart monarchs who ruled both England and Scotland as well as Ireland. Additionally at the foundation of the Kingdom of Great Britain after the Acts of Union, which politically united England and Scotland, the first monarch was Anne of Great Britain. However, she died without issue and all the holdings passed to the House of Hanover, under the terms of the Act of Settlement 1701.

During the reign of the Stewarts, Scotland developed from a poor and backwards country into a more prosperous one. They ruled during a period of European history where the Middle Ages morphed into the Renaissance. Monarchs such as James VI were known for sponsoring exponents of the Northern Renaissance such as poet Robert Henryson. After gaining control of all of Great Britain the arts and sciences continued to develop; William Shakespeare's best known plays were authored during the Jacobean era, while institutions such as the Royal Society and Royal Mail were established during the reign of Charles II.

Contents

Origins

Etymology

The first member of the family to use the name Stewart as a surname was Walter Stewart, 3rd High Steward of Scotland. 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, an office based in Dundonald, Ayrshire between the 12th and 13th centuries.

Background

See also: Clan Stewart
High Steward arms.

The ancestral origins of the Stewart family are quite obscure — what is known for certain is that they can trace their ancestry back to Alan FitzFlaad, who came over to the island of Great Britain not long after the Norman conquest.[2] Alan had been the hereditary steward of the Bishop of Dol in the Duchy of Brittany;[3] though scholars are divided as to whether he himself was Norman or Breton.[2] Alan had a good relationship with the ruling House of Normandy monarch Henry I of England who awarded him with lands in Shropshire.[3] The FitzAlan family quickly established themselves as a prominent Anglo-Norman noble house, with some of its members serving as High Sheriff of Shropshire.[3][4] It was the great-grandson of Alan named Walter FitzAlan who became the first hereditary High Steward of Scotland, while his brother William's family would go on to become Earls of Arundel.

When the civil war in the Kingdom of England broke out known as The Anarchy, between legitimist claimant Matilda, Lady of the English and her cousin who had usurped her; king Stephen, Walter had sided with Matilda. Another supporter of Matilda was her uncle David I of Scotland from the House of Dunkeld. After Matilda was pushed out of England into the County of Anjou, essentially failing in her legitimist attempt for the throne, many of her supporters in England fled also. It was then that Walter had followed David up to the Kingdom of Scotland, where he was granted lands at Renfrewshire and the title life peerage of the Lord High Steward. The next monarch of Scotland, Malcolm IV made the High Steward title a hereditary arrangement.

History

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, the Lordship of Cunningham and the Brucean lands of Bourtreehill; 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.

French connections were notoriously unpopular and resulted in the downfall of the Stuarts, whose mutual enemies identified with the emergent Protestant nationalism and urban mercantilism as opposed to Catholic feudalism and rural manorialism. The Glorious Revolution caused the deposition of James II in favor of his son-in-law and his daughter, William and Mary. James continued to claim the thrones of England and Scotland, and encouraged revolts in his name, and his grandson Charles led an ultimately unsuccessful rising in 1745, becoming ironic symbols of conservative rebellion and Romanticism. 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. Despite the Whig intentions of tolerance to be extended to Irish subjects, this was not the preference of Georgian Tories and their failure at compromise played a subsequent role in the present division of Ireland.

The direct male line of the House of Stuart is assumed to be extinct, after the deaths of Henry Benedict Stuart and Charles Edward Stuart. However, a female line through Henrietta Anne Stuart survived and continues to this day, albiet in the form of the current House of Wittelsbach. Henrietta Anne, or simply 'Minette', was a daughter of Charles I of England and married into the French royal family. Therefore, Franz, Duke of Bavaria, descends from Minette, and is the current Heir general of Charles I and is also the current Head of the House of Stuart.

Heads of the House of Stewart

Dapifers of Dol

High Stewards of Scotland

Kings of the Scots

Kings of Great Britain, France and Ireland

See also: List of British monarchs

Jacobite Claimants

Patrilineal descent

Patrilineal descent, descent from father to son, is the principle behind membership in royal houses, as it can be traced back through the generations - which means that the historically accurate royal house of the Stuart monarchs was the House of Stuart.[5]

  1. Alan of Dol, b. 1020
  2. Flaald fitz Alan, Baron of St. Florent
  3. Alan FitzFlaald, d. after 1114
  4. Walter fitz Alan, 1106 - 1177
  5. Alan fitz Walter, 2nd High Steward of Scotland, d. 1204
  6. Walter Stewart, 3rd High Steward of Scotland, 1178 - 1241
  7. Alexander Stewart, 4th High Steward of Scotland, 1214 - 1283
  8. Sir John Stewart of Bonkyl, 1246 - 1298
  9. Sir Alan Stewart of Dreghorn, 1280 - 1333
  10. Sir Alexander Stewart, d. 1374
  11. Sir Alexander Stewart, d. 1404
  12. Sir John Stewart, 1st Lord Aubigny, 1370 - 1429
  13. Sir Alan Stewart of Darnley, 1407 - 1439
  14. John Stewart, 1st Earl of Lennox, 1430 - 1495
  15. Matthew Stewart, 2nd Earl of Lennox, 1472 - 1513
  16. John Stewart, 3rd Earl of Lennox, 1490 - 1526
  17. Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, 1516 - 1571
  18. Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, 1545 - 1567
  19. James I of England, 1566 - 1625
  20. Charles I of England, 1600 - 1649
  21. James II of England, 1633 - 1701
  22. Mary II of England, 1662 - 1694 and Anne of Great Britain, 1665 - 1714

Sources

Notes

  1. ↑ titular claim rather than de facto
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "J.H. Round: The Origin of the Stewarts: Part 1". MedievalGenealogy.org.uk. Retrieved on 13 November 2008.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Bartlett, England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075-1225, 544.
  4. ↑ Lieber, Encyclopædia Americana, 30.
  5. ↑ Descent from before Walter fitz Alan is from [1] and may be unreliable.

References

See also

Further reading

External links

*Royal House*
House of Stuart
Preceded by
House of Bruce		 Ruling House of the Kingdom of Scotland
1371 – 1649 , 1660 – 1707		 Titles Merged
See Act of Union 1707
Preceded by
House of Tudor		 Ruling House of the Kingdom of England
1603 – 1649 , 1660 – 1707
Preceded by
New Creation		 Ruling House of the Kingdom of Great Britain
1707 – 1714		 Succeeded by
House of Hanover