Henry Benedict Stuart

Henry Benedict Thomas Edward Maria Clement Francis Xavier Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York (6 March 1725 – 13 July 1807), also known as the Cardinal of York, was a cardinal, and was the third and final Jacobite heir to publicly claim the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland, as the younger grandson of King James VII and II. One of the longest-serving cardinals in history, Henry spent his whole life in the Papal States and became the dean of the College of Cardinals and cardinal-bishop of Ostia and Velletri. Unlike his father James Francis Edward Stuart (The Old Pretender) and elder brother Charles Edward Stuart (The Young Pretender or Bonnie Prince Charlie), Henry made no effort to seize the thrones. After Charles's death in 1788, Henry became known by Jacobites as Henry IX and I, but the Papacy did not recognise Henry as the lawful ruler of England, Scotland, and Ireland and instead referred to him as the "Cardinal Duke of York". He was most widely known as the Duke of York, a title in the Jacobite peerage granted to him by his father.

Early life

Henry was born in exile at the Palazzo Muti in Rome on 6 March 1725 and baptised on the same day by Pope Benedict XIII, 37 years after his grandfather James VII and II lost the thrones, and ten years after his father's failed attempt to regain it. His father was James Francis Edward Stuart, known to his opponents as "the Old Pretender". His mother was the Princess Maria Klementyna Sobieska, granddaughter of the Polish King and Lithuanian Grand-Duke, John III Sobieski. Henry was apparently an intelligent child who could spell and write better than his older brother Charles. More introverted than Charles and more cautious in his approach to problems, Henry was described as pious and mild-mannered.

Henry went to France in 1745 to help his brother, Prince Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie", or "the Young Pretender") prepare the Jacobite rising of 1745. Attached to the French Royal Army, he was in nominal command of a cross-channel invasion force of some 10,000 men that never made it out of Dunkirk, and subsequently served under Maurice de Saxe at the siege of Antwerp. After the defeat at the Battle of Culloden (1746), Henry Stuart returned to Italy, aged 21.

Ecclesiastical career On 30 June 1747, Pope Benedict XIV conferred the tonsure on him and created him Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Campitelli in a special consistory held on 3 July 1747. On 27 August 1747, he was promoted through the four minor orders by Benedict. He received the subdiaconate on 18 August 1748 and diaconate on 25 August 1748. His elder brother Charles, who was in France at the time, was not in favor of the ecclesiastical honors as he believed they would only serve to further religious prejudice against the Stuarts.

As the cardinalate was a rank rather than one of the priestly orders, Charles hoped that Henry might yet make a politically advantageous marriage, and was dismayed to discover that his brother had been ordained a priest on 1 September 1748. He was appointed Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals on 26 September 1803, then also succeeding to the See of Ostia and Velletri. He lived and worked in Frascati for many years, descending each afternoon in his carriage to Rome, where his position as vice-chancellor entitled him to the Palazzo della Cancelleria.

Henry was the last claimant to the British throne to touch the sick to cure them from the King's Evil.

Henry is described as a beatific, abstemious, wealthy, celibate aesthete who lived to a great age, 'inoffensive and respectable' to the end.

French Revolution and later life

At the time of the French Revolution, he lost his French Royal benefices and sacrificed many other resources to assist Pope Pius VI. This, in addition to the seizure of his Frascati property by the French, caused him to descend into poverty, which resulted in the sale of the Stuart Sapphire. The British Minister in Venice arranged for Henry to receive an annuity of £4,000 from George III of Great Britain. Although the British government represented this as an act of charity, Henry and the Jacobites considered it to be a first instalment on the money which was legally owed to him. (For many years the British government had promised to return the English dowry of his grandmother, Mary of Modena, but never did so.)

The Vatican had recognised James Francis Edward Stuart as James III and VIII as the King of Great Britain and Ireland. After his death in 1766, the Vatican did not recognise his son (Henry's brother) Charles, who had converted to Anglicanism in 1750. The Vatican had not, however, overtly recognised the Hanoverian monarchs. However, in November 1792 the Vatican first referred to George III as the King of Great Britain and Ireland instead of the Elector of Hanover. This resulted in a protest by Henry, who suggested the insult would result in him not visiting Rome again.

Despite their general anti-clericalism and hostility to the Bourbon monarchy, the French Directory suggested to the United Irishmen in 1798 to elevate Henry as King of the Irish (Henry IX). This was in the course of General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert landing a force in County Mayo for the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and trying to rally the Catholic population: a significant number of Irish priests supported the Rising, even though Humbert's army had been veterans of the anti-clerical campaign in Italy.

Henry, his brother, his father and his mother are buried in the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. There is a monument to the Royal Stuarts on one of the columns in the basilica proper, designed by Antonio Canova. The monument was originally commissioned by Angelo Cesarini, executor of Henry Benedict's estate. Among the subscribers was George IV.

The monument was restored at the expense of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in the 1940s.

Arms During the pretence of his father and brother, Henry claimed a coat of arms consisting of those of the kingdom, differenced by a crescent argent or white crescent.