The Many Restorations of King James: A Short History of Scholarship on Jacobitism, 1688–2006

Abstract

On 1 January 1766, in Rome, died James Francis Edward Stuart: to his supporters, still King James III and VIII of England, Scotland, Ireland and France; to his opponents, still the Old Pretender. In Catholic eyes, he had suffered for his faith, surrendering worldly advantage rather than pay the price of conversion to Protestantism that his restoration would have required. Pope Clement XIII decided on a royal funeral, against James’s wishes, and his exequies were of great magnificence. At his lying in state in St. Peter’s, a sombre event commemorated by one of the most impressive of Jacobite engravings,¹ a crown was placed on his head, an orb and a sceptre in his hands; twenty-two cardinals attended his requiem mass. The Catholic Church still took James seriously.²