ROYAL HOUSE OF STEWART
In June 1992, HRH Prince Michael James Alexander Stewart, 7th Count of Albany (Scotland), was elected President of the European Council of Princes - a constitutional advisory body within the European Union. In this regard, he succeeded the Imperial and Royal House of Habsburg Austria, who had retained the office from 1946. The new appointment held significant political implications for Scotland because, in unanimously electing Michael of Albany, some 32 sovereign houses openly proclaimed the continuing de jure Scots monarchy to an international audience - a royal dynasty which, according to British academia, had long been extinct.
The Council's recognition of a royal Stewart (Stuart) was a startling revelation to many people in Britain, America and The Commonwealth, who had heard little about the exiled Stuarts since the days of Bonnie Prince Charlie. However, in a direct line from King Robert II (founder of the Scots Royal House of Stewart in 1371), Prince Michael is the direct legitimate descendant from Charles Edward Stuart, and is the prior legal claimant in the Scottish succession, as confirmed by document under International Law.
For nearly 200 years it was portrayed in Britain that the Scots royal line ended while in 18th-century exile. But this disinformation was a product of Georgian and Victorian propaganda - a deceit which was long sustained by consecutive Westminster Governments. Dutiful historians perpetuated the myth that Charles Edward Stuart and his brother, Henry Benedict, were the last of the succession, claiming that the Scottish heritage was passed to the Royal House of Sardinia in 1807. But the legitimate Stuart line did not become extinct, and the dynastic legacy was legally inherited by no other house. It was transferred only in the minds of fearful Westminster politicians who schemed and plotted to safeguard Britain's alternative Germanic regime: the House of Hanover.
Prince Charles Edward Stuart, 1st Count of Albany by the Royal Equestrian Society artist Anne Grahame Johnstone ~Art image is Strictly Artist's Copyright~
One might ask why there was any need to create a diverted succession - for when other royal lines have truly expired, they have been allowed to disappear quite naturally. No one politically contrived to preserve their successions in other family descents unless there were relevant female-line marriages. But there was no such marriage in the Stuart succession; the Georgian Parliament quite simply undertook to manufacture a situation by misappropriating Wills and Testaments to their own strategic advantage. Why would they do that? Because, after nearly a century of Hanoverian rule in Britain, the exiled Stuarts still posed an enormous threat in terms of their continued popularity at a social level, and this was most embarrassing to King George III and his ministers.
Not surprisingly, the Scots had been most displeased at the loss of their traditional royal dynasty in 1688, and from that time a series of related revolts took place: the Jacobite Risings. Perhaps the best known of these remains the unsuccessful campaign of 1745, led by the deposed King James VII's grandson, Charles Edward Stuart, fondly remembered as Bonnie Prince Charlie. The exiled Charles Edward died in 1788, by which time the Stuarts were widely supported not only in Scotland, but in England, Wales and Ireland. Stuart support was also widespread abroad, particularly in America, where Scots Jacobites had been at the forefront of the War of Independence against Britain. It was, therefore, thought expedient by the Georgian ministers to pretend that the descendent Stuart line had terminated at Charles's death. His royal inheritance was said to have passed to his brother Henry, a childless cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, and then when Henry died in 1807 the direct family succession was declared extinct by the Westminster Parliament.
Prince Michael James Stewart, 7th Count of Albany by Sir Peter Robson, Court Painter to the Royal House of Stewart ~Art image is Strictly Artist's Copyright~
The fact was, however, that not only was Charles Edward legally married at his death to Marguerite d’Audibert, Comtesse de Masillan, he also had a legitimate son by their marriage — a son who succeeded him as the 2nd Count of Albany. In their wills, both Charles Edward and his brother Henry had specifically nominated this son, Edward James, Count Stuarton, but the British Government chose to disregard the nominations. Instead, they submitted that the Stuart heritage had passed to ex-King Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia, who had abdicated to become a monk. In fact, he actually wrote to Westminster denouncing the strategy because he knew the Stuart heir to be alive and well.
In reality, had the Stuart line truly become extinct there would have been absolutely no need for any governmental strategy to create a diverted succession; the line would simply have concluded with Charles Edward and that would have been the end of it. As it was, the diversionary tactic was deemed necessary to manoeuvre Prince Edward James out of the picture as far as the British people were concerned.
From that time, there were a number of Jacobite attempts to reintroduce Stuart awareness in Britain, but one way or another those attempts were confounded by Hanoverian agents. In Europe, however, the story has been rather different, and having succeeded as the 7th Count of Albany, Prince Michael Stewart elected to return to Scotland in 1976. In the footsteps of his illustrious ancestor, Bonnie Prince Charlie, he returned specifically to champion the Scottish Nation in its continued struggle for justice and a rightly deserved recognition on the world stage. Now, after more than two decades he is still in Scotland and has met with no substantial opposition from the Westminster Government or the reigning Royal House. In fact, quite the contrary; in August 2002 Prince Michael of Albany was awarded the United Nations medal for his "dedicated commitment to humanitarian causes".
Prince Michael's Top-10 bestselling book, The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland, provides a distinctly fresh insight into Scottish affairs, being a blow-by-blow account of family record and experienced fact, rather than the politically contrived fiction which has become so familiar. Drawing from family papers and archival records, Prince Michael gives a compelling account of political corruption, assassination and political conspiracy. In the pages of The Forgotten Monarchy, the heroes and victims of Scottish history live again - Macbeth, Robert the Bruce, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Bonnie Prince Charlie. Here are the facts about the Stone of Destiny, the Knights Templars, the Jacobite Risings and the American War of Independence. Prince Michael also includes his personal overview of the contemporary Scottish social, economic and political scene. As Scottish nationhood re-emerges with its first devolved Parliament for 300 years, the telling of this truly epic history has never been more relevant.
THE FORGOTTEN MONARCHY OF SCOTLANDby HRH Prince Michael of Albany Published in Britain by Chrysalis / Vega Books, February 2002Softback edition, ISBN 1843332752
Visit the Royal House of Stewart website at:http://www.royalhouseofstewart.org.uk/
Note: From 1371 the Scots Royal House was surnamed Stewart (from Steward). From the 16th century, the French spelling of Stuart was adopted when Mary, Queen of Scots was Queen of France (there being no "w" then in the French alphabet). Later, in 1892, the exiled House of Stuart in Europe reverted to the original Scots spelling of Stewart.
All Site Contents © Laurence Gardner 2005
