San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-03-07
HEIRS OF THE HOUSE OF STUART.
How the Question Of Right to the Eng
Iish Throne Is Complicated.

How the Question of Right to the Eng
lish Throne Is Complicated.
There is II historical blunder which ever
and anon comes up and which, though of
no practical significance, yet cannot be
witho1t an imaginative influence on Anglo
Saxons 1t respects the question, Who is
the representative of the Stuarts9 The
statement is often made that it is the king
OF Italy, but this is mistake Its latest
appearance is in a very interesting article
on Queen Margaret, which says that but
tor the law excluding Roman Catholic
|. lines, King Humbert and Queen Margaret
would now be king and queen of England.
1t is worth noting that even the eminent
historian, Mr.. Freeman, has casually fallen
into the same error in an incidental allu-
sion, knowing that by female succession
the Stuart representation had passed into
the house of Savoy, and not having CHANGED
to note that by female succession it had
passed out of the house of Savoy.
When by death of Henry Stuart, Cardi
nal York, in 1907, the house of Stuart. and
with it all the heirs of James ii, became
extinct, then as his elder sister, Mary, had
no grandchildren the Stuart representa-
tion devolved on King Victor Emmanuel
of Sardinia, as the heir of James younger
sister, Henrietta, duchess of Orleans. Vic
tor Emmapuel's heir for the throne of Sar
DINA. as he had no sons, was his brother
Charles Felix, but for the Stuart represen.
tation, which of course followed the Eng
fish rule, it was his eldest daughter, Mary
Beatrice Her heir was her eldest son,
Francis v, the last duke of Modena, whom
Disraeli, in "Endymion," represents as
actually receiving the homage of some
English idiots as their true sovereign.
At his death without issue in 1875, the
Stuart claims (now of course purely ideaD
passed to his next brothers Ferdinand's)
only child, the Archduchess Maria Theresa,
wife of Prince Lewis of Bavaria, who is
thus the representative of the Stuarts, the
Tudors and the Plantagenets. The eldest
of this lady's four or five sons bears the
sign of his famous descent in his name of
Prince Rupert" Thus the ideal claims
of the ancient English royalty, having
passed from the house of Savoy into the
Modenese branch of the house of Haps
burg Lorraine, will, in the next generation,
be settled in the house of Wittelsbach and
ascend the throne of Bavaria, supposing
that monarchy to be then in existence.
On the death of Charles Felix in 1881, the
Sandman crown passed to the branch of
Savoy -Carignano, which parted from the
elder line a generation before Henrietta
Stuart was born. King Humbert, there
fore, and his cousin and wife. Queen Mar
garet, are not only not the representatives
of the Stuarts, but, as pointed out in Cham
bers' Encyclopedia, they are not descend
ants of the Stuarts.
Queen Victoria is guilty of a singular
absurdity in one of her books when she
proudly calls herself, with true royal and
feminine Toryism, "the representative of
the Stuarts" Her house was chosen for
the very reason that it's elevation signal
lied the national rejection of the Stuarts.
The act of settlement shows that she is not
only not the representative of Charles |,
but is not even the representative of his
sister Elizabeth until all the posterity of
Elizabeth's sons shall be extinct, for the
act passes over the sons and over the eldest
daughter, the Abbess of Maubisson, and
fixes on the youngest daughter, Sophia, as
being Protestant. The present dynasty,
therefore, reigns by no Anticipated right of
descent, but by true act of national cleo
ton. Victoria is not the representative of
the Stuarts, but, which is an infinitely
higher dignity, she is, by free act Of ma
tional choice, the representative Of the
majesty of mighty England.
may remark that the present represen.
tative of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen Victo
ria's ancestress, is said to be, curiously
enough, the Count of Paris.-Dr. Charles
G. Starbuck in Boston Advertiser