Charles Edward Stuart - Exile

Exile

While back in France, Charles had numerous affairs; the one with his first cousin Marie Louise de La Tour d'Auvergne, wife of Jules, Prince of Guéméné, resulted in a short-lived son Charles (1748–1749). In 1748 Charles was expelled from France under the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle which brought the war between Britain and France to an end.

Charles lived for several years in exile with his Scottish mistress, Clementina Walkinshaw, whom he met, and may have begun a relationship with, during the 1745 rebellion. In 1753, the couple had a daughter, Charlotte. Charles's inability to cope with the collapse of the cause led to his problem with drink, and mother and daughter left Charles with James's connivance. Charlotte went on to have three illegitimate children with Ferdinand, an ecclesiastical member of the Rohan family. Their only son was Charles Edward Stuart, Count Roehenstart. Charlotte was suspected by many of Charles's supporters of being a spy planted by the Hanoverian government of Great Britain.

After his defeat, Charles indicated to the remaining supporters of the Jacobite cause in England that, accepting the impossibility of his recovering the English and Scots crowns while he remained a Roman Catholic, he was willing to commit himself to reigning as a Protestant. Accordingly, he visited London incognito in 1750 and conformed to the Protestant faith by receiving Anglican communion, likely at one of the remaining non-juring chapels. Bishop Robert Gordon, a staunch Jacobite whose house in Theobald's Row was one of Charles's safe-houses for the visit is the most likely to have performed the communion, and a chapel in Gray's Inn was suggested as the venue as early as 1788 . This refuted David Hume's suggestion that it was a church in the Strand. Unusually, the news of this conversion was not advertised widely, and Charles had seemingly returned to the Roman Catholic faith by the time of his marriage.

In 1759, at the height of the Seven Years War, Charles was summoned to a meeting in Paris with the French foreign minister, the Duc De Choiseul. Charles failed to make a good impression, being argumentative and idealistic in his expectations. Choiseul was planning a full-scale invasion of England, involving upwards of 100,000 men—to which he hoped to add a number of Jacobites led by Charles. However, he was so little impressed with Charles, he dismissed the prospect of Jacobite assistance. The French invasion, which was Charles's last realistic chance to recover the British throne for the Stuart dynasty, was ultimately thwarted by naval defeats at Quiberon Bay and Lagos.

In 1766, Charles's father died. Pope Clement XIII had recognised James as King of England, Scotland, and Ireland as "James III and VIII" but did not give Charles the same recognition.

In 1772, Charles married Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gedern. They lived first in Rome but, in 1774, moved to Florence where Charles began to use the title "Count of Albany" as an alias. This title is frequently used for him in European publications; his wife Louise is almost always called "Countess of Albany".

In 1780, Louise left Charles. She claimed that Charles had physically abused her; this claim was generally believed by contemporaries even though Louise was already involved in an adulterous relationship with the Italian poet, Count Vittorio Alfieri.

The claims by two 19th century charlatans—Charles and John Allen alias John Sobieski Stuart and Charles Edward Stuart—that their father, Thomas Allen, was a legitimate son of Charles and Louise are without foundation.

In 1783, Charles signed an act of legitimation for his illegitimate daughter Charlotte, born in 1753 to Clementina Walkinshaw (later known as Countess von Alberstrof). Charles also gave Charlotte the title "Duchess of Albany" in the peerage of Scotland and the style "Her Royal Highness", but these honours did not give Charlotte any right of succession to the throne. Charlotte lived with her father in Florence and Rome for the next five years.

Charles died in Rome on 31 January 1788. He was first buried in the Cathedral of Frascati, where his brother Henry Benedict Stuart was bishop. At Henry's death in 1807, Charles's remains were moved to the crypt of Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican where they were laid to rest next to those of his brother and his father. His mother is also buried in Saint Peter's Basilica.

When the body of Charles Stuart was transferred to Saint Peter's Basilica, his "praecordia" were left in Frascati Cathedral: a small urn encloses the heart of Charles, placed beneath the floor below the funerary monument.