Henry Benedict Stuart

File:Henry Benedict Maria Clement Stuart, Cardinal York by Louis Gabriel Blanchet.jpg

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,{{Cite web|title=Vestments of the Cardinal Duke of York: Henry Benedict Stuart |website=Liturgical Arts Journal |date=2018-06-22 |url=http://www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2018/06/vestments-of-cardinal-duke-of-york.html |access-date=2022-07-01|first=Shawn|last=Tribe}} 37 years after his grandfather James II and VII 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.{{cite web | title=Henry Stuart, cardinal duke of York | website=Encyclopedia Britannica | date=2022-03-02 | url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Stuart-cardinal-duke-of-York | access-date=2022-07-01}}

{{stack|File:Henry Benedict Maria Clement Stuart, Cardinal York by Antonio David.jpg]]}}

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.

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.{{sfn |Kelly |1899 |p={{page needed |date=June 2022}}}}

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. Later that month, Henry was made Cardinal-Priest, retaining his diaconal church. In 1751, he was made Arch-Priest of St. Peter's Basilica.

{{blockquote|text=His revenues from the many ecclesiastical preferments he enjoyed were enormous. His income from abbeys and other pluralities in Flanders, Spain, Naples and France amounted to 40,000 Pounds in British money at the time. He also held sinecure benefices yielding revenues in Spanish America. He owned territory in Mexico, which contributed largely to his income.{{sfn |Lees-Milne |1984 |p=[https://archive.org/details/laststuartsbriti0000lees/page/75/mode/1up?q=ecclesiastical+preferments 75]}}}} Louis XV of France bestowed on the Cardinal the abbeys of Auchin and St. Amand as compensation for having had to evict his brother pursuant to the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.{{sfn |Kelly |1899 |p={{page needed |date=June 2022}}}}

In December 1752 his titular seat was changed to Santi Apostoli; and in 1758 the Pope named him Camerlengo of the Sacred College of Cardinals. The responsibilities of this office included administering all property, fees, funds and revenue belonging to the College of Cardinals, celebrating the requiem Mass for a deceased cardinal, and charge of the registry of the Acta Consistoralia. He participated in the 1758 papal conclave, which elected Pope Clement XIII. In October of that year, Henry was made titular Archbishop of Corinth. The following year, he resigned the title of Santa Maria in Campitelli to assume that of Santa Maria in Trastevere; however, he retained the Church of Santi Apostoli in commendam.

He was made Cardinal-Bishop of Frascati on 13 July 1761.{{Cite web|title=Cardinals Created by Benedict XIV (1743-7)|url=http://www.gcatholic.org/hierarchy/data/cardB14-1.htm#1578|access-date=2020-06-16|website=www.gcatholic.org}} 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.{{sfn |Haggard |1840 |p=[https://www.jstor.org/stable/42681835?seq=3 151]}}

File:Maurice Quentin de La Tour Prince Henry Benedict Clement Stuart.jpg (1746/47), long thought to be of Charles Edward Stuart]]

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,{{sfn |Burton |1913}} 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.{{sfn |Fothergill |1958 |pp=[https://archive.org/details/cardinalking0000foth/page/204/mode/2up 205–206]}}

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).{{sfn|Pittock|2006|p=[https://archive.org/details/poetryjacobitepo0000pitt/page/210/mode/1up 210]}}{{harvnb|Aston |2002 |p=[https://archive.org/details/christianityrevo0000asto/page/222/mode/1up 220]}} 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. The French hoped Henry could lead a French client state in Ireland; however, Wolfe Tone, the Protestant republican leader, vetoed the scheme.

Henry returned to Frascati in 1803. In September of that year he became the Dean of the College of Cardinals and hence Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and Velletri,{{sfn |Burton |1913}} though he still lived in the episcopal palace at Frascati. He died there on 13 July 1807, aged 82, simultaneously the 60th anniversary of his appointment as the Cardinal Deacon of his titular church, and the 46th anniversary of his elevation to the rank of Cardinal Bishop.

File:Ritratto di Henry Benedict Marie Clement Edward Stuart, cardinale York.jpg (1756)]]

Some modern historians have speculated whether Henry was homosexual.{{sfn |Marshall |2010}} Contemporary accounts include the writings of Hester Lynch Thrale{{sfn |Piozzi |1942 |p=[https://archive.org/details/thraliana0002unse/page/874/mode/2up 874–875] (dated 29 March 1794)}} (1741–1821), and the diplomat and writer {{ill|Giuseppe Gorani|it||fr}}{{sfn |Gorani |1793 |pp=[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k107246c/f102.item 100–103]}} (1740–1819). Gorani admitted to having gathered evidence insufficient to confirm his suspicions either way, but drew attention to the number of handsome clerics that were to be found in Henry's palace. The historian Andrew Lang alluded to James's comment that his younger son would never marry although many marriages had been planned for him.{{sfn |Marshall |2010}}

The writer Gaetano Moroni{{sfn |Angeli |1931 |pp=98–108}} provides the lengthiest account of Henry's close attachment with his majordomo {{ill|Giovanni Lercari|it||nl}} (1722–1802), whom Henry was said to have "loved beyond measure". This led to serious tensions between the cardinal and his father James, who in 1752 tried to have Lercari dismissed from Rome. Henry reacted by attempting to secure his financial independence, and refused to return to Rome from Bologna without Lercari by his side. A public scandal was narrowly avoided by the intervention of Pope Benedict XIV.{{sfn |McLynn |1991 |pp=[https://archive.org/details/charlesedwardstu0000mcly/page/468/mode/2up?q=Lercari 468–469]}} It was agreed that Lercari would leave the household, and he was later made Archbishop of Genoa.

Things became easier after the death of James in 1766. From 1769 onwards Henry remained close to Angelo Cesarini, a nobleman from Perugia, who under Henry's protection won various honours, was made canon of the cathedral in Frascati, and in 1801 became Bishop of Milevi. Henry died with Cesarini at his side, as for the past 32 years. Cesarini was later buried in the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella.

These relationships may have had a romantic element.{{sfn |Schofield |2002 |p=98}}

File:Jacobite kings in St Peters Cathedral.jpg, left aisle of Saint Peter's Basilica, Rome]]

Under his will, which he signed as "Henry R" (i.e. Rex or king), he was succeeded in all his claimed British rights by his nearest blood-relative and friend, King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia. Like his successors, Charles Emmanuel neither asserted nor renounced his Jacobite claims.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

In his will he left the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom to the Prince of Wales, the future George IV.National Portrait Gallery, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp04973/henry-benedict-maria-clement-stuart-cardinal-york: "He bequeathed the Stuart crown jewels to the future George IV in an act which symbolically brought the Jacobite cause to a close."Columbia Encyclopedia, fifth edition, 1993, published by Columbia University Press & distributed by Houghton Mifflin, p. 2638: "Stuart or Stewart, Henry Benedict Maria Clemont, known as Cardinal York, 1725-1807... Cardinal York bequeathed to George IV (then Prince of Wales) the crown jewels of the Stuarts."

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.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

The monument was restored at the expense of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in the 1940s.{{Cite web |url=https://blogs.fcdo.gov.uk/nigelbaker/2016/01/08/history-and-healing-remembering-the-stuarts/ |title=Remembering the Stuarts |publisher=Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office |date=2016-01-08 |accessdate=2023-04-25}}

{{Unreferenced section|date=February 2023}}

During his life, Cardinal Stuart was assigned the following Diaconia and Tituli:

• 13 July 1747 Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria in Portico
• 16 September 1748 Cardinal Priest of Santa Maria in Portico
• 18 December 1752 Cardinal Priest of Santi XII Apostoli
• 12 February 1759 Cardinal Priest of Santa Maria in Trastevere
• 13 July 1761 Cardinal Bishop of Frascati
• 14 January 1763 Comendatario of San Lorenzo in Damaso (proper of the cardinal vice-chancellor, held in addition to the suburbicarian sees)
• 26 September 1803 Cardinal Bishop of Ostia e Velletri (proper of the dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals)

In March 1774 he became Sub-dean, and on 15 September 1803 – Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals.

He was a cardinal elector in the papal conclaves of 1758, 1769, 1774–75 and 1799–1800.

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{{cite web |last=Velde |first=Francois R. |title=Marks of Cadency in the British Royal Family |website=Heraldica |url=https://www.heraldica.org/topics/britain/cadency.htm |access-date=2022-07-01}} or white crescent.

• Jacobite succession
• Touch pieces

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=Angeli |first=Diego |title=Storia romana di trent'anni: 1770-1800 |publication-place=Milano |publisher=Fratelli Treves |year=1931 |oclc=912018210 |language=it}}
• {{cite book |last=Aston |first=Nigel |title=Christianity and Revolutionary Europe, c. 1750-1830 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |publication-place=Cambridge, UK |date=2002 |isbn=0-521-46027-1 |oclc=1255749297 |url=https://archive.org/details/christianityrevo0000asto |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}}
• {{cite CE1913|wstitle= Henry Benedict Maria Clement Stuart |volume= 14 |last= Burton |first= Edwin Hubert |author-link= |year=1913 |short=1}}
• {{cite book |last=Fothergill |first=Brian |title=The Cardinal King |publication-place=London |publisher=Faber and Faber |year=1958 |oclc=1148219736 |url=https://archive.org/details/cardinalking0000foth |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}}
• {{cite book |last=Gorani |first=Giuseppe |title=Mémoires Secrets Et Critiques Des Cours, Des Gouvernemens Et Des Moeurs Des Principaux États De L'Italie |volume=2 |publication-place=Paris |publisher=Buisson |year=1793 |id={{OCLC|163297791|763789321}} |language=fr |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k107246c |via=Bibliothèque nationale de France}}
• {{cite journal |last=Haggard |first=W. D. |title=MEDALS OF THE PRETENDER. [Third Series.] (Continued) |journal=The Numismatic Chronicle |publisher=Royal Numismatic Society |volume=3 |year=1840 |issn=2054-9164 |oclc=900903202 |jstor=42681835 |pages=149–152 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/42681835 |access-date=2022-06-28}}
• {{cite web |last=Kelly |first=Bernard William |title=Life of Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York with a notice of Rome in his time |publication-place=London |publisher=R. & T. Washbourne |year=1899 |id={{OCLC|697979433|1321067823}} |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeofhenrybened00kelluoft |via=Internet Archive}}
• {{cite book |last=Lees-Milne |first=James |author-link=James Lees-Milne |title=The Last Stuarts: British Royalty in Exile |publication-place=New York|publisher=Scribner |year=1984 |orig-year=1983 |isbn=0-684-18147-9 |oclc=747325009 |url=https://archive.org/details/laststuartsbriti0000lees/ |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}}
• {{cite book |last=Macleod |first=John |title=Dynasty: the Stuarts, 1560-1807 |publisher=Sceptre |publication-place=London |date=2000 |isbn=978-0-340-70767-8 |oclc=1285562111 |url=https://archive.org/details/dynastystuarts150000macl_t9s9 |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}}
• {{cite encyclopedia|last=Marshall |first=Rosalind K. |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |chapter=Henry Benedict [Henry Benedict Stuart; styled Henry; known as Cardinal York] (1725–1807), cardinal and Jacobite claimant to the English, Scottish, and Irish thrones |date=27 May 2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/12964}}
• {{cite book |last=McLynn |first=Frank |author-link=Frank McLynn |title=Charles Edward Stuart: a tragedy in many acts |publication-place=Oxford; New York|publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1991 |orig-year=1988 |isbn=0-19-282856-8 |oclc=1319189191 |url=https://archive.org/details/charlesedwardstu0000mcly |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}}
• {{cite book |last=Piozzi |first=Hester Lynch |author-link=Hester Thrale |editor-last=Balderston |editor-first=Katharine Canby |title=Thraliana: the Diary of Mrs. Hester Lynch Thrale (later Mrs. Piozzi) |publication-place=Oxford |volume=2 |publisher=ClarendonPress |year=1942 |oclc=1153479174 |url=https://archive.org/details/thraliana0002unse |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}} Reprinted: {{ISBN|978-0-19-873902-9}} {{doi|10.1093/actrade/9780198739029.book.1/actrade-9780198739029-book-1}}
• {{cite book |last=Pittock |first=Murray G. H. |author-link=Murray Pittock |title=Poetry and Jacobite Politics in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland |publication-place=Cambridge, UK |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2006 |orig-year=1994 |id={{OCLC|713114018|1311055558}} |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511519093 |url=https://archive.org/details/poetryjacobitepo0000pitt |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-521-41092-2}}
• {{cite book |last=Schofield |first=Nicholas |title=A Roman Miscellany: the English in Rome, 1550-2000 |publication-place=Leominster |publisher=Gracewing |year=2002 |isbn=0-85244-575-X |oclc=50054353}}

• {{cite book |last=Bindelli |first=Pietro |title=Enrico Stuart, Cardinale, Duca di York |trans-title=Enrico Stuart, Cardinal, Duke of York|publication-place=Frascati |publisher=Associazione Tuscolana "Amici di Frascati" |year=1982 |oclc=320050913 |language=it |ref=none}}

{{commons category|Henry Benedict Stuart}}

• {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Henry Benedict Maria Clement Stuart|volume=13|page=295}}
• {{Catholic Encyclopedia|prescript=|wstitle=Henry Benedict Maria Clement Stuart|ref=none}}
• [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14316b.htm Henry Benedict Maria Clement Stuart] Catholic Encyclopedia article
• {{Catholic-hierarchy|bishop|bstua|Henry Benedict Stuart}}
• [http://www2.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios1747-ii.htm#Stuart Stuart of York, Henry Benedict Mary Clement (1725–1807)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180127143255/http://www2.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios1747-ii.htm#Stuart |date=27 January 2018 }}. Salvador Miranda.
• {{NPG name|name=Henry Benedict Maria Clement Stuart}}

{{s-start}}

{{s-hou | House of Stuart |11 March|1725|13 July|1807}}

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{{S-bef|rows=2|before=Giacomo Lanfredini}}

{{S-ttl|title={{nowrap|Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Portico (Campitelli)}}|years=31 July 1747 – 16 September 1748}}

{{S-aft|rows=2|after=Flavio Chigi

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{{S-ttl|title=Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria in Campitelli|years=16 September 1748 – 12 February 1759}}

{{S-break}}

{{S-bef|before=Annibale Albani}}

{{S-ttl|title=Archpriest of St. Peter's Basilica|years=8 November 1751 – 13 July 1807}}

{{S-aft|after=Romoaldo Braschi-Onesti

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{{S-bef|before={{ill|Domenico Riviera|it}}}}

{{S-ttl|title=Cardinal-Priest of Santi Apostoli|years=18 December 1752 – 13 July 1761}}

{{S-aft|after=Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli

}}

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{{S-bef|before={{ill|Francesco Mattei (Roman Catholic patriarch)|it|lt=Francesco Mattei}}}}

{{S-ttl|title=Titular Archbishop of Corinthus|years=2 October 1758 – 13 July 1761}}

{{S-aft|after=Marco Antonio Colonna

}}

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{{S-bef|before=Giacomo Oddi}}

{{S-ttl|title=Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria in Trastevere|years=12 February 1759 – 13 July 1761}}

{{S-aft|after=Fabrizio Serbelloni

}}

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{{S-bef|before={{ill|Camillo Paolucci|it}}}}

{{S-ttl|title=Cardinal-Bishop of Frascati|years=13 July 1761 – 26 September 1803}}

{{S-aft|after=Giuseppe Doria Pamphili

}}

{{S-break}}

{{S-bef|before=Carlo Rezzonico}}

{{S-ttl|title=Cardinal-Priest of San Lorenzo in Damaso|years=24 January 1763 – 13 July 1807}}

{{S-aft|after=Francesco Carafa di Trajetto

}}

{{S-break}}

{{S-bef|before=Gian Francesco Albani}}

{{S-ttl|title=Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and Velletri
and Dean of the College of Cardinals||years=26 September 1803 – 13 July 1807}}

{{S-aft|after=Leonardo Antonelli

}}

{{s-pre}}

{{s-bef|before=Charles Edward Stuart |as=Charles III }}

{{s-tul |title=King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland |line=Jacobite succession |reason=Grandfather deposed in 1688 |years=1788–1807}}

{{s-aft|after=Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia |as=Charles IV }}

{{s-end}}

{{Dean of Cardinals}}

{{Jacobitism}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stuart, Henry Benedict}}

Category:1725 births

Category:1807 deaths

Category:18th-century Italian cardinals

Category:Jacobite pretenders

Category:19th-century Italian cardinals

Category:Burials at St. Peter's Basilica

Category:Cardinal-bishops of Frascati

Category:Cardinal-bishops of Ostia

Category:Clergy from Rome

Category:Deans of the College of Cardinals

York, Henry Benedict, Duke of

Henry Benedict

Category:Latin archbishops of Corinth

Category:Peers created by James Francis Edward Stuart

Henry Benedict Stuart

Henry Benedict Stuart

Category:Scottish cardinals

Category:Exiled royalty

Category:People from the Papal States

Category:Dukes of York

Category:English people of Polish descent

Category:Scottish people of Polish descent

Category:Jacobite military personnel of the Jacobite rising of 1745

Category:18th-century Scottish Roman Catholic priests

Category:19th-century Scottish Roman Catholic priests

Category:18th-century British cardinals

Category:19th-century British cardinals

Category:Historical figures with ambiguous or disputed sexuality