To mark the 300th anniversary of the birth of Henry Benedict Stuart, also known as Cardinal York, on 6 March, 1725, our guest authors Calum E Cunningham and Stefano Baccolo offer five surprising facts about this influential man, now largely unknown outside Italy. You’ll have heard of his elder brother, though: Charles Edward Stuart, better known as Bonnie Prince Charlie. But what was Henry like?
It’s the 300th anniversary of his birth
Prince Henry Benedict, Duke of York, was born on 6 March, 1725 at the Palazzo del Re in Rome. He was the younger son of King James III and VIII and Queen Maria Clementina Sobieska and younger brother by four years of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, who became known as ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’. These siblings were the last scions of the House of Stuart.
Historians have always focused more on the Duke’s father, the ‘Old Pretender’ and elder brother, the ‘Young Pretender’. Henry became the last active Stuart claimant in 1788, and one of his biographers, Brian Fothergill, called him the ‘Youngest Pretender’.
The Duke also entered the Roman Catholic Church and became a cardinal, having a long, eventful life and leaving a lasting legacy in the Catholic world. These dual features led to Fothergill attributing Henry with another sobriquet: the ‘Cardinal King’.
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A Prince ready to fight
Henry is remembered mainly for his decorated ecclesiastical career and is often blamed for undermining the political ambitions of his brother.
From early childhood, he showed an exceptional, even excessive, piousness and inclination to spirituality, modelling and surpassing his parents’ devout Catholicism. By 1742, James Murray, Earl of Dunbar, a favourite of his father, reported with uneasiness, “the Duke’s only pleasure is in the exercise of his devotions… that it is become a passion.”
Yet only three years later, when his brother had landed in Scotland in an attempt to restore their father to the throne, the Duke was likewise ready to take up arms in defence of the Jacobite Cause. During what became known as the Forty-Five, the younger Stuart prince arrived in France to represent his family at Versailles, using the incognito title Count of Albany, which would later be famously associated with his brother from 1770 onwards.
Soon after his arrival, Henry met with King Louis XV, the Dauphin and the French minister of foreign affairs at Fontainebleau. Later, he also had a private meeting with Queen Marie Leszczyńska, and all royal family members received him with kindness.
While the French court was somewhat unprepared to receive the Stuart prince, having not clearly defined the status by which to acknowledge him, Henry, with great ease, immediately embraced the King when they met, imposing himself on an equal footing only befitting royalty.
In the following months, the Duke secured a treaty with France, and as part of the agreement, he was supposed to assume nominal command of a French expeditionary force to aid his brother.
He remained at Dunkirk throughout early 1746 until he received news of the disastrous events at the Battle of Culloden. His readiness to fight and engage in diplomatic efforts is testified in his portrait by Maurice Quentin de la Tour, which is now not on display but should be considered a relevant symbol of Henry’s significant role in the critical months of the final rising.
Second only to the Pope
After the defeat in Scotland, and leaving aside all hopes of restoration, a longstanding agreement between Pope Benedict XIV and Henry’s father was made public — which enabled Henry’s desire to enter the Church when, in 1747, the Pontiff created him a cardinal at the young age of 22.
Yet this elevation earned Cardinal York the great displeasure of his brother. Charles viewed this event as a considerable drawback as he continued plotting to keep the Jacobite cause alive
To those trying to appease the two brothers, Charles underlined that Henry did not choose a humble, monastic life like their Sobieski great-uncle Prince Aleksander Benedykt. The Duke instead became the most powerful cardinal of his age.
Notwithstanding his frail health, Henry had a long life, dying an elderly man at 82. He served as Archpriest of St Peter’s for 56 years and was thus responsible for the basilica at the heart of Catholicism. Shortly after his election in 1758, Pope Clement XIII created Cardinal York an Archbishop. Henry would take charge of the diocese of Frascati in 1761 and spent most of his life there.
He also took part in four conclaves (1758, 1769, 1774–5, 1799–1800), minted coins during the sede vacante of the Holy See, held the post of Vice Chancellor of the Church longer than any other, keeping it for 44 years, and ended up as the eldest member of the Sacred College of Cardinals before his death in 1807.
The rumour mill
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Since his youth, Henry had displayed embarrassment towards women. Being taken from his mother at a young age and raised in male-only company were likely contributing factors to his complicated relationships with the opposite sex.
The Duke’s uneasiness intensified as he reached adulthood, especially in public situations such as dancing, as he confessed in a letter to his father from Paris. Shortly after taking holy orders, rumours emerged about Cardinal York’s supposed homosexuality.
Horace Walpole and Sir Horace Mann shared such gossip in their correspondence. Other writers like Giuseppe Gorani, Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs Thrale) and Gaetano Moroni commented on Henry’s alleged tendencies, including Thrale’s dubious remark that “he kept a Catamite publicly at Rome.”
The strongest indications supporting the notion of Henry’s homosexual tendencies have only appeared in more recent historiography. In his study on the Jacobite court in exile, Edward Corp has evidenced how Cardinal York had formed a close bond with a priest of his entourage, Giovanni Lercari.
Lercari apparently manipulated the Duke, which caused King James to be apprehensive and led to an ensuing quarrel between father and son, which also involved Pope Benedict XIV. The Pontiff commented that Cardinal York formed obsessive friendships with fellow clergymen and was immature.
The quarrel ended with the dismissal of Lercari, only for the Duke to replace him in his affections with Cardinal Gian Francesco Albani and later Bishop Angelo Cesarini.
Today, it is commonly believed that Henry was a repressed homosexual. In 1775, Cardinal York was conspicuously involved in adjudging a case of ‘sodomy’ in his diocese; he showed a certain degree of clemency by commuting the sentence of life imprisonment to 10 years but considered this act a crime, and so refused to grant a full pardon.
Defender of the Faith
The Duke was the last active Catholic claimant to the British crowns, styling himself as King Henry IX of England and I of Scotland. He remained aware of being the first in the line of succession to claim the same regnal name as the first Protestant King of England, Henry VIII. Cardinal York also felt responsible for symbolically undoing the religious schism caused by the English Reformation.
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So, even without nurturing any hope of restoration, at the death of his brother Henry formally proclaimed his succession as the Catholic de jure king of England, Scotland, Ireland and France.
The ‘Cardinal King’ would also claim prerogatives Pope Julius II and Pope Leo X had initially given to Henry VIII while he was still a devout Catholic.
Julius had awarded the earlier Henry the role of Protector of the papal town of Vetralla in 1512 and Leo the title of Fidei Defensor in 1521. The last Stuart took an interest in this town, visiting it and presenting a bust of himself to the local government as a token of his protection. The title of Fidei Defensor was featured on the medals that Cardinal York struck, styling himself as King Henry IX.
Henry crowned his pretensions by touching for the ‘King’s Evil’ (scrofula), a rite traditionally associated with Divine Right kingship and which had notably long been abandoned by the House of Hanover.
A world upside down
The French Revolution of 1789–99 and the subsequent Napoleonic invasion of Italy caused significant upheavals in Cardinal York’s life. These events shattered the Duke’s financial situation, though he contributed much of his remaining resources to help pay the ransom imposed by the invaders to spare Rome from being sacked. Henry nonetheless had to flee Frascati shortly after the French expelled Pope Pius VI.
Cardinal York initially recovered in Naples, which was enjoying the protection of the Royal Navy. In a remarkable turn of events, his family’s previously staunch supporter, France, became his enemy, and his previous adversary, the British Government, came to his aid.
As Alice Shield reports, according to Admiral Horatio Nelson’s oral family tradition, Henry took part in a reception on the flagship HMS Agamemnon to celebrate the admiral’s recent victory in Egypt at the 1798 Battle of the Nile.
The Duke had declared that no one was happier than him to receive news of the British triumph. For the occasion, he presented Nelson with a dirk and cane that had belonged to his brother, Charles.
The turmoil was not over, however, and Cardinal York soon had to flee from the French occupation of Naples. The Duke reached Venice on the verge of poverty and eventually received succour from the British Government via a pension awarded by King George III.
In 1800, Henry returned to his diocese, where he would spend his remaining years in peace. Four years later, Napoleon, having asked Pope Pius VII to crown him Emperor, invited Cardinal York to his coronation. Yet, upon being refused the expected royal treatment, Henry declined, giving the excuse of frail health, which he endured until he died in 1807.
Stefano Baccolo is an independent researcher of the early modern period. His theses to complete a Bachelor’s degree and two Master’s degrees at the Universities of Pavia and Pisa examined the mythification of ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, the court of Charles Edward Stuart in exile in Italy and James Steuart’s Principles of Political Economy.
Calum E Cunningham completed his PhD at the University of Stirling. He continues studying Jacobitism’s social, political and legal aspects. His forthcoming monograph is titled Responding to the Jacobite Threat, Policy, Law and Assimilation.
Further reading:
Stefano Baccolo and Calum E. Cunningham, The Stuarts in Italy, 1766–1807: A Court in Perpetual Pretence, The Court Historian, 29:2 (2024), 134–162
Pietro Bindelli, Enrico Stuart, Cardinale Duca di York (Frascati, 1982)
Edward Corp, The Stuarts in Italy, 1719–1766: A Royal Court in Permanent Exile (Cambridge, 2011)
Mary Jane Cryan, Travels to Tuscany and Northern Lazio (Vetralla, 2004)
Brian Fothergill, The Cardinal King (London, 1958)
Neil Guthrie, Horace Walpole, the Prince, and the Baron, Eighteenth-Century Life, 49:1 (2025), 53–83
Bernard William Kelly, Life of Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York (London, 1899)
Alice Shield, Henry Stuart, Cardinal of York and His Times (London, 1908)
Herbert Millingchamp Vaughan, The Last of the Royal Stuarts: Henry Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York (London, 1906)
You may also be interested in these features:
Five surprising facts about Charles Edward Stuart,
Remembering Culloden, and
Raising the Jacobite standard: Glenfinnan, 1745, all by Frances Owen
1719: the forgotten Jacobite rising,
The Battle of Killiecrankie, and
Damn’ Rebel Bitches: Research Then and Now, all by Maggie Craig
The never-ending Battle of the Boyne and
Why the Glorious Revolution was . . . well, neither by Angus Donald
The monarch with the magic touch by Andrew Taylor
Further related Historia features include:
Are we the bad guys? Writing naval historical fiction from the French point of view by JD Davies
Wellington’s biggest Peninsular War secret by Tom Williams
Henry VIII, impotence and the thorny question of male heirs by Carol McGrath
Images:
- Prince Henry Benedict Clement Stewart, after Domenico Corvi, c1748: Scottish National Portrait Gallery, non-commercial use
- Double portrait of Prince Charles Edward Stuart and Prince Henry Benedict Stuart by Jean-Étienne Liotard, later 1730s: Wikimedia (public domain)
- Prince Henry Benedict Clement Stuart by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, 1746–7: Scottish National Portrait Gallery, non-commercial use
- Prince James receiving his son, Prince Henry, in front of the Palazzo del Re by Paolo Monaldi and Pubalacci Silvestri, 1747–8: Scottish National Portrait Gallery, non-commercial use
- Prince Henry Benedict Stuart by Louis Gabriel Blanchet, c1739: Royal Collection via Wikimedia (public domain)
- Prince James Francis Edward Stewart. Son of James VII and II after Francesco Trevisani, 1720: Scottish National Portrait Gallery, non-commercial use
- Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal York, c1750: Royal Collection via Wikimedia (public domain)
- Portrait of Henry Benedict, Cardinal York: Pontifical Scots College, Rome via Wikimedia (public domain)
