John Sobieski Stuart
Encyclopedia
John Sobieski Stuart and Charles Edward Stuart were names used by John Carter Allen and Charles Manning Allen, two 19th century English brothers who are best-known for their role in Scottish cultural history. As authors of a dubious book on Scottish tartans and clan dress, the Vestiarium Scoticum
, they are the source of some current tartan traditions.
as their birthplace. They moved to live in Scotland and changed their Allen surname to the more Scottish spelling Allan, then to Hay Allan, and Hay. Their father John Carter Allen had Hay ancestry, and was said to have been related to the Earl of Erroll
.
In 1840 John would publish a Genealogical table of the Hays. The date of their arrival in Scotland is unclear, but they are known to have been there in 1822. This is the year John published The bridal of Caölchairn and other poems under the name John Hay Allan. Another edition was published, also in 1822, giving the author's name as Walter Scott
. This is now in the British Library
's category of "doubtful and supposititious works".
In 1829 they failed to persuade Sir Walter Scott
of the authenticity of a document they said was a copy of a "15th century" manuscript about clan tartans. The brothers liked to wear Highland dress themselves, apparently "in all the extravagance of which the Highland costume is capable". In the 1830s they moved to Eilean Aigas
on the River Beauly
in Inverness-shire
, to a hunting lodge granted them by the Earl of Lovat. Here they "held court" and surrounded themselves with royal paraphernalia: pennants, seals, even thrones. During their time here, they adopted the final version of their names", using the surname 'Stuart', and became practising Catholics. (The Stuarts and their supporters, the Jacobites
, were Roman Catholic.) They got to know various important Highland chiefs and noble patrons, one of whom was the Earl of Moray
, and pursued the aristocratic pastime of deer-hunting. This was the inspiration for Lay of the Deer Forest. With sketches of olden and modern deer-hunting (1848).
They published the Vestiarium Scoticum in 1842. This was followed, in 1844, with a broader "study" of medieval highland Scotland which included the ideas from 1842: The Costume of the Clans. With observations upon the literature, arts, manufactures and commerce of the Highlands and Western Isles during the Middle Ages; and the influence of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries upon their present condition. This involved "immense scholarship" , but the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper is just one of many who consider it full of "fantasy" and "forgery".
In 1847 their claims to royal blood were set out by implication in a work of historical fiction: Tales of the Century: or Sketches of the romance of history between the years 1746 and 1846. After this, a strong attack on them published in the Quarterly Review in 1847 caused severe damage to their reputation. John responded with A reply to the quarterly review upon the Vestiarium Scoticum in 1848 but the brothers soon were forced to move away from Scotland, to live with relations in Prague
and Pressburg.
In the latter 1860's they lived together in reduced circumstances after the death of Charles's wife and continued to occupy themselves with research, being famous figures in the British Library, using pens embellished with gold coronets, and wearing Highland dress or military tunics. Only after death did they return to Scotland, to be buried in Eskadale.
who was vicar of Godalming
for many years. Thomas and Catherine also had a daughter Matilda. John, Charles and Matilda were all born in Wales, and after the early death of their mother, Thomas remarried Ann Salmon and had five further children, many of which took assumed names. After this date Thomas is a shady and elusive character. He may have invested poorly and have been plagued by debts, which would explain his living abroad, and his use of an assumed name. He died in Clerkenwell in 1852.
John married an heiress Georgiana Kendall in 1845 but had no children. Charles married Anna Beresford (daughter of John Beresford) in 1822 and had three daughters and a son, named Charles Edward Louis Casimir Stuart (1824–1882). This son, the first to be christened a Stuart, married Lady Alice Hay (daughter of William Hay, 18th Earl of Erroll
by his wife Elizabeth
, daughter of William IV
), but they had no children. Two of his sisters died without issue, one becoming a nun. His sister Louisa Sobieska (c1827 - 1897) had a son with her husband Edouard von Platt who served in the Austria
n imperial bodyguard. There is no-one who could continue the "Stuart" brothers' claims to royal ancestry through the direct male line, although descendants remain.
The Allen/Stuart brothers implied that their grandfather, Admiral John Carter Allen, was merely foster father to Thomas, whose "true" father was Charles Edward Stuart, or Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Sobieski
is the surname of John III Sobieski
, the Polish king of the Sobieski family
, whose granddaughter Clementina (Maria Klementyna Sobieska
) married a Stuart: the "Old Pretender", Prince James Francis Edward
. Their eldest son was Charles Edward Stuart
, the "Young Pretender", and the Allen brothers claimed him as their "true" grandfather.
John also called himself John Sobieski Stolberg Stuart. Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gedern
was married to Bonnie Prince Charlie and is sometimes called the Countess of Albany. John, and others in the family, started to use the title Count d'Albanie, which "passed" to Charles on John's death at 52 Stanley Street (now Alderney Street), Pimlico, London in 1872. Charles died on board a steamer on a trip to France in 1880. His son inherited the title and is buried as the Count d'Albanie.
Vestiarium Scoticum
The Vestiarium Scoticum was first published by William Tait of Edinburgh in a limited edition in 1842...
, they are the source of some current tartan traditions.
Life and books
John and Charles were born in Wales in the last decade of the 18th century. Later they would claim to have discovered in 1811 that they were descended from the Stuart kings, and on their 1871 census entry they gave VersaillesVersailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
as their birthplace. They moved to live in Scotland and changed their Allen surname to the more Scottish spelling Allan, then to Hay Allan, and Hay. Their father John Carter Allen had Hay ancestry, and was said to have been related to the Earl of Erroll
Earl of Erroll
The Earl of Erroll is an ancient title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1453 for Sir William Hay.The subsidiary titles held by the Earl of Erroll are Lord Hay and Lord Slains , both in the Peerage of Scotland. The Earls of Erroll also hold the hereditary office of Lord High Constable...
.
In 1840 John would publish a Genealogical table of the Hays. The date of their arrival in Scotland is unclear, but they are known to have been there in 1822. This is the year John published The bridal of Caölchairn and other poems under the name John Hay Allan. Another edition was published, also in 1822, giving the author's name as Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
. This is now in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
's category of "doubtful and supposititious works".
In 1829 they failed to persuade Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
of the authenticity of a document they said was a copy of a "15th century" manuscript about clan tartans. The brothers liked to wear Highland dress themselves, apparently "in all the extravagance of which the Highland costume is capable". In the 1830s they moved to Eilean Aigas
Eilean Aigas
Eilean Aigas is an island in the River Beauly, Scotland, in Kiltarlity parish in traditional Inverness-shire, now Highland Region. It is most notable for the mansion on it at its north end, which was formerly owned by the Sobieski Stuarts and rented by author and Scottish nationalist Compton...
on the River Beauly
River Beauly
The River Beauly is a river in the Scottish Highlands, about 15 km west of the city of Inverness.It is about 25 km long, beginning near the village of Struy, at the confluence of the River Farrar and the River Glass...
in Inverness-shire
Inverness-shire
The County of Inverness or Inverness-shire was a general purpose county of Scotland, with the burgh of Inverness as the county town, until 1975, when, under the Local Government Act 1973, the county area was divided between the two-tier Highland region and the unitary Western Isles. The Highland...
, to a hunting lodge granted them by the Earl of Lovat. Here they "held court" and surrounded themselves with royal paraphernalia: pennants, seals, even thrones. During their time here, they adopted the final version of their names", using the surname 'Stuart', and became practising Catholics. (The Stuarts and their supporters, the Jacobites
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...
, were Roman Catholic.) They got to know various important Highland chiefs and noble patrons, one of whom was the Earl of Moray
Earl of Moray
The title Earl of Moray has been created several times in the Peerage of Scotland.Prior to the formal establishment of the peerage, Earl of Moray, numerous individuals ruled the kingdom of Moray or Mormaer of Moray until 1130 when the kingdom was destroyed by David I of Scotland.-History of the...
, and pursued the aristocratic pastime of deer-hunting. This was the inspiration for Lay of the Deer Forest. With sketches of olden and modern deer-hunting (1848).
They published the Vestiarium Scoticum in 1842. This was followed, in 1844, with a broader "study" of medieval highland Scotland which included the ideas from 1842: The Costume of the Clans. With observations upon the literature, arts, manufactures and commerce of the Highlands and Western Isles during the Middle Ages; and the influence of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries upon their present condition. This involved "immense scholarship" , but the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper is just one of many who consider it full of "fantasy" and "forgery".
In 1847 their claims to royal blood were set out by implication in a work of historical fiction: Tales of the Century: or Sketches of the romance of history between the years 1746 and 1846. After this, a strong attack on them published in the Quarterly Review in 1847 caused severe damage to their reputation. John responded with A reply to the quarterly review upon the Vestiarium Scoticum in 1848 but the brothers soon were forced to move away from Scotland, to live with relations in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
and Pressburg.
In the latter 1860's they lived together in reduced circumstances after the death of Charles's wife and continued to occupy themselves with research, being famous figures in the British Library, using pens embellished with gold coronets, and wearing Highland dress or military tunics. Only after death did they return to Scotland, to be buried in Eskadale.
Family: truth and fiction
John and Charles were the sons of Naval Officer Thomas Hay Allen and his wife Catherine, daughter of the clergyman and antiquary Owen ManningOwen Manning
Owen Manning was an English clergyman and antiquarian, known as a historian of Surrey.-Life:Son of Owen Manning of Orlingbury, Northamptonshire, he was born there on 11 August 1721, and received his education at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1740, M.A. in 1744, and B.D. in...
who was vicar of Godalming
Godalming
Godalming is a town and civil parish in the Waverley district of the county of Surrey, England, south of Guildford. It is built on the banks of the River Wey and is a prosperous part of the London commuter belt. Godalming shares a three-way twinning arrangement with the towns of Joigny in France...
for many years. Thomas and Catherine also had a daughter Matilda. John, Charles and Matilda were all born in Wales, and after the early death of their mother, Thomas remarried Ann Salmon and had five further children, many of which took assumed names. After this date Thomas is a shady and elusive character. He may have invested poorly and have been plagued by debts, which would explain his living abroad, and his use of an assumed name. He died in Clerkenwell in 1852.
John married an heiress Georgiana Kendall in 1845 but had no children. Charles married Anna Beresford (daughter of John Beresford) in 1822 and had three daughters and a son, named Charles Edward Louis Casimir Stuart (1824–1882). This son, the first to be christened a Stuart, married Lady Alice Hay (daughter of William Hay, 18th Earl of Erroll
William Hay, 18th Earl of Erroll
William George Hay, 18th Earl of Erroll KT, GCH, PC , styled Lord Hay between 1815 and 1819, was a Scottish peer and politician.-Background and education:...
by his wife Elizabeth
Elizabeth Hay, Countess of Erroll
Elizabeth Hay, Countess of Erroll was the illegitimate daughter of King William IV of the United Kingdom and Dorothea Jordan. She married William Hay, 18th Earl of Erroll, and became Countess of Erroll on 4 December 1820 at age 19. Due to Hay's parentage, William Hay became Lord Steward of the...
, daughter of William IV
William IV of the United Kingdom
William IV was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death...
), but they had no children. Two of his sisters died without issue, one becoming a nun. His sister Louisa Sobieska (c1827 - 1897) had a son with her husband Edouard von Platt who served in the Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n imperial bodyguard. There is no-one who could continue the "Stuart" brothers' claims to royal ancestry through the direct male line, although descendants remain.
The Allen/Stuart brothers implied that their grandfather, Admiral John Carter Allen, was merely foster father to Thomas, whose "true" father was Charles Edward Stuart, or Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Sobieski
Sobieski
Sobieski is a Polish noble family name, and may refer to:-People:...
is the surname of John III Sobieski
John III Sobieski
John III Sobieski was one of the most notable monarchs of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, from 1674 until his death King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Sobieski's 22-year-reign was marked by a period of the Commonwealth's stabilization, much needed after the turmoil of the Deluge and...
, the Polish king of the Sobieski family
Sobieski family
Sobieski family of Janina coat of arms, also known as House of Sobieski due to their royalty connections, were a notable family of Polish nobility. According to the family's legend, disproved by modern historians, it traced its lineage to Polish duke, Leszek II the Black...
, whose granddaughter Clementina (Maria Klementyna Sobieska
Maria Klementyna Sobieska
Maria Clementina Sobieska was a Polish noblewoman, the granddaughter of the Polish king John III Sobieski.-Biography:...
) married a Stuart: the "Old Pretender", Prince James Francis Edward
James Francis Edward Stuart
James Francis Edward, Prince of Wales was the son of the deposed James II of England...
. Their eldest son was Charles Edward Stuart
Charles Edward Stuart
Prince Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or The Young Pretender was the second Jacobite pretender to the thrones of Great Britain , and Ireland...
, the "Young Pretender", and the Allen brothers claimed him as their "true" grandfather.
John also called himself John Sobieski Stolberg Stuart. Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gedern
Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gedern
Princess Louise Maximilienne Caroline Emmanuele of Stolberg-Gedern was the wife of the Jacobite claimant to the English and Scottish thrones Charles Edward Stuart...
was married to Bonnie Prince Charlie and is sometimes called the Countess of Albany. John, and others in the family, started to use the title Count d'Albanie, which "passed" to Charles on John's death at 52 Stanley Street (now Alderney Street), Pimlico, London in 1872. Charles died on board a steamer on a trip to France in 1880. His son inherited the title and is buried as the Count d'Albanie.
Sources
- Fraser, Marie John Sobieski Stolberg Stuart & Charles Edward Stuart
- Reynolds, K.D. Stuart, John Sobieski Stolberg in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- Trevor-Roper, Hugh The Highland Tradition of Scotland in The Invention of Tradition ed. Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983)
- Copac catalogue
- National Library of Scotland
- British Library
- Robb, Steven. "The Sobieski Stuart Brothers", Royal Stuart Review 2003.