The History of the University of Oxford, Volume III: The Collegiate University

Eamonn O Ciardha, Ireland and the Jacobite Cause, 1685-1766: A Fatal Attachment, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2002, pp. 468, hb. euro45, ISBN: 18518255437Via del Corso is one of the best known thoroughfares in Rome, running as it does in a straight line from Piazza del Popolo to Piazza Venezia and leading on to the imposing Victor Emmanuel monument. If instead of entering Piazza Venezia one turns left by Via Quattro Novembre and left again one arrives at Piazza dei Santi Apostoli. At the north end of this piazza, number forty nine, stands Palazzo Balestra, formerly known as Palazzo Muti. This was the residence given by Pope Clement XI to the Old Pretender, James III in 1719. It was here that both his sons were born, Charles Edward on 31 December 1720, and Henry Benedict in March 1725. It was here that James expired on 1 January 1766 and it was here too that Charles Edward, better known as Bonny Prince Charlie, died on 30 January 1788. The palace is now occupied by offices and the only reminder that it was once the Stuart court in exile is a plaque on the left wall of the corridor that leads into the courtyard containing the following inscription:Abito questo palazzoEnrico Duca poi Cardinale di Yorkche figlio superstite di Giacomo III d'Inghilterraprese il nome d'Enrico IXIn lui nell' anno MDCCCVIIS'estinse la dinastia de' Stuardi.This translates as follows: Henry Duke, later Cardinal of York, lived in this palace. As the surviving son of James III of England, he took the name of Henry IX. In him in the year 1807 the Stuart dynasty expired.When James's wife, the Polish princess Maria Clementina Sobieska, died in 1735, her body lay in state for three days in the adjacent Basilica dei Santi Apostoli before being buried in St Peter's Basilica. But her heart is preserved in the former church. At the bequest of the Friars Minor Conventual, the proprietors of the Church, Filippo della Valle erected a moving monument to contain her heart in 1737 with the Latin inscription stating that only the praecordia were contained in the monument, as heavenly love did not allow the heart to survive. A much more imposing monument was erected to Queen Clementina in the left aisle of St Peter's Basilica in 1742, composed of both sculptural figures and a mosaic portrait of the queen, this incidentally being one of the very few representations of a lay person to be found in St. Peter's. The mosaic was actually the cause of some controversy, as the scrupulous Cardinal Landfredi objected to the queen's scollatura and protested to the Pope Clement XII. The blind but wily pope, a good friend of the Stuarts, pointed out that a decision as to the portrait's suitability or otherwise could not be taken while work was still in progress. Landfredi's death before the monument was completed ensured that the mosaic was left in St Peter's. The Latin inscription on the sarcophagus reads as follows: Maria Clementina M. Britain. Franc. Et Hibern. Regina - a public endorsement in the very heart of the Vatican of the legitimacy of the Stuart claim. It is not too fanciful to imagine the Irish Jacobite poet Liam Inglis, an Augustinian friar arriving in Rome to study for priesthood in 1743-4, standing enthralled before this monument. Inglis' arrival in Rome coincided with preparations for a French invasion of Britain under Marshal Saxe that included the deployment of troops of the Irish Brigades, the Irish Brogades. And in this image are gathered together many of the various strands that made Irish Jacobitism such a potent force, the Catholic powers of Europe both civil and ecclesiastical, the Irish diaspora on the continent including the Irish brigades, the Irish Catholic clergy, the Irish poets and literati.All these topics are treated in depth in Eamonn O Ciardha's new study on Irish Jacobitism. He also highlights the importance of rappareeism as a facet of popular Irish Jacobitism and gives due attention to the small but influential group of Protestant Irish Jacobites. …