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The Monument to the Royal Stuarts is a memorial in St. Peter's Basilica, in the Vatican in Rome. It commemorates three exiled descendants of the Royal House of Stuart, the son and two grandsons of King James II, who was deposed and fled into exile in 1688.
Those commemorated are: James Stuart, the son of James II, self-styled "King James III" and known as "the Old Pretender"; his elder son Charles Stuart, self-styled "King Charles III" and known as "Bonnie Prince Charlie" and "the Young Pretender," and his younger son, Henry Cardinal Stuart, self-styled "Henry Duke of York," "Henry Cardinal York" and (after his brother's death), "King Henry IX."
The marble monument is by Antonio Canova, the most celebrated Italian sculptor of his day, and is in the form of a truncated obelisk. It carries bas relief profile portraits of the three exiled princes, and the following inscription:
("To James III, son of King James II of Great Britain, Charles Edward and Henry, Dean of the Cardinal Fathers, sons of James III, the last of the Royal House of Stuart. 1819")
Below the inscription are two weeping angels, symbolising the lost hopes of the exiled Stuarts. Opposite the memorial is a portrait of Maria Stuart, wife of James Stuart and mother of Charles and Henry Stuart. Its inscription reads:
("Maria Clementina, Queen of Great Britain, France and Ireland"). The reference to France is a relic of the Plantagenet claim to the French throne, which lingered in the Royal Style and Title of the Kings of England and Great Britain until 1801.
These monuments were commissioned by Pope Pius VII and paid for by subscriptions from Jacobite sympathisers. Among the subscribers, curiously, was King George IV, who (once the Jacobite threat to his throne had ended with the death of Cardinal Stuart in 1807) was an admirer of the Stuart legend.
The monument is easy to miss amid the clutter of the interior of St. Peter's. It is on the left as the visitor enters the basilica, near the doorway which leads up to the dome. It is frequently adorned with flowers by Jacobite romantics, who perhaps assume that the exiled Stuarts are buried under it.
In fact James Stuart is buried in France, and Charles and Henry Stuart are buried in Frascati, Italy, where they spent their last years. Although the Pope had every sympathy with the exiled Catholic Stuarts, he did not actually recognise their claim to the British throne, and having them buried in St. Peter's might have caused diplomatic difficulties with the British government.