John Vass reports.

The House of Windsor can continue to sleep fearlessly - or can it...?

Another Jacobite rebellion is certainly not on the cards, and that can be said with confidence following a remarkable television programme on the Battle of Culloden which calmly presented viewers with Bonny Prince Charlie's great grandson!

The young man was identified on the screen as "HRH Prince Michael of Albany". But there was no real assertion of his descent from the Royal House of Stuart, only an unspoken indication this historic revelation was so. That he had a thorough knowledge of the Stuart dynasty, Jacobite hisory and background of the Highland clans became obvious as the programme progressed.

The ever-composed studious-looking young man certainly impressed we viewers, as did his excellent command of English though clearly not his native tongue. He was politely defensive of both the Old and New Pretender in their ambitious efforts to regain the British Crown.

The New Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie, had himself crowned King of Scotland on his triumphal march south in 1745, but the Jacobite dream, or so it seemed, died among the slain Highlanders on the bloody field of Culloden, the last battle to be fought on mainland Britain.

This is the 250th anniversary year of that fateful day, Wednesday, April 16, 1746, a day which changed the face of the Highlands forever, leading to, for example, the Highland Clearances.

But perhaps the dream didn't die after all. Perhaps there really might be something to the claims made by Prince Michael of Albany. However, we have to go back more than a century to look through lists of Europe's aristocrats to trace the Stuarts and the hereditary connections with the Houses of Modena-Este and Bavaria.

Earlier, Sardinia's ruling family, which included the descendants of the daughter of Charles I (1600 / 1649) were recognised as the closest link. But as we are looking for a rumoured male heir, it's back to the marriage in 1772 of the penniless Princess of Stolberg and Bonnie Prince Charlie.

This was a desperate attempt to save the male line of the House of Stuart from extinction. Prince Charles was not only found a bride - the Princess Louisa Maximiliana Caroline of Stolberg-Gedern - but the Grand Duke of Tuscany helped them set up home in an estate near Florence.
History records she died without issue.

One contemporary account records: "There was no connubial happiness as his mind was so degraded by dissipation he was unfit for the discharge of domestic virtues."

Another observer added that a young Italian playright had become her lover soon after she had married. Rumours of a child having been born to either were dismissed, by some, as idle gossip.

Prince Charles Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, had only returned to live in Italy in 1766, retiring to Albano near Rome following his own father's death. Curiously, in his youth Prince Charles had assumed the title ''Count of Albany'' although this was never recognised. That he was separated from Princess Louise adds another complication. The separation happened when Tuscany fell under the domination of Bonaparte, who simply ordered the Princess to leave Charles and live in Paris. She later returned, but that is another story. To spare himself the loneliness, Charles took his illegitimate daughter Caroline - born to his mistress Clemintina Walkinshaw in 1760 - into his household and gave her the title Duchess of Albany.

He is also said to have left her everything he possessed when he died in 1788. The following year Caroline died without issue. Then in 1807, Bonnie Prince Charlie's brother Henry, a Roman Catholic cardinal, went to his grave, the last of the Royal House of Stuart.

But a century after the Battle of Culloden, two young men calling themselves Charles Edward Stuart and John Sobieski Stuart, turned up at the home of Lord Lovat claiming to be the grandsons of the Prince. Their claims were set out in a book called 'Tales of the Century or Sketches of the Romance of History between the years 1746-1846'. It was published in 1847. At that time they had lodgings in London, one being known as The Count D'Albanie.

In the book, they claimed Princess Louisa did have a son, stressing the Prince and not her Italian playwright lover was the child's father.
Explaining the secrecy at the time, they said there was a constant fear the child would be kidnapped or killed by Hanoverians to ensure the Jacobites could never again pose a monarchial threat. They went on to assert the child had been secretly given to an Admiral Allen and his wife to bring up as their own. The child in turn had two sons but instead of taking the name of the foster parents, revealed themselves as the descendants of the Royal House of Stuart.

One had taken the Sobieski name as the Stuarts had married into the wealthy Sobieski family who had inherited jewels that had rightfully belonged to the Polish Crown.

With the firm acceptance of the Frasers of Lovat, the two men were hospitably received in Jacobite circles and indeed provided with a fine country lodge on the Lovat estate (sold two years ago to a wealthy Asian by the then ailing Lovat Estates). The duo were also provided with adequate funds to publish a richly illustrated book entitled 'The Costumes of the Clans'. In it they detailed their family tree. One person who met them at their home near Beauly spoke of the remarkable resemblance their features bore to the portraits of the Stuarts.

The House of Windsor may be sleeping soundly, but it has to be mentioned that Queen Victoria had some concern that there was still some unrest in Scotland with pictures of Mary III of Bavaria represented as the latest Stuart queen. Sir Walter Scott's romantic versions of history, too, triggered a rash of associations from the Order of the White Rose and the Royal Stuart Society, and the Duke Albrecht of Bavaria wore Stuart tartan as a child, the family of whom always regarded the Scottish Crown as their right.

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