Death of Prince James, the Elder Pretender, 1766.

Death of Prince James, the Elder Pretender, 1766, bronze medal by F Cropanese, bust of Prince Henry in Clerical attire, HENRICVS. M. D. EP. TVSC. CARD. DVX. EBOR. S.R.E. V. CANC., rev. NON DESIDERIIS HOMINVM SED VOLVNTATE DEI, in exergue AN MDCCLXVI, Religion standing facing with lion to left and St Peter's, Rome, to right, 53mm (BHM 99; Eimer 715; Woolf 67.1). Extremely fine.

The medal marks the death of James Stuart and depicts his son, Cardinal Henry. On the subsequent death of James's other son, Charles Stuart, the direct Jacobite line passed to, and effectively ended with, Cardinal Henry. Henry did not claim the throne and nor did Rome encourage him to. Instead he remained Henry, Cardinal-Duke of York (the peerage was Jacobite) while continuing his role in the church and ultimately becoming one of the longest-serving cardinals in history. By the time of his death in 1807 he had lost his assets and influence in France, due to the revolution, and ironically received a pension from George III of Great Britain, a protestant king of Hanoverian descent. Henry was the son of James (III) and Princess Clementina Sobieska. He was the grandson of James II and Mary of Modena. His supporters denied that his receipt of the pension from George III was in anyway an act of subservience or dependence, nor compensation to dissuade him from claiming the throne. Instead their perspective was that Henry accepted the money as repayment by instalment for the dowry his grandmother had brought to England when she married James II.