Stuart connections - 1
Stuart connections to Jersey
 The family tomb of Charles Edward Stuart in the graveyard of St Martin's Roman Catholic Church
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Charles Edward Stuart, Count of Albany/Charles Manning Allen (1824-1882)
Jersey’s connections with the Stuarts are well-known. Charles II visited the Island twice, first in 1646 (Charles was then Prince of Wales) and then again as King in 1649, when he stayed for five months. His brother James, Duke of York, who later became James II, also came in 1649, but stayed longer and when, after the Restoration, Charles 11 gave land in the Americas to James he called it Nova Caesarea/New Jersey; he in turn, gave it to Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley.
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, who came with the prince in 1646, lived in Elizabeth Castle for two and a half years, and wrote the History of the Rebellion while he was there; he was the father of James' first wife, Anne Hyde, and thus grandfather of both Queen Mary and Queen Anne.
After the death of Queen Anne in 1714 without surviving children, the Crown passed from the Stuarts to the Hanoverians.
There are three other Stuart connections which are not so widely documented. One concerns a man who died in Jersey and whose father and uncle purported to be Stuarts but were not; the second was a man born in Jersey who may have been a Stuart but was illegitimate.
The third connection is with an illegitimate Stuart lady who married a Jerseyman and who lived in Jersey for three years after his death. Each of these connections will be explored in three separate articles.
This article concerns Charles Stuart who died in Jersey and whose claims to be a Stuart were entirely spurious.
In the churchyard of the Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation and the Martyrs of Japan, in St Martin, there is the gravestone of Charles Edward Stuart, Count of Albany (born about 1824, died 8 May 1882) and his wife, Lady Alice, née Hay (born 1835, died 7 June 1881), both of whom died in Jersey.
He was the son of Charles Edward Stuart, né Allen (1802—1880), who together with his brother is one of many false Jacobite pretenders to the throne. F de Lisle Bois wrote briefly about this gravestone in an article, The Last of the Sobieski Stuarts, in the Société Jersiaise Annual Bulletin. [1]
Assumed surname
The surname Stuart had been assumed by his father and uncle, although their real surname was Allen. They also called themselves Counts of Albany. Albany was a title used by the Stuarts; Bonnie Prince Charlie used the title of Count of Albany and his wife, Louise, was called the Countess of Albany; Charlotte Stuart, the illegitimate daughter of Bonnie Prince Charlie, had been created Duchess of Albany by her father.
Charles’ father, Charles Hay Allen born in Oxfordshire in 1802 (died in 1880) and his uncle John Sobieski Allen (born 1795 in Oystermouth,Wales, and died in 1872) were known as the 'Sobieski Stuarts'. They are probably best known as being very influential by publishing in 1842 the Vestiarium Scoticum, a largely invented history of tartans.
The wearing of tartan had been banned after Bonnie Prince Charles’ abortive invasion of England in 1745. The two brothers claimed to be the grandsons of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie).
In the Genealogists’ Magazine [2] Anthony Camp’s article New Light on the Sobieski Stuartsgives the results of his research in which he showed their father to be an inveterate fantasist who was frequently in debt.
Thomas Allen had three children by his wife and a further four children by another woman.
Charles and John Allen, the sons of Thomas Allen (1767—1852) and his wife, Catherine Matilda Manning, claimed that their father Thomas was a son of Prince Charles Edward Stuart probably by his wife, Louise of Stolberg—Gedern (1752—1824) and had been adopted by an Admiral John Carter Allen in Italy. This assertion, however, does not fit in with the facts: Prince Charles and Louise were married in Rome in 1772, five years after the likely birth date of Thomas Allen.
Illegitimate child
In 1770 Admiral Allen was posted to Gibraltar. It is more likely, therefore, that Thomas was an illegitimate child (and not adopted son, as his sons claimed) of Admiral Allen. Thomas may have been born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where his father was stationed; his brother John (born about 1771/3, later also an Admiral) and their sister Jane (who married in 1788), may have been born in England or in Europe, when their father was on half pay from 1771 until 1775, when he was appointed to HMS Albion which was stationed at Plymouth. Admiral John Carter Allen married twice (in 1780 and 1799) but had no children from either marriage. Thomas sometimes used the surname Gatehouse, so it is possible that that was his mother’s surname.
Thomas’ eldest son, Charles Edward, 1802-1880, married an Irish widow, Anna Gardiner, née Beresford (born c1790 and died in1862 in Pressburg, now Bratislava), daughter of the Rt Hon John de la Poer Beresford, MP. and Barbara Montgomery. They had three daughters, only one of whom had descendants, and a son, Charles Edward Louis Casimir Allen, also known as Charles Edward Stuart, Count of Albany, born in 1824. Anna’s first cousins were Lieut-General William Carr Beresford, Viscount Beresford, Governor of Jersey from 1821 to 1854, and his wife, Louisa de la Poer Beresford. That connection might explain why Charles and his wife, Lady Alice, moved to Jersey, although the Island was well-known for retirees, especially those in poor health.
The Allen brothers had also claimed descent from Charles Hay, 13th Earl of Erroll, 1677-1717, who had died in an Edinburgh prison, apparently without legitimate descent. Admiral John Carter Allen’s mother was Emma Hay who was married in 1724 to Carter Allen his father. It is just possible that Emma was an illegitimate daughter of Charles Hay, the Earl of Erroll.
Charles Stuart’s father and uncle had in 1840 written a history of the Hay family and it is likely that as a result he knew the family and thereby met Lady Alice Mary Emily Hay (born 6 July 1835 in Richmond, Surrey) the daughter of William Hay, 14th Earl of Erroll.
The Earl’s wife was Elizabeth FitzClarence who was an illegitimate daughter of King William IV and Dorothea Jordan née Bland, an actress.
In the 1871 Census Charles is shown aged 46, unmarried, living with his father and uncle at 52 Stanley Street (now Alderney Street), St George’s Hanover Square, London. Charles Stuart’s place of birth is given as Logie, Scotland (probably in Morayshire). This is possible as the Sobieski Stuart brothers were in Scotland at that date. Charles had served in the Austrian army and is described in the Census as a Major.
Charles and Lady Alice Hay married on 16 May 1874 in the registration district of Marylebone, London. He gave his name as Charles Edouard Stuart. According to F de Lisle Bois, Charles and Lady Alice are said to have had a son who died in infancy. It is not known at what date they moved to Jersey, so a child could have been born and died in England.
There are no births registered in London for a Stuart with the mother’s maiden name of Hay, nor have any been found in Jersey. It is possible that a child was stillborn; stillbirths were not required to be registered in either England or Jersey at this date.
Living in Jersey
By 1881 they were living in Jersey and according to the Census for that year they lived at 42 David Place, St Helier (although Alice’s name was incorrectly given as Annie) in the household of Sophie Alexandre, a lodging housekeeper. A ladies’ maid called only Smith was living with them.
Charles is said to have been an active member of the Victoria Club. Alice died suddenly from diabetes on 7 June 1881 at 57 Pembroke Terrace, David Place, St Helier, having been found dead in her bed. She had been given the last rites on 5 June. Her double coffin was lined in swansdown and a polished ebonised cross was on the top of the coffin.
Less than a year later Charles died of dropsy, probably as the result of congestive heart failure, at St Martin’s Terrace near St Martin’s Church on 8 May 1882, aged 57. George Le Huquet of Bandinel, St Martin, was present at this death and registered it the following day.
Charles’ English will was not proved until 1925, by his nephew, Alfred von Platt; his effects amounted to £304 12s 8d. Neither he nor Lady Alice left wills in Jersey.
Lady Alice’s royal connections were not only as a granddaughter of William IV, but through her nephew, Alexander, 1st Duke of Fife, the son of her sister Lady Agnes, who married in 1889 Princess Louise, daughter of King Edward VII. Alexander’s sister is the ancestor of the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron.
Author
Marie-Louise Backhurst past president of the Société Jersiaise and co-founder of the Channel Islands Family History Society, has a degree in French and History. She is interested in all aspects of Jersey’s history and is now writing a book on the descendants of Bonnie Prince Charlie, one of whom lived in Jersey
