Portrait of Prince James Francis Edward Stuart (1688-1719), half-length, in a red coat with a breastplate, wearing the Garter sash and the badge of the Order of the Thistle; and Portrait of Princess Maria Clementina Sobieski, half-length, in a blue dress with an ermine-lined red cloak, her hair decorated with flowers and pearls

Following the failure of the 1715 rebellion in Scotland, James Stuart, the only son of King James II, returned to the exiled Stuart Court at St. Germaine-en-Laye, but British diplomatic pressure soon obliged him to leave. He subsequently went to Rome where Pope Clement XI welcomed him as a Catholic claimant to the throne of England. In March 1719 James met the eighteen-year-old Polish Princess Clementina Sobieska, in Viterbo, and they were married at Montefiascone in September that year. The Pope acknowledged them as reigning sovereigns and gave them Palazzo Muti on the Piazza SS. Apostoli and the Palazzo Savelli, at Albano, as a summer retreat. Their first son, Charles, was born on 31 December 1720; their second son, Henry, on 6 March 1720. Clementina died in Rome in 1735. The hopes of the Stuart dynasty were finally destroyed by the failure of James's eldest son's expedition to Scotland in 1745. James died in Rome in 1766 and was buried in St. Peter's.