Series 1 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society (Second volume)

INTRODUCTION
The following will of Lady Charlotte Stuart, Duchess of
Albany, is printed from the copy which exists among the
papers of Henry, Cardinal York, in the British Museum
(Add. MSS. 30,475). It has not been printed until now,
but is not without a certain interest of its own from its
connection with the fortunes of the last Stuart prince, for
although Cardinal York was instituted by his niece as her
heir, one of the annuities he was burdened with by her will
proved in later life a severe tax after the French Revolution,
and was one of the many causes which induced him in 1800
gladly to accept a pension from King George m.
Lady Charlotte Stuart was the natural daughter of Prince
Charles Edward Stuart and of Clementina Marie Sophie
Walkinshaw. A short account of her mother and herself
will not be out of place here, as a few new sources of
information have come to light lately.
Clementina Walkinshaw was one of the ten daughters of
John Walkinshaw of Barrowfield by his wife Catherine,
daughter of Sir Hugh Paterson of Bannockburn. Her father,
a laird of Lanarkshire, was deeply engaged in the Jacobite
cause. ‘ Out ’ in the T5, he fought at Sheriffmuir, was taken
prisoner, and only escaped from Stirling ‘ by the courage and
address of his wife,’ who exchanged clothes with him and
remained a prisoner in his stead.1 He joined the Old
Chevalier at Bar le Due ; and in 1719 became the agent of his
marriage with Princess Clementina Sobieska, whom, with the
1 Life of Lord Kames, by Lord Woodhouselee.