Updated:07/05/2022 01:14h
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Charles Edward Stuartgrandson of Carlos Estuardo “The Young Pretender”, called himself conde de Roehenstart. But it was neither one thing nor the other. He neither had the title nor was he a Roehenstart. Actually, that impossible name discreetly showed his affiliation. The presumed Count was the son of the Archbishop of Bordeaux and Cambrai, the prince Ferdinand Rohanand of Charlotte Stuartnatural daughter of the claimant to the Scottish throne defeated in the battle of culloden. That Roehenstart was a contract between Rohan, by his father the archbishop, and Stuart, the surname banned in Great Britain and owner of a dynasty, the Stuart, marked by defeat.
He was also the last descendant of that line and met his death in Scotland, in October 1854, in a wagon accident.
His burial place was kept secret for decades.
In the spring of that year, Roehenstart had traveled to Spain, where he visited Madrid, Valencia y Barcelona. This is attested to by the letters he sent from the Catalan capital, collected by the historian George Sherburn in ‘Roehenstart, a Late Stuart Pretender’published by the University of Chicago in 1960.
A beleaguered Stuart suitor
Roehenstart’s affiliation called into question his legitimacy as a claimant to the Scottish throne, and thus to the British. His mother, Carlota Estuardo, was indeed the daughter of Carlos Eduardo Estuardo, «Bonnie Prince Charlie», but it was never clear whether the suitor recognized her as a legitimate daughter. Roehenstart argued that, on her deathbed, her grandfather married her grandmother, Clementina Walkinshaw. The marriage is documented, but not the recognition of the daughter he already had, Carlota Estuardo.
In any case, Carlos Estuardo did not leave any dowry in his inheritance for Carlota, who ended up being welcomed by the Archbishop of Bordeaux and Cambrai Ferdinand Rohan, who would make her his lover. From that relationship was born in May 1784, the Earl of Roehenstart.
Motherless from the age of five, Roehenstart never made a firm claim to the throne his grandfather sought. Alone at the end of a life that led him to be russian army officerbusinessman in the United States and married twice -without leaving any children-, wanted to return to Scotland with the intention of claiming, at least, the memory of the stuart dynasty. An exercise in risk, since the symbols of the Stuarts -in particular, the ‘tartan’ called ‘Royal StuartTartan‘, the traditional cloth that identified the clan – was prohibited from the Jacobite defeat from 1746.
Roehenstart planned to visit Scottish nobles with the intention of raising funds to build a memorial to the Stuarts. He visited the Duke of Atholl at his Pitlochry castle in the autumn of 1854. He died on that trip.
Spain and a balance Murillo
In his last year of life, 1854, Roehenstart learned some Spanish and traveled to Spain with the intention of buying art, according to Sherburn in his book. He stayed in Valencia and Barcelona. On this last stop he stayed at the Orient Fundactual East Hotel, located and still open on Las Ramblas in Barcelona. From there he wrote to his colleague Charles Harrison, who had lodged him in London, on May 13, 1854.
Sherburn reproduces the letter in its entirety in his work ‘Roehenstart, a Late Stuart Pretender’. In it Roehenstart, who signs as Stu (a shortening of the surname Stuart), mentions his trip to Valencia and announces his imminent trip to Marseilles. In seeking art from him, Roehsentart states: “You will not be surprised to hear me give my resolute preference to the Madrid museum [en alusión a El Prado] over the one in Paris. «The Spanish school is extremely rich and little known in France or England», he added.
Roehenstart then talks about his purchases. “I have been very fortunate and have laid my hands on a Murillo which I bought extremely cheap, not even a tenth of its value. Roehenstart adds that two days after the purchase he was offered “2,500 piastres” for the Murillo, and he did not accept: “Maybe I was wrong! We’ll see”. He also announces to Harrison that he has acquired works for him to add to his collections, “but don’t expect anything in the style of Murillo.”
Among Roehenstart’s estate at his death, in any case, no Murillo was located, nor does he mention the name of the painting in the letter collected by Sherburn. The Scottish National Gallery, in Edinburgh, has three paintings attributed to Murillo in its collections: ‘The Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes’, ‘Personification of Summer’ and ‘Saint John the Baptist’. In no case does it attribute its origin to Roehenstart.
His death and the outlawed ‘tartan’
Returning to Scotland in October 1854, Roehenstart was involved in a wagon accident on his way to Dunkelddistant just a few kilometers from the residence of the Duke of Atholl and, at that time, a river port that connected with Dundee across the River Tay. He was seriously injured and was treated by the residents of the town.
Curiously, in his last hours it was when the brilliance of the Stuart Dynasty accompanied him. Attended by local residents, he took out a piece of cloth. It was a tartan with the drawing Royal Stuart. The forbidden symbol of outlaw dynasty identified him as a descendant of “Bonnie Prince Charlie”. Despite efforts to care for him, she died on October 28, 1854.
A piece of that cloth is still preserved in the Dunkeld community archive. Asking carefully, and after being invited, kindly but firmly, to make a small donation, the archivists allow us to contemplate it.
The final wink of the story
Charles Edward Stuart, Earl of Rohenstart and last descendant of Charles “Bonnie Prince Charlie” Stuart was buried in Dunkeld Cathedral, under a stone which reads: “Sacred to the memory of General Charles Edward Stuart, Earl of Roehenstart, who died at Dunkeld on October 28, 1854 at the age of 73. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi».
That burial place is accompanied by a final nod to the story. In 1689 Dunkeld Cathedral had been the scene of a battle of the Jacobite revolt in which the clans fighting for James Stuart, II of England and VII of Scotland, were defeated in a clash that was decisive for the final triumph of Guillermo de Orange. The last Stuart went to die in the place where the dynasty began to lose its kingdom.
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