House of Stuart, also spelled Stewart, or Steuart, royal house of Scotland from 1371 and of England from 1603. It was interrupted in 1649 by the establishment of the Commonwealth but was restored in 1660. It ended in 1714, when the British crown passed to the house of Hanover.
The first spelling of the family name was undoubtedly Stewart, the old Scots version, but during the 16th century French influence led to the adoption of the spellings Stuart and Steuart, because of the absence of the letter “w” in the French alphabet.
The family can be traced back to 11th-century Brittany, where for at least four generations they were stewards to the counts of Dol. In the early 12th century they appeared in England, and Walter, third son of the 4th steward of Dol, entered the service of David I, king of Scots, and was later appointed his steward, an office that was confirmed to his family by King Malcolm IV in 1157. Walter (d. 1326), the 6th steward, married Marjory, daughter of King Robert I the Bruce, in 1315, and in 1371 their son Robert, as King Robert II, became the first Stewart king of Scotland. The royal Stewarts had an unlucky history, dogged by sudden death; and seven succeeded to the throne as minors.
The direct male line terminated with the death of James V in 1542. His daughter Mary, Queen of Scots (d. 1587), was succeeded in 1567 by her only son (by Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley), James VI.
In 1603 James VI, through his great-grandmother Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England, inherited the English throne as King James I. After the execution (1649) of James’s son Charles I, the Stuarts were excluded from the throne until the restoration of Charles II in 1660. Charles II was succeeded in 1685 by his Roman Catholic brother James II (d. 1701), who so alienated the sympathies of his subjects that in 1688 William, prince of Orange, was invited to come “to the rescue of the laws and religion of England.” James fled, and by the Bill of Rights (1689) and the Act of Settlement (1701), which denied the crown to any Roman Catholic, he and his descendants were excluded from the throne. But Stuarts still ruled in England and Scotland, for William was the son of Charles II’s sister Mary, and his wife Mary was James II’s elder daughter. They became joint sovereigns as William III and Mary II. They left no issue, and the Act of Settlement secured the succession to Mary’s sister Anne (d. 1714) and on her death without issue to Sophia, electress of Hanover, a granddaughter of James I; Sophia’s son and heir became George I, first of the British House of Hanover.
The last male Stuarts of the British royal line were James II’s son James Edward (d. 1766), the Old Pretender, and his sons Charles Edward (d. 1788), the Young Pretender (known as Bonnie Prince Charlie), who died without legitimate issue, and Henry (d. 1807), Cardinal Duke of York.