Kings over the Water: The Saga of the Stuart Pretenders by Theo Aronson

Author:Theo Aronson [Aronson, Theo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thistle Publishing
Published: 2015-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

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Just occasionally, Clementina could still give a glimpse of those qualities which had won so many hearts in the early days. Strangers, meeting her for the first time, would be struck, not only by her obvious piety but by her charm and her quick comprehension. More than one came away with the impression that she would have made a graceful queen. Indeed, had James been a reigning king, Clementina might well have made an excellent consort. An accomplished linguist, an animated conversationalist, an elegantly dressed beauty, a possessor of great personal magnetism, she would have been very happy in St James's Palace or Hampton Court. She would then have been the undoubted centre of attention; she would have been far too busy to resent James's absorption in affairs of state. She would also have been free of the excessively clerical atmosphere of Rome.

But the qualities that might have made her a successful queen had made her an unsuccessful wife for an exiled king. Disillusion, instead of ennobling her, had broken her spirit. James needed to have married a woman like his mother, Mary Beatrice: practical, level-headed, civilised and emotionally mature. Where Mary Beatrice had been a tower of strength at St Germain, Clementina was merely an embarrassment at the Palazzo Muti.

But not for much longer. At thirty-three Clementina was already fading out of life. Her frequent fastings, her stringent penances, her cloistered life, were taking their toll of her frail body. A few months after Prince Charles's return from Naples, on 12 January 1735, Clementina died. Somewhat to the surprise of the household at the Palazzo Muti, James and his two sons were desolate with grief; 'on all sides,' reported Dunbar, 'there is nothing but lamentation.'

Of all the victims of the remorseless fate pursuing the Stuart dynasty, Clementina was perhaps the most pitiable.

If Clementina had not lived like a queen, she was buried like one. Pope Clement XII decreed that she should be given a full state funeral in St Peter's. They dressed her in gold and velvet and ermine, with a crown on her head and a sceptre in her hand. The body was carried in procession through the streets of Rome, like some canopied barque on a river of flickering wax tapers. Every black-draped window and balcony along the route was crowded with faces. After the Requiem Mass, her royal robes were removed to be replaced by the simple black and white habit of a Dominican nun. The body was encased in three coffins and laid in the crypt of St Peter's.

It was meant to remain there, as the bodies of James II and Mary Beatrice were meant to remain where they had been buried, until such time as the Stuarts were restored to the British throne.

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