A Jacobite Gazetteer - England

Stanford Hall

Stanford Hall is located about 10 km northeast of Rugby in the Midlands. It was built in the 1690s as the seat of the Cave family. At the death of the last member of that family, Sarah Otway-Cave, in 1862, it was inherited by her descendants.

In 1807, at the death of King Henry IX, Sarah Otway-Cave (called "Baroness Braye") acquired a number of Stuart portraits which had hung in Henry's palaces in Rome and Frascati.

The most important paintings hang in the Ballroom or Great Hall. There are also several display cases in the room with Stuart mementoes.

The Ballroom or Great Hall

The Ballroom or Great Hall

At one end of the long wall of the Great Hall facing the window wall hangs a 1721 portrait of King James III and VIII by Girolamo Pesci.¹ James is shown standing three-quarter length. He wears armour with the blue sash of the Most Noble Order of the Garter with an attached Lesser George. Around his neck is the insignia of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle. There is a map of the British Isles in his left hand and a marshall's baton in his right hand. At his right side is an unidentified page page holding a royal helmet decorated with crosses, fleurs-de-lis, and pearls. In the background are several ships with British flags before the white cliffs of Dover. Edward Corp describes the portrait as "not a good likeness".² The painting hung for many years in the Palazzo Muti (now Palazzo Balestra). In 1723 Antonio David made a copy of the painting which is now at the Blairs Museum, Aberdeen.

King James III and VIII, by Pesci

At the other end of the long wall of the Great Hall facing the window wall hangs a portrait of James' wife Queen Maria Clementina with their elder son, Charles, Prince of Wales (later King Charles III).³ Maria Clementina is seated in a large red throne with a table at her right. She wears a gold bodice and a blue cape lined with ermine. Her right hand holds a bundle of five-petalled white flowers. The infant Charles holds a single blossom of the same flower in his left hand. On the table is a large Roman urn filled with flowers.

Queen Maria Clementina with Charles, Prince of Wales, by Pesci

On the short wall near the window is a 1770 portrait of King Charles III by Laurent Pécheux.⁴

King Charles III, by Pécheux

Among the other paintings in the room are portraits of King Charles I, King Charles II, and George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham.

In a case on the window wall are a number of Stuart relics. These include a small portrait of Queen Mary II and I; a rosary of Queen Mary II and I which later belonged to King Charles III; a small clock said to have been made by Edward East and given as a present by King Charles II at a tennis match; a miniature of King Charles III; a crucifix, card case, and pair of spectacles of King Henry IX.

In the Grey Drawing Room is a copy of Anthony Van Dyck's group portrait of the three eldest children of King Charles I - Charles, Prince of Wales (later King Charles II), Mary (later Princess of Orange, and mother of the usurper), and James, Duke of York (later King James II and VII). the original portrait is now in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin.

The Children of Charles I, by Van Dyck

Charles, Prince of Wales

In the Marble Passage there is a portrait of Henry, Duke of York (later King Henry IX. He wears a red mozetta and zuchetto. Around his neck he wears a pectoral cross and on his ring finger is an episcopal ring. In his right hand is a letter.

Henry, Duke of York