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The House of Stuart (previously spelt Stewart) is a European

royal house. Founded by Robert II of Scotland, the Stewarts first
became monarchs of the Kingdom of Scotland during the late
14th century, and subsequently held the position of the Kings of
Great Britain and Ireland.
The dynasty inherited further territory by the 17th century which
covered the entire British Isles, including the Kingdom of
England and Kingdom of Ireland, also upholding a claim to the
Kingdom of France.
During the reign of the Stewarts, Scotland developed from a
relatively poor and feudal country into a prosperous, fairly
modern and centralised state. They ruled during a time in
European history of transition from the Middle Ages to the
Renaissance. After the Stewarts gained control of all of Great
Britain, the arts and sciences continued to develop; many of
William Shakespeare's best known plays were authored during
the Jacobean era, while institutions such as the Royal Society
and Royal Mail were established during the reign of Charles II.

Robert II (2 March 1316 19 April 1390) became King of

Scots in 1371 as the first monarch of the House of Stewart. He
was the son of Walter Stewart, hereditary High Steward of
Scotland and of Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert I and of his
first wife Isabella of Mar.
Robert Stewart became High Steward following his father's
death on 9 April 1326, and the parliament held in July 1326
confirmed him as heir presumptive should Prince David die
without issue.
The Steward accompanied David II into battle at Neville's Cross
on 17 October 1346 but he and Patrick Dunbar, earl of March
escaped or fled the field while David was taken prisoner.
Robert joined a rebellion against David in 1363, but submitted
to him under threat that any further defiance would mean the
end of his rights in the line of succession. On David's
unexpected death in 1371, Robert succeeded to the throne at
the age of 55.

Robert II allowed his southern

earls to engage in conflicts in
the English zones to regain
their territories, halted trade
with England and renewed
treaties with France. By 1384
the Scots had re-taken most of
the foreign-occupied lands, but
following an Anglo-French truce,
Robert proved reluctant to
commit Scotland to all-out war
and obtained inclusion in the
peace talks being conducted by
England and France. Following a
palace coup in 1384 he lost
control of the country.

James VI and I (19 June 1566 27 March 1625) was

King of Scots as JamesVI from 24 July 1567 and King
of England and Ireland as JamesI from the union of
the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603
until his death. The kingdoms of England and Scotland
were individual sovereign states, with their own
parliaments, judiciary, and laws, though both were
ruled by James in personal union.
He became King of Scotland at the age of thirteen
months, succeeding his mother Mary, Queen of Scots,
who had been compelled to abdicate in his favour.
In 1603, he succeeded the last Tudor monarch of
England and Ireland, Elizabeth I, who died without
issue. He continued to reign in all three kingdoms for
22 years, often using the title King of Great Britain and
Ireland, until his death in 1625 at the age of 58. He
based himself in England (the largest of the three
realms) from 1603, only returning to Scotland once in
1617. His stated aim of having one parliament for both
countries would not be realised until the Act of Union
in 1707. James began the Plantation of Ulster and of
North America.At 57 years and 246 days, his reign in
Scotland was longer than any of his predecessors.

Charles I (19 November 1600 30

January 1649) was King of England,
King of Scotland, and King of Ireland
from 27 March 1625 until his
execution in 1649, and is a saint in
the Church of England. Charles
engaged in a struggle for power with
the Parliament of England, attempting
to obtain royal revenue whilst
Parliament sought to curb his Royal
prerogative which Charles believed
was divinely ordained. Many of his
English subjects opposed his actions,
in particular his interference in the
English and Scottish churches and the
levying of taxes without
parliamentary consent which grew to
be seen as those of a tyrannical
absolute monarch.

CHARLES II OF ENGLAND,
SCOTLAND AND IRELAND

JAMES VII OF SCOTLAND AND II OF

ENGLAND AND IRELAND

Although the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed

Charles II King of Great Britain and Ireland in
Edinburgh on 6 February 1649, the English
Parliament instead passed a statute that made
any such proclamation unlawful. England entered
the period known as the English Interregnum or
the English Commonwealth, and the country was
a de facto republic, led by Oliver Cromwell.
Cromwell defeated Charles at the Battle of
Worcester on 3 September 1651, and Charles fled
to mainland Europe.
A political crisis that followed the death of
Cromwell in 1658 resulted in the restoration of
the monarchy, and Charles was invited to return
to Britain. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he
was received in London to public acclaim. After
1660, all legal documents were dated as if
Charles had succeeded his father as king in 1649.
Charles was popularly known as the Merrie
Monarch, in reference to both the liveliness and
hedonism of his court and the general relief at
the return to normality after over a decade of rule
by Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans. Charles's
wife, Catherine of Braganza, bore no children, but
Charles acknowledged at least 12 illegitimate
children by various mistresses. As illegitimate
children were excluded from the succession, he
was succeeded by his brother James.

James II & VII (14 October 1633 16 September

1701) was King of England and King of Ireland as
James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6
February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch
to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland,
and Ireland. Members of Britain's political and
religious elite increasingly opposed him for being
pro-French and pro-Catholic, and for his designs on
becoming an absolute monarch.
When he produced a Catholic heir, the tension
exploded, and leading nobles called on William III
of Orange (his son-in-law and nephew) to land an
invasion army from the Netherlands, which he did.
James fled England (and thus was held to have
abdicated) in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He
was replaced by William of Orange who became
king as William III, ruling jointly with his wife
(James's daughter) Mary II. Thus William and Mary,
both Protestants, became joint rulers in 1689.
James made one serious attempt to recover his
crowns, when he landed in Ireland in 1689 but,
after the defeat of the Jacobite forces by the
Williamite forces at the Battle of the Boyne in the
summer of 1690, James returned to France. He
lived out the rest of his life as a pretender at a
court sponsored by his cousin and ally, King Louis
XIV.

Anne (6 February 1665 1 August 1714)

ascended the thrones of England,

Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702.
On 1 May 1707, under the Act of Union,
two of her realms, the kingdoms of
England and Scotland, were united as a
single sovereign state, the Kingdom of
Great Britain.
Anne favoured moderate Tory politicians,
who were more likely to share her
Anglican religious views than their
opponents, the Whigs. The Whigs grew
more powerful during the course of the
War of the Spanish Succession, until in
1710 Anne dismissed many of them
from office. Her close friendship with
Sarah
Churchill,
Duchess
of
Marlborough, turned sour as the result of
political differences.
Despite seventeen pregnancies, Anne
died without surviving children and was
the last monarch of the House of Stuart.
She was succeeded by her second
cousin George I of the House of Hanover,
who was a descendant of the Stuarts
through his maternal grandmother,
Elizabeth, daughter of James VI and I.