The Sobieskis and Stuarts, Portrait of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, 1891, after Ozias Humphry

engraved by Cook, after Ozias Humphry (1776) 
published by Richard Betley & Son in London
steel engraving on paper, 1891
private collection

It is hard to believe that this engraving of Charles, from a portrait by Ozias Humphry, depicts the same man as the engraving after Louis Tocqué. This once-handsome young prince, full of faith in the success of his cause, who enjoyed the support of many European courts, found his subsequent years exceptionally difficult. As his popularity declined, along with his faith in the possibility of restoring the Stuarts to the throne of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Charles fell into alcoholism and became isolated from the world.

The engraving shows Charles twelve years before his death on 31 January 1788. In the last years of his life, he formally recognised his illegitimate daughter Charlotte by Clementina Walkinshaw, made her his heir and bestowed upon her the title of Duchess of Albany, an honour traditionally reserved for the heirs of Kings of Scotland. A year later, in 1784, he then asked her to come from Paris and live with him in Florence, and from the end of 1785 at the Palazzo del Re in Rome.