Dancing for the Jacobites

On 21 February 1713, the Jacobite claimant to the throne of Britain and Ireland, James Francis Edward Stuart, left France to find refuge in the neighbouring duchy of Lorraine, ruled by his cousin, Leopold, the duke of Lorraine, who happily welcomed him. Following the resolution of the war of Spanish Succession, the 1713 treaty of Utrecht was signed and Louis XIV recognised Queen Anne as the British monarch. The Sun King had previously been an official ally of the Jacobite claimants to the throne of the three kingdoms – James II and James III – who had been living in France since 1688. Thus, in 1713, James Stuart had to flee France under the pseudonym ‘Chevalier de St Georges’. But leaving the security of the Palace of St Germain-en-Laye came with the threat of assault by a British contract killer.