British throne
Around the turn of the 16th century, Henry VII (whose claim to the throne dynastically was incredibly tenuous) had to deal with several pretenders claiming to be various members of York family. The most famous of the pretenders were Lambert Simnel (c. 1477 – c. 1525) who claimed to be Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick (the last male line Yorkist) and Perkin Warbeck (c.1474–1499) who claimed to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, the younger son of Edward IV who had disappeared in the summer of 1483.
Simnel (whose real name is unknown) came to the attention of a priest in Oxford by the name of Richard Simon who believed the boy bore a resemblance to Edward IV's sons. He originally tried to pass him off as the Duke of York but changed tactics to try to pass him off as Warwick (Edward IV's nephew) when he heard a false report that Warwick had died in Henry VII's custody. Simon took his young charge to Dublin, a hotbed for Yorkist sympathizers, where he was crowned Edward VI in May 1487. An attempted invasion supported by Margaret of York and John de la Pole, Edward IV's sister and nephew, the latter of whom had been heir apparent to Richard III before his death, was quickly put down at the Battle of Stoke Field the next month by Henry VII during which de la Pole was killed in the fighting. Henry realized that since Simnel was only about ten years old, he was unlikely to be anything other than a pawn being manipulated by adults. He decided to show the boy mercy by granting him a pardon and taking him into the royal household as a servant. Simnel remained a loyal employee of the royal family for the rest of his life, eventually working his way up to holding the prestigious job of a falconer.
Warbeck, on the other hand, proved to be a much more persistent and costly threat. He first appeared in 1490 at the court of his "aunt" Margaret of York in Burgundy, claiming that his elder brother Edward V had been killed in 1483 by Richard III's men but that an unnamed "lord" had taken pity on him since he was only 9 and let him run away under the promise that he wouldn't make himself public until he was an adult. Historians debate whether or not Margaret (who had never met either of her brother's sons) truly believed Warbeck to be her nephew or merely wanted to cause trouble for Henry VII but she nonetheless tutored him in the ways of the English court. Warbeck drifted around to various courts in Europe for several years before unsuccessfully trying to invade England in 1495. After that, he found his way to the Scottish court where he was warmly welcomed by James IV, who arranged for Warbeck to marry one of his relatives, Lady Catherine Gordon.
Warbeck was caught in Cornwall during a second invasion attempt in September 1497. He was paraded through the streets of London and then sent to prison in the Tower after being captured but was soon let out when he confessed to being an imposter. Henry VII treated Warbeck well after this, allowing him to stay at court but separated from his wife who was put under Queen Elizabeth's watch. However, it did not last as he was executed in 1499 after being caught trying to escape his captivity with the real Earl of Warwick.
Warbeck claimed that he was the son of a municipal official in modern-day Belgium but some historians believe he may have been genuinely related to the York family. His resemblance to Edward IV was said to be uncanny and he was likewise very tall just as Edward IV and several of his siblings were. It has been theorised he could have been a bastard son or nephew of Edward IV's as the York family had ties to that region of the continent and he himself had fled there when he was briefly deposed in 1471, which would match with Warbeck's rough date of conception. Francis Bacon was an early advocate of the theory that he was one of Edward's many bastards.
After the execution by the English Parliament of Stuart King Charles I in 1649, his son Charles II was proclaimed king in Scotland (where he was crowned in 1651) and Ireland; but those two countries were invaded by English forces and annexed to the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell in 1653. Thus, Charles II was pretender to the throne of England from 1649 to the restoration of 1660, and exiled/deposed King of Scots and King of Ireland, 1653 to 1660. He died in 1685 and his brother James II and VII came to the throne. He had converted to Catholicism but this only became a worry when his second wife bore a son who would precede his two Protestant daughters. James was thus deposed by his elder daughter and his son-in-law (who was also his nephew, son of his sister Mary) during the Glorious Revolution in December 1688; they were formally offered the English and Scottish thrones by their respective parliaments a month later – which was still 1688 in England (where New Year's Day was 25 March until 1752) but was already 1689 in Scotland (which adopted 1 January as New Year's Day in 1600). James made several attempts to regain the throne before his death in 1701, the most important of which was an effort he made with Irish support – that country having not yet acceded to the succession of William and Mary – which led to the Battle of the Boyne and the Battle of Aughrim, and set the stage for the subsequent Jacobite risings (or rebellions). These were a series of uprisings or wars between 1688 and 1746 in which supporters of James, his son ("The Old Pretender") and grandson ("The Young Pretender") attempted to restore his direct male line to the throne.
James Francis Edward Stuart, the Roman Catholic son of the deposed James II and VII, was barred from the succession to the throne by the Act of Settlement 1701. Notwithstanding the Act of Union 1707, he claimed the separate thrones of Scotland, as James VIII, and of England and Ireland, as James III, until his death in 1766. In Jacobite terms, Acts of Parliament (of England or Scotland) after 1688 (including the Acts of Union) did not receive the required royal assent of the legitimate Jacobite monarch and, therefore, were without legal effect. James was responsible for a number of conspiracies and rebellions, particularly in the Highlands of Scotland. The most notable was the Jacobite rising of 1715–16.
Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie"), James Francis' elder son and the would-be Charles III, who led in his father's name the last major Jacobite rebellion, the Jacobite rising of 1745–46. He died in 1788 without legitimate issue.
Henry Benedict Stuart (best known as the Cardinal-Duke of York), the younger brother of Charles Edward and a Roman Catholic Cardinal, who took up the claim to the throne as the would-be Henry IX of England, though he was the final Jacobite heir to publicly do so. He died unmarried in 1807.
After 1807, the line of James VII and II became extinct. The Jacobites had ceased to have much political significance after the failure of the 1745 uprising, and the movement essentially became completely dormant after Henry's death. Genealogically, the next most senior line to the English and Scottish thrones was through James II's youngest sister, Henriette Anne, whose daughter had married into the House of Savoy. To the very limited extent that Jacobitism survived the death of Cardinal York, they supported the claims of this line. Its current representative is Franz, Duke of Bavaria, though he himself does not claim the title, his secretary having announced once that "HRM (sic) is very content being a Prince of Bavaria".
Simon Abney-Hastings, 15th Earl of Loudoun, (1974- ) is a modern pretender and Australian Peer. He is purported by some to be the true king of Britain and the head of the House of York as the senior descendant of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, who was Edward IV's brother. This is based on the assertion that Edward IV was illegitimate and that George's descendants take precedent over the descendants of Edward's eldest daughter Elizabeth who have sat on the throne since the early 16th century. He is a member of the Abney-Hastings family and also known as King Simon I. Abney-Hastings has rejected these claims but was invited to the coronation of Charles III by the royal family and keeps in contact with them.
Owain Glyndŵr (1349–1416) is probably the best-known Welsh pretender, though whether he was pretender or Prince of Wales depends upon one's source of information. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, who died in 1282, was the only Prince of Wales whose status as ruler was formally recognised by the English Crown, though three of the four men who claimed the throne of Gwynedd between the assumption of the title by Owain Gwynedd in the 1160s and the loss of Welsh independence in 1283 also used the title or similar. Madog ap Llywelyn also briefly used the title during his revolt of 1294–95. Since 1301, the title of Prince of Wales has been given to the eldest living son of the King or Queen Regnant of England (subsequently of Great Britain, 1707, and of United Kingdom, 1801). The word "living" is important. Upon the death of Arthur, Prince of Wales, Henry VII invested his second son, the future Henry VIII, with the title. The title is not automatic, however, but merges into the Crown when a prince dies or accedes to the throne, and has to be re-conferred by the sovereign.
Nevertheless, it is Glyndŵr whom many remember as the last native Prince of Wales. He was indeed proclaimed Prince of Wales by his supporters on 16 September 1400, and his revolt in quest of Welsh independence was not quashed by Henry IV until 1409. Later, however, one of Glyndŵr's cousins, Owain Tudor, would marry the widow of Henry V, and their grandson would become Henry VII, from whom the current British monarch is descended (through his daughter Margaret Tudor, who married James IV of Scotland).
The various minor kingdoms that came together to form what is today known as the Principality of Wales each had their own royal dynasty. The most important of these realms were Gwynedd, Powys and Deheubarth. After 878 the ruling dynasties in these kingdoms each claimed descent from the sons of Rhodri Mawr who had conquered them or otherwise achieved their thrones during his reign. Merfyn Frych, the father of Rhodri Mawr, had come to power in Gwynedd because the native dynasty, known as the House of Cunedda had expired. Merfyn was descended from royalty through his own father Gwriad and claimed ancestors from among the rulers of British Rheged (in particular Llywarch Hen). It was acknowledged by all of the realms of Wales after the time of Rhodri Mawr that the House of Gwynedd (known as the House of Aberffraw) was senior and homage should be paid by each of them to the king of Gwynedd. After the reign of Owain ap Gruffudd of Gwynedd the realm began to merge with the concept of a Principality of Wales. This was realised by Owain's descendant Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1267. It was not to last and this new Wales was invaded by England and dismantled between 1277 and 1284. All of the descendants of Llywelyn "the last" and his brothers were either imprisoned or killed.
