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The Charlotte Stuart of the title is the daughter of Bonnie Prince Charlie and Clementina Walkinshaw. She had quite an eventful life. She was born to the couple and baptised in Ghent, I think. Because of her gender, Charlie dove even deeper into the "nasty bottle" and became abusive towards not only Clementina but "ye child" (as he referred to Charlotte) as well. With permission and a pension from James III (10000 livres per year - no small sum), Clementina left Charles and took up residence with Charlotte in a convent.

Of course, Charlie railed and ranted and cried and begged, but Clementina stayed just where she was. So Charlie wrote her off. Charlotte grew up, and chafed at the convent restrictions (Clementina wrote to Charlie several times about his daughter, but he refused all contact). So, without a proper title or even legitimacy or recognition as a royal bastard (we'll get to that in a moment), Charlotte was in a sort of limbo. She drifted into an affair with a member of the Rohan family and begot three bastard kids with him (which she kept so well hidden from Charlie and the Stuart court - by sending them to the Comtesse d'Albestroff (a title Clementina Walkinshaw had adopted) in Switzerland - that until recently, they were forgotten about).

When Charlie finally agreed to see Charlotte, he was old, heirless (his wife had abandoned him) and a drunk. Charlotte had a soothing effect on him, managed to get him to restrain his drinking, and tidied him up some. Managed to get him to make peace with her uncle, the Cardinal-Duke of York, as well as the pope. Charlie created her duchess of Albany, but never bothered or never got around to legitimating her before he died.

Charlie died and left Charlotte (who was already suffering from a liver ailment IIRC) as an "heiress" of sorts. Charlotte decided that a good idea for marriage would be with the duke of Berwick or Fitz-James (ICR which, although I think it was Berwick), but unfortunately died before anything concrete was agreed on.

Now for the legitimacy problem. Henry IX (Cardinal-Duke of York) made his continuing/re-issuing of Clementina's pension conditional on that she sign a document that she and Charlie had never been married, and that Charlotte was uncontestably a bastard. However, Clementina renegged on this when her pension was stopped and began claiming that Charlotte was legitimate (although, here, her problem was financial, she was old, and had her three grandchildren to support since Charlotte, who had been sending her money, was dead, and had left her "not even a teaspoon" according to one source). When Clementina died, the question of whether Charlotte was legitimate or not died with her.

So, my what-if is what if Charlotte had been born male (can we name her Edward or something? There's a Charles, James, and a Henry already, so it'd be confusing) and more than that, survive?
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