James Francis Edward Stuart, frequently called James Edward Stuart (1688-1766), Prince of Wales and pretender to the throne, also called James III, the Old Pretender, and the Chevalier de Saint George; for more than half a century he was regarded by his Jacobite followers as the rightful king of Britain.

James Edward was born on June 10, 1688, in London; when his father, King James II, was driven from England by the so-called Glorious Revolution later the same year, James Edward was taken to the French court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. In 1701, on the death of James II, Louis XIV of France proclaimed the young prince the rightful successor to the English throne.

English sentiment was strongly against James Edward, however, because of his Roman Catholicism. That same year the English Parliament, to prevent the return of a Roman Catholic to the throne, passed the Act of Settlement, and the following year it enacted a bill of attainder against James Edward (see Settlement, Act of). In 1708, supported by the French and by a group of his adherents known as Jacobites, James Edward attempted unsuccessfully to invade Scotland and was driven back to France. In 1715 a rebellion was launched by the Jacobites in Scotland and in December of that year James Edward went to Scotland, where he was to be crowned. The movement failed, however, in the face of superior forces under John Campbell, 2nd duke of Argyll, and James Edward again retired to France.

After 1719 James Edward lived in Rome, where he was given royal honors, and where in 1719 he married Princess Clementina Sobieski, granddaughter of Jan III Sobieski, king of Poland; the marriage produced two sons. James Edward died in Rome on January 1, 1766. The struggle on behalf of the Stuart cause was renewed by his older son, Charles Edward Stuart. James Edward's younger son, Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal York, became the last of the Stuarts in the male line of succession after his brother's death, and called himself Henry IX.