Louisa Maria Teresa Stuart - Birth

Birth

Louisa Maria was born in 1692, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, during her parents' exile. Owing to the huge controversy which had surrounded the birth of her brother, James Francis Edward, with accusations of the substitution of another baby in a warming pan following a still-birth, James II had sent letters inviting not only his daughter, Queen Mary II, to attend the birth in person, but also a large number of other Protestant ladies. Of all her siblings and half-siblings, only her brother James Francis Edward and her half-sisters, Queen Mary II and Queen Anne, survived infancy. Mary died while Louisa Maria was still a small child, but she was on friendly terms with her half-sister Anne.

The Whig historian Macaulay later commented on James's precaution:

Had some of those witnesses been invited to Saint James's on the morning of the tenth of June 1688, the House of Stuart might, perhaps, now be reigning in our island. But it is easier to keep a crown than to regain one. It might be true that a calumnious fable had done much to bring about the Revolution. But it by no means followed that the most complete refutation of that fable would bring about a Restoration. Not a single lady crossed the sea in obedience to James's call. His Queen was safely delivered of a daughter; but this event produced no perceptible effect on the state of public feeling in England.

The new-born princess was given the names Louisa and Maria in baptism, while Teresa (sometimes spelt Theresa) was added later, at the time of her confirmation. She was given the name Louisa in honour of King Louis XIV, who acted as her godfather. Her godmother was King Louis's sister-in-law, Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine, Duchess of Orléans.

After the birth, James II declared that Louisa Maria had been sent by God as a consolation for her parents at the time of their distress, and in later years she was often referred to as La Consolatrice.