It was noted by the French historian Charles de Brosses in one of his letters,that James "spends each morning in prayer near the tomb of his wife in the Church of the Santi Apostoli".
 James VIII/III was laid in state here himself in 1766, before he was buried at St Peter's beside his wife, Clementina died in 1735. 
Henry, Cardinal Duke of York (later King Henry I/IX) was given this church for his cardinatial title, December 18, 1752. In 1758 he was ordained to the episcopate in this church by Pope Clement XIII. When he was transferred to the titular church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, February 12, 1759, Henry retained the title of Santi XII Apostoli in commendam until July 13, 1761.

In his will King James VIII/III had expressed his wish to be buried in this church, but Pope Clement XIII determined that his final resting place should be in the same church as his wife.  On the evening of January 5, 1766, James' body was brought from the neighbouring Palazzo Muti (now Palazzo Balestra) and lay in state here for three days. The next day, Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Albani, Protector of Scotland, presided at the requiem mass, Pope Clement XIII being too unwell; Monsignor Orazio Mattei, Chancellor of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, gave the funeral oration.  Then the body was taken in procession to the Basilica di San Pietro, where a second requiem mass was celebrated. Managing to get a few pictures without disturbing the ceremony we made our way to the nearby Palazzo Muti the palace in Rome where the Stewarts [Stuarts ] resided. Although only a short walk form the Santi Apostoli it’s quite hard to imagine what it would have been like in the 18th century as the street now has numerous restaurants lining the pavement. As you get closer to the building itself though you begin to take in the reality of where you are unfortunately today apart from the façade of the building I doesn’t appear there is anything left of the original building. Looking back at old pictures from 1748 the façade doesn’t really seem like it has changed all that much, in fact the same can be said for the Santi Apostoli and the Palazzo Colonna as well. This palace is located at the north end of Piazza dei Santi Apostoli. It was formerly called Palazzo Muti-Papazurri and sometimes Palazzo dei Santi Apostoli or Palazzo Stuart, now Palazzo Balestra.

Portrait of Henry

the inauguration of priests from the Pontifical North American College in Rome preparing men for the priesthood in the Santi Apostoli	sepulchral tomb which houses the preserved heart of Clementina Sobieska

plaque within the cobbled corridor of the Plazza Muti

Palazzo Balestra

This palace was only part of a series of buildings which was provided by Pope Clement XI to King James VIII/III in 1719 as his Roman residence. The palace was owned at that time by the Marchese Giovanni Battista Muti, nephew-in-law of Cardinal Pietro Marcellino Corradini.  The annual rent was paid by the Apostolic Camera, an administrative department of the Holy See, the annual rent for the palace is debatable but it was claimed it was about 3000 scudi, which was approx 450 pounds sterling at the time. The palace rented for King James included not only that fronting on Piazza dei Santi Apostoli, but also two other palazzi and two houses adjoining it. One of the adjoining palaces is the Muti-Papazurri palace which fronts on Piazza della Pilotta and now houses the Pontificio Istituto Biblico, but it was in fact this palace which was the centre of the Stuart court.
King James VIII/III lived in this palace complex for over forty years. Here Queen Clementina gave birth to her sons: King Charles III December 31st 1720, and King Henry I/IX March 21st 1725. Queen Clementina died here January 18th 1735, and King James VIII/III January 1st 1766.
In 1766 Charles returned to Rome and used the palace as his main residence. After his marriage to Princess Louise of Stolberg he and his wife lived here until they moved to Florence in 1774. Charles returned to the palace in December 1785 and lived here with his daughter, Charlotte, Duchess of Albany. Charles died here January 30th/31st 1788. At Charles' death, the tenancy of the palace passed to his brother Henry, the Apostolic Camera continued to pay the rent.
Today some of the rooms still retains much of the decoration from the period of Stuart occupancy and can still be seen, particularly on the first floor rooms. In 1719 Pope Clement XI paid for the redecoration of the palace to prepare it for its new royal tenant.  From 1628 to 1631 Charles Mellin had painted the vaults of the Galleria, the windows of which face directly onto Piazza Santi Apostoli. Giovanni Angelo Soccorsi restored the Mellin frescoes and added some of his own.  One author has noted the presence among these frescoes of the "half moon heraldic symbol of the Stuarts", but this is based upon a misunderstanding.

There are two large doors facing onto the Piazza dei Santi Apostoli where the entrance to the palace was once upon a time, the doors are sometimes closed, but when open it leads you down a cobbled corridor then opens up to a court yard. The building today is full of separate apartments and offices. On the left wall of the corridor there is a plaque with an Italian inscription:

ABITO QUESTO PALAZZO
ENRICO DUCA POI CARDINALE DI YORK                                    
CHE FIGLIO SUPERSTITE DI GIACOMO III D'INGHILTERRA
PRESE IL NOME D'ENRICO IX
IN LUI NELL' ANNO MDCCCVII
S'ESTINSE LA DINASTIA DE' STUARDI
There lived in this palace
Henry, Duke later Cardinal of York
who, surviving son of James III of England
took the name of Henry IX.
In him in the year 1807
the House of Stuart expired.

Its interesting to note that there is no reference to Charles Edward on the plaque, but it is like most of the plaques in Rome which give reference to the Stuarts, this is mainly down to the fact Henry was considered the more important of the two brothers because of his position in the Catholic church.
After having a look round the Plazza Muti we decided on getting something to eat, so knowing a wee Scottish themed pub a short distance away on the Via Quatro Novembre called the Nags Head we thought it appropriate. We also thought it fitting to have a toast to Stuarts who ended up here in Rome as well. Seeing a rather dusty bottle of Drambuie on the shelf asked the woman behind the bar if there was anything in it as it looked as though it had been on the shelf for a while. She took the bottle from the shelf and poured us a couple of drams, measures incomparable to that in Scotland. As she held the bottle in her hand we made her aware of the story of Drambuie from its origins to its connection to what was on their door step, its quite funny to think that Scots being in Rome could teach a Roman a piece of history in their own city. Happy with what we had seen, achieved and what we knew we had to do the next day we headed back to the hotel.
Up in the morning we had an appointment to meet Father John Hughes at the Scots College early. After introductions we were given a tour of the college beginning with its origins and history up until the present day, shown various artifacts and portraits relating to the Stuarts and finally the three original individual tomb stones of James, Charles and Henry from when they were each individually interred in the Vatican, these had been given the college sometime after 1925 when the three of them were put into the same crypt as it is seen today.

The Scots College

The Pontifical Scots College, Rome was founded on 5th December 1600 by Pope Clement VIII. It provided an education for young Scots Catholic men who, due to the laws against Catholics, could not receive a Catholic education at home. During the centuries that followed, the college sent a steady supply of priests to Scotland, being closed only when the French invaded Rome in 1798 and again during the Second World War. For two hundred years Jesuits and Italian secular clergy directed the College, but since 1800 the Rectors have all been Scots secular priests. At first the college was sited in a little house in what is known today as Via del Tritone, opposite the church of S. Maria in Costantinopoli. In 1604 it was transferred to Via Felice, now called Via delle Quattro Fontane, and there it remained till 1962. The Church of St. Andrew of the Scots was built beside the college and, although no longer in the possession of the college, Mass is still regularly celebrated there. The present college building on the Via Cassia was opened in 1964 by Pope Paul VI and has since been visited by Pope John Paul II.

Scots College Coat of Arms

The tomb stone of James	The tomb stone of  Henry

As well as a house for students for the priesthood, the Scots College has been a temporary home for many other Scots, such as the Bishops during the Second Vatican Council and other meetings, the several groups of priests who have taken part in theology refresher courses and, more recently, groups of pilgrims who come during the summer vacation. It has been at the centre of celebrations for the creation of three Scots Cardinals, Cardinal Gray, Cardinal Winning and Cardinal O'Brien, and it was visited by many pilgrims who came from Scotland for the Canonisation of St John Ogilvie.
The Pontificio Collegio Scozzese was formerly located at Via delle Quattro Fontane 161 immediately opposite Palazzo Barberini. The college was rebuilt in 1869 when the present facade was erected. Above the first floor window over the main entrance is a carving of the Royal Arms of Scotland with supporters and the motto "NEMO ME IMPUNE IACESSIT" (No one injures me with impunity).
Above the windows of the top floor are six front-facing deep relief busts in round niches, each representing an important person in the history of the college. The second of these busts from the left is of King Henry IX and I in the circle around the bust is a Latin inscription:

HENRICVS CARD DVX EBORACAE
Henry, Cardinal Duke of York

The building is now owned by a bank, CARIPLO (Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde).
 Since 1964 the Pontifical Scots College has been located several miles northwest of central Rome at Via Cassia, 481; the College was formerly located at Via delle Quattro Fontane 161.
The college have on display a number of items of Stuart interest, from copies of Stuart portraits, an oil portrait of King Henry IX and I attributed to Joshua Reynolds, a large copy of a 1774 engraving of Saint Peter's Basilica and Square with an engraving at the bottom dedicated to the Cardinal Duke of York with his coat-of-arms and a proclamation of the Prince Regent later King Charles III, dated October 10, 1745.
In the crypt of the chapel are preserved the original tombstones of King James III and VIII, King Charles III, and King Henry IX and I. Until 1938 these stood in the crypt of the Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano.

After being given the tour of the college, taking numerous pictures of the collection and learning of its history from past to present, we thanked Father John Hughes for his time before saying our good byes then we headed to our final destination of our pilgrimage, The Vatican.
Being mid January the concourse in front of San Pietro was relatively empty in comparison to that of the summer months as was the queues into the Vatican itself.
If you have never been inside the Vatican, well you are completely blown away by what you see and feel as soon as you enter the Basilica. The sheer scale of the building and the architecture within it creates an atmosphere like no other regardless of being religious or not, in fact it has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world holding 60,000 people.
    The place to visit for us with the Basilica was the Antonio Canova monument to the Stuarts, on entering the main door you must head to the left to the south aisle and it can be found back to back with Saint Peter of Alcantara and St Lucy Filipini. 
 The Canova monument was first commissioned in 1810 a year after Henry’s death by Monsignor Angelo Cesarini, executor of the estate of King Henry. The responsibility was relied upon Antonio Canova to design a worthy monument to Henry's memory with a price of 9,000 Roman scudi being agreed upon approximately 1350 pounds sterling, but it seems that not all of this was paid. Canova prepared a first design for the monument which is now in the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze. A second design is in the Museo Civico di Bassano, but then project for the monument, some how lost inspiration.
In 1815 Canova was in London at the same time as King Henry's protegé Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, with a mutual interest in the Stuart monument this had obviously lead to it being discussed which eventually resulted in the Hereditary Prince of Hanover who called himself "Prince Regent" and later "George IV" granting Canova 50 pounds to complete the project.    With this renewed financial backing for the project now certain, a change was made to include James III and VIII and Charles III in the monument as well. Canova prepared a third design for which there is a terracotta model in the Gipsoteca di Possagno. The fact that the monument was originally intended chiefly to honour Henry IX and I is shown by the central position that his portrait has in the final work. In 1819 the completed monument was installed in the basilica.

The monument is in line with the underlying tomb in the Vatican Grottoes. The small fronton on top is embellished with a carving of the Stuart coat of arms of two lions rampant. On the lower part, in front of a closed door, symbol of the old unfortunate dynasty stand two angels whose incomparable beauty blends with their pain. The folded wings and bowed heads express resigned sadness over the mystery of death. All this sadness, however, is dissipated by the comforting words of the bible over the closed door "Happy are those who fall asleep in the Lord".
George III, king of England (1738-1820) wanted to forget all monarchical and dynastic rivalry, so he generously financed the cost of this monument.