The History of the House of Stuart
	Stuart, royal family of England and Scotland. The line originated with a Breton emigrant, Alan Fitzflaald, who died about 1114, a follower of the Norman conqueror who became the English king William I. Fitzflaald's grandson Walter, who died in 1177, was appointed high steward to the Scottish king David I. From the 12th to the 14th century the stewardship descended from father to son; the hereditary title became a surname that later was modified to Steuart or Stuart. From 1371 to 1714, 14 Stuarts in succession ruled Scotland, the last six of these ruling also in England. When, as a result of the so-called Glorious Revolution (1688), James II of England and Ireland, also known as James VII of Scotland, was exiled on the issue of his Roman Catholicism, he was replaced by his Protestant daughter, Mary II. Mary ruled jointly with her husband, William III, from 1689 until her death in 1694. William then ruled alone until 1702. The last sovereign of the house of Stuart was Queen Anne, second daughter of James II, who reigned from 1702 to 1714 and in 1707, after the Act of Union in which England and Scotland were united into a single nation, became the first ruler of Great Britain. In 1701 Parliament had passed the Act of Settlement, which excluded Roman Catholics, and thus the male line of the house of Stuart, from the throne. In accordance with the act, when Queen Anne died without heir, the succession passed to the German house of Hannover, beginning with King George I. "Stuart," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.