James Stuart spent his childhood in exile in France after his father's flight from England and forced abdication. He was proclaimed King of Great Britain by the Jacobites on his father's death in 1701.

He made two abortive attempts to take possession of his Kingdom, one in 1708 and the other in 1715. He returned to France and then moved on to Rome where he married Maria Clementina Sobieska, who bore him two sons and whom he later neglected. He helped finance the 1745 rising in favour of his son, Prince Charles Edward Stuart.