Who would have succeeded Queen Anne if not the Hanoverians?

Question

This is a fairly unexplored topic so I thought I would ask about it. In 1714, Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch of the UK, died. Because of the Act of Settlement, her mainly-Catholic Stuart relatives including her exiled half-brother James Edward Stuart, were passed over for the succession in favour of the Protestant House of Hanover. What I want to know is this - if the Act had instead chosen a Protestant Stuart, who would have been in contention to inherit the throne. Thanks.

Answer 1

James Francis Edward Stuart is closest in age. Even Louis XIV saw him as rightful heir. So he had the best claim. If not him, then it may have been Henrietta or James FitzJames.

Answer 2

Only royal members from the "House of Hanover" were the rightful heirs to the British throne. There weren't any other Protestant Stuarts after Queen Anne. The House of Hanover were direct descendants from the House of Stuart through Princess Elizabeth Stuart of Scotland (eldest daughter of James I of England and James VI of Scotland).

Queen Anne's life was marked by many crises, both personally and relating to succession of the Crown and religious polarisation. Because she died without surviving issue, Anne was the last monarch of the House of Stuart. She was succeeded by her second cousin, George I, of the House of Hanover, who was a descendant of the Stuarts through his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth, daughter of James I.

Elisabeth, Electress Palatine and Queen of Bohemia (born Princess Elizabeth Stuart of Scotland; 19 August 1596 – 13 February 1662) was the eldest daughter to James VI of Scotland and his Queen consort Anne of Denmark. She was thus sister to Charles I. With the demise of the Stuart dynasty in 1714, her direct descendants, the Hanoverian rulers, succeeded to the British throne.

Answer 3

There were no further Protestant Stuarts that why the Hanoverians inherited.