Why don't pretenders or modern day claimants press their claims?

by Ajfried22

Specifically the jacobites, and modern day english princes, in the past there were many such rebellions. Some were successful some failed. But who doesn't want to be king?

lngwstksgk

With regards to the Jacobites, the short answer is that the failure of the '45 was so brutal and spectacular, that it quashed any further attempts at organized rebellion (though not riots and other disorder). Coupled with that, the Bonnie Prince Charlie of popular imagination was also a drunk womanizer and wife-beater to a degree that stood out in that time period (with James remarkably helping his daughter-in-law escape his son), and not much of a figure of inspiration. His only progeniture by mistress Clementina Walkenshaw was a bastard and female, only legitimized in the last years of her father's life. His younger brother, Henry Benedict, was early given to the church and rose to the rank of Cardinal. To my view, giving Henry to the church was an early concession on his father James' part that the imagined restoration was unlikely ever to succeed.

Modern succession goes through Charles' legitimized daughter and at least one other bastard offspring to land on today's claimant Max-Emanuel Ludwig Maria Herzog of Bavaria, who seems to find it a bit of a joke.

So to answer your question in the bounds of the subreddit (20-year rule) as best I can, the Jacobite claim to legitimacy died with Charles 228 years ago.