Britain's Rightful Monarch?

CONTINUING my stay in the south Bavarian tourist town of Bad Wörishofen , I am usually having my first espresso of the day at Cafe Wittelsbach.

Cafe Wittelsbach … always seems to be busy

Many places in this part of Germany have a Cafe Wittelsbach or, more often, a Hotel Wittelsbach.
The premises are not part of some huge chain but rather are named after the House of Wittelsbach, which ruled Bavaria for more than 700 years until being deposed in 1918.
To call them great supporters of the Weimar republic would be a stretch, but the family was strongly anti-Nazi, with several members ending up in concentration camps.
A reign of more than 700 years is quite a dynasty - compare that with Britain's House of Windsor, which came to power, using the name House of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha, in 1901 (the name was changed in 1917 because of anti-German sentiment in WW1).
This perhaps explains why royalist-celebrating pubs and hotels in England tend to be called King's Head or Queen's Head rather than after a single dynasty (thanks to the British education system, many have lost their apostrophes).
Arguably the high tide in the fortunes of the Wittelsbachs came in 1742 on February 12 (the same month and day of my birthday) when the Elector Karl Albrecht was crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
His joy did not last long - within days virtually the whole of Bavaria had been overrun by vengeful Hapsburg soldiers.
By the time of the Franco-Prussian War 128 years later, Bavaria was ruled by kings rather than electors - their elevation being self-announced on January 1, 1806, ahead of the Holy Roman Empire being formally dissolved seven months later.
The new title was not the only change - by the 1860s Bavaria was firmly allied to its long-time nemesis Austria.
This led to Bavaria, under King Ludwig II, being among the losers in the Seven Weeks War of 1866, but he picked the winning side four years later.
The current head of the House of Wittelsbach is Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria, Herzog (Duke) of Bavaria, who was aged 11 when the Nazis sent him to a concentration camp along with other members of the family.
Jacobites, assuming they still exist, recognise Franz as the rightful heir to Britain's last Stuart monarch, James II of England/James VII of Scotland.