Like her brother James Francis Edward Stuart (The Old Pretender), Louisa Maria was a Roman Catholic, which, under the Act of Settlement 1701, debarred them both from succession to the British throne after the death of their Protestant half-sister Anne, Queen of Great Britain.

[3] Owing to the huge controversy which had surrounded the birth of her brother, James Francis Edward, with accusations of the substitution of another baby in a warming pan following a still-birth, James II had sent letters inviting not only his daughter, Queen Mary II, to attend the birth in person, but also a large number of other Protestant ladies.

His Queen was safely delivered of a daughter; but this event produced no perceptible effect on the state of public feeling in England.After the birth, James II declared that Louisa Maria had been sent by God, as a consolation for her parents at the time of their deepest distress, in exile and hopelessness.

[6] The new-born princess was given the name Louisa Maria in baptism, while Teresa (sometimes spelt Theresa) was added later, at the time of her confirmation.

[7] Louisa was the only full sibling of Prince James Francis Edward, the 'Old Pretender', to survive infancy, and was four years younger than her brother.

However, in June the two returned home for the birthdays of their two children, and two months later James had a stroke, dying just two weeks later on 16 September.

[4] On 23 March 1708, after a delay caused by the measles, the young James attempted a landing on Scottish soil, at the Firth of Forth, supported by a fleet of French ships.

Neither took place, the first apparently due to Louisa Maria's equivocal position, and the second because the young King of Sweden was not a Roman Catholic.

He said it had been happy if it had been her brother; for then the Queen might have sent for her and married her to Prince George (i.e. the future King George I), who could have no pretensions[11] during her own life; which would have pleased every honest man in the kingdom, and made an end of all disputes for the futureMadame de Maintenon, the morganatic second wife of Louis XIV, wrote of Mary of Modena's reaction to Louisa Maria's death:[7] I had the honour of passing two hours with the Queen of England,[12] who is the very image of desolation.

According to Jules Janin, writing in 1844, the remains of Princess Louisa Maria and her father King James II were then resting in the military hospital of the Val-de-Grâce.

Haywood says of Louisa:[16] ...the ladies who attended her were all of them much of the same age; and to shew the respect the French had for this royal family, tho' in misfortunes, were also the daughters of persons whose birth and fortune might have done honour to the service of the greatest empress in the world... in beauty, the princess herself was esteemed a Prodigy.The names Louisa Maria Teresa (in French, Louise-Marie-Thérèse) were later used for Luisa Maria Teresa of Parma (1751–1819), Queen consort of Charles IV of Spain, for Louise Marie Thérèse of France, the eldest daughter of Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry, born 1819, and for Louise Marie Thérèse Charlotte Isabelle of Orléans, daughter of King Louis-Philippe of France and the Queen of King Leopold I of Belgium.