Stuarts

MARY STUART 9
description. It is painted on a panel about 4 ft. 8 in. by 3 ft. 6 in., and is
indubitably foreign work. As may be seen by the inscriptions upon it, it
represents James when he was twenty-eight years of age, and his wife twenty-
four. One cannot help remarking the sameness, and one may even say the
tameness, of the composition, and the ostentatious way in which both are
holding jewels. The picture may be dated 1539, as Mary of Guise was born
in 1515. The arms at the top of the panel are the king's escutcheon, and
below them a shield is impaled with the arms of the King and Queen.
The King's hair is light brown rather than red, as it is sometimes said to
be, with moustache and beard to match. His coat is cloth of gold, with
jewelled wristbands. The Queen's dress is red, richly embroidered with
flowers. It is interesting to compare this picture with the one I show from
the National Portrait Gallery, which for a long time was regarded as the
portrait of Mary Queen of Scots, and was so described at the Tercentenary
Exhibition at Peterborough in 1887. The lady, who, at any rate, is a Queen
of Scotland, and, upon the authority of Mr. Lionel Cust, is Mary of Lorraine,
appears literally bedizened with jewels, and her costume is a study in itself.
She possesses, undoubtedly, considerable personal attractions : her features
are perhaps more regular, and her face more oval, than is the case in the
Duke of Devonshire's picture. One distinguishing peculiarity is the length
of the fingers, and we know that Mary of Lorraine was remarkably tall,
" of the largest stature of women," says Sadler. It is surmised that this
picture was painted while the Queen Regent was besieged in Leith, a city
and castle among the rocks in the distance being thought to represent
Edinburgh.
In a picture of James belonging to Mr. F. Mackenzie Fraser, and shown
at the Stuart Exhibition, the hair is more of a chestnut shade, and the eyes
hazel, but the moustache, as in the Duke of Devonshire's picture, is light
brown. The features are somewhat long, and the nose is aquiline in shape.
The portrait in the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland represents the King
with ruddy-brown hair, moustache and beard, narrow dark eyebrows, grey
eyes and red lips, but the face has been much repainted. Thus much for
the outward presentment of these handsome parents of Mary Queen of Scots.
It is in the person of the daughter and sole offspring of the pair we
have been describing that the Stuarts come into immediate touch with English
history. Mary was born at Linlithgow on December 8, 1542. Her father
died at Stirling five days after, and she was crowned within a week of her
c