the present picture relates to the full-length pattern for which payments are recorded in 1606 and 1607. Of the extant autograph versions of this full-length type there is one at Loseley Park and another in the Dulwich College Picture Gallery. John de Critz had been granted, on 11 May 1605, for life the office of Serjeant Painter to the King, jointly with Leonard Fryer, an otherwise unknown decorative painter who died by the end of the year. De Critz produced several three-quarter length versions of this type including this the 'Tyninghame' picture: others are in the Portland and Rosebery Collections. The de Critz portraits set the standard iconographical type and face pattern employed during the first part of the reign, until being superseded by the full-length in Coronation robes by Paul Van Somer, signed and dated 1618 (Royal Collection).

Thomas Hamilton (1563-1637) was, from an early age, a close friend and confidant of the King, who gave him the nickname 'Tam o'the Cowgate', a reference to the street where Hamilton lived. He studied law in France and by the age of twenty-nine had been appointed a Lord of Session. By 1596 Hamilton was the King's Advocate and one of the Octavians governing the Scottish Treasury. After James' accession to the throne of England, Hamilton, who remained in Scotland, assumed greater responsibilities on behalf of the King and in 1612 he succeeded Sir Alexander Hay, another of the King's favourites, as Secretary of State. The following year he was created Lord Binning, Earl of Melrose in 1619, and Earl of Haddington in 1626.