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Lot Essay
As the great-grandson of King Henry VII, the brother of Lord Darnley, the uncle of King James I and VI and the future husband of Elizabeth Cavendish, herself the daughter of Bess of Hardwick, Charles Stuart was at the epicentre of the religious tension, succession plotting and unease between England and Scotland that ruled the Tudor court.
Charles was the son of Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, third in line to the Scottish throne, and Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, who had a claim to succeed the English throne as the granddaughter of Henry VII, although was excluded from the succession by Henry VIII because of her Catholic sympathies. These claims were united by the marriage of their son and Charles’s elder brother, Henry Lord Darnley, to Mary Queen of Scots in 1565. This union was deemed enough of a threat to the inheritance of the English crown that Queen Elizabeth imprisoned Margaret in the Tower of London, where she stayed until Darnley’s death two years later.
Following the appointment of her husband as regent in Scotland, and his subsequent assassination, Margaret Douglas appears to have turned her attention to the marriage of her younger son and the present sitter, Charles. On a journey from London to their home Temple Newsam in Yorkshire in 1574, Margaret and Charles stayed at Rufford Abbey, the home of Bess of Hardwick, where Margaret fell ill and Charles and Elizabeth, Bess’s daughter, fell in love and married without the permission of Elizabeth I. Whether this was an ambitious plot by Margaret and Bess to advance their family fortunes or not, law dictated that Charles Stuart needed to receive Royal Assent before marrying, as a family member in line to the throne. Once again Queen Elizabeth incarcerated Margaret of Lennox in the Tower of London. Bess was also called to London, but was acquitted in the absence of proof of a Catholic plot. Charles and Elizabeth had one daughter, Arbella Stuart, before his death in 1577, aged 21.
Only two other known portraits of Charles Stuart survive, both in the Royal Collection. The first, by Hans Eworth, is a full-length double portrait dated 1636 as a young child with his brother, Lord Darnley, a year after the latter’s marriage to Mary (Edinburgh, Royal Collection Trust, inv. no. 403432). The second, by Livinus de Vogelaare, memorialises and avenges the death of Darnley a year later and shows Charles kneeling behind his parents and nephew, the future King James VI and I (Edinburgh, Royal Collection Trust, inv. no. 401230). Based on a likeness with the present portrait, it is also possible that a painting traditionally identified as his brother Lord Darnley is in fact also of Charles (Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, National Trust, inv. no. NT 1129177).
A note on the provenance
The 1832 sale records that the picture was previously owned by Baron de Tabley, who amassed a particularly noteworthy collection of nineteenth-century British painting, with a nucleus of works by Turner. The buyer at the 1832 sale was one of the greatest collectors of the subsequent generation, Baron Northwick, whose pictures, sculpture and objets d’art were displayed between Northwick Park and Thirlestaine House, a second residence acquired to accommodate his expanding collection. The painting subsequently descended through the Northwick collection until its sale in 1965.
Charles was the son of Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, third in line to the Scottish throne, and Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, who had a claim to succeed the English throne as the granddaughter of Henry VII, although was excluded from the succession by Henry VIII because of her Catholic sympathies. These claims were united by the marriage of their son and Charles’s elder brother, Henry Lord Darnley, to Mary Queen of Scots in 1565. This union was deemed enough of a threat to the inheritance of the English crown that Queen Elizabeth imprisoned Margaret in the Tower of London, where she stayed until Darnley’s death two years later.
Following the appointment of her husband as regent in Scotland, and his subsequent assassination, Margaret Douglas appears to have turned her attention to the marriage of her younger son and the present sitter, Charles. On a journey from London to their home Temple Newsam in Yorkshire in 1574, Margaret and Charles stayed at Rufford Abbey, the home of Bess of Hardwick, where Margaret fell ill and Charles and Elizabeth, Bess’s daughter, fell in love and married without the permission of Elizabeth I. Whether this was an ambitious plot by Margaret and Bess to advance their family fortunes or not, law dictated that Charles Stuart needed to receive Royal Assent before marrying, as a family member in line to the throne. Once again Queen Elizabeth incarcerated Margaret of Lennox in the Tower of London. Bess was also called to London, but was acquitted in the absence of proof of a Catholic plot. Charles and Elizabeth had one daughter, Arbella Stuart, before his death in 1577, aged 21.
Only two other known portraits of Charles Stuart survive, both in the Royal Collection. The first, by Hans Eworth, is a full-length double portrait dated 1636 as a young child with his brother, Lord Darnley, a year after the latter’s marriage to Mary (Edinburgh, Royal Collection Trust, inv. no. 403432). The second, by Livinus de Vogelaare, memorialises and avenges the death of Darnley a year later and shows Charles kneeling behind his parents and nephew, the future King James VI and I (Edinburgh, Royal Collection Trust, inv. no. 401230). Based on a likeness with the present portrait, it is also possible that a painting traditionally identified as his brother Lord Darnley is in fact also of Charles (Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, National Trust, inv. no. NT 1129177).
A note on the provenance
The 1832 sale records that the picture was previously owned by Baron de Tabley, who amassed a particularly noteworthy collection of nineteenth-century British painting, with a nucleus of works by Turner. The buyer at the 1832 sale was one of the greatest collectors of the subsequent generation, Baron Northwick, whose pictures, sculpture and objets d’art were displayed between Northwick Park and Thirlestaine House, a second residence acquired to accommodate his expanding collection. The painting subsequently descended through the Northwick collection until its sale in 1965.