Re: Physical Appearance of the Stuarts

[Prince_Lieven]

James Fitzjames, Duke of Berwick:

[bell_the_cat]

It was really Catherine Sedley who was said to be ugly.

I don't think Arabella Churchill was especially bad looking.

[crotalo]

I agree, she looks lovely. This little woman is the connexion Fitz-James Stuart of the Great spanish House of Alba, from wich they are extremely proud. they are now very conspicuous public personages in Spain, persecuted by paparazzi. When they married, often they anteposed "Stuart" to all names. I suppose that is why some says Cayetana ought not to make reverence to Eliz II it meeting

[palatine]

The legend that James II preferred to have relationships with ugly women was put forth by Whig historians, backed by some spurious anecdotes.  For generations, historians reviled the Stuarts in any way they could.  Taking potshots at James’s taste in women, and the women themselves, was an easy way to insult him.

The portraits of James’s mistresses reveal that they were lovely, although it must be admitted that his first wife, Anne Hyde, was no beauty.  

James did not want to marry Anne.  During the Interregnum, he gave her a written promise of marriage in order to persuade her to become his mistress, in the belief that the promise was not binding.  The joke was on him: it was legal.  James tried to repudiate Anne after the Restoration, with the backing of Charles II, but the royal lawyers informed them that the promise of marriage was enforceable and would invalidate any other marriage that James tried to make.  Since Anne was pregnant, the marriage was privately and hurriedly celebrated; it was only acknowledged a few months later.  After their marriage, Anne rapidly became obese and James began taking mistresses.

When James remarried, he may well have been thinking of his first wife’s appearance when he demanded that his new wife should be a beautiful woman.  The lovely Mary of Modena was chosen as his bride out of a bevy of candidates, in large part because she was the best-looking.

[palatine]

Madame de Motteville's description of Minette:

"She was of moderate height, and her shape, which was not faultless, did not then appear as imperfect as it really was; her beauty was not of the most perfect order, but her whole person, although she was not well made, was still very engaging on account of her charming manners.  She had a very delicate and white complexion, mixed with a natural carnation, like the blending of the rose and the jessamine; her eyes were small, but soft and brilliant, her nose was not bad, her mouth was rosy, and her teeth as white and well shaped as could be desired; but her face, which was too long, and her thinness, seemed to threaten a rapid decay of her beauty.  She dressed herself and her hair in a manner which was very becoming."

[bell_the_cat]

The "ugly" label seems to have persisted for along time in the case of Sedley. James Boswell jokes about her  in "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides" as well as about Anne Vane the unattractive mistress of Frederick Prince of Wales.

Lord Hailes, a friend of Boswell's has a go at Johnson for the following translation of Juvenal:

"The teeming mother, anxious for her race,
Begs, for each birth, the fortune of a face:
Yet Vane could tell, what ills from beauty spring
And Sedley curs'd the charms which pleas'd a king."

Lord Hailes suggests the following amendment:

"Yet Shore could tell what ills from beauty spring
And Valiere curs'd the charms which pleas'd a king"

on the grounds that Vane was far from being well-looked, while Sedley was "so ugly that Charles II said, his brother had her by way of penance".

Hailes was probably a Whig (like Boswell's father), and Johnson of course chose the names for the clever punning. Does anyone have a portrait of Sedley?

[palatine]

Liselotte, Duchess of Orleans, described the Old Pretender and his sister Louise when they were children:

“The Prince of Wales is the most charming child you could wish to see.  He understands French now and speaks it fluently.  He is lively, gay and not at all shy, and will talk as much as you like.  He is well-built and has beautiful little legs, pretty feet and a grand air.  He is not at all like his father or mother, but resembles very much the pictures of his uncle the late King of England, and I am sure that if the English people could see the child they could no longer doubt that he was of Royal birth.  The Princess will have a pretty figure.  She does not talk much and does not understand French.  In face she resembles her mother, but her eyes are more beautiful than the Queen’s.  She is as sweet and gentle as a lamb.  Her little brother is said to be a little obstinate, but I have never noticed it, because he is very fond of me and does everything I tell him.”

In later years, Liselotte wrote that the Old Pretender was   “…as like his mother as two drops of water.”

[Prince_Lieven]

Thanks for posting this palatine. I drew attention to this is another thread - when you compare portraits of the Old Pretender and Mary Beatrice, especially the ones where they're in hunting clothes, the resemblance is striking. Another nail in the coffin of the 'warming pan' myth!

[palatine]

Its hard to believe that anyone could take the warming pan story seriously; Mary of Modena and her son looked remarkably alike.  

Horace Walpole saw the Old Pretender in Rome in 1752, and described him:

"The Chevalier de St. George is tall, meagre, and melancholy in his aspect; enthusiasm and disappointment have stamped a solemnity on his person, which rather creates pity than respect.  He seems the phantom which good nature, divested of reflection, conjures up, when we think of the misfortunes, without the demerits, of Charles the First.  Without the particular features of any Stuart, the Chevalier has the strong lines and fatality of air peculiar to them all."

An Englishwoman met Charles Edward in Italy in 1775.  Her description:

“He is naturally above the middle size, but stoops excessively; he appears bloated and red in the face; his countenance heavy and sleepy, which is attributed to his having given in to excess of drinking; but when a young man he must have been considered handsome.  His complexion is of the fair tint, his eyes blue, his hair light brown, and the contour of his face a long oval.  He is by no means thin; has a noble presence and a graceful manner….Upon the whole, he has a melancholy, mortified appearance.”

A description of Charles Edward’s daughter Louisa, Countess of Albany, in 1786:

“She was a tall, robust woman, of a very dark complexion and coarse-grained skin, with more of masculine boldness than feminine modesty or elegance; but easy and unassuming in her manners, and amply possessed of that volubility of tongue, and that spirit of coquetry, for which the women of the country where she was educated have at all times been particularly distinguished.”

[suburbanbeatnik]

I don't think most of the portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots really do her justice.   Look at her death mask- she was really stunning! 

<img src="http://h1.ripway.com/Joanne%20Renaud/dead-famous-mary-big.jpg">
<img src="http://h1.ripway.com/Joanne%20Renaud/mask1.bmp">   

(By the way, I'm not really sure why the html isn't working on this post...)

[ilyala]

you are supposed to place the link between
it's not quite html.

anyway, she does look amazing. and thinking that after all those years in prison she would have gotten old and ugly, one must wonder how good she looked in her youth.

[suburbanbeatnik]

I don't think Mary, while definitely not looking her best in prison, never could have been considered "ugly"- not with that bone structure!   Here's a beautiful painting of Mary by a Russian artist, Elena Flerova; what I especially like about it is that she clearly took Mary's face from the death mask.



(By the way, thanks for the picture help!) 

[bell_the_cat]

Definitely, the wierdest portrait of Mary. I kind of like it! What can it all mean?

[suburbanbeatnik]

That's a good question... I honestly have no idea.  The artist is into well-rendered surrealism, so your guess is as good as mine...

Anyway, here's a sketch that I did of Mary lately- I made her face a cross between her death mask and the teenage Clouet portraits.  I had a lot of fun doing the jewelry. 

[Prince_Lieven]

Wonderful! You're a very talented artist!