James Stuart Duke of Richmond and Lenox

Shoulder length portrait in oval engraved frame in the form of a wreath, surrounded by drapery (ducal robes) in architectural setting with coronet in foreground. Brought up within the court of James I, the sitter succeeded his father as Duke of Lenox in 1624. He was knighted at the age of eighteen and after an education at Cambridge, became a Privy Councillor to Charles II on his visit to Scotland in 1637. The Scots saw him as an ally against Charles’s 1637 prayer book: “he looked upon episcopacy and all the English ceremonies with an evil eye” (DNB) He was created Duke of Richmond in 1641. Depsite his differing religious views, Richmond was a generous supporter of the King during the Civil War. He died in 1655 and is buried at Westminster Abbey.