Frances Stuart

LADY STUART
CHARACTER DETAILS
Full Name:	Frances Teresa Stuart
Nationality:	English
Title:	Duchess of Richmond & Lennox
Estate Name:
Age:	27 (b.1648)
Gender:	Female
Eye Colour:	Brown
Hair Colour:	Light Brown
Marital Status:	Widowed
Circles:	Proper Society, Fashion
RESIDENCE
London:
Other:

Physical Attributes

Once a renowned beauty, the face of Frances has been ravaged by the smallpox. Her inner beauty still shines through.

Initial Impression of Personality

Intelligent and kind, she has become rather shy due to her appearance.

Background

Known as La Belle Stuart, and the face of Britannia.

The daughter of Walter Stewart, or Stuart, a physician in Queen Henrietta Maria's court, and a distant relative of the ruling dynasty, she was born in exile in Paris, but was sent to England in 1663 after the restoration by Charles I's widow Henrietta Maria to act as maid of honour at Charles II's wedding and subsequently as lady-in-waiting to his new bride, Catherine of Braganza.

The great diarist Samuel Pepys records that she was the greatest beauty ever I saw ; the King was similarly taken with her, and at several points in his reign it was feared that he would succumb sufficiently to marry her.

She eventually married the Duke of Richmond and Lennox, also a Stuart, in March 1667. It is possible she had to elope to do so, after being discovered with him by a rival for the King's affections, Lady Castlemaine. The now Duchess of Richmond, however, soon returned to court, where she remained for many years; and although she was disfigured by smallpox in 1669, she retained her hold on the king's affections. Her husband was sent as ambassador to Denmark, where he died in 1672.

Mistress of the King?

Although the King is said to have pursued her with a passion she never gave into his advances.

A poem written by Charles II, about his love for Frances Stewart:

I pass all my hours in a shady old grove,

But I live not the day when I see not my love;

I survey every walk now my Phyllis is gone,

And sigh when I think we were there all alone,

Oh, then 'tis I think there's no Hell

Like loving too well.

But each shade and each conscious bower when I find

Where I once have been happy and she has been kind;

When I see the print left of her shape on the green,

And imagine the pleasure may yet come again;

Oh, then 'tis I think that no joys are above

The pleasures of love.

While alone to myself I repeat all her charms,

She I love may be locked in another man's arms,

She may laugh at my cares, and so false she may be,

To say all the kind things she before said to me!

Oh then 'tis, oh then, that I think there's no Hell

Like loving too well.

But when I consider the truth of her heart,

Such an innocent passion, so kind without art,

I fear I have wronged her, and hope she may be

So full of true love to be jealous of me.

Oh then 'tis I think that no joys are above

The pleasures of love.