Frances Stewart, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox

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Frances Teresa Stewart, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox (1648-1702) was a prominent member of the Court of the Restoration and a mistress of Charles II. For her great beauty she was known as La Belle Stuart and served as the model for an idealised, female Britannia.

The daughter of Walter Stewart, or Stuart, a physican 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.

She had numerous suitors, including the Duke of Buckingham and Francis Digby, son of the Earl of Bristol, whose unrequited love for her was celebrated by Dryden. Her beauty appeared to her contemporaries to be only equalled by her childish silliness; but her letters to her husband, preserved in the British Museum, are not devoid of good sense and feeling. The king's infatuation was so great that when the queen's life was despaired of in 1663, it was reported that he intended to marry Stewart, and four years later he was considering the possibility of obtaining a divorce to enable him to make her his wife. This was at a time when Charles feared he was in danger of losing her as his mistress, her hand being sought in marriage by Charles Stewart, Duke of Lennox

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.It is certain, at least, that Charles then posted the Duke to Scotland and then to Denmark as Ambassador, where he died in 1672.

Following the war with the Dutch, Charles had a commemorative medal cast, in which her face was used as a model for Britannia; this subsequently became customary for medals, coins and statues, and is still the case for some of the copper coinage of the United Kingdom.

The duchess was present at the birth of James Francis Edward Stuart, son of James II, in 1688, being one of those who signed the certificate before the council. She died in 1702, leaving a valuable property to her nephew Lord Blantyre, whose seat of Lethington was renamed Lennoxlove after her.

References

Gilbert Burnet, History of my own Time (6 vols., Oxford, 1833)
Edmund Ludlow, Memoirs, 1625-72, edited by C. H. Firth (2 vols., Oxford, 1894). (R. J. M.).
Jules J. Jusserand, A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II (London, 1892);
Memoirs of Beauties of the Court of Charles II, with their Portraits (2nd ed., Lohdon, 1838)
Memoire of Grammont, translated by Boyer, edited by Sir W. Scott (2 vols., London, 1885, 1890); Anna Jameson,
Samuel Pepys, Diary, 9 vols. (London, 1893-1899, and numerous editions); Anthony Hamilton,

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