4090 x 5094 px | 34,6 x 43,1 cm | 13,6 x 17 inches | 300dpi
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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 famous for refusing to become 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 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 recorded that she was the greatest beauty he ever saw. 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 equalled only by her childish silliness; but her letters to her husband, preserved in the British Museum, are not devoid of good sense and feeling. While a member of the royal court, she caught the eye of Charles II, who fell in love with her. 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 because she had refused to become the King's mistress. 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. It is certain, at least, that Charles went on
