King Charles welcomed Rod Stewart and Penny Lancaster to Dumfries House in Ayrshire this week to mark their new roles as ambassadors to the King’s Foundation.
They were joined by TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh as they helped mark the 35th anniversary of the King’s Foundation by placing items into an oak box that will be buried on the estate as a time capsule, to be opened in 2125.
But the palatial 18th century country mansion near Cumnock, East Ayrshire, is itself a time capsule, packed with treasures telling the stories of both Scotland and the Royal Family.
One of these was a portrait of a young woman, gazing serenely down as Sir Rod – famed for his cheeky sense of humour – joked around with King Charles, who equally enjoys a good laugh.
READ MORE: Do Ya Think One’s Sexy? King Charles gets a kiss from Rod Stewart’s wife Penny Lancaster
In the oil painting, she is wearing a blue dress with a white embroidered hem and clutching a red shawl or some other kind of material. But who is she?
Thanks to the new Google Arts & Culture feature, you can now take a virtual tour of Dumfries House and its grounds. It reveals that the King hosted his guests in the Family Parlour. And if you zoom into the painting on the wall, the subject is shown to be Lady Elizabeth Dalrymple, born on April 11, 1671.
Screengrab of the painting, taking from Google’s virtual tour
She was the daughter of one of the most notorious Scots of that turbulent period in history, John Dalrymple, the 1st Earl of Stair. He played a key role in suppressing the Jacobite rising of 1689 and was forced to resign in 1695 for his part in the Massacre of Glencoe.
As Lord Advocate, he spent years attempting to subdue the Jacobite chiefs, first offering them money and then ordering military reprisals, including one infamous instruction to “destroy entirely the country of Lochaber”.
Ahead of the massacre in February 1692, which saw around 30 members of Clan MacDonald killed by Scottish government troops, Stair urged secrecy fearing the MacDonalds would escape from the glen.
A memorial to the Massacre of Glencoe was erected in 1883
(Image: Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0)
By this time, sadly, Elizabeth had already passed away. Little is known about the young woman depicted in the painting, aside from the fact that she was born in Edinburgh and died on August 31, 1687, at the age of just 16.
Stair – who was restored to favour under Queen Anne – and his wife Elizabeth Dundas had ten children but only four survived to adulthood, including son John Dalrymple, the 2nd Earl of Stair.
He was a soldier and diplomat and his grandson, William Crichton-Dalrymple, the 5th Earl of Dumfries and the 4th Earl of Stair, commissioned the famous Scottish architect Robert Adam to build Dumfries House in the 1750s.
Read more from the Scottish Daily Express. Click here for Scottish News, click here for Politics and click here to return to the Home Page.