Sir william stewart 11th laird of grandtully castle held the offices of gentleman of the bedchamber to king james vi and sheriff of perth. According to tradition to be ‘whipping boy’ to the young king, whereby he would be punished for his royal master’s transgressions. Sir william held the latter office in 1626, and would appear not have followed the king southwards in 1603, which would suggest that de colone painted this portrait in scotland before coming to london after his continued education in the netherlands. Sir william is known in family tradition as ‘william the ruthless’, and it is to his cupidity and lack of scruple that the steuart-fothringham family owed their prosperity. To his seat of grandtully castle – until recently in the ownership of henry steuart-fothringham- he added the nearby murthly castle by devious means. It is said that he threatened to reveal – or, in family tradition, simply to pretend- that the owner abercrombie of murthly was sheltering jesuits unless he agreed to sell murthly castle for an absurdly low price. Murthly castle where this portrait hung until the nineteenth century in the ownership of his descendant thomas steuart-fothringham. Object Type: painting. Date: 1613. Medium: painting. Adam de Colone09
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