He is depicted in full-length, wearing a short red coat trimmed with ermine and a brown and grey cloak, with a ruff & an ermine collar. He wears a blue riband and the Order of St George; on the left, a table with a crown and orb. The only son of Mary, Queen of Scots (RCIN 403300) and Lord Darnley, James VI was crowned king when little over a year old. Raised by the Earl of Mar at Stirling and tutored by the humanist scholar George Buchanan (author of Rerum Scoticarum Historia), he married Anne of Denmark in 1589 and together had many children. Having shrewdly maintained good Anglo-Scottish relations James inherited the English throne from Elizabeth I in 1603. Henceforth the British royal court was to be based at Whitehall. Although united by royal proclamation, the kingdoms of England and Scotland remained distinctly separate entities and many disagreements, particularly ecclesiastical, ensued during James’s reign. He returned to Scotland as king only once in 1617. Along with peace with Spain, his major political legacy was the Divine Right of Kings, a theory of royal absolutism set out in Basilikon Doron first published in 1599, whereby monarchs are divinely appointed and therefore answerable to God alone. The authority projected by this long line of kings clearly reflects this ideology, which Charles II and James II both deeply believed in. De Wet’s portrait is not a direct copy of any of James VI & I’s state portraits. These such as Paul van Somer’s portrait in the Royal Collection showing the king in garter robes (RCIN 401186) were widely disseminated in seventeenth-century Scotland. With the king’s face so recognizable – through print and coinage also – the face of James is here surprisingly vague, suggesting execution by a less capable studio assistant. The Dutch artist Jacob de Wet II was first brought to Edinburgh in 1673 by Sir William Bruce, King’s Surveyor and Master of Works in Scotland. As part of a team of skilled British and foreign craftsmen working at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, de Wet produced a series of decorative history paintings for the newly rebuilt state apartments. Still in situ, these include Bathing Scene by a River (RCIN 401237), Galatea and Polyphemus (RCIN 401238), The Apotheosis of Hercules (RCIN 401239) The Infant Hercules strangling Serpents (RCIN 401240) and The Finding of Moses (RCIN 401241). In the ensuing years he worked for members of the Scottish nobility including the Earl of Strathmore, for whom he decorated his chapel at Glamis Castle with scenes from the New Testament. In 1684 de Wet returned to Holyrood, signing a contract with the Royal Cashkeeper on 26 February: “The said James de Witte binds and obleidges him to compleately draw, finish, and perfyte The Pictures of the haill Kings who have Reigned over this Kingdome of Scotland, from King Fergus the first King, TO KING CHARLES THE SECOND, OUR GRACIOUS SOVERAIGNE who now Reignes Inclusive, being all in number One hundred and ten.” Today 97 of the commissioned 111 portraits are on display in the Great Gallery, with 18 kings in total depicted full-length (a final portrait of James VII & II was ordered upon his accession). Each is complimented with three bust-length portraits, 79 in total. Together they narrate Scotland’s royal history. De Wet’s iconographic scheme was based on well-known chronicles of Scottish history by the Renaissance humanists Hector Boece (Scotorum Historiae, 1527) and George Buchanan (Rerum Scoticarum Historia, 1582). De Wet’s 111 kings of Scotland are both actual and legendary. Their main precedent in visual art was George Jamesone’s portrait series of 109 Scottish kings, of which 26 survive in private collections. Painted as part of the pageantry marking Charles I’s Scottish coronation in 1633, these were later sent to Holyrood for the artist to copy, who combined this source with a number of other existing prototypes. The inscriptions on the paintings correspond with Buchanan’s list of Scottish kings: from left to right, these are the number and name of the king followed by the date of accession. The dates however are considerably muddled, by a later restorer or perhaps even the artist himself. The largest room in the palace and situated in the vicinity of the King’s Bedchamber, the Great Gallery originally served as the Palace’s privy gallery, making it both socially exclusive and very intimate. Its propagandistic message is clear: by endorsement of an ancient and venerable line of Scottish kings, the Stuarts were divinely appointed to rule Scotland. Moreover their rule would ensure the same peace and continuity as that of their valiant predecessors, from Fergus I the legendary first king (RCIN 403322) and Robert the Bruce (RCIN 403358), the progenitor of the Stuart dynasty. Its large scale and unique survival in situ make this ancestral series a unique and important document in the history of British portraiture. Eleven bust-length portraits have since disappeared from the Royal Collection, possibly destroyed by Lieutenant General Henry Hawley’s Dragoons who were stationed at Holyrood after their defeat at Falkirk in 1746 by Bonnie Prince Charlie. Listed in the original contract, these included Reutha, Finnanus, Metellanus, Satarell, Euthodius II, Nathalocus, Constantinus I, Donaldus IV, Dussus, Constantinus IV and Donaldus Banus. Number 108 in the series. Inscribed JACOBVS 6. 1566.