This portrait shows Henry Stuart, better known as Lord Darnley, aged about nine years old. He is already a handsome boy, fashionably dressed in a dark doublet trimmed with gold ornaments and wearing a sword at his side. Having direct family ties to both Scottish and English kings, Darnley was brought up conscious of his status and was educated in all the courtly manners. In 1565 he married his cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. Although the match seemed politically smart, it soon became apparent that Darnley was too immature to cope with his position. A product of his parents' ambition, he was selfish, vain and unreliable. Jealous of his wife's secretary, David Riccio, he was involved in his brutal murder in 1566. The following year, he himself was murdered at Kirk o'Field in Edinburgh.