|
|
|
|
|
Now held at Lennoxlove, East Lothian
This inventory in the Hamilton Archives was
drawn up by Anne, 3rd Duchess of Hamilton
on 10 August 1705, when she was 73, indicating which items of silver
plate she intended to leave to her eldest son, James,
4th Duke of Hamilton and which she would bequeath to her eldest
daughter, Katherine, Duchess of Atholl.
James is listed as receiving various large
silver dishes and tankards, a gilded basin and ewer in a case, a
chocolate pot, a large number of plates, cutlery, a tea box and
'a guilded silver box which was Queen Mary’s of Scotland.'
|
|
|
In the event,
Duchess Anne lived on for another eleven years, finally dying in 1716
at the age of 84 while her son James predeceased her, killed in a
duel in Hyde Park in 1712. The silver gilt
casket, believed to have contained letters incriminating Mary,
Queen of Scots in the murder of her second husband, Lord Darnley,
was inherited by his son James, 5th Duke of
Hamilton and has been in the Hamilton Collection ever since. |
|