He is one of the most infamous characters, and husbands, in Scottish history.
Now the true face of Lord Darnley, Henry Stuart, the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, has been revealed by a student at the University of Dundee using craniofacial superimposition techniques.
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Emma Price has recreated the face of Lord Darnley, as part of her MSc Forensic Art & Facial Identification course at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, part of the University.
Her work will be one of the exhibits at this year’s Masters Show, which opens at Duncan of Jordanstone this weekend.
Lord Darnley was implicated in the murder of the Queen's private secretary, David Rizzio, and made enemies in her court.
Darnley was killed in 1567, just two years after marrying the Queen and at the age of only 21.
The circumstances of Darnley’s death in Edinburgh’s Kirk o’ Field remain shrouded in mystery.
Suspicion quickly fell on the Earl of Bothwell, who Mary would soon marry, leading to her own downfall.
Darnley was buried in the Royal Vault, Abbey Church, Holyrood but the vault was raided between 1776 and 1778.
As a result two skulls purporting to be Darnley’s – one held in the University of Edinburgh’s collection and the other owned by the Royal College of Surgeons in London – exist.
The University of Edinburgh engaged the services of Dundee’s Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID).
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Ms Price then took on the project as part of her Masters, which is jointly offered by CAHID and Duncan of Jordanstone.
Ms Price has concluded the Edinburgh skull is not Lord Darnley's.
She said: "The University of Edinburgh had a skull in their collection inscribed ‘The skull of Lord Darnley, found in Kirk o’ Field’ and for years that was believed to be the case but there was another one said to be his at the Royal College of Surgeons.
"Then, in 1928, a mathematician and scientist called Dr Karl Pearson analysed the RCS skull and pronounced it to be Darnley’s.
"He was an early pioneer of craniofacial superimposition and he used a technique that had only just been invented but the science has obviously moved on massively since then.
"In order to clear up the mystery, Edinburgh asked me to look at both skulls and find which was the most likely match.
"This wasn’t easy as the RCS skull had been destroyed in the blitz so we had to rebuild it using images and Pearson’s very precise measurements."
She added: "Craniofacial superimposition is a method of analysis in which an unidentified skull is compared to images of a missing person, or in the case of Lord Darnley, contemporary portraits.
"Upon completion, one of the skulls was identified as fitting remarkably well.
"The features on the portrait such as the very arched eyebrows and distinct sloping forehead led me to conclude that the Edinburgh skull didn’t stand up to scrutiny whereas the RCS one was a good match.
"From the analysis I did we can say the Edinburgh skull is definitely not Darnley’s while I produced a craniofacial reconstruction of the other skull presenting a 3D sculpture of what Lord Darnley would have looked like before his untimely death."
Using 3-D software, Emma produced a model of Darnley’s skull and created the reconstruction using wax and silicone.
The finished work shows a young man with bright blue eyes and a head of light brown hair, complete with period costume.
"Darnley was said to be very handsome," she added.
"He was over 6’ tall, which would have been highly unusual for the 16th century.
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"I knew the Mary story before I embarked on this project but had to learn all I could about Darnley.
"What is interesting is that in a time when Protestant and Catholic figures were depicted as either heroes or villains depending on who the writer was, Darnley was universally hated. People reviled him for his arrogance, drunkenness and promiscuity."
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