The frontispiece, taken from what is known as the Blairs portrait of Queen Mary, has its own pedigree of unusual interest, although it cannot claim to be an original portrait. The following description of this picture is taken from the pen of the Right Rev. Bishop Kyle, Vicar Apostolic of the Northern district of Scotland:-- This large picture of Queen Mary belonged once to Mrs. Elizabeth Curle, wife and widow of Gilbert Curle, one of the Queen's secretaries during the last years of her life and at her death. Mrs. Curle herself was one of the attendants at her execution. When, and by whom it was painted, I have never learned. The attire and attitude of the principal figure being the same in which it is said Mary appeared on the scaffold, seem to testify decisively that the picture is not what can be called an original--that is traced from the living subject under the painter's eye. The adjuncts were evidently added by another and an inferior artist, but when, I have no means of knowing. Mrs. Curle survived her mistress long, at least thirty years. She had two sons, who both became Jesuits. Of one, John, there is little known. He died in Spain. The other, Hyppolytus, was long Superior, and a great benefactor of the Scotch College of Douai. To that College he bequeathed the property, not inconsiderable, which he derived from his mother, and among the rest the very picture now at Blairs. The picture remained in that College (Douai) till the French Revolution. At the wreck of the College it was taken from its frame, and being rolled up was concealed in a chimney, the fireplace of which was built up, and was so preserved. After the peace of 1815 it was taken from its place of concealment and conveyed first to Paris, but ultimately to Scotland, through the late Bishop Paterson and the Reverend John Farquharson, who being the latter Principal, the former Prefect of Studies in the Douai College at the time of the Revolution, identified it as the picture that had been kept there according to the tradition mentioned above.[1]--(From _Annals of Lower Deeside_, John A. Henderson.) [Footnote 1: The late Rev. Charles Gordon (well known in Aberdeen as Priest Gordon, having been in charge of the Roman Catholic Congregation for sixty years), then a student in the College, assisted in concealing the picture.] In the background of this picture the execution of the Queen at Fotheringay is represented, along with the portraits of Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curle, the two maids of honour who were present on the sad occasion. The royal arms of Scotland are painted on the right-hand corner of the picture, and there are three inscriptions in Latin, the translations of which are as follow:--