Prince Charlie: Bonnie No More

While enjoying an afternoon at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery this summer, I came upon portraits of the two Pretender Princes, Charles Edward Stuart, also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie (right), and Henry Benedict (left). Both look attractive young men, the kind that bring their teachers a bottle of wine on the last day of term. 

Further into the room, and Bonnie Prince Charlie has grown old and fat; bonnie no longer, he has succumbed to the ageing process, while developing his father’s prominent nose. Despite his beauty treatments and pleasant lifestyle, he could no more retain his good looks than the sun-burned peasants working his Italian estates. 

 

But at my back I always hear 

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near; 

And yonder all before us lie 

Deserts of vast eternity. 

Thy beauty shall no more be found; 

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound…

 

Andrew Marvell uses the brevity of our earthly beauty to urge haste in our affections. The Bible also comments on the concision of comeliness:

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting. (Proverbs 31:30) 

Unlike the poet, it urges no impulsive courtship; Christian beauty is not found in face paint or physical features, but likeness to Christ. And this beauty will never deceive nor flee:

One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek:

That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,

to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to meditate in His temple. 

Psalm 27:4