The name of this illustrious and royal family is spelled two ways – Stewart and Stuart – but it was not spelled Stuart until the time of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary, betrothed at the age of five to the Dauphin, Francis II of France, spent 13 years at the French Court. To enable her French associates to pronounce the Stewart name more easily it was decided to respell it without the troublesome “w”. This commonplace notebook is bound in genuine Stewart Hunting tartan, woven in Great Britain. Commonplace notebooks date back to the Scottish Enlightenment. Many thinkers and writers used a commonplace notebook for writing down ideas and knowledge including Adam Smith, Robert Burns, David Hume, and later, writers such as Sir Walter Scott, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Virginia Woolf. |