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Chap. XXV.
HISTORIC PORTRAIT GALLERY. ’
383
head capped by a beret, a sickly frightened boy of some
twelve years old, such as you may have imagined
him to be—well flogged by the Puritan birch of
Buchanan, and snubbed by cross old Lady Mar. Then
comes a family group of three full-lengths—James, King
now of England, really a well-looking man with a
comfortable air of prosperity about him, in health too,
and free from care; and his partner Queen Anne, who
hangs beside him in a white dress, with a feathered fan
in hand, and a flaxen wig, this time almost albino,
stands outrageous in the extravagances of her
farthingale. King James himself does his best to vie
with his royal consort in the amplitude of his
galligaskins. These two paintings are by Somers, and must have
been sent over as presents to his brother-in-law by the
king soon after his accession to the throne of England.
James can now afford to make presents, no longer
writes letters in most elegant Latin to borrow money of
his Danish relatives, which said letters King Christian
heaps into his rubbish-basket, to be picked up by a
curious secretary, and preserved by his descendants in
Copenhagen.*
There is a third portrait of James L, not equal to
those by Somers as a work of art, probably a copy sent
over to Denmark—a half-length — in a white dress;
perhaps the most characteristic of the three: he is now
an aged man, with a discontented sawny expression of
countenance, most unprepossessing.
Of Henry Prince of Wales, his eldest son and
shortlived heir, there are three portraits—first as a sickly
child, borne down by the weight of his long brocaded
* Later in the possession of Kammerherr de Bornemann.
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