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Chap. XXV.
HISTORIC PORTRAIT GALLERY.
385
climax, and when the French agents of Richelieu,
taking advantage of her sorrow, endeavoured to
persuade her “ for the interest of her sons ” to join
the party in England against her brother Charles I.
“Rather,” she exclaimed, “than act so, I would see
them dead at my feet.” This must have been the last
of the royal portraits sent over to King Christian IV.;
indeed all the previous ones mentioned must have
been forwarded before the death of hjs sister Queen
Anne. Then we have a third portrait of Elizabeth—
Honthorst the younger (William), an inferior artist to
his brother—taken at that time of life when no woman
should ever be transmitted to canvas, the intermediate
period of life when women are no longer young and still
refuse to appear old; her troubles, her anxieties, have
now done their worst, her features are pinched and
drawn, and she looks—oh! so discontented.
Of Charles I. a small cabinet picture; as a young
boy, in gilded armour, caracolling on a small white
pony among the courts of the old palace of
Whitehall ; and later a most exquisite full-length of a
young man, with moustache naissante, in age twenty
or thereabouts; the face is pale and delicate, soft
melancholy eyes, a sad expression, hair short cropped ; he
is attired in black, the George suspended from his
neck, the jewelled garter round one knee, the other
encircled by a blue and silver ribbon with tie and
hanging ends; similar rosettes adorn his shoes; his
gloves trimmed with deep gauntlets of gold
embroidery ; a guipure ruff around his throat: in the
background through an open window appear ships of war
in the distance. Great doubts exist as regards the
authenticity of this portrait. If it be not Charles Stuart,
vol. I. 2 c
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