Herbert, the faithful attendant of Charles the First during the two last
years of the king's life, mentions "a diamond seal with the king's arms
engraved on it." The history of this "diamond seal" is remarkable; and
seems to have been recovered by the conjectural sagacity of Warburton,
who never exercised his favourite talent with greater felicity. The
curious passage I transcribe may be found in a manuscript letter to Dr.
Birch.
"If you have read Herbert's account of the last days of Charles the
First's life, you must remember he tells a story of a diamond seal, with
the arms of England cut into it. This, King Charles ordered to be given,
I think, to the prince. I suppose you don't know what became of this
seal, but would be surprised to find it afterwards in the Court of
Persia. Yet there Tavernier certainly carried it, and offered it for
sale, as I certainly collect from these words of vol. i. p. 541.--'Me
souvenant de ce qui etoit arrivé au Chevalier de Reville,' &c. He tells
us he told the prime minister what was engraved on the diamond was the
arms of a prince of Europe, but, says he, I would not be more
particular, remembering the case of Reville. Reville's case was this: he
came to seek employment under the Sophy, who asked him 'where he had
served?' He said 'in England under Charles the First, and that he was a
captain in his guards.'--'Why did you leave his service?' 'He was
murdered by cruel rebels.'--'And how had you the impudence,' says the
Sophy, 'to survive him?' And so disgraced him. Now Tavernier was afraid,
if he had said the arms of England had been on the seal, that they would
have occasioned the inquiry into the old story. You will ask how
Tavernier got this seal? I suppose that the prince, in his necessities,
sold it to Tavernier, who was at Paris when the English court was there.
What made me recollect Herbert's account on reading this, was the
singularity of an impress cut on the diamond, which Tavernier represents
as a most extraordinary rarity. Charles the First was a great virtuoso,
and delighted particularly in sculpture and painting."
This is an instance of conjectural evidence, where an historical fact
seems established on no other authority than the ingenuity of a student,
exercised in his library, on a private and secret event, a century after
it had occurred. The diamond seal of Charles the First may yet be
discovered in the treasures of the Persian sovereign.
Warburton, who had ranged with keen delight through the age of Charles
the First, the noblest and the most humiliating in our own history, and
in that of the world, perpetually instructive, has justly observed the
king's passion for the fine arts. It was indeed such, that had the reign
of Charles the First proved prosperous, that sovereign about 1640 would
have anticipated those tastes, and even that enthusiasm, which are still
almost foreign to the nation.
The mind of Charles the First was moulded by the Graces. His favourite
Buckingham was probably a greater favourite for those congenial tastes,
and the frequent exhibition of those splendid masques and
entertainments, which combined all the picture of ballet dances with the
voice of music; the charms of the verse of Jonson, the scenic machinery
of Inigo Jones, and the variety of fanciful devices of Gerbier, the
duke's architect, the bosom friend of Rubens.[188] There was a costly
magnificence in the _fêtes_ at York House, the residence of Buckingham,
of which few but curious researchers are aware: they eclipsed the
splendour of the French Court; for Bassompiere, in one of his
despatches, declares he had never witnessed a similar magnificence. He
describes the vaulted apartments, the ballets at supper, which were
proceeding between the services with various representations, theatrical
changes, and those of the tables, and the music; the duke's own
contrivance, to prevent the inconvenience of pressure, by having a
turning door made like that of the monasteries, which admitted only one
person at a time. The following extract from a manuscript letter of the
time conveys a lively account of one of those _fêtes._
"Last Sunday, at night, the duke's grace entertained their majesties and
the French ambassador at York House with great feasting and show, where
all things came down in clouds; amongst which, one rare device was a
representation of the French king, and the two queens, with their
chiefest attendants, and so to the life, that the queen's majesty could
name them. It was four o'clock in the morning before they parted, and
then the king and queen, together with the French ambassador, lodged
there. Some estimate this entertainment at five or six thousand
pounds."[189] At another time, "the king and queen were entertained at
supper at Gerbier the duke's painter's house, which could not stand him
in less than a thousand pounds." Sir Symonds D'Ewes mentions banquets at
five hundred pounds. The fullest account I have found of one of these
entertainments, which at once show the curiosity of the scenical
machinery and the fancy of the poet, the richness Of the crimson habits
of the gentlemen, and the white dresses with white heron's plumes and
jewelled head-dresses and ropes of pearls of the ladies, was in a
manuscript letter of the times, with which I supplied the editor of
"Jonson", who has preserved the narrative in his memoirs of that poet.
"Such were the magnificent entertainments," says Mr. Gifford, "which,
though modern refinement may affect to despise them, modern splendour
never reached, even in thought." That the expenditure was costly, proves
that the greater encouragement was offered to artists; nor should
Buckingham be censured, as some will incline to, for this lavish
expense; it was not unusual for the great nobility then; for the
literary Duchess of Newcastle mentions that an entertainment of this
sort, which the Duke gave to Charles the First, cost her lord between
four and five thousand pounds. The ascetic puritan would indeed abhor
these scenes; but their magnificence was also designed to infuse into
the national character gentler feelings and more elegant tastes. They
charmed even the fiercer republican spirits in their tender youth:
Milton owes his Arcades and his delightful Comus to a masque at Ludlow
Castle; and Whitelocke, who, was himself an actor and manager, in "a
splendid royal masque of the four Inns of Courts joined together" to go
to court about the time that Prynne published his Histriomastix, "to
manifest the difference of their opinions from Mr. Prynne's new
learning,"--seems, even at a later day, when drawing up his "Memorials
of the English Affairs," and occupied by graver concerns, to have dwelt
with all the fondness of reminiscence on the stately shows and masques
of his more innocent age; and has devoted, in a chronicle, which
contracts many an important event into a single paragraph, six folio
columns to a minute and very curious description of "these dreams past,
and these vanished pomps."
Charles the First, indeed, not only possessed a critical tact, but
extensive knowledge in the fine arts, and the relics of antiquity. In
his flight in 1642, the king stopped at the abode of the religious
family of the Farrars at Gidding, who had there raised a singular
monastic institution among themselves. One of their favorite amusements
had been to form an illustrated Bible, the wonder and the talk of the
country. In turning it over, the king would tell his companion the
Palsgrave, whose curiosity in prints exceeded his knowledge, the various
masters, and the character of their inventions. When Panzani, a secret
agent of the Pope, was sent over to England to promote the Catholic
cause, the subtle and elegant Catholic Barberini, called the protector
of the English at Rome, introduced Panzani to the king's favour, by
making him appear an agent rather for procuring him fine pictures,
statues, and curiosities: and the earnest inquiries and orders given by
Charles the First prove his perfect knowledge of the most beautiful
existing remains of ancient art. "The statues go on prosperously," says
Cardinal Barberini, in a letter to a Mazarin, "nor shall I hesitate to
rob Rome of her most valuable ornaments, if in exchange we might be so
happy as to have the King of England's name among those princes who
submit to the Apostolic See." Charles the First was particularly urgent
to procure a statue of Adonis in the Villa Ludovisia: every effort was
made by the queen's confessor, Father Philips, and the vigilant cardinal
at Rome; but the inexorable Duchess of Fiano would not suffer it to be
separated from her rich collection of statues and paintings, even for
the chance conversion of a whole kingdom of heretics."[190]
This monarch, who possessed "four-and-twenty palaces, all of them
elegantly and completely furnished," had formed very considerable
collections. "The value of pictures had doubled in Europe, by the
emulation between our Charles and Philip the Fourth of Spain, who was
touched with the same elegant passion." When the rulers of fanaticism
began their reign, "all the king's furniture was put to sale; his
pictures, disposed of at very low prices, enriched all the collections
in Europe; the cartoons when complete were only appraised at £300,
though the whole collection of the king's curiosities were sold at above
£50,000.[191] Hume adds, "the very library and medals at St. James's
were intended by the generals to be brought to auction, in order to pay
the arrears of some regiments of cavalry; but Selden, apprehensive of
this loss, engaged his friend Whitelocke, then lord-keeper of the
Commonwealth, to apply for the office of librarian. This contrivance
saved that valuable collection." This account is only partly correct:
the love of books, which formed the passion of the two learned scholars
whom Hume notices, fortunately intervened to save the royal collection
from the intended scattering; but the pictures and medals were, perhaps,
objects too slight in the eyes of the book-learned; they wore resigned
to the singular fate of appraisement. After the Restoration very many
books were missing; but scarcely a third part of the medals remained: of
the strange manner in which these precious remains of ancient art and
history were valued and disposed of, the following account may not be
read without interest.
In March, 1648, the parliament ordered commissioners to be appointed, to
inventory the goods and personal estate of the late king, queen, and
prince, and appraise them for the use of the public. And in April, 1648,
an act, adds Whitelocke, was committed for inventorying the late king's
goods, &c.[192]
This very inventory I have examined. It forms a magnificent folio, of
near a thousand pages, of an extraordinary dimension, bound in crimson
velvet, and richly gilt, written in a fair large hand, but with little
knowledge of the objects which the inventory writer describes. It is
entitled "An Inventory of the Goods, Jewels, Plate, &c. belonging to
King Charles the First, sold by order of the Council of State, from the
year 1619 to 1652." So that from the decapitation of the king, a year
was allowed to draw up the inventory; and the sale proceeded during
three years.
From this manuscript catalogue[193] to give long extracts were useless;
it has afforded, however, some remarkable observations. Every article
was appraised, nothing was sold under the affixed price, but a slight
competition sometimes seems to have raised the sum; and when the Council
of State could not get the sum appraised, the gold and silver were sent
to the Mint; and assuredly many fine works of art were valued by the
ounce. The names of the purchasers appear; they are usually English, but
probably many were the agents for foreign courts. The coins or medals
were thrown promiscuously into drawers; one drawer having twenty-four
medals, was valued at £2 10_s_.; another of twenty, at £1; another of
twenty-four, at £1; and one drawer, containing forty-six silver coins
with the box, was sold for £5. On the whole the medals seem not to have
been valued at much more than a shilling a-piece. The appraiser was
certainly no antiquary.
The king's curiosities in the Tower Jewel-house generally fetched above
the price fixed; the toys of art could please the unlettered minds that
had no conception of its works.
The Temple of Jerusalem, made of ebony and amber, fetched £25.
A fountain of silver, for perfumed waters, artificially made to play of
itself, sold for £30.
A chess-board, said to be Queen Elizabeth's, inlaid with gold, silver,
and pearls, £23.
A conjuring drum from Lapland, with an almanac cut on a piece of wood.
Several sections in silver of a Turkish galley, a Venetian gondola, an
Indian canoe, and a first-rate man-of-war.
A Saxon king's mace used in war, with a ball full of spikes, and the
handle covered with gold plates, and enamelled, sold for £37 8_s_.
A gorget of massy gold, chased with the manner of a battle, weighing
thirty-one ounces, at £3 10_s_. per ounce, was sent to the Mint.
A Roman shield of buff leather, covered with a plate of gold, finely
chased with a Gorgon's head, set round the rim with rubies, emeralds,
turquoise stones, in number 137, £132 12_s_.
The pictures, taken from Whitehall, Windsor, Wimbledon, Greenwich,
Hampton-Court, &c., exhibit, in number, an unparalleled collection. By
what standard they were valued, it would perhaps be difficult to
conjecture; from £50 to £100 seems to have been the limits of the
appraiser's taste and imagination. Some whose price is whimsically low
may have been thus rated from a political feeling respecting the
portrait of the person; there are, however, in this singular appraised
catalogue two pictures, which were rated at, and sold for, the
remarkable sums of one and of two thousand pounds. The one was a
sleeping Venus by Correggio, and the other a Madonna by Raphael. There
was also a picture by Julio Romano, called "The great piece of the
Nativity," at £500. "The little Madonna and Christ," by Raphael, at
£800. "The great Venus and Parde," by Titian, at £600. These seem to
have been the only pictures, in this immense collection, which reached a
picture's prices. The inventory-writer had, probably, been instructed by
the public voice of their value; which, however, would, in the present
day, be considered much under a fourth. Rubens' "Woman taken in
Adultery," described as a large picture, sold for £20; and his "Peace
and Plenty, with many figures big as the life," for £100. Titian's
pictures seem generally valued at £100.[194] "Venus dressed by the
Graces," by Guido, reached to £200.
The Cartoons of Raphael, here called "The Acts of the Apostles,"
notwithstanding their subject was so congenial to the popular feelings,
and only appraised at £300, could find no purchaser![195]
The following full-lengths of celebrated personages were rated at these
whimsical prices:
Queen Elizabeth in her parliament robes, valued £1.
The Queen-mother in mourning habit, valued £3.
Buchanan's picture, valued £3 10s.
The King, when a youth in coats, valued £2.
The picture of the Queen when she was with child, sold for five
shillings.
King Charles on horseback, by Sir Anthony Vandyke, was purchased by Sir
Balthazar Gerbier, at the appraised price of £200.[196]
The greatest sums were produced by the tapestry and arras hangings,
which were chiefly purchased for the service of the Protector. Their
amount exceeds £30,000. I note a few.
At Hampton-Court, ten pieces of arras hangings of Abraham, containing
826 yards at £10 a yard, £8260.