Page:Hutton, William Holden - Hampton Court (1897).djvu/253

Rh skill in the painting of the great ship, with her sails set, leaving the harbour. The "Battle of the Spurs" again presents the King in his gold armour. The "Field of the Cloth of Gold" itself displays the extraordinary minuteness in which the court painters of the age delighted. It is like a newspaper report or a photograph. Every historical incident is crowded into the canvas, and thus as a picture of the social order the work is invaluable. There is spirit, too, in the charming insouciance with which riders hurry hither and thither, kings meet, or stately ladies proceed in impressive line. To the "school of Holbein" may be ascribed, with the laxity of catalogue-makers, the stiff composition, rich with gold in canopy and decorative work, No. 340. It is strangely mis-labelled as it now stands. The catalogue of Charles I. says, "A long piece painted with gold, where King Henry VIII. sits with his Queen, and his son Prince Edward on the right side, and his two daughters, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, standing at each side, and a fool at the left side in the door, with a jackanapes on his shoulder, and on the other side a waiting-woman." The Queen is probably Catherine Parr; on the right is Elizabeth, on the left Mary. The fool is the famous Will Somers, and the woman is probably "Jane the fool." The picture has special interest here because the background, through archways, shows the old Tudor garden of Hampton Court, exactly as the accounts describe it, with painted wooden rails and the king and queen beasts. The portrait of Henry