at we can trace. These
were usually sent away as presents. And it is believed that in the seven
years Van Dyck lived in England he painted nearly one thousand portraits.

The courtly manner and chivalrous refinement of the Fleming made him a
prime favorite of Charles. He was even more kingly than the King.

In less than three months after he arrived in England Charles publicly
knighted him, and placed about his neck a chain of gold to which was
attached a locket, set with diamonds, containing a picture of the King.

A record of Van Dyck's affairs of the heart would fill a book. His old
habit of falling in love with every lady patron grew upon him. His
reputation went abroad, and his custom of thawing the social ice by
talking soft nonsense to the lady on the sitter's throne, while it
repelled some allured others.

At last Charles grew nettled and said that to paint Lady Digby as "The
Virgin" might be all right, and even to turn around and picture her as
"Susanna at the Bath" was not necessarily out of place, but to show
Margaret Lemon, Anne Carlisle and Catherine Wotton as "The Three Graces"
was surely bad taste. And furthermore, when these same women were shown
as "Psyche," "Diana" and the "Madonna"--just as it happened--it was
really too much!

In fact, the painter must get married; and the King and Queen selected
for him a wife in the person of a Scottish beauty, Maria Ruthven.

Had this proposition come a few years before, the proud painter would
have flouted it. But things were changed. Twinges of gout and sharp
touches of sciatica backed up the King's argument that to reform were the
part of wisdom. Van Dyck's manly shape was tending to embonpoint: he had
evolved a double chin, the hair on his head was rather seldom, and he
could no longer run upstairs three steps at a time. Yes, he would get
married, live the life of a staid, respectable citizen, and paint only
religious subjects. Society was nothing to him--he would give it up
entirely.

And so Sir Anthony Van Dyck was married to Maria Ruthven, at Saint Paul's
Cathedral, and the King gave the bride away, ceremonially and in fact.

Sir Anthony's gout grew worse, and after some months the rheumatism took
an inflammatory turn. Other complications entered, which we would now
call Bright's Disease--that peculiar complaint of which poor men stand in
little danger.

The King offered the Royal Physician a bonus of five hundred pounds if he
would cure Van Dyck: