There are several portraits extant of Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, notably the one by Antonio Moro in the Pitti Gallery at Florence.
But in the somewhat stiff portraiture of that epoch it is perhaps a little difficult to trace the real image, the inner individuality of one of the most interesting personalities at the Court of Mary Tudor.
There is, however, a miniature of him, attributed to Holbein, and certainly drawn by the hand of a great master, which renders with greater truth and loving accuracy the peculiar charm made up of half-indolent nonchalance, gracious condescension, and haughty reserve which characterized the Duke of Wessex.
So justly styled His Grace!
The reserve was so little apparent. The hauteur only came to the surface in response to unwelcome familiarity. But the debonair indolence was always there, the lazy droop of the lids, the nonchalant shrug of the shoulders, when grave matters were discussed, and also that obvious fastidiousness—a love of everything that was beautiful, from a fine horse, down to a piece of delicate lace—which annoyed the more sedate-minded courtiers of the Queen.
And with it all that wonderful virility and vigour, that joy of life and delight in gaiety and laughter which lent to the grave face at times a spark of almost boyish exuberance; that mad, merry, proud insouciance, which throughout his life made him meet every danger—aye! every sorrow and disgrace—with the same bright smile on his lips.
Scheyfne, in his letters to the emperor, Charles V, says of the Duke of Wessex that he was insufferably conceited—"il est tres orgueilleux de sa beauté personelle, laquelle certes est plus que médiocre."
Noailles, too, speaks of him as "moult fatueux et vaniteux de sa personne."
But it was hardly likely that these foreign delegates, each bent upon their own schemes, would look with favour upon His Grace. His only merit in their eyes was that same characteristic indolence of his, which caused a man of his great wealth and boundless influence to abstain from politics.
Certes no one could accuse him of intriguing for his own political advancement. Mary Tudor's own avowed penchant for him was so well known, that he had but to say the word and the crown of England would be his, to share with the Queen.