PHILIP, LORD WHARTON
Philip, Lord Wharton, was an English nobleman of nearly the same age as the Duke of Lennox, and the two were painted by Van Dyck at about the same time. In both young men are apparent the same signs of gentle birth and breeding, a dignity of bearing, and a repose of manner characteristic of their class. That they were quite different in essential character, however, we shall presently see.
Lord Wharton was the fourth baron of his family and the second of the name Philip. He succeeded to his title as he was entering his teens, and at the age of nineteen he had become one of the most attractive figures at the court of Charles I. In this year he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Rowland Wandesford. It was in honor of this occasion that the portrait of our illustration was painted.
Of a lover so handsome and graceful, the promised bride may well have been proud. His dress is rich and picturesque: the jacket is of violet velvet, the mantle of yellow satin, and the costume is set off by delicate laces at the throat and wrists. These were days when the men vied with women in fondness for finery.
Lord Wharton was at this time on terms of friendly intimacy with the king and queen. It was a flattering mark of royal favor when the king presented the young courtier with two full-length portraits of himself and of Queen Henrietta, painted by Van Dyck. Perhaps the artistic tastes they had in common formed the bond of friendship between them. Lord Wharton, it appears, admired Van Dyck's portrait work almost as much as King Charles. On his second marriage, five years later, he employed the artist to paint a number of family portraits. He prized these so highly that he built a gallery specially for them in his new house at Winchendon.
The time soon came when more strenuous questions occupied him. The contest between the king and the Parliament brought every Englishman to a parting of the ways. Lord Wharton was a Puritan, and took a decided stand on the side of Parliament. His personal relations with the king were outweighed by his sense of patriotic duty.
At the breaking out of the war he entered the Parliamentary army, serving successively as colonel of a regiment of foot, and as a captain of a troop of horse. He took part in the battle of Edgehill, and was brought into considerable prominence at this time. In a famous speech made soon afterwards, he charged the king's nephew, Prince Rupert, with gross "inhumanity and barbarousness" during the course of the battle. Evidently where his mind was made up, Lord Wharton was a strong partisan.
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