Painters in the Reign of Henry VIII. 113 



you ever pretend to revenge yourfelf, I fhall 

 look on any injury offered to the painter 

 as done to myfelf." Henry's behaviour is 

 certainly the moil probable part of the 

 ftory. * 



After the death of Jane Seymour, Hol- 

 bein was fent to Flanders to draw the pidlure 

 of the duchefs dowager of Milan f , widow 

 of Francis Sforza, whom Charles V. had re- 

 commended to Henry for a fourth wife, 

 but afterwards changing his mind, pre- 

 vented him from marrying. Among the 

 Harleian MSS. there is a letter from Sir 

 Thomas Wyat to the king, congratulating 

 his majefly on his efcape, as the duchefs's 

 chaftity was a little equivocal. If it was, 

 confidering Henry's temper, I am apt to 

 think that the duchefs had the greater 

 efcape. It was about the fame time that it 

 is faid fhe herfelf fent the king word, 

 *^ That fhe had but one head ; if Ihe had 



* Lovelace, in his colledioii of poems called Lucalla, 

 has an epigram on this fubjed, but it is not worth re- 

 peating. 



t Chrifliana daughter of ChrilHern king of Den- 

 mark. Lord Herbert fays that Holbein drew her pic- 

 ture in three hours", p. 496. 



VoLrl. H '' two, 



