A friend took me to The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace to see Art & Power, an exhibition almost entirely composed of Charles II’s acquisitions.
It is stupendous in its breadth and quality. Any gallery in the world would beg, borrow or steal to mount such a show, except The Queen’s Gallery doesn’t have to stoop to such tactics. Everything comes from The Royal Collection.
In January 1649, Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, was convicted of treason and publicly beheaded outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall. After years of civil war, the nation became a Commonwealth (a republic), led by the Parliamentarian General, Oliver Cromwell and strongly influenced by Puritan beliefs. Charles’s family were forced into exile, the royal regalia were destroyed and the valuable contents of the palaces were sold.
The Commonwealth was short-lived, however, and on 8 May 1660 Parliament proclaimed Charles I’s eldest son – Charles II – king. The monarchy and the Stuart dynasty were restored, to the great joy of the nation. This exhibition explores the art, architecture and furnishings of Charles II’s magnificent court.
It demonstrates how art in all its forms played a crucial role in expressing and legitimising the authority of the restored monarchy following a period of extreme social and political upheaval. It also looks at the patronage and public perception of Charles’s ill-fated, Catholic brother James, Duke of York who briefly succeeded him in 1685 as James II.
At the Restoration court, art and power were inseparable. Neither Charles nor James wielded the absolutist power of their European counterparts and fears over Catholic tyranny were rife. Yet, the magnificence of the palaces, the display of significant art, the perpetuation of the king’s image, royal ceremony and tradition were central to the re-establishment of a powerful and, for a time, a much-loved monarchy.
The exhibition gives a more nuanced account of the reign of Charles II and his brother James II than that summary. Popish plots, the Fire of London, Anglo-Dutch wars are all included as well as the magnificence of Charles’s coronation at Westminster Abbey. I got a bit bogged down in the rooms with engravings and miniatures but the drawings by Holbein are not to be missed. What is of absorbing interest are the pictures.
I have seen this before in exhibitions here but I had never seen this.
Bridget Holmes (d. 1691), shown here at the reputed age of 96, was James II’s ‘Necessary Woman’, responsible for cleaning and preparing the royal bedchamber, polishing and dusting fragile furniture and, with the assistance of other servants, laying fires, mopping and sweeping, and emptying and cleaning chamber pots and close stool pans. Holmes was paid well for this work: in 1685, as recorded in the king’s establishment book, she was paid £60 salary, £10 10s for her lodgings and £21 5s for ‘all kind of necessaries in lieu of Bills’. She continued in service under William III, and on her death – supposedly aged 100 – she was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey; on her monument it was noted that she had also served Charles I and Charles II.
The inscription on her grave has worn away so it’s fortunate that somebody jotted it down:
Here lies the body of Bridget Holmes, widow, who died October 23 1691 aged 100 years on St Luke’s Eve last and served King Charles I and II, King James II and King William.
I’m not sure I have done justice to such an absorbing exhibition but I have saved up a punchline. Over at the Royal Academy they have a father exhibition: Charles I: King and Collector. Amazing that there is enough to furnish two exhibitions. My host at Art & Power is no slouch on pictures and recommends King and Collector but he was unaware that Charles II was a collector on such a colossal scale too.