Note 46 — Chapter XI · ADAPTED OR PALIMPSEST PLATES (continued).

Since writing this I paid a visit to the Hall of the Middle Temple, when the very intelligent custodian told me that Cromwell ordered the great Vandyck, which hangs over the high table, to be taken down, and his own somewhat repellent countenance painted in in the place of that of Charles I. Fortunately for posterity this outrageous order was not carried out. The whole affair reminds one of the unconsciously grim entry in a certain bookseller’s catalogue which ran, “Memoirs of Charles the First with a head capitally executed.”