Note 2 — PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

I may perhaps take this opportunity of observing that the many portraits of the Queen of Bohemia which I have seen at Combe Abbey, at Herrenhausen, in the National Portrait Gallery, in Corpus Christi College Lodge, Cambridge, and elsewhere, do not all agree in details of feature, or, of course, of costume, though in most of them the Queen wears one of those mighty farthingales which her father (poor man!) in vain attempted to moderate. In most of her portraits her eyes are dark, in one at least they are slate-grey. In a contemporary account of her wedding special mention is made of the long flow of her amber-coloured hair, which descended to her waist; and I notice that Miss Wendland speaks of her children as ‘fair’ (blond) ‘like their beautiful mother.’ But of her appearance in later life we have a different account from the trustworthy hand of the Duchess of Orleans, who says that she remembered her grandmother as if she had been in her presence on the day of writing, and who notes her black hair, long face, and powerful nose. Elizabeth Charlotte adds that there was a great likeness between the Queen and her eldest son, of whom, as of her second, she was in his early days fond of speaking to the King, his father, as her ‘petit black babie.’ Altogether there can be no doubt that she was one of the ‘dark ladies’ to whom Shakespeare and others have attributed so peculiar a fascination, and for whom Goethe had so marked a preference. The other feature noted by the Duchess of Orleans was inherited by all of Elizabeth’s children whose portraits are accessible—notably by Prince Rupert and the Princesses Elizabeth and Sophia and her family, including numerous Honthorsts and some works ascribed, I suppose traditionally, to Louisa Hollandina’s active brush. More than a quarter of a century has passed since I had the privilege of paying a visit to Combe Abbey; but the memory of it has never left me.