THERE is only one portrait by Holbein bearing the date 1533 which can be said with any certainty to represent an Englishman. This is the very beautiful one of Robert Cheseman, now in the Hague Gallery, which has been known for so long under the erroneous title of “Henry VIII’s Falconer” (Pl. 11).[104] It represents a man holding a much higher social position than that of a mere keeper of hawks. Henry’s falconers were paid at a rate which did not permit them to employ the services of the leading artist of the day should they wish—which is not at all probable—to have their portraits painted. Their wages, in fact, ranged between fifty and twenty shillings a month. Cheseman, in common with other gentlemen of that period, chose to be painted with his favourite hawk upon his wrist, for the same reason that the country squires of the eighteenth century were so often depicted with their favourite dogs. Another example of this habit is to be seen in the equally fine portrait by Holbein of an unknown man, also in the Hague Gallery, dated 1542, who is evidently a gentleman, and not a professional falconer.[105] Footnote 104: Woltmann, 159. Reproduced by Davies, p. 158; Knackfuss, fig. 122; Ganz, _Holbein_, p. 102; and elsewhere. Footnote 105: See p. 203. [Illustration: VOL. II., PLATE 11 ROBERT CHESEMAN 1533 ROYAL PICTURE GALLERY, MAURITSHUIS, THE HAGUE ] [Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF ROBERT CHESEMAN] Robert Cheseman, of Dormanswell, near Norwood, in Middlesex, and Northcote, in Essex, was a man of wealth, and one of the leading commoners of the first-named county. He was born in 1485, son and heir of Edward Cheseman, Cofferer and Keeper of the Wardrobe to Henry VII, and succeeded to the family estates in 1517. His father is mentioned in a pardon granted on March 2nd, 1486,[106] “to Edward Cheseman of London, gentleman, of all fines, forfeitures, etc., due to the King or to Richard III, late, in deed and not of right, King of England,” which was granted him as one of the executors of the will of Thomas Windesore, Constable of Windsor Castle. There was also a William Cheseman, probably an uncle of Robert, who in 1485 and 1486 received grants of the offices of bailiff of the rapes of Lewes and of Braneburgh, and of Clerk of the Market of the town of Lewes, “in consideracion of the true and feithfulle service that our welbeloved servaunt and true liegeman William Cheseman hathe doone unto us, as well in the parties of beyonde the see, as at oure late victorious felde within this oure royaume.”[107] Footnote 106: Rev. William Campbell, _Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII_, Rolls Publications, 1873, p. 336. Footnote 107: _Ibid._, p. 345.