This is the man whom Holbein painted when he was merely Master of the Jewel House and Clerk of the Hanaper of Chancery. He is shown, in Lord Caledon’s picture, at half-length, seated in a high-backed wooden seat, his head and body turned to the left, looking towards a window, only a small part of which is seen, with a small table beneath it covered with a Turkish cloth, on which papers are placed. He is dressed in a black surcoat with a deep fur collar, and a black cap. He rests his left elbow on another table in front of him, and holds a paper in his left hand, on the first finger of which is a heavy signet ring. The right hand is not shown. He is clean-shaven, and his bushy hair almost covers his ears and falls on the back of his neck. On the table are pen and ink, a richly-bound book with jewelled clasps, and several papers, on one of which is the inscription already quoted. On a second paper the word “Counseilor” can be deciphered at the head. The face, with its small eyes set closely together, its thin, compressed lips and double chin, and its sinister expression of cold determination, is a far from attractive one, and lays bare that side of Cromwell’s character for which he was so heartily hated by the Catholic party. In it is to be seen little of that other side of him, of which, after his downfall, Cranmer spoke, when writing to Henry on behalf of his old minister. “Cromwell,” he said, “was such a servant in my judgment, in wisdom, diligence, faithfulness, and experience, as no prince in this realm ever had.” A large scroll stretching across the top of the picture, evidently added after Cromwell’s death, contains a Latin inscription in his praise. The portrait is on panel, 30 in. × 24 in. [Sidenote: PORTRAITS OF THOMAS CROMWELL]