Thus encouraged, Elizabeth resolved to send her second son to join his brother; though with little hope that "Rupert le Diable" would prove an equal success with the young Elector. "For blood's sake I hope he will be welcome," she wrote; "though I believe he will not trouble your ladies with courting them, nor be thought a very _beau garcon_, which you slander his brother with." And she entreated Sir Henry Vane "a little to give good counsel to Rupert, for he is still a little giddy, though not so much as he has been. Pray tell him when he does ill, for he is good-natured enough, but does not always think of what he should do."[9] But the mother's judgment erred, for the despised Rupert won all hearts at the English Court, so completely as to throw his brother into the shade. Doubtless the jeers of his mother had helped to render him shy and awkward at the Hague; now, for the first time, he found himself free to develop unrestrained, in a congenial atmosphere. The natural force of his character showed itself at once, and his quick wit and vivacity charmed the grave King. "I have observed him," reported Sir Thomas Roe, "full of spirit and action, full of observation and judgment; certainly he will _reussir un grand homme (sic)_; for whatsoever he wills he wills vehemently, so that to what he bends he will in it be excellent... His Majesty takes great pleasure in his unrestfulness, for he is never idle; in his sports serious, in his conversation retired, but sharp and witty when occasion provokes him."[10] In his love for the arts King Charles found another point of sympathy with his nephew. The English Court was then the most splendid in Europe; Charles's collections of pictures, sculptures, and art treasures were the finest of the times. He was himself so proficient a musician that an enemy remarked later, that he might have earned his {24} living by his art.[11] Rubens, Van Dyke and other famous artists, sculptors and musicians were familiar figures at the Court. In a word, the society which Charles gathered round him was cultivated and intellectual to the highest degree. To a boy like Rupert, sensitive, excitable, and intensely artistic in feeling, there was something intoxicating in this feast of the senses and intellect, so suddenly offered to him. Nor was this all. The Queen and her ladies, so famous for their wit and beauty, marked him for their own; and before he had been many days in England, the boy found himself the chief pet and favourite of his fascinating aunt. Queen Henrietta, who had a passion for proselytising, soon saw in her handsome young nephew a hopeful subject for conversion to the Roman Church; and Rupert, on his part, was not a little drawn by the artistic aspect of her religion.