Next, Lord Conway entered Whitehall, where he firmly but politely informed the French servants of the Queen of his errand. They were to go first to Somerset House in the Strand, where he proposed to make separate arrangements for each of them. The women screamed and stormed, and after Conway had given them reasonable time, he summoned the yeomen of the guard, who thrust them out forcibly and locked the doors after them. They went to Somerset House, where Charles himself visited them the same afternoon. More than a month later they were still at Somerset House, when Lord Conway was again called in; but, what with the obstinacy of the Bishop, and the clamour of the women, it took four days and forty carriages to transport them to Dover. The whole story is in Ellis’s _Letters_, and in _D’Israeli’s Curiosities of Literature_, and is well summarised by Jesse in his _Court of England under the Stuarts_, to which I may refer a reader interested in the subject; my own concern having, of course, been only with that part which related to Whitehall. That Charles should have been forced into war, and, above all, a civil war, was a great misfortune to the progress of civilisation, as shown in the arts and sciences. Painting, music, architecture flourished at his Court, together with poetry and science. He probably brought more fine pictures into England than all the kings put together since his time. Walpole says, “As there was no art which Charles did not countenance, the chasers and embossers of plate were among the number of the protected at Court.” Casting in bronze was a favourite art, and Fanelli, who made the statues of Charles and his Queen at St. John’s College, Oxford, should be named, as well as Le Sœur, who made the King’s equestrian statue which is now at Charing Cross, but which was originally made for Lord Portland and set up at Roehampton. The King’s cabinet pictures were lodged at Whitehall in a chamber expressly built for them by Inigo Jones. Undoubtedly the pictures were, of all his works of art, those which Charles chiefly loved. He contrived to acquire a magnificent collection, and it is evident from one or two entries that Jones had a general commission not to let anything slip which would prove a desirable addition to the royal gallery. Although his taste lay chiefly in ancient pictures, Charles largely patronised Van Dyck, and Van Dyck’s principal pupils and contemporaries, such as Janssen, Walker, and Dobson. Moreover, he bought on occasion lavishly. The collection of the Duke of Mantua came into the market, and was bought whole by the agents of King Charles. He hung it on the walls of the Banqueting House, but intended to have embellished that building with paintings by Van Dyck, representing ceremonials of the Order of the Garter. These would naturally have comprised portraits of most of the great men of the day. There was also a scheme on foot for establishing a school of art somewhat on the lines of our Royal