lustration: CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES
_Royal Gallery, Turin_]

The contents refer wittily to the governor's advice about taking
medicine:--

"My lord,

"I would not have you take too much phisike for it doth always make me
worse; and I think it will doe the like with you. I ride every day,
and am ready to follow any other directions from you. Make haste back
to him that loves you,

"Charles P."

We see from this that the boy was early taught to ride, and was
doubtless trained in all manly sports. In the Stuart household dogs
were the favorite pets, and the young Charles seems always to have
been accompanied by one, now a collie, now a spaniel, now a great
boarhound. The queen had a peculiar fancy for dwarfs, which were in
this period common playthings of royalty. Little Geoffrey Hudson,
eighteen inches high, was an important member of the court, having
been presented to Henrietta Maria in a huge pie.[17]

[Footnote 17: As we read in Scott's novel, Peveril of the Peak.]

In our picture Prince Charles is about five years old. At this age, in
our modern fashions, a boy is dressed quite differently from a girl.
Here, however, the little prince's finery and his round lace cap
somewhat belie his manliness. Yet his short hair cut in a straight
fringe across the forehead is his boy's prerogative. The wide lace
collar was worn by men as well as boys, as we may see in the portraits
of the king and of the Duke of Lennox. We speak of it to-day as a
"Van Dyck collar."

The child has a winning face, with large round eyes and a mouth which
the flattering painter has shaped like a Cupid's bow. Though the
expression is perfectly child-like, there is a certain dignity in the
pose of the head, which makes the boy appear mature beyond his years.
Evidently Van Dyck meant everybody to know that this was a prince.

Prince Charles's happy boyhood came to an end at the breaking out of
the Civil War. Though he was then only twelve years of age, he and his
brother, Prince James, followed their father to the battlefield,
suffering cold and hunger and even the dangers of the enemy's bullets.
At the age of sixteen, the Prince of Wales joined his mother in Paris.
Upon the execution of his father he at once assumed the title of King
Charles II., and in the following year was crowned at Scone in
Scotland at the age of twenty-one. Putting himself at the head of the
Scottish army, he advance