A year later Van Dyck was knighted. Royal and noble commissions flowed upon him, and the king, who had a hereditary love of art, visited the painter continually, and spent some of the happiest and most innocent hours of his brief and clouded life in Van Dyck's company. Thus began Van Dyck's success in England.
To give you an example of how often, and in how many different manners, Van Dyck painted the king and royal family, I shall quote from a list of his pictures--
'King Charles in white satin, with his hat on, just descended from his horse; in the distance, view of the Isle of Wight.'
'King Charles in armour, on a white horse; Monsieur de St Antoine, his equerry, holding the king's helmet.'
'The King and Queen sitting; Prince Charles, very young, standing at the King's side; the Duke of York, an infant, on the Queen's knee.'
'The King and Queen holding a crown of laurel between them.'
'Prince Charles in armour' (two or three times).
'King, Queen, Prince Charles, and Princess Mary.'
'Queen with dwarfs,[44] Sir Geoffrey Hudson having a monkey on his shoulder.'
Van Dyck had several great patrons, after the king. For the Earl of Arundel, in addition to portraits of the Earl and Countess, the painter designed a second Arundel family picture, which was painted by Fruitiers. For George, Duke of Buckingham, Van Dyck painted one of his finest double portraits of the Duke's two sons, when children. For the Northumberland family Van Dyck painted, besides portraits of Henry and Algernon, Earls of Northumberland, another famous picture, that of the two beautiful sisters, Lady Dorothy Percy, afterwards Countess of Leicester, and her sister, Lady Lucy Percy, afterwards Countess of Carlisle, whose charms figure frequently in the memoirs of her time. William and Philip, Earls of Pembroke, were also among his patrons, and for the second he painted his great family picture, 'The Wilton Family.' Sir Kenelm Digby, too, whose wife Venitia was more frequently painted than any woman of her day, and was not more distinguished for her beauty than for her lack of nobler qualities. Van Dyck alone painted her several times, the last after her sudden death, for her vain and eccentric, if gallant, husband, who in the end was no friend to Van Dyck.