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PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING 5
however, of the ' Invention of the Cross', with the legend of
the Empress, St. Helena, the ' Murder of St. Thomas k
Becket ', ' The Day of Judgement', and ' St. George and
the Dragon ', were visible during Shakespeare's schooldays.
The churches and chapels of England were frequently
decorated with paintings in this way. Few, however,
escaped the destroying hand of the reformer, and those
which survive have only been rescued from under obliterating
coats of whitewash.
After settling in London in 1586 Shakespeare would be
brought into contact with the arts in a still more definite
way. Henry VII was the first king to encourage the fine
arts at the same time as he promoted commerce, and the
dearth of native artists led to the employment of artists
from the Netherlands and Italy. Henry VIII followed
this policy further, stimulated by a desire to outshine his
contemporary, Francis I of France, and to divert the springs
of art, or at all events some portion of them, from France
to England. These fountain-springs were unfortunately
not of the purest artistic quality; they were tainted with
the adulterated and unrefined paganism of the Renaissance,
and such artistic effort as reached England was by no means
the choicest in general tone. England in Tudor days liked
strong meat. A reaction set in under the Protestant King
Edward VI, when many artistic treasures were destroyed
by religious fanatics, and it continued under the devout
Roman Catholic Queen Mary, but under Elizabeth the arts
returned to their grosser fancies.
The reign of Elizabeth saw the rise of the picture
collector. The saloons and galleries of Leicester's castle of
Kenilworth, near Shakespeare's birthplace, were adorned
by portraits at full length or on smaller scale in the rich
costumes of the period which Holbein had made fashionable.
If Shakespeare ever performed before the Queen at Nonesuch
Palace at Cheam in Surrey, the splendid residence of John,
Lord Lumley (d. 1609), he would have seen there part of the
extraordinary collection of historical portraits formed by
the owner either by his own acquisition or by inheritance
from his father-in-law, Henry FitzAlan, twelfth Earl of
Arundel. Lord Lumley was one of the first great collectors
of pictures, books, manuscripts, and other objects, both at
Nonesuch and at his northern home, Lumley Castle. Most