But although he fled from his wife, he painted her portrait; and we need no testimony to warrant the likeness.  She is the very type of one of those meek shrews, alternately a martyr and a fury, that drive a man to madness when they speak and to despair when they are silent.  We might reasonably wonder that he would paint so vivid a representation of that which he so sedulously shunned.  But poor Hans, who probably had some lingering remains of his early love, knew, that, although he should make a speaking likeness, it would be a silent one, and that this Frau Holbein must keep the look which he chose to summon to her face.  That, indeed, was knowledge that was power!  How he must have chuckled as he saw his wife looking at him more natural than life and yet without the power to worry him!  His own portrait shows us a broad, good-natured, ruddy face, in which we see marks of talent when we know that it is Holbein’s.  But in spite of its strength, its bronze, and its beard, it has a somewhat sad and subdued air; and its heavy-lidded, pensive eyes look deprecatingly at a Frau Holbein in the distance.

While he lived at Greenwich palace, an incident occurred which may not be known to all our readers, and which is a striking illustration of the esteem in which he was held by Henry.  It is not a little to the honor of that monarch, who, arbitrary and sensual as he was, had some noble traits of character.  One day, as Holbein was painting a lady’s portrait in his private studio, a nobleman intruded upon him rudely.  Holbein resented the discourtesy, and, as it was doggedly persisted in, finally threw my lord downstairs.  There was an outcry; and the painter, bolting his door on the inside, escaped from his window along the eaves of the roof, and, making his way directly to the King, threw himself before him and begged a pardon, without telling his offence.  Henry promised forgiveness on condition of a full confession, which the painter began.  But meantime the nobleman arrived, and Henry, in deference to his rank, gave him precedence, and stepped into another apartment to hear his story.  He accused Holbein of the violence, but suppressed the provocation; whereat Henry broke into a towering Tudor rage, and, after reproaching the nobleman for his prevarication, said, “You have to do with me, Sir.  I tell you, that of seven peasants I could make seven earls like you; but of seven earls I could not make one Holbein.  Do not molest him, if you value your head.”  And as second-hand heads, though plentiful about those days, were found to be of no value, even to the original owner, Holbein remained unmolested.