Having trained under his father, Henry Bone (1755-1834), Henry Pierce Bone became a successful and respected miniaturist and enamellist in his own right. He was truly his father’s student and is known to have used some of his preparatory drawings to produce copies on enamel. After the death of his father in 1834, he continued to produce a series of historical enamels of the Kings and Queens of England, from Edward III to Queen Victoria, a subject matter that he would have been used to, as he had worked as Enamel Painter to William IV, Queen Adelaide, the Duchess of Kent and to Prince Albert. His examples of work on enamel, like the present, are exceptional, and the result of a painstakingly difficult process of creation.

The portrait by William Dobson from which this derives is in the collection of the Royal Museums Greenwich [ID: BHC3133] and described as ‘one of Dobson’s most glowingly coloured works’.[1] It was likely painted when Charles I was at Oxford during the Civil War and was evidently thought to depict Lucas when Bone copied it in 1843 and 1849, but this identification has since been revised. Now identified simply as an unknown Royalist, it nevertheless was probably commissioned to demonstrate loyalty to the embattled king. It is a striking portrait, and one that translates well onto the vibrant medium of enamel. Bone also made a large copy of the full oil portrait in 1843 which measures nearly 7 inches high and is now in the collection of the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore [accession no.38.99].

Charles Lucas was one of eight children of Thomas Lucas (1573-1625), a barrister of St John's, Colchester, and his wife, Elizabeth Leighton (d.1647), a London heiress; his younger sister was the famous writer, scientist and philosopher, Margaret Cavendish (née Lucas), Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne (1623?–1673). Charles was knighted by Charles I in 1639, and during the English Civil Wars, he served in the Royalist army alongside Prince Rupert until 1644. Lucas was a skilled and brave leader within the army, and Edward Hyde, 1st Earl Clarendon, despite his criticism, described him as 'very brave in his person, and in a day of battle a gallant man to look upon and follow'[2]. At the Battle of Marston Moor, in July 1644, Lucas was taken prisoner, but in the winter of the same year was freed through exchange and appointed the Governor of Berkeley Castle. In March 1646, he was taken prisoner again at Stow-on-the Wold, as second-in-command to Sir Jacob Astley. Though he was released on parole by Fairfax, taking an oath to not bear arms against parliament in the future.

This was not the end of Lucas’s Royalist career, however. In 1648 he would join the Royalist insurgents of Essex in occupying Colchester, which they entered on June 13th. This occupation was soon ended by Fairfax and his troops, who swiftly up from Kent, and entered the city on the 28th August. Though some of his fellow insurgents were saved by Fairfax to await their judgement in Parliament, Lucas was forced to surrender to mercy, meaning that his sentence was left up to the commander. He was taken to Colchester Castle, and shot by six dragoons. It is said that before his death he was kissed by his fellow Royalist Sir George Lisle, who would be shot next.

It may have been Bone’s royal connection that influenced him to copy what he believed to be a portrait of Lucas two centuries after his death. Lucas had become a Royalist martyr, and a symbol of the sacrifices that were made for the Royal Family during the turbulent years of the seventeenth century. It is possible that this could have been created to commemorate the death of the brave soldier, nearly two hundred years after his death.

[1] Portrait of a Royalist, c.1643, William Dobson, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich– excerpt from the online catalogue https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-14606 - accessed 5 September 2024

[2]Edward Hyde, 1st Earl Clarendon, 1702-04, The History of Rebellion, vol.XI, p.108.