14. He was a lavish patron of the arts.
Be warned: believing yourself to have been appointed an infallible ruler by God gives you a massive ego. Charles was a preening peacock of a man who celebrated his God-given rule and greatness by patronising the finest artists in Europe to paint his portrait. Charles was patron to the great Flemish master Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), and got him to paint around 40 portraits of himself in various poses and 30 of the queen, to say nothing of the many portraits van Dyck produced of the royal children. Even for a king, this was astonishingly decadent behaviour.
It’s no good being elected by God if you don’t have a home to match. After visiting the Spanish Court in 1623, Charles fell in love with art, amassing a vast collection of 1, 760 paintings by Titian, Caravaggio and others over his lifetime and commissioning countless original pieces. But art collecting costs a hell of a lot of money, even if you’re king. Charles’s obsession with fine art meant that he swiftly spent his yearly allowance agreed by Parliament, and when he was forced to ask for more money this inevitably put him into conflict with MPs.
