Lot Essay
After the full-length original of circa 1637 in the Cavendish-Bentick Collection, Welbeck Abbey. The sitter was the only surviving son of Sir Charles Cavendish of Welbeck Abbey. At the outbreak of the Civil War he raised a three thousand strong regiment of Foot, known as the White Coats, who played a key role in the defence of the North defeating Fairfax and retaining most of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. After the Royalist disaster at the battle of Marston Moor in July 1644 Cavendish left England for Hamburg and later Paris where he joined the court-in-exile of the young King Charles II. At the Restoration he was rewarded with the Dukedom of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 'The Loyal Duke' married firstly Elizabeth Bassett (d.1643) and secondly Margaret Lucas (1617-1674) in the chapel of Richard Browne in Paris. Browne's future son-in-law, John Evelyn, also in Paris at the time, recorded the events in his diaries.