Unfortunately, Hobart did not live to see the new manor he commissioned, the design of which he entrusted to the preeminent architect Robert Lyminge, but it is extant today and remains one of the finest surviving examples of high Jacobean architecture in England.

The only notable variant between this version and that at Blickling Hall [Fig. 2] is the different accoutrements positioned by his left hand: the Blickling version shows a fashionable wide-brimmed felt hat, whilst our version shows a decoratively embroidered privy burse, which presumably alludes to his former position as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal to Prince Charles.[1] Hobart had presumably become acquainted with Daniel Mytens whilst serving as Prince Charles’s chancellor; indeed, Hobart had obtained the lease of a house for the artist on St Martin’s Lane upon directions from the Prince of Wales in 1624. It is then thought that Hobart sat to Mytens for his portrait on 22 December 1624, merely months before his death.[2]

Sitting proudly upon the deep red, ermine-lined robes is Hobart’s gold chain of office. The saturated scarlet and pure white of his ermine fur cloak – as well as his voluminous white ruff and intricately embroidered lace cap – contrast with brilliant effect. It is a remarkably grand likeness, especially comparing the composition to the earliest portrait of Hobart, which was acquired by the National Trust for Blickling Hall from The Weiss Gallery in 2022. In this composition he wears a much simpler, though undoubtedly expensive black silk costume, which was likely commissioned to celebrate his acquisition of the Blickling estate in 1616 [Fig. 3].

This portrait’s artist, Daniel Mytens, travelled to London from the Netherlands, circa 1618, and remained in the city until 1634, when he returned to The Hague. Following the death of Paul van Somer in 1622, Mytens took over the position of court portraitist to King James VI & I (1566 – 1625), whose portrait he had first painted in 1621 (National Portrait Gallery, London). In 1624, the year before Charles I ascended the throne, he was honoured with the grant of an annual royal pension. Mytens was commissioned to produce a series of full-lengths of the monarch which were as usual painted for reasons of state and diplomacy. He flourished at court until the arrival of the Flemish giant, Anthony van Dyck in 1632. At the end of his career, he retired to The Hague, where he was to act as art agent, collecting for his old patron the Earl of Arundel. Mytens’ art tends to be categorised as transitional between the highly formalised portraits of the Jacobean period and the more painterly ‘modern’ images of Van Dyck, but this hardly does justice to his best work, which has virtues of a descriptive accuracy, and part of a Europe-wide move towards a new kind of realism.

Born to Thomas Hobart of Plumstead and Audrey Hare of Beeston, Henry Hobart’s great-grandfather, Sir James Hobart, had served as Attorney-General and Privy Councillor to Henry VII. As the second son, Henry pursued a career in the law, attending Peterhouse, Cambridge and entering Lincoln's Inn in 1576. He was called to the Bar in 1584 and appointed Recorder of Great Yarmouth and Steward of City of Norwich, representing both boroughs in Parliament. In 1590 he married Dorothy Bell (d. 1641), daughter of Sir Robert Bell of Beaupre Hall, Outwell in Norfolk, Chief Baron of the Exchequer under Elizabeth I and they went on to have an extensive family of twelve sons and four daughters.

Sir Henry was knighted on 23 July 1603 at the Coronation of King James I, and appointed Serjeant-at-Law the same year. Thanks to the patronage of Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, in 1605 he was given the lucrative post Attorney of Court of Wards. As a staunch Defender of the King's prerogative in debates on purveyance and impositions, he endeavoured ‘as evenly as I can, to walk between the King's right and the people's freedom’ and was heavily involved in clarifying the legal implications of the Union with Scotland.

Hobart was appointed Attorney General in 1606 in succession to Sir Edward Coke, another great jurist of Norfolk extraction. His appointment blocked Sir Francis Bacon, incurring long-lasting hostility. Bacon jealously observed that ‘nibbling solemnly, he distinguishes but apprehends not... [he has] no gift with his pen in proclamations and the like.’ Hobart’s influence at Court was reflected in the baronetcy bestowed on him in 1611. He served briefly as Chancellor to Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, before the Prince’s shocking early death from typhoid on 6 November 1612 and was appointed Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1613, again in succession to Coke, and Chancellor and Keeper of the Seal to Henry’s younger brother Prince Charles, from 3 April 1617.

Hobart accumulated extensive wealth during the course of his long career, with his annual income exceeding £8,000 by the 1620s. He spent approximately £55,000 over thirty years on purchase of landed estates, primarily in Norfolk. He was a canny investor with an eye for agricultural improvement, also evident in his re-organisation of Crown estates and the Duchy of Cornwall. He was also a member of, and investor in, the Virginia Company, the North West Passage Company and the East India Company. Notably, his younger son Robert emigrated c. 1645 to Jamestown, Virginia, depleted by the Anglo-Powhatan wars, and rose to prominence in the Colony.

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In 1616 he acquired Blickling Hall and commissioned the renowned architect Robert Lyminge to re-build the property and today it is one of the most impressive National Trust estates. Blickling was designed in the high Jacobean style that Lyminge had used some twelve years earlier in his construction of Hatfield House for Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, with whom Hobart was closely aligned, and inevitably influenced. Both Hatfield House and Blickling Hall represent the crowning achievements of that period, even as a new era of Baroque design took root. Furthermore, both Hobart and Cecil commissioned the artist John de Critz to paint their portraits.[3]

Sir Henry died on 26 December 1625, before the construction of Blickling Hall was complete. He was buried in Blickling church and, following his death, his Norfolk neighbour Sir Henry Spelman lamented it as ‘a great loss to the commonweal’. His relation by marriage, Henry Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham,[4] 1st Earl of Nottingham, later edited and published the legal notes Hobart had compiled for his own use as ‘The Reports of that Learned Sir Henry Hobart Knight’.

- We are grateful to Dr. Richard Grigson for his assistance in supplying this biographical information about Sir Henry Hobart.

[1] The British Library holds a copy of this seal.

[2] E. Waterhouse, Painting in Britain, 1530 – 1790, London 1953, p. 35.

Account Book of Sir Henry Hobart, under 22 Dec. 1624 (MS005/10/0*.) – “To Mr Daniell Mittens the picture drawer by the hands of Sr John Hobart in parte of payment for ye drawing of yr Lorpps picture.”

[3] Roy Strong suggests that other portraits of Hobart dating from circa 1620 were painted by de Critz (engraved by Simon van de Passe), with a third type by Daniel Mytens at Blickling Hall.

[4] His wife’s niece, Frances, daughter of Sir Edward Bell and wife of Heneage Finch (one of Sir Henry’s three executors), was the mother of Henry Finch.