Charles I: King and Collector review – majestic collection fit for an unfit king

Royal Academy, London
This blockbuster show is chock-full of masterpieces. So why is our critic calling for revolution?

Just for a moment the tapestry of grandeur parts to reveal the brutal truth. Armies clash on an English field in a chaos of smoke and horses. From under a furled flag peers the grey, dead face of the monster Medusa, snakes writhing on her severed head. This hideous face and the armies behind it suggest all is not well with the British monarchy. In the foreground stands the young crown prince, Charles I’s eldest son. Still barely a teenager when this was painted in the early 1640s, he is portrayed by William Dobson with the proud bearing of a war leader. The painting prophesies that he will become a fearsome fighter. Like Medusa’s head that turned those who looked upon it to stone, his royal eye will petrify his enemies.

That, of course, is not what happened. Charles I was a catastrophic king who alienated his people and parliament so totally that by 1642 he provoked civil war in England, not to mention big trouble in Scotland and Ireland. Defeated and captured, in 1649 he was beheaded. His son fled abroad, and England became a republic until 1660.

Mantegna's Triumphs hang in a glorified garden shed at Hampton Court. They should be part of the national imagination

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