this is painted just before the war, and it's interesting to compare it with  a painting by the court painter, william dobson who worked in oxford during the war, his studio was just around the corner in the high street, because that's rupert very much at the end when things were going badly wrong for him, erm and it's unfinished, perhaps because dobson was beginning to run out of paint, and the experts at  allow, and i think just  that face tells the whole story about tension and unhappiness, dobson's an interesting painter, one of the first english painters who sort of get to the top in this way, and he painted a lot of the cavaliers at charles' court, erm this is sir john byron who clattered down the main street at st aldate's, before the king even arrived before the battle of edgehill, the one that caused trouble for john smith, erm and he was very much a swash-buckling character, but he didn't spend a lot of time in oxford later, but he was there enough to have his portrait painted.