Ernest, Count of Mansfeld (d. 1626), was a soldier on the protestant side in the Thirty Years’ War. He had been defeated at the battle of Dessau and set off for Vienna a small band of officers. On 29 November 1626 he felt that death was approaching him and took off his helmet and cuirass. Two companions supported him, and he died standing upright with his sword in his hand. Prince Albert and his brother Ernest had visited Queen Victoria at Windsor in October 1839, and the Queen wrote to her uncle, ‘Albert's beauty is most striking, and he is so amiable and unaffected—in short, very fascinating; he is excessively admired here’. She proposed to Albert, and they were married in February 1840. This painting arrived on 31 December 1839 when the Prince had returned to Coburg to make preparations for the wedding. Queen Victoria noted enthusiastically that it was ‘so well painted & shows such talent’.