Watercolor, approximately 6 x 10.5 inches. Tate Gallery, London.

Windus shows on the left Henry with his son Edward, his wife Margaret, and his retainer Exeter fleeing from the battlefield near Towton. In the foreground, dominating the composition, is one of the swains Henry has so envied in the soliloquy that begins this scene in Henry VI, Part 3 (Act II, Scene v). Before Margaret, Edward and Exeter enter, Henry muses on the simple life:

Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?

In the foreground of the painting is a hawthorn, but Windus substitutes a swineherd for the shepherd to represent the envied bucolic life. For the full soliloquy, see William Dyce's painting on the same subject.