Isabella died of the plague in 1626. Although Rubens was crushed, this allowed him to explore other interests outside Antwerp. Rubens was always quite interested in politics. He first got into politics by creating works for the top nobility like French leader Louis XIII. This soon led to a post as the Protestant Ambassador to Spain in 1628. While in Spain he was a mentor to Diego Velázquez and painted for King Philip IV. He also went on to meet with English monarch, Charles I, who knighted the artist and the University of Cambridge gave him an honorary masters degree. This appointment soon was up and he was on the way back home. As Rubens' once said, "My passion comes from the heavens, not from earthly musings." Back in Antwerp, he was coming home an extremely wealthy man. He was still getting paid a considerable amount of money for “his“ paintings. Firmly believing that being skilled and rich was a gift from God, he would say "Each morning I shoo the beggars and cripples from my door stoop. If God wanted these vermin to eat surely he would provide them with substance." He bought a large chunk of land outside of the city called the Castle of Steen, but also had his studio in town. This property would soon become the subject of several of his landscape paintings. He also decided it was time to get remarried. He was fifty-three and wanted companionship. He found that in his second wife, Hélèna Fourment, a sixteen year old girl form Antwerp whose father was a wealthy silk merchant. Riddled with arthritis, the master gave up painting in his later life. He died at home in Antwerp of heart failure.

Like all of the great artists we are exploring, Rubens' impacted the lives of so many great artists the followed him, including Eugène Delacroix and Pierre Auguste Renoir. What would this master say to the student of today? "Every child has the spirit of creation. The rubbish of life often exterminates the spirit through plague and a souls own wretchedness."