Possible portrait of a young Mary?

In July I mentioned a portrait in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, that is currently undergoing research. It was once alleged to depict a young Mary, though this identification went out of favour some time ago for numerous reasons (amongst them the difficulty of explaining how a portrait of Mary could have been commissioned during the period of her disgrace).

We are fortunate to possess several images of Mary prior to her accession, including a painting by one Master John, now in the National Portrait Gallery. This painting is particularly valuable as it appears to be the first portrait commissioned by Mary herself, probably to commemorate her re-inclusion in the succession (Act of Succession of 1543). The NPG also holds a miniature of Mary by Lucas Horenbout (c.1521-5), which may be the earliest surviving English portrait miniature.

Whilst rummaging through numerous files on my computer, I came across an image of one Holbein miniature purported to be Mary. I thought this would be of interest to those intrigued by the story of The Met portrait. It is a roundel depicting a young woman in profile. It is similar in style to a portrait of Prince Edward (later Edward VI), which is also held in The Met.

'Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII', or a young woman of the court of Henry VIII, c. 1543

Paul Ganz in The Paintings of Hans Holbein: First Complete Edition (London: The Phaidon Press Ltd, 1950) provides this brief discussion of the portrait:

'Like the roundel of Prince Edward, the portrait comes from an unknown collection; it was discovered in 1937 completely overpainted and was restored at the same time, whereby the damage to the collar was revealed and repaired. The identification of the sitter with Princess Mary is based not only on the striking similarity between her profile and that of her brother Edward but also on a comparison with various other portraits. An early one in three-quarters view must have been painted by Holbein during a former reconciliation in 1536. It is now lost and known only from an etching by Wenzel Hollar with the inscription: Princeps Maria Henrici VIII Regis Angliae filia. H. Holbein pinxit, W. Hollar fecit. Ex Collectione Arundeliana 1647. A badly damaged portrait study at Windsor Castle with the inscription ‘Lady Mary after Queen’ which, owing to its present condition, I did not regard as an original appears to have been the preliminary drawing for Hollar’s engraved portrait with the sides reversed. Recently it has been acknowledged as authentic by Parker (W.DR. 41) and by H.A. Schmid (Hans Holbein d. J. 113).’ (p. 257)

Evidently this was written over six decades ago, and some of the findings no longer stand. The ‘Windsor’ sketch, concluded by Ganz to be a copy, is currently believed to be an original. The portrait of Edward is now believed to be from the workshop of Holbein, and not by the artist himself. The portrait of 'Mary', may also be by a follower.

The roundel is also discussed by Roy Strong. In Holbein: the Complete Paintings (London: Granada, 1980), Strong includes the portrait and states ‘Called the Princess Mary; Oil and tempera on wood/diam. 37/c.1543. London, Private Collection. Attributed work’ (p. 90). An image of the portrait can also be found in the National Portrait Gallery’s Heinz Archive in the sitter's box for Mary. No further information is provided, aside from the brief mention that it was once exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery (Liverpool).


So, do you think the portrait, possibly by a follower of Holbein, is of Mary and that there is ‘striking similarity’ between the sitter and Prince Edward? Further research would be great, but like many other portraits in private collections, we are unlikely to find out more. Aside from the question of the identity of the sitter, the portrait provides an interesting view of contemporary dress; the detail on the hood is excellent.

Siblings? Both portraits date to c.1543. The portrait of Edward may have been completed for the prince's sixth birthday (12 Oct 1543)

Friday, 7 July 1553 – Mary learns of Edward’s death

“...she was told of the king’s death by her goldsmith, a citizen of London, newly returned from the City, but the cautious princess would not put complete confidence in the messenger and would not let the news be spread abroad. On this account she stayed there no longer, but hurried on to her house at Kenninghall....”

(Wingfield, The Vita Mariae Angliae Reginae, 1554)

As mentioned in the last post, there is some ambiguity concerning Mary’s exact route around the 6th but we know that by the 7th she was at Euston Hall near Thetford (near the Suffolk/Norfolk border) with Lady Burgh as her host. For it was there, sometime in the evening, that goldsmith Robert Reyns reached the residence and told Mary of her brother’s death and her own accession. Mary was at first cautious and would only accept the truth the following day when another individual repeated the same news. Her stay at Euston Hall was cut short; either the same evening or in the early hours of the next day, she would arrive at her Norfolk manor, Kenninghall. Once in her own household, surrounded by her loyal servants, she could publicly proclaim her accession and despatch letters to that effect. As Eric Ives recently argued, ‘Mary’s victory was won at the writing desks of Kenninghall’ (Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery, p. 228).


How organised was Mary during this time? There is also some uncertainty regarding this. Clearly she knew something of what was to come and this is credited in contemporary reports. In 1554 Giovanni Francesco Commendone recorded in Successi d’ Inghilterra that Mary and her household had ‘been secretly informed by some Members of the Council itself of the machinations of the Duke, of the progress of the illness of the King and finally of his death’. This is odd given the lack of outright support for Mary from members of the Council in the beginning. Furthermore she was not told of Edward’s death by individuals that high up in office. A much later report by William Camden states that before Edward’s death, Mary was pressurised into renouncing her title for money and lands. Recently, Jeri McIntosh argued that in late March/early April 1553, when Edward had then decided to remove Mary from the succession, the government informed Mary of the plans and granted her Framlingham and Hertford Castle in compensation. This Mary agreed to only to later renounce her position on the matter whilst still holding the properties, including Framlingham which she used as her base. If this version of events is correct, Mary had successfully deceived the Privy Council. She had placated them by residing so close to London till the 4th making it seem that she was waiting obediently near them. But she chose well when she selected Hunsdon as her residence. Close to London but also outside giving her a head start when she moved into Cambridgeshire. She had successfully eluded the government and had managed, by this date, to reach her own household and pick up support along the way.



In London the duke had, in the words of Charles V’s diplomats, ‘seized the treasury and money-reserves of the kingdom, has appointed his own men to the command of fortresses, has raised a force of artillery, fitted out warships for service, and has men ready to go on board as soon as he shall issue the order’. But he still did not have Mary. So that morning he dispatched his son, Robert, with an army of 300 retainers to capture her. Handsome, ambitious and with military experience, Robert Dudley is known to many today as the famous favourite of Elizabeth I. But in the days of July 1553 he was committed to ousting his future lover and her sister from the line of succession. His father, the duke, is often supposed to have been a cold man who advanced his family without a thought of their welfare. Yet his letters to his children reveal that by the standards of the age and his class, he was an indulgent and loving father. The duke did not so much as demand respect from his family as was the natural recipient of such loyalty and affections. His sons were aware that Jane’s cause was the Dudley cause and were just as determined as their father to see Mary’s destruction. But Robert was in for an unpleasant shock. Hurrying to Hunsdon he discovered that she had ‘suddenly departed with her train and family towards the sea cost of Norfolk’. Now he would not only try to find her but he would also guard the roads, make it incredibly difficult for her supporters trying to reach her. The method of patrolling of the roads was not one practised by Robert alone though. It was a tactic that Mary’s supporters would quickly rely upon and proved to be rather beneficial to their cause.



(Image - Portrait of Robert Dudley, First Earl of Leicester, attributed to Steven Van der Meulen, c.1564. Waddesdon Manor)

Thursday, 6 July 1553 – The King is dead

“... I have been with my lord prince, whose life I pray God long to prosper and continue; for his grace is the goodliest babe that ever I set mine eyes upon. I pray God make him an old man, for I think I should never be weary of looking on him.”

(Letter from Honor Plantagenet, Lady Lisle to her husband discussing her visit to the infant Prince Edward’s household, 1538)

“I am faint: Lord have mercy upon me, and take my spirit.”

(The alleged last words of Edward VI, 6 July 1553)

On the night of 12 October 1537, London was the scene of magnificent celebrations. Bonfires were lit, feasts were held and the Tower’s guns were fired continuously. For at 2am that same day the kingdom was blessed with a male heir – the Tudor dynastic line was secure. After three marriages, two ending in tragic fashions, Henry VIII had his healthy legitimate son. When the baby was christened three days later and brought back from the chapel to be handed over to his parents, his father was recorded to have wept for joy whilst holding his son.


Now, nearly sixteen years later, the boy was dead. His end was a prolonged and undignified one. His hair and nails had fallen out; the constant vomiting had led to extreme weight loss. The smell of the vile fluid he coughed up was as potent as the puss that had seeped from his aged father’s famous leg wound. In March 1553 the Venetian ambassador had reported that the boy, though ill, was still handsome. Now he was barely recognisable. Edward made one last confession, and between eight and nine o’clock in the evening he died in the arms of Sir Thomas Worth and long-term friend Sir Henry Sidney at the palace of Greenwich. He was fifteen years old.


It was popularly claimed that he had been poisoned but then almost any time a prominent individual died, especially at a young age, foul play was cited. Despite these accusations Edward alive was far more valuable to the duke of Northumberland and his men than otherwise. There were still things to do – Mary had not yet been captured – and the conspirators needed to act fast. The same day the duke ordered provisions for the royal ships sent to patrol the waters. Unaware of her brother’s death Mary continued to press on. It has been argued by Diarmaid MacCulloch and Anna Whitelock that she arrived at Bury St. Edmunds and was welcomed by John Bourchier, the second earl of Bath at his family seat of Hengrave Hall. When Robert Wingfield recorded the events of Mary’s accession only a year later he neglected to mention her stay at Hengrave but instead infers that she travelled to the residence of Lady Burgh where she was certainly present by the 7th. Whether we accept the Hengrave story or not, the role of the earl of Bath in Mary’s cause should not be ignored. The earl had notably been absent from London at this time which meant that, rather conveniently, he could not sign in person the final version of Edward’s alterations to the succession. He was also a religious conservative and had a wife who Mary may have been familiar with for her previous husband had been Sir Richard Long, a courtier highly favoured by Henry VIII. Mary’s accession to the throne is in essence a story of the importance of ‘connections’ in Tudor political life. Whether the earl of Bath entertained her or not on the 6th, he was one the first peers to support her claim.


Northumberland’s efficiency and enthusiasm was matched by another individual in London. Robert Reyns, a goldsmith, was preparing for an important journey. His discovery of Edward's death proved valuable to Mary’s cause. For Reyns was not any simple goldsmith but one who had been previously engaged by Mary, a great lover of jewels. Evidently it did not take Reyns long to decide which queen to back. Quickly fleeing the city and probably riding at breakneck speed with few rests, he rushed to be the first to tell Mary the news of her brother’s death and her own accession. Reyns was taking a gamble; if Jane’s cause prevailed, his end would shortly come. But Reyns’s story has a happy ending. Eight months later he was appointed as the royal goldsmith by a gratified Queen Mary. He would be kept rather busy over the next five years.


(Image - detail of a portrait of Edward VI, by an unknown artist, after William Scrots, c.1547. NPG, London.)

Wednesday, 5 July 1553 – The plotting continues

“...she made a difficult and tiresome journey, hurrying at the dead of night to the home of Sir John Huddleston in Cambridgeshire, where she spent the night.”

(Wingfield, The Vita Mariae Angliae Reginae, 1554)

Whilst Mary was fleeing into Cambridgeshire to seek support and get as far away from her enemies as possible, the duke of Northumberland and the King were busy trying to secure the support of the nobility. Later, when the plot failed, many alleged that they had been bullied into agreeing to the affair though their hearts had always been with Mary. Nevertheless only a few did make significant protests against the changes at the time. Happy to please their monarch and perhaps genuinely agreeing with him about how unfit Mary was to be queen, most signed the letters-patent that sought to legalise Edward’s ‘devise’ of the succession. Mary’s movements had not gone unnoticed nor did the duke trust that all in the realm would readily accept Jane as the queen. Thus in these crucial final moments, numerous fortresses, amongst them the Tower, were secured and troops accumulated. Mary could not even escape by sea for the duke had ensured that the royal fleets were assembled, ready to face any potential attacks from Mary’s relatives abroad and blockading Mary’s access to the same relations. Six of the nine ships were active around East Anglia, where the princess was based. Mary, the duke hoped, would prove to be the insignificant fly, tangled in the spider’s web.


Regardless of these developments, Mary did not resort to panic and take reckless decisions. The following evening she had travelled into Cambridgeshire and by the next day she was at the residence of Sir John Huddleston. But instead of confining the stay to a few hours, she spent the night of the 5th there, probably conversing with Sir John about a plan of action and ensuring which households she would go to next. Still she had no idea when her brother was to die and she could not be sure that the news would get to her quickly. She was also unaware of her cousin’s schemes. For while Mary was occupied with her fight for the throne, Charles V was directing his diplomats in London to try to come to some sort of agreement with the duke of Northumberland. Perhaps they could seek an agreement whereby Charles would agree to recognise Jane as queen if the duke promised not to form an alliance with the French. An Anglo-Imperial alliance was still obtainable if the duke was willing. Certainly a betrayal to Mary, but Charles had got wind of the duke’s talks with the French. Reports were now circulating that the duke was asking for French assistance in securing Jane’s accession and to reward them he would hand over Calais, England’s last territory in France. One wild report stated that he was even offering Ireland to the French. You must do anything to prevent this, Charles furiously wrote to his representatives (“You will take such steps as you think necessary to defeat the machinations of the French, and to keep them out of England”.) While these male leaders and diplomats conspired, the two women at the centre of this matter did not know how shortly they would have to wait to become queen. Indeed for one, then recovering from illness in Chelsea, she did not even know a crown was awaiting her.


(Image - Medal of Charles V, attributed to Hans Reinhart the Elder, c.1537; Leipzip, Germany. On display at the V&A, London)

Monday 3 July 1553 – Mary must act

“At this time that most holy lady and princess whose history I have here undertaken..... was living at Hunsdon; very shrewdly she got wind of the aristocratic conspiracy aimed at her destruction, and being secretly informed by those most loyal to her of how near her brother was to his end, she took counsel for herself as wisely as she could.”

(Robert Wingfield of Brantham, The Vita Mariae Angliae Reginae, 1554 – a contemporary account of the circumstances of Mary’s accession)

At the start of the last week of Edward VI’s life, his sister Mary was residing at one of her favourite residences, Hunsdon, twenty miles outside the city of London. Many of the most important occasions in her life had taken place at this estate. It was here that she learnt of the destruction of her opponent, Anne Boleyn. It was at Hunsdon that Mary submitted to her father’s wishes by declaring herself to be illegitimate and denying papal supremacy. Now it was where she learnt that her brother would soon be dead and the duke of Northumberland and his allies were eager to have her in their custody. The informer’s message to her was clear: run.


Meanwhile in London, the fifteen-year-old king was rapidly deteriorated. Struggling to breathe, coughing up copious amounts of foul fluids and wracked with pain, Edward was still preoccupied with matters of state. It was clear now that he would not live long enough to see a parliament convene that could overturn the parliamentary statue that had included his sisters within the succession and that could ratify his own plans. But that did not mean his scheme would certainly fail and he was prepared to win the support of those around him before he died. Ironically, amongst the men he had to persuade was Archbishop Cranmer – the illustrious Marian martyr – who had doubts about the legitimacy of the plot. Though young, Edward was his father’s son and won Cranmer around to his way of thinking.


Whilst Jane Grey’s supporters were concerned about the success of their cause, Mary and her friends were getting worried. She was so near London; the duke could take her at any moment. And though the king’s ill health was an open secret there was uncertainty about when exactly he would die and how the conspirators would act. Different reports were circulating and Mary had to trust some over others. Should she trust the informer and move herself away from London – from the centre of power? Was the act of fleeing merely prolonging the inevitable and the duke would still get to her or would it allow her to secure significant support in East Anglia. And was her brother going to die at any moment; if he was not, and she fled, her actions could be represented as seditious and her cause further worsened. Mary had to decide quickly. She made her decision the following evening. Fortunately it was the right one.


(Image: Hunsdon, depicted in the background of a portrait of Prince Edward by an unknown artist, c.1546.)

Did Jane Grey have a good claim to the throne?

On this day in 1553, Jane Grey, the great-granddaughter of Henry VII and great-niece of Henry VIII, was publicly proclaimed as queen of England in London. Amidst ‘a trompet blohying’, two heralds declared that the ‘lade Mary was unlawfully be-gotten’ thus Jane was now queen.[1]





Traditionally Edward VI’s ‘devise’ for the succession which deprived Mary and Elizabeth of the throne primarily on grounds of their illegitimacy and granted the kingdom to Jane, has been regarded as unlawful. The typical approach taken on this issue can be found in David Loades, Mary Tudor: The Tragical history of the first queen of England (2006), when he states:

‘Not only was parliamentary consent required for the change that he [Edward] was proposing, but as a minor he was not even capable of making a valid will. As the days ticked by Northumberland became increasingly desperate, even threatening violence against the obstructers. Eventually it was agreed that the only way to proceed was by letters patent, which would have to be retrospectively confirmed. Such letters were drawn up, but they never passed the seals, and thus were never properly validated, and so remained technically invalid.’ [2]

In such a narrative the actions of Edward, the duke of Northumberland and the conspirators remains highly dubious. Since Mary’s right to succeed was confirmed in a parliamentary statue (the Act of Succession of 1544, 35 Hen. VIII, c. 1), then the same administrative body was expected to be endorsed in the occasion that the monarch wished to remove Mary from the succession. Could the 1544 act be overturned just by Edward VI’s will? Or did parliament need to be included in all this?


In an article on Tudor dynastic problems, Eric Ives noted that Edward ‘was clearly copying his father’.[3] Many know of Henry VIII’s obsession with the succession that resulted in a string of marriages, and three separate parliamentary statutes explicitly concerning this subject. Cleary Henry believed that the monarch held the right to decide who his heirs should be and implement parliament to confirm this. His belief in the crown’s prerogative in matters of the succession went even further. The 1544 Act stated that the king ‘myght by the auctoritie of the saide acte give and dispose the ... crown ... by his letters patentes ... or by his last will ... to any person or persons’.[4] In other words if Henry, after endorsing parliament to confirm the succession, wished to subsequently change his heirs he had the power to make such an amendment by letters patent or in his will. In the end Henry chose to confirm the details of the 1544 act in his final will by stating again that all three of his children had a place in the succession. But he still held the power to state otherwise if he wished.

Edward's 'devise for the succession', 1553. Notice the change made on line four - after 'L Jane', Edward has inserted 'and her' so the line reads 'L Jane and her heires masles' instead of just 'L Jane heires masles'.

Although Edward laid out his succession in the ‘devise’ (which had to be modified because the first draft left the crown to Jane's ‘heirs masles’ and not actually to Jane herself), he did use letters patent to support such changes. Loades states that they were ‘never properly validated’, and certainly Edward came across opposition to his actions.[5] Nonetheless the letters patent were signed by many prominent figures in government, by judges and certain leading citizens of London.[6] But does this mean that Edward’s actions were entirely legal and that he reserved the right to change the succession purely because he was the monarch?


To argue that Edward did have the right to remove Mary and make Jane his heir is to infer that the 1544 act which allowed Henry to change his mind was a privilege that extended to subsequent monarchs. But when Henry oversaw the passing of the 1544 act did he ever intend for the clause that the monarch ‘myght by the auctoritie of the saide acte give and dispose the ... crown ... by his letters patentes ... or by his last will ... to any person or persons’ to be a power for all future kings (or queens) of England ? Or was he just concerned with himself?


Then there is another problem. Was Edward of a suitable age to make such actions? In 1544 Henry was a monarch in his fifties, who had exercised power for over thirty years. There was no outcry when he had this act passed. But Edward, though highly precocious for his age and concerned with administrative and particularly religious affairs, was only fifteen years old by the spring of 1553 and the country still had a lord president and a council that governed for him. When attempting to avoid conforming to the religious policies of her brother’s reign, Mary asserted that she would not recognise the laws owing to her brother’s tender age. For Mary, Edward’s policies were actually his councillors and she would not comply until he came of age to decide for himself. But her argument was not necessarily shared by all, and maybe Mary did not entirely endorse it. After all, Mary’s protests were all part of her attempts to avoid changing her own religious practise and to resist adopting the new policies which she regarded as heretical. It was therefore pragmatic to argue that these new laws were not legitimate and subsequently she should carry on endorsing the religious practise of her father’s reign. But many others did not show such defiance. Its notable how one contemporary judge, Edward Montagu, claimed that he had been troubled by the fact that Edward’s ‘devise’ conflicted with an act of parliament but Montagu did not state that he felt Edward was wrong in enforcing his royal will.[7] Rather, the judge argued, there were legal niceties that needed to be observed in order for Edward to go about appointing his own successors and in this circumstance they were not met. But even Montagu agreed to Edward’s changes in the end.



This post is full of questions and provides few answers. This ambiguity is caused by the fact that work on this subject is forthcoming and until publication it is hard to establish a definite position. The work in question is Eric Ives, Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery (WileyBlackwell, Oct 2009) that is to propose that Jane had strong legal grounds for her succession. Whilst scouring the internet for any information about this study I came across the book’s table of contents. One chapter is entitled ‘The rebellion of Mary Tudor’ and relates to Mary’s accession and Jane’s downfall. It is certainly an interesting way of looking at this subject. Was Mary the rebel who overthrew Jane the queen?


Admittedly I have always perceived matters the other way around. Jane the imposter, Mary the rightful claimant. And I still question whether Edward’s actions can be regarded as legal owing to the absence of parliament in all this. Edward could of course not help the fact that his heath was rapidly declining and that he did not have the time to call parliament immediately to verify his changes. There is evidence, as Ives points out, that Montagu urged for a parliament to convene in September 1553 to authorise Edward’s actions which does indicate the importance placed upon using parliament to overturn the 1544 act and remove Mary’s right to succeed.[8] Nonetheless Ives’s future work raises interesting questions about the royal prerogative and whether Henry set a precedent for his heir to decide outside of parliament how the succession was to be determined.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[1] The diary of Henry Machyn, citizen and merchant-taylor of London, from AD 1550 to AD 1563, ed. J. G. Nichols, CS, 42 (1848), cited from David Loades, The Chronicles of the Tudor Queens (Gloucestershire, 2002), p. 5.

[2] David Loades, Mary Tudor: The Tragical history of the first queen of England (The National Archives, 2006), p. 97.

[3] Eric Ives, ‘Tudor dynastic problems revisited’, Historical Research, 81, 212 (May 2008), p. 268.

[4] Extract from 35 Hen. VIII, c. 1), cited in Ives, ‘Tudor dynastic problems revisited’, p. 265.

[5] According to contemporary chronicler Robert Wingfield, two lawyers (John Hales, the justice of the common pleas and John Gosnold, solicitor general), opposed the scheme.

[6] Jennifer Loach, Edward VI (New Haven and London, 1999), p. 165.

[7] Ives, ‘Tudor dynastic problems revisited’, p. 269-70.

[8] Ives, ‘Tudor dynastic problems revisited’, p. 270.