Is this Mary Tudor, England’s Catholic queen who has gone down in schoolroom history as Bloody Mary?

If it is, as some scholars believe, the painting could make a virtuous circle to delight the heart of a Home Counties Jesuit parish priest. “It could be a small miracle,” says Canon Timothy Russ. And the secrets it contains could also bear new witness to the torrid religious politics of the mid-16th century.

Canon Russ is prepared to sell the painting he inherited in order to rescue Sawston Hall, near Cambridge, the 16th-century home of the recusant Huddleston family, and turn it into a Catholic heritage centre and refuge.

After the death of her brother Edward VI in July 1553, Mary Tudor was pursued by Robert Dudley, son of the chief minister, the Duke of Northumberland. She took refuge at Sawston and was smuggled away as her pursuers closed in. Dudley burnt the house down and Mary promised to rebuild it for the Huddlestons, and she was true to her word.

After her death in 1558 Sawston became a safe house for persecuted Catholic priests. The family remained there until 1980 when Sawston Hall was left by Canon Russ’s great-uncle to a cousin and it was eventually sold to a developer whose plans foundered. It is now for sale at £5 million.

But the contents, including the portrait, had been left to Canon Russ. The painting, oil on panel, is an unsigned full-length portrait of a lady, in black and wearing no jewellery. Tests on the panel in the 1970s date it to the 1550s, and it has been attributed to William Scrots, the court painter who succeeded Holbein. It was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1956 and firmly ascribed as Mary I, but since then the identity has been doubted. Exhibited at the Tate in 1969-70 in an exhibition curated by Sir Roy Strong, the title was downgraded to Called Mary I, and by the Tate’s Destinies exhibition 1995 it had become A Lady in Black.

This year it was seen by Dr Tarnya Cooper, 16th-century curator at the National Portrait Gallery. “We concluded that while it is undoubtedly a very interesting and important painting, it cannot represent Mary I mainly because of facial dissimilarity with other authentic portraits of her. It is more likely to be a member of the nobility, possibly from within Princess Mary’s circle,” she said.

Sir Roy Strong, former director of the NPG and an authority on Tudor portraiture, is a patron of the charity set up to save Sawston. He said he has never been convinced that the portrait is of Mary, “and I have seen nothing to change my mind. The mid-16th century was a very dark time and it is extremely difficult to be certain.” But Professor Jack Scarisbrick, the Tudor and Catholic scholar, says it is too grand a portrait to be of anyone but royalty. “There was nobody outside the royal family important enough for such a lavish full-length painting — and if it is isn’t Mary, who is it? Nobody else fits the bill,” he said.

So convinced is Linda Porter, the author of a recent biography of Mary Tudor, of the sitter that she used the image on the cover of her book. “I’m certain it’s Mary,” she said. “It was quite fashionable in the last decades of the 20th century to question the identity of sitters in several well-known Tudor portraits, but some of this scepticism has now come full circle — the portrait of Katherine Howard that was questioned at this period is now thought to, indeed, be her. My own view is that family traditions are very often reliable. Plus which, to me at least, it looks like her.”

There are, she says, distinct similarities in other verified portraits of the queen, such as the one by Antonio Moro of the 1550s, now in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

But Canon Russ has identified more in the painting than the portrait. It is a puzzle picture, with secret messages in the background. The ruins, painted in blood red, behind the sitter could denote the Reformation destruction of Catholic churches and proscripton of priests; a head to her right showing a triple crown tumbling off it could be the rejection of the Pope; to her left, there appear to be several profiles, at least one of which could be Henry VIII; and at the foot of the column to her left appears what could be a baby in swaddling.

This, he and Professor Scarisbrick, who is also a patron of the Sawston appeal (with Cardinal Cormack Murphy O’Connor and the Archbishop of Canterbury), believe to be the crucial clue, representing the new-born Edward who superseded her in line to the throne.

The sitter could be in mourning for Edward’s mother, Jane Seymour, who died giving birth, explaining the lack of jewellery, of which Mary was fond. She dangles what seems to be a watch, the thief of time. However, this would date the painting to much earlier: Edward VI was born and his mother died in October 1537, when Mary had been seriously ill and only recently restored to her father’s favour.

Which, says Canon Russ, suggests another surprise: could it be by Holbein himself? He died in 1543 and his most famous puzzle painting is The Ambassadors of 1533, but the suggestion is rejected by Strong who says it is not in Holbein’s style.

Blogger Michael White writes,

“I’d wager that what the suffering Afghans need most is the Henry VII who won the Battle of Bosworth Field, a tough, tightfisted central ruler who could manage the warlords and promote such basics as trade, clean water, and (we’ve moved on since 1485) education for girls.”

Read more here

“Towards the end of his reign, he also showed an interest in sustainability,’ the Prince said.

‘Perhaps it is not so well known that Henry instigated the very first piece of green legislation in this country.’ “

Read more

This article amused me just because of the thought of the meak Prince Charles compared to our Henry VIII.

Excerpt:

Wouldn’t the reformation have happened anyway?

That was the myth peddled by the English establishment for centuries. The propaganda was that a corrupt and decaying Catholicism was replaced by a more morally pure and progressive Protestantism. But historians now challenge that view. They are led by Cambridge University’s Eamon Duffy whose scholarly masterpiece, The Stripping of the Altars, was a meticulous study of the accounts, wills, primers, memoirs, rood screens, stained glass, joke-books and graffiti of the period.

Has anybody else seen this before?!

It is apparently on display at Ludlow castle. I think? Go to this forum to read about the discussion of the portrait, its’ meaning, authenticity, date/painter, etc.

If anybody knows any info about it, please feel free to comment! I’d love to find out more about it.

Why have we never seen it before?!?

I defintely don’t think Henry was a hero. Yes, he started the English Reformation and he represents this majestic monarch, but I think he was a spoiled selfish man who got everything he wanted and would do anything to get it. He was a fascinating figure in history and I love learning and reading about him, but a hero?

According to this article, the “heroic” aspects of Henry would be that he “marked the transition from a medieval state to a modern state. He founded the Church of England. He swaggered out and claimed a place for England on the European stage that it has held ever since, despite its size.”

I don’t know if that’s heroic, but maybe it is for England’s place in the world. I guess I only find things heroic if the intentions are for the good of everyone, not just for one person. Henry might have done that and as a result, it was good for the English people, but then again, he may did what he did for his own legacy.

But I love him nonetheless.

“A decathlete before his time, Henry was adept at the javelin, dressage and double‑axe fighting, and was also a dab hand at archery. Reporting on the Yeoman of the Guard’s annual competition in 1510, Edward Hall wrote: “His grace shotte as stronge and as greate a lengthe as anie of his garde.” His second wife, Boleyn, was less talented – Henry’s expenses claim to the Privy Purse reveals that on one deer hunt she succeeded only in shooting a cow. She was, however, better at bowls, making up a decent mixed-doubles pair with her husband, who was so keen on the sport that when he went to war with Emperor Maximilian he took his indoor-bowling shed (90ft by 8ft) with him so he could work on his game between battles.”

Why King Henry VIII loved sport more than women

The painting was commissioned during a time when Henry needed the most ego boost. At age 45, Henry was getting old, no longer the active youth he use to be, with the ulcer on his leg hindering on his health and attitude. He was growing fat (as shown by the previous blog post regarding his armour). His reign had just suffered a political rebellion from the North containing thousands of his subjects who were unhappy with the dissolution of the monasteries- and worse, he still had no son to show for it all.

I agree with Wilson – it makes sense because we know that a lot of portraits painted at the time were for PR purposes, a prime example being marriage proposals. Anne of Cleves, as we know, looked nothing like her portrait painted for Henry and he was sorely disappointed and unsatisfied with the looks of his fourth wife when he finally met her.

Read more:
Was Hans Holbein’s Henry VIII the best piece of propanda ever?

“‘We posit that his jousting accident of 1536 provides the explanation for his personality change from sporty, promising, generous young prince, to cruel, paranoid and vicious tyrant,” Lucy Worsley [historian and chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces] says. “From that date the turnover of the wives really speeds up, and people begin to talk about him in quite a new and negative way. “After the accident he was unconscious for two hours; even five minutes of unconsciousness is considered to be a major trauma today.” Henry may have suffered a brain injury, Dr Worsley says. “Damage to the frontal lobe of the brain can perfectly well result in personality change.’”

To read more:
The jousting incident that turned Henry VIII into a tyrant

“Unlike most early modern princes the Tudor monarch was brought up in a feminine household and was almost certainly taught to write by his mother, analysis shows. This upbringing shaped Henry’s “emotionally incontinent” personality, leading him to fall and love with – and marry – so many women, Starkey claims.”

I guess that’s one theory. Don’t get me wrong, I love David Starkey, but at the same time, sometimes I think he is is full of shit.

I don’t know if I buy this theory of his because if Catherine of Aragon just gave him a son, none of the other 5 wives would have happened. I doubt the whole reformation would have gone the way it did if he just had a baby boy to inherit the throne.

Henry VIII emotionally dependent on woman