The Children of Henry VIII (41 page)

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Edward VI shortly after he became king in 1547, holding a leather purse in one hand and a red rose in the other. To the left of the painting among the roses and violets is a sunflower (the colour now faded), that instead of turning to the sun as heliotropic plants do, turns to the young king, who is eulogized in Italian and Latin texts below. Attributed to William Scrots.

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Elizabeth, aged 17, commissioned this portrait of herself from William Scrots as a gift for Edward in 1551, sending it with an affectionate letter dated ‘from Hatfield, this 15 day of May’. The only year in Edward’s reign that Elizabeth was at Hatfield on 15 May was 1551.

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An unknown woman, said to be Lady Jane Grey shortly after her marriage to Guildford Dudley in May 1553, attributed to Levina Teerlinc. The ‘ANO XVIII’ (i.e. ‘anno aetatis xviii’) inscription presents a difficulty in that Jane was not quite 17 when she was executed; however, such inscriptions are not always reliable.

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Philip and Mary as king and queen of England, by Hans Eworth. Although dated 1558 and apparently set at the palace of Whitehall, the date cannot be correct since Philip left England in July 1557, never to return. The view through the open window of the opposite bank of the Thames also appears to be fictional.

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This rare image shows Elizabeth I at the beginning of her reign and as she really looked. In the background is the ‘cloth of estate’ (its crimson now faded), which sets this portrait apart from all the other known early images of the queen. By an unknown artist.

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Elizabeth’s most glittering favourite, Sir Robert Dudley, painted around the time she created him Earl of Leicester in 1564. Dudley was the one man Elizabeth would almost certainly have married as queen had the circumstances been right. By Steven van der Meulen.

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An Allegory of the Tudor Succession, a copy of another version that Elizabeth sent as a gift to Sir Francis Walsingham in 1572. A reinterpretation of an earlier family group portrait, commissioned by Henry VIII in 1544, the image depicts Elizabeth as a champion of peace and plenty and Philip and Mary as champions of war. By an unknown artist.

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Ashley’s aunt, Lady Elizabeth Boleyn (née Wood), was also Anne Boleyn’s aunt.