Another good version of this portrait, with the left hand on the dagger-cord, is the half-length belonging to the Earl of Yarborough, while an excellent example of the Warwick Castle type, with a cane substituted for the dagger, was lent by Lord Sackville to the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1909 (No. 21).

There is also an excellent portrait of the Warwick type in the collection of the Duke of Manchester at Kimbolton Castle.[231] It is on panel, 35 in. × 25 in., and closely resembles the picture in the National Portrait Gallery (No. 496) (35⅛ in. × 26¼ in.), which is attributed to Luke Hornebolt.[232] The latter had at one time a coat of arms on the frame indicating that it belonged at some period to the Nassau family. It may have been taken over to Holland at the time of the marriage of Princess Mary, daughter of Charles I, to William of Orange, in 1641. There are three other portraits of the King in the National Portrait Gallery, while other versions or old copies exist at Castle Howard, and at Serlby, the seat of Viscount Galway. The latter (35 in. × 27 in.) has an inscription on the background giving the King’s titles and the date 1547, the year of his death. Another (36 in. × 30 in.), at one time in the collection of Mr. Henry Willett, and now in the Brighton Art Gallery, is said to have been taken from a wainscot in King’s Walden House, Herts, formerly the residence of Anne Boleyn.

All these portraits, whether by the Hornebolts or less important copyists attached to Henry’s court, are based on Holbein’s Whitehall painting. There is, however, one other representation of Henry VIII, of about the date of Holbein’s first entry into the royal service, which is of a very different character, and was not painted under the influence of the great German. This is the fine picture at Hampton Court (No. 563 (313)), generally known as “King Henry VIII with a Scroll.”[233] He is seen at half-length, with head turned slightly to the right, but eyes to the front. He has reddish hair, and a small thin beard and moustache, and his eyes are dark grey. He wears a doublet of cloth of gold, cut square across the chest, covered with strings of pearls, and slashed with rows of white puffs, above which his white frilled shirt is seen. Over this is a sable-furred cloak. His black cap has a medallion, with figures of the Virgin and Infant Christ in enamel, and a white jewelled feather. In front of him is a table or ledge with a crimson cushion, on which his right hand is placed, and a scroll of white paper, one end of which he holds between the thumb and forefinger of his left. On it is inscribed a sentence from the Gospel of St. Mark in Roman lettering: “Marci—16. Ite in Mũdvm Vniversṽ et predicate Evangelivm omni creatvræ.” The background is a rich green. It is on panel, 2 ft. 4 in. high × 1 ft. 10 in. wide.

The probable authorship of this painting has given rise to much discussion and difference of opinion. It has been attributed at different times to Holbein, Janet, Joos van Cleve, and Girolamo da Treviso, and even to Toto or Penni. Dr. Woltmann considered it to be the work of a Frenchman, whereas Mr. Wornum was inclined to attribute it to an Italian hand, possibly Da Treviso. The one thing certain about it is that it is not by Holbein. There is an equal difference of opinion as to the date. The King has so youthful a look, as compared with the Hardwick cartoon and the Munich drawing, that some writers hold that he cannot have been more than thirty-eight—certainly not more than forty—when it was painted. This would make the date about 1529, in which year Holbein was in Switzerland. On the other hand, there are two facts which point to a later date—the arrangement of the hair and beard, and the text on the scroll, which, taken together, make it highly probable that the portrait was painted in 1536. It was on the 8th of May 1535 that Henry, in imitation of Francis I, ordered all about his court to cut their hair short and to grow their beards—“the King commanded all about his court to poll their heads; and to give them example he caused his own head to be polled, and from thenceforth his beard to be knotted and no more shaven.”[234] In the picture both hair and beard are treated in the new fashion. Again, on October 4th of the same year the printing of Coverdale’s English version of the whole Bible, for which Holbein designed the title-page, was finished, and in 1536 Henry ordered a copy of it to be laid in the choir of every church, “for every man that will to look and read therein; and shall discourage no man from reading any part of the Bible, but rather comfort, exhort, and admonish every man to read the same.” To this the text on the scroll which Henry holds in the portrait clearly refers; and further evidence is supplied by the Bible frontispiece, in which the King is shown under a canopy, with a sword in his right hand, and a clasped Bible in his left, which he is handing to his kneeling bishops. One of the little pictures which form the border of the title-page, in which our Saviour is exhorting His disciples to preach the Word throughout the world, has the same text (Mark xvi. 15) inscribed below it. The evidence, therefore, is very strongly in favour of the assumption that the portrait was painted to commemorate Henry’s share in the publication of Coverdale’s English version of the Bible. Against these two arguments in favour of the date 1536, the compilers of the catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition point out that the King does not look more than thirty, which would place the portrait at about the date of the meeting with Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. “The portrait of Eleonora of Spain, wife of Francis I, also at Hampton Court,” they say, “is evidently by the same hand; and the smaller portrait of Francis I, also at Hampton Court, is either by, or a copy after, the same painter. These circumstances would point to a possible French origin, and lend some colour to the ascription of the portrait either to “Sotto” Cleef, who worked in France before coming to England, or to Jean Clouet—more probably the latter, who may very well have been in attendance on Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.”[235] It is difficult, however, to follow these writers in their conclusion that the portrait of Eleonora, almost certainly by the elder Clouet, and the portrait of Henry VIII are by the same hand, while the fact that in all the earlier portraits of the King he is shown with long hair, cut straight across the forehead, and no beard, makes it still more difficult to accept the date as that of the meeting of the two monarchs in France, unless much stronger evidence as to its French origin be forthcoming. It is not safe to go farther than to ascribe it to a Franco-Flemish origin. It should be noted in passing that a small point in favour of those who see in it a work by an Italian hand lies in the scroll or cartellino, a feature not often met with in French or English portraits of that time.

On the back of the panel is branded Charles I’s cypher, and there is also a slip of paper on which is inscribed in contemporary handwriting, “Changed with my Lord Arundel, 1624.” In Charles’ catalogue, compiled in 1639, it is entered as “King Henry VIII when he was young, with a white scroll of parchment in his hand; the picture being to the shoulders; half a figure so big as the life, in a carved gilded frame. Length 4 ft. 0. A Whitehall piece, said to be done by Jennet or Sotto Cleve.” It is possibly the picture in the Commonwealth inventory—“King Henry ye 8th by Gennett,” which was “sold to Mr. Baggeley ye 23rd Oct. 1651 for £25.” It may also be the “Table with the picture of King Henry VIII, then being young,” in Edward VI’s catalogue. An early and interesting copy of this picture, on canvas, 28¾ in. × 22¼ in., is in the possession of the Merchant Taylors’ Company, which was in the Tudor Exhibition, 1890 (No. 120), and the Burlington Club Exhibition, 1909 (No. 24). In the catalogue of the former exhibition it was attributed to Paris Bordone. It was presented to the Company in 1616 by Mr. John Vernon. There is a third version of the picture in the Marquis of Exeter’s collection at Burleigh House, in which the same Latin verse is inscribed on the scroll. Dr. Waagen says that “it is very carefully painted in a brownish tone.”[236]

In addition to the Hardwick cartoon and the Munich drawing there is a third portrait of Henry existing which can be attributed almost certainly to Holbein’s hand. This is the beautiful little panel in Lord Spencer’s collection at Althorp (frontispiece),[237] which measures only 10½ in. × 7½ in. It is a half-length, three-quarters to the right. No hair is visible under the cap or beside the ears; the hairs of the close-cropped fair beard and moustache are drawn with minute care. The eyes are clear blue-grey. He wears a black cap trimmed with jewels and loops of pearls and a white feather falling to the left. His gown of cloth of gold is lined with brown fur, over a light grey doublet cut low at the neck, embroidered with an elaborate pattern in black, trimmed with jewels and slashed and puffed with white. The white shirt has a high collar fitting close round the neck, embroidered with a rich design in gold, and with a very small frill. On his breast is a round jewel suspended by a chain of spiral black and gold beads and H’s. The hands are shown in part, the left at his side, and the right holding a glove. The background is a plain bright blue.

It is a miniature painting of unusual size, and is drawn with extraordinary delicacy and truth, and there is an exquisite finish in all the details of the dress and ornaments, and a harmony in the colour, which no other painter then practising at the English court but Holbein was capable of producing. The first impression it gives is that, in spite of its beauty and brilliance, it yet displays certain differences from Holbein’s usual style which renders its attribution to him not absolutely certain; but repeated examination modifies this first impression, and it becomes impossible not to agree with such critics as Dr. Woltmann, Mr. Lionel Cust, and Dr. Ganz, who are emphatically of opinion that Holbein was the author of it. It is impossible, again, to find any other painter who could have produced so vivid and striking a portrait of the King, and so accomplished a work of art. Mr. Roger E. Fry describes it as one of Holbein’s most miraculous pieces of craftsmanship. “It is little more in scale than a large miniature, and Holbein has treated it with all the skill in minute delineation which he alone possessed, and that without losing for a moment unity of tone and breadth of feeling; but, wonderful as it is, it gives one scarcely any idea of an actual character. Holbein seems never to have read anything behind the expansive mask of his royal patron; whether he abstained out of discretion or failed from want of interest one can but guess.”[238] After examining the Munich head, however, it is difficult to agree with Mr. Fry’s opinion that Holbein saw nothing of Henry’s real character. The Althorp panel is almost identical in position and dress with the original cartoon for the Whitehall wall-painting, and it is probable that Holbein intended to use it as his model for the latter. It must have been painted in 1537, before the wall-painting itself was begun, or at least before the change in the position of the King’s head was decided upon. It may be the portrait which in the inventory of Henry VIII’s pictures, made at his death, was joined to that of Queen Jane Seymour in a diptych—“Item, a table like a booke, with the picture of Kynge Henry theight and Quene Jane”; though, if so, the corresponding portrait of Jane Seymour is lost, for the one of that queen in the Vienna Gallery is much larger than Lord Spencer’s portrait. The latter was at South Kensington in 1862 (No. 2651), and again in 1865 (No. 2028), and at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1909 (No. 38).

There is an excellent contemporary copy of it in the National Portrait Gallery (No. 157),[239] 10¾ in. × 7½ in., on copper, which was purchased in 1863, and was formerly in the collection of Mr. Barrett, of Lee Priory, Kent. When in his possession it was engraved in line for Singer’s edition of Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey, 1825. The background is now very dark, but in the engraving it is shown to be a curtain. This is the chief point of difference between it and Lord Spencer’s panel. There is also a somewhat weak copy of it among the miniatures in the Duke of Buccleuch’s collection, which, like the original, has no inscription. It has suffered extensive repairs at some time or other, and the eyes are now a bright chestnut colour, evidently due to the ignorance of the restorer. Other miniatures of Henry VIII, attributed to Holbein, are dealt with in a succeeding chapter.[240]

Jane Seymour was the first of Henry’s queens to be painted by Holbein. The various portraits of Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn still existing are not by him, and it is evident that the artist did not enter the royal service until after Anne’s execution on 19th May 1536, and Henry’s very precipitate marriage with Jane Seymour on the following day. Portraits of both these ladies are usually ascribed to Holbein by their owners, according to the prevailing fashion of earlier days, when everything dating from Tudor times was unhesitatingly given to him. Shortly before Holbein’s return to England in 1532, Katherine of Aragon had permanently retired from court, and in the seclusion of The Moor, deserted by the King, her thoughts fully occupied with her impending divorce, it is not likely that she would have any desire to sit for her portrait, or to command Holbein to visit her for that purpose. There is more probability that Anne Boleyn may have been painted by him, but as no such portrait has been discovered, it must be taken for granted that he did not. The head among the Windsor drawings, inscribed “Anna Bollein Queen,”[241] has been wrongly named, and bears no likeness to the few portraits which may be said with some degree of certainty to represent her. Much information respecting the portraits of these two queens will be found in the papers read by Mr. John Gough Nichols and Sir George Scharf before the Society of Antiquaries in 1863 and published in Archæologia.[242]

There is no evidence to show that Holbein painted either Katherine’s daughter, Mary, or Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth, though here again portraits of them exist which in less critical days were said to be by him. The drawing in the Windsor Collection inscribed “The Lady Mary after Queen,”[243] has no claim to represent Queen Mary, nor is there any known portrait of her which bears any likeness to Holbein’s style of painting. The Princess Elizabeth was ten years old at the time of the painter’s death, whereas the youngest portrait of her extant is the very interesting one at the age of about fifteen or sixteen in the Royal Collection,[244] which was included in Charles I’s catalogue as “A Whitehall piece of Holben,” and said to represent “Queen Elizabeth when she was young, to the waist.” This is probably a work of Franco-Flemish origin, and has nothing to do with Holbein, who, if he had painted her, must have shown her as a little girl. Mr. Nichols, in his paper mentioned above, states that “there can be little doubt that Holbein drew the King’s natural son, Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and Suffolk, who lived until the 22nd July 1536,” but no such portrait or drawing of him can be discovered. There is, however, among the Windsor heads, a drawing of his wife, Mary,[245] daughter of Thomas, third Duke of Norfolk, and sister of Henry, Earl of Surrey, both of whom sat to Holbein. It is a fine drawing, but very badly rubbed. She is represented full-face, with the eyes cast down, and wearing a close-fitting white cap or hood, and a large flat black hat with a big ostrich feather. The dress is powdered with the letter R, which in some cases seems to be formed of pearls, while the letter M also occurs twice. This fashion of wearing an initial letter, usually as a pendant ornament, was by no means unusual at that period, and occurs in more than one of Holbein’s portraits. The drawing of the Duchess is inscribed “The Lady of Richmond.”

It is not until we come to the portrait of Queen Jane Seymour in the Imperial Gallery, Vienna (No. 1481) (Pl. 20),[246] that we are on certain ground. This is a genuine work of Holbein of very fine quality. She is shown almost to the knees, the body and head turned slightly to the left, and her hands clasped in front of her. She is dressed in red velvet, with hanging sleeves covered with gold embroidery, and under-sleeves of lilac-grey watered silk with an elaborate pattern, worked with seed pearls, and slashed and puffed with white. The cuffs have a deep border of wonderfully painted black Spanish work. She wears two heavy necklaces, of jewels and pearls, and a band of similar ornament along the edge of her square-cut bodice, and an ornament at the breast composed of the initials I.H.S. and three pendant pearls. Her head-dress is of the angular English pattern. The inner cap, which completely hides her hair, is of brown silk with a black stripe, and the jewelled band or framework is of the same pattern as the border of the dress. The body of the head-dress is cloth of gold, with the customary black fall. The background is of dark grey-blue without inscription. The colour scheme is rich and harmonious, but delicate and pearly in tone, and a considerable amount of gold has been used in the painting of the jewels, and the gold tissue and embroidery of the cap. Once again the extraordinarily fine painting of the hands has to be recorded; they are full of expression and character. There is less expression in the face. She has no great pretensions to beauty, and her complexion is pale, thus agreeing with all contemporary accounts of her appearance. In a singularly frank letter from Chapuys to Antoine Perrenot, dated London, 18th May 1536, which was intended for the Emperor’s ears, the Spanish ambassador says: “She is sister to one Edward Semel, of middle stature, and no great beauty, so fair that one would call her rather pale than otherwise.... The said Semel is not a woman of great wit, but she may have good understanding. It is said she inclines to be proud and haughty. She bears great love and reverence to the Princess (i.e. Mary). I know not if honors will make her change hereafter.”[247] He then proceeds to throw doubts upon the lady’s virtue, and to speak in coarse innuendo of Henry’s matrimonial ventures. The panel, which is probably the one which was in the Arundel Collection, measures 65 cm. by 48 cm., and is of the same size as the portrait of Dr. John Chamber; they are the largest of Holbein’s works in the Vienna Gallery. This portrait was evidently the one seen by Van Mander in Amsterdam in 1604. He says: “There was, at Amsterdam, in the Warmoesstraat, a portrait of a Queen of England, admirably executed, and very pretty and nice; she was attired in silver brocade, which appears to be genuine silver with some admixture, and it was depicted so transparently, curiously, and exquisitely, that a white foil seemed to lie beneath.”[248]

The original study for this portrait is in the Windsor Collection.[249] It is a fine drawing of very delicate draughtsmanship, and shows more of the figure than most of the sketches in the series, the folded hands being included. Several replicas of the picture still remain in England, the two best of which, excellent contemporary copies, are in the Duke of Bedford’s collection at Woburn Abbey, and in that of Lord Sackville at Knole. The latter was in the Tudor Exhibition, 1890 (No. 44), and the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1909 (No. 46). Another version is in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland. Hollar made an admirable engraving from the Arundel version, a small circle dated 1648 (Parthey 1427); and there is at Windsor, as already noted, a miniature painted from it by Nicholas Hilliard, which is inscribed “Anō Dnī 1536 ætatis svæ 27.”[250] Hilliard, no doubt, found this inscription on the original from which he worked, but nothing of the kind is now discernible either on the picture in Vienna or Lord Sackville’s version. It may, however, have been taken from one of the numerous miniatures of this Queen, dealt with in a later chapter.[251] This inscription is valuable as giving the probable date at which Holbein painted the Queen, and proves that he was in the royal service as early as in the summer of 1536. Very probably the portrait was afterwards used by him as the basis for the head and position of Jane in the Whitehall wall-painting. There is an excellent old copy of the portrait in the Hague Gallery (No. 278) which shows slight differences.[252]

In addition to this portrait, Holbein prepared a design for a large gold cup, bearing the initials of Henry and Jane, and the latter’s motto, evidently intended as a present from the King to his consort. The finished drawing is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and there is another version of it in the British Museum. It is the most important of Holbein’s designs for goldsmith’s work which has been preserved, and is described in a later chapter.[253] Henry VIII appears to have been genuinely devoted to his third wife, but his happiness was short-lived, for she died on October 24, 1537, twelve days after the birth of her son, Edward VI, her death being due to carelessness on the part of her attendants.

Not a single dated portrait of the year 1537 remains, nor is there one which can be ascribed with any certainty to this year. Possibly the great Whitehall wall-painting and other works for the King occupied much of Holbein’s time.