Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World (80 page)

A portrait of Elizabeth was painted around 1502 by Maynard Wewyck and sent to James IV in September that year.
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Possibly it is to be identified with another early portrait, which was in the collection of the Duke of Hamilton at Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, before it was sold at Sotheby’s in 2005. It was once thought to portray Margaret Tudor, but it is clearly Elizabeth, much as she is portrayed in RC 403447. Her attire is similar but she looks older; she wears an elaborate heavy jeweled collar and holds, uniquely, a red rose. Her hair looks significantly darker, and dips to the widow’s peak evident in early likenesses. What is different is the background, which is plain and dark in nearly every other portrait but here is a luminous pale greenish-blue with a gold tracery canopy embellished with Tudor roses, fleurs-de-lis, and portcullises. There has been speculation that the portrait dates from the early sixteenth century and was originally in Margaret’s own collection
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before being acquired by the Hamiltons.

A drawing called “Margaret Tudor,” probably by Jacques le Boucq, in the
Receuil d’Arras
, may depict her mother, Elizabeth of York, as it
closely resembles the latter’s portraits. It was once thought that it might be the lost original on which they are based,
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and it is true that they are all versions deriving from a single type, but—given its early date and royal provenance—the original is far more likely to have been RC 403447.

The most famous—and the most widely reproduced—copy is that in the National Portrait Gallery, London, which has been tree-ring-dated to
ca
. 1590–1600. Its history prior to 1870 is not known, but it was probably originally part of a long gallery set. Like all versions, it shows the Queen in similar costume to that in RC 403447, but with minor variations. Here her gown is scarlet rather than crimson, and her hands rest on a parapet, a popular pose in portraits of the period; this parapet is draped with gold-figured velvet, and her beringed fingers hold a white rose. She appears younger than in RC 403447. Around her neck hangs not a pearl necklace, but a ruby pendant in the form of a cross with pearls at each corner, suspended on a black cord; similar jewels appear in portraits of her sons, Arthur and Henry. The portrait is inscribed:
ELIZABETHA UXOR HENRICI VII
(Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII). It has been said that this portrait makes her look “bland and lacking in character,”
¹⁹
but that could be said of many similar crudely executed, two-dimensional panel portraits of the period.

There are other versions of this standard portrait type at Anglesey Abbey; Hatfield House, Hertfordshire; the Old Deanery, Ripon; Dunham Massey, Manchester; Trinity College, Cambridge; Christ Church College, Oxford; Nostell Priory, Yorkshire; Hever Castle, Kent; and in the Tyrwhitt-Drake collection. Another was recorded in 1866 in the collection of J. P. Bastard. A portrait from the Brocket Collection at Bramshill House, Hampshire, was sold first at Sotheby’s in 1952 and again at Christie’s in 1954; one from the Shelley-Rolls collection was sold at Christie’s in 1961. A half-length, later version showing Elizabeth in a high-necked gown with different, coarser features, was once at seventeenth-century Stanford Hall, Leicestershire, but is now in the Courtauld Institute of Art. An eighteenth-century version by a member of the circle of Michael Dahl, with the features painted in contemporary style, was sold by Priory Fine Arts in 2012.
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The Anglesey Abbey portrait, one of a pair with Henry VII in the
collection of the National Trust, has been tree-ring-dated to 1512–20, and is one of the earliest surviving portraits of Elizabeth. Again her hair is darker than usual, and she wears a very rich, heavy gold collar not seen in other portraits, much in the style of the collars worn by her younger self and her sisters in the Royal Window at Canterbury. It has been described as “a ponderous design typical of late Gothic taste.”
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In the Nostell Priory and Dunham Massey portraits, Elizabeth’s hands do not rest on a parapet, as in most of the others, but hover oddly in front of her, and she wears a simple cord necklace; the Nostell version is three-quarter length, showing a pointed bodice belonging to the later Tudor period, with a gathered skirt beneath; but we can see from the Holbein mural that Elizabeth’s gown would actually have had a corded belt at waist level. The portrait at Hever Castle, said to date from
ca
. 1590 (although the style of painting, the lettering, and the oval inset suggest it is later), is inscribed
ELIZABET MATER HENERICUS
8, and shows her wearing a simple string of pearls.

Another slightly different version of the standard portrait, acquired by the art historian Philip Mould, was originally in the collection of the earls of Essex at Cassiobury Park (demolished 1927). Dating from the late sixteenth century, it probably once formed part of a long-gallery set, and shows Elizabeth in a looser gown with a much higher neck against a background of green damask. Several engravings derive from this portrait. The Hatfield portrait, in which the Queen wears a different jeweled collar of roses and knots, bears the date 1500 but was probably painted in the early seventeenth century, when it was first recorded in Robert Cecil’s new house, built in 1611. It too has a green damask background, but darker than in the Cassiobury portrait.
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Elizabeth appears posthumously in a wood-panel painting in the Royal Collection at Windsor.
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It was commissioned by Henry VII from an unknown Flemish painter around 1503–05, and depicts the King, Queen, and their children at prayer before England’s patron saint, St. George, who is vanquishing the dragon. In the background is the rescued princess, leading a lamb symbolizing peace—the peace Henry Tudor had brought to England. St. George appears as the family’s protector, who will make suit to God to watch over this righteous king and his dynasty. The picture was almost certainly intended to emphasize
the royal family’s devotion to St. George, whose cult Henry VII keenly promoted.

The King and Queen wear imperial crowns of the type adopted by Henry V, their children coronets. Henry’s may be the new crown set with many precious stones that he had commissioned for the Feast of the Epiphany in 1488;
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Elizabeth’s crown sits on top of her hood. She kneels before a desk draped in rich cloth of gold patterned with red roses, and wears a long-lappeted gable hood of black velvet or silk, and crimson robes of estate embellished with ermine, her daughters attired in the same style. Behind the figures are canopies and royal tents decorated with the Tudor rose and the Beaufort portcullis. We know that this is a posthumous portrait of Elizabeth because all four of her children who died young are included. In keeping with the artistic practice of those days, they are portrayed as grown children rather than infants—as if they were growing up in Heaven.
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Some of the figures may be likenesses. For example, Henry VII and Arthur are shown with straightish, lank hair, but Prince Henry has luxuriant curls and the high, hooked nose we see in later portraits. Henry VII’s is an idealized representation. The likenesses of Arthur and Elizabeth were done from memory, and probably not very accurately. Those of Edmund, the younger Elizabeth, and Katherine, all of whom died in infancy, are imaginary. Margaret and Mary are just recognizable.

Horace Walpole, who owned the picture in the eighteenth century, and published an engraving in his book,
Anecdotes of Painting in England
, incorrectly described it as Henry V and his family, but he was probably correct in claiming that it was a votive altarpiece, possibly commissioned by Henry VII for St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, or for the Chapel Royal at Richmond Palace. The earliest record of it is the engraver George Vertue’s description
ca
. 1726, when it was at Tart Hall, St. James’s, London, in the collection of William Stafford, Earl of Stafford; it may have been one of the pictures that had come down to Stafford from Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, who owned the Howard letter, another artifact connected with Elizabeth of York.
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At Syon House, Isleworth, there is a painting on canvas of Elizabeth and her daughters that derives from the St. George altarpiece, although
the costume and jewelry are different and the figures have a more realistic quality. Syon House also has a companion panel of the King and his sons. These are perhaps nineteenth-century copies of two lost panel paintings based on the figures in the altarpiece, last seen in 1863 when they were owned by Sir John Stephen Barrington Simeon of the Isle of Wight.
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Again Elizabeth wears her beautiful imperial crown and the traditional robes of estate—a gown, high-necked surcoat with a furred stomacher, and a long mantle—the design of which dated from the fourteenth century. The background is a plain hanging, studded with Tudor roses and surmounted by banners bearing roses and portcullises.

A similar depiction of Henry and Elizabeth appears in an illuminated manuscript, “The Ordinances of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception,” and is dated 1503, the year the confraternity was established in London; its ordinances were drawn up on March 22.
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It shows the King and Queen with their seven children, kneeling before the Immaculate Conception, represented by the figures of Joachim and Anna at the place where, according to medieval belief, they conceived the Virgin Mary—the Golden Gate of Heaven (which looks remarkably like a Beaufort portcullis). Again, this is a posthumous image of Elizabeth (her death is mentioned in the text), portraying her four infants who died young, who again are shown as grown children. Little attempt at accurate portraiture has been made.

Two carved wooden medallions in the window recess of the dining room of Haddon Hall in Derbyshire are possibly portraits of Henry VII and Elizabeth dating from
ca
. 1500, although it has also been suggested that they depict the then owner, Sir Henry Vernon, and his wife. Elizabeth’s eldest son, Prince Arthur, stayed at Haddon Hall in 1501 as the guest of Sir Henry, his governor and treasurer.

A tiny sculpted figure of Elizabeth, encircled by a Tudor rose and surmounted by a crown, is to be seen in the southwest corner of the Antechapel of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge; it is one of many early Tudor royal emblems decorating the chapel. Founded by Henry VI in 1446, the building was completed after 1508 by Henry VII and Henry VIII as a fitting memorial to their revered royal ancestor.

The Sudbury Hutch, a contemporary cupboard chest made
ca
. 1500
and named after retired vicar Thomas Sudbury, who presented it in 1503 to St. James’s Church, Louth, Lincolnshire (where it still reposes), bears carved medallions of Henry and Elizabeth, with a crowned Tudor rose between them. The arches surmounting the medallions are early examples of Renaissance carving in England. Elizabeth is portrayed in an open-arched crown with her hair loose; Henry wears an imperial (closed) crown.
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The full-length, stained-glass figures of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York appear, surrounded by Tudor heraldic symbols, in the east window of the chancel of St. Nicholas’s Church, Stanford-on-Avon, Northamptonshire, which dates from
ca
. 1537–40. Beneath the Queen is the label “Elizabetha R.” In the background the royal motto,
“Dieu et mon droit,”
appears in diagonals on a gold ground. The figures derive from Holbein’s Whitehall mural. The window was at Stanford Hall until the 1880s, and it has been suggested that it was originally commissioned by Henry VIII for one of his palaces, and that there may have been other panels showing Henry VIII and Jane Seymour.
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In support of that theory, the church organ in St. Nicholas’s is said by some sources to have been the one made in 1630 for the Chapel Royal of Whitehall Palace, which was removed by Oliver Cromwell and came into possession of the Cave family, who had owned Stanford Hall since 1430; other sources claim that the organ came from Magdalen College, Oxford. Possibly the Caves acquired the glass panels from the palace; as has been noted, they owned a portrait of Elizabeth of York.

A full-length oil panel of Elizabeth in the Princes Chamber in the Palace of Westminster was executed by Richard Burchett between 1854 and 1860; it too derives from the Holbein mural. A miniature portrait in the Royal Collection by William Essex is dated 1844, and is based—according to the artist—on the portrait at Hatfield House, but its similarity to RC 403447 is marked. A fanciful nineteenth-century portrait of Elizabeth by Edward Penstone was auctioned at Aylsham, Norfolk, in 2010.

Elizabeth appears in Victorian stained-glass windows in the Lady Chapel of Winchester Cathedral and Cardiff Castle.

It is sometimes said that the Queen in the historic tapestry dating from
ca
. 1500 in St. Mary’s Guildhall, Coventry, is Margaret of Anjou,
and that the tapestry depicts her with Henry VI and their court, which was established at Coventry for three years in the 1450s. But it is possible that it’s meant to show Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, who were admitted to the guild of the Holy Trinity in 1500. The tapestry was woven in Flanders around that time, and the costume and imagery give a vivid impression of the sumptuous attire of a queen of Elizabeth’s time and her attendants. This is not a portrait, but the figure of Elizabeth (or Margaret), who kneels at a prie-dieu, wears a gorgeous gown of cloth of gold figured with red, a heavy collar and chain, and a shorter Flemish hood of red velvet topped with a fitted coronet.