A ‘Gladnes’ of Robin Hood's Men: Henry VIII Entertains Queen Katherine

Summary

The Prologue

It may seem bizarrely contentious to begin an article by invoking an earlytwentieth- century advertising maxim that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. But in the case of Henry VIII, two portraits, nearly thirty years apart, graphically encapsulate the extent of the king's physical decline and, paradoxically, the increasing use of his gargantuan appearance and imposing stance to self-publicise his formidable and imperious rule. The most familiar of the portraits, and the progenitor of the iconic image of Henry, is the Holbein workshop painting of the king presenting the Charter of the Incorporation of the Company of Barber-Surgeons that took place in 1540. The picture clearly draws on an earlier piece of Tudor propaganda that depicts Henry as a supreme and grandiose example of kingship as red in tooth and claw contrasted with his financially shrewd and publicly cautious father who stands behind him. This wall painting in the Privy Chamber of Whitehall Palace was destroyed by fire in 1698. Fortunately, a copy by Remigius van Leemput made in 1667 survives in the Royal Collection. The Barber-Surgeons’ portrait positions Henry seated in a Godlike pose towering above the kneeling and dourly liveried guild members and the royal physicians. He exudes pomp in his rich ermine-lined robes with crown and sword as symbols of divine power and authority. He strikes a Falstaffian figure: bloated, bearded, and fat-in-face with podgy fingers. The size of his codpiece as an emblem of potency and sexual vigour was, as rumour would have it, in disproportion to his performance. By the time of the painting he had ceased to joust or even participate in revels and dances. He was seriously disabled by injury and illness, but his response to ailment and changing circumstances was to be tyrannical to friends and foes alike.

What a contrast to the lesser known portrait, by an unknown artist, of Henry shortly after his marriage and coronation. The figure is lithe, contemplative and sensitive. Bejewelled but not extravagantly so, cleanshaven, and with long artistic fingers. Placed next to Michael Sittow's painting of the young Katherine of Aragon, when she was only a few years older than Henry in his portrait, they look as though, in another age, they might audition for Romeo and Juliet.