#obviously there are more portraits than this but they are almost all copies of holbein

[english-history-trip]

The Portraits of Henry VIII (Ranked)

Stealing this idea directly from @morgauseoforkney‘s ranking of James IV’s portraits, I shall try it with his English contemporary! EDIT: The pictures were of James I, and I am a fool. Nevertheless, on with the list!

Hans Holbein, c. 1537

This is the definitive portrait of Henry. As opposed to his other portraits, this one actually looks like a real dude, without posturing or iconography; just a very Grumpy Boi. Could be a biker. 10/10 pouty king faces

Joos van Cleeve, c. 1535

This is the portrait where Henry looks The Mooste Fitte. Like, was he really that pretty? Probably not. But I would date this portrait. 9/10 random red cushions

Holbein (att.), c. 1540

This is what everyone pictures when they think “Henry VIII,” mostly because it got copied a billion times. This one wins for Best Dressed, but gets dinged for overuse and for featuring The Royal Codpiece (albeit more tastefully than some.) 8/10 doublet slashings

Unknown Artist, c. 1542

This one is very honest about Henry’s age; he was on his fifth wife by now. He needs a staff to stand, and he’s wearing a muumuu, and he is in no rush to showcase The Codpiece. 8/10 ruby buttons

Unknown Artist, c. 1520

We’re still in the static medieval-style portrait here, and also it looks like his face is sorta melting. Still wearing his dad’s style of hat. A transitional Henry. 7/10 floppy hats

Unknown Artist, c. 1509

Baby Henry, right at the start of his reign! On the plus side, a rare look at the early Henry. On the minus side, does not look like any other Henry. Skinny (rather than muscular, as he was) with brown hair, he looks more like his brother Arthur. Also, So Much Neck. 6/10 giraffes who died to make this portrait

Cornelis Metsys, 1548

Hee hee. Gonna go ahead and say they published this one after Henry died. 5/10 eyebrows on fleek

After Holbein, 1540

Hoo boy. This is where things start going downhill. Is this man sitting or standing? Which of his eyes is the lazy one, or is it both? CODDDPIEEEECE. Nice crown tho (but is he wearing it OVER his hat?) 4/10 blank documents

Lucas Horenbout, c. 1525/1526

Can you believe Catherine of Aragon liked Henry more WITHOUT the beard, to the point where she almost caused an international incident by getting him to shave it? (He and Francis I had promised to grow their beards until they met, it was all very stupid.) If Henry had never grown that beard, he might have been with C of A his whole life. 3/10 historic beards

Artist Who Probably Wished Not To Be Named, c. 1540

Whaaaaaat happened here. This 100% looks like one guy painted the face and another guy painted the rest and neither of them had any idea what the other was doing. And the hands... maybe they remembered that thing where the hands are supposed to be about the size of the face, so they made them mini too? Something? 1/10 hands flipping off the artist

Cornelis Metsys, c. 1548

I looked and looked for something worse than the last painting to round off the list, and I found it. Boy did I ever find it. It’s our boy Metsys back again (or his “workshop” in case the king ever found out probably). Look at this parboiled egg. Look at this half-eyebrowed mothertrucker. Does the hat have feathers or poodle hair clippings, or his leftover beard? The real masterstroke here is somehow giving him both a neckbeard and no neck. All I can figure is that Metsys dug up Henry’s corpse, drained of blood and swollen with gas, and painted from not-life. 0/10 kings who approved this transaction

[fideidefenswhore]

I find Jane Seymour interesting and all but her fans sometimes just ruin her for me lol.

Instagram is particularly exhausting in this regard, they want to completely separate her from both her marriage to Henry (he forced her, or her family forced her, or something to that effect), everything that happened to her predecessor/s (she didn't want that, she didn't dance on their graves, but if she had, they would have deserved it!), and her family (THEY were ambitious, SHE wasn't!). They essentially treat her like she was an angel that lived in a vacuum, and her (relative) silence is taken as virtue and filled in with benefit of the doubt that is beyond speculative (she didn't do anything for her sister elizabeth or her stepdaughter elizabeth, BUT i'm sure she wanted to). Not to mention the insistence that she was a great beauty (it doesn't matter that she was BUT it's deathly important to me that you ADMIT she was)... a popular Tudor account recently posted her portrait and the comment section was overtaken by their meltdowns that it was 'slander' and the original Holbein portrait proves that she was 'beautiful' (the portrait in question is a copy from Holbein's workshop that is almost identical, obviously his students would have attempted to ape it as much as possible...? One wonders if they were thinking of a different, 19c portrait)

But honestly, I find most of the stans of any of Henry's queens exhausting. They're not unique in insisting that Jane was ontologically good, but I do find them to be the ones that most insist that she was 'innocent' and pushed into a tyrant's lap by a blackguard (this was common in AB stans more when Lissa Bryan was the most active/popular Tudor blog on here); pretending that she possessed some moral high ground in loyalty by constructing a narrative that she didn't entertain Henry's courtship while his 'true wife' (Catherine) was alive, and only did so once she was dead (for what...all of a week? Less than that? Before that, quite possibly, if Anne knew of it by early February, "loved others"), or she did 'seduce' Henry but only for his eldest daughter's benefit. The yarns they spin are unreal in their reach.