#this is claimed about katherine howard too and it’s simply not true and down to people being stupid

[edwardseymour]

i'm shocked that theirs no evidence of their being a order to have all of anne boleyn’s portraiture be destroyed one of the things i hear anne fans talk about all the time is a attempt to "erase" her from history by henry and jane!! they make it sound like their was a bonfire of all of anne's paintings and personal belongings like that one scene from sleeping beauty

✨ terfs/zionists fuck off ✨

it’s another one of those popular anne boleyn isms that’s uncritically widely accepted but i don’t think it holds up.

there’s simply no evidence of such an order. plenty exists of her to suggest there was no top down command that was acted upon. more reasonably, she likely simply became an unpopular figure to have displayed in one’s house after her execution… but she was still referred to posthumously as “the late queen”, her iconography was left in place in actively used palaces, henry kept several of her possessions in his inventory, and her portraiture outlasted the tudor period with one surviving as late as 1773 in the lumley collection. so it seems improbable that there was a formal order or enforced policy of erasure or damnatio memoraie against her, as an anointed queen and mother to a child of henry’s, illegitimate or otherwise — nor does there seem to be much evidence of that as a strategy taken against other traitors. henry howard’s portrait still survives, for example.

[the-quiet-winds]

Close Enough to Start a War (part one)

i’m back. @ichlugebulletsandcornnuts is back (this was her idea, and it kind of developed from there). 

like, reblog, do all that nice stuff. this is part one of two. 

[Part 1: When the Thunder Calls]

the queens had not long started their second european tour and were currently stationed in paris, so none of them were aware of the documentary that had aired the night before back in the UK. that is, not until boleyn walks into the kitchen where the other queens are sitting having breakfast, frowning at her phone.

“did anyone else wake up tagged in a bunch of tweets about some documentary?” she asks. the others share puzzled looks before they reach for their own phones.

jane glances at her (rarely used) twitter. she had indeed been tagged in hundreds of tweets about a documentary, apparently by some guy called Professor Steven Redbridge, where he claimed to reveal the true story of Henry VIII’s wives.

“i don’t know why they still keep doing these,” cleves comments, raising an eyebrow at her own phone. “I mean, they could just ask us what it was like.”

“maybe we should give it a watch?” offers parr. she feels she knows what’s coming - another bland retelling of the six of them, basic facts about who they were, what they did, how they died.

plain, simple, dry.

boy, was she wrong.

“Henry’s first wife,” redbridge introduces that afternoon, the queens all seated on the couches and chairs in their rented space, “was Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand, the famous Spanish rulers who sent Columbus on his great quest to America.”

“at least he got that right,” grumbles aragon.

“Catherine of Aragon was primarily known as a devout member of the Christian faith, whom, once Henry was bewitched by Anne Boleyn, was sent off to a nunnery, the seemingly perfect place for someone as faithful as she.”

“when will people realise that there’s a big difference between christian faiths!” aragon glares at the tv. “i’m catholic. that’s really quite important to the whole story of england. besides, i didn’t just go.” meanwhile boleyn, who was squashed between cleves and jane on the couch that really was only big enough for two people, had her nose scrunched questioningly.

“he means ‘bewitched’ in a metaphorical sense, right?”

“catherine had given henry a daughter,” Redbridge continues, “but henry needed a son. could he find that with the beautiful anne, a shrewd political strategist who schemed for the crown?”

that last line caught everyone off guard.

“shrewd?” boleyn challenges.

“strategist?” asks parr.

“schemed?” cleves quips.

“anne boleyn, daughter of the french court, came to england in hopes of usurping the english crown from an unsuspecting catherine of aragon,” redbridge says smartly.

aragon throws a handful of popcorn at the tv. “that’s not true!” boleyn felt almost a bit of gratitude at aragon defending her.

“anne, meanwhile,” redbridge continues, “had her ways of enchanting henry. many reports claim that anne was not only a gorgeous french woman, but a witch.” he points to the base of his hand. “sometimes a sixth finger can come in handy.”

boleyn looks down at her hands, nearly in tears. all of the queens knew that, while she made a joke about it on stage, she is secretly very embarrassed about the abnormality, one that may have caused her death.

jane puts her hand on boleyn’s arm to comfort her. “turn it off,” she says to parr, who has the remote. “we don’t need to watch this rubbish.”

“it’s okay,” boleyn swallows slightly, blinking back tears. “i want to see how ridiculous they can get.” she sniffs and rubs her eyes angrily with her fists. “i’m not even proper french, let alone a witch.”

katherine, who is sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch, resting her back against the space next to jane’s legs, turns to look at her cousin, concerned, and boleyn sends her a watery grin, mouthing “i’m fine,” even though her eyes are still filled with tears.

“anne, however, couldn’t bewitch the king forever,” redbridge speaks. “after anne gives birth to a daughter, henry’s eyes start to wander, and soon his attentions turn to jane seymour, lady-in-waiting to the queen.”

“this ought to be interesting,” jane mumbles. she feels a weight against her leg and looks down; katherine was leaning her head against her knee. with a soft smile, jane lets a hand fall to slowly and absently play with katherine’s hair.

“there’s a reason,” redbridge says, drawing jane’s attention back to the screen, “that many people forget about the third wife. jane was very drastically different from her predecessors. where catherine and anne we’re larger than life figures, bold and unique, jane was demure, soft-spoken, and said to be very maternal.”

jane realizes that her spot may not be so bad, until redbridge speaks again.

“she is best known for her son, edward, and for dying immediately after.” he looks upward with a laugh. “ol’ jane seymour, if you’re up there, i hope you’re doing more than you did down here.”

jane can feel katherine practically start seething and she immediately tries to soothe her by running her fingers through katherine’s hair. the words sting jane as much as she tries not to let it affect her; mostly because, unlike the other queens, she fears redbridge was right about her. that was her legacy, wasn’t it? giving henry his son and then dying?

her thoughts continue even through redbridge’s next narration. “once jane died, henry moved on very quickly, finding love with the beautiful woman he saw in a portrait. when his new bride Anne of Cleves arrived in England, however, henry realises he’d been tricked. the woman he was marrying was the spitting image of a horse.” the editors included the sound effect of a horse whinnying to accompany his words.

cleves ‘humphs’. “the editing is taking it a little too far.” she pauses and smirks. “at least the horse is better looking than scraggly-beard over here.”

the ladies quietly chuckle at this as redbridge begins the next narration.

“Katherine Howard,” he states. jane feels kat stiffen slightly and begins to slowly play with her hair again.

“...was a young girl from England, only around sixteen upon marrying the king.” he pauses for effect. “this may sound horrifying and traumatic but believe me, it was just her plan.”

“my plan?” katherine repeats, quietly and incredulously.

“ever since she was a child, Katherine was known to bewitch more boys that Boleyn, enjoying lustful affairs with men much older than she. she was brought to court as a lady-in-waiting to Anne of Cleves, and immediately began her attempts to woo the king, the seductive temptress in his own court.”

katherine’s blood runs cold as the words wash over her. she didn’t “enjoy” any affairs, she didn’t even want any of them. she feels the hot tears threatening to spill from her eyes, and almost unconsciously she whispers, “i was a child.”

redbridge doesn’t stop there, however. “the young seductress soon had the king in the palm of her hand and he married her, but despite all katherine’s planning and manipulation, she wasn’t clever enough to conceal her affair of passion with the courtier thomas culpeper.”

katherine stiffens at hearing culpepper's name, everything getting worse by the minute. what happened with him was based from anything but passion. she can vaguely feel jane's hand weaving through her hair, but it doesn't seem real.

"the two were tragic as romeo and juliet - brought down by a forbidden affair," redbridge says wistfully, before becoming pedantic once again. "once the seductress was found out, no one could stop the warpath henry went on. he executed culpepper first, even though he claimed being unable resist katherine's advantages, before beheading the temptress herself." he chuckles despite himself, then lightens his tone. "well at least she didn't die a virgin - that's better than i can say for some of my friends."

parr stands up and switches the tv off. “i think that’s enough of that,” she says firmly. “i can guess the type of things he’s going to say about me, and i don’t think any of us need to listen to this any longer.”

katherine doesn’t even hear her, lost in what redbridge had said. is this what people would believe? did they believe it already? her breathing rapidly becomes shallow and panicked, and she doesn’t even notice being lifted from the floor and being placed on jane’s lap until jane wraps her arms around her, rubbing a gentle hand against her back and trying to soothe her with soft words. katherine’s head falls sideways against jane’s shoulder and she can’t even stop the tears that stream down her face.

"what a load of bullshit," cleves hisses. "i don't know what books he was reading, but he couldn't have been more wrong if he tried."

boleyn reaches over and pats katherine's shoulder awkwardly, parr lightly strokes her hair, and aragon starts swearing in spanish. jane continues her light ministrations across katherine's back.

katherine, however, feels too many hands on her, so full of panic and distrust that she can't help but try to escape. all she can think about is getting away from them, as supportive and lovely as they were, and doing it fast.

she throws her hands out.

the heel of her palm connects with something, and that something would turn out to be jane's nose.

katherine, had she been in her right mind, would have recognized immediately what had happened, seeing the blood beginning to drip from jane's nose, but instead, she simply jumps up and runs up to her room, slamming the door and locking it shut.

she curls up on the floor in the very corner of her room, knees drawn up to her chest as she rocks slightly. her breathing gets more and more erratic until she’s hyperventilating. those words from the documentary keep running through her mind. temptress, seductress, bewitching, part of her plan... that was what people saw when they looked at her story. the harlot who seduced the king and then committed adultery, that’s all she was to the public. they didn’t hear the screams of her nightmares, or see the figures looming above her, or feel the panic when any man approaches her.

she can see spots in front of her eyes and feels her nails dig into her shins and that tightness in her chest as her breathing keeps getting quicker and quicker until it stops altogether.

katherine's body unfurls as she passes out, her back landing solid against the wall with a loud thump, the last thing on her mind is an executioner's blade before it all goes blank.

[sixwivesoneking]

February 13, 1542: Katherine Howard and Jane Boleyn are Executed

On February 13th, in 1542, at a little after 7 o’clock in the morning, Katherine Howard and Jane Boleyn were executed.   When the long night of waiting for their executions finally turned to day, both Katherine and Jane began to prepare themselves to face the world for the last time and their imminent execution in their separate chambers, which were comfortable enough, but in no way comforting.  It is doubtful that either woman got any sleep the night before.  Both women began to don the clothing that they had painstakingly picked out for their executions.  One can only imagine the thoughts that were passing through their minds, but Jane was probably recalling the executions of her husband and sister-in-law less than six years before; Katherine probably thought of it too, and perhaps she thought of Culpeper.  Both women knew what to expect, they both came from families that had an intimate knowledge of death by decapitation for treason.  And they both knew how to die well, how to die honorably, how to hide the terror they no doubt felt, and how to accept their fate as tradition demanded, in a gruesome ritual that required the victims to willingly go to their deaths, without a fight or some other “unseemly” spectacle.  

The four ladies that had accompanied Katherine to the Tower helped her get ready.  Her nightgown was removed and replaced with a silk chemise, silk stockings and shoes were put on her tiny feet, and then her underskirts were put on, in order to give her gown the fashionable shape that she liked, followed by a velvet kirtle*, a velvet gown, separate embroidered sleeves, a French hood with gold edging, with leather gloves and a mantle* finishing her ensemble.  The mantle was to protect her from the cold and frost of the early February morning, since the Tower Green was located outside, with little-to-no protection from the elements.  Jane was also assisted in getting dressed, since as the daughter of Lord Morley, she would expect nothing less, and even though she was a convicted traitor, she was still a Viscountess and could not be treated as an ordinary prisoner.  Her black damask nightgown was removed, a chemise was slipped over her head, followed by a kirtle, then plain stockings and leather shoes were put on her feet.  Then she was dressed in a black velvet gown, which was what she had normally worn as a lady of the bedchamber, followed by leather gloves.  She likely would have been wrapped in a mantle as well.   Sir John Gage, the Constable of the Tower*, was also very busy that morning, since the execution of a Queen was not an everyday occurrence, and there could be no mistakes made.  Because it was so important that everything went smoothly, Gage decided that he could not leave the preparations solely to Sir Edmund Walsingham, who would normally have been in charge of the execution preparations.  But Gage and Walsingham were fortunate in the fact that they had the precedent of Queen Anne Boleyn’s execution to follow, so there was no need for constant communication with the Council.  It also helped that Walsingham had been lieutenant of the Tower at the time of Queen Anne’s execution.  The men made sure that the scaffold was properly prepared; it was about three or four feet high, draped in black, and covered with straw to soak up the two women’s life-blood.  Upon it rested the block, which Katherine had used the night before to practice how to position herself on it gracefully.  The headsman had arrived, with his axe; there would be no expert Calais swordsmen for the two condemned women as there had been for Queen Anne.  The Tower guards were prepared; all that needed to be done was for the King’s councilors and the small group of Londoners who were to watch the administering of the King’s justice, to arrive, since the executions could not take place without an audience. The councilors had spent the night before the executions at Westminster, and when it began to get light out, they boarded the barges that were to take them along the Thames to the Tower, which was about 2 ½ miles downriver.  The Duke of Suffolk was not present, since, according to Chapuys, he was ill.  The Duke of Norfolk was also not present, although the reason why is not known.  Perhaps he was ill too, or pretending to be, so that he did not have to watch yet another niece be executed, perhaps watching Katherine’s execution would have been too difficult, even for him, or perhaps he just wanted to distance himself from the whole sordid affair.  But both Norfolk and Suffolk were well enough to attend a council session the next day.  As for the other councilors, they had no choice but to attend; although for some, like Sir Richard Rich, overseeing the administration of the King’s justice was simply a job to be done, with little feeling.  For others, like Sir John Russell, with whom Jane had stayed for a brief time while she was recovering her sanity, the next few hours would be extremely difficult to witness.  Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, was also present, and it is possible that the executions were difficult for him as well, since Katherine was his cousin. Once the Council and “various lords and gentlemen” arrived at the Tower, the executions could proceed.  And while the remaining official’s identities are unknown, they would have all been at least acquainted with Queen Katherine and Lady Rochford.  And they all no doubt hoped that what they were about to witness would be over quickly.  Gage led the men from their barges, through a security cordon, and to the stands that had been erected next to the scaffold, likely the same wooden stands that had been used for Queen Anne's execution.  Around the same time the officials arrived by barge, a group of select Londoners walked to the Tower, where they arrived at the western gate, which, while normally guarded, was open so that witnesses could enter the Tower precincts via the Bulwark Gate, which crossed the wide, deep moat.  But the group still had to pass through three more security gates and pass the Bloody Tower before they entered the Inner Ward.  From there, they saw the huge, square walls of the White Tower to their right, and the Beauchamp Tower on their left.  They walked along the west side of the White Tower, turned the corner, and saw it: their destination, the scaffold that would soon be soaked with the blood of a young Queen and one of her ladies.  Allegedly, even more people had come to witness Katherine and Jane’s executions than had for Anne Boleyn’s, probably about 7 to 8,000 people, but that is likely not true.  Probably less than 1,000 people were to witness these executions.   Now it was time for Gage to fetch the first of the prisoners, Katherine, who would die first due to her higher rank.  Gage headed to the Queen’s lodgings, which were located to the southeast of the White Tower and a few hundred yards away from the scaffold.  He entered the palace area through Cole Harbor gate and climbed the stairs to Katherine’s rooms, where he respectfully knocked on the door before entering.  Katherine was ready and waiting for him, wrapped in her mantle against the cold.  She quietly followed him out the door and down the stairs, followed by her ladies, walked through the gate and around the White Tower, to where the scaffold waited for her.  That short walk to the scaffold must have seemed to take a lifetime, and yet, at the same time, no time at all.  Katherine looked at the assembled group of witnesses, and steadily climbed the stairs, although it should be noted that some sources  say that Katherine was so weak with fear that she needed assistance climbing the stairs and could hardly speak because of her terror.  I am inclined to be skeptical of Weir’s claim, since Ottwell Johnson’s eyewitness account says nothing of the sort and he mentions Katherine’s bravery.  Before Katherine made her final speech, her executioner knelt before her and asked her forgiveness for what he was about to do, which she gave him with her payment, and then she knelt in prayer.  Once she had prayed, she stood and, in a clear voice, addressed the crowd that had gathered to watch the executions.   An eyewitness named Ottwell Johnson, who was a merchant, recorded the following in a letter he wrote on the 15th to his brother about the executions: “And for the news from hence; know ye, that, even according to my writing on Sunday last, I see the Queen and the lady Retcheford [Rochford] suffer within the Tower, the day following; whose souls (I doubt not) be with God, for they made the most godly and Christians’ end that ever was heard tell of (I think) since the world’s creation, uttering their lively faith in the blood of Christ only, with wonderful patience and constancy to the death, and, with goodly words and steadfast countenance, they desired all Christian people to take regard unto their worthy and just punishment with death, for their offences against God heinously from their youth upward, in breaking of all his commandments, and also against the King’s royal Majesty very dangerously; wherefore they, being justly condemned (as they said) by the Laws of the realm and Parliament, to die, required the people (I say) to take example at them for amendment of their ungodly lives, and gladly obey the King in all things, for whose preservation they did heartily pray, and willed all people to do so, commending their souls to God and earnestly calling for mercy upon Him, whom I beseech to give us grace with such faith, hope, and charity, at out departing out of this miserable world, to come to the fruition of his Godhead in joy everlasting.  Amen.” Marillac, the French Ambassador, gives a much different account of Katherine’s actions at her execution, and he states that the execution took place closer to 9a.m., but since he was not actually present, it is very unlikely that there is any truth in his words.  He said that “The Queen was so weak that she could hardly speak, but confessed in few words that she had merited a hundred deaths for so offending the King who had so graciously treated her.” The Spanish Chronicle also gives yet another contradictory report on the events of the execution, but since that was the Tudor equivalent of the tabloid, it is highly unlikely that it is true.  Although it is rather romantic what they have Katherine’s final words being: “I die a Queen, but I would rather die the wife of Culpeper.” Once a pale, but composed Katherine had finished speaking, her ladies stepped forward to remove her mantle and place a linen cap on her head.  Then a blindfold was placed over her eyes and she gracefully knelt down at the block, a movement that she had carefully rehearsed the previous night, laid her head on the block, and waited for the executioner to strike.  He did so swiftly, and her head was removed with a single blow.  One witness report says that the young, teenage girl, who must have been terrified beyond belief, “died well”.  The executioner then picked up Katherine’s head and displayed it to the crowd, to show what befell traitors to the King. Now it was time for Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford’s, turn to be executed for committing high treason by helping Katherine allegedly commit adultery.  Before she was brought out, the scaffold was washed down with some water and covered with fresh straw, so that Jane would not slip on the blood.  Gage then walked back to the royal apartments to fetch Jane, who was most likely lodged in the King’s or Queen’s apartments, due to the shortage of suitable accommodations for the sudden influx of illustrious prisoners, mostly ones who had been caught up in the Katherine/Culpeper affair.  Jane had not been able to see the execution from her chambers, but she must have heard the spectator’s cries and gasps when Katherine’s head was cut off and held up.  Undoubtedly, the wait for Gage to come fetch her, while in reality only took a few moments, must have seemed like forever.  Gage knocked on Jane’s door, brought her out, led her down the stairs, and past the White Tower to where her fate waited.  Gage treated her with civility and compassion while he escorted her, and by the time they reached the scaffold, there was very little evidence of what had just occurred.  Katherine’s head had been carefully wrapped in a white cloth, and her body had been lain in a black cloak, before her bloody remains where carried to the chapel.  Jane then calmly climbed up onto the scaffold, forgave the executioner, and turned to face the crowd, which would have contained several faces that she knew.  According to Chapuys: “Then Lady Rochford was brought, who had shown symptoms of madness till they told her she must die.  Neither she nor the Queen spoke much on the scaffold; they only confessed their guilt and prayed for the King’s welfare.”   But Marillac reported that, “The lady of Rochefort said as much in a long discourse of several faults which she had committed in her life.” Ottwell Johnson wrote of how Jane faced her death with composure, bravery, and dignity. Julia Fox , writes of how there is no transcript of Jane Boleyn’s speech, but says that Johnson record’s give us enough information to reconstruct it. According to Fox, Jane said the following: “She began by declaring her complete faith and trust in God. ‘I have,’ she said, ‘committed many sins against God from my youth upwards and have offended the king’s royal Majesty very dangerously, so my punishment is just and deserved. I am justly condemned by the laws of this realm and by Parliament. All of you who watch me die should learn from my example and change your own lives. You must gladly obey the king in all things, for he us a just and godly prince. I pray for his preservation and beseech you all to do the same. I now entrust my soul to God and pray for his mercy.’” But Jane, Lady Rochford, never once confessed to giving false testimony against her sister-in-law, Queen Anne Boleyn, or her husband, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, nor did she speak of the offenses for which she was being executed.  The eyewitness accounts of Chapuys and Ottwell Johnson do not mention any such confession, and you can be sure that that would not be something they would have left out.  The source behind the myth that Jane made these confessions is most likely Gregorio Leti, a man who was famous for making up stories and inventing false sources to support his stories. Once Jane had made her short, final speech, she removed her cloak, had her hair bound up out of the way, prayed, was blindfolded, and then she knelt and placed her head on the blood-soaked block that had held Katherine’s head moments before, and her head was taken off with one swift blow of the axe.  Both women made good and dignified ends.   After the Executions Once both women had been executed, the spectators dispersed; they had acted as witnesses and seen the King’s justice performed.  Gage and Walsingham were left to supervise the cleaning up. They had the scaffold washed down again, and then dismantled.  They made sure that the executioner was given his fee and the victim’s outer clothes as payment, then sent him on his way.  The guards were dismissed to their quarters. After Katherine and Jane’s executions, their bodies were stripped and wrapped in cere-cloth, then their bodies and heads were buried in the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, which was located within the Tower.  Katherine was laid to rest next to her cousin, Anne Boleyn, as was Jane, who was finally reunited with her husband, George Boleyn.  And ordinary life resumed for everyone but the dead: a young Queen who, while guilty of making mistakes and loving the wrong person, did not deserve death, and her older, more experienced lady-in-waiting, whose legacy would be one of jealousy, foolishness, shrewish behavior, complicity in the murder of her husband and sister-in-law, and as “that bawd, the Lady Rochford.”  Neither deserved to die, and Jane’s legacy is one that is completely undeserved, at least according to Julia Fox , whose book, Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford, is one that I highly recommend reading. *Kirtle – A long gown or dress worn by women. *Mantle –A loose, sleeveless garment worn over other clothes; a cloak or cape. *Constable of the Tower – Gage’s offices of constable were more of an honorary position rather than one of carrying out every day responsibilities.  Those were the job of the lieutenant, Sir Edmund Walsingham.  At Queen Anne’s execution, however, Kingston, the then constable, was very much involved, so it is likely that Gage was with Katherine and Jane’s executions.

[edwardseymour]

Hello! I read a theory that one of the famous allegedly Katherine Howard portraits (the one with the necklace also found on Jane Seymour, where she is gazing sort of sideways to the viewer; not the one where she is dressed allll in black, if that makes sense) is actually Anne of Cleves? When I view them side by side I can kind of see it. What do you think?

✨ terfs/zionists fuck off ✨

i don’t have a committed opinion on it. the sitter is a royal woman in 1540-1541; the necklace shared with jane seymour suggests that. beyond that, i am not unwilling to accept the sitter is anne of cleves, i’m just not convinced by franny moyle’s reasoning, and hers is the main argument i have seen put forward for it to be identified as anne, and has been accepted by heather r darsie, anne’s biographer: “thanks to research by franny moyle, whose recent biography on hans holbein is quite comprehensive, it is now known that a miniature sometimes identified as katherine howard, henry's fifth wife, is more likely to be of anne”.

firstly, i have never liked the argument of resemblance. it’s too subjective, and so many women have been claimed to be one sitter or another based on supposedly looking like someone, which i always find to be relative. what one person sees and interprets isn’t reliably what someone else sees, and visual similarities aren’t sufficient on their own in a medium like portraiture, where the appearance could be manipulated. i personally don’t think the sitter looks that much like anne of cleves, which reiterates my point that it’s subjective. on a similar note, i dislike the argument that the sitter “doesn’t look like a child bride”, for similar reasons. this is of course ignoring the fact that we can’t be certain of katherine’s age, as i agree she was most likely very young, but that is also an argument one could make.

so! to challenge moyle’s arguments:

i think the most crucial counter-arguments to moyle’s identification of anne of cleves is that there is no real evidence of holbein using cards to signify hidden meaning, and that his use of cards is too inconsistent to identify symbolic patterns. this is something moyle herself acknowledges in the footnotes, stating that “holbein’s own practice in this respect [the preparation of mounts, i.e. cards] is unrecorded”, so we simply don’t know enough about his methods to base identification so heavily on the portrait being on a four of hearts. why would anne be the four of hearts, when legally she was only henry’s second wife since his marriages to catherine of aragon and anne boleyn were annulled. where trends can be identified (across holbein and his contemporaries, horenbout and clouet), it doesn’t support moyle’s claims about the secret messaging holbein intended: as karin leonhard has argued that “the ace of diamonds appears to have been reserved for royalty” and “the queen’s portrait, especially, was repeatedly painted on a queen card”.

there is also a notable discrepancy between contemporary descriptions of anne and her identification. moyle argues that “hall remains an unreliable witness [and] the term ‘fair’ could equally apply to light brown as well as blonde hair”, citing the 1809 publication of hall’s chronicle. but when i checked the same publication, the description specified that anne’s hair was fair and yellow: “the ladye anne […] her here hangyng downe, whych was fayre, yelowe and long”. so it feels misrepresentative for her to omit the specific detail of anne having ‘yellow’ hair. further, roland hui has also pointed out that moyle is being very selective here: “moyle’s dismissal of the chronicler as ‘an unreliable witness’ is puzzling, given that she used hall as a source regarding anne’s clothing”. true, chronicles — by their very nature (being written for their benefactor, and not often a first hand account) — are not necessarily the most reliable evidence. likewise, blonde/golden hair could be in compliance with a late medieval visual archetype, recalling depictions of the virgin mary, associations with the halo/wheat (fertility), gold (nobility), youth (innocence/virginity), but these are the sorts of things moyle could have engaged with in her inquiry, and elected not to, bypassing it entirely by misrepresenting the source.

i also wish moyle had acknowledged other details used to identify the sitter as katherine howard, such as the sitter’s jewellery corresponding with items in katherine howard’s inventory, and descriptions of gifts given to katherine by henry. additionally, i would have been interested to hear her thoughts on the miniature’s provenance, as it has a history with the howards. before entering the royal collection in the 1660s, it belonged to thomas howard, 21st earl of arundel, and whilst we don't know where he got it from, most of his collection was inherited from john lumley, who had a connection to the howards after katherine’s death, (& who also apparently had an anne boleyn portrait that subsequently disappeared sometime after being damaged by fire in 1773). and just to be clear: it is also worth remembering that the lumley collection also had anne of cleves (louvre) portrait alongside christina of denmark’s (ng london). moyle does not discuss this provenance in her book, either way.

i do, however, think it is interesting how popularly people latched onto this particular theory, when there is nothing substantively supporting it, when there have been numerous other theories is identifying other women (margaret douglas, mary monteagle, etc.) as the sitter of the royal collection holbein miniature, based on equal amounts of evidence, which haven’t gotten anywhere near as much traction or popular acceptance. it feels notable that people are more willing to accept it as a queen than a random woman.

it’s definitely worth pointing out that franny moyle is a popular non-fiction author, not a tudor art history specialist, and i do feel slightly concerned at how uncritically accepted popular authors are, and how their work (while not to be completely dismissed!) are being treated as equal to that of actual scholars, within the wider context of increasing anti-intellectualism and the challenges that academics are finding in producing work that is being made widely accessible. no disrespect to her, but it is something that is disappointing and worrying to me. it is simply goofy that people are treating her like some kind of expert… and not as a woman who is simply writing shit for money.