The Taming of the Queen

It is a huge picture, nearly five feet high and more than ten feet long, and the cover gets caught on the top right-hand corner so we see it revealed inch by inch from the left, while a page runs to fetch a stool so that he can reach to the corner where the gold cloth is snagged, hiding the full picture.

First a beautifully ornate pillar shining with silver and gold engraving, and a ceiling, bright as stained glass, with red and white Tudor roses. Then a doorway. There is a little gasp of surprise, for there is Princess Mary’s Fool, walking past the archway in Whitehall Palace garden as if to say that all life is passing, that it is a court of fools. In the garden behind her are the carved heraldic beasts on posts as if to say that all glory is folly. I glance at the king to see if he is surprised to see Jane the Fool in the top corner of his royal portrait, but I observe his slow nod, and I know that he approved this, even the position of the Fool. He will think that he is making some kind of profound statement about fame and the world. Another pair of matching gold pillars frame the figure of a woman in the foreground. It is Princess Mary in her dark red gown with the greeny-brown overgown, cut square at her throat, trimmed with white silk slashings on her sleeves and white lace cuffs at her wrists. She wears a French hood, pushed back from her pale face, and a crucifix at her throat. I look carefully at the portrait and then I turn and give her a warm approving smile. It is fitting. She looks regal and dignified, her two hands clasped before her, her face turned towards the viewer with a small smile. If anyone copies this to show to a suitor, a foreign prince seeking her in marriage, it will be a fair likeness. She looks both queenly and girlish. The painter has captured her dignity and her charm. I see her rising blush and she gives me a little nod. This is a good likeness; we are both pleased.

The cover drops a little and the court gasps to see Prince Edward, square as his father, standing stocky and bold in a bulky jacket and red stockings, a red hat crammed on his little head, his sleeves ridiculously stuffed. A few people applaud. This could be the Holbein portrait of the king cut down to three feet tall. The painted prince leans with a confident elbow on his father’s knee, as Edward would never dare to lean in real life, and Henry’s hand is on his shoulder, holding him close, as he has never done. The boy is presented to the eye as if Henry had just given birth to him from between his wide-straddled legs: this is his son and heir, the pose insists. This is the boy of the king’s own making, in his image, his little red egg.

Behind them both, as a backdrop and extending over their heads, is the cloth of estate showing the royal crest, above that a gold seal like a holy halo that the old idolatrous church painters used to enamel over the heads of painted saints. In the middle of the picture, still half-concealed by the drape, which the pages are desperately tugging, is the king himself. The painter has made him the heart of the picture, plumb centre in the blazing colours of a golden sun. His huge puffed sleeves, fat as a pair of bolsters, are in cloth of gold, slashed with white silk, the skirts of his short robe are red and gold, his parted sturdy legs are blazing silver in ivory stockings, the strong calves gleaming, the round knees like two little moons. His gown is trimmed with sable, thrown off the huge padded shoulders, his face is big, pale and unlined, and his codpiece – ‘My God,’ I murmur at the very sight of it. The huge ivory codpiece is boldly erect at the very centre of his body, at the heart of the picture. Enormous and gleaming palely, among all the red and the gold, it does everything but announce to the viewer: here is the king’s cock. Admire!

I bite the inside of my lips so that I do not allow even the whisper of a giggle to escape me, I don’t dare look at Catherine Brandon. The painter must have lost his wits to be so brash; even the king’s monstrous vanity cannot think that this is anything but ridiculous. But then the page finally frees the curtain that has concealed the rest of the portrait, the fabric drops to the floor and at last I see my own likeness.

I am seated at the king’s left hand, in the gown that the painter and I chose together, the red underskirt and sleeves complementing the red of Prince Edward’s robe, my gold bodice and overskirt matching the king’s puffy sleeves, and the white ermine lining and sleeves marking my royalty. The English hood that Nicholas de Vent chose from the royal wardrobe is perfectly rendered, the girdle at my waist done in fine detail, my skin as pearly and as pale as the king’s magnificent legs. But my face . . .

But my face . . .

My face . . .