TUDOR FACES: Observations and Musings on Tudor Portraiture and Personalities
Even though in England, Mary Tudor outranked her husband Philip of Spain (she was Queen Regnant, while he was King Consort), she was still shown as a traditional subservient wife in their joint seal.
On the obverse, Philip is in the dominant position seated on the left. On the reverse, even though Mary appears 'first' on the left, it is her husband who is more prominently depicted. Mary looks squeezed in.
Queen Elizabeth's relationship with the Papacy was not a warm one to say the least.
After her father Henry VIII married her mother Anne Boleyn, Pope Clement VII threatened to excommunicate him if he didn't go back to his first wife, Katherine of Aragon. Later, Pope Paul III had the sentenced carried out.
In 1570, Elizabeth too was excommunicated by Pope Pius V for her 'heretical' Protestantism.
Shown here is an anti-Papal Dutch print (by Pieter van de Heyden) of Elizabeth's enmity with the Vatican. The Queen, depicted as a naked Classical goddess of Antiquity, vanquishes the Pope and his 'brood' with the help of Truth and Time.
The family of Henry VIII from a genealogical roll from the reign of Edward VI.
Henry VIII is shown with his 6 wives, his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy, and his 2 daughters Mary and Elizabeth. Edward is at the bottom as King.
Katherine of Aragon was not included.
As the film tells us - 'her story is of no particular interest - she was a respectable woman. So Henry VIII divorced her'.
