The Face of Jane Boleyn? | The Lady Parker | Hans Holbein the Younger | Anne Boleyn’s Sister-in-Law

From History Calling

Is this the face of JANE BOLEYN, Viscountess Rochford, who was Anne Boleyn’s sister-in-law? Or is this image, which was drawn by Hans Holbein the younger and inscribed in the eighteenth century with the words ‘The Lady Parker’, actually one of the wives of Janes’ brother, Sir Henry Parker, and therefore either Grace Newport or Elizabeth Calthorpe (or Calthrop). In this Tudors documentary from History Calling we’ll look at the provenance of this Tudor portrait which has passed through the hands of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Henry FitzAlan, 12th Earl of Arundel, John, Lord Lumley, then perhaps Henry, Prince of Wales, followed by his brother King Charles I. It then went to Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel, King Charles II & finally the rest of the Kings and Queens of England from Charles onwards. It is now part of the Royal Collection of art & is held at Windsor Castle. I’ll explain to you where the inscription comes from & how much we can trust its identification as Lady Parker (which was supposedly provided by John Cheke, a tutor to Edward VI). We’ll also examine the evidence for it being either Jane, Grace or Elizabeth. This evidence will include the known movements of Hans Holbein, specifically when he was living in England and was available to create this picture, how well those dates tally with Jane Parker Boleyn’s change of surname upon her marriage to George Boleyn (which likely occurred in 1525 or 1526, though some date it as early as 1524) & the title she would have used prior to her marriage and even the colour of the paper Holbein used to draw the picture on. We’ll also look at the very limited sources we have as to the appearance of Lady Rochford which come from an examination of her supposed bones in the Chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula in the Tower of London in the 1870s. Jane’s demise on the scaffold on 13 February 1542 alongside her mistress, Queen Katherine Howard, was yet another Tudor scandal in an era which produced many, especially for the women of the court and it would be fascinating to have a picture of her, but in their eagerness to know what Jane Boleyn looked like, have some modern commentators gone too far in declaring this picture to be the woman who, perhaps more than any other, deserves the title of the other Boleyn girl?