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Unlimited slows. Today.

1:04

I'm going to share with

1:06

you the story of an

1:08

Elizabethan portrait unknown for four

1:10

hundred years. If you want

1:12

to see it as we

1:14

go along, do look on

1:16

Twitter x at Not Just

1:18

Tutors or at My own

1:20

handle at Sixteenth See Go

1:22

And you can also see

1:24

pictures on my Facebook and

1:26

Instagram pages because this is

1:28

a very very special picture.

1:30

in chose a woman in

1:32

an elaborate ruff wearing. A white

1:35

and gold gown that drops to

1:37

the floor with a v shape

1:39

bodice and abroad farthingale. When Emma

1:41

Rutherford, the country's leading expert in

1:43

portrait miniatures, first saw it, she

1:46

knew that she was looking at

1:48

something. Very, very special.

1:51

It is what is called a cabinet

1:53

miniature which is to say it is

1:55

a painting between the modern sizes of

1:57

a five and a for with all

1:59

the exquisite perfection. of a miniature. And

2:01

Emma Rutherford immediately recognized it as by

2:03

the hand of Elizabeth I's most

2:06

famous miniature portraitist or limer,

2:08

Nicholas Hilliard. So she got

2:10

in touch with Dr. Elizabeth

2:12

Goldring, the celebrated biographer

2:15

of Hilliard, and together

2:17

they investigate it. Because this

2:19

is a portrait of an

2:21

unknown young woman, looking just

2:23

like Elizabeth I. She's richly

2:27

dressed in a gown covered with

2:29

Elizabeth's personal device of the armillary

2:31

sphere, standing in front of

2:33

a royal palace. Could

2:35

it be an unknown portrait of Elizabeth

2:37

I herself? But

2:40

something they knew immediately was not

2:42

quite right. The clothing

2:44

was evidently from the 1590s, and

2:47

yet the face is not that

2:50

of Elizabeth I in the 1590s,

2:52

nor is it the mask

2:54

of youth created by Hilliard to make

2:56

Elizabeth look young and beautiful when she

2:58

was aging. No, no, this was someone

3:00

else, someone decked out

3:02

to look just like the Queen.

3:06

It is a Tudor mystery.

3:08

And together, Emma Rutherford and Elizabeth

3:11

Goldring set out through some remarkable

3:13

historical detective work to solve it.

3:16

And what they found was

3:18

a picture ripe with political importance,

3:20

speaking to the question of Elizabeth

3:23

I succession and

3:25

leaving a document trail that involves

3:27

both spies and diplomatic

3:29

intrigue. I'm

3:31

Professor Cizanna Lipscomb, and this

3:33

is Not Just the Tudors. Thank

3:41

you both very much for joining

3:44

me, or indeed inviting me to

3:46

come and see this very special

3:48

miniature. Elizabeth, could you start

3:51

us off by reminding us about

3:53

Nicholas Hilliard and his work? Of

3:55

course. Well, Nicholas Hilliard was the

3:57

First native-born English painter. Her

4:00

to attain a reputation for excellence

4:02

both in England and abroad. During

4:05

his own lifetime, he was Elizabeth

4:07

the first favorite, most trusted porch

4:09

a test. And. He

4:12

was best known in his own lifetime

4:14

and indeed say for his work as

4:16

a miniature painter or limb know but

4:18

in fact he painted in oils and

4:20

great. He also designed jewelry. he also

4:23

device seals and medals. He turned his

4:25

hand too many things pretty much anything

4:27

that would pay the bills but it

4:29

was is a miniature painter thought he

4:31

was most celebrated and indeed that's why

4:34

we're here today to i talk about

4:36

a new discovery. And I think

4:38

the new discovery has just arrived. I. Will

4:42

gather round It's so bright isn't

4:44

a the colors and any well

4:47

preserved itself is see. I.

4:49

Presume been tucked way out of the

4:51

like for. Most. Of it's history. And.

4:55

Will You're an absolute expert!

4:57

On portrayed miniatures and.

5:01

I'd. Let you to explain why. The

5:04

cabinet miniature we can see in

5:06

front of us is quite so

5:08

unusual. Well, miniatures by a odds

5:11

are unusual in that they're pretty

5:13

rad. Most of them are now

5:15

and public institutions or the great

5:18

noble houses. So this miniature in

5:20

front of us now is unusual

5:22

in so many ways. Festival, it's

5:25

huge, it's virtually as a for

5:27

size, and it was a type

5:29

of miniature known as a cabinet

5:32

miniature which produced through around. to

5:34

period of about ten years from

5:36

that fifteen h five about fifty

5:39

ninety five and it was a

5:41

fashion which came from his visit

5:43

to france where he saw full

5:46

length drawings and to decide to

5:48

spreading this level of sophistication see

5:50

the english court but what's particularly

5:53

amazing about this miniature among other

5:55

things sisters it's the only extant

5:57

cabinet match of a female subject

6:00

by Hilliard. There's one unfinished

6:02

cabinet miniature in the Fitzwilliam Museum

6:04

in Cambridge but this is the

6:06

only finished cabinet miniature of

6:08

a female subject. And just

6:10

to give you an idea of what people

6:12

did with a cabinet miniature, they would normally

6:15

hang them in a cabinet room

6:17

in their grand house and as part of

6:19

the sort of treasures of

6:21

the house along with natural treasures, shells

6:24

and coins and

6:26

other wonderful things that they'd collected and it

6:28

was a real show of excellence and

6:30

eminence to own a cabinet miniature.

6:33

So the first thing that's unusual

6:35

about this is that scale.

6:37

You very kindly brought along

6:40

some other Hilliard miniatures. I

6:42

can't believe you actually have done this, it's amazing. And

6:45

they are just smaller than the palm

6:47

of the hand or just larger than

6:49

a fingernail. Exactly. I mean it's a

6:52

very different sort of size. Yeah, well

6:54

I think we think of portrait miniatures

6:56

or limblings as they would have been

6:58

known in this period as

7:01

something secret and personal

7:03

and to be worn close to

7:05

or on the body. And

7:07

yes, the two miniatures that I've brought which

7:10

as you see are the size of a

7:12

fingernail are of Elizabeth the first and her

7:14

favorite Dudley. So yes, they

7:16

are very different in scale. Elizabeth's entire

7:18

miniature could be fitted onto the face

7:21

of the person in the cabinet miniature.

7:23

And before we go any further with

7:26

this amazing investigation, Elizabeth,

7:29

one thing that strikes me is that

7:31

the detail that we see in

7:34

these tiny miniatures is

7:36

replicated on this slightly

7:38

grander scale in this cabinet miniature.

7:41

Absolutely and you also get in

7:43

the cabinet miniature because

7:45

the sitter is shown in full length and

7:47

in this case outdoors. The sitter is shown

7:49

with the sort of props and

7:51

attributes that you would normally expect to

7:54

find in life-sized oil painting. And I

7:56

think Hilliard is having a lot of

7:58

fun with this cabinet miniature but with all of cabinet

8:00

miniatures which always show the sitters in

8:02

full length, sometimes outdoors, sometimes in an

8:04

internal setting, but he's showing

8:07

off I think how much he

8:09

can fit in on still what

8:11

is a very small scale but

8:13

without any loss of detail. So

8:15

it's a real virtuoso display. And

8:17

this picture was

8:20

unknown to art

8:23

historians and scholars,

8:25

specialists until now.

8:28

So would you describe it to

8:30

us? So it shows a young

8:32

woman standing in a

8:34

garden wearing a beautiful, incredible

8:37

white court dress which has

8:40

been embroidered with gold stars

8:43

and gold armillary spheres on the

8:45

sleeves. Poking out from beneath a

8:48

fringed gold petticoat

8:51

are some little embroidered slippers

8:53

which have been embroidered with

8:55

silver. And in fact the

8:57

silver in Hilliard's miniatures has

8:59

blackened over time. It's oxidised,

9:01

a process which cannot be

9:03

reversed. So the star on

9:05

her bodice would have been bright

9:08

silver. All of

9:10

the jewels in her false hair

9:12

piece would have been bright silver

9:14

and the embroidery on her little slippers would

9:16

have been silver as well. And

9:19

then she's got a cheater brick

9:21

building in the background and

9:23

to her right there's a tree. Now

9:26

the crucial thing about this is

9:29

that the sitter is

9:32

not identified. So the

9:34

identity of the sitter

9:36

can only be inferred. And

9:39

I would love it if you

9:41

would take me through the process of figuring

9:43

this out. Where should

9:45

we start? Well I think everything

9:47

about the costume screams

9:51

1590s. The way in which the

9:53

sleeves are very full at the shoulders

9:55

and then sharply tapered to the wrist.

9:58

The way in which the bodice His

10:00

quintet and extends far below the

10:02

natural waistline. All of these things

10:05

very much are suggestive of the

10:07

fifteen nineties. There are

10:09

also unmistakable we thought echoes of

10:11

the famous stitching portrayed of Queens

10:14

but the first which is Fifteen

10:16

Ninety Two Also, echoes of Heal

10:18

Your It's Mask of Youth, which

10:20

is official template that he devised

10:23

for Whispers In About Fifteen Ninety

10:25

One or Fifteen Ninety Two designed

10:27

as the name implies to make

10:29

her look younger than she was

10:31

at the time, so a lot

10:34

of iconic graphic clues costume clothes

10:36

were all suggesting that we're looking

10:38

at someone. Sitting to her you're in

10:40

the early fifteen nineties. The

10:42

lavishness of the clothing. As ever

10:45

mentioned, the sitters wearing court dress

10:47

which is the most lavish type

10:49

of dressing on in the late

10:51

sixteenth century. but this is a

10:53

court dress with knobs on. This

10:55

is a quiz I've royal version

10:57

of court dress. Not very many

10:59

people would have had the means

11:01

or the rank to pull off

11:03

something like this. so the pool

11:05

of possible sitters starts to narrow.

11:08

And. So we've got this

11:10

very, very high quality. Closing.

11:13

The jewelry is extraordinary and

11:15

there's also devices and indications

11:18

in the nature of the

11:20

jews. would that might offer

11:22

clues. What if you juice

11:24

or looking at those well

11:27

elizabeth sons we know loved

11:29

a puzzle and symbolism and

11:31

that occurs in many portrait

11:34

miniatures on. One really striking

11:36

thing about this woman is

11:38

that she is wearing these

11:40

are military spares. Not just

11:42

the old one, but multiple spares

11:45

sewn onto her sleeves and we

11:47

know this was a personal symbol

11:49

for her it to notice her

11:51

wisdom in the world. Elizabeth Mitchell

11:53

the ditched a portrait of Elizabeth

11:55

the first and in fact Elizabeth

11:57

Day was wearing her or military.

12:00

Spare as an earring so it's really

12:02

prominent symbol for hub. but one of

12:04

the clues to the identity of the

12:06

sitter was the hood. earth would be

12:09

bold enough to look like this in

12:11

a minute show. with the Queen's personal

12:13

symbol emblazoned on her arms decrease passing

12:16

symbol the iconography of the Ditch be

12:18

portrayed. I mean why did you know

12:20

country that it was Elizabeth the First.

12:23

She's. Too young, I

12:26

had allowing for the fact that

12:28

Hilliard at this time had been

12:30

tasked with creating nitrous that would

12:32

crawl back time. It didn't fit

12:34

and it doesn't fit in it

12:36

doesn't The face isn't the face

12:38

of the mask of youth. Even

12:40

with the mosque views are you

12:42

can still see Elizabeth and her

12:44

slightly crooked nose that say yes.

12:46

The sitter was simply too young

12:48

and there are other symbols and

12:50

the painting like the sap playing

12:53

tree. This garland aretha flowers

12:55

that the sitter holds and

12:57

her hand that traditionally symbols

12:59

to do with fertility. And

13:01

yes we spent a lot

13:03

of time actually. Trying

13:05

to identify the tray and speaking

13:08

to various experts in such matters

13:10

and the chairs, you can see

13:12

his office a young and it's

13:14

got a lot of green shoots,

13:17

white blossoms, and some dark red

13:19

purple eat fruits. But the consensus

13:21

was that this is not an

13:23

identifiable tree from nature, that it's

13:26

meant to be an allegorical, stylized

13:28

image of Joakim thoughts of fertility

13:30

and fecundity. And again, that doesn't

13:32

really fit with. The. A

13:34

chain. Or Lisbeth the

13:37

Fast when she was on

13:39

the marriage marker. So. If

13:42

we move beyond the iconography, What

13:44

does the documentary evidence? tough? Well.

13:46

One of the most exciting finds

13:48

was when we started to think

13:51

about ah, Bella Stewart as a

13:53

possible sitter. Was in best of

13:55

Hardwick accounts to find Hilliard being

13:58

paid for portrait miniature by. Bess

14:00

of Hardwick and not only being paid for a

14:02

portrait miniature but the word greater

14:04

being used in the

14:07

accounts. His previous

14:09

assistant, an artist called Roland Lockie,

14:11

was also paid in the accounts

14:13

but it seems for a smaller

14:16

miniature. Described as lesser.

14:19

Described as lesser. In the accounts.

14:22

And these payments were not unknown

14:24

to art historians but previously the

14:26

assumption had been that the

14:29

greater lesser distinction was a commentary

14:31

on quality and probably Hilliard's miniature was

14:33

more accomplished than Lockie's. And of course

14:35

we had the advantage of having this

14:38

cabinet miniature in front of us. I

14:40

think probably previous art historians who looked

14:42

at those accounts were thinking

14:44

about small miniatures that could be held

14:47

in the palm of the hand but

14:49

in fact the primary meaning of greater

14:51

as the OED makes clear in this

14:54

period was to do with size. It

14:56

meant bigger not better. So

14:59

Lady Arbela Stuart was

15:01

the granddaughter who said of Bess

15:03

of Hardwick, Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of

15:05

Shrewsbury, somebody who had quite a

15:07

good claim to be Elizabeth the

15:09

first successor. Especially

15:11

if you disregard the Scots line.

15:14

And identifying that payment

15:16

or connecting that payment with

15:19

this miniature gives you a

15:21

more secure dating then doesn't it?

15:23

Yeah. It's quite precise because the

15:25

I think it's July 27th 1592

15:28

which is the day on which

15:30

both Hilliard and Lockie received

15:33

these payments for the completed

15:35

miniatures. And those

15:37

payments appear in a series of

15:39

accounts in which one of

15:41

Bess's servants would jot down every day any

15:44

type of expenditure and Bess would review

15:46

the accounts weekly and sign off on

15:48

them once everything was in order. And

15:51

from these accounts it's really quite extraordinary.

15:53

You can track Bess's whereabouts and Arbela's

15:55

whereabouts and their activities really almost on

15:58

a day-by-day basis. So

16:00

what's so fascinating is that these payments to

16:02

Hilliard and Lockie come at the

16:05

tail end of an eight-month visit by Bess

16:07

and Arbella to the south of England normally.

16:09

They would have been resident in

16:11

Derbyshire at Hardwick. And most

16:13

of that eight-month period in the south

16:15

was spent at Bess's house in Chelsea

16:17

in Chaney Walk. But in

16:19

May, June, and July 1592,

16:22

they spent several extended periods

16:24

at Greenwich Palace. And

16:27

I think one has

16:29

to assume that what we are

16:31

looking at here is an image of

16:33

Arbella in one of the

16:35

gardens at Greenwich Palace. We know that they

16:37

spent a lot of time in the gardens

16:39

because Bess was a big tipper. So we

16:41

know exactly which days in May, June, and

16:43

July 1592, she tipped various

16:46

gardeners of the Queens. Presumably,

16:48

we might speculate because they

16:51

all had inconvenience, the gardeners

16:53

slightly, by needing Arbella to

16:55

pose for Hilliard. And there's a

16:57

lovely echo here of the first occasion

17:00

when Elizabeth I sat to Hilliard, which

17:02

had occurred in 1571, actually also

17:04

in the month of July, in

17:07

a garden at Hampton Court. And

17:09

I'm sure that residents wouldn't have

17:11

been lost on Arbella or Bess

17:13

or Hilliard. And what

17:15

does that location add? I mean, it's

17:18

amazing that we can have that level

17:20

of detail on their movements and on

17:22

their daily activities. But

17:24

seeing the palace in the background, why has

17:26

Hilliard included that, do you think? Well,

17:29

I think it's partly a pictorial device

17:31

to, I mean, I think you can

17:33

see that Hilliard is not used to

17:36

painting on this scale and producing

17:38

a full length figure. Even

17:41

this dug ditch behind the

17:43

sitter, I think is

17:45

to just try to break up the background.

17:47

But it's also presumably

17:49

part of the message in

17:51

this miniature, which is here

17:54

is the successor to the throne standing in

17:56

front of a royal palace.

18:00

make that connection to decades earlier

18:03

of Hilliard painting Elizabeth in the 1570s

18:05

as Elizabeth here

18:07

says. So I think to include it makes

18:10

complete sense and of course it's the

18:12

Tudor brick palace which was

18:14

remodelled later by the Stuarts so it

18:17

doesn't look as we perhaps

18:19

expect Greenwich Palace to look. Coming

18:22

up after the break, this painting is not

18:24

only important in an English context

18:26

but is connected to spycraft and

18:28

the machinations of European politics. Do

18:42

you remember what it's like being in your 20s?

18:44

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18:46

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20:51

now that we know it's from July 1592,

20:53

what does that help us understand, or what

20:55

do we need

21:04

to know about Arbela and the succession

21:06

to understand the importance of this painting?

21:09

Well, Arbela was one of a

21:11

handful of viable contenders for

21:13

the throne. Elizabeth, of course, refused

21:15

to name a successor. So there

21:18

was a great deal of speculation,

21:20

anxiety, and so forth

21:22

in the final years of her reign as

21:24

to what would happen when she died. There

21:27

were also various plots and

21:29

counterplots involving Catholics in England,

21:31

Catholics exiled on the continent.

21:34

This is a time when the

21:36

Armada is a recent memory. So

21:38

there's a kind of feverish atmosphere

21:41

of slight paranoia actually about who's

21:44

plotting against whom. Is someone going

21:46

to try to overthrow Elizabeth and

21:48

install a Catholic on the throne?

21:52

Even if that doesn't happen, what on earth

21:54

is going to happen when Elizabeth dies? And

21:56

Arbela is kind of at the center of

21:59

a lot of this. anxiety. She is, as

22:01

I mentioned, one of a handful

22:03

of viable contenders for the throne. She's

22:05

a direct descendant of Henry VII. Her

22:08

paternal grandmother was Lady Margaret

22:10

Douglas, who was herself a granddaughter

22:12

of Henry VII. But at

22:14

the specific point in time when

22:17

this miniature was created, Arbella was

22:19

at the center of marriage negotiations

22:21

with the son of the Duke

22:24

of Parma, Renuccio Farnese. These

22:27

negotiations were part

22:30

of what seems to have been a

22:33

ploy by William Cecil, Lord Burleigh

22:35

and his son Robert, no doubt

22:37

with the Queen's knowledge and approval,

22:40

to unnerve Philip II

22:43

by driving a wedge potentially

22:45

between Philip and the Duke

22:47

of Parma, who was his governor general in

22:49

the Spanish Netherlands. I don't think probably that

22:51

the sussles or the Queen would have actually

22:53

wanted things to get to

22:55

the stage of a marriage actually taking

22:58

place between Arbella and Parma's son. But

23:00

they certainly in late 1591 and early

23:04

1592 were keen to give the impression that

23:06

they were very much in favor

23:08

of this, if only as a way

23:11

of wrong-footing the Spanish. Because of course

23:13

this is the period where we've had

23:15

the Spanish Armada as we call it, 1588, but

23:18

there's actually quite a lot of Armadas attempted in the

23:20

1590s. I mean Spain is

23:22

really the enemy. Exactly and

23:24

at the center of this scheme of

23:27

the sussles is the rather shadowy figure

23:29

of Michael Moody, who

23:31

was released from the tower in late 1590

23:33

after four or

23:36

so years of imprisonment for his possible

23:38

probable involvement in the Stafford plot to

23:40

assassinate Elizabeth and replace her with Mary

23:43

Queen of Scots. In

23:45

the spring of 1591 Moody offers his

23:47

services to the sussles saying he can

23:49

infiltrate Catholic communities on the continent better

23:52

than anyone else and report back.

23:55

The sussles don't seem certain whether they can

23:58

trust Moody but they decide to

24:00

give him a mission, send him to the

24:02

Low Countries with instructions to try to infiltrate

24:05

the household of the Duke of

24:08

Parma and if he succeeds

24:10

in doing that to try to float the

24:12

idea of a marriage between Parma's son and

24:14

Arbela. But they don't

24:16

really trust him so they put several tales on

24:18

him who are spying on him and reporting back

24:21

and it's because of a combination

24:23

of the reports that Moody files to

24:25

the Sussles plus the reports of those

24:27

watching him that we can

24:29

piece together that

24:31

Moody was successful in infiltrating Parma's

24:34

household. He seems to have generated

24:36

a lot of interest in Parma's

24:38

household for this possible marriage if

24:40

only as a means of installing

24:43

Arbela and Parma's son on the

24:45

English throne, the implication being Elizabeth

24:47

would have to be assassinated and

24:49

then by implication Philip II

24:51

would be pulling the strings. Somewhere

24:54

along the line the idea was

24:57

hatched that it would all

24:59

be more believable if there were

25:01

an exchange of portraits. Wait a

25:03

second, so is this where this picture

25:05

comes in? Because this is full of

25:07

that imagery we've been

25:10

talking about fertility. Exactly, exactly. Yeah

25:12

so this portrait is saying Arbela

25:14

is 16 in this portrait so she is

25:17

absolutely right for marriage. There's

25:19

all the symbolism suggesting

25:21

she's going to bear numerous

25:23

heirs and sons and she's

25:26

also copying the

25:28

stance and the wealth of

25:30

the queen so everything about

25:32

this would make a perfect

25:34

image to present to

25:36

the Spanish. And a cabinet miniature is a

25:38

really clever idea for

25:40

an image that's got to be

25:43

sent far afield because small enough

25:45

still to be easily portable but

25:47

large enough unlike an ordinary

25:50

head and shoulders miniature to showcase the

25:52

entire female form and as Emma just

25:54

said to allow space through

25:57

costume and setting showcase her wealth,

25:59

her lineage. her

26:01

potential for Kundati. If I'm

26:03

understanding this correctly, what we're seeing is not

26:05

just Arbela and Bess

26:07

commissioning a portrait that says,

26:10

look, Arbela is the next in line to

26:12

the throne. Look how she's got the queen

26:14

symbolism. She looks just like the queen. Obviously

26:17

this is the candidate, but

26:19

actually something much more sophisticated,

26:22

something that involves spying, that

26:24

involves political strategy and

26:26

a sort of craft really,

26:29

in order to create something

26:31

that convinces the Spanish that

26:33

this marriage is really

26:35

a possibility. Absolutely. And

26:37

we don't know if the

26:39

creation of a portrait by Hilliard was always part

26:42

of the plan when the sassles sent Moody to

26:44

the Low Countries in the spring of 1591, or

26:47

whether this was some idea

26:49

that Moody got into his head. And

26:51

if he went slightly off message, he

26:54

is known from correspondence relating to other

26:56

of his missions who have often got

26:59

a little bit overexcited and gone off

27:01

piece slightly. He seems to have loved

27:03

the drama of being undercover

27:06

and often improvised. So anyway, we

27:08

don't quite know whose idea it

27:10

was, but there is no shortage

27:12

of epistolary evidence showing that

27:15

Moody had floated the idea

27:18

to Parma and his household that

27:21

a portrait of Arbela specifically by

27:23

Hilliard would be coming soon. And

27:26

we know that Moody between late summer of

27:28

1591 and sort

27:30

of Easter time 1592 made multiple

27:32

trips between the Low

27:35

Countries in England, specifically to try to

27:37

track down Hilliard and extract a

27:40

miniature of Arbela from him. During the periods in

27:42

that window of time that Arbela was in the

27:44

South, he also seems to have tried to make

27:47

contact with Arbela. One gets the

27:49

sense that Hilliard was

27:51

stalling, possibly at the

27:53

request of the sassles, who as I mentioned

27:55

earlier, probably didn't actually want things

27:58

to progress too quickly. They remembered. just

28:00

wanted to give the impression that a

28:02

marriage might be on the cards between

28:04

Arbela and Renuccio Farnese. And

28:06

I think that casts in

28:08

a new light the extraordinary gift of £400

28:11

tax-free, which Elizabeth

28:13

I gave to Hilliard in December 1591.

28:16

So right in the middle of all of this drama, that

28:19

is a gift that has long been known

28:21

to Hilliard scholars, but has usually been said

28:23

to be a kind of belated

28:25

thank you from the Queen for all the work Hilliard

28:27

has done for her over the years, which she wasn't

28:30

always terribly well paid for

28:32

or indeed paid for at all. But

28:34

it's such an enormous sum. I mean,

28:36

just so huge. And I

28:38

think the timing, it can't be coincidence,

28:40

I think it must surely be some

28:42

sort of thank you for loyal service

28:44

and somehow helping out in

28:46

this plot to wrong foot the

28:48

Spanish. When you think that Hilliard

28:51

was paid £2 for this, £400 really is an extraordinary

28:56

amount and as you say, Hilliard scholars have

28:59

never quite been able to

29:01

match it to any specific

29:03

commission or it's a very vague

29:05

gift. But it also helps to

29:08

understand the Roland Locky commission as

29:10

well, because if Hilliard is producing

29:12

this magnificent portrait of Arbela, potentially

29:14

the only portrait of Arbela that

29:17

he paints, it makes

29:19

complete sense for his assistant

29:21

to or by then another

29:23

artist to produce a

29:26

smaller version either for best to

29:28

keep or to use in this

29:30

plot to take over to

29:32

Fanezi. And I

29:34

know this picture has only

29:37

recently resurfaced. Do we

29:39

know anything about what happened to it in 1592?

29:43

No, the documentary trail in terms

29:45

of reports on Moody's,

29:47

Cummings and Goings goes called after

29:50

about April 1592, which is

29:52

also the month in which the Duke

29:54

of Parma is wounded and is really a

29:56

dead man walking after that. And the marriage

29:59

talks. seems to really

30:02

unravel at that point. The Duke ends

30:04

up dying in December 1592. So whether

30:06

this was

30:09

actually sent to Parma or his

30:11

son in the end is unclear.

30:13

It may be that

30:16

what started off as

30:18

a commission designed to

30:21

send to Parma, then once

30:24

he was wounded and the marriage negotiation

30:26

started to fall apart, the

30:28

seed of an idea perhaps had been

30:30

planted in Bess's mind and she perhaps

30:32

thought, well, Arbela is going to need

30:35

some sort of portrait at some point

30:37

for some future marriage negotiations. She

30:40

should be painted by Hilliard, the

30:42

most distinguished painter at court.

30:44

But there are question marks

30:46

that hover over exactly what

30:49

became of the picture and whether it

30:51

in fact found its way to Parma

30:54

or not. Exactly. And we don't also

30:56

know if Elizabeth herself

30:58

had anything to do with this miniature

31:01

because Elizabeth accepts Arbela at

31:03

court and really uses Arbela,

31:05

I think, to keep James

31:07

on his toes in terms of the

31:09

succession. She speaks to the French ambassador's

31:11

wife and says something

31:13

along the lines of, you know, this girl

31:16

here could be me or

31:18

future me, but I'm here

31:20

now. So treat her with respect

31:23

because she could become very important. But

31:25

she's really a pawn in the European

31:27

marriage game at this stage. So

31:30

a portrait of her on this

31:32

scale and with this lavish presentation

31:34

might have had several uses

31:37

once the plot had sort of fallen

31:39

away. Absolutely. And on the subject

31:41

of questions we don't have answers

31:43

to, we don't know what became

31:45

of Locky's lesser copy,

31:47

whether it survives or not. We speculate

31:50

that if it does survive, that it

31:52

would be an oval head and shoulders

31:54

version of this. So, you know, really

31:56

just if you picture cutting out the

31:58

head and shoulders. as it were. So

32:01

whether that's lurking under someone's bed

32:03

or in an attic somewhere. Well

32:05

this is proof that miniatures of any

32:08

size can just appear. I mean to

32:10

have something of this scale totally

32:13

unrecorded and unknown before

32:15

now is just extraordinary.

32:17

How rare is this? It's incredibly rare.

32:20

I mean there have

32:23

been the odd miniature discovery from this

32:25

period. There was an orétoire which

32:28

Hilliard painted in France which was

32:30

in the 2019 National Portrait Gallery

32:32

exhibition of Hilliard and Oliver's

32:34

works which again doesn't have a great

32:37

deal of provenance from when it was

32:39

painted and is unrecorded. So it does

32:42

happen and I think you can see from the scale

32:44

of these miniatures how easily they

32:46

can be tucked away and not

32:48

seen and rediscovered but this miniature

32:50

cannot have ever been seen. You

32:52

can see if you see it

32:54

you would remark upon it whether

32:56

you were a layperson or a

32:58

historian or an art historian it's

33:01

a remarkable Renaissance portrait. And although

33:03

you mentioned earlier that the silver

33:05

has tarnished the other thing we

33:07

should say about it is

33:09

that the colors are very bright. Yes.

33:11

As if it hasn't seen the light.

33:13

Yeah exactly because water colors of course

33:16

are very sensitive to light

33:18

and some Hilliards are tremendously

33:20

faded but this is not one of

33:23

those. To conclude then what

33:25

should we say of the

33:27

significance of this painting? I

33:30

think we feel still as though

33:32

we're only just starting to understand

33:34

it and I think

33:36

we're very open to other scholars

33:39

providing information if they have it.

33:41

I think our Bella herself has

33:43

been a very overlooked historical figure.

33:45

She had an extraordinarily sad life.

33:48

Her life ends in the Tower

33:50

of London with her dying fundamentally

33:52

of starvation and she one of

33:55

the possessions that she has with her is Mary

33:57

Queen of Scots prayer book Mary Queen of

33:59

Scots. Scots was her aunt and inside I

34:02

think she has signed it. You're unfortunate, Arbella.

34:04

So I think her

34:06

life has been very overlooked and

34:08

I'm hoping that there might be

34:11

some more scholarly interest in her.

34:13

Because this miniature is really a wonderful

34:15

testament to the fact that for a

34:17

very brief window in the early 1590s

34:21

she was arguably the most important person

34:23

in the land or the most

34:25

important woman in the land after the

34:28

Queen and of course you know she

34:30

doesn't end up on the throne and

34:32

as Emma just mentioned her life is

34:34

in many ways very sad but there

34:37

is this brief window when it all

34:39

could have gone slightly differently and I

34:41

think this miniature really captures that moment.

34:44

That makes it all the more poignant doesn't it because

34:46

here we have the 16 year old

34:48

girl on the brink of greatness and

34:51

yet it all comes to ruin.

34:53

Well thank you both so much

34:55

I'm wowed and

34:57

impressed by the research here

35:00

and this discovery is wonderful

35:03

and it is such a treat

35:05

to be looking on it. Thank

35:07

you for your time. Thank you. My

35:17

thanks again to Elizabeth Goldring and

35:19

Emma Rutherford for sharing with us

35:22

this fascinating mystery and

35:24

if you enjoyed this there are plenty more

35:26

episodes of Not Just the Tudors where we've

35:28

looked at the art of the Tudor and

35:30

Elizabethan age including the life and works of

35:33

Nicholas Hilliard and Hans Holbein and

35:35

we've delved into the shady world of

35:37

Tudor, Elizabethan and Stuart intrigue. Do check

35:39

out the murder of Christopher Marlowe, 17th

35:42

century female spies, the gunpowder plot

35:44

and murder in the Stewart court.

35:47

And thanks to you for listening to Not

35:49

Just the Tudors from History Hit and also

35:52

to my researcher Alice Smith, my producer Rob

35:54

Weinberg and to Ella Blacksmith who are key

35:56

to hear from you. Do drop

35:58

us a line at Not Just the Tudors. At

36:00

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remember to follow Not Destitute is wherever

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do tell people about it to thank

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you so much. The.

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