Richard Levin and In-Different Reading

Abstract

ENRY VIII appears in a pose familiar from an earlier portrait, now at Windsor,' on a throne surmounted by the royal arms. Above the King's head is a rich canopy, and his feet rest on a glowing oriental carpet. The young Edward VI kneels beside the throne to accept the sword of state from his father. On the other side of the King, Mary Tudor and her husband, Philip of Spain, are accompanied by the god of war with sword, shield, and lance. The figure of Mars symbolizes the struggle against France, which was a consequence of Mary's Catholic alliance with Spain. Meanwhile, in front of Edward, a disproportionately large figure of Elizabeth leads Peace by the hand. Peace bears an olive branch and treads on a discarded sword, shield, and lance. She is followed by Plenty, who holds Elizabeth's train and carries a cornucopia. Roy Strong argues persuasively that The Allegory of the Tudor Succession was painted by Lucas de Heere in 1572 to celebrate the Treaty of Blois (fig. 1).2 But if the picture alludes to a specific historical moment, it does not portray one. Henry VIII wears the costume of the Windsor portrait; Mary and Philip are dressed for the 1550s; and Strong dates the painting partly on the basis of Elizabeth's surcoat, which closely resembles those worn in portraits of other court ladies in 1572-73, and was therefore evidently fashionable at that time. If Elizabeth's bodice is much the same shape as Henry VIII's doublet, and the same color, that detail adds to the political meaning of the picture, which does not, of course depend on the construction of an illusion that the spectator is witnessing a real event, or that the painting simulates a possible occasion. Henry VIII died in 1547; Mary married Philip during the year after her accession in 1553, on the death of Edward; Elizabeth became Queen in 1558. The mode of the picture is nonillusionist, too, in its mixture of historical, mythological, and allegorical figures. Mars, Peace, and Plenty are as substantial, as material, as Henry VIII and his heirs. On the other hand, they do not share the historical space of the human figures, who all belong, however severally, to the Tudor