The Virgin Queen’s Other Secret

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Bess of Hardwick, Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Robert Tudor, Rowland Lockey, William Cavendish, William St Loe

First published two years ago, but just in case you missed it first time round…

In the last half of 16thC England there were to be found two ladies of immense wealth. Both had auburn hair they styled in similar ways, both had a long aquiline nose, both had a lower lip a little stronger than her upper, both had a passion for pearls, and both were called Elizabeth. Put all their portraits together and it is hard to tell one from the other.

A collection of portraits of Elizabeth I and Elizabeth of Hardwick

One lady needs no introduction – she was the Virgin Queen. The other was Bess of Hardwicke, born around 1527, and raised by a family of minor gentry in Derbyshire. Her early history is undocumented, and what is known of her family’s history before she was born dates solely to evidence provided by her brother in 1569, when he was providing reasons for his right to bear arms.

What is known is that she married four times: the first, undocumented, was to the 13 year old heir to a neighbouring estate. She married him most likely in 1543, but he died the following year. Then on 20 August, 1547, nine months after the death of King Henry VIII, she was married – remarkably well above her station – to the illustrious Sir William Cavendish, Treasurer of the King’s Chamber, who had made a fortune as an official of the Court during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Sir William Cavendish, possibly by John Bettes, 1544

In 1553, with the death of Edward VI, Cavendish’s means of acquiring his wealth came under scrutiny, and having been closely associated with the Seymours, and with Lady Jane Grey (who got her head chopped off for claiming the throne after Edward VI’s death), he lost his position at court, and was accused of embezzlement. He had tried to stay the right side of Edward’s staunchly Catholic successor, Mary I, but given such unfortunate associations, he was no longer in favour. He and Bess had eight children together, though, before he died on October 25^th 1557, just one month after the startling birth of Robert Tudor.

On Mary’s death in 1558, the new Queen Elizabeth restored Bess Hardwick to Court, and again – rather remarkably – made her a key Lady of her Bedchamber. Soon after, Bess fell in love with Sir William St Loe, a good friend of the new Queen who had aided her when her life had been in danger, and who she had made Captain of the Guard, and Butler to the Royal Household – key positions ensuring her personal security.

Sir William St Loe

The two were married in 1559, but in 1561, a serious problem emerged. Bess was the friend of Frances Brandon, the mother of Lady Jane Grey who had been executed by Mary for claiming the throne in 1553. According to the will of Henry VIII, on Lady Jane Grey’s death, her sister Catherine had become second in line to the throne, next after Elizabeth herself. Elizabeth wanted her to remain a spinster, thereby reducing any threat to her rule, but in total defiance of the Queen’s wishes Catherine secretly married into the powerful Seymour family. Bess distanced herself from the marriage, but hid the news from the Queen, who, when she found out, flew into a rage, and sent her to the Tower.

Lady Catherine Grey

After seven months Elizabeth relented, and let her go home, but Bess and Sir William had no children together, and soon after, in 1565, he died under very suspicious circumstances. Bess thus became one of the wealthiest women in the country, with an annual income equivalent to around £14 million in present day terms. The Queen forgave her at this point, and she returned to court once more, only to find that the tutor to her sons had been spreading slanderous rumours about her. The nature of the slander was suppressed, and the Queen was so upset by what he had been saying that she ordered him to suffer public corporal punishment, a most vindictive punishment for someone of his rank. His slander must have been serious indeed.

In 1567 Bess again married, and again inexplicably far above herself, to the Earl of Shrewsbury, the richest nobleman in England.

Rowland Lockey ‘The Earl of Shrewsbury’ 1580

On the 2 May, 1568, Mary Queen of Scots fled from Scotland and sought refuge in England, to the consternation of the Queen. Mary had a claim not only to Scotland, but to the English throne as well, and could not easily be disposed of, being a Queen in her own right. Elizabeth summoned the Shrewsburies to court, and entrusted them with one of the most important roles she delegated to anyone in her entire reign: that of keeping Mary Queen of Scots prisoner, and preventing her from conspiring against her. This the Shrewsburies loyally did for the next sixteen years, until 1584, moving home to another of their estates each time a plot to rescue Mary was discovered.

Rowland Lockey ‘Mary, Queen of Scots’ 1585

In 1574/5 a serious situation developed involving Bess’s daughter, Elizabeth. The girl met, fell in love with, got pregnant by, and then married Charles Stuart, the brother of Mary Queen of Scots’ former husband, Lord Darnley. Like Darnley, Charles was the son of the Countess of Lennox, who herself was the daughter of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland – and daughter of King Henry VII of England. Bess had married her daughter into the Royal families of both England and Scotland without the knowledge or permission of the Queen, and she and the Countess of Lennox were both promptly consigned to the care of the Tower of London.

Lady Arabella Stuart, c.1590

By January 1575 she was back home, though. Her daughter Elizabeth and Charles Stuart were expecting their first and only child, Arabella, and under the terms of succession, Bess felt Arabella had a good chance to succeed Elizabeth on her death. To that purpose, she began casting about for a suitable husband, and after a while came up with the infant Lord Denbigh, the son of the Earl of Leicester and the widowed Countess of Essex… She could hardly have contrived to upset the Queen more: the Earl of Leicester, after all, was the Queen’s former love, Robert Dudley… and so summoned to London by the Queen, Bess was likely invited to consider a third stay in the Tower. Judiciously, she assured the Queen of her loyalty, and took no further part in trying to arrange a marriage for Arabella, whose future the Queen took under her own wing, and the infant Lord Denbigh promptly died, pruning any future growth to that disconcerting branch of the family tree.

Bess turned instead to the construction of a home worthy of a future Queen of England… Hardwicke Hall… and thus came to be known as Bess of Hardwicke. In the meantime, though, another problem had emerged: Bess became concerned at the amount of time Mary Queen of Scots and her husband were spending together, and tried to resolve the matter by becoming Mary’s constant companion, spending months on end together with her, engaging in talk and much needlepoint.

After a while, though, Bess became aware that her husband was being unfaithful with one of her serving wenches, indeed, catching him in flagrante delecto. Rumours began circulating that the serving maid was not the only object of Shrewsbury’s attention, and that Mary Queen of Scots had not only taken his eye, but that she had already secretly borne two children by him.

The Queen was horrified, and Bess was summoned to Court, and swore on her knees that the news of Mary’s inappropriate children was totally untrue, and signed a declaration to that effect. Elizabeth seemingly accepted this, but the Earl of Shrewsbury blamed Bess, and the two separated, never to be reconciled. Mary, Queen of Scots was removed from Shrewsbury’s protection, and executed after the Babington Plot in February 1587, and Shrewsbury died in 1590, making Bess – most improbably, considering her apparently humble origins – the richest woman in England after the Queen. And still, even by 1590 she remained the double of the Queen, with the same red hair, the same nose, the same lips, and the same love for pearls… as this portrait dated 1583 tells:

The Countess of Shrewsbury, Bess of Hardwicke, c.1580

But there is far more here than readily meets the eye. If we progressively darken her face and increase the tonal contrast, we find a bombshell written in the faintest of brushstrokes. In just one sentence, the painter explains all the many inexplicabilities of Bess of Hardwicke’s life.

Detail of Bess’s face, from the 1580 portrait of her

‘Sesso 25’ he says across her forehead, then on her temple ‘nata 26’: …sex in 1525, born in 1526. And from her other temple beneath her eye, the traditional declaration that she was the ‘Figlia de’… The artist is writing in Italian, and about to tell us who her parents were.

Detail of Bess’s face, showing her true family origins: click on the picture to enlarge it.

‘Sesso 25, nata 26, figlia de’, he continues… ‘Henry VIII’ and ‘Anne Boleyn’. Bess of Hardwicke was the first daughter of Henry VIII and Anne, back in the early days when she first joined the court as lady in waiting to Catherine of Aragon. Bess of Hardwicke, named after Henry’s mother, was the elder sister of Queen Elizabeth I.

That is why she could come from obscurity to the court of Edward VI, and how she came to marry the Treasurer of the King’s Chamber, Sir William Cavendish. That is why she fell from grace under the reign of Mary I in 1553, and why in 1558 Elizabeth chose her as a key Lady in Waiting. Bess could be trusted. This was how it was she could marry the Captain of Elizabeth’s guard, Sir William St Loe, and how it was she could meddle in the dynastic politics of Elizabeth’s court and not only survive but be forgiven and then return to court. It was how she could marry the richest nobleman in the Realm, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and how he could be trusted to keep Mary Queen of Scots safely captive for 16 years. It explains, too, how she could then again meddle  with the line of succession by marrying her daughter into the English and Scottish royal families – and once again survive and be forgiven. It explains too why she was the spitting image of the rather the illustrious Virgin Queen.

But how could a mere artist know all this? Well, he signed that portrait of Bess Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury. He signed it on her ruff, using the name ‘Robert Tudor’. The artist was Elizabeth’s son, and the Countess of Shrewsbury’s nephew. He would have known, for sure, what his mum and aunty were up to.

But our story is not yet done… This was not the only portrait of Robert’s aunt that art history considers significant: there is another painting we must look at, too, one holding yet another surprise…

(to be continued)

An Unplanned Child

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Amy Robsart, Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley, tudor

Dudley goes too far…

At Christmas 1562, something altogether untoward happened in Elizabeth’s court. Robert Dudley was back in favour after the highly suspicious death of his wife, Amy Robsart, and so much so that when in 1562 Elizabeth fell ill with smallpox, he was named Protector of the Realm, was granted a vast income, and became a Privy Councillor. When Elizabeth recovered, soon after, perhaps he felt that his time had at last come… anyway, he greatly overstepped the mark.

Initially Elizabeth was enraged, and Dudley was out of favour, but then later in 1563, he was suddenly granted vast lands in Wales, and favour after favour. Seen from afar, it would have been hard to tell what was going on, but fortunately there is a painting that tells us. It is of St Catherine’s Marriage, and because of its style, it was attributed to Adriaen Isenbrandt. This was in a way true, because that was indeed Aly’s alias in Bruges, but wrong in that he had dispensed with this alias back in 1551, so historians not only misattributed the painting, they also misdated it, since how could an artist paint a picture after his death? It’s only logical, isn’t it?

The Marriage of St Catherine, attributed to Adriaen Isenbrant, but dated 1563.

The painting is dated down in the bottom right hand corner, and carries annotations that tell us the true nature of the ‘spat’ that happened between the two lovers. Not at all what I was expecting, and I’m sure not at all what you were, either… but I’m going to link you to where you will find the story told. The conversation is fictional but the events described are attested to in the painting of St Catherine above.

Click on the image below for the somewhat startling details!

 

Layers in the Painting of Life

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Adam, African-American, allegory, Aly, Andrea Doria, Anna of Brandenburg, assassin, Buonarroto, Charles V, Chimera, Creation of Adam, Edward V, Edward VI, Elizabeth I, Elsbeth Binsenstock, Excalibur, Fatima, Felice, Genocide, Giovan Simone, Henry VIII, Leonardo da Vinci, Lionardo Buonarroti, Margaret of Austria, Mary I, Medusa, Michelangelo, Michelangelo's Son, Mona Lisa, Nemesis, Odysseus, Ouroboros, Pedro Alvares Cabral, Polyphemus, Pope Julius II, renaissance, Robert Tudor, Rowland Lockey, Salay, Sigismondo, Sistine Chapel, Slavery, Uccello, Vatican

Aly, Michelangelo’s Son

Our modern age loves simplicity, and one solitary meaning for everything, but when writing a tale set in the Renaissance, one needs to allow for a wisdom greater by far. In the book Aly, Michelangelo’s Son, the main character loves layers, and how each new one offers something different about any subject of fascination. On completing the novel, I found that I had followed him, not modernity, and that I had incorporated no less than twelve such levels into the book on his life.

Passionate Action!

​There is the surface story of Aly, a tale of passion, outrage, anger, assassination, a tale beset by a panoply of hidden identities and political intrigues. It traces his life from birth as a slave, accepted by Michelangelo, who depicted him secretly on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, as his son. The young man went on to accomplishments both in art… and assassination, indeed hiding the details of his exploits in some hundreds of paintings that still exist. His great purpose in life was to stop the terrifying barbarism being perpetrated in the New World and Old, but things never seemed to work out quite as expected.​​

Renaissance and Slavery

Secondly, there is the setting: the Renaissance, in Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, England, and Scotland. It covers the first European visits to Brazil, China and Japan, and as a backdrop it addresses corruption in the heart of the Vatican, and the horrors of the Spanish genocide in the Caribbean, and the birth of trans-Atlantic slavery.

Dark Secrets

Various depictions of Herman van Eyck, Jan’s brother, who pursued art in Italy before turning to a more ecclesiastical career.

Third, it exposes vast misconceptions regarding the period’s most famous names, not only in startling revelations about who was related to whom, but also in how they used a variety of aliases, aliases we now take to be different people. In particular it looks at the double lives of the artists Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Durer; the explorers Columbus, Bartolomeo Dias, and Pedro Alvares Cabral; the Pope, Julius II – and various monarchs including Edward V (who survived the Tower). The tale shows how these dark machinations affected the survival of monarchs such as Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I (all of whom were murdered), and reveals that Elizabeth I had a child she called Robert.

What’s Life For?

Trying to speak (as a 72 year-old) for someone who died in his eighties, there is also an exploration of the purpose of life. This takes many forms, including parallels in the world of art: how one adds pigment to create a painting, but chips away at stone to create a sculpture – and how inspiration can be found in chaos.

Counterfeit Universes

​​Fifth, the narrative examines the role of words and stories in creating a second, counterfeit universe, a fiction that masquerades as the world of our experience, distorting our view of life, and leading us to be endlessly deceived. And this leads to the next level:

The future King James I of England painted by Rowland Lockey, (also known as Robert Tudor)

More Mischief of Words

Beyond this duplicity of words, the book also glances at the very structure of language, and how it subverts our understanding of the world. Unashamedly inspired by the work of Sapir and Whorf, this level is deliberately subversive, trying to undermine the rigidity with which grammar rules our thinking. Some nouns and adjectives and about 30 adverbs have been ‘verbed’ to throw new light on the way language intercepts our attempts to make sense of our world. I do this not to prove how clever I am, since I long accepted the bitter truth that I am not, but hoping to draw attention not only to the mischief words engage in, but also the malevolence of the rules by which they are strung together.

The Duplicity of Truth

​This links to another major theme, the seventh, that of the brittleness of certainty, the fraud of faith, and the duplicity of truth, and how one can live in a world where fact and fiction, good and evil, love and barbarism are inextricably mixed, and everything has multiple meanings.

Mantegna’s Allegory on the Expulsion of the Vices, with a second allegory in the clouds

Words of Genius

The eighth level is more playful, and fictional in the sense that where great people have had something very relevant to say on events in the book, I have sometimes included them. I have added well-established quotes from Leonardo and Michelangelo, but you will also find other brief references to people not yet born when Aly was alive – from Cervantes to Ali Smith; Shakespeare, Chekhov, Tolstoy and Roland Barthes to Derek Walcott, Julian Barnes, and Jamie Holmes -and my dear friend Ellen Dissanayake. So as not to disrupt the flow, but equally not to plagiarise them, I Italianized their first names and attributed the saying as if they were Aly’s friends – which I think they would have been!

Metaphor and Symbol

The ninth is a metaphorical and symbolic layer, one of light and shadow, of the wind and ocean; time as seen through the hourglass, candle, sundial and clock, and through the ageing of the human body; of labyrinths, monsters, heroes and scarlet threads; of indulgences, pilgrimages and relics; of leaves, fruit, and stepping stones true and false, and the perilous gaps that lurk between; of camouflage and deception – husks and the seed within, of peel and fruit, bark and the trunk inside, and of swords and their scabbards.

Mythology

​The tenth is mythological, drawing as Aly would have, not only from Hebrew legend and the Bible, but from that of the Greeks and native Caribbean people, and that too of King Arthur, a famous version of which became a bestseller just seven years before he was born. This is not only to try to conjure up some of the feeling of the time, but because the characters – the Chimera, the Ouroboros, Nemesis, Excalibur, Polyphemus and Medusa all play a vital part, and offer useful mental tools for better understanding our times.

Odysseus (aka ‘Nobody’) and his men putting out Polyphemus’ eye, from a painting by Aly’s son Primaticcio.

Buried Deep

The eleventh? Well, I kept noticing parallels between Aly’s story and the oldest legend we now know, one discovered in recent times written in cuneiform inscriptions on tablets of clay… The story wasn’t known in Aly’s day, but its echoes doubtless had an impact, so I tucked it away where only the most observant and determined will find it.

Number Twelve

​​And the twelfth? The most important of all, but I’ve said enough. That is for you to find when you read the book! One of the purposes of art is to deepen the mystery, after all!

Between Lavender Scented Sheets

Tags

African-American, Aly, Edward VI, Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, Mary I, Michelangelo, Michelangelo's Son, renaissance, Robert Tudor, Rowland Lockey

It was Christmas 1556…

…and Princess Elizabeth was in a desperate plight. Her sister was going to marry her off, and push her into exile across the Channel. It would take something completely desperate to save her…

There was, though, an old and trusted friend who knew exactly what to do.

petermerlincane.wordpress.com/2017/04/13/between-lavender-scented-sheets

Elizabeth vanished back to Hatfield for almost the entire year, and while Mary had been led to believe the child would be born in December, on 25th September, the Princess gave birth to Robert Tudor, and two months later he was spirited out of the country.

Michelangelo’s Broken Nose

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Michelangelo, nose

It would seem that a dreadful mistake was made.

Cellini once told the tale of how Michelangelo’s nose came to be broken, a tale he heard from the man who did it – Pietro Torrigiani. Alas, it seems he jumped to a large conclusion… When Torrigiani said he had to flee Florence afterwards for fear of what the ruler, Lorenzo de’ Medici might do to him, Cellini assumed he meant Lorenzo the Magnificent. Alas, no. He meant Lorenzo the Magnificent’s grandson, also called Lorenzo, and also ruler of Florence, but a generation later.

As a result, 500 years of art historians have assumed that the nose was flat from 1492 on, and never thought to look for perfect-nosed Michelangelos between the ages of 17 (his age in 1492), and 41 (his age in 1516, when it really happened). So we missed a great many treats… something that at last can be put right! Here is Michelangelo’s nose, then, in all its glory, both before and after, and both flattened – and flattered!!

Hidden

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Aly, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo's Son, Mona Lisa

How Leonardo Did It…

Lots of people have asked me how artists hid things in their art.

Well, there were many techniques. Mantegna, Dürer, and Giotto did it in ways you can see on the new website ‘www.whatalyknew.com’…, but that intriguing page has now been joined by a new one with an excerpt that reveals a far more subtle way of doing it. Leonardo’s method.

He tells how Botticelli threw a sponge at the wall, and then – in the mess that resulted – pointed out all manner of things hidden away. It was a means of showing his students how to find inspiration even in chaos.

Leonardo here describes how to turn this upside down. He sketches a message into his painting, one that he wants to lurk there unnoticed. To do this he then tells how to hide it from all but the wisest eyes: he explains how to encode a message into the apparent chaos of the background.

The conversation here is fictional, but builds on real quotes by Leonardo to show you how it was done… Click the image below and not only discover the secret that artists kept hidden for centuries, but be one of the first to see the clandestine drawing he himself tucked away in his priceless Mona Lisa!

What Aly Knew

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Adam, African-American, allegory, Aly, Andrea Doria, Anna of Brandenburg, assassin, Buonarroto, Charles V, Chimera, Creation of Adam, Edward V, Edward VI, Elizabeth I, Elsbeth Binsenstock, Excalibur, Fatima, Felice, Genocide, Giovan Simone, Henry VIII, Leonardo da Vinci, Lionardo Buonarroti, Margaret of Austria, Mary I, Medusa, Michelangelo, Michelangelo's Son, Mona Lisa, Nemesis, Odysseus, Ouroboros, Pedro Alvares Cabral, Polyphemus, Pope Julius II, renaissance, Robert Tudor, Rowland Lockey, Salay, Sigismondo, Sistine Chapel, Slavery, Uccello, Vatican

http://www.whatalyknew.com

I mentioned a new website in a previous post, one that provides a vast amount of information gleaned from the hidden inscriptions on the old masters, a perfect background for the new book, Aly, Michelangelo’s Son…

Here’s a glimpse at some of the pages: click on any one to go there…

A brief description of the new book, with links to more detailed pages

Reviews of the book – only one so far – early days yet!

The introduction that appears at the start of the book

A brief word on the author, Peter Cane

What to look for in the book – its many layers!

The background to the book, with links to its four main aspects: Likenesses, Family Trees, Timelines, and the Hidden Secrets lurking in the Old Masters…

An example from the Likenesses section, showing Michelangelo from boy to old man. A total of 66 different characters from the book are included!

The second section is of Family Trees, of which there are no less than 15…

The next is of Timelines, showing how different aliases of the same person interweave and dovetail, explaining much that was previously inexplicable. Here we have the timeline for ‘Amerigo Vespucci’, and his other aliases, giving an idea why the continent of America was named after him, and why the last portrait of him shows a man in his eighties, while history books say he died at 58.

And then, to wind up (for now!), there are may examples of hidden material in paintings of the period, just in case you ever hear anyone say this is all the product of a fertile imagination!

And if all you want is to buy the book… just click below for the Kindle ebook version (1000 pages), or for the Paperback (700 pages)! These take you to Amazon USA, but if you are in the UK, go to Amazon.co.uk. Both sites have both the ebook and the paperback. For the ebook only try Amazon.in if you are in India, or Amazon,ca for Canada, or in general your own country’s Amazon!

 Kindle: $2.99:                                      Paperback $19.95:  

       

 

 

What is Life For?

Tags

Adam, African-American, allegory, Aly, Andrea Doria, Anna of Brandenburg, assassin, Buonarroto, Charles V, Chimera, Creation of Adam, Edward V, Edward VI, Elizabeth I, Elsbeth Binsenstock, Excalibur, Fatima, Felice, Genocide, Giovan Simone, Henry VIII, Leonardo da Vinci, Lionardo Buonarroti, Margaret of Austria, Mary I, Medusa, Michelangelo, Michelangelo's Son, Mona Lisa, Nemesis, Odysseus, Ouroboros, Pedro Alvares Cabral, Polyphemus, Pope Julius II, renaissance, Robert Tudor, Rowland Lockey, Salay, Sigismondo, Sistine Chapel, Slavery, Uccello, Vatican

“Can you tell me?” Aly wrote, “If you can, alas, it’s too late. I’m old, and being tracked by assassins. All that is left for me now is to try to finish this, my story, before they find me. By the time you read it, though, my killers will have done their work, so it is in your actions now that my legacy lies, and it is for you that I’m writing. I’m not the one in danger now – you are, and those you love.”

“If I could warn you of what you are facing in just one sentence, I would. Alas, though, for my terrible warning to make sense, I will have to reveal the most guarded secrets of my life – and those of my family too, a family of artists of the greatest renown, tricksters of outstanding cunning, and assassins of the highest skill, and for all this to be worthwhile – I can hide nothing.”

“I grew up amid great events that you will have heard of, among people of immense fame that you think you know, but what I lived is not what you read, nor what you heard, nor what is written. My family, I am ashamed to say, were the supreme victors of my age, victors not in a way that any but the most evil should emulate, but victors nonetheless. And since they were the victors, they wrote their own history: they were the ones who painted the past we now believe. The tales they led everyone to trust, though, were very far from honest. I know, because they were my family, and because I was there.”

“Here in front of me is a book my younger brother wrote recently, in which he wrote a little of my history. “He is accustomed,” it says, “to live simply and by a certain natural goodness, and knows nothing of subtleties or astuteness in his life.” That is as good a place as any to begin my tale, since it reveals an ailment that many younger brothers suffer from. I am his hero, a god-like being living a charmed and daring life: one that would, I suppose – had it not been shrouded in deception, and fragmented among a dozen aliases – have been as spectacular as any of those whose legendary names echo now down the centuries. But my brother was wrong to believe in heroes. We are all most deeply flawed, and I was not the saintly being he saw me as, which you will very soon see.”

“Nor are younger brothers alone in such self-deception. The fact is that we all live in worlds of our own creation, we all construct grand edifices, palaces (we think) of Truth and Certainty. But they are built using a framework of yarns, of narratives distorted by the retelling, cracked by misunderstanding, and plastered over with stale and ancient lies. We decorate them too, as we navigate our course through life, with pretty fictions to fool ourselves, and mislead others. My tale will reveal just how duplicitous these ‘truths’ really are – not just my brother’s, or mine, but everything that pretends to be the ‘Truth’.”

“The account I offer at first glance seems full of familiar landmarks, but these are mirages and will lead instead to a world like no other: bizarre, incredible, surreal. So beware: entering my world may be like stepping through the frame of one of my grandpa Bosch’s paintings. Except for one thing… once you enter you will never be able to return. Whether you choose to believe what you hear told or not, the question you will discover in its shadows will be for eternity.”

“So if you, like most of us, prefer the comfort and security of the world you think you know, read no further. This book is not for you. If though, you dare to delve beyond the prison walls of your palace, hold tight my hand and read.”

Skullduggery with an Apple

Tags

Bess of Hardwick, Mary I, Mary Tudor, Paris Bordone, Queen Elizabeth I, Sir William Petre

The Murder of Mary Tudor

There was a recent BBC History article about Mary Tudor, rightly pointing how she pioneered the idea that a queen could rule every bit as well as a king. Now, whatever the merits or demerits of her reign, there is a fascinating bit of skullduggery I would like to draw attention to in relation to Mary’s death in 1558…

There is a painting still hanging in Chatsworth that speaks of the end of Queen Mary. It shows Sir William Petre (check him against other portraits), and Bess of Hardwick (ditto). Bess is receiving an apple from someone hidden behind her, and passing it to a little girl, seemingly (from the faint lettering) her daughter, who is passing it to Sir William. And he is going to place it in a fruit bowl into which a strange white powder seems to be drifting. From whence is it drifting? Well, in a superb joke by the artist, it comes from a sinister dark hand above, one actually composed of drapery. There was another clue to the murder, too, one so flagrant that someone saw fit to paint it over. It was in the lower middle, where you can see the Lady’s dress strangely cut off. I wonder what secrets THAT part of the painting held?!

Here’s the painting, dated, bottom left as ‘November 1558’, and now coyly named ‘Lady, Gentleman and their Daughter’:

Now here is the thing. Chatsworth was built by Bess of Hardwick, but the painting did not remain in the family’s hands. It passed into the collection of Charles I, and when he died and his goods were sold off, it was lost to her family for another two hundred years, until it came up for auction, and the Duke of Devonshire snapped it up, and restored it to its original home.

As for Bess, she was said to have been of modest birth, but was nevertheless and inexplicably placed at court to study with Princess Elizabeth, and then married to a very highly placed courtier. All in all, she went on to become the second most wealthy woman in England after Queen Elizabeth. All of which is not very compatible with the idea that she was of lowly birth… But perhaps she wasn’t… perhaps the inscriptions in the paintings of the time are right, and Bess was really born at Hever Castle around 1526, and was the secret daughter of Anne Boleyn. You may remember that the official story is that she was flirting with Henry, while playing hard-to-get…

As for Sir William… although very highly placed in Mary’s government, he was promptly pardoned by Elizabeth when she became Queen, and put in charge of her Mint. In charge of the cash that kept her in power…! And the painter of the picture? Well, the painting is correctly attributed to one Paris Bordone, and that, my friends, was the favourite alias of a gentleman called ‘Aly’, whose tale is now being told, for the very first time in 500 years, in a book entitled ‘Aly, Michelangelo’s Son’. For more about the mystery, check his site: www.whatalyknew.com!

Aly, Michelangelo’s Son: First Review…

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Adam, African-American, allegory, Aly, Andrea Doria, Anna of Brandenburg, assassin, Buonarroto, Charles V, Chimera, Creation of Adam, Edward V, Edward VI, Elizabeth I, Elsbeth Binsenstock, Excalibur, Fatima, Felice, Genocide, Giovan Simone, Henry VIII, Leonardo da Vinci, Lionardo Buonarroti, Margaret of Austria, Mary I, Medusa, Michelangelo, Michelangelo's Son, Mona Lisa, Nemesis, Odysseus, Ouroboros, Pedro Alvares Cabral, Polyphemus, Pope Julius II, renaissance, Robert Tudor, Rowland Lockey, Salay, Sigismondo, Sistine Chapel, Slavery, Uccello, Vatican

D. Arcadian, reviewer for Amazon and Goodreads:

“A totally fascinating concept – well written and engaging, ever urging the reader to more. In fact, I read long after ‘lights out’ last night, wooed by the intensity and depth of the story, and by the superb writing. The tension is remarkable and even though this is his first novel, Mr Cane writes with the authority of an established author. I feel I cannot bear waiting till I can go back to the book this evening!”

Click on the picture for more on this amazing true story, featuring not only Michelangelo, but also Leonardo, Columbus, the Medicis and Borgias, and all five Tudor monarchs!

Kindle $2.99, paperback $19.95.