CHAPTER XIV
THE FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND: OTHER PORTRAITS AND DECORATIVE WORK
Holbein’s work for the temporary Banqueting House at Greenwich—The “Plat of Tirwan”—Portraits of Sir Henry and Lady Guldeford—William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury—John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester—Thomas and John Godsalve—Niklaus Kratzer, the astronomer—Undated portraits—Sir Bryan Tuke—Reskimer—Sir Henry Wyat—Sir Thomas and Lady Eliot—Drawing of an unknown man at Chatsworth.
POSSIBLY one of the causes which prevented the immediate completion of the large picture of the More family in the spring of 1527 was the commission Holbein received at this time for decorative work of an important nature, for which he obtained payment from the royal purse. Early in 1527 negotiations were in progress between Henry VIII and Francis I for an alliance, which was to be strengthened in the future by the marriage of the Princess Mary, then eleven years of age, and heir-presumptive to the English throne, with either Francis himself or one of his sons. The ratification of this alliance was celebrated at Greenwich on Sunday, the 5th of May 1527, by a series of festivities with which Henry entertained the French ambassadors. A mass, at which the King and ambassadors swore to observe the league, was followed by a tournament, and, in the evening, a grand banquet, in a magnificent building, specially erected for the occasion, in the decoration of which there is every reason to believe that Holbein took a leading part.
Hall, in his Triumphant Reigne of Kyng Henry the VIII, published in 1548, gives a long description of this banqueting house, and its contents, from which a short extract may be quoted here:—
“The Kyng against that night had caused a banket house to bee made on the one syde of the tylt yarde at Grenewyche of an hundreth foote of length and XXX foote bredth, the roofe was purple cloth full of roses and Pomgarnettes, the wyndowes were al clere stories with currious monneles strangely wrought, the Jawe peces and crestes were karved with Vinettes and trails of savage worke, and richely gilted with gold and Byse, thys woorke corbolying bare the candelstyckes of antyke woorke whiche bare little torchettes of white waxe, these candelstickes were polished lyke Aumbre: at the one syde was a haute place for herawldes and minstrelles.” Then, after bestowing his admiration on the cupboards of gold and silver plate, he continues his description of the building: “At the nether ende were twoo broade arches upon thre Antike pillers all of gold burnished swaged and graven full of Gargills and Serpentes, supportying the edifices the Arches were vawted with Armorie, al of Bice and golde, and above the Arches were made many sondri Antikes and divises.”
“When supper was done,” he adds later, “the kyng, the quene and the ambassadors ... rose and went out of the banket chambre bi the forsaied Arches, and when they were betwene the uttermoste dore and the Arches the kyng caused them to turne backe and loke on that syde of the Arches, and there they sawe how Tyrwin was beseged, and the very maner of every mans camp, very connyingly wrought, whiche woorke more pleased them then the remembrying of the thyng in dede. From thens they passed by a long galerie richely hanged into a chambre faire and large.” In this chamber, after a Latin oration and other set recitations, some hours were spent in masking and dancing, after which a return was made to the banquet-house for a second supper. “And after that all was doen the kyng and all other went to rest, for the night was spent, and the day even at the breakyng.... These two houses ... the kyng commaunded should stand still, for thre or foure daies, that al honest persones might see and beholde the houses and riches, and thether came a great nombre of people, to see and behold the riches and costely devices.”
THE BANQUETING HOUSE
This temporary building was apparently the most elaborate of its kind erected in England during the reign of Henry VIII, and it may be taken for certain that Holbein had much to do with it, both as regards work from his own brush, and also in the supervision of a number of other painters and decorators employed upon it. The accounts of the expenses incurred in its building are still preserved in the Record Office, and abstracts from them are published in the Calendars of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII. More detailed abstracts are given by Mr. F. M. Nichols, F.S.A., who went through the original documents most carefully, in a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries, on March 31, 1898.[[700]]
Throughout these detailed accounts of the wages paid by Richard Gibson, there is constant mention of one “Master Hans,” and however common such a Christian name may have been in Germany, there is no record of any other foreign artist in England at this period named Hans but Holbein, who elsewhere is more than once referred to as Master Hans. Sir Henry Guldeford, comptroller of the King’s household, an intimate friend of More, and a correspondent of Erasmus, had official charge of the erection of this banquet-house, and his portrait was painted by Holbein in the same year, and possibly at about the same time, for Guldeford is represented as wearing his chain as a Knight of the Garter, which honour was bestowed upon him on April 24, 1527. He must thus have had full knowledge of Holbein’s capabilities, and would naturally turn to him for assistance on this occasion, when everything had to be done in a hurry, and as many painters as possible pressed into the service. Then again, Sir Henry Wyat, treasurer of the Chamber, whom Holbein also painted during his first visit to England, was associated with Guldeford in the building of this “banketing-house,” so that the painter would have a second friend at court. It seems practically certain, therefore, that Holbein was the “Master Hans” of the accounts.