SIR JOHN GODSALVE
Drawing in black and coloured chalks and water-colour.
Reproduced by gracious permission of H.M. the King.
Windsor Castle
The father, Thomas Godsalve, who died in 1542, was registrar of the consistory court at Norwich, and the owner of landed property in Norfolk. He was an intimate friend of Thomas Cromwell. In a letter to the latter, dated Norwich, November 6, 1531, after thanking Cromwell for kindnesses shown to his son, he says: “I send you half a dozen swans of my wife’s feeding”;[[735]] and a year or two later he sends “six swans and a maund with pears of my own grafting.”[[736]] The son, John Godsalve, who died in 1556, became Clerk of the Signet to Henry VIII, and was present at the siege of Boulogne. He was knighted at the coronation of Edward VI, and a year or two later was made Comptroller of the Mint. Various letters from him are included in the Calendars of State Papers. In one of them (1533), addressed to Eustace, clerk of the works at Hampton Court, he appears in the character of a “snapper-up of unconsidered trifles.” “Send me,” he writes, “as many golden balls as you can conveniently procure, and such fanes (vanes?) and other things at your pleasure. Help the bearer into the spicery to have an antique which I left there; of which he has the key. Send me also the head under the stair, and whatsoever other things your gentle heart can lovingly depart from.”[[737]] John Godsalve had some connection with the Steelyard, a number of whose merchants were painted by Holbein, for in November 1532, he and one William Blakenhall received a grant in survivorship of the office of common meter of all cloths of gold and silver tissue, “tynsett,” satin, damask, and other cloths and canvas of aliens and others called “foreyns,” alias “le Stilliarde,” in the city of London, with the usual fees, &c.[[738]] He also obtained a small share of the plunder from the monasteries, and, in July 1534, an annuity of £8 “to him and his heirs for ever out of the issues of the manor of Stokesly, in Rydham, Norfolk, in the King’s hands by the attainder of Thomas, cardinal of York.”[[739]] In 1535 he received the offices of Constable and Keeper of the Castle and Gaol of Norwich, succeeding Sir Henry Wyat and Sir Thomas Boleyn in the posts.[[740]]
The portrait of Niklaus Kratzer,[[741]] of Munich, Henry’s German astronomer, in the Louvre (Pl. [86]), is a half-length figure placed behind a table, which is covered with the instruments of his profession. He wears the usual flat black cap, and a black coat or doublet open at the neck, showing a glimpse of a red under-garment and white shirt, and over all the prevailing dark overcoat or gown with fur collar. In his right hand he holds a pair of compasses or dividers, and in his left a decagonal sundial, like the one shown in the “Ambassadors” picture. Behind him on the right various mathematical and astronomical instruments are hanging on the wall, and others, including a cylindrical sundial and an astrolabe, are placed on a shelf on the left. Among the numerous objects on the table are scales and rulers, scissors, and his seal, together with a sheet of paper with a Latin inscription giving his name, his age, forty-one, and the date 1528. Part of this inscription is confused and injured, and Holbein’s Latin was not of the best. The Louvre catalogue gives the reading as: “Imago ad vivam effigiem expressa Nicolai Kratzeri monacenssis q. (qui) bauarg. (bavarus) erat quadragessimū ... annū tpr̃e (tempore) ilio gplebat (complebat) 1528.” The illegible word after “quadragessimū” is given as “primo” in the replica mentioned below. The light falls from the right on his face, which, though rather heavy in features, is an interesting one, with an indication of humour about the eyes and mouth, which is in accord with a contemporary description of him in one of the letters of Nicolas Bourbon, the poet, another of Holbein’s friends. The numerous instruments and accessories are depicted with all the truth and loving care in which Holbein delighted. Carel van Mander, who saw the picture in London when in the possession of Andries de Loo, and speaks of it as “een feer goedt Conterfeytsel en meesterlijck ghedan,” calls particular attention to the beauty with which the instruments are delineated. Kratzer was the hero of the story told by the same writer. When asked by King Henry why he spoke English so badly, he replied, “Pardon, your Majesty, but how can a man learn English in thirty years?”
Little is known about the history of the picture, which has suffered somewhat severely from the passage of time. As noted, it was once in the possession of De Loo, together with the Warham, the Thomas Cromwell, one of the versions of Erasmus, and the More family group.[[742]] According to Wornum,[[743]] it was formerly at Holland House;[[744]] and Walpole states, erroneously, that there is a drawing for it among the Windsor heads.[[745]] A replica or good contemporary copy was lent by Viscount Galway to the Tudor Exhibition, 1890 (No. 129), in which the inscription and date tally with the Louvre example. A miniature of Kratzer, in the late Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan’s collection, is described in Chapter XXV.
Vol. I., Plate 86.
NIKLAUS KRATZER
1528
Louvre, Paris
Kratzer, born in Munich, was educated at Cologne and Wittemberg. He came to England as a young man, and in 1517 was admitted a fellow of Fox’s new College of Corpus Christi, Oxford. Later on Wolsey gave him the post of lecturer on astronomy and mathematics at Oxford, and Henry VIII appointed him his astronomer, with a salary of £20 per annum. While at Oxford he designed two sun-dials, one in Corpus Christi garden, and the other on a pillar in St. Mary’s Church, the latter remaining in position until 1744. He died about 1550, and many of his works fell into the hands of the notorious Dr. Lee. Albrecht Dürer, during his visit to the Netherlands in 1520, made a drawing of Kratzer, as well as one of Erasmus. He notes in his diary: “In Antwerp I took the portrait of Master Nicolas, an astronomer, who resides with the King in England; he was very useful to me; he is a German, a native of Munich.”
NIKLAUS KRATZER AND HOLBEIN