“But the said younge duke had never layne by his wife, and so she is maide, wife, and now a widowe; I praie God send her now good fortune.”
In this summarised history certain points are to be noticed:
(1) The Duke of Richmond was like his father (Henry VIII) and his mother who was “fayre.”
(2) A Dispensation was obtained for his marriage to Lady Mary Howard which took place in 1533 but with whom he never cohabited.
There is a side-light here of the hereditary aspect of the case. Both the Duke and Duchess of Richmond were “fayre,” and in the language of the old chroniclers “fayre” means blonde. Wintown for instance speaking of Macbeth’s supposed descent from the Devil says:
“Gottyne he was on ferly wys
“Hys Modyr to woddis mad oft repayre
“For the delyte of halesum ayre.
“Swa, scho past a-pon a day
“Tyl a Wod, hyr for to play:
“Scho met at cas with a fayr man.”
And Grafton thus speaks under date 7 September 1533 of Elizabeth’s birth: “The Queen was delivered of a fayre Lady.”
Now Anne Boleyn is described as small and lively, a brunette with black hair and beautiful eyes, and yet her daughter is given as red-haired by all the painters.
It is somewhat difficult to make out the true colours of persons. For instance Giovanni Michiel writing to the Venetian Senate in 1557 puts in his description of Elizabeth “She is tall and well formed, with a good skin, although swarthy” but in the same page he says “she prides herself on her father and glories in him; everybody is saying that she also resembles him more than the Queen [Mary] does.” As to the introduction of the word “swarthy” as above; it may have been one of the tricks of Elizabeth to keep the Venetian ambassador from knowing too much or getting any ground for guessing. If so it looks rather like Elizabeth concealing her real identity—which would be an argument in favour of an imposture; if she was the real princess there would be no need for concealment.
It is only common sense to expect, if the paternal element was so strong in Henry as to reproduce in offspring his own colour, that had the Duke of Richmond had any issue especially by a fair wife it too would have inherited something of the family colour. Holbein’s picture of the “Lady of Richmond,” as the Duke’s wife was called, shows her as a fair woman.