Thanks to Harry Cockburn of the Independent Online for the Headline.
So apparently in order to boost her entitlement to Royal lineage , Elizabeth the First, had a portrait of Anne Boleyn( her mother who was executed by her father King Henry V111) painted with a strong resemblance or indeed based on her own appearance.
At the time of her reign, there were many threats to her right to the Monarchy, so it was natural to use any method to publicise that she was indeed the rightful heir to the English Throne.
It seems odd to me that she would want to be associated with a woman who Henry V111, said was such a wicked and wanton woman. In fact it’s amazing that Elizabeth 1 turned out to be such an effective Queen who ruled for 45 years despite being made illegitimate when her parents marriage was annulled. Henry having a change of mind when Elizabeth was ten years old and restored her to the line of succession.
A lot of water was still to pass under the bridge, but I’d like to think that the portrait was also produced as a way for Elizabeth to honour her mother, who having died when she was barely two , she would hardly have known what she looked like.
Let’s face it Elizabeth never married or had children of her own, perhaps her mother’s story made her fiercely independent and skeptical about the fate of Tudor women and maybe the one thing she could cling onto was the love of her mother.
It was probably a man’s world.
thenotsomightyom 