National Portrait Gallery

We went through their Tudor Collection and ran across this pair of portraits that I found rather astonishing.

First is Henry VII and second is Henry VIII. Look at the family resemblance. The shape of the face, the eyes.  Henry VIII is unmistakably the son of Henry VII.

Another portrait that struck me was Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first wife.

 Widowed by Henry's brother, Henry VIII married a few years later. But she never delivered an male heir and so was to be shuffled away. In contrast to other portraits, such as a frankly seductive portrait of Anne Boleyn, Catherine looks severe. No wonder. Widowed at 17, remarried at 25, her marriage annulled at 45. Not much future. A visitor to her residence described her as r to London two years before the annullment: 'If not handsome she is not ugly; she is somewhat stout and has always a smile on her countenance.'

History can be so cruel.