The 'Ashbourne' Portrait - The De Vere Society · overpainted to hide the well-known de Vere family...

overpainted to hide the well-known de Vere familydevice of a boar underneath. He discovered thescratched-out traces of an original inscription andcast reasonable doubt upon the authenticity of theactual inscription upon the canvass. And heconducted a most convincing comparative analysis ofthe facial characteristics of the ‘Ashbourne’ withother known portraits of Edward de Vere. Allsubsequent analysis of the painting has not onlyconfirmed but amplified these original findings ofBarrell particularly with regard to the close likenessof the sitter to Edward de Vere.

But perhaps the most exciting discovery inBarrell’s published x-rays showed that, below theinscription – ‘AETATIS SUAE . 47 / A° 1611 (declaringthe sitter to be aged 47 in the year 1611 thus matchingthe known chronology of William Shakspere ofStratford) – was hiding a completely overpainted,“full shield of arms, surrounded by decorativemantling and a scroll that evidently once bore afamily motto.” Barrell also discovered the monogramof the painter – CK – in this same area of the pictureand advanced convincing evidence which identifiedhim as Cornelius Ketel who was recorded in 1604 byhis friend Karel van Mander as having “also made aportrait of the Duke of Oxford (Edward de Vere).”While one may smile at a Continental’sunderstanding of English titles of nobility, the notedEnglish art historian George Vertue has also referredto a Cornelius Ketel portrait of the Earl of Oxford. Noother portrait of Edward de Vere by Ketel has everbeen discovered.

Thousand of words have already beenwritten analysing this painting since Spielmann’s firstarticle appeared – we will not attempt to summariseall that has been discovered but the bibliography atthe end of this essay provides a complete list of bothprimary and secondary sources that Dorna and I haveconsulted during our research. We will, instead, dealwith the issue of the painting’s provenance – whichhas received much less attention – and offer somenew evidence regarding the rediscovered coat of armsupon the painting.

The provenanceIn charting the provenance of the Ketel portrait ofEdward de Vere, it is first necessary to determinewhen it was painted. With this information, it wouldbe possible to determine the precise house in whichthe portrait may have begun its tortuous journey toAshbourne. The most recent and convincing datinganalysis of the ‘Ashbourne’ has been published byKatherine Chiljan in her Winter 2003 article in the‘Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter’ entitled, “Dating theAshbourne Portrait - Oxfordian evidence and recentlab analysis suggests 1597.” In this article, Katherinedirectly addresses – with compelling arguments – theprevious attempt at dating the portrait by BarbaraBurris (Shakespeare Matters, Winter 2002) whoplaced the work between 1579 and 1580 through adetailed analysis of the sitter’s costume.

The only thought that Dorna and I wouldlike to add to Katherine Chiljan’s article is the factthat, in 1596, Elizabeth Countess of Oxford, her

Summer 2007 The ‘Ashbourne’ Portrait De Vere Society Newsletter

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ForewordRegular readers of this newsletter will recall that myresearch into the Trentham family proceeds on thehypothesis that, if any of Edward de Vere’s literarypapers have survived until the present, following theTrentham line offers the best chance of discoveringthem. They may also recall the closing lines of myarticle in the last issue which said, “In the third and finalpart of this Trentham family history, we will explore allthe many houses in England where these papers mayhave ended up as we follow the Trentham line to itsextinction.” When these words were written, I neversuspected that a couple of interesting discoveries I’dmade in the course of this research would amount tomore than a few paragraphs in the proposed essay.

Yet the more that I began following this lineof enquiry the more I realised that two direct links I’ddiscovered between the Trenthams and the Cokaynesof Ashbourne offered tantalising new clues to one ofthe most hotly contested icons in the intense strugglebetween Oxfordian and Stratfordian scholarship –the ‘Ashbourne’ portrait.

I would still be at the starting gate in this lineof enquiry had it not been for the remarkable effortsof fellow DVS member Dorna Bewley. We haveworked jointly on this research and I cannot thankDorna enough for her research skills, her valuableinsights and for unstintingly sharing her researchmaterial. We have studied as much publishedinformation as we could find on this portrait to ensurethat our discoveries take note of the research alreadyundertaken on the subject.

We believe that the many discoveries we’vemade regarding the provenance of the painting will beof great interest to Oxfordians and, in deciding topublish our research now, it has not been possible, forreasons of space, to publish the final part of the historyof the Trentham family in this issue. However, as wecontend that the ‘Ashbourne’ portrait was an importantheirloom of the Trentham family, we believe it isessential to understand the family relationships of theTrenthams during the course of the 1600s and thegeographical landscape in which they lived. The bareessentials of this will be provided here, but I wouldurge readers who are interested to visit my websitewhere they can acquaint themselves with the full story:www.jeremycrick.info/TrenthamFamily–1.html andbegin reading at the section marked ‘Part III’

For copyright reasons, we have not been ableto publish a reproduction of the ‘Ashbourne’ portraithere. To view the portrait, visit: www.shakespeare-oxford.com/ashbour2.htm

IntroductionThe ‘Ashbourne’ portrait of Shakespeare first came tothe public’s attention in 1847 when the man who haddiscovered it, the Reverend Clement Kingston, issuedan edition of a mezzotint of the painting for sale to apublic that had become besotted with what GeorgeBernard Shaw would later term ‘bardolatry’.

At the time, Reverend Kingston was amaster at the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School inAshbourne before being sacked from the school forcharging his day pupils double the fee that he wasauthorised to do. The painting has been known as the‘Ashbourne’ portrait of Shakespeaere ever since. Thepainting itself was never made public at this time andit took M. H. Spielmann F.S.A., a distinguished arthistorian, years of research to track the original down.Spielmann wrote up his analysis of the painting andprovided all the information he had discovered aboutthe painting’s provenance in the April 1910 and May-August 1910 editions of the fine art magazine, TheConnoisseur. Spielmann strikes a skeptical tonethroughout his two articles not only about certainfeatures within the painting, but also about theReverend Kingston’s account of how the paintingwas discovered by a friend of his languishing in anantique shop in London. Subsequent research byourselves will more than confirm Spielmann’s doubtsabout the reliability of Kingston’s story.

The painting again came to the public’sattention in January 1940 when Charles WisnerBarrell published his now celebrated report in the‘Scientific American’ of his x-ray analysis into the‘Ashbourne’ which had by then been acquired by theFolger Shakespeare Library. Citing a mass ofevidence uncovered by this novel method of peeringbeneath the surface of a painting to look at all theunderpainting, his conclusion that the portrait was, infact, of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, caused asensation in literary circles. And the directors of theFolger Shakespeare Library, desperate to avoidBarrell’s conclusion gaining universal support, havebeen faced with some serious allegations from anumber of researchers (the work of Barbara Burris,who has had complete access to the Folger’s files,stands out here) regarding their less than honest‘restoration’ work on this portrait ever since.

The great domed head of the man dressed innobleman’s attire, Barrell announced, had beenpainted over a normal hairline in order to make itlook like the classic Droeshout engraving in the FirstFolio of Shakespeare. The device on the signet ringon the thumb of the sitter’s left hand had been


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The ‘Ashbourne’ PortraitNew research on the painting’s provenance by Jeremy Crick and Dorna Bewley strengthen the casethat it is the lost portrait of Edward de Vere by Cornelius Ketel. All photographs by Jeremy Crick.

The Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Ashbourne – with insets showing the plaque and, above the main door, the Cokayne family shield and crest adapted for the school badge.

of Keele Hall and Thomas Cokayne, heir of theAshbourne Cokaynes, the senior branch of theCokayne family of whom the Rushton Cokayneswere the cadet branch.4

It is important to bear in mind at this pointjust how close Ashbourne is to Rocester – it is lessthan eight miles.

Thomas Cokayne was the son and heir of SirAston Cokayne whose family had been Lords ofAshbourne since the thirteenth century. Checking theAshbourne Cokayne pedigree to discover more aboutthe man, I was amazed to discover that Thomas’maternal grandmother was Anne Stanhope, daughterof Sir John Stanhope and his wife KatherineTrentham, sister of the Countess of Oxford. In otherwords, not one but two direct relationships haveemerged between the Trenthams and the AshbourneCokaynes – by direct descent through the Stanhopes,and via their Rushton cousins by marriage.

Our hunch about the painting coming toAshbourne via the Cokaynes was strengthened afterDorna had contacted the Queen Elizabeth GrammarSchool in Ashbourne enquiring about the founding ofthe school which had, after all, given the painting itsname. By return post, their 400th year anniversarybrochure arrived which identified Thomas Cokayne’sgreat-great-grandfather Sir Thomas Cokayne(c.1520-1592) as the principal founding benefactor ofthe school in 1585. Having been instrumental inpetitioning Queen Elizabeth to found the school inthe first place, Sir Thomas Cokayne and his heirscontinued down the generations to take a proprietoryinterest in the school as governors. Even today, 420years after it was founded, the school still bears theCokayne shield of arms of three cocks for its ownbadge, as I discovered myself on a recent visit.

Already three working hypotheses werepresenting themselves regarding the passage of theportrait from the Trenthams to the AshbourneCokaynes. Firstly, and most elegantly, if ElizabethCountess of Oxford, widow of Edward de Vere, hadmade a gift of the portrait to her beloved sisterKatherine (along with some of her expensive gowns– see the last issue) to be kept safe as a familyheirloom, it was but one step away from AshbourneHall if Katherine had then passed the painting to herdaughter Anne Stanhope who, in 1611, had marriedThomas Cokayne (d. 1638), father of Sir AstonCokayne.

Alternatively, if the painting had stayed ateither Castle Hedingham or Rocester, either ThomasCokayne (son of Sir Aston) or William Sneyd wouldhave had the opportunity to take possession of thepainting when, in 1673, they were deciding how todivide up their joint purchase of the two properties.Regular readers of the DVS newsletter will alreadybe aware of how close the Trentham family were tothe Sneyds of Keele Hall ever since ElizabethCountess of Oxford’s father Thomas Trentham hadmarried Jane, the daughter of Sir William Sneyd. Itwill come as no surprise that the Sneyds and KeeleHall will continue to figure very strongly in thecourse of the present essay.

A somewhat less likely but, nonetheless,provable link is that the portrait travelled right downthe Trentham line and ended up at Rushton Hallwhere the same Thomas Cokayne, as an honouredcousin, would have been a welcome, if not frequent,guest. I know beyond doubt through my discovery ofthe Sir Peter Lely portrait of Elizabeth TrenthamLady Cullen (after a two and a half year search) thata great number of family portraits once graced thewalls of this impressive Elizabethan hall, and alsothat the Cullens had few qualms about squanderingtheir joint inheritance if a reasonanble cash offerpresented itself.

The coat of arms on the ‘Ashbourne’ portraitAny serious study of the painting’s provenance mustresolve a tangled web of analysis arising from Barrell’sdiscovery of the coat of arms on the upper left of thepainting. From the moment we first studied thereproductions of Barrell’s two x-ray exposures of thiscoat of arms and read his accompanying analysis,Dorna and I both had an uneasy feeling. Yet, facedwith sheaves of new research material on all the otheraspects of this painting, we merely logged our disquietand moved on in order to get a feel for the broad sweepof the Oxfordian position on the painting to date.

Having now studied the matter at somelength, we have little hesitation in declaring thatmuch of the analysis we have read which maintains


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brother ffrancis Trentham and Ralph Sneydpurchased King’s Place in Hackney (see the lastissue) which became the family home of Edward deVere and his Countess during the last eight years ofhis life 1. If Chiljan’s 1597 date is correct, then itwould seem a racing certainty that Edward de Verecommissioned the portrait from Ketel following themove to King’s Place and, therefore, it began itsexistence gracing the classic Tudor long galley atthis wonderful manor house.

After Edward de Vere’s death in 1604, andfollowing his widow’s sale of King’s Place in 1609,Elizabeth Countess Dowager of Oxford moved herfamily home to the recently repurchased CastleHedingham and it is likely that all the paintings fromKing’s Place would have followed her here unlessEdward de Vere had made any specific bequests ofthem to, say, his daughters.2

After the Countess Dowager’s death in1612 her brother ffrancis retained control of theestate of his late brother-in-law and retired frompublic life, spending his remaining years at theTrentham family seat of Rocester Abbey. AfterCastle Hedingham came into his possession uponthe death of Henry de Vere in 1625, what thenbecame of the Ketel portrait if it was still at thecastle? The two most realistic possibilities are that itwas either moved to Rocester as a memento offfrancis’ beloved sister and noble brother-in-law, orgiven to one of Edward de Vere’s three daughtersElizabeth, Bridget or Susan. And this goes for anyother important heirlooms of Edward and his

Countess Elizabeth which had remained atHedingham, including Edward’s papers.

If the painting ever graced the walls of the‘great dyning chamber’ at Rocester Abbey(mentioned thus in ffrancis Trentham’s will)3, itspassage down the years before ending up atAshbourne would seem to be lost in the mists of time.But having now charted the line of descent of theTrentham heirs (along with the family heirlooms)through the many houses in Staffordshire and downto Rushton in Northampton, at least informedhypothesis can replace pure guesswork in followingthe trail.

The last in the line of the Trentham familywas the wealthy heiress Elizabeth Trentham (seeportrait, below), daughter of Sir ffrancis Trenthamwho had been killed at the age of only twenty-fourfighting for the King during the Civil War (andthereby hangs a tale of great treachery and avarice). Itis this Elizabeth Trentham who, as sole heiress of theTrentham family wealth, has become conflated withElizabeth Trentham, Countess of Oxford, bygenerations of Oxfordians thereby leading them tothe misconception that the second wife of Edward deVere was herself a wealthy heiress.

Elizabeth Trentham married Bryan Cokayne,2nd Viscount Cullen, of Rushton Hall in 1653.Twenty years later, Lord and Lady Cullen sold themanor of Castle Hedingham and the manor ofRocester Abbey (the ancient family seats of the Earlsof Oxford and the Trenthams respectively, whichElizabeth Trentham had inherited) to William Sneyd


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Sir Peter Lely’s portrait of Elizabeth Trentham, Lady Cullen. Having spent over two years searching for this elusive painting, I quiteunderstand Mr Spielmann’s comment regarding his search for the ‘Ashbourne’ portrait: "This picture I set myself years ago todiscover, but the search for it was one of the longest and most tedious in which I have been engaged."

Pri

vate

Col

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ion,

pub

lishe

d w

ith th

e ki

nd p

erm

issi

on o

f the

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ner.

The elaborate marble tomb of Sir Thomas Cokayne (d 1592),the founding benefactor of the Queen Elizabeth GrammarSchool, and his wife, Dorothy Ferrers, in the church atAshbourne.

family the coat of arms most likely represents, we willfirst address what is perhaps the most significant clueto be found in this area of the painting – the artist’smonogram, CK. This is important for two reasons: ifthis monogram can be proven to be original to thepainting, it is also possible to prove that the coat ofarms was a later addition and that, secondly, theidentity of the sitter currently proposed by the Folgeris flawed because Cornelius Ketel could not havepainted the sitter they propose when the man was inhis late forties because he, Ketel, had left Englandlong before and was, by then, incapable throughinfirmity of holding a paintbrush in his hands.

Many examples exist (and have beenpublished in articles dealing with the ‘Ashbourne’portrait) of Cornelius Ketel’s use of a monogram tosign his paintings. Unlike Lautrec, for example, Ketelseemed never to fix upon a definitive design for hismonogram. But his placement of his monogram uponhis paintings was consistent – below the inscription,centred to this inscription, and placed in clear spacebetween the inscription and any feature of the portraitbelow. The most notable feature of the CK monogramon the ‘Ashbourne’, as discovered by Barrell's x-rays,is the fact that it is tangled up with the ribbon flowingfrom the right hand side below the scroll of the coatof arms and, therefore, when Ketel signed the portraitit was very unlikely to have contained the coat ofarms now visible upon it. Another important factabout the monogram is that, between Barrell’s 1937

x-ray photogarphs and the Folger’s own x-rayanalysis done in 1948-9, the monogram had beenremoved from the painting (presumably becausesomeone at the Folger rightly concluded that Ketelcould not have painted Shakspere at the age of forty-seven) and is now no longer visible in the ‘restored’state of the painting which reveals the coat of arms.The fact that there is now a gap in the ribbon atprecisely the point where the CK monogram is shownin the Barrell x-rays also indicates that the monogramcould not have be removed without also removing thepainted ribbon on top of it. These two points areaddressed by Barbara Burris in her Spring 2002article in ‘Shakespeare Matters’:

“This [the later addition of the coat of arms]would also explain Ketel expert WolfStechow’s comment that neither Ketel (nor anyartist) would put his initials in the place theyare found on this painting, as part of a coat ofarms [ref, Shakespeare Fellowship News-Letter, April 1941, pp4]. The answer is thatKetel didn’t place his initials within the coat ofarms. Instead, his monogram was incorporatedinto a coat of arms that was added to the


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that the coat of arms in the ‘Ashbourne’ portraitbelongs to the Trentham family is in error. Althoughthere are superfical similarities between the Trenthamcoat of arms and the arms discovered in CharlesWisner Barrell’s x-ray photographs published in the‘Scientific American’ in January 1940, on closeexamination the differences between the two arefundamental. In Barrell’s defence, it is perhaps worthpointing out that, when he made his discovery, it wasless than twenty years since Thomas J Looney hadmade his own discoveries public about Edward deVere. An understandable lack of knowledge in 1940about the family of the Earl of Oxford’s second wifeshould not detract from Barrell’s great achievement.

We would add that we also believe thisassertion in no way invalidates the case that the truesubject of this portrait is Edward de Vere. Ourcontention is entirely consistent with Barbara Burris’research which proves that the coat of arms thatBarrell discovered – and which many Oxfordiansconsider a central plank of their argument – is itselfan overpainting upon a canvas and which was notpainted by Cornelius Ketel but was added later.

Where we differ from Burris and others isour contention that this overpainting was actually thefirst of three attempts to impose a new identity uponthe man in the painting – the first resulting perhapsfrom an innocent assumption by the family entitled tobear the coat of arms that the person in an oldpainting they possessed must have been a forgottenrelative; and the second being a dishonest attempt toclaim a new portrait of Shakespeare by painting overthis coat of arms and all other incongruous detailsincluding the sitter’s full head of hair. By 1979, eventhe Folger finally gave up claiming the sitter to beShakespeare and, in their ‘anyone but Oxford’campaign, attempted to impose a third identity uponthe portrait, basing their assertion on their reading ofthe coat of arms. The Folger’s analysis, however, isfundamentally flawed and can now be revealed to bea giant red herring.

Let us first examine Barrell’s analysis of thecoat of arms:

“The recovered device ... is really a doublecrest. To the left, the faint black pencilling of aleopard or lion appears, while to the right is thewhite outline of a griffin. Months of researchhave proved that two Elizabethan families ofStaffordshire had crests that correspond to theabove combination. They were the Sneyds ofKeel[e] Hall and the Trenthams of RocesterAbbey. The shield of arms ... would seems tomake this armorial identification positive forthe Trentham arms are described incontemporarty records as ‘Three griffin’sheads, erased, sable: beaked gules.’”

This latter is indeed how the Trentham arms are bothdescribed and pictured (see below, middle) in ‘TheVisitation of Staffordshire, 1583’ 5 and, in layman’sterms, this means that the three griffin’s heads are cutleaving a jagged neck (erased) and are coloured black(sable) while the beaks are coloured red (gules).However, Barrell is mistaken in identifying theTrentham crest above their shield as a griffin – the1583 record mentioned above describes and illustratesthis as, “A raven’s head erased sable.”

There is also no evidence that we can see ofthe crest being a double crest – the single visiblefigure of what is unquestionably a griffin occupies aperfectly central position in relation to the shield and,try as we might, we cannot discern a “faint blackpencilling of a leopard or lion”. But more worryingly,the three charges on the shield look quite unlike thethree griffin charges on the Trentham shield. Rather,it is fairly obvious that the charges are, in fact, rams’heads – they are ‘couped’ (cut straight) and not‘erased’, they lack the distinctive cocked ears of theheraldic griffin, and the swirling lines of a ram’s hornare visible in each charge.

Reproduced here are the full Trenthamfamily quartered arms, their shield and also a penciltracing which I have made of Barrell’s two x-rayexposures of the coat of arms on the ‘Ashbourne’portrait. Before moving to a discussion of which


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A pencil tracing of the two x-ray exposures of the ‘Ashbourne’ coat of arms as published by Charles Barrell

in his ‘Scientific American’ article in 1940. The artist’smonogram CK can be clearly seen.

The quartered Trentham family coat of arms printed in the‘Visitation of Staffordshire, 1583’. (Collections for a Historyof Staffordshire, Vol III, 1882)

The quartered arms of the Trentham family (r) impaled withthe arms of the Stanhopes (l). From the tomb of Sir John

Stanhope and Katherine Trentham, sister of ElizabethCountess of Oxford, in Elvaston Church, Derbyshire

The Trentham family shield comprising three griffin heads


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painting much later. The x-rays show that the‘CK’ monogram is not painted over the ribbon... they show that the ribbon is painted aroundthe ‘CK’ confirming that the ‘CK’ was therebefore the coat of arms was painted.”

Hamersley or Homersley? – that is thequestionBy 1979 the Folger realised that continuing to claimthe ‘Ashbourne’ to be a genuine portrait ofShakespeare was futile in the face of such a wealth ofOxfordian analysis, and they finally relented byallowing the name of their revised candidate, based ontheir research into the coat of arms, to emerge into thepublic domain. The method they chose to reveal thiswas interesting, to use a neutral phrase. Desperate toget Oxfordians off their back, they invited tworepected members of the Shakespeare Oxford Society,Dr Gordon Cyr and his wife Helen, to review selectedphotographic exhibits from their various restorationprojects on the portrait. This story has been covered ingreat detail elsewhere and it is only necessary here toreport that Dr Cyr’s article, published in theShakespeare Oxford Newsletter (Summer 1979 Vol 15No 3), announced that the sitter was Sir HughHamersley, Lord Mayor of London in 1627.

Dr Cyr’s experience of the Folger in thismatter was a bitter experience. Dorna and I weredelighted to read his reassessment of this wholeepisode in the Spring 2002 issue of ShakespeareMatters – all those interested in this topic should readthis piece in which he says, “...it was not my fault thatthose whose word I trusted in good faith have nowbeen shown – thanks to the herculean efforts ofBarbara Burris – to have exploited that trust.” Dr Cyris the only author upon this topic who has had thecourage to state plainly that “Barrell erred mightily inhis hasty misidentification of the arms as those of theTrenthams” and that this error, being accepteduncritically by Oxfordians ever since, has held backthe Oxfordian case. We couldn’t agree more.

But what of the Hamersley claim? It is alsosurprising that, hitherto, no Oxfordian seems to havetaken the trouble to examine the background of theHamersley family whose coat of arms unquestionablyappeared on the portrait sometime after CorneliusKetel had finished it. Any attempt at solving theprovenance of the painting simply must arrive at asolution that accommodates this fact. Having beeninformed by the Folger research that it was HughHamersley (he was not knighted until 1628) who wasgranted the family coat of arms in 1614 – the onlyreply from Oxfordians has been that this raises aquestion about the 1611 date on the painting.

The initial grant of the Hamersley arms toHugh in 1614 simply does not stand up to the scrutiny

of historical examination. The published pedigree ofSir Hugh Hamersley correctly acknowledges that hisfamily descended from the Homersley family ofStaffordshire. And it is, perhaps, understandable thatthe compilers of the various English family pedigreereference works fixed upon Sir Hugh as the mostnotable early member of the family – he being aknight and a Lord Mayor of London – andmistakenly declared that it was this same Hugh whowas initially granted the family arms.

In the search for the origins of the grant ofarms to the Hamersleys, there are two extremelyreliable archive sources for both the arms and earlypedigree of the family which never seem to have beenconsulted – the Visitations of Staffordshire dated15835 and 16146. And the Homersley pedigree foundin the second of these shows that, during the reign ofRichard II, two separate branches of the familyformed and that they very quickly lost all contactwith one another. These impeccable records alsoprovide the earliest proof that it was the branch of thefamily who remained in Staffordshire – theHomersleys – who were granted the coat of arms.And further Staffordshire records contain a treasuretrove of clues regarding the family relationships ofthe Homersleys which link them with not one but anumber of places where the ‘Ashbourne’ portrait mayrealistically have hung.

The subtitle of the Visitation of Staffordshirefor the year 1583 makes interesting reading: “Being alist of those summoned by warrant to appear beforeGlover, Somerset, and record their descent andarms.” Simply declaring oneself a gentleman inElizabethan England was not good enough, one hadpersonally to prove it before this royal commission.Listed under the Totmonslow Hundred (whichincorporated Rocester and Leek) is listed, “ThomasHomersley, de Shaw. Ignobilis.” Later on, there isanother heading which reads, “Names of those whohave made no proof of their Gentry, bearinge noeArmes”, under which is listed, again for theTotmonslow Hundred, “Thos Homersley, of Shaw”.

So we can comfortably conclude that theHomersleys had yet to raise themselves socially in1583, yet the very fact that they answered thesummons would indicate their social aspirations. Acouple of earlier records are worth examining here togive us an indication of where the family actuallylived. In 1530, the court of the Star Chamberrecorded a case brought by the great-grandfather ofthe above Thomas, it begins:

“Sheweth Thomas Homersley of the Shawe,co. Stafford, that whereas your suppliant andhis ancestors, time out of mind, have beenpeaceably possessed and siezed of and incertain messuages, etc., in the manor of


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Chetilton [Cheddleton], lying in a place called‘The Bothom’...” 7

The place names of Cheddleton and Botham in theabove make very interesting reading indeed.Cheddleton lies about three miles south of Leek in theheart of the district’s noted pastureland. And Bothamis the original name of a great hall just south of herethat was for generations the family seat of the Jolly(alias Jollife) family who bought the Trentham familyestate of Westwood Grange off the Cullens in 16588.When the manor of Botham was bought by the Sneydsmuch later, a new and very wealthy cadet branch ofthe Sneyds was formed and they renamed the manorAshcombe Hall and they are still known today as theAshcombe Sneyds. And we do not mention theSneyds idly in discussing the family relationships ofthe Homersleys, as we shall soon demonstrate.

Before coming to the second record touchingon the Homersley place of residence, I will give abrief survey of the history of Trentham family in thearea around Leek in order to establish the potentialfor their family heirlooms – which may have includedthe Ketel portrait of Edward de Vere – to have endedup here. And, if this was the case, the potential for theHomersleys to have encountered these heirlooms.

High up in the Staffordshire moorlands andabout fourteen miles up the River Churnett fromRocester, Leek was one of Staffordshire’s mostimportant market towns whose prosperity was, inpart, founded upon the trade in wool and themanufacture of textiles. Even today, the town still hasa street named ‘Sheepmarket’ though the marketitself disappeared long ago.

Since the days of Thomas Trentham (d.1587) the family had invested heavily in pasture landto the south and west of the town and when, in 1604,his son ffrancis (Edward de Vere’s brother-in-law)purchased the 750 acre estate of Westwood Grangeon the western outskirts of the town9, it may wellhave sprung from a desire to facilitate getting theirpart-processed wool to market – for it is notable thatthe pasture land of the Rocester Abbey estate was

chiefly given over to grazing sheep and that, of thefour mills that were in the possession of theTrenthams at Rocester, three were corn mills and onewas a ‘fulling mill’10 which is described in the OEDas “a mill for fulling cloth as by means of pesties orstampers, which alternately fall into and rise fromtroughs where the cloth is placed with hot water andfuller's earth, or other cleansing materials.”

The son and heir of ffrancis, Sir ThomasTrentham, and Lady Prudence his wife, took upresidence at Westwood Grange from the date of theirmarriage in 1620.11 And then, after ffrancis died in1626, they returned to Rocester where they had onlytwo years to establish themselves as the lord and ladyof the manor, Sir Thomas being buried at Rocester on18 January 1628. Perhaps, the most interestingdocument to have survived from this period is aninventory of the Rocester manor house taken on 12April 162812 (pictured above). The only realisticconclusion that can be drawn from this four-pagedocument is that, after his death, the house had beenemptied of all its valuable furniture, pictures,tapestries, plate, carpets, books and family heirlooms.

The indenture recording the sale of Westwood Grange by Bryan Cokayne, Viscount Cullen and his wife Elizabeth née Trentham to“William Jolly of the Botham in the Parish of Chedleton in the said County of Stafford” on 28 February 1658.

(Cokayne (Rushton) Papers, C 2491, Northamptonshire Record Office)

From page three of the Inventory of the manor house atRocester Abbey, dated 12 April 1628, following the death of Sir

Thomas Trentham. The two sections shown here are “In my Ladyes Chamber” and “In my Ladyes iner Chamber”,

his lady being Lady Prudence Trentham. This importantdocument proves that the Rocester manor house was cleared ofall the family’s valuable possessions by this date. (see note 12)

The pedigree of the Chetwynd family (whowere a very notable Staffordshire family indeed)found in the Visitation of Staffordshire of 16146 makesfascinating reading and, although we cannot put anexact date upon this marriage, the very fact of itwould indicate that the Homersleys were of sufficientmeans and public standing to have been granted theirarms well before this visitation. The marriage inquestion was between Elizabeth Homersley andRobert Chetwynd and, when we look at some of thefamily relationships involved, a couple of veryinteresting facts emerge. Robert Chetwynd was thesecond of two sons of Thomas Chetwynd and his wifeJane. Also from this marriage was born a singledaughter, Mary. Upon Thomas Chetwynd’s death, hiswidow Jane married none other that Sir WilliamSneyd of Bradwell and Keele as his second wife.Mary, daughter of Jane from the Chetwynd marriage,then married Sir William’s son and heir Ralph Sneydwho built Keele Hall. So we now have a member ofthe Homersley family being the sister-in-law of the“uncle Sneyd” mentioned in Elizabeth Trentham,Countess of Oxford’s will.

This elevation of the Homersley family’s socialstanding was confirmed when Sir Richard St George,Norrey, who conducted the 1614 Visitation ofStaffordshire, recorded the following: “Homersley ofHomersley. Arms – Gules, three ram’s heads erased or.”Is it not very significant that the Homersleys had chosenthree rams’ heads to be placed upon their shield? Downthe generations, they had lived as yeomen both owningand renting land in and around the town of Leek – atown whose prosperity owed much to being a centre ofthe trade and manufacture of woollstuffs.

Having demonstrated their right to armorialbearings, “Thomas Homersley of Homersley co,Staffs living 1614” and “William Homersley, sonneand heire, 40 years old 1614” presented thecommissioners with as detailed a pedigree of theirfamily that they could muster – this went right backto the early days of the reign of Edward II and Robert

de Homersley. During the reign of Richard II his twosons, Adam de Homersley and William Homersley,began the different branches of the family. Afterlisting Ralph de Homersley as the son of Adam,Thomas and William were unable to provide theVisitation commissioners with any further detailsabout their long-lost cousins. Even their own branch,descending from William Homersley, lists only themale heirs through the entire Tudor period.

As the Homersleys of Botham had clearlylost touch with their cousins from the time ofRichard II when they were still yeomen, it isimprobable indeed for them to have known whetherthese cousins had prospered and had achievedarmorial bearings. The fact that the Homersleys wereable to demonstrate and describe their arms to theStaffordshire Visitation commissioners is actuallythe first of two documentary proofs that it was theStaffordshire Homersleys who had been grantedthem in the first place and that this grant predated thevisitation. It is also significant that this Visitationmakes no mention of a crest above their shield. Wecan therefore conclude that when the Homersleyarms were formally recognised by the Visitationcommissioners, the family had yet to achieve thisaugmentation to their arms. By a strangecoincidence, it was later in the very same year as thisVisitation of Staffordshire that Hugh Hamersley inLondon made an approach to the authoritiesregarding his family arms.

This evidence emerged after Dornadiscovered a most interesting document nestling inthe archive of the Haberdashers’ Company in London(the owners of a well-known full length portrait of SirHugh Hamersley) written by Louisa Hamersley fromPyrton Manor in 1891. In this, she records the detailsof certain archive documents that she had in herpossession at Pyrton relating to her family, the mostinteresting of which is her transcription of a grant ofArms to Hugh by “William Camden, ClarenceuxKing of Arms” dated 28 November 1614. Thisdocument is further proof that Sir Hugh’s ancestorshad already been granted arms and that he wasseeking to augment these arms with a crest.

“...whereas Hugh Hamersley of London, thesonne of Hugh Hamersley...& sonne of RichardHamersley of Stafford in the County ofStafford, being descended of a family andSurname anciently bearing arms, hathrequested me to search how he may bear thesayd arms, & to exemplify & emblazon the same... & therefore having made search accordinglydo finde that he may lawfully beare their ArmsVry in a Sheild Gules [red] three Rammes headscouped [cut square] or [gold], & for hisCreasten a Healina [sic: Healme ?] and wreath


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The inventory deals exclusively with the various bedchambers, parlours, the kitchen, and also the numberof livestock on the manor’s farm. That the largercommunal rooms in the manor house had beencleared can be deduced by a comparison with some ofthe references in ffrancis Trentham’s will in which hebequeathes to his son Sir Thomas all his books and“all those hanginges which I have except sutch asfurnishe the great dyning chamber the mydle olddynyng chamber & the end chamber.”3 There is nomention in the inventory of a library nor of books,and there is no mention at all of a great diningchamber where we might assume all the familyportraits had been hung.

The reason for abandoning the manor houseat Rocester is easy to establish. As Sir Thomas’ andLady Prudence’s son and heir ffrancis was just eightyears old on the death of his father, he became a royalward13 and, while the young ffrancis moved to thehome of his new guardian, Ralph Sneyd II (d. 1643)of Keele Hall, his mother Lady Prudence returned toLeek and saw out her remaining years as a widowliving in the manor house at Westwood Grange14.From this date, all the important family heirlooms ofthe Trenthams were most likely divided betweenKeele Hall and Westwood Grange. It is also possiblethat Sir Thomas’ younger brother Sir ChristopherTrentham took possession of a number of heirloomsand it is notable that he was recorded by the earliestStaffordshire historian, Sampson Erdeswick, as livingin another property in the vicinity of Leek – the DairyHouse at Horton. (see picture, top right)

The royal wardship of young ffrancis (laterSir ffrancis) was recorded in a later document (picturedbelow), dated 9 June 1632, in which his great-uncleRalph Sneyd transferred the boy’s wardship to SirWilliam Bowyer who, within a few years, had marriedthe boy off to his own daughter Elizabeth:

“Whereas our sovaigne Lord Kinge Charles(that now is) hath comitted and graunted to thesaid Raphe Sneyde & his assigns the Custodywardshippe & marriage off ffrauncis Trenthamhis magestys ward (sonne & nexte heire of SirThomas Trentham knight deceased)...”. 13

Sir William Bowyer’s ancient family seat was atBiddulph Hall, a few miles to the west of Leek, and itwas here that Elizabeth Trentham, Lady Cullen, was

brought up after the untimely death of her father Sirffrancis in the Civil War. And it was from here that SirWilliam’s son and heir John Bowyer managed theentire Trentham estate including Rocester Abbey andWestwood Grange during the long years of his nieceElizabeth Trentham’s minority.

Returning to the Homersleys, the secondrecord is from a Chancery Proceeding in the year1562 brought by the son of the formerly mentionedThomas Homersley. It begins:

“Showeth unto your lordship that your oratorRobert Homersley, yeoman, was siezed as offee of four messuages and 300 acres of land inKyngsley, Chedleton, Horton, Leek, Bedulpheand the Bothum in co. Stafford, and tookprofits of them for more than forty years”.

And so, the Homersley senior was still listed as ayeoman but there is evidence that the family wereprospering. But we can also see that Horton, Leek andBiddulph were places with long associations for theTrentham and Bowyer families.

One fact I never got round to mentioning inthe history of the Trentham family is that, in 1579,Thomas Trentham (d. 1587) purchased “8 messuages,6 cottages, 4 tofts, 8 gardens, 8 orchards, 16 acres ofland, 500 acres of meadow, 200 acres of pasture, 20acres of wood, 100 acres of furze and heath and 40acres of moor” in the area between Leek and wherethe Bowyers lived at Biddulph17. All this land wouldhave been tenanted. And Thomas Trentham is not theonly person we have encountered in the history of theTrenthams to have invested in land in this area. Alsoin 1579, Sir Thomas Stanhope purchased “commonof pasture for 400 sheep”18 from Sir Thomas Cokayneof Ashbourne in the area south of Cheddleton wherethe Homersleys lived. And Westwood Grange – themost significant estate on the western outskirts ofLeek – was for many long years farmed andoccupied by tenants of the Trentham estate, firstunder Lady Prudence Trentham and then, followingher death, under John Bowyer’s stewarship.

This corner of moorland Staffordshire was asmall world indeed. Could it be that the Homersleysbegan their rise up the social ladder by becomingprosperous tenants of either the Trenthams, theBowyers, the Cokaynes or the Stanhopes? Or eventhe Sneyds?


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The indenture which records the transfer of the wardship of (Sir) ffrancis Trentham in 1632 from the boy’s great-uncle, Ralph Sneyd,to Sir William Bowyer of Biddulph Hall due west of the town of Leek.. (Sneyd Papers, S1385, Keele University)

The Dairy House at Horton on the outskirts of the WestwoodGrange estate. Sir Christopher Trentham lived here during theCivil War after he inherited the Trentham estate following thedeath of his nephew Sir ffrancis Trentham in 1664. It is the onlysurviving building in Staffordshire lived in by a Trentham heir.

might appear like a complex ‘join the dots’ picture forwhich we have not provided the solution upside downat the back of this newsletter. The work of picking away through this evidence – which we acknowledge islikely to contain as many blind turns as it does actualroutes the painting took on its journey – will be thework of many months of further research.

For most Oxfordians, the ‘Ashbourne’portrait is the most iconic artefact symbolising theintense struggle between Stratfordian andOxfordian scholarship. How apposite that weshould have a painting of the Earl of Oxford –who, we believe, was the author of Hamlet and therest – which has been overlaid with the likeness ofShakspere – who, Stratfordians believe, was theauthor of Hamlet and the rest.

Oxfordians have smelt blood ever since1979 when the Folger finally gave up claiming theportrait to be Shakespeare. Yet still the Folger refusesto allow the ridiculous overpainted forehead on thepainting to be removed – even though they know that

the only proven portrait of Sir Hugh Hamersley, inthe Haberdashers’ Hall in London, depicts him as anolder man with a full head of hair. Could it be that theFolger fear that, in removing the overpaintedforehead, the sitter would bear just too startling alikeness to Edward de Vere?

Can there be any reason why the Folgerwould want to hold on to a painting of a minorJacobean knight with no connection to literature? Theonly reason must be that they are hedging their betsthat one day Edward de Vere will triumph overShakspere in the Authorship Question and they willhave a valuable portrait on their hands once again.

Once Oxfordians manage to dislodge theFolger’s Hamersley claims – in hope of which weoffer our new discoveries – perhaps the Folger shouldthink about making a gift of the painting to theNational Portrait Gallery in London and we can thensee how a respectable institution goes about the taskof restoring an important Elizabethan painting to itsoriginal glory.


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of his colours, a demi Griffin sergreant, Or,holding A Crosse crosslett fitchie gueles.”(italics added for emphasis).

There is one final piece of evidence regarding ourcontention that the ‘Ashbourne’ portrait somehowcame into the possession of the StaffordshireHomersleys through their relationship to knownrelations of the Trentham family. And having done so,that a later relative assumed that the portrait must havebeen an ancestor and added their coat of arms to thepicture in the way of taking family possession of it.This came to light quite early in our research, but itwas Dorna’s discovery of a comprehensiveHomersley/Hamersley pedigree chart in the archive ofthe Haberdashers’ Company that has added the detailof the Homersley family’s gentrification.

John Homersley, mentioned above in theChancery Proceeding, and Margaret Rowley his wife,had a son named Thomas. This Thomas has a mostinteresting inscription in the pedigree chart:

“Thomas [Homersley] of Homsley or WoodHouse, and Botham near Cheddleton. Hemortgaged Botham to Anthony Rudyard ofDieulacres in 1640.”

Botham, remember, became the mansion house of theJollys who purchased Westwood Grange from theCullens in 1658, and which later became AshcombeHall in the possession of the Sneyds. ThomasHomersley’s property then passed in the next generationto William Homersley who married Mary the daughterof George Sneyd. The inscription under his name reads:

“Sold Cheddleton Grange [another Grange likeWestwood, set up by the monks of DieulacresAbbey] and the tythes of Botham to AnthonyRudyard of Dieulacres. Will proved atLichfield 1665.”

If the ‘Ashbourne’ portrait ever made its way toRocester after the death of Elizabeth, Countess of

Oxford, the two most likely places to which it couldhave been moved following the abandonment ofRocester Abbey in 1628 were Keele Hall, along withthe wardship of young ffrancis Trentham, orWestwood Grange with the widowed Lady PrudenceTrentham. We have been able to demonstrate, in ourbrief survey of the Homersley family history, that theyhad provable links with both of these houses.

If the portrait did come into the possessionof the Homersleys, and if it was a later generation ofthis family who had their coat of arms painted upon itin the innocent belief that it was a portrait of an oldmember of their family, it will be necessary toestablish whether later members of this family evermigrated to Ashbourne. And on the principle that apicture is worth a thousand words, we publish herethree photographs which I took at a village calledOsmaston about a mile and a half from the centre ofAshbourne. The photograph on the left shows twogravestones (the middle photograph is a close-up ofthe stone in the background of the one on the left).The white marble gravestone records the burial ofAlbert Hammersley aged 61 in 1910, and his wifeHannah. The weather-encrusted gravestone in themiddle photograph records the burial of theirchildren, John, Elizabeth and Ernest who all diedyoung. The third photograph records the name of ‘A.Hammersley’ on the 1914-18 War Memorial. Tracingthis family back through the preceding century willbe just part of our continuing investigation into theprovenance of the ‘Ashbourne’ portrait.

ConclusionWhat we have sought to do in this article is to presenta raft of new evidence on the provenance of the‘Ashbourne’ portrait which we believe to be the ‘lost’portrait of Edward de Vere by Cornelius Ketel. Wemake no apologies that this presentation of evidence


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Notes

Barrell, Charles Wisner, “Identifying ‘Shakespeare’”, Scientific American, January 1940Boyle, William, “Ashbourne Portrait Followup”, Shakespeare Matters, Winter 2003––– “Folger Displays Ashbourne portrait in exhibition on

frauds”, Shakespseare Matters, Fall 2003Burris, Barbara, “A Golden Book, bound richly up”,Shakespeare Matters, Fall 2001––– “The Ashbourne Portrait: Part II”,

Shakespeare Matters, Winter 2002––– “Ashbourne Story III”, Shakespeare Matters, Spring 2002––– “The Ashbourne Portrait: Part IV”,

Shakespeare Matters, Fall 2002––– “Back to the Ashbourne”, Shakespeare Matters, Fall 2004––– Letter to the Editor, Shakespeare Matters, Summer 2005Chiljan, Katherine, “Dating the Ashbourne Portrait: Oxfordian Evidence and Recent Lab Analysis Suggests 1597”, The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter, Winter 2003––– “The CCI Report on Ashbourne Portrait:

Scientific Analysis Raises More Questions Than Answers”, Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter, Winter 2003

Corbeil, Marie Claude and Jeremy Powell, “Scientificexamination of the Ashbourne Portrait of Shakespeare/Sir HughHammersley for The Folger Shakespeare Library, WashingtonD.C.,” CCI Report, published online at:http://shakespeare.folger.edu/other/CCIreport.pdf.Frangopolu, Nicholas J., “The History of Queen Elizabeth'sGrammar School, Ashbourne Derbyshire”, Henstock & Son, 1939.Haberdashers' Company, The, Files & notes relating to thefamily of Sir Hugh Hamersley. Kindly made available by Mr.John Cope, The Archivist, Haberdasher's Hall, 18 WestSmithfield, London EC1A 9HQ. Henstock, Adrian, “Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School,Ashbourne 1585-1985”, 400th Anniversary Souvenir, 1985Miller, Ruth Loyd, “Lord Oxford and the 'Shakespeare'Portraits”, in J. Thomas Looney's Shakespeare Identified inEdward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, ed. Ruth Lloyd Miller, 2 Vols. Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1975Pressley, William L., “The Ashbourne Portrait of Shakespeare:Through the Looking Glass”, The Shakespeare Quarterly, 1993Spielmann, M.H., F.S.A., “The Ashbourne Portrait of Shakespeare –Part I”, The Connoisseur, Jan-April 1910––– “The Ashbourne Portrait of Shakespeare – Part II”,

The Connoisseur, May-August 1910

The names of three generations of Hamersleys carved in stone at the parish church of Osmaston, about a mile and a half from thecentre of Ashbourne – see the text below for details.

1 Licence to purchase King’s Place, PRO C66/14762 Purchase of Castle Hedingham, House of Lords Record

Office, HL/PO/PB/1/1609/7J1n33a; Her residence atHedingham: PRO SP14/65, ff 76-7

3 The will of ffrancis Trentham, Lichfield Record Office,Catalogue B/C/11, indexed under probate date 10 June 1628.

4 Sale of Castle Hedingham and Rocester Abbey, 24November 1653: Keele University, Sneyd Papers S838.

5 The Visitation of Staffordshire, AD 1583, Collections for aHistory of Staffordshire (CHS), Vol III, 1882

6 The Visitation of Staffordshire, AD 1614, CHS, Vol V, 18847 Star Chamber Proceedings, 1516-49, CHS, Vol 19108 Sale of Westwood Grange 28 Feb 1658, Cokayne (Rushton)

Papers, C 2491, Northampton Record Office9 Purchase of Westwood Grange, Final Concords 1603-7,

CHS, Vol XVIII, 189710 Rocester Mills and Trentham estate, Inquisition Post

Mortem of ffrancis Trentham of Rocester Abbey, 3 July 1627.PRO C 142/706/5

11 Married in Bakewell, Derbyshire on 17 April 1620. Alsodated this day is the £2,200 marriage dowry paid by ThomasEyre, father of Prudence, to ffrancis Trentham, BagshawPapers C2723, Sheffield RO

12 Inventory of Rocester manor house, Lichfield RecordOffice, Catalogue B/C/11, indexed under date of 12 April 1628.

13 Wardship of Sir ffrancis Trentham, Sneyd Papers, S1385,Keele University

14 Prudence returns to Westwood, 'Leek: Leek and Lowe', AHistory of the County of Stafford: Volume 7: Leek and theMoorlands (1996), pp 140

15 Sampson Erdeswick A View of Staffordshire.Begun about1593, published 1717, again 1820, 2nd edition -Survey ofStaffordshire edited by T. Harwood 1844

16 Chancery Proceedings, 1560-70, CHS , Vol IX, (NS), 190617 Final Concords, 1573-80, CHS, Vol XIV, 189318 Final Concords, 1573-80, CHS, Vol XIV, 1893

Bibliography

The 'Ashbourne' Portrait - The De Vere Society · overpainted to hide the well-known de Vere family...

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