Professor Butter Beard’s “Portrait of Henry VIII”
“He was a man
Of an unbounded stomach.”
William Shakespeare, “Henry VIII” (Act 4, Scene 2), spoken by Queen Katharine of Aragon
One of my most treasured gifts from my father is my obsession with “Masterpiece Theater.” I could make it though a week of trumpet practice, Mrs. Schoenfeld’s sixth-grade glares and standing in left field pretending to like little league baseball knowing that Alistair Cooke would soon be welcoming me back into another Sunday evening journey. My father and I would imitate Glenda Jackson’s “Elizabeth R” laugh, imagine the next household disaster with Jean Marsh’s Rose in “Upstairs Downstairs,” yell warnings to Kenneth Ives as Hawkeye in “Last of the Mohicans” and cringe again and again as Sian Phillips plotted as Livia in “I, Claudius.”
But the masterpiece of Masterpiece was “The Six Wives of Henry VIII.” Keith Mitchell’s Henry charmed my life with a devotion to the Tudor Dynasty that has flourished for over fifty years of my lifetime. I have read every biography, play and novel (my favorites being “Wolf Hall” and CJ Sansom’s “Matthew Shardlake” series). I think I visited Hampton Court six times during my academic studies in London. And I have watched way too many Tudor movies including poor Eric Bana’s tragic miscasting in the “The Other Boleyn Girl.” Yet through it all, when I imagine adventures with Henry in my daydreams, the centerpiece image is always the one of commanding majesty created by Hans Holbein the Younger in 1536.
Hans Holbein the Younger was born in Augsburg in southern Germany in the winter of 1497. He is called "the Younger" to distinguish him from his father Hans Holbein the Elder, an accomplished painter of the Late Gothic school. His early years were spent working mainly in Basel painting murals and religious works, designing stained glass windows, and printing books. Holbein travelled to England in 1526 in search of work and was welcomed into the humanist circle of Sir Thomas More, where he quickly built a high reputation as a portrait painter. He returned to Basel for four years, then resumed his career in England in 1532 under the patronage of Queen Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell. By 1535, he was “King's Painter” to Henry VIII of England earning an annual salary of 30 pounds.
In 1536, Holbein painted his most famous image: King Henry VIII aggressively posed, standing proudly erect, directly facing the viewer surprisingly without any of the standard royal accoutrements such as a sword, crown, or scepter. In one hand he holds a riding glove, while the other reaches towards an ornate dagger hanging ready at his waist. Henry's clothes and surroundings are beautifully ornate including blackwork embroidery and an ermine fur-lined cap, with the original painting using gold leaf to highlight the opulence. He wears an impressive array of expensive jewelry including several large rings, a pair of necklaces and a rather large codpiece and heavily padded shoulders further enhancing the aggressive masculinity of the image. Henry recognized the power of the image Holbein created and encouraged other artists to copy the painting and distributed the various versions around the realm, giving them as gifts to friends and ambassadors – a perfect royal marketing campaign.
The portrait was commissioned from Holbein to adorn the privy chamber of Henry's newly acquired Palace of Whitehall which he had seized after the tragic downfall of Cardinal Wolsey. The original mural featured four figures arranged around a marble plinth: King Henry, his third wife Jane Seymour, and his parents, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Unfortunately, the mural was destroyed in a devastating fire that consumed Whitehall Palace in 1698 but is still known as an iconic image from a series of engravings and a 1667 copy by Remigius van Leemput. A full-size preparatory cartoon done by Holbein for the portrait group survives in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, showing only the two Henrys. The highest quality and best-known copy (featured here) is currently in the collection of the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool which scholars believe may have been commissioned by Edward Seymour, Queen Jane's brother.
There is a plethora of documented evidence that Henry VIII loved eating fruit. Cherries and strawberries were particular favorites, which he enjoyed raw, while most other fruit (apples, pears, plums, damsons, peaches and later in his reign, apricots) were eaten cooked in pies, tarts, holiday cakes, jellies and preserves. I am offering up our famously famished royal a combination of tart apples, sweet dark plums and toasted hazelnuts dancing together in a spiced buttermilk Bundt cake finished with a caramel glaze. With a bit of culinary luck, I’ll get to keep my head to serve the next Queen!
Plum, Apple and Hazelnut Bundt with a Caramel Glaze
Makes One (10-Cup) Bundt
Cake:
2 cups granulated sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt
2 egg yolks and 4 egg whites
2 tsp vanilla paste
¼ cup buttermilk
2 medium apples, cored and cut into a small dice
5-6 plums, pitted and cut into a small dice
1 cup hazelnuts, toasted, skinned and roughly chopped
Glaze:
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
½ cup brown sugar
½ tsp kosher salt
½ cup heavy cream
1) Toast the hazelnuts in a non-stick pan, rub off the skins and roughly chop. Pit the plums and cut into a small dice. Core the apples and cut into a small dice.
2) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees
3) Prep the bundt pan by brushing the interior with 2 Tbsp of melted butter and dusting with all-purpose flour.
4) In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, the spices, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
5) In the bowl of a standing mixer, whip the egg whites to stiff peaks, starting on medium speed and raising to high. Use a spatula and scrape the whipped whites into a second bowl. Set aside briefly.
6) Return the bowl to the standing mixer with the paddle, and mix together in this order: the sugar, oil and butter (mixed to a creamed stage), add the dry mix and then the 2 yolks, vanilla paste and buttermilk. Take the bowl off the mixer and gingerly fold in the whipped whites and then the prepared fruit and nuts.
7) Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for roughly 40-45 minutes. Start checking the cake with a wooden skewer at 40 minutes. Do not overbake or the cake will be dry.
8) Remove the cake from the oven, let sit for 10 minutes, and then invert the cake onto a wire rack.
9) While the cake is cooling, prepare the glaze by melting the butter and brown sugar, stirring constantly until melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and stir in the salt and heavy cream. Spoon over the cake while it is still slightly warm.
Detail from Hans Holbein the Younger, 'Self Portrait', about 1542-3, Florence, Uffizi
