Portrait of an Unknown Woman

The inside of the dust cover reads: Author of Portrait of an Unknown Woman, Vanora Bennett, "was born and brought up in London. She has spent several years working abroad, covering political, military and religious conflicts in unstable countries from Angola to Cambodia to Russia to Zimbabwe. She is a writer and a freelance journalist, writing a weekly column for The Times website, TimesOnline, on the unexpected side of London. She lives in North London with her husband and two children. Portrait of an Unknown Woman is her first novel." It is an masterful weaving of romance, intrigue and art history.

The book centralizes around the artistic family portrait "First Portrait of the More Family" by Hans Holbein the Younger, painted at Chelsea in 1527-28 but destroyed by fire in the 18th century. Bennet depicts Holbein as being intuitive about personalities resulting in paintings that are character studies. Thomas More (1478-1535), author of Utopia, philosopher and lawyer, commissioned Hans Holbein to paint his family picture, and of course Holbein lived in More's home and was sponsored by him during the months of his artist endeavors. As such Holbein got to know the family, their relationships, joys, foibles and tensions, and his painting reflected his perceptions.

More's father and son (both John), his three daughters - Elizabeth (Daucey), Cecily (Heron), and Margaret (Roper) - his two adopted daughters - Margaret Griggs and Anne Cresacre, his second wife Alice, and his attendant Henry Pattinson who represented the fool were included in the family portrait.

The "unknown woman" the book centralizes around is Margaret Griggs, one of the wards who Bennet unveiled at the end of the book as the biological daughter of Thomas More's first love. It was common back in the middle ages to adopt a son or daughter with an inheritance and raise him or her in one's household and marry the adoptee off to one's own biological children, extending the family wealth. Margaret Griggs was a ward but Thomas More only had one son and he was several years younger than Margaret, and Anne Cresacre, another ward, was his intended anyway. Margaret Griggs was the eldest of all the daughters by one to four years and yet the younger daughters were married off but no husband was found for Margaret.

However, unbeknownst to Margaret the family tutor who was hired right after her adoption at twelve or so was to be her intended ... but this was not revealed until the end of the book. Her intended was actually the forcefully disinherited Crown Prince, one of the two princes who were held in the tower of London. Both boys had escaped and Richard, the younger brother, became the tutor for More's children, although Richard had taken on the alias John Clement, a character Thomas More had referred to in one of his books as "my good boy Clement".

Bennet weaves a tale of court intrigue and John Clement, actually the disinherited Crown Prince, recreates himself as a court physician and during a masked ball unknowingly meets his former pupil, Elizabeth Daucey, who is just but unhappily married and masked at the ball but coquettishly entices him to sleep with her. Unfortunately, she is impregnated. Soon after John Clement and Margaret Griggs are married.

"First Portrait of the More Family" by Hans Holbein the Younger,
painted at Chelsea in 1527-28 but destroyed by fire in the 18th century

The second family portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger ...
a family portrait of secrets for family viewing only

A few years pass and Thomas More once again commissions Hans Holbein to paint a family portrait. Holbein comes and is delightfully welcomed by the family, but Holbein, an empathetic character uncovers the family tensions and instead of painting the family in the same position and with the same characters as in the former painting, he switches Elizabeth Dauncey and Margaret Griggs Clement around, altering their focus and tension to John Clement, the only additional person to the painting, and imbalancing the harmony that was felt in the earlier painting. Other tensions are apparent - furrowed brows, taught jaws - hints of something imminent to happen to the family for indeed it was. Thomas More was feeling the pressure of Thomas Cromwell's militant presence and most family members reflected the imminence of the inevitable arrest. Subtle hints of their political persuasions are revealed to the discerning eye.

Supposedly the second painting was never finished, but in its unfinished state was framed and hung in Cecily Heron's home for private family viewing only. No one was to see and infer the heavy tensions and family secrets suggested at by the portrait. Though loved almost like family, Holbein was handsomely paid and sent on his way and the key player who painted and therefore was not in the portrait was evicted far from further family secrets. Thomas More was soon afterwards arrested, sentenced and beheaded. John Clement - the disinherited Crown Prince, now court physician - was also arrested but released. As his older brother Edward had recently died, Richard aka John Clement could have fought for the throne but his fire for revenge had dissipated and would have gone unsupported. He chose to live - he and is wife and son - and only the secrets are alluded to in the second painting by Hans Holbein the Younger.