The recent TV adaptation of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall made me ponder how Henry VIII's court artist Hans Holbein could produce such off-putting portraits of the tyrant without endangering his livelihood - or even worse.

HANDS OFF HOLBEIN - I

How did Holbein get away with it?

His reputation, I mean, not to mention his head,

After the lese-majesty of these unprepossessing

Portraits of the Tudor monarch.

Look at Henry, just second in the flimsy Tudor line

(and himself a substitute for his dead brother).

Where did that akimbo pose come from?

(Wha daur meddle wi' me, indeed!),

That ungainly skirted body, the prominent codpiece?

Did dubious potency have to be so flaunted?

But it's the face that speaks,

Fat and piggy-eyed, with the little mou of a mouth.

Was this truly the handsomest prince in Christendom?

Tyrants of course excel at enforcing sycophantic approval;

But maybe Henry was so puffed up with Divine Right of Kings

That he truly believed he was the cynosure of subjects' eyes.

Or perhaps he viewed these portraits coldly,

Simply as weapons of menace and control.

In a way, this latter explanation would be the more human.

(to be concluded tomorrow)