English School, circa 1590

An old label on the reverse of this portrait records that it was owned by Francis Leybourne Popham, of Littlecote, High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1853. His ancestor, Sir John Popham had demolished the Tudor mansion of Littlecote, where Henry VIII had courted Jane Seymour, and built the present Elizabethan brick mansion in 1592. Elizabeth I, James I, Charles II and William of Orange were all hosted by the Pophams at Littlecote, which remained in the family until the 1920s. Sales of the contents of Littlecote were held at Sotheby's in 1985 and 1996.