The King’s Bedpost: Reformation and Iconography in a Tudor Group Portrait

The King’s Bedpost is a lavishly-illustrated detective story about a painting. Edward VI and the Pope is an important and fascinating visual allegory of the Reformation; but when and why was it painted? Following up a sequence of clues to answer these questions, the author embarks on a fascinating and unusual voyage of historical exploration that takes the reader into book illustration and scriptural iconography, Tudor religion and politics, anti-papal propaganda and iconoclastic manoeuvres. The discovery of previously unrecognised pictorial sources conclusively re-dates the painting, and opens a wide-ranging discussion of art and image-making under Edward VI and Elizabeth I. A large and varied cast of characters joins the Tudor monarchs as the tale unfolds and the painting ultimately becomes the key to a series of hitherto locked doors.