A Letter from Catherine Hartshorn, A.D 1587, February 2nd by Joanna Trollope

He wears a very fine doublet, beloved mother, dull violet in colour, striped in a velvet ribbon with picot edge, and his ruff is well stiffened and of a good whiteness, indicating good laundresses at Newton Hall, which pleases me. And in his hand, he holds two pinks, one white, one crimson, which he tells me he had painted to show me he is in earnest about this marriage, for my own person, as well as because his land and that of my worshipful father do march together so conveniently.

Om Podcasten

Eight internationally acclaimed authors have invented imaginary biographies and character sketches based on fourteen unidentified portraits. Who are these men and women, why were they painted, and why do they now find themselves in the Collection of the National Portrait Gallery? With fictional letters, diaries, mini-biographies and memoirs, Imagined Lives creates vivid stories about these unknown sitters from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.