The Marquis of Salisbury possesses, at Hatfield, a very remarkable picture, which has been supposed to have been painted by the celebrated Holbein, but is really the work of George Hofnagle, a Flemish artist in Queen Elizabeth's time. There is a copy of this picture in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, for whom it was made by Mr. Grignon, and it is a copy of that drawing I now place before you. The drawing has a date (evidently copied from the picture) of 1590; but, without that indication, the costume of the figures, which is of the period of Elizabeth, is sufficient to show that the picture cannot be the work of Holbein, who died in 1554. The picture represents a fair or festival, which, from the position of the Tower of London in the background, appears to have been held at Horselydown.
In the catalogue of the pictures at Hatfield (in "Beauties of England and Wales," Herts, p. 278), the picture is said to represent King Henry VIII. and his Queen Anne Boleyn at a country wake or fair, at some place in Surrey, within sight of the Tower of London.
That the locality of the scene is Horselydown, or as it was then called Horseydown or Horsedown, several circumstances, in addition to its situation with respect to the river Thames and the Tower of London, concur to show.
I am enabled, by permission of the warden and governors of Queen Elizabeth's Eree Grammar School of St. Olave's and St. John's, Southwark, to illustrate and explain this curious picture by a map of Horseydown, dated A.D. 1544, which is now before you.
Although this plan bears the date of 1544, I think it must have been made, or added to, some years later; for it shows the churchyard, which was not made until the year 1587, and is now called "The Old Churchyard."
