Catherine Carey Carey of Aldenham in Hertfordshire, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and Esquire of the Body to Henry VIII, and his wife Mary Boleyn, who had once been a mistress of the king. Catherine was Elizabeth I's first cousin. Some contemporaries also asserted that Catherine was an illegitimate child of Henry VIII, which would make her Elizabeth's half-sister. Although this was never acknowledged by the King, Catherine was given deference by the Court as she aged and came to resemble Henry. Catherine was said to be a witness to the execution of her aunt, Anne Boleyn, in 1536. But according to
Catherine Howard (from details of her dress and the technique of the miniature) to the short period when Catherine was queen. In it, she wears the as Jane Seymour in Holbein's panel portrait in Vienna. Records show that these jewels belonged to the Crown, not to any queen personally, and there is no record that they were removed from the treasury and given to anyone else. The pearls may tie in with a gift to Catherine from Henry in 1540, and she is the only queen to fit the dating whose appearance is not already known. For female sitters, duplicate versions of