The Portraits of Henry Vlll

continue with the secrets that can be seen in the background:

The photographs show the area and you will see Nos 1-3 have a face drawn in them, the largest is presented so you can try to "see" what is being illustrated.

The red wall has a cloud-filled window in it and also some lighter bricks which run to the column there. There are lighter because they are catching the bright, hidden sun.

If one looks first at the cloud there is something like an eye, a forehead, a nose and a mouth. The face is looking to the enlightened column (No1). There is a rather less satisfactory face looking to the grey bridge wall (No2). The nose for the first face makes a forehead for my third face, which, when I first saw it, I expected it to be a different character, say St.Thomas More. My conclusion now is that all the faces are of Henry VIII.

There is a full-frontal face within the cloud. If one takes in the red brick wall where it is catching the light, there is an extremely malevolent face with a gleaming eye (No3) from the three lowest brick layers.

If one rises a couple of bricks there is a more sophisticated face in the bricks. A face can be in light and shade and so faces can be made moving between the cloud and the brick. The first corresponds to our face No1 and gives a determined fellow.

There is a face corresponding to No3 using the light red bricks, jocular, humorous, a sportsman maybe.

There is then, the full face which makes use of the dark red bricks above a sort-of hat, which has a long moustache and uses the end of the cloud to signify the end of the beard. It is a face full of grandeur and dignity. It takes time to see.

Having seen faces in the window of the ruined blood red wall, I found myself anticipating something more in the cloud above the wall. I thought it might contain something like Michelangelo's last judgement but I could discern nothing.

My clue came when I noticed the top couple of rows of bricks had a shape, perhaps a part of the human body. Lips maybe? From this was emerging a figure of some sort. Then it became clear that above the lips there are eyes and the outline of a form which runs into The Enlightened column: It is Henry Vlll again!

The blood red wall thus results from the lips of Henry Vlll; from his orders; from his policies.

The date 1537 agrees well here for the Pilgrimage of Grace, protesting against the dissolution of the monasteries, has just been cruelly suppressed.

Architectonics, however, also suggest that lies are emanating from these lips, and the red brick wall in full daylight shows the destructive power of untruth - as Chesterton put it, "All the easy speeches that comfort cruel men".

Someone has had the genius to present nine different portraits of Henry Vlll. He must have known the man. The king is not presented as an old and failing man.