page_title: Margaret Clifford, Countess of Derby
section_title: Portrait
hierarchical_section_title: Margaret Clifford, Countess of Derby / Portrait
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of an unknown lady, perhaps Lady Margaret Clifford (1540–1596).
context_page_description: Margaret Stanley, Countess of Derby was the only surviving daughter of Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland and Lady Eleanor Brandon. Her maternal grandparents were Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk and Mary Tudor, Queen of France. Mary was the third daughter of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York.
context_section_description: There is a discrepancy as to who the sitter is in the Hans Eworth portrait which is featured. The coat of arms in the top left corner, which may have been added later, are the impaled arms (those of a husband and wife) of Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland, and his wife Lady Eleanor, daughter of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and Mary Tudor, Dowager Queen of France. As a result, the painting has been frequently exhibited in the past as a portrait of Lady Eleanor, regardless of the fact that she died in 1547, well before the date of this portrait. It is, however, a rule of heraldry that impaled arms are not used by the children of a marriage, as they would have their own. Hence the later addition and erroneous use of the arms here suggests that the identity of the portrait was already unclear only two or three generations after it was painted, a situation by no means unusual amid the frequent early deaths, multiple marriages, and shifting alliances and fortunes of the most powerful families of the Tudor era. Later the portrait was thought to represent the only child of Eleanor and Henry to survive infancy, Margaret. Unfortunately, the inscription on the right which might have provided a check (Margaret would have been aged 25–28 at the time of this portrait) has been truncated; although the Roman numerals of the year can apply only to 1565–8, the age of the sitter cannot be ascertained with any useful accuracy.
  The National Portrait Gallery has an online sketch of this portrait identified as Lady Eleanor, but the portrait remains in dispute.
caption: Portrait by Hans Eworth thought to be either Lady Margaret or her mother, Lady Eleanor Brandon.
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