Christ In The Garden of Gethsemane

"There is an inscription at the foot of the miniature which inspires curiosity to learn who the writer was. She was evidently a woman of high position; for only such a personage would have been allowed to write in a Prayerbook of the kind. The words are, " Madame, I pray you remember her that ys yours and ewer sail be," but the bookbinder has unfortunately cut off the signature. The person addressed was no doubt Dame Elizabeth Grey. The writing is strangely like that of Henry VII, but cannot of course have been his. It is possibly as late as 1520."

"Plate 18 is taken from an English manuscript of considerable interest. A number of armorial bearings, which are found on the margins of the pages, show that it was written either for the Marquis of Dorset, Edward lV's son-in-law, or for one of his children. Whichever was the case, the book was in the possession of John Grey, dominus de Blis worth, the son or near relative of the Marquis, in the early part of the sixteenth century ; and there is a record added in the calendar of the death of Dame Elizabeth Grey, this John's wife, about 1520-30. The miniatures are good, but not excellent; better in composition than in design, and showing grave deficiencies with regard to perspective. They are, however, well executed and well painted; and the borders are remarkably elegant. The conventional large foliage, of architectonic character, is admirably disposed upon small and appropriate fields of gold; and the twining branchlets that bear tiny buds and small leaves and flowers are not so crowded as to hide the vellum ground. The border is indeed a fine decorative composition, without a fault, and thoroughly English in style. There is an inscription at the foot of the miniature which inspires curiosity to learn who the writer was. She was evidently a woman of high position; for only such a personage would have been allowed to write in a Prayerbook of the kind. The words are, " Madame, I pray you remember her that ys yours and ewer sail be," but the bookbinder has unfortunately cut off the signature. The person addressed was no doubt Dame Elizabeth Grey. The writing is strangely like that of Henry VII, but cannot of course have been his. It is possibly as late as 1520." 

Plates from O. V. Palaeography: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22