Tudor Gallery, The Queen's House, Greenwich, Monday 3rd May

The Queen's House in Greenwich sits on the site of the much older Palace of Placentia, birthplace of Henry VIII, holiday home of Elizabeth I (good distance from the plague) and subsequently the residence (although sometimes briefly) of all the Stuart queens of England. The best way to get there is to get the boat downriver from the Tower, because the Royal Naval College, which stands between the Queen's House and the Thames, is most imposing when seen from the water.
Most of the collection housed here relates to England's maritime history, but there are two tiny rooms devoted to portraits of the Tudor monarchs. There's the ubiquitous Holbein Henry VIII, of course, in between Henry VII (who always looks like a criminal to me - I wouldn't buy a used car from someone with that face) and Mary I and Philip II of Spain, who win the prize for most awkward looking couple ever. There's a marvellously gloomy painting for Francis Drake, 'Sic Magna Parvis' hovering over his head, which I like very much.
It seems appropriate, given the forthcoming election, to dwell briefly on the anonymous painting that hangs here, of the Somerset House Conference of August 1604. The Treaty of London was signed at the conference, bringing an end to nineteen years of war with the Spanish, whose delegation sit on the left of this picture, their English opposite numbers on the right, around a lushly carpeted table. I have studied this picture at length, and I can say with some certainty that not a single one of the politicians depicted looks as if he would apologise for calling you a bigot. At least two of them look like they'd have you quietly done away with first, and call you a bigot later. Call me old fashioned, but I miss that.
The highlight, for me, is Elizabeth I, British School, c. 1590, well into her fifties, and looking half of that. Elizabeth was one of the first English monarchs to exert such rigid control over her own image, and it's hard not to think, while gazing on her pale, perfect face, that we've not changed much. If she could have PhotoShopped herself, she would have - image is everything. It's not quite the same, of course - morally less dubious, perhaps. I'm not suggesting that spotty Tudor boys were sneaking crude woodcut equivalents of Nuts up to the hayloft to have one off the wrist over Her Majesty, and growing up all warped thinking that all the Tudor girls look like that, but... Well, maybe I am.