We are fortunate that a number of portraits survive of children from the upper levels of society in the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean period. These give us a glimpse of childhood in that period and hint at the ways childhood, the raising of children, and even life itself differ from today.

The Cholmondeley Ladies. c.1600-1610 British School.

Infants were swaddled for the first six to twelve months of their lives. Long linen swaddling bands were wrapped around their bodies and limbs to restrict movement in the belief that this would ensure that a child grew up straight. The two infants here are also wrapped in red Christening gowns.

John Dunch (c. 1586 – 1589) and his nurse, Elizabeth Field.

John Dunch is around two years old in this portrait, well out of swaddling bands and wearing a gown, the usual attire for girls and boys at this age. Both he and his nurse are clearly wearing their very best for this portrait. The nurse’s tightly linked hands bring an immediacy to the painting – anyone who has carried a young child for a lengthy period will recognize in her posture both the child’s weight and her effort. Her attention is absorbed by the little boy, as should be the case with a good nurse, while he looks out with a cool and serious gaze. It is sad to think that the following year, John died, like so many young children did in this period.

Lady Arbella Stuart. 1577. Unknown

Lady Arbella Stuart (1575-1615) was a great-great-granddaughter of Henry VII. Here, aged two, she is dressed in a small version of a grown woman’s gown. The doll in her hand is a touching reminder that although she was dressed like  a miniature adult, she was still a child with a love of play.

Portrait of two boys, both wearing doublets and skirts. English School, c.1600.

Boys did not move into adult male attire until somewhere between the ages of three and seven, although most would have been breeched (put on their first pair of breeches or breech hose) well before seven. Before that they wore gowns like their sisters. This portrait was originally thought to be the daughters of Sir Amias Poulett, Sarah and Elizabeth, but the children have since been identified as two boys of the Poulett family of Hinton St George, Somerset.

Portrait of a girl. English School, 1589

This unknown girl, aged six, is dressed in adult clothing, complete with lace headdress. She is holding a book of music which, it is more than possible, she was capable of playing. Educated children in this period, even of an age with this girl, were often skilled already in languages, music, reading and writing to a level that these days we would only associate with driven obsessive parents. 

Unknown Elizabethan children. c.1580. Unknown Anglo-Netherlandish artist.

These three unknown Elizabethan children are all aged between five and seven. Both boys appear to be wearing trunk hose so have been breeched. Assuming all three are siblings, this painting also hints at the practice of wet-nursing used particularly by the nobility and wealthier gentry at this time. Breastfeeding delays a return to fertility in the mother and usually results in  a natural spacing of around eighteen months to two years between children. A mother who used a wet nurse was more likely to have children every year, as we see here. This meant, of course,  more spares if the heir did not survive. On a lighter note, the guinea pig held by the girl is possibly the first portrait of a guinea pig in English art.

Katherine and Mary Bassett. 1603. Follower of Hieronymus Custodis.

Sisters, Katherine and Mary Bassett, painted in 1603 when they were 12 and 13. Their gowns and headdress appear identical, although there are differences in the jewellery. I have wondered if this is another case of the ‘peas in a pod style’ of dressing children that was common even into the 20th century, or if they shared the same gown for the important occasion of sitting for a portrait.

Like mother, like daughter. 1613. English school.

Portrait of Frances Arderne (c.1586-1634), aged 27, with her four year old daughter. Although not identically dressed, the little girl is wearing a lace collar and headdress which mimics her mother’s. Frances was the second wife of Thomas Marbury of Marbury, Cheshire.  

Barbara Gamage, Lady Sidney, with two of her sons and four of her daughters.
1596. Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger.

Barbara Gamage (1563–1621), wife of Sir Robert Sidney, with six of their eleven children. From left to right they are Elizabeth (1592-1605), Philippa (1594-1620), William (1590-1612), Mary (1587-1653), Catherine (1589-1616) and the baby, Robert (1595-1677). William, at six, is still unbreeched although he wears a miniature sword.  There are definite differences in the style of gown William wears compared to his sisters’. Of her eleven children, only three outlived Barbara. As William died in 1612, Robert succeeded his father as Earl of Leicester. Barbara’s eldest daughter Mary, later Lady Wroth, was a noted 17th century poet.

The Cholmondeley Ladies
John Dunt and his nurse Elizabeth Field
Lady Arbella Stuart
Two boys of the Poulett family
Portrait of a girl
Unknown Elizabethan children
Katherine Bassett
Mary Bassett
Frances Aderne
Barbara Gammage