The face of the Tree-man can now
be identified as Henry VII of England, likely based on the portrait in the
National Portrait Gallery, London or a copy of it. Another image of Henry VII in
the center panel seems to be based on a profile on a coin, likely to represent
his penny pinching ways, but the one shown here has him in Rome in 1527,
eavesdropping at the wall of a tree-house, in character as a spymaster. The
reason he appears in 1527 (when he died in 1509) is most likely that in that
year his daughter Margaret, Queen of Scots was divorced and his son Henry VIII
was attempting to divorce even though the Pope was on the run from the sack. The
enormous portrait is Charles V’s way of telling Henry VIII that his dad would
be mad.
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