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Jane Meutas (or Mewtas, or Mewtis, or Meautis, or Meautys) (c. 1517 – c. 1551) was an English lady of the Queen's privy chamber who became the wife of the courtier Peter Meutas (or Mewtas, etc.). Her name is sometimes given as Joan, and her maiden name was Astley. Her husband was knighted on 18 May 1544, when she became Lady Meutas. She is the subject of a portrait sketch by
Hans Holbein the Younger Hans Holbein the Younger ( , ; german: Hans Holbein der Jüngere;  – between 7 October and 29 November 1543) was a Germans, German-Swiss people, Swiss painter and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style, and is considered o ...
which is believed to date from the 1530s and is in the
Royal Collection The Royal Collection of the British royal family is the largest private art collection in the world. Spread among 13 occupied and historic royal residences in the United Kingdom, the collection is owned by King Charles III and overseen by the ...
.Room 4
at tate.org.uk, accessed 27 July 2008


Life

Jane Astley, a lady of the privy chamber of Queen Jane Seymour, married her fellow courtier
Peter Meutas Peter Meutas or Mewtas, or Mewtis, or Meautis, or Meautys (died 1562) was an English courtier and soldier.Ogier, D. M., 'Mewtas , Sir Peter (d. 1562)', in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, September 2004online ed ...
in 1537, before 9 October. He was a man of action, tall, strong, an expert in small arms, with fair hair and a long beard. A follower of Thomas Cromwell, Mewtas had seen action in the suppression of the Pilgrimage of Grace of 1536 and the same year had been appointed a gentleman of the privy chamber and master of Bethlem Hospital. In 1537, he gained two further preferments, as Comptroller of the
Royal Mint The Royal Mint is the United Kingdom's oldest company and the official maker of British coins. Operating under the legal name The Royal Mint Limited, it is a limited company that is wholly owned by His Majesty's Treasury and is under an exclus ...
and Overseer of Artillery.Ogier, D. M., 'Mewtas , Sir Peter (d. 1562)', in '' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, September 2004
online edn, Jan 2008
accessed 27 July 2008
The couple had a child who was baptized in February 1539. This was probably their son Henry, or perhaps their daughter Frances, who later became a gentlewoman of the chamber to Queen Elizabeth I and married Henry, second Viscount Howard of Bindon. Jane and Peter Mewtas had at least two other sons, Thomas and Hercules, of whom Hercules was their youngest. In 1539, after the dissolution of Stratford Abbey, Peter Mewtas and his wife acquired a large estate at West Ham in Essex. In 1540, they were granted the
manor Manor may refer to: Land ownership *Manorialism or "manor system", the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of medieval Europe, notably England *Lord of the manor, the owner of an agreed area of land (or "manor") under manorialism *Man ...
of Bretts, also at West Ham, which centred on Plaistow but included tenements at Upton, Stratford, and elsewhere.'West Ham: Manors and estates', in ''A History of the County of Essex'' Volume 6 (1973)
pp. 68-74
accessed 27 July 2008
In August 1540 Jane Meutas and others ladies of the court visited Portsmouth to see a newly built ship. They sent Henry VIII a joint letter which was signed by Mabel, Lady Southampton, Margaret Tallebois, Margaret Howard (sister of Catherine Howard), Alice Browne, Anne Knyvett (daughter of Thomas Knyvett), Jane Denny, "Jane Meowes",
Anne Bassett Anne Basset (1520 – before 1558) was an English lady-in-waiting of the Tudor period, reputed to have been the mistress of King Henry VIII. Biography Anne was born in 1520, the fourth child of Sir John Basset and Honor Grenville (daughter of ...
, Elizabeth Tyrwhitt, and Elizabeth Harvey. Peter Mewtas was one of the dignitaries who met Anne of Cleves at
Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. Th ...
in 1540 and was knighted on active military service on 18 May 1544 at Edinburgh. In 1545, he was appointed Governor of
Guernsey Guernsey (; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; french: Guernesey) is an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy that is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependency. It is the second largest of the Channel Islands ...
, where his works at
Castle Cornet Castle Cornet is a large island castle in Guernsey, and former tidal island, also known as Cornet Rock or Castle Rock. Its importance was as a defence not only of the island, but of the roadstead. In 1859 it became part of one of the breakwaters ...
included the building of the new 'Mewtas Bulwark'. No record of the date of Jane Meutas's death has been traced. By 1552, Sir Peter Mewtas had married another Jane, who may have been Jane Angersley. The second Jane survived her husband, who died in 1562, and she was still holding the manor of Bretts in 1567.


Family

After the death of Jane Meutas, Peter Meutas married another woman called Jane (died 1577). Peter's children (by both wives) included * Henry Meautys (1526-1588), who married Ann Jermy, daughter of Sir John Jermy of Metfield and Brightwell, Suffolk, their children included Thomas Meautys (father of the civil servant and politician Thomas Meautys), and Margaret Meautys, who married Sir Thomas Wilson. * Thomas Meautys. * Hercules Meautys, who married Phillipa, daughter of Richard Cooke (1531-1579) of Gildea Hall. * Frances Meautys, a Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth, she married (1)
Henry Howard, 2nd Viscount Howard of Bindon Henry Howard, 2nd Viscount Bindon (c. 1542 - 1590), aristocrat and courtier Henry Howard was the son of Thomas Howard, 1st Viscount Howard of Bindon and Elizabeth Marney, daughter of John Marney, 2nd Baron Marney of Layer Marney and Christian New ...
, (2) Edmund Stansfield.


Drawing by Holbein

Holbein's portrait of Jane Meutas is a drawing in black and coloured chalks on pink prepared paper, 283 x 212 mm, and has the name 'The Lady Meutas' written clearly on its face. To the right of the head, Holbein has added a schematic sketch of his sitter's hands. On one finger is a heart-shaped leaf which German painters of the time used as a symbol for the colour green, taken to represent an emerald ring. The same leaf symbol appears in Lady Meutas’s oval medallion. The web site of the Tate Gallery gives the date of the drawing as "about 1536", and if this is correct, the words 'The Lady Meutas' must have been added some years later, as Peter Meutas was not knighted until 1544. The drawing of Jane Meutas can be compared with another by Holbein, of her royal mistress Jane Seymour, which is also in black and coloured chalks on pink paper. The two appear to have been done at the same time, and Jane Seymour died on 24 October 1537, twelve days after the birth of the future King Edward VI.


Engraving by Bartolozzi

Holbein's portrait sketch of Jane Meutas was engraved by Francesco Bartolozzi in 1795 and published by John Chamberlaine of London in ''Imitations of Original Drawings by Hans Holbein in the Collection of His Majesty, for the Portraits of Illustrious Persons of the Court of Henry VIII''. This includes with the engraving a short biography of Lady Meutas.The Lady Meutas
at vialibri.net, accessed 27 July 2008
The Lady Meutas
at old-church-galleries.com, accessed 27 July 2008
Bartolozzi was famous for his
stipple engraving Stipple engraving is a technique used to create tone in an intaglio print by distributing a pattern of dots of various sizes and densities across the image. The pattern is created on the printing plate either in engraving by gouging out the dots ...
s and developed his technique to imitate the subtleties of Renaissance and
baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
chalk drawings.


Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meutas, Jane 1510s births 1550s deaths 16th-century English women English ladies-in-waiting Household of Jane Seymour