The first actual reference to him as painter to the King is contained in the letter of Nicolas Bourbon, already quoted, written early in 1536, in which he speaks of him as the “royal painter,” and it is to be inferred from it that Holbein already held that position in 1535, when the poet was in England and made his acquaintance. The circular miniature of Jane Seymour by Hilliard in the Windsor Collection, apparently copied from an original by Holbein, is inscribed “ANŌ DNĪ 1536 ÆTATIS SVÆ 27”; and the great painting of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Elizabeth of York, and Jane Seymour, with which Holbein covered one of the walls of the Privy Chamber at Whitehall, was done in 1537. None of the earlier portraits of Henry or of his two first queens, usually ascribed to Holbein, are authentic works of his, which affords some proof that he did not enter the royal service until after Jane Seymour had been crowned Queen in 1536, or, if Bourbon is to be believed, that at least he did not do so until towards the end of Anne Boleyn’s life. The small portrait of Henry VIII on the frontispiece of Coverdale’s Bible, printed in 1535, bears little real likeness to the King, and may well have been designed by Holbein without any sitting from him; though, on the other hand, it may also be taken as some indication that he was already the King’s servant in that year. It is safer, however, to assume, as the evidence for an earlier year is so scant, that he received his first pay from the royal purse in the autumn of 1536.