Portrait of Elizabeth Boyle

Tower House Parlor

This portrait is an imaginary rendering of Elizabeth Boyle, Spenser’s second wife, and fellow occupant of Kilcolman Castle. It is a Photoshopped composite of other portraits of the period. There are no extant portraits of Boyle, although her headless effigy is found praying at the tomb of her third husband, Robert Tynte, in Kilcredan, Co. Cork.

This portrait and the one next to it, a hypothetical one of Spenser, are presented as if they formed a pair, commissioned for their wedding day in 1594. The two oak leaves on the bare tree represent the couple.

Further description of the recreated portrait (by Joyce Joines Newman) can be found here.

Dr. Thomas Herron, ECU

Bibliography:
Amy Louise Harris, “The Tynte Monument, Kilcredan, Co. Cork: a reappraisal.” Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 104 (1999), 137-44.