These "family portraits" were not posed for, everyone together in front of the painter, as one would take a family photograph today. For the King's likeness, painters relied on the Holbein portrait in the Whitehall mural; the children all had their own residences and were rarely at court simultaneously. The painters had to either draw from memory, from preparatory sketches, existing portraits, or have each posing separately at different times. Obviously in the later paintings, many of the subjects were dead, so existing portraits were used as guides.

The Children of Henry VIII, c.1650-1680. Copy of a lost original, c.1545-1550. From the left: King Henry VIII, Will Somers (his fool), Edward, Mary, Elizabeth. © The Duke of Buccleuch, Boughton House. More information. The Family of Henry VIII, c. 1543-1547. Unknown artist, after Holbein. Hampton Court Palace. © The Royal Collection. Detail of the above. "Allegory of the Tudor Succession", c. 1572. Attr. to Lucas de Heere. Sudeley Castle. "Allegory of the Tudor Succession: The Family of Henry VIII", c. 1590-95. Artist Unknown. Yale Center for British Art. "King Henry VIII and King Edward VI Suppress the Pope", c. 1570. Artist Unknown. © National Portrait Gallery. From the left: Edward Seymour, Protector Somerset next to Edward; Thomas Seymour, Lord Sudeley; Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury; John Russell, Earl of Bedford. Bottom: John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. Henry VIII with Queen Mary and Will Somers the Jester, 16th c. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth I, 1597. Art Institute of Chicago.