Mary Boleyn (c.1499/1500 – 19^th of July 1543), who m. in 1520 William Carey, by whom – or by Henry VIII – she had:

• Catherine Carey (c.1524 – 15^th of January 1569), who m. on the 26^th of April 1540 Sir Francis Knollys, by whom she had:
• Lettice Knollys (8^th of November 1543 – 25^th of December 1634), who m. in late 1560 Walter Devereux, Viscount Hereford, by whom she had:
• Dorothy Devereux (c.1564 – 3^rd of August 1619), who m. 2) in 1594 Henry Percy, 9^th Earl of Northumberland (27^th of April 1564 – 5^th of November 1632), by whom she had:
• Algernon Percy, 10^th Earl of Northumberland, 4^th Baron Percy (29^th of September 1602 – 13^th of October 1668), who m. 2) in October 1642 Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of Theophilus Howard, 2^nd Earl of Suffolk, by whom he had:
• Joceline Percy, 11^th Earl of Northumberland, 5^th Baron Percy (4^th of July 1644 – 31^st of May 1670), who m. on the 23^rd of December 1662 Lady Elizabeth Wriothesley, 3^rd daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Wriothesley, 4^th Earl of Southampton, by whom he had: 
• Elizabeth Percy, suo jure Baroness Percy (26^th of January 1667 – 24^th of November 1722). She was a great heiress as the only surviving child and sole heiress of Joceline Percy, 11^th Earl of Northumberland (1644–1670). She brought immense estates to her husband's and in addition her residences: Alnwick Castle, Petworth House, Syon House and Northumberland House in London.

Lady Elizabeth Percy married Charles Seymour, 6^th Duke of Somerset – the first known owner of the Royal Ontario miniature. 

It is by this line of descent that Roland Hui suggests that the Royal Ontario miniature, the miniature of the woman in 1520's garb with the inscription, ended up with Charles Seymour, 6^th Duke of Somerset.

I would like to suggest an alternative theory.

If we examine the dates on this family tree more closely, we see that Lettice Knollys actually outlived her daughter Dorothy Devereux by 15 years. Of course the miniature portraits may have been inherited directly from grandmother to grandson, from Lettice Knollys to Algernon Percy, bypassing Lettice Knollys' other descendants, such as her grandson Robert Devereux, the young 3^rd Earl of Essex, who shared much of his life with the old Countess at Chartley and Drayton Bassett.

The miniatures may, of course, also have been a gift in life to a beloved daughter, from Lettice Knollys to Dorothy Devereux, passing then naturally upon the death of Dorothy Devereux to her son, rather than revert back to her mother.

There is, however, another option.

What if Dorothy Devereux was not given them by her mother, but was gifted these miniatures by somebody else?

Dorothy Devereux, after a disastrous first marriage which was contracted without the Queen's consent and gave grave offence to Elizabeth I, the Queen consented to receive Dorothy at court again after her first husband's death, and Dorothy Devereux became something of a royal favourite.

It is known that Elizabeth I Tudor was very fond of her first cousins (and possible half-siblings) Catherine Carey and Henry Carey, the children of her mother's sister.

Many of Elizabeth I Tudor's favourites of her mother's blood predeceased her:

Catherine Carey, her beloved cousin and possible half-sister, the acknowledged favourite of Elizabeth's relations, predeceased the Queen by nearly 35 years.

Henry Carey, 1^st Baron Hunsdon (4^th of March 1526 – 23^rd of July 1596), Catherine Carey's brother, to whom the Queen described herself as 'Your loving kinswoman', predeceased the Queen by seven years.

Katherine Carey, Countess of Nottingham, the daughter of Henry Carey, and a cousin, lady-in-waiting, and close confidante of Elizabeth I of England. She was in attendance on the Queen for 44 years and died a few weeks before Elizabeth I. Her death was thought to have hastened the Queen's own.

Robert Devereux, 2^nd Earl of Essex (10^th of November 1565 – 25^th of February 1601), Dorothy's brother and Elizabeth I's favourite in her later years, had been in executed in 1601 following a failed rebellion against her.

Could it be possible that it was Elizabeth I herself who gifted the miniature to Dorothy Devereux?

My suggestion is that the Royal Ontario miniature was the Queen's own copy of the Buccleuch miniature. Who it was who originally owned the Buccleuch miniature is a matter of speculation, but as I have mentioned I find Roland Hui's argument for the male sitter in the de Wet and the Sotheby miniature being Thomas Boleyn persuasive.

Roland Hui, however, in his article Two New Faces: the Hornebolte Portraits of Mary and Thomas Boleyn? goes on to argue that the lady in the Royal Ontario Miniature is Mary Boleyn.

What if, instead of the lady being Mary Boleyn, it is indeed Anne Boleyn?

The Buccleuch miniature may still have been inherited by Mary in the manner described by Roland Hui, but together with the Sotheby miniature instead of the de Wet miniature – that is to say, the two miniatures without inscriptions that bears such a resemblance to the early work of Lucas Horenbout – as an inheritance from either her father or her mother, of whose estate she was the sole heir.

Mary was the sole heir of their estate, as their only surviving child. Of the three surviving children of Thomas Boleyn, 1^st Earl of Wiltshire and his wife Lady Elizabeth Howard, Anne Boleyn and George Boleyn had been executed a few years before their parents' deaths. George had no children. Anne had a daughter, Elizabeth. She was the only other possible heir. Elizabeth, however, had been declared illegitimate and was thus ineligible to inherit.

The fact that the miniature survived suggests that it had belonged to somebody who was close to and who had cared about Anne. It was not without risk to be in possession of a picture of the disgraced Anne Boleyn.

Mary Boleyn passed away in 1544, when Elizabeth was eleven, and more than 14 years before her niece would ascend to the throne.

Elizabeth, however, was on excellent terms with both of Mary's children, her cousins Catherine and Henry Carey. She was also on excellent terms with her uncle, Mary Boleyn's widower Sir William Stafford, or at least as much may be gleaned from the fact that not only his step-children Catherine and Henry Carey, who were the Queen's blood relatives and closest kin, but his widow, Dorothy Stafford – his second wife and the children from this second marriage who were no blood relatives of the Queen at all, all became influential courtiers under Elizabeth.

There would therefore have been little difficulty for Elizabeth in obtaining the miniatures from Mary Boleyn’s heirs, with whom she was close, and have her court painter make copies of them for her.

It might reasonably be asked that if Mary Boleyn’s heirs had the miniatures and Elizabeth I wished to obtain them, why did she not simply do so?

Why go to the trouble of copying them at all when she could have simply had the original miniatures?

Well, going about demanding treasured family heirlooms from people with whom one wishes to have a good relationship is seldom adviseable. One does have to choose between the two.

Besides, the Queen might have liked the idea of somebody else having a picture of her mother, who had cared about Anne Boleyn, and cared about Anne Boleyn still.

The fact that the two branches of the family each had their own set of pictures of family members might have solidified the feeling of kinship. A feeling Elizabeth had not been overly familiar with throughout her life.

The Buccleuch Miniature

We can see the shape and colour of the flower being repeated in the pattern of the lady's gable hood.

Whatever flower, it must have had some sort of special significance to the wearer.

Searching for the meaning of forget-me-nots in Tudor imagery, I came over a website: Symbols and Meanings in Medieval Plants, that outlines several flowers of particular importance in Tudor imagery, amongst others:

The flowers on the lady's gable hood in the Buccleuch miniature could be a sprig of cowslip.

And then the meaning assigned to cowslip in Tudor times becomes interesting. Gates were certainly opening for Anne Boleyn, and she would have been very interested in opening them.

Having or being the key to opening those gates would certainly have been of interest to her.

Could this be an example of the cheeky humour, her sharp pertness, that was so much a part of Anne, and which so attracted Henry until it didn’t anymore? 

And through her bodily ascension ... Could that have been a playful little cheeky joke to the one who was paying for the portrait?

Or from Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn?

That the gates of Heaven would open up for her through her bodily ascension? 

He did initially attempt to persuade her to take on the role of official royal mistress, after all. His maîtresse-en-titre, his official royal mistress, an arrangement inspired by the French. An offer that so offended Anne Boleyn that the King had to work very hard in order to get back into her good graces. 

Whatever its meaning, the sprig of flowers gains in significance when you realise that whoever the artist or artists of the Royal Ontario and the Buccleuch miniatures were, they made the conscious choice to replace the sprig of flowers either from yellow to blue or from blue to yellow.

Barring discolouring, the sprig of yellow flowers has been replaced with a sprig of blue flowers in the Royal Ontario miniature.

This may be for several reasons. One is that the original reason for the choice of flowers might have been lost so one might have sought to replace them with something meaningful for the new patron.

Another is that if we are right in the assigned meaning of the flowers, it was thought to be too bawdy for a copy that was to be for their child. Not to mention inappropriate, as everyone at the English court would have been uncomfortably aware of how their romance ended.

Which brings me back to my search for the meaning of forget-me-nots in Tudor imagery.

Could the blue flowers be forget-me-nots? And if they were, were their meaning anything close to the same as we would ascribe to them today?

According to Symbols and Meanings in Medieval Plants the meaning of forget-me-nots in Tudor times were:

Forget-me-nots:

A legend tells of the Christ child sitting in his mother’s lap, and wishing that future generations could see them like this. So he touched her eyes and waved his hand over the ground and forget me nots sprang forth. Wherever they are found or represented it reminds the viewer of the strength of maternal love, especially the Virgin’s for our Lord.

Besides, the name forget-me-nots is pretty self-explanatory.

However, there are several other interesting differences between the two (nearly) identical miniatures.

There is also the addition of a pendant in the Royal Ontario miniature. A pendant that looks almost flowerlike. Going back to our Symbols and Meanings in Medieval Plants, searching for flowers that bear a resemblance to the pendant worn by the lady in the miniature, we find this:

There is, however, nothing in the known facts about Anne Boleyn's life to indicate that early spring would have had any kind of special significance to her. Anne's only child, Elizabeth, was born on the 7^th of September 1533, Anne's secret wedding to Henry VIII took place on the 14^th of November 1532, and their formal one on the 25^th of January 1533, Anne was crowned Queen of England on the 1^st of June 1533, and her elevation to the peerage as Marquess of Pembroke took place on the 1^st of September 1532.