[4][5] On the bodice of her gown, is a brooch from which hangs a large circular pendant with a diamond at the centre and a biblical theme: Lot with his family, guided by an angel, fleeing from Sodom.

[11] Cust's identification stood unchallenged until doubts were raised about the sitter's identity in the catalogue of The Kings and Queens of England exhibition held at Liverpool in 1953.

[12] A further attempt to identify the lady as Queen Catherine Howard was made by Bendor Grosvenor, David Starkey and Alasdair Hawkyard in the Lost faces exhibition catalogue in 2007.

[15] He stated that a dated parallel for costume (a short-lived style), notably the distinctive cut of the sleeves, is Holbein's Christina of Denmark of 1538.

[15] John Rowlands agreed that stylistically the portrait belonged to the period c. 1535–40, but considered that the French Hood "suggests a date towards its end.

[19] Derek Wilson observed that "in August 1537 Cromwell succeeded in marrying his son, Gregory, to Elizabeth Seymour", the queen's younger sister.

[21] Cromwell was granted a coat of augmentation following the marriage of his son to the queen's sister in August 1537; the second and third quarters have a division of six, with fleurs-de-lis alternating with pelicans and possess "the same unusual threefold structure, same metal and colours, fleurs de lys, and a feral creature" as the coat of augmentation granted to Edward Seymour when he was made Viscount Beauchamp, following his sister, Jane's, marriage to the king: Or, on a pile gules between six fleurs-de-lys azure three lions of England.

[21] In the Toledo portrait Holbein provides visual puns and heraldic clues to identify the sitter: firstly, an angel, a heavenly being depicted with birds' wings.

[25] In the Cromwell arms "the pelican carried an evangelical message, yet it could also echo the main motif of the original Seymour family coat, birds' wings conjoined.