Sir Peter Rede (d. 1568)

Sir Peter Reade (d. 1568) was a wealthy mercer, a Lord Mayor of prosperous Tudor Norwich and a benefactor to the city. The choice to depict him with his falcon in this fine civic portrait would have been a deliberate gesture to emphasize his wealth and high position. Although not a nobleman by birth, Reade had been knighted by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, for military service. The hood on the bird's head makes it difficult to identify positively, but it most closely resembles a peregrine falcon, a perennially important and prestigious bird for the sport of hawking. By the Tudor period, the earlier medieval hierarchies which considered a peregrine a suitable bird for an earl rather than a mere knight would have been less current. However, to his contemporaries, Reade's possession of a peregrine would have indicated a high rank in society