Trixie

Trixie is the black-and-white cat immortalised beside Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd Earl of Southampton — Shakespeare's patron — in a famous portrait painted during his imprisonment in the Tower of London. Southampton was locked up in 1601 for his part in the Earl of Essex's failed rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I, and faced a death sentence that was later commuted to life imprisonment. According to enduring tradition, his pet cat Trixie found her way to him in the Tower — the romantic version of the story has her climbing down the chimney of his cell to be reunited with her master. Whether or not the chimney tale is literally true, the cat clearly mattered enormously: when the portrait was commissioned around 1603 to mark his captivity, Trixie was painted sitting on the windowsill behind him, a quiet symbol of loyalty and companionship in confinement. Southampton was released in 1603 when James I came to the throne, and the painting survives at Boughton House as one of the most charming records of the bond between a Tudor nobleman and his cat. It is among the earliest celebrated 'prison cat' stories in English history.