Sometimes I find things on the Web without really trying, as with this rather fine portrait of Lady Eleanor Talbot.
Apparently it was commissioned for John Ashdown Hill's new book about her, Eleanor, The Secret Queen. Some of you may know that I'm a great admirer of John's work on Eleanor, much of which has been published in the Ricardian, so I'm looking forward to seeing what additional information he has found to include in this book. Not that I expect it to prove anything, you understand. If there ever was proof of her marriage to Edward IV I think we can take it has read it was destroyed a long time ago.
3 comments:
I would love to commission one of Constance, but is there anything that tells us what she looked like?
No - but Maria on the American R3 list did come up with a contemporary description of her double first cousin, Katherine of Lancaster, which was (if I remember correctly) along the lines of big, blonde and handsome.
I have come across sketches of Edmund of Langley, Edward of York and even Richard of Conisbrough in sundry places, but the women of the family miss out completely - bar Philippa's tomb effigy that is. So I think it could only be an 'artist's impression' unless and until someone finds her tomb and reconstructs the skull! Maybe we should have a word with Tony Robinson and say how interesting Reading Abbey would be for Time Team to dig up...
I vote for digging her up then cos I have a couple of cousins who aren't exactly double, but related in more ways than one, and none of them look remotely like me at all. In fact, my own mother and I don't even look like we came from the same country. She's got tiny bones, with black hair and blue eyes; I'm like a giantess next to her with red-ginger hair and brown and blue eyes (I'm particolour!. You'd never even guess we're related.
Post a Comment