Sunday 8 March 2009

Constance of York - portrait!


Unfortunately not a contemporary one. A dear friend of mine, Nancy Medhurst, produced this plate for me many years ago. She was a wonderful artist and did this sort of stuff more or less for love, certainly at no more than cost price. Anyway, as I seem to be in illustrate-the-House-of-York mode I thought I'd throw this in.

I know a bit more about heraldry now, and the truth is Thomas Despenser usually if not invariably, had the de Clare arms placed in the first and fourth quarters, not the Despenser ones. So that part should really be reversed. And as we're really depicting Constance's arms, they should go on a lozenge, not a shield. But I'm still very glad to have it!

4 comments:

Susan Higginbotham said...

That's lovely!

Jules Frusher said...

What a beautiful plate - you must be so happy to have something like that in your collection.

Brian Wainwright said...

It's certainly one of my treasures. Later I'll put up photos of the plates Nancy did for Richard III and Anne Neville. She was a very talented lady, although like many really skilled artists, she used to say it was easy, that anyone could do it, etc...I'm glad and grateful that I knew her.

Lynn Irwin Stewart said...

Can't wait to see the one of Richard and Anne!