1. Goodrich Castle, Herefordshire, where Eleanor spent part of her childhood. (Photograph by Bill Benstead, courtesy of the Richard III Society – Worcestershire Branch)
1. Goodrich Castle, Herefordshire, where Eleanor spent part of her childhood. (Photograph by Bill Benstead, courtesy of the Richard III Society – Worcestershire Branch)
3. The Chapel (‘St Mary’s Church’) at Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, built by Eleanor’s father-in-law Lord Sudeley.
4. The tower of Burton Dassett church. Eleanor and her first husband, Thomas, lived in the nearby manor house.
6. Framlingham Castle, Suffolk, from the site of the Duchess of Norfolk’s private garden. Elizabeth Talbot and her ladies would cross the moat by means of a vanished wooden bridge supported on the stone piers in the foreground.
7. The Old Court, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Building in this couryard was financed by Eleanor and her sister.
8. The great west doorway of the Carmelite Priory Church, Norwich, now re-erected in the Norwich Magistrates’ Court. Eleanor’s coffin must have passed beneath this archway.
9. Ruins of the Norwich Carmel in situ. This arch led to an anchorite’s cell attached to the priory.
11. Eleanor’s father, John Talbot, first Earl of Shrewsbury, was a great national hero, the ‘Sir Winston Churchill’ of his day.
12. Eleanor’s mother, Margaret Beauchamp, Countess of Shrewsbury: a determined lady, but her children were devoted to her.
13. Eleanor’s aunt, Anne Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick: wife of the ‘Kingmaker’, and mother of Richard III’s queen.
15. Eleanor’s uncle, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. The Beaufort connection was dangerous in Yorkist England, but was always acknowledged.
16. A nineteenth-century depiction of Eleanor’s father-in-law, Ralph Boteler, Lord Sudeley, from the windows of Sudeley Castle Chapel.
17. Eleanor’s sister, Elizabeth Talbot, Duchess of Norfolk, was also her greatest friend and protector. This image, produced about fifteen years after Eleanor’s death, depicts Elizabeth as a middle-aged widow. Long Melford Church, Suffolk.
20. Eleanor’s niece, Elizabeth Talbot, Viscountess Lisle. This portrait, probably painted in Flanders during Margaret of York’s marriage celebrations, may suggest the possible appearance of Eleanor herself at the age of about sixteen. (© Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (no. 532))
21. The conjoined arms of Eleanor’s parents, from the tomb of her grandfather, Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick.
22. The seal of Eleanor’s father-in-law, Ralph Boteler, Lord Sudeley. (Warwickshire County Record Office, L1/82, reproduced by kind permission of the depositor)
23. Inverted image (negative) of the impression of the signet ring used as a seal by Eleanor when married to Thomas Boteler. The ring bore her mother’s emblem: the daisy, or marguerite. (Warwickshire County Record Office, L1/81, reproduced by kind permission of the depositor)
24. Eleanor’s signet, depicting the icon of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Her ring became stuck in the hot wax. Detaching it blurred the image of the Christ child. (Warwickshire County Record Office, L1/86, reproduced by kind permission of the depositor)
25. The ancient icon of Our Lady of Mount Carmel at the fourteenth-century church of San Niccolò al Carmine, Siena. According to tradition, the early Carmelites brought it with them from the Holy Land when they fled to Europe. (Photograph courtesy of the Carmelite Monastery, Quiddenham, Norfolk)
26. Inverted image (negative) of Eleanor’s signet depicting a scapular. (Warwickshire County Record Office, L1/85, reproduced by kind permission of the depositor)
27. A modern small scapular as worn today by a Carmelite tertiary. This comprises two small rectangles of cloth joined by cords. It is worn like a necklace, with the two pieces of fabric hanging front and back.
28. St Apollonia and St Michael the Archangel, from the windows presented by Lord and Lady Sudeley to the Crane Chapel, Chilton Church, Sudbury, Suffolk.
29. The Crane arms, from one of the Crane tombs at Chilton Church, Sudbury, Suffolk, showing the link to the arms of the Botelers of Sudeley.
30. Eleanor’s royal partner: King Edward IV in about 1470, from the chancel arch of Barnard Castle Church.
31. The remains of CFII (Eleanor?) as discovered in 1958, lying in their wooden coffin. (Copyright Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery)
32. Eleanor? The skull of CFII, Castle Museum, Norwich. (Remains of a medieval noblewoman, found at the Whitefriars site in Norwich in 1958.)
34. A facial reconstruction based on the CFII skull, commissioned by the author from Caroline Erolin, Medical and Forensic Artist, Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification, University of Dundee, in 2015. Caroline was offered no information concerning the possible identity of the skull, but was merely provided with high-resolution images of it.
35. Eleanor as she may have looked in about 1462. An image based on the 1996 facial reconstruction of CFII, with colouring derived from portraits of Eleanor’s close relatives. (© Mark Satchwill, 2008)
36. The murderess? Elizabeth Widville. (Portrait from a private collection, reproduced by kind permission of the owner, who wishes to remain anonymous)
37. The tomb of Eleanor’s niece, Elizabeth Talbot, Viscountess Lisle (died 1487), Astley, Warwickshire. Eleanor’s tomb in Norwich probably bore a similar effigy. (Photograph by Geoffrey Wheeler)
39. Plans of the upper and lower jaws of Richard III, showing no evidence of congenitally missing teeth.
