Maria de Padilla

I am surprised to find the internet has several images of Maria de Padilla.

Her daughters married John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley and she was the grandmother (among others) of Edward, Duke of York, Constance of York and Richard of Conisbrough. (Richard of Conisbrough is known thus to historians but as Lord Richard of York in his lifetime, later Earl of Cambridge. But that's a detail.)

What is really cool about Maria is that her coat of arms included frying pans. This may be unique in heraldry, it is certainly unusual. It is apparently a pun on her surname, which I presume works in Castilian. Not three lions on a shirt - several frying pans on a shield. (Or in her case, a lozenge.)

This New Spring of Time.

I am still pressing on with the novel, which has now reached Chapter 8. I wish I could write more quickly and more fluently, but I can't. I take the view that continuing progress is a Good Thing.

What would speed me up (probably) would be a lucrative publishing contract and a deadline; but I might as well say that a visit from the Blessed Virgin Mary would help. The latter is more probable, after all.

However I am absolutely determined to finish this book. I am writing it, basically for two people. Constance and me. If anyone else likes it, that will be a bonus, but as I do not expect to be able to buy a Rolls Royce with the proceeds, I am remarkably relaxed about the whole thing.

What I can say is the style is quite different from anything I have written before. It May Not Please Everyone. But it so happens I am finding it easier to write that way.