The diptych also serves as a family portrait of Richard's family and immediate antecedents. There is a strong resemblance between the three saints, and it has been suggested they represent not just Saints Edmund, Edward the Confessor, and John the Baptist, but also either Edward III (Richard's immediate predecessor) with his sons Edward the Black Prince (Richard's father) and John of Gaunt (Richard's uncle, and a powerful figure during Richard's youth); or, alternatively, the Black Prince doubled with the Baptist (the Black Prince, like John the Baptist, was never a king, and the Baptist takes the most paternal role in the scene), Edward III doubled with the Confessor, and Edward III's father Edward II doubled with Edmund the Martyr (like Edmund, Edward II was a murdered king; Richard revered Edward, and tried to have him canonised in 1395). The Virgin Mary is considered to represent Richard's mother, Joan of Kent, and the infant Jesus to be Edward of Angoulême, Richard's older brother who died in childhood.