A Beginning

I have to start somewhere, so I will show you the most famous portrait of the last English king of England, King Richard the Third, the original of which hangs in Windsor Castle, close by St George's chapel, where his garter stall still exists, and where his brother King Edward IV lies buried. A copy hangs in the National Portrait Gallery London for all to visit and gaze at.

Do that.

Look at that face, study it closely, and tell me you can see through the legends that cloud so many people's judgement of this amazing man, as I have, and let me tell you about him, his life, his contemporaries, the challenges he faced, and the sacrifices he made.

I will also tell you of those who knew and loved him, and of those who did not and betrayed him for their own selfish needs.

With his betrayal and death in battle we lost one of our most enlightened and forward thinking rulers.
Join me and find out more, and if you have questions feel free to ask them.


A start then....

There are three new books on Richard out already, and two more are possibly promised.

The first is Richard III: the Young King To Be, by Josephine Wilkinson, and clearly is the first part of two; the second book is by John Ashdown-Hill, Eleanor, The Secret Queen: The Woman Who Put Richard III on the Throne, a biography of Eleanor Butler, the 'other woman' in the early history of Edward IV, whose marriage to the king made his children by Elizabeth Woodville illegitimate, and thus cleared the way for Richard to become king.

Both of these last two are winging their way to me from Amazon to add to the pile of books I am trying hard to work my way through.

Annette Carson's book on Richard III: The Maligned Monarch is on the top, and is simply wonderful. The author sets out all the many problems Richard faced, and all the various 'charges' made against him, and deals with both sides of each and every argument in an intelligent and very readable manner, quoting all the sources available. I'm sure this will be sitting close at hand in future as a means of reference.

[I'm halfway though a rather good biography, another very readble one, on the Emperor Augustus, a man I admire a lot, consummate politician that he was. But my other reading matter and interests will come as a side bar in future.]

There is another book about Richard I've been told of by Anne Kettle. I am waiting to get more information on this book and it's author. I understand that although she has studied the period in detail, she is not an admirer, but we shall see. At £54, the publisher's quoted price, I hope my local library can afford a copy as I won't be buying it myself, the first book about Richard I have not added to my collection. There is however some doubt on this book actually being published.

Soon though David Hipshon is publishing 'Richard III and the Death of Chivalry' which examines some aspects from Richard's life not often dealt with. But more of that later.


Richard liveth yet

More Pictures

This one is known as The Broken Sword, which I feel looks more like Richard did than the Windsor portrait.






Richard liveth yet

This used to hang in the Royal Exchange building in London. Gave me a start when I first saw it as the figure of Richard is life size, and looks exactly the way I have imagined him looking.
To date I have been unable to discover what happened to it. It was part of a series of paintings illustrating important events in the history of the city. One also showed the Arrivall.

Richard liveth yet

Richard's early life

Richard Plantagent, later Duke of Gloucester, and later still King Richard III, was born to Cecily Neville, and Richard Duke of York, at Fotheringhay Castle, in the county of Northamptonshire, England, on the 2nd of October 1452.
Apart from a cryptic comment from a rhyme written much later that 'Richard liveth yet' he disappears from history for a while. But then he was the yougest son of a large family and not expected to come to much of importance. The phrase 'liveth yet' only means he was still living at the time the rhyme was written, and not that he was weak, or deformed, or in any way different from any other child, except, unlike some of his siblings, that he was still alive at the same age that they had died.
Henry, William, Thomas, and John, all died in infancy, as did the sister born after Richard, Ceciley's last child Ursula.
For those needing sources, the rhyme is called "A Dialogue Between A Secular And A Friar" and is basically about the lineal descent of the Clare family, whose descendant the House of York was from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III, whose daughter married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, our Richard's great grand parents, and his link to the royal family of England through the female line.
KEEP UP! THIS STUFF IS IMPORTANT!! :-) TEST LATER! :-)
Oh yes, the famous Duke of Clarence, he of the legendary death, was our Richard's brother George. More later though of him.
Back to the Yorks and our newly born Richard, youngest son of York. [Good pun there Shakespeare! Again, more later on that one too!]
Richard's father was the Duke of York, the richest man in the land, and to all intents and purposes the rightful king of England.
You see back in 1399 the crown had been wrested away from the rightful king Richard II, by the son of Edward III's third son, Henry Bolingbroke, who became king as Henry IV. At the time, the rightful heirs, the York antecedents, were still too young to contest the matter, and the House of Lancaster planted it's backside on the throne. Henry's son was the famous Henry V, he who went to war with the French and trounced them at Agincourt. Not the hero of myth makers though, as like with our Richard, and the Scottish king Macbeth, William Shakespeare, writing drama many years later, changed the facts to suit good theatre. Henry V died young of dysentary, leaving his crown to a 9 month old infant, another Henry, the Sixth. That was when the real trouble began. But that isn't part of our story yet.
The point of all that was to help you to see that Richard came into the world the youngest son of a family that stood close to the throne, but not as close as it should have been, a family descended through TWO sons of Edward III, while between the second son and fourth, who the Yorks were descended from, stood the third son, and the House of Lancaster who had usurped the crown in 1399.
Still with me? Hope so.
An infant on the throne of England. Not good news for anybody but the nobles who began to wrestle for control of the king, the coutry, and the riches possible from high position.

I'm taking a break there, with Richard in the world.
Going to see Benjamin Button to decide if I think it deserves my personal Oscars this year!




Richard liveth yet

In the chronology of Richard's life it's time to pick our way through the miasma of mid fifteenth century politics, and the chaotic reign of Henry VI.
I don't much like Henry and what he let be done to England and the lands we then held in France, so I'm going to avoid that for the moment and talk about Brad Pitt.

Just seen The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which gets a 5 star rating from Paul Trevor Bale. [That's a top rating!] It is in some ways an old fashioned film, in that it has a story to tell that it takes it's time telling. But then it is a romance, albeit with a difference.

Benjamin (Brad Pitt) is born in 1918 - old, and as his life progresses he gets younger. When she is only 7 Daisy meets him in the old people's home her grandmother moves into, which happens to be where Benjamin is being taken care of. After he has got a bit younger, and learned how to take care of himself, Benjamin goes out into the world and begins his adventures, that take him to, amongst other places, Russia, and an affair with Tilda Swinton. It is not until many years later that he comes home and meets the now grown up Daisy (Cate Blanchette) again. It is only when they have grown to almost the same age though, he getting younger, she older, that they become lovers. But it is a doomed love affair.

Told in flashback by Daisy's daughter, reading to her dying mother the diary Benjamin wrote and left her when he finally has to forsake her, it is a gorgeous looking film, with good performances from all. The Oscar though goes to the make up team who perform miracles, not only with the older Benjamin, but also with the ageing Daisy and the ever more youthful Benjamin. Brad Pitt in his teens looks stunningly beautiful.
Clearly one has to suspend disbelief, but this upside down tale is thoroughly engrossing, and at times, deeply moving. It is a long time since I had tears streaming down my face at the movies, but the end of Benjamin Button did the trick!

Tomorrow, back to Richard, or rather the battle royal between Richard's father, the Duke of York, and King Henry VI and his self seeking, mainly untalented courtiers. Things do not take long to get bloody!

Richard liveth yet

Back

Haven't been around for a while. You know how sometimes life gets in the way. This time though it was me being support for my sick mother, away from home and computer - that drove me crazy after only a short time!
But it gave me time to finish my second reading of Annette Carson's marvellous book Richard III - The Maligned Monarch, and get through David Hipshon's new book Richard III and The Death Of Chivalry, which, as he is publishing a full biography of Richard next year, I had high hopes of.
The first chapter contains some silly mistakes, one example - George Stanley, Lord Strange is held hostage at Bosworth for his father William Stanley's good behaviour!
However, once past the introduction chapter, he gets into his stride, and at times I began to think he was taking the Paul Murray Kendall route, which his writing at times reminded me of. There is also a marvellous dishing of the dreadful Michael Hicks theory about the marriage of Richard and Anne!
But when he gets to the events of 1483 he begins to turn into Alison Weir! The pre contract is dismissed as nonsense, (why do so many historians not see this as typical of Edward IV's behaviour - promise anything to get laid?) Richard's guilt over killing his nephews is in his view beyond doubt, and Annette Carson's book gets a note in which he compares it to 'a quasi religious phenomenen', part of 'a cult of adulation that brooks no heresy.'
Judging from the book I doubt he has actually read Annette's book, in which she bends over backwards to include all theories, that is ALL, including the traditionalist ones, yet manages to show Richard in a good light in virtually every single case. Erudite, intelligent, readable, Annette's book is marvellous for anyone with an interest in the truth of what happened in 1483 - 85. And all he conclusions are sensible, and not based on wish fullfilment or leaps of faith, as so many traditionalist ones are.
David Hipshon happens to be teaching my nephew, so I plan to get in touch.
More anon.

Richard liveth yet