LETTERS
In support of Richard
As a committed Ricardian attempting to restore the reputation of Richard III, I read your Essential Guide to the Wars of the Roses (November 2021 with increasing dismay. The writers you chose to give their views on Richard’s accession and reign are all, without exception, Lancastrian in their views – relying on the time-worn Tudor propaganda, including Shakespeare’s fictional portrait of this much-maligned king.
In Nige Tassell’s piece, The Princes in the Tower, he insinuates that Richard had his eye on the throne before his brother Clarence was executed! Richard had no way of knowing at this time that his brother Edward IV would die so soon, and no way of knowing the king’s sons would not be eligible to succeed him. Another piece (Fraternal Friction), talks of Richard’s “cravings for enhanced power” and uses phrases like “make his move”, all suggesting a personal view of premeditation on the part of Richard.
In Lauren Johnson’s interview, she states that he was also worse than many [nobles of the day] and that it was “extremely likely that the Princes in the Tower were killed on Richard’s orders”.
Richard was a loyal family man, and deeply religious. He would never have done anything to harm his nephews. He was planning Edward V’s coronation, which he was forced to reorganise after the queen [Elizabeth Woodville] had tried to crown her son in haste in order to rule through him. e illegitimacy of her children by Edward only came to light after Bishop Robert Stillington revealed Edward IV’s previous marriage contract –a fact that Edward and his queen had been at pains to conceal. Richard had no choice but to assume the throne.
A child could not rule; Richard was the next in line by blood and was asked by Parliament to assume the role.
Bridget Gunston, by email
Lauren Johnson, the expert advisor for our Essential Guide to the Wars of the Roses, replies:
For me, one of the most interesting aspects of this period of history is the complexity and ambiguity of those involved, such as Henry VI, the likeable monarch with an admirable drive for peace, whose ineptitude made two nations bleed. Or Margaret of Anjou, revered and maligned in equal measure, the source of extraordinary loyalty for some, and capable of duplicity and political cunning to rival any of her contemporaries. Richard III is only one of these fascinating contradictions, and it is his complexity that makes him intriguing – and endlessly debatable.
He was pious, militarily impressive and inspired loyalty from his retainers, yet he failed to win the hearts and minds of his subjects more broadly. (How else to interpret the two rebellions he faced in less than two years? One of which was in support of a man who had no real claim to the throne?)
I do not read this era through the prism of later Tudor commentators, and especially Shakespeare, who has distorted so much of our collective understanding. Instead, I approach the era on its own terms – critically, using contemporary sources. It is clear from these that Yorkist and Ricardian propaganda was as potent, in its time, as Tudor propaganda became. I also consider individuals in the context of their peers, not as tragic creations (as both Shakespeare and Thomas More’s Richards were).
I believe it is more valuable to contextualise history in this way than to take sides on single individuals.
Richard was capable of cruelty and cupidity, depriving more than one wealthy widow of her property – on one occasion, allegedly, with threats of force. He is far from alone in this, as his siblings and rivals mistreated those out of political favour for their own mercenary ends, too. We shouldn’t try to read Richard as a saint any more than we should interpret him as a villain.
Arrrr you sure?
In your Essential Guide to the Golden Age of Piracy (December 2021), Dr Rebecca Simon maintains that real-life pirates did not make victims walk the plank. While there is no record of this happening during the so-called ‘golden age’ [the late 17th and early 18th centuries] – when victims of skirmishes would be abandoned on looted ships, left behind on remote islands or keelhauled – there is certainly evidence that pirates carried out this method of execution in later years.
In April 1829, the Dutch ship Vhan Fredericka was attacked and looted near the Virgin Islands by about 30 pirates. e Dutch crew were bound, blindfolded and had cannonballs attached to their feet before being made to walk the plank. One person was put ashore after cooperating with the pirates. While incidents such as this were fortunately not an everyday feature of life at sea, neither were they totally fictional.