There's More to Thomas More than meets the Eye.

Who was Richard III’s greatest enemy? The obvious answer might be Henry Tudor, Henry VII, who defeated and killed the last Yorkist King at Bosworth in 1485. Others might cite Shakespeare, whose compelling portrayal placed the image of the hunch-back at the heart of later cultural representations. Some may even follow the Bard’s line by suggesting Richard was his own worst enemy, a classic over-reacher in the Marlovian model. Next on the list, reserved for a particular type of Ricardian derision, is the humanist scholar Sir Thomas More.

There is little doubt that More’s unfinished “history” re-enforces many of the excesses of anti-Richard myth, portraying an archetypal tyrant who removes his innocent nephews in cold blood in order to achieve his long-cherished ambition. And there is no question that More made things up, in order to make his work more vivid and powerful. This has brought the opprobrium of militant Ricardians down upon his severed saintly head, reputed to have been rescued from Tower Bridge and smuggled to Canterbury by his devoted daughter. Some have gone to the lengths of refusing to read him at all, or ridiculing references to his work, making him some sort of literary pariah.

Revered in the Catholic Church for his martyrdom in 1535, More is still being vilified in certain circles as a liar, steeped in bias, a self-serving partisan. Yet to judge his account in purely historical terms is to overlook the conventions and genres of late medieval literature, which determined the author’s methods and intentions. It also fails to recognise the important bridge he provides between classical accounts and modern historiography. And nowhere, does it take account of More the man. Just as it would be anachronistic to judge Richard III according to modern sensibilities, the same mistake must not be made when it comes to his early biographer.

More was born around 1478-80. He was still a small child when Richard III came to the throne and five at the time of the battle of Bosworth, which drew the Yorkist dynasty to a close. The rest of his life was spent in the service of Richard’s dynastic nemeses, Henry VII and his son, Henry VIII. He was the London-born son of lawyer John More, who had won favour and the right to bear arms under Edward IV. In fact, his 1530 will included provision for prayers to be said for the souls of Edward and his family. According to More’s son-in-law, William Roper, John had been treated vindictively by Henry VII, whilst employed as a sergeant at law. This meant that More had little reason to write purely out of subservience to the new regime and may account for the absence of Henry from the work.

According to the custom of the time, the young Thomas was placed in the household of the Archbishop of Canterbury and staunch Lancastrian, John Morton. He would describe his tumultuous life as the “violent changes of fortune” from which he had “learned practical wisdom.” Morton was equally pleased with his protégée, nominating him for a place at Oxford University. It is likely that during this time, More absorbed his patron’s opinions and experiences of Richard; perhaps as his clerk, he even wrote up notes Morton had made during the 1480s. The seventeenth century Ricardian George Buck even suggested that Morton was the original author of the work, which More simply copied up. With Bosworth less than a decade away, it is “inconceivable” according to Professor Caroline Barron, that it was not a frequent topic of conversation.

More went on to be an advocate of Renaissance Humanism, of female education, a lawyer and Speaker of the House of Commons, Chancellor, a prolific author, political visionary and devoted family man. In 1512, when Under Sherriff of London, he began work on his “history” of Richard III and tinkered with it for seven years, during which time he also wrote his most famous work Utopia (1516) and was appointed a Privy Councillor to Henry VIII. In 1519, for some reason, he put his account aside, unfinished. It may or may not be significant that the year before, he had moved into Crosby Place, the London house owned and occupied by Richard during many of the dramatic events of his 1483 coup.

More’s depiction of Richard tallies with other early Tudor chronicles, authored by John Rous and Polydore Vergil. More adds to Rous’s horrific picture of Richard’s birth, following a reputed gestation of two years, with the imagined details that he was breech-born, his head covered with hair and a mouth full of teeth. These would prove a gift to Shakespeare eight decades later and enter the literary canon as portentous of the king’s tragic fate. Soon though, sceptical voices were raised. Given the unlikeliness of More’s details, Enlightenment historians began to question why they, and other obvious fabrications, had been included in the account. The answer lies in the question of authorial intention. There is no doubt that More blends fact with fiction but this is exactly what his chosen genre dictated. He would have been remiss not to exaggerate, when his aim was to write within the didactic conventions of instructional literature.

More’s “history” is not history as we would recognise it; the term was synonymous then for “account” or “story”, a vehicle for a narrative in the classical model. True to his education and early Renaissance context, he followed the example set by the “histories” of Tiberius, written by Roman authors Tacitus and Seutonius. According to John Jowett, of the Shakespeare Institute, it “lays the foundations for modern historiography” by rejecting the linear portrayal of events in favour of an “admonitory narrative of people acting out their lives under the eyes of God.” More’s account must be seen within the context of late medieval literary tradition, with its emphasis on hagiography, miracle and morality plays and abstract virtues and vices. Whilst living with Morton, the young More also acted in early dramas by Henry Medwall, one of which, Nature, employed the abstract personification of “Pride”, who disguises himself to the audience as “Worship.” By 1513, More was well versed in the literary abilities of villains to conceal their true motives.

He also knew how the other half had lived. Saints’ lives was a very popular genre for the late medieval literate classes. A thirteenth century collection, The Golden Legend, was a bestseller by More’s day, having been copied into over eight hundred manuscript versions, then printed into every major European language. William Caxton brought out an edition in 1483, which was then reprinted nine times before 1527. As a devout Catholic, who was martyred resisting Henry VIII’s reforms, More was steeped in such tales. The usual hagiographic conventions included a birth attended by symbolic features, fictional episodes including conversations and flights of emotion, as well as historical facts. Saints were born to the fluttering of pure white doves and the ringing of bells. These literary signifiers gave less literate readers or listeners an easy shorthand to delineate the good from the bad, just as the costumes and props did in mystery cycles. Thus Richard’s tale of ignominious defeat required the apparatus of an ill-fated birth and physical deformity. Saints’ lives were important vehicles for the study of the past, intended to inspire the living to greater piety.

Yet More did something different with the genre. In taking Richard as his anti-hero and subjecting him to the rules of hagiography, he was not preaching the usual lesson. Instead he was teaching by negative example, creating a dramatic and sometimes terrifying tale that blended recent memory with the stuff of nightmares in order to show the consequences of misplaced ambition. Richard is his instrument in this, a conveniently memorable figure who served a literary purpose. Like Shakespeare, militant Ricardians may not forgive More for selecting the Yorkist King as his subject matter but for an author writing in the medieval tradition, Richard was a gift of a topic. Hindsight made him the perfect teaching tool.

More’s anti-hagiography can be seen as a partner work to the biography he wrote in 1510, the Life of John Picus. Derived from the life of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, it outlined the virtues of the Italian Renaissance philosopher who was poisoned in 1494, probably on the orders of the Medicis. Thus More co-opts two real historical narratives for the benefit of future generations, in the hope that they would not “decline from the steps of their virtuous living” and that such example would “maketh the dark spot of our vice the more evidently to appear.” This was also within the spectrum of instructional literature of the day, encompassing moral fables and behaviour manuals which enacted learning by example in the same way as parables read in the pulpit. In 1522, More wrote the very specific Four Last Things, warning his readers against pride, envy, sloth, gluttony and covetousness. He also produced a number of animal fables. There was little difference to him between animating abstract vices, creatures, classical Gods and the recent dead. All offered the opportunity to teach the living.

More’s work was also a reflection of evolving political models. He cast Richard as an ambitious villain, plotting to usurp the throne even before the death of Edward IV. This scheming, one dimensional version may have been accomplished by More mapping Richard’s story over the literary model of the Machiavel. In fact, Niccolo Machiavelli’s manuscript of The Prince was being circulated among his correspondents and humanist friends well in advance of its 1532 publication. One of its chapters deals with “conquests by criminal virtue” in which a Prince secures his power through cruel deeds and the execution of his political rivals. Machiavelli’s advice was that all such acts should be carefully planned then executed in one swift blow, to allow his subjects the opportunity to forget them. It was only recently that the extensive correspondence between Machiavelli, Erasmus and Thomas More was discovered in the Palazzo Tuttofare in Florence, exploring questions about methods of governance and the nature of writing. More’s Richard III stands at the interface of these.

Of course, none of this is to deny that there are problems with More’s account. Just as with any historical source, it needs to be considered in context and evaluated according to the light it can shed, if any, on the true story of Richard III. However, that context is very much a literary one as well as a historical one. Calls to reject More’s work out of hand fail to do precisely that which they assert as essential: More must not be simply read and digested, he must be used with caution within a framework of contemporary cultural influences. As a master of his craft, he deserves to be read afresh and placed firmly back within the Ricardian canon.

More was a man with a conscience. Having agreed to enter the service of Henry VIII on the provision that he be allowed to act according to his scruples, he had not banked on the momentous religious reforms that his King was to introduce in the 1530s. Refusing to swear allegiance to Henry according to the Act of Succession, he was convicted of high treason and beheaded in July 1535. On the scaffold, he was reputed to have said that he remained God’s servant first and the king’s second. His unfinished account of Richard’s life and reign was published after his death. Perhaps the key to rejections of his writing is explained by the clash of ideologies: ultimately his use of the hagiographic conventions has little in common with the deluded deification of Richard which takes places in some forums. There really is more to More than may appear.

Capturing the King's Face: An Interview with Laurie Harris, the artist behind a new portrait of Richard III.

 My new book, "Richard III: The Road to Leicester," features a fascinating new interpretation of the King by an exciting young artist, Laurie Harris. I spoke to Laurie about the way he approached the portrait, his thoughts about the man and his influences:

   

How did you research the portrait?

Perhaps the core objective I set myself for this new portrait of Richard III was to produce a recognisably human figure we can all, to some extent, connect with. This involved stripping back some layers of royalty and title, and presenting an altogether plainer vision which lends itself to graphite and charcoal. The tonal range cleaves closer together and unifies the image in its ordinariness and essence, which helps to divest some of the grandeur of Richard’s position. This is an aspect I thought lacking in other pictures I have seen of Richard III, which contrast the figure more starkly against his robes and riches. Most keenly was this brought to my attention when I visited London to observe the two anonymously authored 15^th/16^th Century colour portraits housed in the National Portrait Gallery. Richard is depicted with a pained expression (in fact not unlike the expression in my portrait), dressed in all his finery, and ambiguously fingering his ring. (Students of semiotics could have a field day!) To me these paid close attention to the dynamic of and contrast between the man and the title, thereby manifesting a political intention, which I can say did not intentionally factor in to my designs. Aesthetically I took much greater interest in capturing the scientific reality of Richard – that is, closely analysing the recent reconstruction of his face put together by a team at Leicester University using the craniometry of his recently unearthed skull. The bust they produced was a revelation but, to my eyes at least, a little stale and lacking vitality. So I went about trying to inject some emotion, some humanity and some life, as better identified in the earlier portraits. Thus, the combination of a scientific foundation and a human interest sensibility perhaps makes my portrait a very contemporary production.

 

What impressions did you draw of Richard and how did you convey them in the drawing?

I was aware of some of the controversy surrounding Richard III. Certainly this is a man whose reputation and legacy remains fluid and indefinite, and it is perhaps that contestation and dispute that account for his endurance in the public imagination. Shakespeare’s ‘Crookback’ characterisation of course has done much to guide public perception through the ages, but the  posthumous play seems likely part of a Tudor propaganda offensive used to discredit Richard and distort or embellish real truths. The question of whether the ‘disappeared’ Princes in the tower, Richard’s two nephews, were executed by Richard remains a pertinent one. To my mind, any ruler seeks to legitimate his or her right to rule whether through ancestry, ritual, myth-making, or plain bloodshed, so the question I posed myself was how ruthless was this man’s desire to rule? Would he kill his nephews without feeling? Would he kill them with profound conflict? Would he kill them at all? To that extent I weighed down more sympathetically on Richard. I wanted to eke out something of the man, and thus rather suggest the crown through the man. In that sense I tried to convey something of the human impact of Kingship, such as those revealed by the fate of his nephews. To this extent I suppose I am intimating a certain humanity and feeling to Richard, which perhaps courts as much controversy as befits the figure.

 

What are your influences as an artist?

When I was young my parents read a story to me called ‘Christopher and the Dream Dragon’, written by Allen Morgan and illustrated by Brenda Clark. The pictures were greyscale and the story of a boy who has to recover a coin from the dragon’s golden hoard nestled away amongst the clouds really shook my imagination. Perhaps I can say that since that point, fantasies, myths, fairy tales and high adventures (culturally coloured throughout the world) have been my home away from home. Pictures, as words, are dialogical. And like words they are both aesthetic and conceptual. In this way pictures are the very fabric of storytelling. Certainly I like to see the pictures I create as telling or being a part of some kind of story, however small and inconsequential. My intention is for them to exist as a moment caught in a long timeline of a past and future in a real or abstracted world. Therein lies the narrative possibility. So when I think about influences, I am certainly thinking as much about stories as I am about art. These influences spread across multiple mediums including literature, film, documentaries, music, and so on. Particularly I would like to mention the work of Japanese animation house, Studio Ghibli, whose films continue to inspire me both through their bewitching visuals and the power, emotion, and brio of their storytelling. I share with them a wonder and reverence of both subtle and outlandish fantasy, and remain indebted to them in that respect. A few other notable visionaries that have fired my ambition and fed my imagination are the fairy tale artist and old favourite, Arthur Rackham, father of modern fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien and his artists Alan Lee and John Howe, and the lyrical and bittersweet fantasies of Japanese author Osamu Dazai.

What are your future plans?

Reflexivity is a great asset to an artist (and indeed perhaps a curse!). Among critics of my picture, I am perhaps king (pun vaguely intended) – although perhaps that will change once this portrait is in print! But that self-criticism motivates me to improve with each picture, and demands each picture pushes my ability, both technically and methodologically. In short, I still have everything to learn, and this is just the beginning. I hope that getting my work out there might increase the possibility of producing more work for other projects, and open other pathways and opportunities that allow me to improve my skills and better articulate my ideas. Specifically I would like to illustrate children’s books, or even develop a story from scratch and run with that, with the ambition both of strengthening my portfolio and producing ever-more professional, atmospheric and imaginative work.

    
You can see Laurie's work at www.rie-zaki.deviantart.com

Shakespeare's Secret Love for Richard III: Elizabethan Textual Politics.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been disturbed by online questions I’ve seen posed about Shakespeare’s 1592 play, Richard III. These have ranged from wondering why the playwright was a liar, to a complete rejection of all of his plays by devoted Ricardians. In which case, they’d be missing out, not just on a piece of spellbinding drama but also on the bard’s unconcealed affection for the dead King. Yes, that’s right: Shakespeare actually loved Richard but he couldn’t change the course of history or challenge what he did not know.

                                                     Sir Ian McKellen as Richard in 1995

 

No political motivation underpins the charisma of Shakespeare’s Richard at the start of this play. If the bard was simply using the dead King as a villain, following the lead of Rous, More, Vergil and Holinshed, he need not have gone to such lengths to create an engaging, charismatic figure. Rather, it seems, Shakespeare infused his Richard with a life force that went against the historical grain, compelling an audience to connect with him as an individual and drawing on the very British sympathy for the underdog that underpins much of Richard’s following today. The character’s tone is expansive, confiding, he draws us in with soliloquy and confidences. By speaking directly to the audience he makes us complicit in his exclusion from life and love; he “must prove a villain” and invites us to share his journey. And he does it with such destructive energy, such personal allure in spite of his outward deformities that we cannot help but be charmed.

No writer can escape from the times in which they lived and worked. By definition, they are a composite of the mores of the day, of cultural constructs and received wisdom. Over a century after Richard’s death, Shakespeare could no more think of questioning his “deformity” and villainy that he might have questioned the sun rising in the morning and setting at night. Equally, we wouldn’t expect him to be able to step outside the Elizabethan perception of “Moors” while exploiting them to justify the character of his Othello. He wasn’t the unwitting dupe or co-conspirator of Tudor politics, he was exploiting the popular perception of recent history for purposes of entertainment and didacticism. It doesn’t mean he didn’t believe in the popular portrayals of Richard’s appearance but he did not invent them and their robust tradition scarcely needed his endorsement by that point. In them, he saw the seeds of inevitability that he could juxtapose with a personal magnetism in order to create compelling drama. He was not a politician or a liar, he was an artist of genius.

 

 

Shakespeare’s portrayal of Richard’s physical deformity needs to be recognised as dramatic rhetoric, an ideological distortion, a piece of neo-Platonic determinism, in the same way that Shakespeare had to make Othello black. It is an essential part of the Elizabethan rhetoric that encodes villainy in physicality. In fact, it illuminates for us just how far history itself had been deformed. The juxtaposition of attraction and repulsion was a moral lesson for the Elizabethans and regardless of hindsight, they all knew how it was going to end. So Richard must prove himself a villain in order to justify the inevitability of fate and the re-establishment of calm. He transgresses the boundaries established by the Tudors’ ancestors therefore he has to pay the price. Shakespeare’s message is not a political one here; Richard is merely his vehicle for the confirmation of the Elizabethan moral code. This is a literary device in line with centuries of defamation of monarchs, politicians and public figures. It just happens to have been a more successful one.

As the play progresses, Richard gradually alienates all the other characters, even his family. He interacts less and less with the audience, so our initial bond is weakened, in a process of detachment which is necessary for us to be able to accept his death. He is not our Richard by the end, he has undergone a process of transformation; under increasing pressure, the audience see him closing down. He speaks to us less, confides less and his responses impart information rather than confiding his inner landscape. Increasingly, though, we are privy to the discussion of those who oppose him; we hear fear, hatred, criticism and sense his inevitable fall, so by increments, we transfer our interest and connection to Tudor. Even when we resist this, Shakespeare forces our attention on to Richard’s adversary by the use ennobling imagery and literally, letting Tudor take centre stage. An Elizabethan audience were wired to feel gratitude and relief for the persona of the Revenger, the genre’s answer to chaos, by which order would be restored. As Francis Bacon wrote, a few years after the first performance of Richard III, man may offend laws but “the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office.”

 

 

Where modern Ricardians may have fallen out of love with Shakespeare’s play is the discrepancy between our sense of morality and that of the Elizabethans. We don’t just require the victory of the abstract personification of Revenge; we have a far more sophisticated sense of personal merit and Shakespeare’s sympathetic development of Richard’s character means we bridle more when the playwright conforms to structural convention. In fact, Shakespeare makes his audience’s relationship with Richard into something of a love affair. First we are attracted, compelled, committed even, then after the initial flush of connection, we feel our hero has begun to lose faith with us, to withdraw, to disconnect and we lose ownership of him. Richard was our guide, our conduit into the mise-en-scène of the play but as the action develops, he steps back inside it and the divide between character and audience widens. He turns from hero to anti-hero, protagonist to antagonist, in order to become the sacrifice that the fates demand. It is essential for the arc of the plot that we lose sympathy with Richard by the end, even if we don’t fully side with the Lancastrian Henry Tudor, whose character is barely developed. He is merely the dramatic instrument of fate. This doesn’t mean we dislike Shakespeare’s Richard, we can still think of him with compassion, even fondly. Ultimately though, the dramatist has a higher intent. We are touched by the pathos of Richard’s death and learn the moral lesson that was a requirement of Elizabethan literature.

Shakespeare’s context compelled him to create a Richard in the model that he understood. That was his job and exposes the limits of his era. He can’t be criticised for not rehabilitating the King when he did not understand that there was a wrong that needed righting. However, there was no compulsion to develop his character along the lines that the playwright chose. It was Shakespeare’s own decision to present us with the charismatic, captivating character which, for a perceptive and informed audience, is the play’s most lasting legacy.

 This piece first appeared in the Huffington Post on 3/10/13

 

Ricardian Shorts: Reviews of two new guides to Richard III.

Matthew Lewis “A Glimpse of King Richard III”

 

Annette Carson “A Small Guide to the Great Debate”

 

Who was Richard III? Why is he such a controversial king and what are there so many unanswered questions regarding his reign? As his bones await reburial and the dying credits of The White Queen fade from our television screens, a new fan base emerges to face the challenges posed by fifteenth century history. Two new short books by Matthew Lewis and Annette Carson attempt to give the reader some answers. For those fresh to the field, these would be an invaluable place to start, to establish a narrative of events and an understanding of how Richard’s reputation has been handled through the intervening centuries. Lewis has a law degree but his passion for the Wars of the Roses period led him to pen the novel “Loyalty” (CreateSpace, 2012) and Annette Carson is the author of a full-length study of Richard III, “The Maligned King.” (The History Press, 2009)

Lewis and Carson are upfront about their loyalties. As Ricardians, these books have been written out of a long-standing fascination with Richard and desire to locate the real man amid the controversy. Both are presented in digestible and accessible sections, chronologically and logically. It is the length of their books lies at the heart of this review. Richard III is such a complex topic, that it may actually be easier to write a long book about him than a short one; writers of shorter guides are forced to make difficult decisions about what to prioritise. The choices that Lewis and Carson made make it easy to recommend these to slightly different audiences.

Lewis’s book does exactly what it says on the tin. It provides a clear narrative of the events of Richard’s life and accession to the throne. Before the narrative gets underway, Lewis starts by defining the “A Glimpse of…” series (of which there is another, The Wars of the Roses) as “a concise view” of history which leaves out fascinating details from necessity. This should immediately signal his intended audience; the book is a good stepping stone to the more complex issues discussed in longer texts, ideal for those coming to the topic afresh. Part of the book’s bridging nature is to facilitate further study, for which purpose Lewis does provide bibliography at the end. However it is a little brief, with only five texts and a fuller bibliography would have been a very valuable addition to this book, as it works so well as an introduction to stimulate interest.

Lewis’s long-standing fascination with Richard is very clear. In fact, it drives the work: he certainly does inhabit his subject and bridges the gap between him and the reader with inclusive pronouns, inviting us to participate in the imperatives “we must” and “our collective memory,” reminding us that the reputation of this much maligned Yorkist king is a construct which we can all interpret. This accessibility is a key strength of the work.

Lewis uses unanswered questions to provoke his readers to consider a variety of possibilities. In most cases this is a successful device, a way of preventing a closed response. It is probable too, that most of his readers will be able to use these to form their own opinions. The narrative choices though, particularly the exclusion of the detail and linear fact-focus, implies an audience of beginners, without the cultural context in which to search for answers. Some may be using the text as a complete starting point, so may wish to chew the questions over until they have read on. Lewis does this best when his questions are related to human emotion, prompting his readers to consider the dynamics of human nature or predict their own responses. Academic historians might twitch a little at this technique, seeing it as the application of the modern mindset to people from the past. But Lewis has amply demonstrated his ability to consider the medieval mentality elsewhere and this would be to overlook the book’s purpose. With a short guide, designed to stimulate interest and provide facts, literally, as Lewis has described, to give us a glimpse, these initial connections must be made personal. It is through that connection that people will be enticed to read more widely.

The book does attempts to separate out some legends/myths from facts, such as the disguise of Anne Neville as a kitchen maid and the possibility of her marriage to Richard being a love match. Yet this isn’t always consistent, for example, the declaration as an absolute that Edward IV was illegitimate, followed  by the qualifier that it is unproven, also that even Richard’s detractors are in agreement on certain things like his good law making, which isn’t always the case. There is also the repetition of the myth of Richard’s mother, Cecily, standing at the cross in Ludlow to face her enemies; a stirring dramatic image, but unsubstantiated outside the biography where it first appeared in the 1950s. With space such a premium too, a beginner doesn’t need quite so much information on the Harrington family feud when other key areas are dealt with far more quickly. It could have been substituted for a section on the aftermath of Bosworth as exposed by the recent Leicester dig, as it is difficult to see how a guide to Richard adds to the debate if this evidence isn’t explored fully.

On the whole, this is a very successful “glimpse” of Richard that provides an excellent introduction to the subject. Lewis has taken on a difficult challenge in streamlining the material on Richard and has handled his subject matter admirably, making it informative and enjoyable. Writing a short book does necessitate reducing some of the more complex arguments into soundbites, so more experienced readers in the period should recognise this and appreciate this guide for standing at the gateway of Ricardian studies, to welcome more boars to the fold.

Annette Carson’s guide is more than a glimpse. With ambitious detail, she embeds a clear narrative of events amid five centuries of debate. The title is good; this really is a small guide to the great debate; the reader does get a sense that we are glimpsing into a wider world of scholarship. Really thorough for such a short book, it is informative and interesting, raising key questions of historical interpretation, such as the nature of medieval credulity, the need for the pious to draw moral lessons, the imperfect information network. There’s no doubt, though, that this is a Ricardian book. Like Lewis, Carson declares her own viewpoint from the start and, for the most part, allows for the possibility of other conclusions being drawn whilst maintaining a realistic tone about the facts. Primary sources are presented in a way that is not intimidating to those who may be meeting them for the first time.

Carson’s presentation of the debate surrounding the Princes in the Tower is particularly thorough. Initially, all the related theories and possibilities can seem confusing but this guide is very well organised and uses sub-headings and bullet points to help orientate the reader and anticipate their questions. Carson does present all sides, exploring the nature of the boys’ incarceration and the people who would have access to the vital knowledge. After this, she arrives at the optimistic, almost babes-in-the-wood theory that “they simply packed up and left as part of a pre-planned departure for some alternative location.” I personally disagree with this, as I don’t feel it could have been achieved without any record or witness to what Carson calls a “completely normal, unremarkable and unmemorable departure” and that those sworn to silence “kept their word ever after”. However, this did not detract from my appreciation of her attempts to explore the topic and rationalise the situation.

Carson did try to approach the uncomfortable topic of the Princes with imagination and empathy but the application of this was uneven, being far more liberal in the interpretation of Richard’s actions than those of his contemporaries. With Carson’s self-declared loyalties, it is to be expected that her depiction would cast Richard’s adversary, Henry Tudor as something of a foil to her subject. However, I did find it “uncomfortable reading,” as Carson herself suggested, that if the twelve-year-old Edward V considered himself old enough to be crowned king, he “was old enough to understand that intrinsic to this role was a king’s task to defend and fight for his crown, perhaps dying in the process.” Even given the brutal times, this was, I felt, an unnecessarily harsh sentiment to be applied to the young king, resonant with implications that the boy should somehow have fought back against his uncle, or anticipated and almost deserved his death for his passivity. I didn’t feel this was a necessary inclusion and could serve to alienate a number of readers.

Carson also lays blame for the failure to protect Edward V at the door of his parents- his dead father and mother in sanctuary- in her desire to exonerate Richard III. As Protector, she claims, he was responsible for the realm rather than the fate of its children. After finding the majority of the book an interesting and sincere read, the author lost my sympathy with these final comments. This had nothing to do with the difference in our beliefs, rather at the coldness of tone and lack of generosity applied to those who suddenly become pawns in her narrative, distorted in order to prop up a whiter-than-white Richard that owes little to the brutal realities of medieval kingship. Other historians do not believe that Richard killed the princes but have not sought to blame the boys themselves or their mother for their possible fates. It seems that Carson has gone too far the other way to redress the arguments of those “who see Richard only through the veil of his black legends.” Ricardian studies have moved well beyond such stereotypes but the princes have fallen victim here to an oversimplification.

Carson’s guide is definitely worth a read, as an introduction to the key issues of the debate and the problems of historical interpretation. By prefacing her section on the Princes, she does facilitate the reader to form their own conclusions, which is essential for her controversial final chapter. Her good overview won’t particularly extend the debate if you are already steeped in Ricardian literature but for those coming afresh to the period, perhaps inspired by the discovery of Richard’s bones or the recent White Queen TV series, these two books will give you much food for thought; read Lewis first to establish the narrative of events, then Carson for an overview of the controversy.

 

Both books can be found on Amazon.

Lewis: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Glimpse-King-Richard-III/dp/1490321578/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379606667&sr=1-2

Lewis also has a book on the Wars of the Roses in the "A Glimpse of..." series, which provides a good clear overview to the personalities and events of the period:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Glimpse-Wars-Roses-Matthew-Lewis/dp/1491059427/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379606978&sr=1-3

 

Carson: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Richard-III-Small-Debate-ebook/dp/B00EY9QSCW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1379606534&sr=8-2&keywords=annette+carson#_

Was the downfall of Richard III caused by a Strawberry?

Richard III's actions in the summer of 1483, when he unexpectedly put aside his twelve-year-old nephew and became King of England, are considered to be out of character. Could a food allergy have triggered the series of events that lead to the fall of the House of York?

Here's my piece in the New Statesman:

http://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2013/08/was-downfall-richard-iii-caused-strawberry

Educating Edward: What Sort of King Might Richard III's Son Have Made?

Edward of Middleham is most famous for having died young. Like his cousins, the Princes in the Tower, he was one of those many individuals who were briefly in line to the throne but never made it; one of history’s tantalising “what-ifs.” Another lost opportunity; the favourite food of historical fiction. Yet, certain clues suggest he might actually have made a good king.

                                                     Edward's parents, Richard and Anne

Edward was the only legitimate child of Richard and Anne, Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. His loss had significance far beyond the intense personal grief of his parents, who had by that time become king and queen. He appears to have often suffered from ill-health, forcing him to miss their coronation in 1483 and meaning he had to be carried on a litter to his investiture as Prince of Wales. Yet his father’s succession had come as a surprise to all. The boy’s namesake, the twelve-year-old Edward V, waiting in the Tower, had been anticipating his coronation that summer but had never made it into the Abbey. What a greater revelation was it then, to Richard’s son, who then learned he may one day become king ? Much of his life had been spent in his sick room: could he really rule England? It is impossible now to recapture anything about Edward’s character but one connection I explored whilst researching my biography of his mother, Anne Neville, shows us what would have been on the syllabus in the Middleham schoolroom.

Had young Edward lived to take the advice of his teachers, he could have proved a formidable opponent to Henry VII and a diplomatic ruler. Of course, the facts are the facts. After all, Richard was defeated on the battlefield at Bosworth and Edward of Middleham did die young. Hindsight tells us he would never sit on the throne of England. His suitability to rule is one of those “what-ifs” of historical speculation that allow us to glimpse tantalising alternatives. However, between June 1483 and April 1484, Edward’s future kingship was a very real possibility in which he and his parents could believe. The woman who presided over his nursery was well placed to prepare him for such a dazzling future.

           The cenotaph in Sheriff Hutton Church that is reputed to commemorate Edward

 

Edward died on April 9 1484, aged somewhere between seven and ten. Little is known about his short life; even his birthdate is disputed, occurring somewhere between his parents’ marriage in 1472 and his inclusion in prayers offered for Richard and Anne, Duke and Duchess of Gloucester in the spring of 1477. He was born at Middleham Castle, where local tradition names one of the towers after him. The court rolls list an Isabel Burgh as his wet-nurse and the “mistress of the nursery” was Anne Idley, née Creting, from Oxfordshire. Anne had been widowed around the time of Edward’s birth and left her home at Market Drayton, to enter the Middleham household. Her husband had been Peter Idley, author of a book of manners, or education, for the rearing of boys, called Instructions to his Son.

Idley was contributing to an established tradition. The late fifteenth century saw a glut of instruction books, aimed at improving the manners of the aspirational middle classes in every respect, from dining etiquette, to appearance and protocol. The “Boke of Nurture,” the “Babees Book,” the “Young Children’s Book” and the “Book of Courtesy” were among many advising medieval “wannabes” to wash their hands and face, tell the truth and “let no foul filth” appear on their clothing. Idley’s Instructions were composed in the late 1440s, following his first marriage and the birth of his son John. Three decades later his widow, Anne, was the guardian of his book and his legacy. After she arrived at Middleham, John refused to pay her the annuity they had agreed, leading Richard to intervene to ensure the debt was settled. His father’s advice apparently had little impact on John but the future King’s son would have benefited from it instead.

As “lady governess” of Edward’s nursery, Peter’s widow would have overseen the arrangements for his education. It is not impossible that she taught him directly from the book herself. When she was employed by the Gloucesters, Edward never expected to be anything other than the nephew of the King, although it was crucial that he received a suitable training for this prestigious role. Idley’s advice is in two volumes, the first dealing with the theme of “wise business” and fickleness of fortune, while the second includes religious teachings and the handling of sin. Family connections and loyalty were important. A young man should leave idleness until his old age and “set his mind” to business, for the advancement of his friends and relatives. He should also honour his parents and see their blessing as a reward. His father’s advancing age should serve as a reminder to a “negligent” child that “after warme youth coometh age coolde.” In all dealings, he should be lowly and honest to rich and poor, in both word and deed, and respectful of his masters and superiors. It is no coincidence that the maxim “manners maketh man” dates from this period.

Discretion was considered important too. Idley advised keeping “within thi breste that may be stille” and not letting the tongue “clakke as a mille.” The avoidance of unnecessary conflict and the giving of offence are considered essential to personal control, as the “tonge” could give “moche pain” and “a grete worde may cause affray.” In fact, caution was a constant theme in the book. A boy should keep his ideas close “as thombe in fiste” and not be too keen to express an opinion, as it may lose him friends. He should aim for “meekness” as many had been “cast adoun” for their “grete pride.” Loyalty should be tempered by wisdom when it came to personal feelings.

Even as a child, boys like Edward were advised to exercise self-control. Not for him were the games, japes and “evil company” that could lead him into mischief, even if he had had the opportunity or the good health to enjoy them. However, friendship was the greatest treasure the author could recommend, as being more precious than silver or gold. According to Idley, a man without friends was a man without a soul. Nor should a boy be too hasty in making promises to friends or foe, or too quick to take vengeance. Equally, he should not ask for advice when he was angry as “it is harde than the trouthe to feele” nor accept it from those who were “greene” or inexperienced. He should beware of greedy or “covetous” men who could show “two faces in one hood.” Interestingly, as Edward’s father would find, Idley warns “a man may somtyme wade so depe, it passeth his power to turn ageyn.”
 

                            Middleham Castle, Wensleydale, where Edward was born, lived and died

Although many similar manuals existed, Edward’s access to this text encourages speculation as to the lessons he was taught and, by projection, the man and King he might have become. Idley advocated loyalty, hard work, caution and discretion, characteristics that Richard himself had amply displayed as Duke of Gloucester. This raises the question of how Anne came to work at Middleham. Having spent her married life in Oxfordshire, there is little to otherwise connect her with the Yorkists. Peter acted as the Comptroller of the King’s household from 1456 to 1461, under the Lancastrian Henry VI, leaving the position on the succession of Richard’s brother Edward IV. He many also have been the Peter Idley who was listed in the court of common pleas as having been in debt to a London tailor in 1466. Did he fall on hard times after losing his job at court? Given how closely the advice in the Instructions tallies with Richard’s character, it is not implausible that Gloucester had read Idley’s work. Then, on hearing of Idley’s death, Anne was employed at his instigation.

Richard and Anne were heartbroken at the death of Edward. They received the terrible news whilst at Nottingham Castle and hurried home at once. The contemporary Croyland chronicle stated that many saw their loss as divine judgement for Richard’s supposed murder of his nephews, the Princes in the Tower. An alabaster tomb in the church at Sheriff Hutton is supposedly that of Edward but examinations have proved it to be empty and the whereabouts of his bones is currently unknown. Under the tutelage of Peter Idley’s widow, the young boy at Middleham may have made a wise and cautious monarch, had he only lived long enough to put his advice into practice. The following spring, his mother would die, amid rumours of divorce and poison and his father’s defeat at the battle of Bosworth would change the course of British History.

 

A Northern Lord in London: The City Richard III Knew.

                                     Panorama of C16th London from the south bank.

 

Richard III is well known for having been a northerner. The current debate raging over the reburial of his bones indicates the strength of feeling about him in his home county. Yet he was a man of two halves; one foot amid the rolling dales and another firmly rooted in the teeming lanes of the medieval capital. Pleasure may have drawn him to the north but business made him return to London throughout his life and reign.

Born at Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire, in 1452, Richard spent much of his adult life at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire, or the nearby Sheriff Hutton, home to his influential Council in the North. He was a son of York by name and inclination, choosing it as the location for the investiture of his young son as Prince of Wales.

Just weeks after his 1483 coronation, he left London behind and headed north on progress, taking his southern Lords along for the ride, in order to display to them the extent of his support in his homelands. After his death at Bosworth Field, it was the York city’s chronicler who lamented his demise, recording how the King was “piteously slain” through treason, to the “great loss” of his subjects.

Over the centuries, Richard has been accused of many things but being a Londoner is not one of them. Yet throughout his life, he was frequently in the capital, attending sessions of Parliament and ceremonial occasions at court. London was the heart of Government; his presence there was unavoidable. It was a city whose churches, streets and palaces would have been familiar to Richard as a boy and would have proved a cosmopolitan and exciting capital for its future King.

                             This Elizabeth map shows a city comparable in size to Richard's.

 

The London of the 1460s was much smaller than the present city. It was also greener, with a higher proportion of private gardens and open spaces. Early medieval maps show that most people lived between the Tower in the East and Fleet Street to the West. There was not much development to the north beyond Bishopsgate and Cripplegate, although several large monastic establishments, like St Bartholomew’s, St Mary Spital and St Catherine’s lay outside the walls. Richard would have found London dominated by the estates of the wealthy, whose grand stone townhouses were built around courtyards backing onto the river, with their own gardens and orchards. The high gates of their properties would have been locked and guarded at night by men in brightly coloured livery. Often there would be a swarm of poorer citizens waiting outside at nightfall, for the leftovers from that day’s meals to be distributed by the almoner.

Extremes of poverty and affluence sat side by side. Disease, illness and dirt were everywhere but the city did take steps to clean the streets, regulating the disposal of waste and the wild animals that had historically been a problem. One fourteenth century baby girl was killed in her cradle after being bitten by one of the pigs that roamed loose, scavenging for food. Inquest records also report a large number of drownings, particularly of women and children, who had travelled to one of the many ditches or tributaries of the Thames in order to gather water. There were accidents with runaway horses, heavy carts, collapsing walls, fires, fatal brawls between retainers, drunks and rioting apprentices. Death and violence must have never been very far away.

In contrast with the poverty and danger, the second half of the fifteenth century also saw a surge of upward social mobility. City merchants had got wealthy trading in wool and London was a major international port, with ships arriving from the continent and beyond, bringing and exporting luxury goods. This was one of the reasons they had largely remained loyal to Richard’s brother, Edward IV, whose pro-Burgundian policies had encouraged such trade and the glut of luxury items available. Roads were named after the goods they sold, with signs for the illiterate. Italian diplomat Mancini described three principal streets: Thames Street with cranes and warehouses for the loading and unloading of ships, Candlewick Street with its cloth merchants and Cheapside, where luxury goods such as tapestries, gold and silver, jewellery and silks were on sale.

The Scottish poet William Dunbar, who visited the “sovereign” city of London in 1501-2, compared it with the city of Troy. His pleasant beryl-coloured Thames throngs with swans and sailing barges, running under bridges with white pillars. In the streets, merchants and knights appear dressed in velvet gowns with chains of gold; it was a beautiful city full of wise, attractive inhabitants: the merchants’ wives were fair and “lovesom, white and small” while the girls were “clear” which suggests good health, “but lusty.” The merchants’ modern dwellings spread upwards rather than outwards, several storeys high, with their glazed windows, painted mortar and timber.

Shortly before he became King, Richard would acquire one of these houses himself; one of the grandest and newest of them all. Some time between 1475 and 1483, he rented Crosby Place in Bishopsgate, which was described by Elizabethan antiquarian, John Stow, as a “great house of stone and timber,” with rear gardens, courtyard, great chamber, chapel, solar, great hall with marble floors, carved ceiling, minstrels’ gallery and an oriel window. According to Thomas More, it was here that Richard would hold informal council meetings during the tempestuous summer of 1483 and where, with Buckingham, he would plan his coup. When Shakespeare included references to Richard’s ownership of Crosby Place during the funeral procession of Henry VI, he was out by at least five years!

                             Nineteenth Century Engraving of the Great Hall of Crosby Place

After Edward’s succession, the nine-year-old Richard lived for a while at the Palace of Placentia, at Greenwich. It was a luxurious residence which had previously been used by his family’s adversaries Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou. Greenwich itself was barely a village, surrounded by countryside. As late as 1554, Wyngaerde’s illustration shows a only scattering of small houses on either side of the waterfront Palace with its enclosed gardens. It had been built in the 1440s by Henry VI’s ill-fated uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, which was fitting as the same title had just been bestowed upon the young boy. Richard was provided for in the King’s household accounts of 1461, during his stay at the Palace and for the transportation of his goods between there and his childhood home of Fotheringhay. It was amid the tranquil green surrounding of Greenwich, that his other brother, George, Duke of Clarence, began his chivalric training as a “henxman,” although Richard would leave the city in order undergo his own military education under his future father-in-law, Warwick, at his northern home, Middleham Castle.

The young Richard also spent time in the London household of Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor. Bourchier was also related to the Yorks through marriage and was himself a grandson of Edward III. Having recently crowned Richard’s elder brother, he extended his hospitality to the boy, receiving compensation for supporting the King’s brothers “for a long time and at great charges” so Richard may well have been resident in his household for a period of time. His main residence was at Knole, in Kent, but during Richard’s youth, his title brought with it the use of Lambeth Palace, across the water from Westminster. The present red-brick gateway post-dates Richard, being built by Morton, Bourchier’s successor; the boy would have known a simpler gateway housing the Palace archives, where beggars would gather for alms or “Lambeth Dole.” Richard may even have watched from a window as they were issued with their weekly allowance of fifteen loaves and cuts of beef. Richard would have dined with Bourchier in the Great Hall, recently modernised by Archbishop Chichele, with kitchens to the north and pantry and buttery to the west. An impressive four thousand people could be fed there. Richard would also have known the cloister with its newly build galleries on the first floor and the thirteenth century presence chamber and chapel. By the time he was a guest there, the moated gardens and orchard were flanked by a river walk, allowing the boy to glimpse the comings and goings across the Thames.

Westminster was the heart of the court, set outside the central residential area of the city, connected to it by river and a single long road leading to Charing Cross. Charing was still recognisable as the hamlet it had once been, located on the bend of the Thames, where Edward I had erected a cross in tribute to his wife Eleanor. The Palace grounds were a self-contained little community catering for the court. Shops and workshops catered to the royal family’s physical needs, while the Abbey provided spiritual comforts and printer William Caxton set up his first English press there in 1476, under the patronage of Edward IV’s in-laws, the Wydevilles. The prosperity and bustle of Westminster is captured in London Lickpenny, a poem composed during the reign of Henry VI, once thought to be by John Lydgate. He describes tradesmen calling “Master, what will you copen or buy? Fine felt hats or spectacles to read?” and cooks offering “bread, with ale and wine, Ribs of beef, both fat and full fine; A faire cloth they gan forth to spread…”

                                    Engraving of Westminster Palace as it appeared in 1647

Beyond the confines of Westminster, the narrator is offered strawberries, cherries, pepper and spices, hot sheep’s feet, mackerel, rushes, pies and peasecods as well as fine velvet, silk, lawn and Paris thread. What could be seen of the Palace in the 1470s was mixture of medieval architectural styles, building on the foundations laid by Edward the Confessor. Closely connected with the Abbey, much of the ceremonial business took place in the Great Hall and painted chamber, while the royal apartments formed a right angle overlooking the river and gardens. It was a peaceful location, as the opposite bank was marshy and undeveloped, save for the view of Lambeth Palace. From the steps, Richard could take a barge downstream into the city itself, past the backs of aristocratic homes, along to the imposing white bastion of the Tower. 

The Thames was the city’s main thoroughfare, wider than it is today and bobbing with vessels of all types but there was only one way across on foot.  Already hundreds of years old, London Bridge had played witness to a series of important moments in the history of the city. When Margaret of Anjou had arrived in 1445, Humphrey, the previous Duke of Gloucester had met her on the bridge amid much civic pageantry with men dressed in gilt badges and the blue and scarlet gowns of office.  Only five years later it was the scene of rebellion as Jack Cade’s men advanced across the bridge, slashing its supporting ropes to prevent the royal troops from following. After Cade had been hunted down and killed, his head adorned the bridge as a deterrent to other would-be traitors. More recently, Edward IV had passed over it in triumph on his way to his coronation and a decade later, attacks on the capital designed to free the Lancastrian Henry VI saw the bridge engulfed in flames. Thirteen houses had burned before the citizens had seen the rebels off. By the time of Richard’s succession, the bridge was in poor repair, with houses regularly falling down and drowning the residents.

 

               London Bridge from an Elizabethan image, showing the impaled heads of traitors

Richard would have been familiar with much of the Tower of London as it stands today. It had long stood as an inviolable fortress, representing the power of the crown, as opposed to the sinister reputation it would later attract. In the 1470 though, while Richard was in exile, it had been attacked by rebels and witnessed the readeption of the unstable Henry VI. Rumours of Richard’s involvement in Henry’s murder the following year are unsubstantiated but persist through popular literature. It was also the site where the volatile Clarence finally met his end, in the legendary butt of Malmsey, in 1478.

Such portrayals are responsible for many of the overriding negative associations between Richard and the Tower, also attributing to him the deaths of his nephews incarcerated there. Yet it was within those thick walls that he passed the day before his coronation, as tradition dictated. It was a multi-functional complex, containing the royal apartments where Elizabeth Wydeville had planned to give birth to Edward V before being evicted by the rebels, chapels, spaces for recreation, offices where coins were minted, the Great Wardrobe, the Crown Jewels and a menagerie, as well as being a prison. He also made some improvements to one of the towers during his reign.

                                                The Tower of London, from a C15th MS

Several great houses of London were also known to Richard through his family connections. His brother George, Duke of Clarence lived at Coldharbour House in Thames Street, in the parish of All-Hallows-the-Less, or perhaps All-Hallows-in-the-Hay, named after an adjoining hay wharf, near where the London Brewery now stands. It was an ancient and important “right fair and stately” house, according to John Stowe, originally two fortified buildings on the river front, which had been home to Henry IV in 1400 and to Henry V during his tenure as Prince of Wales. Following the attainder of Anne of York’s husband, Henry Holland, the property came into the possession of the crown and was used by various members of the York family. It is mentioned in a mid-seventeeth century play, by Heywood and Rowley, as having twenty chimneys, and was reputed to have a number of turrets built around a courtyard and believed to be impregnable. In the 1460s it had been owned by the Lancastrian Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, but was confiscated after his involvement in the Battle of Barnet.

On a more personal note, Richard’s future wife, Anne Neville, was sent to Coldharbour House after being widowed at the battle of Tewkesbury. Aged only fifteen, she was under her married sister’s guardianship. Richard visited them there at Christmas 1471, which was when he may have wooed her and planned their elopement the following spring. The rumours that Clarence concealed her in his kitchens, disguised as a kitchen maid stem from this period. Richard’s sister Margaret of York, wife of Charles the Bold, stayed at the house when visiting the city in 1480, where new beds with red and green hangings were prepared for her comfort, along with fine bed linens, curtains, screens and tapestries, one depicting Paris and Helen of Troy. Richard would give the house to the city Heralds for their support of his succession but after the battle of Bosworth, it passed into the hands of Margaret Beaufort.

                                      Nineteenth century illustration of Coldharbour House

After the death of his brother Clarence, the house named the Erber came into Richard’s possession. It had been owned by his mentor the Earl of Warwick, Anne’s father, but had originally been passed on to Anne’s elder sister, Clarence’s wife Isabel. After 1478, the Gloucesters again had the use of it. It had been used to lodge Yorkist troops during the late 1450s and the kitchens were reputed to be able to feed 2,000 a day, with six oxen needed for breakfast alone. Richard carried out some repairs to it and renamed it, briefly, the “King’s Palace.” In his absences, the property was looked after by a Ralph Darnel, a yeoman of the crown and it reverted to Clarence’s son, Edward, after Bosworth. Anne may well have stayed here in 1475, while she waited for Richard to return from accompanying the King on his campaign to France; they were reunited in London that December, making payments to city merchants on the third and sixth of the month.

Then there was Baynard’s Castle at Blackfriars, residence of the Duke of York, Richard’s father since 1457. It was an impressive waterfront mansion, fortified with turrets and thick walls enclosing a courtyard, originally built in Norman times for a supporter of William the Conqueror. Rebuilt on the water’s edge following a fire in 1428, its huge river frontage was set with narrow turrets flanked by hexagonal towers at each end, enclosing a private courtyard; improvements in the 1440s had created four wings in a trapezoid shape and by the early 1500s it was considered “beautiful and commodious” as well as strong. Supposedly inviolable, the family had recourse to it on many occasions when they, or the city, were under attack. Edward and his Queen, Elizabeth Wydeville stayed there between his return from exile and the Battle of Barnet. Richard would have spent time here during his childhood and after his father’s death, his mother continued to use the property. It was in the hall there, in 1461, that Edward IV summoned a council and declared himself King.

Riding out of the city and heading north, Richard would have passed through the green fields that lay beyond the walls. Much of this land was undeveloped, dotted with hamlets. The sixteenth century historian Stow described the area known as Moorfields as a “waste and unprofitable ground.” It was often marshy and when it froze over in winter, was used for sliding on; the monk Fitzstephen, writing in the twelfth century described the “London youth” tying the leg bones of animals to their shoes to make primate skates. In the early fifteenth century, a new gate had been built allowing access out onto the fields. Another open space was Spitalfields, or the Hospital Fields of St Mary; Richard may have known it as Spittellond, as it appeared in records of 1399. In the shadow of the Tower, it is depicted on maps, with women laying out their washing flat on the ground to dry. There was also Smithfield, a large grassy space or “smoothfield,” long used for livestock markets, public gatherings, executions and drying laundry. It was situated on the Eastern side of the Tower, accessible by the Postern Gate and used for tournaments. In 1467, the teenaged Richard may have witnessed the jousting there between Anthony Wydeville and Anthony, Comte de la Roche, the “Grand Bastard of Burgundy, who was heading a party of Burgundians negotiating Margaret’s marriage. Ten years later, he returned to attend another significant occasion, a feast hosted by his seven-year old nephew, Edward V, with whose fate he would become irrevocably linked. On that occasion, Richard was the first to kiss his hand and swear loyalty.

Old St Paul's, before the fire of London.

Richard was a northerner by birth and by choice. There is no doubt though, that the capital city was of great importance to him. It was where many of the significant events of his life took place: his wooing of Anne, their marriage, the events that led to his succession in 1483, his wife’s death and the important political decisions of his reign. However, Yorkshire was his home; it was here that he established his marital home and where his son was born and died. Perhaps the two locations may suggest the dichotomic struggle between the personal and political which underpinned his downfall.