Archive for the tag "Henry IV"
It's history, Jim, but not as we know it….
"Mad" King Richard II
OK, folks, bearing in mind that it's from an article about Game of Thrones, here's a portion of England's history, both potted and potty:-
"To begin with, the House of Lannister seems to be pretty closely based on the real life House of Lancaster. To vastly simplify actual history, the War of the Roses was a struggle between the Yorks and the Lancasters over England's throne. The Yorks/Starks were repped by white roses, while the Lancasters/Lannisters wore red roses (and yes, GRRM kept the color scheme). The whole trouble began when Henry IV, a Lancaster, led a rebellion against the "mad" king Richard II, because he'd inherited the throne ahead of his deceased older brother's sons (and also he was boring and nobody liked him)."
"Henry IV won the crown, much to the annoyance of the Yorks, who felt that they were legally next in line to rule England. Fast forward a couple of Henrys, and the timid King Henry VI married a hot, wily French woman called Margaret of Anjou…"
Are you still with this load of codswallop? Game of Thrones is fiction, loosely based on some historic events in England, and the series is very, very successful, but if people are going to point out the "real" facts, at least get them right, for Heaven's sake!
And for the record, the last thing either Richard II or Richard III could be charged with is being boring!
Posted by viscountessw in Alternative History, battles, humour and tagged Game of Thrones, Henry IV, Henry VI, John of Gaunt, Margaret d'Anjou, Richard II, usurpation, Wars of the Roses
The Castle of Leicester and St Mary De Castro
Leicester Castle
Leicester Castle as it appeared in 1483
The Castle gardens
Since 2015 going to Leicester is the equivalent of going to visit the tomb of the last Plantagenet King who died in battle: Richard III. Everything there speaks of him from the Visitor Centre named after him, to The Last Plantagenet Pub not to mention attractions and shops that display his portrait or sell items with the name of the king. Of course, the Medieval Cathedral where the warrior king was buried in 2015 is the most visited place in Leicester but if you go there, don't forget to pay a visit to the remains of Leicester's Castle and its church St Mary De Castro. It is difficult today to imagine how the Castle could be at the time of Richard III but it is still there indeed even in a different shape.
The Castle was probably built immediately after the Norman Conquest so around 1070. The Governor at that time was Hugh de Grantmensil one of the companions of William the Conqueror. The Castle was the favourite residence of John of Gaunt, first Duke of Lancaster and the fourth son of Edward III. From the north end of the hall, it was possible to access the lord's private apartments whilst from the south end there was access to a kitchen above an undercoft called John of Gaunt's cellar where beverage and food were stored. Some people erroneously think it was a dungeon.
The castle today looks totally different. What remains are the Castle's Mound (Motte) located between Castle View and Castle Gardens. The Motte was originally 30-40 feet Prince Rupehigh topped with a timber tower. Unfortunately no buildings survived and the motte was lowered in Victorian times to form a bowling green.
The Castle House
The Great Hall is the oldest surviving aisled and bay divided timber hall in Britain. Even though the exterior is Victorian, the building still retains some of its original 12th century timber posts. The criminal court in the castle's Great Hall was the scene of Leicester's "Green Bicycle Murder" trial 1919 so exactly 100 years ago.
Other things are still visible of the ancient castle. The wall, the remains of the castle especially the Turret Gateway also known as Prince Rupert's Gateway, the Castle Gardens (once used for public executions) the Castle House and the stunning church of St Mary De Castro.
St Mary De Castro
Close where the Castle stood, there is an ancient church called St Mary De Castro. It is a very special place especially for Ricardians. In this church Geoffrey Chaucer married her second wife, Philippa de Roet and 44 people were knighted in just one day among them Henry VI and Richard Plantagenet Duke of York, Richard III's father. He was just 15 years old. However, the most famous event to be remembered today is that it is said that Richard III worshipped there before leaving for Bosworth and prepared himself for his last battle.
St Mary De Castro means St Mary of the Castle. It was built in 1107 after Henry I gave the
The Chapel in St Mary De Castro ground to Robert de Beaumont 1st Earl of Leicester. It was the chapel of the castle and a place of worship within the bailey of the castle. It is assumed but there is no proof of evidence, that Ethelfleda, daughter of King Alfred the Great, had founded a church on the very spot where today is St Mary. It also seems that there was a college of priests called the College of St Mary De Castro founded before the Norman Conquest.
The tower of St Mary was built not beside the church but inside of it so visitors can see 3 sides of it while still in church. The medieval spire, rebuilt in 1783 was declared dangerous in 2013. Following the unsuccessful attempt to raise money to save it, it was demolished in 2014. The church's structure is quite odd because in ancient times there were two churches. One was the mentioned chapel of the castle, the other a church for common people. This explains why there are two sedilias and two piscinas both from medieval times.
Henry VI and Richard III
It is said that King Richard III's mistreated body was brought to this church to be washed before being displayed for the world to see he was actually dead. Considering the evident haste he was buried in and the lack of respect showed by the Tudors, it is unlikely this ever happened.
The Nave of the Church
Philippa de Roet, Chaucer's wife, was the lady-in-waiting of Philippa of Hainault one of Richard III's ancestors.
In this church Edward of Lancaster and John of Lancaster are buried. Both died in infancy.
Posted by ladychaol in anniversaries, battles, buildings, genealogy, religion and tagged Alfred the Great, Battle of Bosworth, Blanche of Lancaster, Castle Gardens, Civil War, crime, Geoffrey Chaucer, Great Hall, Green Bicycle Murder, Henry I, Henry IV, Henry VI, Hugh de Grantmesil, John of Gaunt, Leicester, Leicester Castle, Norman conquest, Philippa de Roet, Phillippa of Hainault, Prince Rupert's Gateway, Richard Duke of York, Richard III, Robert de Beaumont, St. Aethelflaeda, St. Mary De Castro
SHAKESPEARE'S RICHARD III: HERO OR VILLAIN?
" Never let it be said that fate itself could awe the soul of Richard.
Hence babbling dreams, you threaten here in vain;
Conscience avaunt, Richard's himself again"
(The tragical history of King Richard the Third)[1]
Richard's himself again: or is he?
There is a moment in Olivier's film of Shakespeare's play 'The Tragedy of King Richard the Third' that is not Shakespearean. It occurs during the Bosworth scene just as the king is about to ride into battle. Unnerved by the ghostly apparitions in the night of his vengeful victims, Richard's courage seems to desert him ('O Ratcliffe, I fear, I fear '). However, the sight and sound of Richmond's army approaching rouses his natural 'heroical temperament' and as he rides away he whispers in White Surrey's ear 'Richard's himself again', which is not a phrase you will find in any extant Quarto or Folio edition of the play. It is, in fact, an interpolation from Coley Cibber's seventeenth century adaptation and a small but significant example of Olivier's editing. Its purpose is to reinforce the notion that Richard's courage and resolution are unimpaired on the morning of battle. Its importance to Cibber (and presumably to Olivier also) is that it counters the insinuation in some interpretations of the play that King Richard was demoralized by guilt, fear and desperation at Bosworth.
Even though Olivier's film is so heavily modified that much the subtlety of Shakespeare's original play is lost, it should not be thought that his adaptation is inartistic. He is simply one of a number of distinguished actors and directors who between the reigns of the first and second Elizabeth have imposed their artistic ambition on the play. The point is that Shakespeare's plays are not fossils set in stone. They are each subject to historical relativity and usage. Succeeding generations of actors, directors and producers have adapted them according to their artistic taste or the cultural, social and political ethos of their society. Indeed, it is possible that this play was used as a metaphor for exploring the concerns of contemporary first Elizabethans as well as those of later cultures. Modern performances of the play have portrayed Richard as a proxy for Hitler, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and 'Rikki Ortega' (a fictitious Californian gangster) among others.[2] Henry Goodman in the RSC's 2003 production found 'parallels for Richard's deranged mind' in the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter.[3] Anthony Sher (1984), looking for clues of Richard's stage personality studied the psychology of the real serial killer and necrophile Dennis Nilsen who murdered at least twelve men between 1978 and 1983. Contemporary socio-cultural themes such as physical and mental disability, gender, racial and class discrimination, and the importance of Richard III as a 'case study' of tyranny, are all now aspects of modern performances. [4] In fact, so different is the public taste for this play today that I wonder whether Shakespeare would recognize it as the one he wrote for Richard Burbage in the last decade of the sixteenth century.
The play that Shakespeare actually wrote was an immediate smash-hit financially and critically. Moreover, Burbage's portrayal of Richard was so powerful that it defined performances of the play for generations afterwards and contributed an epic snippet of Shakespearean erotic mythology, which we learn from John Manningham, a student at the Inner Temple, who wrote in his diary in 1602: 'Upon a time when Burbage played Richard III there was a citizen grew so far in liking with him, that before she went from the play she appointed him to come that night unto her by the name of Richard III. Shakespeare, overhearing their conclusion, went before, was entertained and at his game ere Burbage came. The message being brought that Richard III was at the door, Shakespeare caused return to be made that William the Conqueror was before Richard III.' I don't know whether this anecdote is true or not, but it is at the very least an indication of the sensuousness of Shakespeare's characterization of Richard and the popularity of his play.
The old adage that 'plays are meant to be performed not read' may be corny but it's true nonetheless. The importance of actors and directors in shaping our opinion of this play cannot be overstated. In my copy of the RSC's text, it states quite clearly that the best way to understand this play is to see or ideally to participate in it. It is my aim in this article to explore the theme of change in the production, presentation and performance of Richard III. Naturally, I am aware that it is this play that is in no small part responsible for the historical Richard's bad reputation. Nevertheless, having written some articles in favour of the factual Richard III, I feel compelled to write a few lines in defence of the fictional one and the man who created him.
The distinction I make between the fictional and the factual Richard is not artificial and it is important. It is ignored or blurred too often and for too long in discussions and analysis of the play or the man. [5] There are almost as many myths about the play as there are about Richard. Chief among these is the notion that Shakespeare is personally to blame for the misjudgement of history. I hope to show that is not true and that Shakespeare was far from being a Tudor stooge. While there is no doubt that he embraced the Tudor narrative of Richard as a villain or that he structured his play around the Tudor histories of Thomas More and Edward Hall, Shakespeare doesn't make Richard out to be as bad as he might have done.
'Matters of state, not fit to be suffered'
We now have a better appreciation of Tudor bias. The depiction of Richard as a monstrous villain without any redeeming characteristics was necessary to bolster Henry VII's weak royal title. The fact is that in Tudor England and particularly during the Elizabethan period the condemnation of Richard in literature was practically unanimous. Regardless of his personal opinion, therefore, Shakespeare had little choice other than to conform to the 'tenets of Tudor orthodoxy'. The Privy Council enforced strict censorship of 'certain matters of state not fit to be suffered'. Shakespeare would have been extremely foolish to depart from the prescribed doctrine on touchy issues such as the legitimacy of the Tudor dynasty.[6] The contemporary notion of kingship held that it was contrary to God's law to depose a crowned and anointed king. Even a tyrant enjoyed God's protection; however, whereas a tyrant must be endured a usurper was outside God's law and could be overthrown with impunity. It was, therefore, necessary to depict Richard III as a usurper and a tyrant. Otherwise, it would call into question Tudor legitimacy and, more importantly, the validity of Elizabeth's succession.[7]
In that context, it is all the more remarkable that Shakespeare does not depict Richard as the unrelieved monster of Tudor dogma. He is charismatic and his sardonic humour soon has the audience laughing with him; indeed, they are, in a sense, his co-conspirators. From the moment he enters the stage, Richard takes control of the play and the audience. Conversely, Shakespeare does all he can to downplay Richmond's role. He writes nothing to make him personally attractive to the audience. He is not even mentioned until the fourth act and doesn't appear on stage until the last. There is no scope for the audience to form any sort of relationship with such a boring, distant and obscure antagonist. Neither does Shakespeare write anything to counter suggestions that Richmond's claim to the throne is questionable. In fact, it is soon clear that Richard cannot be defeated by any human adversary, least of all Richmond whose sole purpose is to be the clunky deus ex machina figure who is still alive at the end;[8] it is an indication of his dramatic irrelevance. I will return to these points later but for now I want to mention the play's textual history.
Textual problems
Shakespeare wrote this play either in 1692 or 1694. The case for 1692 is based entirely on speculation about Shakespeare's professional relationship with Ferdinando Lord Strange, a descendant of William Stanley the earl of Derby.[9] Although that date cannot be dismissed out of hand, it seems more likely that the play was written in 1594 for the Lord Chamberlain's Men. They were by far the most important and influential company of actors and in Richard Burbage they had the greatest actor of his generation. Writing for them was a good career move for Shakespeare who needed a star actor to play Richard. The Tragedy of Richard III together with the three parts of Henry VI comprised Shakespeare's first tetralogy of history plays.[10] He wrote the second tetralogy about a few years later. Confusingly, these plays are about earlier kings: Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and Henry V. The two tetralogies together chart the course of English history from the reign Richard II to the death of Richard III.
It is disappointing — to say the least — that none of the surviving Quarto and Folio texts of this play were authorised by Shakespeare. Experts cannot even be sure whether the synthetic text currently used in performance is an accurate representation of the version first performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men. The Quarto text of the play (a small booklet) was printed in 1597 (Q1) and thereafter re-printed five times (in 1598,1602,1605,1612 and 1622). Unfortunately, each re-print was copied from the previous one, thus perpetuating existing errors and adding new ones. Consequently, every print after Q1 is different from every other print, which makes the Quarto version useless as a performance text. It is possible (I put it no higher) that Q1 is a 'memorial' version of the play assembled from memory by actors who had lost or forgotten their prompt sheets, or who wished to streamline the play for a provincial performance.[11] The First Folio (F1) version of the play was published in 1623 as part of a compendium of Shakespeare's plays. It might have been copied from an independent manuscript that pre-dates Q1 (Is it Shakespeare's original version? Who knows?) Understanding the relationship between these versions of the play is the most difficult textual problem of all Shakespeare's plays; it has troubled scholars for years. F1 is longer than Q1. Whether, this us due to a reduction in Q1 or an enlargement of F1 is anyone's guess. All we can truthfully say about these texts is that they differ from each other and are error-full.[12]
Coley Cibber (1671-1757) was an actor-manager, who at the turn of the eighteenth century wrote and printed a vigorous and populist adaption of Shakespeare's play. He reduced its length by cutting all but eight hundred lines from Shakespeare and adding two thousand of his own, together with lines from Henry V and Henry VI part 3. The characters of Clarence, Edward IV, Rivers and Queen Margaret are omitted altogether. Despite being mocked at the time for its crudity, Cibber version became the standard performance text from 1700 until 1821. It was not until the last quarter of the nineteenth century that the F1 became the preferred stage text play. Cibber understood his audience. Shakespeare's play was too long for eighteenth century playgoers who had no connection with, or understanding of fifteenth century politics. The real problem for purists is that Cibber's adaptation concentrates attention even more on Richard at the expense of his lively interactions with Edward, Clarence, Margaret and Buckingham, which make Shakespeare's play so compelling.[13] In that sense, Cibber's alterations are crude.
'The Play's the thing…'
'The tragedy of King Richard the Third' is indubitably a psychological profile of a dramatic villain. Richard's solo entrance and memorable opening soliloquy are indicative of his dramatic dominance and also of Shakespeare's artistic intention to create a star theatrical villain rather than continue the cyclic theme of atrocity and revenge, as seen in the Henrician plays.[14] It is a change, which whether intended or not, challenges the idea that the first tetralogy represent a serial epic that is intended to be seen as a set and in sequence after the second tetralogy. It is a conundrum that has produced two distinctly different schools of thought. One is teleological in nature; the other is analogical.
The teleological theory interprets the cycle of history plays from Richard II to Richard III within the context of Tudor historiology and literature. The death of Richard III is seen as the preordained end of a curse that had afflicted England since the murder of Richard II. In the three parts of Henry VI, Shakespeare constantly links the present with the past. He never lets us forget that the usurpation of Henry Bolingbroke and the murder of Richard of Bordeaux were the root causes of division and tumult. Professor EMW Tillyard writing in the mid twentieth century argues that all four plays are united in political themes of order and chaos, and unity and civil war. : "The main business of the play [Richard III] is to complete [the] national tetralogy and to display the working out of God's plan to restore England to prosperity…in its function of summing-up and completing what has gone before, Richard III inevitable suffers as a detached unit." [15] He asserts that such a conclusion is inescapable in view of the 'plays failure to remember' Clarence's perjury to Warwick, Queen Margaret's mock crowning of York, the murder of Rutland and the murder of Prince Edward by York's sons; If it were not so, implies Tillyard, the play would not make sense to audiences. " For the purposes of the tetralogy and most obviously for this play, Shakespeare accepted the prevalent belief that God had guided England into the haven of Tudor prosperity" [16] Tillyard's suggestion that Richard III is a religious play can only be substantiated if it is judged according to the traditional Tudor narrative, wherein both Richard and Richmond are God's instruments. Richard is God's scourge; Richmond, his emissary.
Tillyard's only concession to Richard's dramatic importance is that he is so evil and depraved, and his sins are so vast that his evil is absorptive and not contagious "He is the great ulcer of the body politic into which all impurity is drained and against which all the body politic are united."[17] Nowadays, Tillyard's ideas are regarded as sentimental "The view from a Cambridge college window looking out at a world at war [the Second World War] and nostalgic for a more stable and comprehensible historical process"[18] Whilst there are some obvious flaws in professor Tillyard's logic, it is ridiculous to suggest that his ideas are based on nothing more than wishful thinking. However, his assumption that all Elizabethan's shared the Tudor view of harmony is patently untrue. There was extreme political and religious division among the population.
The play's theatrical history shows that from the sixteenth century until the twenty first century, political thinkers have used it as a medium for expressing their concerns in times of oppression and/or suppression. These performances use Richard's rise to power, his elimination of opponents, his dissembling and his amorality as an oblique warning against the onset of tyranny in their own times. The fact that the play lends itself to this approach indicates that it is far more complicated than professor Tillyard suggests. It's a point picked up by Sir Richard Eyre, former Artistic Director of The National Theatre. His production of Richard III starring Ian Mckellen toured the world in 1990 and inspired the subsequent film. Eyre's decision to set the play in the 1930's during the rise of Fascism was an artistic one based on his opinion that " We have to keep thinking of ways of doing Shakespeare's plays. They don't have absolute meanings. There is no fixed, frozen way of doing them. Nobody can mine a Shakespeare play and discover a 'solution' [sic]." [19] However, in 1991 he took the play to Rumania, which he regarded as its spiritual home and used its enduring political power as a warning against tyrants such as the Romanian despot Ceausescu, and others such as Stalin and Mao Tse Tung. Eyre even suggests that Richard III could be seen as a handbook for Tyrants.
I must admit that the most memorable performances that I have seen (Olivier, Mckellen, Sher and Rylance) have been when the play was performed alone rather than as one of a sequence of plays. As a schoolboy, I watched the BBC's 1960 production 'Age of Kings' in which the first and second tetralogies were broadcast over many weeks. As I recall, Paul Daneman was a drab and unconvincing Richard and Sean Connery was a surreal Hotspur. I found Peter Hall's 1963 RSC production of the Wars of the Roses, which was based on the first tetralogy, equally uninspiring. Ian Holm's Richard being small of stature was incapable of dominating the play physically or dramatically. I was not impressed. I learned later that this casting was deliberate. The aim was to portray Richard as just another royal pretender.
My difficulty with the teleological and analogical concepts is that they are prescriptive. Tillyard's Richard is God's instrument and therefore not responsible for his actions as the end is pre-ordained. The notion that the play is actually a metaphor for tyranny is equally limiting since it dismisses Richard as nothing more than a cruel brute of a type that historically were responsible for countless innocent deaths. In my personal opinion, neither approach does justice to Shakespeare's artistry and this play's complexity. The reality is that Richard displays aspects of both theories and more. We cannot even be sure of the play's genre. Shakespeare called it a 'tragedy'; the compilers of the First Folio, classified it as a 'history'. In the last century, professor AP Rossiter identified elements of comedy in the play. What are we supposed to think? I don't believe that Shakespeare's creativity was limited by anything so rigid as genre. Polonius' suggests as much in this little speech to Hamlet wherein he introduces 'the actors' to the prince. "The best actors in the world either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, not Plautus too light for the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men." [20] I like to think that Shakespeare was writing from his experience with the Lord Chamberlain's Men.
Shakespeare's description of the play as a tragedy does not imply an ethical or emotional judgement. It is a definition of the plays structure, which is based on the classical Senecan tragedies that depict the rise of great men and their downfall at fortune's wheel.[21] It is Shakespeare's way of heralding his artistic transition from the dramatization of chronicle histories to the creation of a histrionic and complex theatrical protagonist as the centrepiece of his drama. It was professor A P Rossiter in a lecture given ten years after Tillyard's book who drew attention to the paradoxicality of Richard's character, which he suggests "…decisively complicates the plays moral and political significance."[22] The problem as Rossiter sees it, is the illogicality between the concept of Richard as 'a huge triumphant stage figure' and his depiction by Tillyard within a rigid Tudor concept of retributive justice. Richard contradicts the expressly Christian notion of the Vice character in medieval morality plays; he is "…a heroic exemplar of humankind as being able to exert will; the world is poorer for his loss."[23] This characterization also undermines the simplistic analogical idea that Richard is simply an evil man in a long line of evil men.
Shakespeare's apparent conformity with conventional Tudor historiography is therefore complicated by his depiction of Richard as a caricature combining features from three theatrical characters familiar to Elizabethan audiences: the 'de Casibus tragedian'[24], the demonic-comedian Vice character of the morality plays and the Marlovian Machiavellian of the Elizabethan stage. Above all, Shakespeare's Richard is an actor. He is charming, witty, intelligent and eloquent, and dissembles his many parts so brilliantly that those whom he intends to kill do not realise until the very last moment that he is not their friend. He is Shakespeare's version of a 'thoroughly bad man in the role of a monarch and hero' Rossiter describes him thus: " He [is] a mocking comedian, a 'Vice' king but with a clear inheritance from the old Vice moralities: part symbol of evil, part comic devil and chiefly — on stage — the generator of roars of laughter at wickedness the audience would …condemn in reality."[25]
His sardonic sense of humour is not a conventional rendering of Tudor doctrine. He makes us laugh. We are on his side. We enjoy this gritty comedy because we are Richard's confidantes. We see the fools he dupes through his eyes and with his mind. We rejoice in their downfall. Richard is not just a consummate actor; he is also a consummate villain. He knows what he wants. He delights in telling us what he is going to do, and he does it. He can assume any mood or passion at will. He is believed without question. He has perfected simulation of every feeling and phrase to serve his purpose. And he has eliminated any weakness that might betray him, such as feelings of compunction, pity and uncertainty of mind.[26] Richard has all the qualities of the complete Machiavellian: " …lifelong and unremitting vigilance in relentless simulation and indomitable deception." [27] By presenting Richard in this form, Shakespeare is neither proving nor de-bunking the Tudor myth. Instead of certainty we have only ambiguity.
[1] Coley Cibber – The tragical history of King Richard the Third. Altered from Shakespeare by Coley Cibber, Esq. (London 1769 print) p.66
[2] John Jowett (ed) – Richard III by William Shakespeare (Oxford 2000) p.17; Annalieze Connelly (ed) – Richard III: a critical reader (Bloomsbury/Arden 2013) pp.111-150 passim.
[3] Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (eds) – Richard III by William Shakespeare (Macmillan/RSC Shakespeare 2008) p.167.
[4] Bate ibid; Connolly pp.33-45 passim; the rise of Material Culturism has politicized the play. Material Culturists use a close examination of the play's text to identify the 'dominant hegemonic force in society' (e.g. Crown, Church, Family and so forth) and the methods for disseminating their doctrine/ideology. By analyzing the text Material Culturists hope to spot examples of dissent and complicity with the dominant force's doctrine/ideology. It is a methodology that tends to spotlight those people who are disadvantaged and/or marginalized by society, by virtue of their race, religion, gender, class or disability.
[5] Stephen Greenblatt – Tyrant: Shakespeare on power (The Bodley Head 2018) pp.53-95; professor Greenblatt has an interesting theory on tyrants and especially how they come to power. His view of Richard is wholly negative. He is a 'worthless piece of work. There is no secret about his cynicism, cruelty and [treachery], no glimpse of anything redeemable in him and no reason to believe he could ever rule the country effectively… he leaves nothing behind except wreckage. It would have been better had he never been born'. Greenblatt is a professor of the Humanities and an expert on the works of Shakespeare: I am not. Nevertheless, there is much about his book with which I disagree. It is, I believe a good example of the simplistic thinking that comes from basing an opinion of the play on a study of the text conducted in an academic vacuum without the context of performance. But most of all I cannot accept his premise that Shakespeare's characterization of Richard is an accurate representation of the real man, or that it was ever intended to be
[6] Greenblatt pp.1-23; contains a discussion on Shakespeare's freedom of speech in the context of late Elizabethan religious fanaticism, domestic political intrigue and the threat to the English succession from a foreign power.
[7] Jowett pp.11-16
[8] Shorter Oxford English Dictionary – "dues ex machina (literally: 'God from the machine'): a divine power, event, or person arriving in time to solve a difficulty (often rather contrived) interposition, esp. in a novel or play". For example, 'and then I woke up'.
[9] Jowett PP. 4-6; Shakespeare's manipulation of history to put a positive spin on William Stanley's part in Richard III's downfall has tempted some scholars to speculate that the play was written in 1692 for Lord Strange's Men. Ferdinando Lord Strange was a descendant of the said Thomas Stanley Earl of Derby and also of Henry VII (by Henry's granddaughter Margaret Clifford). This may explain why Shakespeare has tactfully ignored Stanley's acquiescence in Hastings' execution, his part in crushing Buckingham's rebellion, the rewards he received from King Richard and his 'wait and see' policy in 1485. Thomas Stanley is also portrayed as leading the Stanley contingent that surrounded and killed the King, whereas it was actually his brother William. It might also explain why Thomas Stanley has such a prominent role in the final scenes: presenting Henry with his crown and predicting the joyous union of York and Lancaster. Lord Strange and his family were noted for their Roman Catholic sympathies; however, in true Stanley fashion they managed to keep on the right side of the Reformation by hunting down Jesuits. From both the protestant and the catholic perspectives, Strange's loyalty was suspect.
[10] Jowett pp. 73-74; the three Henrician plays were first published under the following titles: The First part of Henry VI (taken from the First Folio, there being no earlier text); The Contention of the Houses of York and Lancaster (now Henry VI part 2) and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York and the Good King Henry the Sixth (now Henry VI part 3).
[11] Bate p.18; the title of the 1597 print makes interesting reading: "The Tragedy of King Richard the Third, containing the treacherous plots against his brother Clarence; the pitiful murder of his innocent nephews; his tyrannical usurpation; with the whole course of his detested life and deserved death. As has been lately performed by the Lord Chamberlain's men, his servants"
[12] Jowett pp.110-120; Bate pp.9-15; both these editors provides extensive discussion on the textual chronology and problems arising from Quarto and Folio editions. See also Julie Hankey (ed) – Shakespeare's Richard III in Performance (Junction Books 1981) pp. 27-32. It is also worth considering EAJ Honigmann (ed) – Richard III by William Shakespeare (Penguin 1968) pp. 242-244. His textual notes were still helpful to me fifty years after they were written.
[13] Bate p.16; Richard had 32% of the lines in F1; more than any other Shakespearean protagonist except Hamlet (37%). Richmond by comparison has 4% of the lines, which is an index of his artistic importance. In Cibber's adaptation, Richard's share rises to 40%.
[14] Richards solo appearance and his opening soliloquy are unique in the Shakespearean canon. He is the only protagonist to open and speak first in his own play.
[15] EMW Tillyard – Shakespeare's History Plays (Penguin 1962) pp.200-04
[16] Tillyard ibid
[17] Tillyard p.208
[18] Connelly pp. 33-45;
[19] Bate and Rasmussen p.200
[20] TJB Spencer (ed) – Hamlet by William Shakespeare (Penguin 1996) p.115 Act 2, Scene 2; 'the law of writ and the liberty plays': Polonius is distinguishing between plays that follow classical principles, like Ben Johnson's and plays like Shakespeare's with greater freedom of structure. The mixture of tragical-comical-historical-pastoral seems absurd until we recall that Shakespeare wrote Cymbeline.
[21] Jowett pp. 23-24; Seneca (BC 4-AD 65) was a Roman stoic philosopher and dramatist. He is famous for ten tragical plays that depict the rise of great men and their ruination or self-destruction due to uncontrolled emotion or madness. Seneca was widely read in medieval and renaissance Christendom. His tragedies influenced Shakespeare and other Elizabethan writers.
[22] AP Rossiter – Angels with Horns: fifteen lectures on Shakespeare (Longman 1989 edition) pp.1-22; see also Jowett p.10.
[23] Jowett pp.10-11 citing Nicholas Brooke – Shakespeare's Early Tragedies (1968) pp. 78-79.
[24] De Casibus vivorum illustrium (on the fate of famous men): this is an encyclopedia of historical biographies dealing with the fortunes and calamities of famous men from Adam until the fourteenth century: not only their lives, but also their moral virtues.
[25] Rossiter p.15
[27] Rossiter ibid
Posted by zenonian in anniversaries, sources, The play's the thing and tagged "Princes", "Tudor" "sources", Anthony Sher, Anthony Woodville, bias, Catholicism, Ceaucescu, Coley Cibber, Edmund of Rutland, Edward IV, Elizabeth I, Ferdinando Stanley, fiction, First Folio, George Duke of Clarence, Hamlet, Hannibal Lecter, Henry IV, Henry of Buckingham, Henry V, Henry VI, Henry VII, historical drama, Hitler, Idi Amin, John Manningham, Lady Margaret Clifford, Laurence Olivier, Lord Chamberlain's Men, Lord Strange, Mao Tse Tung, Margaret d'Anjou, Polonius, Privy Council, Richard Burbage, Richard Duke of York, Richard II, Richard III, Richard of Warwick, Rylance, Saddam Hussain, Shakespeare, Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Richard Ratcliffe, Sir William Stanley, Stalin, tetralogy, Thomas Stanley, Tillyard, tyranny, White Surrey | Leave a comment
London: 2000 years of history (channel 5)
Who let Dan Jones out? At least, as in his last outing, he is accompanied both by a historian (Suzannah Lipscomb) and an engineer (Rob Bell), narrating and illustrating almost two millennia of the city's past.
In the first episode, we were taken through the walled city of "Londinium" being built and rebuilt after Boudicca's revolt. Whilst Bell showed us the Kent stone from which the original Tower was built, we were told about the Ampitheatre and the remains, near Spitalfields, that include the "Lamb Street Teenager" and the slaves that helped to build the city, strategically located on the Thames. Some archaeology has resulted from the building of Crossrail.
As Roman Britain ended and the Anglo-Saxons arrived, their original city ("Londonwych") was on a smaller scale. Viking raids followed and Alfred moved the city inside the Roman walls as "Londonburgh", as broken glass and pottery found near Covent Garden testifies, with the previous entity further east now being known as Aldwych. Although the Vikings took the city, Ethelred II reconquered it and destroyed London Bridge as well.
The programme finished with William I's coronation on Christmas Day 1066, followed by his rebuilding of the Tower with Norman stone, not to be confused with this historian, with the domes later added by Henry VIII.
The second episode showed us Westminster Abbey, later to be rebuilt at great expense by Henry III, in a smaller city then separate from London, where every coronation since Harold II has taken place, followed by Westminster Hall, where Wallace, Fawkes and Charles I were all sentenced to death. Half of the evolving city's population fell victim to the Black Death, after which Richard Whittington, younger son of a Gloucestershire knight, really did serve as Mayor three or four times under Richard II and Henry IV. The population then increased exponentially to the days of the wealthy Cardinal Wolsey, who built Whitehall Palace before falling from Henry VIII's favour, so Henry and his successors occupied it from 1530 until the fire of 1698. This part ended with Elizabeth I knighting Drake aboard the Golden Hind.
Week three covered the Great Fire, which the trio had previously examined in much greater detail, although they did mention Pepys' description, the probable origin in a Monument Lane bakery, the timber-framed buildings of the old city and the easterly wind that spread the fire. Although we can see the new St. Paul's today, Wren's original plan for the area was even more radical, featuring a Glasgow-style grid of streets. London then expanded to the west for merchants and their imports via the Thames, whilst the poor stayed in the east where gin was popular. In the nineteenth century, industrialisation caused the city's population to rise rapidly, although smog became a factor.
London Bridge became the city's first rail terminus, in 1836, before Euston was built and Paddington was soon added to serve Brunel's Great Western lines. The steep hills of Hampstead were overcome through a man-made valley, as Bell showed by visiting the abandoned Highgate station, allowing London to expand to the north. Poor water hygiene caused a cholera outbreak, which Bazalgette's civil engineering solved with pumping stations, sewers and the reclaiming of land. Heavy traffic then necessitated the strengthening of the ancient bridges. The reclaimed land (Embankment) and Great Fire site (Monument) are both remembered on the Underground map.
The series concluded by pointing out that road congestion was quite possibly worse in 1860 than it is now, as trains were banned from running within two miles of the epicentre at street level. The solution was to run them underground, with the Metropolitan line being started first by "cut and cover" and the Northern line, authentically bored, to follow. Residents moved out of the first engineered areas to the east, leaving Shoreditch and Whitechapel overcrowded with twice the mortality level of London as a whole. By 1890, the capital had five million residents and Charles Booth's "poverty map" highlighted a quarter of these, with the worst cases in the East End, where "Jack the Ripper" preyed on some of them. From the maps, living conditions were addressed and the worst slums demolished. Following Edward VII's accession in January 1901, recognisable modern buildings such as Admiralty Arch, the MI5 building and the War Office arose. Visitors could stay in hotels such as the Savoy and shop at Selfridges as we can do today. Suffragettes were active before the First World War, during which they suspended their activities and many worked in armaments manufacture, for instance at the Royal Ordnance factory known as the Woolwich Arsenal.
Air warfare came to London with Zeppelin bombs in 1915. In the remainder of the conflict, there were thirty raids killing forty thousand people, including thirty children at Poplar in 1917. Armistice Day was followed by the "Spanish 'flu", which was generally three times as deadly as the war itself, with some 20,000 deaths in London alone. In the following years, houses were built along the expanded Metropolitan Lane, taking in towns such as Pinner and Harrow, and advertised in a "Metroland" magazine to raise the population to 8.6 million. The Blitz brought the Second World War to London a year after the start but, importantly, after the corrugated tin structures known as Anderson shelters were made available. It happened on fifty-seven consecutive nights in the first instance and a total of two million homes were damaged or destroyed. Replacing these and housing Commonwealth immigration from 1948 was hampered by the Green Belt so that London could no longer expand outwards, only upwards. As freight expanded, containers could no longer fit into the Thames so the docks were less busy from the sixties, in favour of more coastal ports. However, Docklands regeneration was initiated in the eighties as the City was pushed eastwards to Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs. In a further effort to relieve congestion, the great Crossrail project opens later this year with twenty six miles of new tunnels, forty-two metres below ground, providing a unique archaeological opportunity to view London's past.
In conclusion, it is possible to enjoy a history programme with Dan Jones, so long as he has at least two colleagues and cannot simply indulge his prejudices against particular figures. The second half of the series was more a social and economic history, which is a further restraint.
Posted by super blue in archaeology, battles, buildings, television reviews and tagged Admiralty Arch, Aldwych, Alfred the Great, ampitheatres, Anderson shelters, Anglo-Saxons, Black Death, Blitz, Boudicca, bridges, Brunel, Channel Five, Charles Booth, Charles I, cholera, City of London, Commonwealth immigration, coronations, Covent Garden, Crossrail, Dan Jones, Docklands, Edward VII, Elizabeth I, Ethelred II, Euston, expansion, glass, Golden Hind, Great Fire of London, Great War, Green Belt, Guido Fawkes, GWR, Hampstead, Harold II, Henry III, Henry IV, Henry VIII, hills, industrialisation, Jack the Ripper, Joseph Bazalgette, Kent, Lamb Street Teenager, land reclaimed, Londinium, London, Londonburgh, Londonwich, Metroland, Metropolitan Line, MI5 building, Norman stone, Normans, Northern Line, Old London Bridge, Paddington, pottery, railways, rebellions, Richard II, Richard Whittington, Rob Bell, Roman walls, Romans, Royal Ordnance factories, Samuel Pepys, Savoy, Selfridges, sewage system, shipping containers, Shoreditch, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir Francis Drake, Spanish 'flu, Spitalfields, St. Paul's, stone, Suffragettes, Suzannah Lipscomb, Thames, Thomas Wolsey, Tower of London, trials, Underground, Viking raids, War Office, Westminster, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Hall, White Tower, Whitechapel, Whitehall Palace, William I, William Wallace, Zeppelins | Leave a comment
Why I dislike John of Gaunt….
Wycliffe on Trial, by Ford Madox Brown
As Ricardians, we know very well now, history can be twisted to suit. The matter of those strawberries and what happened next, for instance. I mean, the different versions are legion, even to the point of whether or not Thomas, Lord Stanley was ever present at all, let alone injured in a scrap and obliged to hide under a table. So delightful and worthy an image.
Anyway, while researching an earlier event (1377) I have come upon another did-he?/didn't-he? scenario, this time involving the Duke of Lancaster/King of Castile, John of Gaunt. He from whom the Beauforts, the House of Lancaster and the Tudors are descended. I have never been very fond of him, not even after reading Anya Seton's Katherine.
To me, at this 1377 point in history, he was a scheming heap of double standards, arrogance, blatant dishonesty and unworthiness. (Don't hold back viscountessw, tell it how it is!) He was bungling, a lousy military commander, and quite determined to prevent the bloodline of the sole female offspring of his older brother, Lionel, from getting anywhere near the throne. Oh, no, dear John of Gaunt wasn't having any of that! A right to the throne through a woman? Heaven forfend. Besides, Johnny-boy wanted the throne for himself and his own descendants, even though he was lower in the pecking order than Lionel had been. What a hypocrite! He himself was claiming the throne of Castile through his second wife! And he was even Duke of Lancaster in right of his first wife. Yet, suddenly, the throne of England had to be different. No female intrusions, pul-eeze!
Edward III was no better, because he claimed the throne of France through his mother, but he developed a very convenient memory when he was persuaded by Gaunt to sign an entail that excluded women from the succession. Mind you, I do wonder if Edward would have signed any such thing if he had not been put under extreme pressure by Gaunt. Edward was elderly at the time, perhaps in his dotage, and very, very tired. He was a mere shadow of the great king he had once been, and still bereft from the loss of his beloved queen, Philippa of Hainault. He was now becoming doddery, and was reliant for comfort on his disliked mistress, Alice Perrers, whom it suited Gaunt to support because she gave him more access to his father. Some might say Edward III was a sitting duck when it came to Gaunt's overweening ambition.
Edward III, tomb effigy
In early 1377, Gaunt was strongly suspected of wanting the throne for himself, and old rumours were resurrected (presumably by his supporters) that called into question the legitimacy of Joan of Kent's marriage to the Black Prince. And therefore also questioning the legitimacy of her son by the prince, the future Richard II. The Black Prince was not known by that name then, of course, he was Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales (or, as I've recently seen him identified, the Prince of England). Joan had a chequered history, it's true, but she was lawfully married to the Black Prince.
Joan of Kent and her son, Richard II
Tomb of the Black Prince, Canterbury Cathedral
Well, the Pope said Joan was the Black Prince's wife, so she had to be, right? I won't go into the whys and wherefores of her story, just that legally, at this point in time, she was the wife/widow of the Black Prince, and her little son by him, Prince Richard, was trueborn. Anyway, two-faced Gaunt was prepared to secretly sponsor attacks her reputation one day…and the next rush off to seek her protection when a mob was (justifiably) out for his blood. If I'd been her, I'd have thrown him to the wolves!
I believe it was with all pips squeaking that Gaunt swore to protect his nephew, the boy who would become Richard II. Protect the child? Hmm. Back in those days the lives of youngsters were notoriously delicate and at risk, and I do not doubt that Gaunt's fingers were crossed behind his back as he made his vow. With Richard out of the way, or childless—although waiting for such to prove the case was an unknown risk, and could mean a long period of impatient thumb-twiddling and foot-shuffling for Gaunt and his family—and Lionel's Mortimer descendants forbidden the crown, there would be no argument when a Lancastrian backside was plonked upon the throne. Which, of course, happened in due course when Gaunt's eldest son stole Richard II's crown and probably murdered him.
Old St Paul's Cathedral
Where is all this invective leading? Well, simply to a scene at St Paul's, at the trial of Gaunt's friend and protégé. Wycliffe/Wyclif (and other spellings) who was believed by many to be a heretic. Or verging on it. There was a confrontation between Gaunt and the man who had hauled Wycliffe before a Church trial, William Courtenay, Bishop of London, who was also a son of the Earl of Devon.
John of Gaunt and the Bishop of London arguing at St Paul's.
The Church had been provoked by some of Gaunt's activities, and did not like the rumours, so another rumour (or an old one resurrected) began to circulate, that Gaunt was a changeling. It was claimed that his mother, Philippa of Hainault, had confessed as much to William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, telling him to only let the truth be known if it seemed Gaunt was about to become King of England. Gaunt, needless to say, was livid, and deprived Wykeham of all manner of things. Mind you, in Gaunt's place, I'd have been livid, too, but handsome is as handsome does, and (to use the language of the school playground) he started it! Courtenay and the bishops were intent upon getting at Gaunt through Wycliffe—punishing the duke himself being out of the question.
Wycliffe was escorted to the trial by Gaunt and the Earl Marshal, Henry Percy, who was a man capable of putting force before common sense. He angered the onlookers outside St Paul's by clearing the way through them with much more strength than necessary. The trial opened with Courtenay telling Wycliffe to stand throughout the proceedings, and Gaunt declaring Wycliffe should be allowed to sit. Gaunt and Courtenay couldn't bear the sight of each other, and the disagreement got out of hand. When Gaunt was heard to mutter something about dragging the bishop out by his hair, there was uproar that would to lead to the riots from which Gaunt had the brass neck to expect Joan of Kent to save him.
The above is the gist of the 'facts' as I have always understood them, but now, in a book entitled Lady of the Sun (a biography of Alice Perrers, by F George Kay) I find a much more colourful account of the flashpoint in St Paul's:-
"…Gaunt lost his temper, knocked off the Bishop of London's cap and started to drag him out of the way by his hair…"
Um, that's slightly different from a mere heated exchange of words and a sotto voce threat. So, which is the right version? Something muttered? Or a violent laying-on of ducal hands?
F George Kay goes on to say that:-
"…The onlookers surged to the rescue of the Bishop. Gaunt and Percy [Earl Marshal and Gaunt's sidekick, whose heavy-handedness had started the proceedings on the wrong foot] fled for their lives…and went by boat to Kennington. [Where Joan of Kent was residing with the little prince.]…)
Even with the missing words, this account implies that Gaunt and Percy fled from the scene of the trial, across the Thames and into Joan's protection in one fell swoop. They knew she was popular with the people, and respected. The presence of the little prince was an added plus. One fell swoop? Not quite true. After the scene involving the Bishop of London's hair, Gaunt and Percy went on their way in their own time, taking Wycliffe with them. The onlookers in the streets were shocked and angered by the quarrel, but were not, as yet, a rampaging mob.
It was the next day that things escalated and the rioting began, when London was informed that Percy had high-handedly imprisoned a man at the Marshalsea prison in Southwark for (apparently) no good reason. This imprisonment was the touch-paper.
When the mob went into action, Gaunt and Percy were sitting down to dine at the inn of a friend, a rich merchant named Sir John d'Ypres.
Small medieval dinner
The hors d'oevres had just been served (neat touch in the account of the eternally spiteful Walsingham) when a frightened messenger arrived to tell them the Marshalsea had been attacked and prisoners (or the prisoner) freed, Next, Percy's house in Aldersgate had been ransacked as the mob looked for him (presumably with some dire punishment in mind). From Percy's abode, the dissatisfied, frustrated, even angrier mob marched upon Gaunt's fortress-like palace, the Savoy, broke in, and began another ransacking. Had either Gaunt or Percy been found, would they have been killed there and then? I don't know, but it seems likely. What a difference to English history Gaunt's early demise would have made!
Marshalsea Prison, Southwark, newly built in 1373
The house of Henry Percy, Earl Marshal, was somewhere near here.
The Savoy, Gaunt's palace on the Thames
Anyway, on learning the awful news, Gaunt and Percy took to their highborn heels, bolted from d'Ypres' house for the Thames, and then took a boat across the river to Kennington to throw themselves on her mercy. Joan was clearly nobler than them, because she took them in and defended them! Eventually—and no doubt very smugly—it was William Courtenay, Bishop of London, who calmed the mob and dispersed them. And he still had his hair!
Kennington Palace, but later than 14th century
So, here is another famous occasion for which the accounts are mixed. Maybe February 1377 isn't of as much interest to Ricardians as anything that went on between 1483 and 1485, but I find it fascinating that such different slants can be extracted from brief accounts. Historians then adopt their preferred version, and claim it as the truth.
Oh, and F George Kay doesn't say Gaunt allowed the rumours about Joan's marriage to be spread, he says that Gaunt stood up in Parliament and suggested the succession should be discussed! Parliament was shocked. What was there to discuss? Until then they'd all been satisfied that the succession would go to Prince Richard. Gaunt was clearly reminding them all about the doubts concerning the Black Prince's marriage. Did Gaunt really make such a suggestion? Would he do it? Would he stand there and publicly dig up doubts and questions about the marriage of the heir to the throne, and the legitimacy of the next king? He was already very unpopular, and widely suspected of having designs on the throne. Well, I am perhaps not the best person to ask. I'm not exactly unbiased! But then, nor was Gaunt. And Parliament's response was to invite the prince to come before them, so they could acknowledge him and see that all his father's estates, etc. were bestowed upon him forthwith. This was, perhaps, not what Gaunt had planned. Certainly it was a very public a rejection of any designs and ambitions he nurtured for himself.
It will by now be very clear that I have no time for John of Gaunt. Maybe he became a steadying influence in later years, but at the time of which I now write, he was a dangerously ambitious, scheming magnate who was prepared to do whatever it took to get his own way. He didn't give a fig who he hurt, or about family loyalty—except when it suited, and especially when it came to sucking up to and manipulating his elderly, worn-out father, Edward III. He 'persuaded' Edward to disinherit his son Lionel of Clarence's daughter, and her son (Roger Mortimer, the future Earl of March) from the succession, in order to insert himself in the nicely cleared slot. And he wasn't above permitting his supporters to spread whispers about the Black Prince's marriage and the legitimacy of the future Richard II.
If you wonder what did happen with the succession, read Appendix Two of Ian Mortimer's The Fears of Henry IV, which explores and explains it all in great detail. Throughout Richard's reign, Gaunt endeavoured to persuade him to name Gaunt's son, Henry, as heir presumptive. Richard resisted, and seemed to regard the Earl of March's son as heir. Richard made an entail of his own, superseding that of his grandfather, Edward III. In the end, of course, the entails were useless, because Gaunt's son and heir usurped the crown and did away with Richard. Job done. Except that Gaunt never knew how successful his line finally became, because he died before Richard, and thus before Henry's Lancastrian backside graced the throne.
I don't just dislike Gaunt, I loathe him! His machinations were the root cause of the bloody Wars of the Roses. But I know that he has many supporters, and they will not agree with anything I've said. They will probably regard me as being guilty of the very things I've commented on: fake news and twisted facts!
Posted by viscountessw in anniversaries, buildings, law, religion and tagged Aldersgate, Anya Seton, Beaufort family., Canterbury Cathedral, Castile, changelings, Edward III, Edward the Black Prince, entail mail, France, George Kay, Henry IV, Henry Percy, heresy trial, Hundred Years War, Ian Mortimer, Joan of Kent, John of Gaunt, John Wycliffe, Kennington, Lancastrians, Lionel of Antwerp, Marshalsea Prison, Mortimers, Parliament, Peter Courtenay, Phillipa of Ulster, Phillippa of Hainault, Richard II, riots, Savoy Palace, The Fears of Henry IV, William of Wykeham
Is this narrated by a computer…?
Right, for this little exercise one needs observant ears. Yes, ears. You see, whoever—or whatever—narrates this small video has a very strange way of doing it. His/its diction is oddly mechanical, to say the least and some of the words are barely comprehensible. Yet it is English, I'm sure of that!
Apart from the above, the whole thing is very boring. And I say that as one very interested in John Holand, 1st Duke of Exeter . If you listen to the end, you'll deserve a medal.
Posted by viscountessw in anniversaries, Science and tagged Dukes of Exeter, Henry IV, John Holland, recordings, summary executions
Does Richard II lie in an obscure grave in Stirling….?
"There was nothing at Westminster Abbey yesterday to alert visitors to the renewed speculation that one of its most revered sites may not be what it seems. To the unwary, King Richard II still lies in the south aisle of the Lady Chapel just where he has for nearly six centuries. A sign points out the tomb, wedged snugly between those of Edward III and of Anne Neville, Richard III's queen. It is topped by a gilded effigy of the monarch, whose remains were moved to the Abbey from Hertfordshire in 1413. But all that glisters is not gold, and there are fresh claims that the remains of one of England's most tragic kings may not rest at Westminster at all. In fact they may be 400 miles away, under a pedestrianised shopping centre near Stirling railway station.
"Legend and Shakespeare say that the last of the Plantagenets was murdered by Sir Piers of Exton in Pontefract Castle in early 1400, only weeks after he was forced to resign in favour of Henry of Lancaster, who then crowned himself Henry IV. But that story has always been disputed. Almost immediately after the king's death,there were rumours that the body which was so openly brought south was not thatof Richard but a lookalike, perhaps his chaplain Richard Maudelyn. From as early as 1402 there were claims that the real Richard had escaped to Scotland, where he supposedly died in 1419 (six years after being reburied at Westminster). Now the archaeologist Ron Page is leading an effort to get to the truth of what would be one of English history's greatest cover-ups.
"If Mr Page is right, then Shakespeare's Richard, who offered "my large kingdom for a little grave, a little, little grave, an obscure grave," may indeed have had his wish these many years. But then whose remains have been at Westminster for so long? And how can we be sure which of them is Richard? "Not all the water of the rough rude sea can wash the balm from an anointed king," says Shakespeare's Richard. If only it was that simple."
The above is taken from a 2002 article in The Guardian,
It is a very intriguing thought that here we have another medieval King of England who may not be where he is supposed to be. I'm thinking of Edward II, and the dispute over whether he really did die when he was said to have, and whether he was laid to rest in Gloucester Abbey on the date he is supposed to have been. And I also think, of course, of Richard III, who really was where he was said to have been, and not lost in the River Soar as a legend claims.
If it was a cover-up, it was a Lancastrian one! What a surprise. Well, there is one thing to be said of poor Richard II, a railway station is a refreshing change from car parks. Since Richard III, there has been a positive rash of burials found or suspected under car parks. But then, his predecessor, Richard II, always did like innovation and being different.
PS: As the above article was written in 2002, and I haven't heard anything more of a great discovery in Stirling, I can only imagine that Richard II does, after all, lie at rest with his beloved Queen Anne in Westminster Abbey. Unless, of course, someone else knows something the rest of us do not….?
PPS: Um, when did they locate Anne Neville's tomb so precisely? I thought the whereabouts of her last resting place were only vaguely known…? The actual location has been lost.
Tomb of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia in Westminster Abbey
Posted by viscountessw in anniversaries, archaeology, buildings, religion, Science and tagged Anne Neville, Anne of Bohemia, Edward II, Edward III, Gloucester Abbey, Henry IV, Hertfordshire, Pontefract Castle, Richard II, Richard III, Richard Maudelyn, Ron Page, royal murder mysteries, royal tombs, Shakespeare, Sir Piers of Exton, Stirling, Westminster Abbey | Leave a comment
7 things to know about the struggle between York and Lancaster….
This link provides some interesting reading about the origins of the Wars of the Roses, as most people describe the civil wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster. A lot of the points are from very early on in the proceedings, which makes them all the more interesting to me.
Posted by viscountessw in anniversaries, art, battles, buildings, genealogy and tagged Anne Neville, Constance of York, Constanza of Castile, Crusades, duchesses, dukedoms, Edmund Crouchback, Edmund Holland, Edward I, Edward II, Epiphany Rising, executions, Henry IV, illegitimacy, Isabel of Castile, Isabella Beaumont, John of Gaunt, Kathryn Warner, Pedro I, Pontefract Castle, Richard II, Richard III, Thomas Despenser, Thomas of Lancaster, usurpation, Wars of the Roses | Leave a comment
My, my, some families really do not change their spots….!
While researching fourteenth-century Northamptonshire, I happened upon Sir John Stanley (1350-1414). "Stanley's father was Master-Forester of the Forest of Wirral, notorious for his repressive activities. Both Stanley and his older brother, William (who succeeded their father as Master-Forester), were involved in criminal cases which charged them with a forced entry in 1369 and in the murder of Thomas Clotton in 1376." Nice guys, right?
Stanley was found guilty, and outlawed. But because he was proving himself as a military fighter, he was pardoned—helped in this by Sir Thomas Trivet, who had a habit of getting scoundrels off the hook. He did the same for Sir John Cornwall, Senior, who was definitely a bad lot, but that's another story.
Well, although Sir John Stanley was a younger son, in 1385 he made a very fortunate marriage. In the teeth of strong opposition from John of Gaunt, he wed Isabel Lathom, who was heir to swathes of land in Lancashire. Stanley was on the up!
He did well under Richard II, becoming the deputy in Ireland of Robert de Vere, Duke of Ireland. Richard II chose Stanley as justiciar of Ireland, and he was very much part of Richard's successful first expedition to that land. Next, Stanley was prominent in soothing trouble in Cheshire, and took part in Richard's second, ill-advised expedition to Ireland. This expedition came to an abrupt end when Henry of Bolingbroke, Gaunt's heir as Duke of Lancaster, who had been exiled by Richard, invaded England to take the throne as Henry IV. Returning to England, "Stanley, who had long proved adept at political manoeuvring, turned his back on Richard and submitted to Henry IV." Richard was imprisoned and soon died under mysterious circumstances.
So, the Stanleys were at it in 1399/1400 as well. Political jiggery-pokery, deserting their rightful King Richard, and smarming up to the wrongful King Henry. But this one did well, becoming King of Man, a privilege he and his descendants enjoyed until the 18th century.
Spots? Never change?
http://www.cheshirenow.co.uk/stanley_family.html and http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/people/lords/stanleys.htm. And see this list of offices held by Sir John Stanley.
Posted by viscountessw in buildings, genealogy, sources and tagged Calendar of Patent Rolls, Cheshire, foresters, heiresses, Henry IV, Isle of Man, justiciar of Ireland, Kings of Man, Lathom House, murder, Northamptonshire, outlaws, Richard II, Sir John Stanley, Stanleys, treachery, Wirral | Leave a comment