Leicester, Middleham and That Play

The performances of Shakespeare’s Richard III scheduled to take place inside Leicester Cathedral on 19^th and 20^th July 2017 are causing waves. There can be little doubt that the size and extent of the waves is by design. What theatre company and venue wouldn’t want publicity for a controversy they were causing to appear on the BBC, in the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Times and many other media outlets that would not otherwise have given it a single line of copy?

A petition on Change.org has been started to mobilise a campaign to prevent the performance taking place. As I write, it has over 800 signatures and I can see it spread widely across social media. The play is due to be performed at other cathedrals, stopping at Ely, Peterborough, Gloucester, Bristol and Salisbury before a run of fifteen performances at Temple Church, London. The group putting on the play, Antic Disposition, have asserted that it will be staged in a ‘sensitive’ and ‘careful’ way.

I’m not averse to this in principle, though I know plenty are and I can see beyond my perspective to appreciate their concerns. Churches and cathedrals have long been centres not only of worship but of community and it is important for their future that they explore new ways to keep themselves at the heart of those communities as society becomes a more secular institution that might question the need for religious ones. My problems with this are really two-fold.

Firstly, the staging of this particular play in this particular spot is, at least on the surface, insensitive. I don’t think this is simply because it’s in a religious house ,because it offers an examination of the darker sides of human nature and causes the viewer to consider the conflict between predetermination and free will. There can be few subjects better suited to consideration in church. The real issue is that this play, Shakespeare’s Richard III, is to be performed in close proximity to the king’s new tomb. Given the way his character is demonised in the play, it seems an insensitive and inappropriate move.

I have a strong suspicion that the widespread reporting of the play and the outrage it is causing is precisely what was wanted. Ricardians are notoriously easy to get a rise out of and it is this enragement that is being harnessed to produce more publicity than the play would otherwise have ever generated. Antic Disposition claim that their interpretation will be sympathetic and sensitive but without an almost complete rewrite, this seems ambitious at best and disingenuous at worst. I am a firm believer that, and have previously blogged here about the idea that, sections of Shakespeare’s Richard III have been grossly misinterpreted but the subtleties are nuanced, rely on a wider understanding and would be difficult to turn into a focus for the play.

My own response to hearing of this was to contact Antic Disposition and ask them whether they would be interested in some copy for their programme, perhaps to explain the differences between the myths and the facts around Richard III and the events of the play. I sent a link to my blog about the play to demonstrate my work and opinion and essentially offered to help if I could. Four days later, I have received no reply, not even a ‘thank you for getting in touch’ or a ‘thanks but no thanks’. Facebook Messenger shows that the message was read on Monday. (UPDATE: 12/05/17 – I have now received a reply from Antic Disposition and am waiting to see whether I can be of any assistance to them. I sincerely hope that I can!) I am also aware that others amongst the Ricardian community had been in touch with the Cathedral and with Antic Disposition directly and quietly to try and express some concerns. The lack of response to any of this and then the sudden eruption of media interest is at least suggestive of a publicity stunt. But, it’s a commercial enterprise, so surely that’s a fair tactic, isn’t it?

This is where the Cathedral’s involvement begins to concern me though. Rev’d David Monteith’s response found in many of the articles that ‘What we now know is that he belongs to the whole nation and not just to one section of people particularly committed to his story’ is confrontational rather than helpful. It makes it far easier for view the Cathedral’s interest in Richard III as cynical and financial. The added comment that ‘I’ve heard most people say how glad they are that Richard III, the Shakespeare play, will be performed here’ seems to add to the quarrelsome tone. The Cathedral’s page on Richard III’s background and history begins ‘King Richard III was born at the Castle in Fotheringhay on 2 October 1452, the youngest of three brothers’. Richard was, in fact, the youngest of four brothers – Edward, Edmund, George and Richard. If even this most basic fact is incorrect, it raises concern as to the Cathedral’s commitment to offering even the factual truth about, let alone a re-examination of, their charge.

The second element of my annoyance lies with the Ricardian community – of which I consider myself a part (unless I’m ejected after what I have to say!). Sometimes we are our own worst enemies and expose ourselves to ridicule that does nothing to help the cause of promoting the re-examination of Richard’s life and times. I’m sure many would insist that the ridicule is a price worth paying, but it isn’t when it does nothing to forward the cause. If the Cathedral and/or theatre company were relying on harnessing outrage about the performance at Leicester Cathedral to help promote the performance, then the Ricardian community has played right into their hands and given them more than they could ever have hoped for. They went fishing. We fell for it, hook, line and sinker.

King Richard III

When Richard III’s remains were discovered, the real opportunity for a re-evaluation of the man and his reputation was lost, engulfed by a tidal wave of bitter arguments about where he should be buried. That fight is still very much alive and I don’t doubt the conviction of those who feel they are standing up for what they believe in, but I would contend that any hope of advancing the real aim of the vast majority of the Ricardian community was hindered hugely by these disputes and still is. Does it really matter where his mortal remains lie? Absolutely not. Does it matter if a play that paints him in a bad light is performed next to his tomb? Absolutely not. Mortal remains are very different to the soul Richard would have hoped would find its way to Heaven.

Most medieval kings would object to an awful lot of modern life, not least the irreverence for those holding political power that we take for granted as our right. I find it amazing that there has been no serious documentary on Richard III’s life since he was discovered, given all the publicity around the dig and subsequent events. The only explanation for this gaping omission is that if Ricardians can’t even agree amongst themselves, then what hope can any production company have of producing a documentary that would be widely appreciated and welcomed?

It is perhaps telling that English Heritage are, on 23^rd and 24^th August, showing a rare film of a production of Shakespeare’s Richard III from 1910 within Middleham Castle – Richard III’s long term home. If the performance in the Cathedral is insensitive, then surely the one at Middleham Castle is too. However much outrage we offer in response to however many performances, the play is over 400 years old and isn’t going away.

The time has come. I’m going to say it. I’m ready for the fallout. Here goes.

Ricardians need to let go of the Shakespeare play.

It has been a source of irritation to Ricardians for as long as there have been Ricardians, but I would suggest that it should be harnessed as the biggest weapon in a Ricardian’s locker, not be feared and shunned like a monster chained up in the cellar.

Shakespeare’s Richard III is ubiquitous and represents the first, and perhaps only, exposure many will have to this particular king. Some are well aware that it is fiction with political undertones and overtones that have nothing to do with Richard III and everything to do with Elizabethan politics (most notably Robert Cecil, as I have previously blogged). Some, though, will walk away accepting Shakespeare’s history plays – not just this one – as factual, historical documentaries and look no further, leaving Richard III as a murdering, deformed monster.

The challenge, and most importantly, the opportunity is to harness this widespread exposure to improve the understanding of the line between demonstrable fact and Shakespearean fiction. It might not be an overnight change, but if Ricardians, perhaps through the medium of the Society, could foster close relationships with theatre groups that meant we supported productions as a method of improving awareness, then the process could get underway. If theatre groups knew they could get a positive reception from Ricardians who would be willing to write copy for their programmes, they would surely do it because it lightens the load on them whilst offering their audiences an interesting and endlessly variable new perspective on Richard to compliment the play and add to their appreciation of it. I would suggest that this approach would be more productive and would bear more fruit than continuing to oppose and rant.

This approach, a unifying and moderating of the Ricardian stance, taking opportunities and letting go of those things that cannot, or need not, be changed, is what will lead to increased media interest in a revision of the history surrounding Richard III. This is what could lead to a documentary offering factual information to push gently back against the traditional view. It might even lead to a sympathetic film of Richard III’s life. How amazing would that be? If we keep fighting battles that don’t really matter between ourselves, we will never even take part in the war, never mind have a chance of winning it.

Here’s hoping I’m still allowed to call myself a Ricardian!

The Forgotten Art of Allegory

Much of Jonathan Swift’s seminal ‘Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts, by Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships’, or Gulliver’s Travels as it is more popularly known, is metaphor and allegory. Swift had lived through the troubles of James II’s dalliances with Catholicism, the Glorious Revolution and wrote his work during Queen Anne’s reign. He didn’t get on with Anne and was denied political and clerical advancement, spending time in Ireland where he took up the Irish cause, writing propaganda pamphlets for them.

When Gulliver extinguishes the fire in Lilliput by urinating on it, the intention may have been to refer to Tory policy, achieving a good result by bad means. The war that rages between Lilliput and Blefuscu revolves around which end of an egg should be cracked to eat it. Gulliver takes up the Lilliputian cause simply because he lands on their shores. This is surely a thinly veiled stab at the religious turmoil that still reared its head in Britain and Europe. The fighting between Catholics and Protestants over how to worship God is like arguing over which end of an egg to crack. It doesn’t matter – you still get egg. The same could apply to political feuding. The side most take is an accident of birth, simply a matter of which shore you wash up on.

Swift was drawing on a long history of allegory to make political statement indirectly. The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, written in 1678, almost 50 years before Gulliver’s Travels is a classic piece of allegory of the spiritual journey of man. In many classic pieces of literature commentators have seen allegory used to represent the politics of the writer’s day or to make a moral point within the vehicle of the story. The Oxford Dictionary defines allegory as ‘A story, poem, or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one’. It is an art that we have perhaps lost to more direct satire so that allegory passes us by as we impose our luxury of literal criticism of the establishment, political and religious, on those who wrote in a time without such indulgence.

Much of what has become the historiography of Richard III was most likely written as allegory but has been passed into culture as truth, as literal history. The moral tale is forgotten or ignored to read only what we would describe as a history, a narrative of the facts of a past that can be interpreted within the confines of their own limits. Thomas More wrote his History of King Richard III and Shakespeare his history plays at a time when written history was not what we would recognise it as today.

Sir Thomas More’s History of King Richard III was begun around 1513. More had first come to prominence in a parliament of Henry VII’s in 1504 when he had criticised the king’s policies. At the request of a tax of three fifteenths, More made so eloquent a speech in opposition that the tax was reduced by about two thirds. The victory for the idealistic and outspoken lawyer saw his father imprisoned in the Tower until he paid a hefty fine. Perhaps Thomas learned that he could not be so direct in his criticism of the monarch.

Sir Thomas More

Amongst the first acts of Henry VIII on his accession in 1509 was the arrest and subsequent execution of Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, his father’s chief instruments of financial policy toward the end of his reign. They were unpopular and Henry thought that he would buy some instant acclaim with their blood. It was an early glimpse of a disregard for human life that suggested tyranny at the very outset of the eighteen-year-old’s rule and More perhaps envisaged his work as a piece of allegory for the king to show the dangers of tyranny and how it could cut a rule short. Richard III was an obvious personality to hang over this lesson. He had only reigned for a brief time and had been painted as something of an unpopular tyrant by the Tudor regime. More might have meant his work to be a lesson for the new king on the dangers of veering so close to tyranny so early in his rule. More’s work is littered with errors which, as I have suggested in a previous post here, may well point to its own deliberate inaccuracy.

William Shakespeare’s Richard III is similarly littered with errors, including switching the geographical locations of Stoney Stratford and Northampton in early version to have Richard ambushing Rivers rather than Rivers overshooting the meeting point and heading back without the king. Earlier in the history cycle of the Wars of the Roses, Richard is at the 1st Battle of St Albans committing dastardly murders even though he as under three years old at the time. Shakespeare may well have laid the foundations early for his masterpiece in the examination of Machiavellian plotting very early and had a very clear message for his audience that related not to the past, but to the present and very near future, as I have outlined in this previous post. Shakespeare was writing at a time of political upheaval when the succession was in doubt and the government controlled by the Cecils. Robert Cecil, son and successor to William Cecil, Elizabeth I’s lifelong councillor, was affected by kyphosis – in the unpleasant parlance if the time, he was a ‘hunchback’, just like Shakespeare’s villain.

The bones that currently rest in an urn in Westminster Abbey claiming to belong to the Princes in the Tower, Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York are perhaps another example of allegory. The remains were unearthed during building work at the Tower of London in 1674. An anonymous writer, published three years later but naming John Knight, Charles II’s surgeon as his source, recorded;

In order to the rebuilding of the several Offices in the Tower, and to clear the White Tower from all contiguous buildings, digging down the stairs which led from the King’s Lodgings, to the chapel in the said Tower, about ten foot in the ground were found the Bones of two striplings in (as it seemed) a wooden chest, upon which the survey which found proportionable to the ages of those two Brothers viz, about thirteen and eleven years. The skull of the one being entire, the other broken, as were indeed many of the other Bones, also the Chest, by the violence of the labourers, who cast the rubbish and them away together, wherefore they were caused to sift the rubbish, and by that means preserved all the bones.

Charles II had returned the monarchy to Britain following the Civil War in 1660 and in 1674 Parliament was refusing to vote Charles funds for foreign war and religious policy so that the king was in danger of being forced to seek peace where he didn’t want it. It is worth noting that the bones were broken up and cast on a waste pile and had to be sifted out again later, meaning that they were open to contamination and no longer in the condition they were found in.

The Urn within Westminster Abbey

It is possible that talk of some bones thrown out of the pit had worked its way back to ears that saw an opportunity in their discovery in a location not dissimilar to that in which More had recorded them buried, though later moved from. Men were sent to pick them from the spoil and this might have been because a chance for an allegorical tale was spied. Reference to Richard III along the lines of that made by More and Shakespeare would surely serve to remind Parliament of what happened when a legitimate king was supplanted by a tyranny – for Edward V read Charles I, for Richard III see Oliver Cromwell. Charles II’s position was far from certain and as his relationship with Parliament rocked he might have feared a repeat of his father’s fate. The bones were perhaps an instrument with which he could bolster himself by reminding the country of the distant past, the far more raw and recent past and the threat he perceived to himself.

I devote the final chapter of The Wars of the Roses: The Key Players in the Struggle for Supremacy to the bones found within the Tower – not least that these are far from the only set found and not even the only set claimed to belong to the Princes. Their placement in Westminster Abbey may have served Charles II well but only cemented the reputation of King Richard III set in stone by More and Shakespeare. What if none of these pieces often used as evidence was ever meant to tell history as we would recognise it today, but only to help make a political, moral or religious point about the writer’s present? What if everything that is relied upon to condemn Richard III over centuries has been simply misunderstood and taken out of context? We have the luxury of criticising the establishment freely and openly and perhaps forget the time when to do so was to risk life and limb and allegory provided the shield with which to make those observations and complaints.

I’ve seen a fair bit of talk recently about what constitutes a Ricardian and who has the right to use that word. Examining and questioning the material to re-evaluate its meaning and stimulate a deeper investigation of the life, times and reputation of King Richard III makes a Ricardian and all should be welcome to use that name. As long as opinions are based solidly in fact, not fiction, irrespective of the conclusion each individual draws, Ricardianism should, in my opinion, be a welcoming forum for discussion.

Matthew Lewis’s has written The Wars of the Roses (Amberley Publishing), a detailed look at the key players of the civil war that tore England apart in the fifteenth century, and Medieval Britain in 100 Facts (Amberley Publishing), which offers a tour of the middle ages by explaining facts and putting the record straight on common misconceptions. A biography of Richard, Duke of York, father of Edward IV and Richard III is due for release in April 2016.

Matt is also the author of a brief biography of Richard III, A Glimpse of King Richard III along with a brief overview of the Wars of the Roses, A Glimpse of the Wars of the Roses.

Matt has two novels available too; Loyalty, the story of King Richard III’s life, and Honour, which follows Francis, Lord Lovell in the aftermath of Bosworth.

The Richard III Podcast and the Wars of the Roses Podcast can be subscribed to via iTunes or on YouTube.

Matt can also be found on Twitter @mattlewisauthor and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/MattLewisAuthor.

KRIII Visitor Centre Review

I have heard plenty about the King Richard III Visitor Centre in Leicester. Some positive, including the recent architectural award that the centre won, but plenty that was less complimentary. I finally made it there to judge for myself with my daughter and, for those who may be interested, here are my thoughts on the exhibition, entitled Dyansty, Death and Discovery.

Richard III Statue outside Leicester Cathedral

After buying our tickets, the first room to which we are directed is a flag stone floored chamber containing a throne, on which sit two discarded roses facing defiantly away from each other. This room offers an introduction to the Wars of the Roses from key figures in the life of Richard III – Cecily Neville, his mother, Richard Neville, the Kingmaker Earl of Warwick, Richard’s guardian as he grew to manhood, Vincent Tetulier, an armourer creating harness for Richard, Anne Neville, Richard’s wife and Edward IV, his brother and king. The brief tales they tell us mark stepping stones in Richard’s passage through the Wars of the Roses.

The Roses on the Throne

The throne was a cause of some controversy, with talk of the floor running with blood as a marker of Richard’s crimes. This was most likely taken out of context. Throughout the video, landmarks of the Wars of the Roses are projected onto the floor before the throne – the Battle of Towton etc – and shadowy blood seeps down from the throne. This very clearly relates to the prolonged bloodshed of the Wars of the Roses and caused me no offense. With a map of the battles of the Wars of the Roses and a family tree tracing the lines from Edward III to those involved in the troubles, this marks the Dynasty element of the display.

A example of the display in front of the throne

To the left of this room is an exhibition of the fabulous work of artist Graham Turner, whose medieval paintings are stunning. There is a fine array of his work here and it is a display not to be missed.

From the other side of the entrance display, the Visitor Centre walks us through the events of 1483 and Richard’s ascent to the throne. We are presented with the facts and offered opposing conclusions that can be drawn from these. Was Richard out for the crown from the beginning? Or was he reacting to events that happened around him? Whilst the displays may point out that most historians believe Richard was driving the events of that Spring and Summer (which, let’s face it, they do), it proffers the opposing view for the visitor to make up their own mind.

As you would expect from an exhibition that has seen input from the Richard III Society amongst others, the facts offered are just that – facts. I couldn’t fault any of them and there was no malevolent undercurrent dragging the viewer’s opinion of Richard down. A fine example of this is the display relating to the disappearance of Edward IV’s sons, the Princes in the Tower, which goes no further than noting that their uncertain fate cast a shadow over Richard’s reign. There can be no doubt that it did, and still does, but the exhibition does not lead the visitor to a pre-determined solution to the mystery.

The Princes in the Tower

I gave a talk in a local village recently on the life of Richard III, and told those listening that I couldn’t provide them answers to most of the questions that I would ask. It isn’t an easy approach to take because it sets the message up to be unsatisfying, creating more questions than it answers. The easy thing for the Visitor Centre to do might have been to perpetuate the shadowy myths many believe they know. They have not taken this easy route and I applaud them for taking the risk inherent in not providing definitive answers and presenting the controversy as just that.

As we moved through Buckingham’s Rebellion and displays detailing the influence on events of France, Brittany and Henry Tudor’s rise, and with Bosworth looming, I was struck by the incredible design work done within the displays. Each is crisp, clear and well presented. The information is accessible and the presentation clever. I even raised a smile at the Stanley ‘Swing-o-Meter’, and it’s not very often that that name paints my face happy!

The Stanley Swing-o-Meter

The display unashamedly informs us that the precise events at Bosworth are not clearly known, but that a view of the battle can be assembled from the fragments that have come down to us. Richard’s cavalry charge is dealt with as either a planned gambit, or an opportunistic reaction to the course of the battle, but a miscalculation either way. Is there much there to disagree with? The installation of pole-arms gives pause for thought. It is stark and brutal, just as Richard’s end was.

My one and only criticism of the exhibition comes here. It is a missed opportunity, an unfortunate perpetuation of a long-standing myth and a pet peeve of mine. We are told that ‘Shakespeare puts into Richard’s mouth an APPEAL for means of escape’ (display’s emphasis). No he doesn’t. The ‘A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!’ quote is almost always taken out of context as a display of cowardice. In the context of the whole speech, it’s meaning is perfectly clear:

KING RICHARD III:       A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

CATESBY:                      Withdraw, my lord; I’ll help you to a horse.

KING RICHARD III:      Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,                                        And I will stand the hazard of the die:                                        I think there be six Richmonds in the field;                                       Five have I slain to-day instead of him.                                       A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

Richard calls for a horse. Catesby thinks that he means to flee, or at least encourages him to do so. Richard responds vehemently that he has cast the die of fate and will face the consequences. He has no intention of fleeing. He tells Catesby that there must be six Henry Tudors on the battlefield, because he has killed five men who he had mistaken for his enemy. He calls once more for a fresh horse, but he wants it to return him to the fray, to allow him to continue hunting Tudor, not to flee. Even Shakespeare, like every other writer on Richard’s end at Bosworth, concedes Richard’s bravery amongst the plethora of faults he imbues his character with. Even Shakespeare cannot deny him this. It would have been nice to have seen this misconception challenged rather than reinforced.

Shakespeare’s Richard III

From here, the exhibition moves upstairs and it is a clear demarcation between the Death and the Discovery elements of the exhibition. The downstairs area has a thoroughly medieval feel that fits perfectly with its story. Upstairs is bright and crisp, telling the story first of Shakespeare’s version of Richard III and theatrical depictions through the ages. Revisionists such as Josephine Tey and Paul Murray Kendall get a look in at this point to, presenting both sides of Richard’s reputation through the centuries with equal weight.

Richard’s Revisionists

The connection between Shakespeare and Richard III is something many wish to disentangle as the main source of a conceived and incorrect image of Richard. I don’t think that this is necessarily required. It is the way in which many will first come into contact with Richard III and a proportion will go no further. Ricardians can harness Shakespeare to increase exposure to the truth. I have never viewed Shakespeare’s Richard III as anything but a masterpiece and I will never alter that opinion. But it is fiction. And the exhibition does a very good job of pointing that out to the visitor. For example, the story, we are told, draws upon an ancient notion of the evil uncle. It is clearly presented as fiction and I have to applaud this.

The story then moves through to the Discovery section, with details of the Looking for Richard Project’s initiation of the work, continuing through the University of Leicester’s involvement in the dig. I didn’t feel that the contributions of the Looking for Richard Project were belittled or sidelined. We listened to interviews with Philippa Langley and, although they didn’t occupy as much space as the details of the dig itself, which focussed on the University, their contribution was well presented.

Then there is the now infamous ‘Stormtrooper’ white suit of armour. It is, indeed, very white. Numbered blue stickers relate to a key beside the suit that names each of the pieces of armour that Richard would have worn. I didn’t feel that it created the impression that this was Richard’s actual armour, nor that his armour was bright white. Perhaps it might allow that misinterpretation I suppose. Museum curators have pointed out that such techniques are accepted and not uncommon teaching methods which, if anything, prevent the impression that this is an original suit of armour worn by Richard. That kind of suggests that the display couldn’t win either way. It’s either a Stormtrooper or creates a false impression of having Richard’s actual armour. Which is the lesser of those two evils? A decision had to be made. I didn’t find it ridiculous, though it didn’t quite seem natural either. Maybe it wasn’t meant to. It would certainly have been out of place downstairs, but fits in upstairs.

The Armour

We also saw the 3D print out of Richard’s spine and then the 3D recreation of the full skeleton with details of the wounds found on the remains. The marks detailed and clearly visible were powerful reminders of a savage death in a time we barely understand now. It was not only Richard that suffered this fate. Many others did at Bosworth, and many thousands had over the previous decades of civil war, countless further suffering similar fates in France. Neither was Richard the last to suffer in such a way, but it is a very personal and poignant moment to see what was done to a named individual, especially one who I have studied and tried to understand for so long.

The 3D Spine

3D Skeleton

Moving back downstairs, the final part of the exhibition leads to a quiet room with a glass section of flooring which overlooks the still-exposed site of the grave in which Richard III was found. Across the back wall is carved a verse from a prayer that can be found in his personal Book of Hours, a common prayer in his day, asking for God’s help in time of trouble, and offering him thanks for the gifts that He grants. I thought that this room was beautifully done. I don’t know quite what I expected, but I was thoroughly impressed.

Prayer from Richard’s Book of Hours

I was fortunate enough to visit the dig site during one of the open days, though we couldn’t see this site at the time. At intervals, a projection of the skeleton identifies the exact spot that the remains were found and how they were laid out. Although I think I see the need for this, I am glad that it isn’t on all of the time. The vacant space was enough for me. Looking into it, surrounded by buildings of so many eras, it reminds me how close the grave site must have come to complete destruction and eternal loss plenty of times.

The discovery of Richard III’s remains is an opportunity that was realised against all odds by a dedicated team at the Looking for Richard Project. I have nothing but respect and gratitude for their work. The University deserve a good deal of credit to for their technical expertise and experience in carrying out the dig. What has followed has often been unseemly and, in my opinion, unnecessary. I thoroughly understand that many deem it more than necessary and I do not seek to diminish their conviction nor challenge their right to it. If we seek to present Richard III as a more tolerant figure than history has passed to us, shouldn’t we also be more tolerant of differing views amongst ourselves?

I recently wrote to The Leicester Mercury and they were kind enough to publish my letter on their website. My call was to stop trying to portray Richard at either pole of the ‘goodie’ and ‘baddie’ scale but to seek out and try to understand the real man. The discovery of his remains has been far more divisive than I wish it had been. I think, if I’m honest, I was dreading the Visitor Centre pouring fuel onto the fire, kindling the destructive flames and peddling unreasonable, traditional nonsense in a sensationalist bid to cash in on the discovery.

I was very, very pleasantly surprised.

Okay, an ardent Ricardian may not learn anything new about Richard’s story, but for me, this should be aimed squarely at challenging what those who are less interested believe they know about Richard III.

The Visitor Centre achieves this.

By presenting the options without defining the conclusion the visitor should reach.

By using stunning graphics in a well defined and delineated space.

By pitching a message at exactly the right level.

By rounding it all off with a stunning, peaceful place to contemplate all that you have seen whilst reminding you that this is a very human story.

The story of a man.

I would thoroughly recommend going to see the exhibitions at the King Richard III Visitor Centre. An informative experience if you know little of the truth about Richard III.

A poignant space if your interest runs deeper.

Whatever you fear – misinformation, a lack of respect – lay those fears to rest. Richard III is done justice in that space. At least, I believe he is. Why not visit and see what you think?

Perhaps it is time for an end to York v Leicester, and a time for united Ricardians v the lies.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences of the Centre.

I have written more about Shakespeare’s Richard III at mattlewisauthor.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/william-shakespeares-richard-iii-the-convenient-villain and at royalcentral.co.uk/blogs/history/the-defence-of-king-richard-iii-part-4-bosworth-shakespeare-that-horse-14699.

The letter on The Leicester Mercury website can be found at www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Richard-III-Stop-looking-saint-demon-try-man/story-24519152-detail/story.html

Matthew Lewis is the author of a brief biography of Richard III, A Glimpse of King Richard III along with a brief overview of the Wars of the Roses, A Glimpse of the Wars of the Roses.

Matt’s has two novels available too; Loyalty, the story of King Richard III’s life, and Honour, which follows Francis, Lord Lovell in the aftermath of Bosworth.

The Richard III Podcast and the Wars of the Roses Podcast can be subscribed to via iTunes or on YouTube

Matt can also be found on Twitter @mattlewisauthor.

William Shakespeare’s Richard III – The Convenient Villain

William Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Richard the Third is a masterpiece in the depiction of evil and the study of the psychology of the anti-hero, the villain we love to hate to the point that we almost hope they succeed. Yet we may have been deceived by Shakespeare’s play because he may not have meant us to see King Richard III in it.

It is beyond doubt that Richard III is replete with errors of all kinds; factual, chronological and even geographical in its efforts to damn King Richard to its audience; and it succeeds. This is the image of King Richard that has imprinted itself onto our collective consciousness; the scheming, evil murderer, worst of all, murderer of children. Yet Shakespeare’s genius in passing fiction into historical fact may have been an accident, or at least an unintended by-product or convenient cover for what he was really asking his audience, and his Queen, to think about.

The play was written in the early 1590’s, probably around 1593 and it is important to consider the context in which Shakespeare was writing. The concerns of his contemporaries were great and growing. There was still religious upheaval, with no settlement reached in the country during the sixty years since Henry VIII’s Reformation. Queen Elizabeth I was aging and clearly not going to produce an heir. The question of the succession was growing like a weed, out of control, and no one was tending to it openly, including the Queen. Elizabeth ardently refused to address the issue but it was the proverbial elephant in the kingdom. The religion of the next monarch was a vital matter to the people of England. Transitions from Edward VI to Mary, Protestant to Catholic, and back again to Elizabeth’s Protestantism had been violent cataclysms tearing at the seams of Tudor England and another point of uncertainty was approaching.

Shakespeare is widely believed to have been a devout Catholic to the end of his life, forced to hide his faith but doubtless keen to see a Catholic monarch upon the throne after Elizabeth. He was close to his sponsors the Earls of Essex and Southampton who were known Catholics. If we can view Hamlet as a call to arms for English Catholics then Richard III contains similar thinly veiled undercurrents. William Shakespeare appears to have been happy to promote the Earls’ Catholic cause in his writing and skilled at hiding it. So who was Shakespeare aiming his quill at? I believe his audience were meant to see, and at the time would have clearly understood that they were meant to see, Robert Cecil.

Robert Cecil was a hunchback. In 1588 Motley’s History of the Netherlands described Cecil as: ‘A slight, crooked, hump-backed young gentleman, dwarfish in stature’ and later spoke of the ‘massive dissimulation (that) … was, in aftertimes, to constitute a portion of his own character’. Motley could almost have been describing Shakespeare’s King Richard III. Robert was the son of William Cecil, Elizabeth I’s lifelong advisor and Lord Privy Seal. In 1590 Robert became Secretary of State and was being groomed by his father to succeed him as the closest advisor to the monarch. After William Cecil died in 1598, Robert succeeded him as Lord Privy Seal but as early as the beginning of that decade, when Shakespeare was writing, the Cecils were operating a covert campaign to see James Stuart, King James VI of Scotland, a Protestant, succeed Elizabeth. Read in this context, the themes and dark threats of Richard III take on a new meaning.

King Richard III was perhaps an obvious candidate for the representation of evil. He had lost his life and his throne at the Battle of Bosworth to Elizabeth’s grandfather, King Henry VII. On 22^nd August 1485 the monumental Plantagenet dynasty had crumbled and the Tudor rose had flourished in the remains. Henry VII had married Richard III’s niece, Elizabeth of York. As a daughter of King Edward IV, slandering this portion of the Yorkist Plantagenet family was thoroughly out of bounds – Elizabeth of York was Elizabeth I’s grandmother. Richard III sat alone between Edward IV and Henry VII with none to defend him. Henry had made great play of rescuing the country from Richard so he was an obvious villain for a Tudor writer.

The first thing to consider is the physical representation of King Richard. Shakespeare shows us a hunchback with a withered arm. Whilst stories of King Richard having uneven shoulders existed and Sir Thomas More had used the word ‘crookback’ in his Historie of King Richard III, Shakespeare may have exaggerated these into the limping hunchback of his play, but Robert Cecil was, in fact, a hunchback. The withered arm seems to be a fabrication, perhaps a hint that it was not really Richard. I imagine the gasps when he walked out on stage for the first time and people nudged each other with knowing looks, whispering “It’s Robert Cecil!” furtively, the knowledge spreading like fire through the crowd.

The warnings of Richard III were plain to see. Richard had upturned the natural order, murdering his brother amongst others until he stole the Crown from his nephew, slaughtering the two young Princes in the Tower and poisoning his own wife. This upsetting of the correct way of the world had seen Richard king for a while but had ended in disaster, with him betrayed and killed at Bosworth and his dynasty blown to the wind. Ultimately, Richard was the architect of his own demise and I believe that Shakespeare was offering a warning that Robert Cecil was to become the architect of the downfall of the Tudors.

Richard is an appealing villain – he is funny and clever. We are forced to examine our attitude to the blatant evil played out before us. We almost like him, and we are supposed to. Elizabeth I liked Robert Cecil, a man she called her ‘little imp’ and Shakespeare was warning that this veil of amiability hid dark schemes that would doom the Crown. Namely, Cecil’s plot to see the Scottish Protestant James Stuart as King of England. Richard is the archetypal anti-hero. In his opening soliloquy he tells us all what he is planning to do, that he is ‘determined to prove a villain’, drawing us in so that we feel like we are his co-conspirators, accessories to what follows since none of us leap up to stop him. Complacency in the face of such deeds will bring ill upon the kingdom, as will allowing Cecil the room to plot a Stuart succession.

Another key theme of the play is the balance of free will against fatalism. Richard appears to be the master of his own destiny, to be driving events, giving us a Machiavellian lesson in power politics. To balance this, Richard also appears to act as though God intends the outcomes of his actions, to try and use religion to circumvent the unpleasant nature of his actions. His professed free will is an illusion. So religion becomes a central theme, man’s desire for free will against God’s plan. Cecil’s desire for a Protestant succession versus a return to the ‘correct’ religion, Catholicism. Robert Cecil is acting contrary to God’s will to try and get what he wants.

As Elizabeth I grew older and had no heir, the issue of the succession was a rising concern to the whole country. The last time that there had been a serious issue with the succession was following the death of Elizabeth’s brother Edward VI, but this was possibly a little too close for comfort. Before that, the seizure of the throne by Richard III from his nephew Edward V had thrown the country into political convulsions. Edward IV had died leaving his twelve year old son in the care of his uncle Richard. On the basis of illegitimacy, Richard had taken the throne from his nephew. This had led to civil war and, in Tudor mythology, to the need for a saviour to right the wrongs. Shakespeare was warning Elizabeth that she risked plunging the country into darkness that would lead to a violent restitution. Her duty was to ensure a smooth transition. She was failing to do this and it was the country that would pay.

Read in this context, the context in which Shakespeare’s audience would have watched it, the play becomes a moral warning to Queen Elizabeth about the effects of the uncertain succession and of allowing Robert Cecil to follow his own course. Shakespeare and his Catholic sponsors were keen to see a Catholic monarch return England to the true religion. They certainly did not want Cecil, to whom the Earl of Essex was openly opposed at court, orchestrating the Protestant succession of a Scottish monarch. The Earls of Essex and Southampton later rebelled, trying to capture the Queen in order to force their demands upon her. Essex was executed after their failure. Southampton was condemned to death but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Elizabeth never named an heir. Cecil got his Stuart succession and served James I, being elevated as Earl of Salisbury. Shakespeare became a legend. Richard III became a villain. Perhaps by accident.

Matthew Lewis is the author of a brief biography of Richard III, A Glimpse of King Richard III along with a brief overview of the Wars of the Roses, A Glimpse of the Wars of the Roses.

Matt’s has two novels available too; Loyalty, the story of King Richard III’s life, and Honour, which follows Francis, Lord Lovell in the aftermath of Bosworth.

Matt can also be found on Twitter @mattlewisauthor.

King Richard III – Who Said He Killed The Princes In The Tower?

This isn’t just meant as posturing. It’s a legitimate question, and an interesting one. The far, far more interesting question, however, is who didn’t say that he did it. This has been called the negative evidence – the conspicuous lack of positive evidence – and it is compelling.

It is often reported that the boys disappeared from public view late in the summer of 1483. This appears to be one of the few accepted, undisputed facts in the case. Even at this early stage, their fate was a matter of much gossip and it was, in the main, reported as just that – rumour and gossip. King Richard attracted attention, but so too did the Duke of Buckingham, as the below chronicle shows.

The eldest Prince, Edward, was also under the care of his physician, Dr John Argentine. The final glimpse of the boys within the historical record is the doctor’s assertion that “the young king, like a victim prepared for sacrifice, made daily confession because he thought that death was facing him.” This is often taken to mean that Edward feared his uncle was planning to do away with him, but could equally mean that he feared the medical condition he was receiving treatment for may claim his life. It is telling that Edward fears for his life, but makes no mention of his younger brother, Richard.

This, for me, is where the historical record becomes most interesting precisely because it is silent. It may be understandable that during the reign of King Richard III he would prefer to have them forgotten, whatever their fate, but he held on to the throne for only two years. After the Battle of Bosworth, King Henry VII ushered in a new, tentative Tudor regime. Had Henry found the boys alive and well, he would have uncovered a real problem. He had sworn to marry their sister, Elizabeth of York, to unite the Houses of York and Lancaster. In order to do this, he had to re-legitimise all of the children of King Edward IV. In doing so, he would hand the strongest claim to the throne in the kingdom to Edward if he were alive. Much of Edward IV’s loyal support, which Henry had co-opted against Richard III, would most likely return their might their former master’s heir. It would therefore be in Henry’s interest for them not to be found alive.

Upon taking the throne, Henry VII never once laid the blame for the death of the Princes at King Richard’s feet. In fact, he never laid the blame at anyone’s feet. He never said an official word about them. It would have been so easy for him to state that they were dead, King Richard had done it and now Henry had avenged the evil deed. Odd, then, that he should choose to remain silent about their fate, even during the Perkin Warbeck affair when the spectre of Prince Richard reared its head to threaten him.

Fascinating too is the failure of Elizabeth of York during her nearly twenty years as queen consort to put her brother’s fate to bed. She had been in sanctuary in 1483 but the following year rejoined the court of King Richard. If she felt constrained from speaking out at that time, why not condemn her uncle for the murders of her brothers after he was gone and she was free from his control? Surely her new husband would have welcomed any attempt she may have made to blame Richard.

Perhaps the most unlikely keeper of the secret was Elizabeth Woodville, queen to King Edward IV and mother to the two lost boys. She too spent over a year in sanctuary with her daughters when Richard stole the throne from her son. She too rejoined his court in 1484, under his protection. In itself, it is strange that she would hand not only herself but all of her remaining children over to a man who had allegedly killed her sons. Yet after 1485, she too would have been free from any threat Richard held over her and who would have had more cause to berate the dead king for his murdering ways? She too said nothing. Eventually she was sent to Bermondsey Abbey in 1487 where she died five years later still never having accused Richard of anything. As an aside, is it possible Henry stripped her of her lands and sent her to Bermondsey because she threatened to produce the boys and oust Henry?

Sir James Tyrell is the man most often held to have had the deed done for King Richard, allegedly confessing and offering names when he was arrested for treason in 1502. Examination of the historical record shows that Sir James, in fact, never confessed to the murder, nor was he apparently questioned about it. I have found a reference to Henry VII touting the suggestion of blaming Sir James to an ambassador once, but when it was not well received, he dropped the matter.

This account of the boy’s death seems to have firs been formulated by Sir Thomas More in his infamous History of King Richard III. He may have picked up the negative image of Richard during his time in the household of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and perennial thorn in Richard III’s side, yet he too reports only rumour, gossip and that ‘people said’ Richard killed the boys. Even the architect of Richard’s evil reputation could not bring himself to categorically say that he did it. It is interesting too that More never published the work. His nephew completed and published it after Sir Thomas’s death. Did More never mean to condemn Richard? That is a whole other story!

The first definite, unequivocal, explicit, unambiguous finger pointing is contained in Shakespeare’s play about the hunchbacked study in evil. Even this, though, presents issues. If we consider the play’s meaning to a contemporary audience, new light is shed upon the bard’s willingness to vilify the last Plantagenet king. Elizabeth I was ageing and had no heir. She was also refusing to name her successor. The play was written around the early 1590’s, when the Queen’s long serving advisor Sir William Cecil was also ageing. His son, Robert Cecil, was being fashioned to take his father’s place. The Cecils were not popular. They were trying to convince Elizabeth to name James VI of Scotland as her heir and this was not a popular policy. The fascinating fact here is that Robert Cecil was, without doubt, a hunchback. Not a man with of scoliosis, a hunchback. Was Shakespeare, then, less concerned with telling his audience exactly who Richard III was and what he did than with providing a moral tale for the country, perhaps even for the Queen, about the perils of relying on a scheming, unpopular hunchback and of failing to secure the succession? It was precisely that uncertainty that had put the Tudor’s on the throne and it now threatened to end their time in power too, sending the country into uncertainty.

The joy of writing about this kind of history is that we may never know the entire truth. I may have made wild assumptions, adding two and two together to make ten. Or I may have just hit the nail on the head. It’s interesting though, isn’t it?

Matthew has recently released The Wars of the Roses: The Key Players in the Struggle for Supremacy which details the course of the civil wars that made and broke families and can be found at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wars-Roses-Players-Struggle-Supremacy-ebook/dp/B0155CR1BS

Matthew is also the author of a brief biography of Richard III, A Glimpse of King Richard III along with a brief overview of the Wars of the Roses, A Glimpse of the Wars of the Roses.

Matt’s has two novels available too; Loyalty, the story of King Richard III’s life, and Honour, which follows Francis, Lord Lovell in the aftermath of Bosworth.

Matt can also be found on Twitter @mattlewisauthor.