Courtney McGrailRichard III: The Maligned King
by Annette Carson
(History Press, £12.91)
Donal Anthony Foley
Annette Carson has written a most informative book on Richard III, who, more than 500 years after his death, still manages to evoke powerful emotions whether for or against.
He was the King of England for only just over two years, and yet, according to Carson, he “made good laws which still protect ordinary people today”.
But until recently the view of most historians is the one which sees him as the villainous hunchback of Shakespeare’s play: “The wicked uncle who stole the throne and killed his nephews in the Tower of London.”
The author takes a fresh look at his reign, focusing on original sources rather than relying on the assumptions which, she claims, many historians have made as to the character and motivation of Richard.
This edition of the book has been updated and includes details of what happened after the discovery in 2013 of Richard’s body under a car park in Leicester, not far from Bosworth field where he died on August 22, 1485, a victim of the forces of Henry Tudor who duly became King Henry VII, and ultimately the father of Henry VIII.
The author deals with various topics relating to the life of Richard, and mentions the discovery of his skeleton, which indicated that he was about 5ft 8 in. tall, and was strong and well-muscled; he did have a curvature of the spine (scoliosis) but it would not have been that noticeable. This, in her words, debunks “Shakespeare’s monstrous shambling creature with hunched back and withered arm”.
Disappearance
Carson also deals at length with the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower, still one of the great historical mysteries. She argues that rather than murdering the young princes, who had been declared illegitimate, Richard may well have sent them overseas to the Low Countries, to his sister, Margaret of York, the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy.
And in fact, the person who had most to gain from the murder of the Princes was actually Henry Tudor, while Richard had nothing to gain by killing them and then keeping it a secret.
As for Richard’s personal qualities, they lie uneasily with the notion that he was an unprincipled murderer. In Carson’s words: “He had a high reputation as a military campaigner, and a higher one as a fair and just administrator; indeed his concern for justice and law had been an overriding theme in his life.”
And it was not just a case of mere words; Richard actively sought to introduce laws that would protect the weak against the strong, a policy that was unpopular with some of the nobility, and which ultimately worked against him at Bosworth Field.
Carson quotes the medieval historian, Professor A. R. Myers, who said: “What brought [Richard] to defeat and death at Bosworth Field was not the feeling of the nation at large, but the desertion of a few great nobles and their forces.”
The country was certainly not the better for Henry Tudor’s victory.
Historian Paul Murray Kendall summarises his reign as a story of disorder, misery, oppression, spying, hangings and the miserly extortion of his subjects.
From an Irish point of view, if Richard III had won the Battle of Bosworth, then it is quite possible that the Reformation in England might never have happened – which would certainly have made Anglo-Irish history very different.
Richard III: The Maligned King is a thought-provoking and well-argued book, which will certainly be of interest to anyone who seeks to know more about this crucial time in the history of England, and explains much about ambitious cruelties of Tudor England.