Shakespeare has a (parking) lot to answer for
In William Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” the king is shown facilitating the deaths of King Henry VI and his son Prince Edward; of Richard’s brother George, Duke of Clarence (drowned in a butt of malmsey wine); of the Second Duke of Buckingham; of Richard’s own wife, Anne Neville; and especially of the Princes in the Tower of London, the 12-year-old King Edward V and his 9-year-old brother Richard, Duke of York. It is the greatest example of theatrical overkill since the Tarantino-like closing scenes of “Hamlet” and “Macbeth,” yet there is absolutely no evidence that Richard was guilty of any of it. Shakespeare even has Richard killing the Duke of Somerset at the battle of St. Albans, which took place when Richard was 2 years old. …
It is hoped by Ricardians (yes, the small but vocal band of Richard III’s supporters have a sobriquet) that the world-wide interest in his disinterment by Leicester University archaeologists will focus attention on his reputation. Just because his last stand at the Battle of Bosworth Field took place 528 years ago, it doesn’t mean that a good man’s name should continue to be sullied. As Shakespeare’s own Iago says in the third act of “Othello”: “Who steals my purse steals trash . . . but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed.”
Richard should be admired even today. After all, here is a monarch who abolished press censorship, invented the right to bail for people awaiting trial, reformed the country’s finances, and led bravely in battle despite a crippling disability.
Blowback
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Shakespeare, Renaissance playwright, political stooge and all around Tudor propagandist…
Logus on February 6, 2013 at 10:44 PM
Not to mention Sir Thomas More.
INC on February 6, 2013 at 11:04 PM
Also not to mention that Henry Tudor was a power-hungry slimeball.
Good book. Tey’s examination of what is know of the character of Richard III and Henry Tudor is telling. Andrew Roberts is evidently an unofficial Ricardian himself.
INC on February 6, 2013 at 11:19 PM
Shakespeare was writing for entertainment. He wasn’t writing history. If a playwright could improve on the story, he was expected to.
RBMN on February 6, 2013 at 11:25 PM
Shakespeare did not write the history books. You leave him alone!
For the record: all monarchs sux!
Blake on February 6, 2013 at 11:29 PM
People do recall that Shakespeare’s entire livelyhood depended on the Tudor and the Stuart reign…you know the people who DEFEATED Richard III?????
So if he wrote him as a cuddly teddy bear something tells me that the beheading friendly monarchs might have found some space on the Tower Bridge for a playwright’s head.
NerwenAldarion on February 6, 2013 at 11:38 PM
Sounds like Andrew Roberts has gone for bore Richard III truther.
Ricardian-mania over the next year of two. I can hear it now, he was wonderful, no idea how those princes disappeared in his custody, catholic England would be alive today…
Oh brother….
William Eaton on February 6, 2013 at 11:45 PM
Shakespeare wrote his play a hundred years after Bosworth Field. Again, he depended on the reported history.
Also, why is everyone so outraged that two royal princes might have been murdered and not by the fact that the various monarchs murdered peasant children all the time back then?
Blake on February 6, 2013 at 11:49 PM
Please don’t make me dust off my Monarch Notes!!!
Shy Guy on February 7, 2013 at 12:15 AM
@William Eaton: There’s a theory bounding around that young Will was a closet Papist anxious to prove his loyalty. Also that he consorted with comely Jewesses, but that’s another matter.
Seth Halpern on February 7, 2013 at 12:27 AM
I think our Ricardists tend to be interpreting that era in light of the excesses of Henry VIII. Which were much less excessive when you remember that bastardy was as much an impediment to taking the throne of England as being female was in the Holy Roman Empire. Henry VII brought peace back to England, not to be broken until long after the last Tudor was dead. I can’t get past the imprisonment of the young princes, and the convenient finding of that second marriage contract, when Edward was too dead to contest.
Sekhmet on February 7, 2013 at 2:10 AM
Not true. While the sins of kings are seemingly to numerous to count and too horrifying to remember there are some Monarchs that genuinely did right by their people and deserve to be remembered for it.
Yes, they did have what could be considered absolute power. The fact that some kings were not absolutely corrupted is a testament that (at least for some people) there is truly good in the world and that some people take it seriously.
Chaz706 on February 7, 2013 at 4:53 AM
So in this case essentially Richard the Third was George W. Bush and William Shakespeare was Kanye West?
radjah shelduck on February 7, 2013 at 6:54 AM
Read “The Daughter of Time” by Josephine Tey for the real story.
Jaclyn on February 7, 2013 at 8:13 AM
It really disgusts me that the CoE and the Crown are still doggedly refusing to have the alleged “bones of the Princes” finally given a complete examination.
In an article I read today on this continued stonewalling, it sounds, reading between the lines, that the establishment fears that the bones in the Abbey are not those of the Princes, and it would be too embarrassing for this to become known. (They quoted someone as saying something like “Well, if these bones aren’t of the two boys, we wouldn’t know what to do with them.”)
Even more interesting, this article indicated that the Church/Crown fears that if they allowed the bones to be tested, it would set an unwelcome precedent. Apparently, there are a lot of other so-called royal remains in the Abbey who are of uncertain “genuineness,” and they’d like to leave it that way.
Cowards.
Undine on February 7, 2013 at 8:43 AM
O.J. Simpson and Casey Anthony agree with that.
Flange on February 7, 2013 at 9:18 AM
Oh, that’s an easy one. Just ask a liberal:
Obama’sEdward V’s children are more important thanyoursyour ancestors’ children.CJ on February 7, 2013 at 9:29 AM
But that’s ok for Bill, since it would be Bacon’s head on the bridge…..
GWB on February 7, 2013 at 9:52 AM
This entire story is about as useful to me as the Twilight Saga.
Vera71 on February 7, 2013 at 10:47 AM
This story is about as useful as the Twilight Saga.
Vera71 on February 7, 2013 at 10:58 AM
Tey was as biased for Richard as Shakespeare was against.
Henry VII suffers in the history books because he is sandwiched between the glamour of the Plantagenets and the excesses of his second-born son, so that his own character and achievements are largely distorted or simply forgotten.
The story of his escape from Richard’s agents in France would make a great movie.
Not saying he was a paragon of probity or virtue, but he wasn’t a monster.
As for those who believe Henry had the princes murdered after Richard’s death, there is as little (or as much?) proof for that as their is of Richard’s guilt.
IMO, the most likely culprit would be a supporter of one or the other monarch currying favor without explicit authorization, in the Becket tradition.
AesopFan on February 7, 2013 at 12:36 PM