4. Richard III

Pre-reading task:

Why did Shakespeare portray Richard III as a hunchback?

When RICHARD III came to the throne in 1483 he was 30 years old, with long record of service to the crown. The youngest surviving son of Richard, Duke of York and Cecily Neville, he was born at Fotheringhay Castle on 2 October 1452, and spent his childhood under the shadow of the Wars of the Roses. He was eight when his father was killed at the Battle of Wakefield, and his mother sent him away to the safety of Burgundy; but a year later the victory of his eldest brother, Edward, at Towton, brought about a dramatic change in the family fortunes. As King of England, Edward created young Richard a Knight of the Garter and Duke of Gloucester, and Richard repaid him with his steadfast loyalty.

Like his elder brother Clarence, Richard of Gloucester married a daughter of Warwick the Kingmaker, Anne Neville, who became his wife in 1471. But unlike Clarence, who succumbed briefly to Warwick's promises of kingship, Richard remained loyal to Edward, for whom he fought valiantly at the crucial battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury. When Clarence was finally put to death, Richard showed great grief for him. There were many good reports of Gloucester during these years. His relationship with the Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, was, however, not cordial, and he spent much of his time away from court, acting as his brother's lieuten­ant in the North, or as Warden of the West March. Shortly before King Edward died he recognised Richard's valuable work by making the Warden's post hereditary and granting him the royal estates in the county of Cumberland. It was a fine inheritance for Richard's son, named Edward, who had been born in 1473.

When King Edward IV died, in April 1483, he entrusted the care of his own son, and of the realm, to Richard's Protectorship. It was a decision which the boy's mother and her Woodville relations found unacceptable. A resolution was hurried through, before Richard arrived from the north, replacing his authority with that of a council of regency, and young Edward began his journey from Ludlow to London. On the way, however, he was met by Richard; and as the Protector took charge of Edward, having arrested his governor, Earl Rivers, the Woodville Queen fled into sanctuary at Westminster with other son and daughters.

On 4 May Richard entered London, and from then on events moved swiftly. He requested support from his loyal followers in the north, officially to protect him from the Queen and her adherents; and on 16 June the younger Prince, Richard of York, removed from his mother in Westminster Abbey, and sent to join his brother. The Princes' uncle was planning their disinheritance.

Lord Hastings, who opposed the action was arrested during a council meeting, and beheaded at once; on 22 June. Dr Ralph Shaw preached the sermon in which he made the startling claim that the little King was ineligible to rule, as his father had already contracted a marriage before he made Elizabeth Woodville his wife. With both of Edward IV's sons then declared illegitimate and debarred from succeeding, the rightful heir to the throne was Richard of Gloucester, and Parliament duly made a formal request to Richard that he should become their King. After some demurring, he accepted, and on 6 July the English people witnessed the coronation, not of Edward V, but of Richard III.

What became of the two little boys in the Tower may never be known for certain. After they ceased to be seen, rumours quickly began to circulate that they had been killed on their uncle's orders, and in January 1484 the French Parliament was told formally that Richard had murdered his nephews; but Richard III never produced the boys to stop the stories. Amidst the centuries-old specu­lation and circumstantial evidence, a few facts remain: the scraps of bone found beneath a staircase in the Tower two centuries later, and subjected to forensic tests in 1933, were found to be those of two boys of the ages of the Princes in 1483. Richard's successor, Henry VII, who has sometimes been charged with the crime, showed a marked (and unusual for the time) reluc­tance to kill even his proven enemies, as his lenient treatment of the dangerous preten­ders Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck demonstrated. And despite Richard's ener­getic service of his brother Edward IV during his lifetime, and his motto 'Loyaute me lie' -'loyalty binds me' - there was little loyalty in the exposure of that brother's reputed earlier marriage, the swift disinheritance of his nephews and his acceptance of their throne.

Whatever the means by which he won it, Richard III did not enjoy his throne for long. His reign was not tranquil; though an early attempt at rebellion, led by his former supporter the Duke of Buckingham, was swiftly put down, the threat of invasion from Henry Tudor remained ever-present. In the spring of 1484, a personal tragedy struck when Richard's only son, Prince Edward, died. Not only did Richard and his wife Anne seem half-mad with grief, but the King's position was now doubly vulnerable, since only his life now lay between another claimant and the throne. Just a year later, Anne herself died: and the rumours which seemed to cling to Richard III now whispered that he had killed her, so that he could marry his niece, Elizabeth of York, whom the Lancastrian Henry Tudor had publicly pledged to marry as soon as he had won the throne.

Despite Richard's intensely loyal following in the north, he was by no means universally loved by his subjects. The unpopularity of his advisers Catesby, Ratcliffe and Lovell, and his own emblem of the white boar, were celebrated in the biting rhyme,

‘The Cat, the Rat and Lovell our Dog

Rule all England under a Hog’.

There were disaffected Yorkists, as well as ardent Lancastrians, among the supporters who welcomed Henry Tudor to England in August 1485. The Tudor claimant landed in South Wales and made his way towards Leicester, gathering men as he went. Finally his army and Richard's took up their positions at Ambien Hill, near the Leicester­shire village of Market Bosworth, and on 22 August 1485 the last battle of the Wars of the Roses began.

Richard had a far larger army than the invader, and he was experienced in battle, unlike Henry Tudor; but the desertion of two powerful former Yorkists, the Stanleys, to Henry's side helped to tip the balance. Richard was killed, fighting valiantly 'in the thickest press of his enemies', and according to tradition the royal circlet was found hanging on a thornbush, and placed rever­ently on the head of the new King, Henry VII. Richard's body was slung across the back of a nag to be carried, in unkingly fashion, to Leicester.

The people of York risked Tudor dis­pleasure by recording their sorrow at the death of King Richard, 'piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this city'. But the struggle between York and Lancaster was over at last, and the age of the Tudors had begun.

(from “Kings and Queens of Great Britain” by Josephine Ross, L. 1982)

At what point Richard planned to be King is uncertain. But within a few weeks he was. He first arrested Earl Rivers and Sir Richard Grey, accusing them of plotting. They were the young prince's minders. Grey was his half-brother. Two weeks later, doubting the support of Lord Hastings and the Archbishop of York and the Treasurer, the Bishop of Ely, Richard imprisoned the two pops and beheaded Hastings. Meanwhile he'd lodged the twelve-year-old Edward V in the Tower. Shortly afterwards, Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, was persuaded to part with her other son, the nine-year-old Duke of York. Now the princes were in the Tower.

All Richard had to do now was convince Parliament, and the people, that the late King's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid and therefore their heirs had no right to the throne. Richard's chaplain was sent to St Paul's Cross in London to preach the sermon that would explain the Church's view. As this extract from The Great Chronicle of London shows, it didn't quite work as Richard had intended.

*On the second Sunday after Lord Hastings' execution, 'there being present the Lord Protector, the Duke of Buckingham, and a large authence of laity and clergy, Doctor Ralph Shaa declared, and proved by reasons as he devised there and then, that the children of King Edward were not the rightful heirs of the crown, and that King Edward was not the legitimate son of the Duke of York, as the Lord Protector was. He then alleged that the Lord Protector was most worthy to be King, and none other. Which sermon offended so greatly the greater part of that authence that whereas before that time the said doctor was held to be most famous and holy in the minds of the common people, after this day he was held in little repute or regard. Then on the Tuesday after this Sunday, the Duke of Buckingham came to the Guildhall. The Duke made an oration which lasted a good half hour, recounting the excellence of the Lord Protector, the many virtues [with] which God had endowed him, and the rightful title he had to the throne. When he had finished, and well exhorted the assembly to accept the Lord Protector to be their liege lord and King, a small number of his listeners cried 'Yea!' to satisfy his mind, and more for fear than for love.

But Richard was not unduly put out by this lack of spontaneous approval. Parliament was the important body, not the people. Two days later, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was proclaimed King Richard III. However from the day of his coronation, there is a sense that the new King was not trusted by his people, nor by many of his magnates.

С+ . . . during diese first three months of Richard's reign, Buckingham, from being his chief supporter, became his mortal foe. His motives are not clear. Perhaps he shrank from becoming the accomplice in what he foresaw would be the closing act of the usurpation. So we come to the principal crime ever afterwards associated with Richard's name. According to Sir Thomas More's story, Richard resolved, in July, to extirpate the menace to his peace and sovereignty presented by the princes. He sent a special messenger, by name John Green, to Brackenbury, the Constable of the Tower, with orders to make an end of them. Brackenbury refused to obey. 'Whom should a man trust," exclaimed the King . .. "when those who I thought would most surely serve at my command will do nothing for me?' A page who heard this outburst reminded his master that Sir James Tyrell, one of Richard's former companions in arms, was capable of anything. Tyrell was sent to London with a warrant authorizing Brackenbury to deliver to him for one night all the keys of the Tower. Tyrell discharged his fell commission with all dispatch. One of the four gaolers in charge of the princes, Forest by name, was found willing, and with Dighton, Tyrell's own groom, did the deed. When the princes were asleep the two assassins pressed pillows hard down upon their faces till they were suffocated ... it was not until Henry VII's reign, when Tyrell was lying in the Tower under sentence of death for quite a separate crime, that he is alleged to have made a confession upon which, with much other circumstantial evidence, the story as we know it rests.

Meanwhile the Duke of Buckingham was conspiring with the Countess of Richmond who, as a Веаufort, was a descendant of John of Gaunt and therefore in the Lancastrian line of Edward III. She'd married the Earl of Richmond, who was now dead. Their son, Henry Tudor, was now Earl of Richmond and in exile in Brittany after a previous Lancastrian loss.

C+All Buckingham’s preparations were for a general rising on October 18. But the anger of the people at the rumoured murder of the princes deranged [the] plan. In Kent, Wiltshire, Sussex and Devonshire there were risings ten days before the appointed date. King Richard marched against rebellion. Buckingham's forces melted away. Buckingham, with a high price on his head, was betrayed to Richard who lost not an hour in having him slaughtered. The usual crop of executions followed. Order was restored throughout the land, and the King seemed to have established himself securely upon his throne.

A terrible blow now fell upon the King. In April 1484 his only son, the Prince of Wales, died, and his wife, whose health was broken, could bear no more children. Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, now became obviously the rival claimant and successor to the throne. As the months passed, many prominent Englishmen, both Yorkist and Lancastrian, withdrew themselves from Richard’s baleful presence, and made their way to Richmond, who from this time forth stood at the head of a combination which might well unite all England.

On 17 August 1485 the King, with 10,000 well-disciplined troops, set forth towards Leicester at the head of his army. Richmond's forces were rebels and the wild card, or unknown factor, was Lord Stanley’s forces. T'he Кing, doubtful of him, had held his son and threatened to behead him if his father failed to support the royal standard. But Stanley, at the last moment, joined Richmond.

Richard's fate is described by Polydore Vergil in his Anglica Historia which chronicled the reign of Henry VII.

* Earl Henry [Tudor] was drawing nearer. King Richard knew it perfectly by evident signs and tokens that it was Henry. Wherefore, all inflamed with ire, he struck his horse with spurs, and ran against him out of his own army ahead of the vanguard. King Richard, at the first brunt, killed some men and overthrew Henry's standard, together with William Brandon the standard bearer. Then he matched himself against John Cheney, a man of such strength, far exceeding the common sort, who strove with him as he came; but the King with great force drove him to the ground, making way with his weapon on every side. But yet Henry abode the brunt longer than even his own soldiers would have thought, who were almost out of hope of victory, when suddenly William Stanley, with 3ooo men, came to the rescue. Then, only in a moment, the remainder fled and King Richard was killed in the thickest press of his enemies. Many forbore to fight who came to the field with King Richard for awe, and for no goodwill, and departed without any danger, as men who desired not the safety but destruction of that prince whom they hated. The body of King Richard, naked of all clothing, and laid upon a horse's back, with arms and legs hanging down both sides was brought to the abbey at Leicester a miserable spectacle in good truth, and was buried there two days afterwards without any pomp or solemn funeral.

And that was the Battle of Bosworth. It was 1485 and the end of the Wars of the Roses, wars that had made little difference to the daily lives of the peoples of England. Incidentally no one, at the time, called them the Wars of the Roses. It seems that the first person to refer to them by that name was Sir Walter Scott in his novel, Anne of Geierstein, and that wasn't until 1829.

(from “This Sceptred Isle” by Christopher Lee, L. 1990)

Questions

1. What were the main political, social and cultural results of the Norman Conquest?

2. Name some of the strong and weak points in the ruling policies of William I and his sons

3. What were the three things king Henry II is best remembered for?

4. Explain the reasons of popularity of Richard I with his subjects and later generations of the English people.

5. What were the causes and consequences of signing Magna Charta?

6. Describe the relations of the Crown and Nobility during the reign of Henry III and Edward I. What were the first steps in the history of the Parliament?

7. Why is the 14^th c. known as the time of the Black Death and wars? Describe the political, social and cultural life of that period.

8. What was the time of Lancastrian rule marked by?

9. What were the main reasons of the Wars of the Roses. Describe its major events.

TEST 1 (Early Britain)

Classify the following into groups of three and comment on every group:

AD 61, 793, 663, 597, Agricola, Queen Boadicea, King Alfred, Augustine, King Offa, Wessex, A Celtic revolt against the Romans, A treaty with the Danes, Lindisfarne monastery, Whitby, The first raid of the Danes, Synod, Canterbury, Mercia, A Roman governor of Britain, a dyke on the border of Wales, liberal education for the sons of Celtic chiefs.

TEST 2

Classify the following into groups of three and comment on every group:

1295, 1314, 1172, 1381, 1215, Henry I, William the Conqueror, Lion of Justice, Henry II, Robert Bruce, Ethelred, the Duke of Normandy, Gunnhild, Hastings, the capture of Dublin as the first English colony, Scotland wins the battle of Bannockburn and becomes independent again, King Sweyn, Model Parliament, the Exchequer, the Peasants’ Revolt, Magna Charta, Wat Tyler and John Ball, King John.

TEST 3

Match up the characteristics and the names of British kings.

1. The Lion of Justice, he formed the Exchequer. He regarded kingship as representation of God. He married Edith, the sister of king Edgar of Scotland, and a descendant of Alfred the Great. This marriage brought together the royal blood of England, Scotland and Normandy.

2. The king who interrupted the Saxon line of kingship, though he wished to be regarded as the successor of Edgar The Peaceful. He was the king of three countries but lived in England. He ruled in the beginning of the 11th century.

3. This king was involved in the Wars of the Roses.He got the throne with the help of the Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker, though the previous king was still alive. It was in his reign that books began to be printed on Caxton’s printing press. He had two young sons who were murdered in the Tower of London.

4. A legendary Celtic king who lived in the 6^th century and was married to Guinevere. He spent his childhood in Dunster Castle and is supposed to be buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somersetshire.

5. This king was very pious. It was by his order that Westminster Abbey was built. Because he left no heirs, his death caused the last invasion of England.

6. This king was known for his chivalry. He was handsome and manly. He founded the Order of the Garter. In his reign the Black Death spread in England and a Hundred Years War with France was begun.

7. This famous Saxon king was a warrior, a translator, a musician and a scholar. He laid the foundations of the English Navy, united England against the Danes, developed education. There is his monument in Winchester.

8. The hero of Agincourt, this king was very popular among the people.

He reconquered many lands in France, married a French princess and was to succeed to the French throne. His early death put an end to his ambitious plans.

9. This Norman king was a stout red-faced man involved in actions hostile to the church and challenging the moral norms. The monks who wrote the records of the time he was a lecherous, blasphemous tyrant. He died a sudden, violent death, which was seen by the people as God’s punishment.

10. This king was 38 when he came to power. He had an imposing figure, six feet tall and heavily built. Although he was an invader, he did a lot of good for England. The Norman genius for efficient administration was well displayed in the making of the national survey known as the ’Doomsday Book’. He also developed the administrative system. He made sheriffs his representatives. The Tower of London and Windsor Castle were built by his order.

11. The king who introduced Danegeld, which became the first tax and ordered to slaughter all the Danes on St Brice’s Day in 1002. He was a poor warrior never ready to face the enemy.

a) Edward the Confessor

b) William II

c) Arthur

d) Henry I

e) William I

f) Canute

g) Ethelred

h) Alfred

i) Edward IV

j) Henry V

k) Edward III