Richard III may have gotten a bum rap. Since his death in the Battle of
Bosworth Field in 1485, he has been almost universally vilified as a monstrous
king—murderous, Machiavellian, deformed in mind and body. Most of us have absorbed this judgment
from Shakespeare's eponymous play, itself largely based on an earlier book
attributed to Sir Thomas More. The
trouble is that history is written by the victors. Richard was the last Plantagenet king, while More and
Shakespeare wrote their politically correct accounts under Henry VIII and
Elizabeth I of the usurping Tudor line.
So what? Why in
the world would I be interested in the rivalries of English royalty more than
five centuries ago? Two reasons. First, the recent discovery and
exhumation of Richard's remains created a splash in the newspapers (see New York
Times article)
and a fresh discussion of history's verdict on him. Second, in a desperate search to find a good mystery
novel to read, I found citations
of Josephine Tey's 1951 book The
Daughter of Time as first and fourth,
respectively, on lists of the best 100 mystery books of all time by the British
Crime Writers' Association and the Mystery Writers of America. Tey was a writer of British police
procedurals, not my favorite mystery genre, but such acclaim was hard to
ignore. So I bought the book after
reading its synopsis on Amazon.com and finding to my surprise that the mystery
it investigates is Richard III's bum rap.
A little dynastic history is needed here. When King Edward IV died in 1483, he
left his two sons under the Protectorship of his brother, Richard. The elder prince, 12-year-old Edward,
ascended the throne as Edward V, but that was soon challenged. Edward IV's marriage to Prince Edward's
mother was declared by an act of Parliament to be invalid, as records showed
that he was already married at the time to another woman. The two princes were therefore
illegitimate and not eligible for the throne. Richard III—next in line—was anointed king. He reigned for only two years until
dying at Bosworth at the hands of forces under the Earl of Richmond.
Richmond assumed the throne as Henry VII, the first Tudor
king. He had everything to gain
from defaming the defeated Richard in order to shore up his own legitimacy as
king, which was weak from the viewpoint of bloodlines. (The closest he came was as the
great-grandson of an illegitimate son of a younger son of a king.) Aspersions were therefore retroactively
cast at Richard, the most odious being the alleged murder of the two
princes. That is the crime
indelibly etched in all our minds by Shakespeare's play.
Tey uses the detective Alan Grant of a number of her
mysteries as the protagonist in her book, who tries to unveil the truth about
Richard. I can do no better than quote from the Amazon.com
synopsis:
"Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating
from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard
III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history. Could such a sensitive, noble face
actually belong to one of the world's most heinous villains—a venomous
hunchback who may have killed his brother's children to make his crown
secure? Or could Richard have been
the victim, turned into a monster by the usurpers of England's throne? Grant determines to find out once and
for all, with the help of the British Museum and an American scholar, what kind
of man Richard Plantagenet really was and who killed the Little Princes
..."
In mulling over the evidence he acquires, Grant asks a bevy of trenchant
questions. Among them:
• If
Richard was the fiend he was later portrayed to be, why do contemporary,
pre-Tudor accounts paint him as a gentle noble, in touch with the people, a
good administrator and a "good lord" with a "great heart,"
who often forgave his enemies. Why
was his great villainy discovered only after Henry VII's accession?
• Why did the most vicious attacks on Richard
occur even later, by those who had no first-hand knowledge of him—e.g., Thomas
More, who was just five when Richard ascended the throne and seven when he
died?
• The
Little Princes disappeared from view only some time after they had been
delegitimized and Richard III crowned.
Since they were by then no threat to his ascension to the throne, what
motive could Richard have had in having them murdered, especially since he
forgave so many actual enemies and maintained an ongoing friendly association
with their mother?
• Why
would Henry VII, in drawing up a Bill of Attainder against Richard III immediately
after being crowned in 1485, list in it any number of Richard's purported
crimes, but not mention the most heinous, the murder of the Little Princes,
which he only later alleged? Does
this mean that he knew they were still alive at the time he started impugning
Richard's reputation?
• Soon
afterward, Henry VII married the Little Princes' sister. He had the delegitimizing act of
Parliament rescinded, presumably in order to re-legitimize her and strengthen
his own claim to the throne. But
that also re-legitimized the Princes and restored their succession to the throne,
thus challenging Henry's own hold on it. Did Henry therefore know that they were by that later date
dead, and therefore posed no threat?
In fact, did he have a hand in their death?
• Why was Sir James Tyrrel—who was said to
confess in 1502 to the Princes' murder—given a general pardon by Henry VII in
June 1486 and then an unheard-of second general pardon a month later? For what crimes? Had he been Henry VII's agent in the
Princes' deaths?
Grant, using the police procedures of
Scotland Yard, makes a case that (1) Richard III was scapegoated by the Tudors
and their supporters for all sorts of malefactions in order to strengthen the
weak Tudor title to the throne, and (2) the disappearance and presumed murder
of the Princes was likely Henry VII's doing. In my mind, it is a strong case. But the pall over Richard III was heavily laid by More and
Shakespeare, and only after the Stuarts replaced the Tudors as monarchs of
England in the early 17th century did some historians dare try to
remove the stain, not very successfully.
The controversy continues to this day. Tey, although not a historian, did much to tilt the balance
more in Richard III's favor.
Interesting history. I
myself wouldn't list The Daughter of Time among the top 100 mystery novels, but it was certainly a captivating
read.