This post is part of FanstRAvaganza 3, a week of Richard Armitage blogging fun. The King Richard Armitage chain was started yesterday by Maria Grazia on Fly High and will continue tomorrow on Fabo's White Rose blog.
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“The most mighty prince Richard by the grace of God King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland by true matrimony without discontinuance or any defiling in the law by heir male lineally descending from King Henry II”
If you’re a Richard Armitage fan, you surely know about a little project of his: telling the story of one of England’s most controversial monarchs, King Richard III. Richard was named after the king by his father and he was born on 22 August, the exact day of Richard III’s demise in the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.
Richard started speaking about this project as early as in 2007. In his message to fans that year, he said:
"Richard III is still very much in development, I am weighed down with history books in my determination to unvover as much fact as possible before we embark on telling this story, which will ultimately be a fiction!"
Since then, the fans have tried to follow in his footsteps to find out as much as possible about what seems to be a project that is very dear to RA's heart. To show fan enthusiasm for the project, a group of fans have started the Richard III for Richard Armitage project, including a petition, a website and a Facebook group.
Visit the website here
In my ownsearch for details about the King, I stumbled upon a biography, Richard III, written by Michael Hicks, a Professor of History at King Alfred's College, Winchester.
According to the book's back cover blurb, Professor Hicks "has written extensively on medieval England and is regarded by many as the leading expert on the Yorkist dynasty".
In this biography, Michael Hicks provides a scientific look at the life and reign of RichardIII. By focusing on Richard's reputation during his lifetime, Hicks tries to provide a balanced account of the history of this controversial king, instead of looking back upon his usurpation and his reign with our 21st-century expectations of what a "good and fair king" should be.
"Richard was a hawk rather than a dove" page 107I have serious doubts about Michael Hicks' objectivity towards Richard III and this biography is not the most compelling read, but it offers a great insight into 15th century politics and society.
Hicks uses this image of 15th century England to show Richard as "an egotist, whose own interests took priority over his brother, consort and son". Claiming that Richard, although he probably did genuinely love her, married Anne Neville as a way to realise his ambition to establish himself as the true heir of the Earl of Warwick ('The Kingmaker'), bringing him the wealth and lands of the old Beauchamp and Despenser families. Even before Queen Anne's death on 16 March 1485, Richard was supposedly getting ready to replace her with his niece Elizabeth, daughter of his brother king Edward IV.
"Crowland reports that at Christmas 1484 Richard stopped sleeping with his queen and dressed her and princess Elizabeth in similar clothes." Page 244
According to this biography, Richard's marriage to Elizabeth did not take place for the simple reasons that the Northerners objected to the discarding of queen Anne and the clergy objected to the marriage between an uncle and his niece. In my opinion, if Richard had really wanted to marry Elizabeth, he would have found a way to make it happen.
Instead, everything that I have read about Richard III has made me believe that Richard was a good king who had the best intentions towards his wife, his family and especially his country. In that respect, Michael Hicks' biography is a disappointment, as it does not validate this belief. Instead, under the pretence of objectivity, it provides questionable evidence for the way the king was portrayed by Tudor historians: as a cruel and ambitious king who would go to great lengths (even so far as to murder his nephews, the Princes in the Tower?) to win the throne and establish himself as the rightful ruler of England. An ambition that finally led to his demise.
"Just as he had engineered his accession, so his own actions determined his fall." Page 272The chapter about Richard III's usurpation of the throne is certainly worth reading as it offers different views of the events in the structure of a trial. Hicks' presents the case for the prosecution and the case for the defence of Richard III and he presents a 'star witness': Dominic Mancini, an Italian member of the clergy who visited England during Richard's accession and wrote the story down in great detail. The fact that Mancini's account was written down as the events were taking place makes this an extremely important piece of evidence as all other surviving accounts were written many years later.
But Mancini did not understand a word of English and had to rely on the translations that his friends and other clergymen (whose loyalties we cannot check) would provide. That is indeed the greatest weakness of the star witness, so we still do not have 100% conclusive evidence of what took place in the months and days leading up to Richard, Duke of Gloucester becoming King Richard III.
You can probably tell that I could go on and on about this biography and about Richard III, but I'll leave you to make up your own mind. Anyway, whether Richard III was good or evil, devil or angel, a murderer or a protector, a usurper or a rightful king, it doesn't really matter. His life and the mysteries surrounding his reign make this extremely interesting material for an artistic interpretation. And our dearest Richard Armitage would do an excellent job portraying this extremely layered and controversial character, leaving him enough freedom and artistic liberty to fill in the blanks. He already looks like royalty, don't you agree?
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| Richard Armitage looking like royalty as Sir Guy of Gisbourne in season 3 of Robin Hood |
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This post is part of FanstRAvaganza 3, a week of Richard Armitage blogging fun. The King Richard Armitage chain was started yesterday by Maria Grazia on Fly High and will continue tomorrow on Fabo's White Rose blog.
To make sure you don't have to miss any of the FanstRAvaganza fun, the full list of events is available on this site.
Description of Richard III in The Rows Roll
Interesting. It's kind of a shame that these old things just get repeated over and over again. I was looking today at the textbooks my students have and it concedes more or less, that the worst case historians can make for Richard is that his reign was ambivalent -- the useful evidence for Richard as evil is just not there.
ReplyDeleteThanks for participating in F3 and also for supporting the King Richard Armitage project!
Go team Richard!! :-)
DeleteAll that I have read suggests that Richard III was a fundamentally good person. But I haven't lived in 15th C England. So I don't KNOW if Gloucester was tempted, or if he wanted to just end those destructive wars. We have to have a bit of an open mind about historical events. I think that Richard III was royally scuppered by the Tudors. So, it would be royally good to have a more balanced view of that Lord of the North.
ReplyDeletefitzg
Indeed, fitzg, a more balanced view is exactly what I was hoping for with this biography. No luck, I'm afraid. But I'm still convinced he meant well.
DeleteThanks for your comment!
I think Thomas More did a lot to smear poor Richard III's reputation as well. He was trying to curry favor with the two Henrys VII & VIII so he wrote a lot of lies about Richard (which Shakespeare used to create his Richard III)
ReplyDeleteI'm in the "Richard was actually a very good king" camp. But in any case, the story would be much more interesting on TV I think if it contradicts everything Shakespeare has made people believe about Richard III. I hope OUR Richard gets to tell this story.
And thanks for the heads up, will avoid Hicks's book in the future.
Can I join you in your camp? :-)
DeleteLet's hope Richard gets to set the record straight on King Richard.
Have fun this week!
I've got lots of reading to do on this subject!! Thanks for all of the info!
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure - enjoy!!
DeleteOoh Inge,
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your essay, I'm even more enamored of seeing Richard Armitage portray King Richard III. RA will do so well in bringing out the nuances of this character.
And if i were Queen Anne? I would definitely try to do a Scheherazade and spin a 1,001 tales or intrigues to keep my man interested in me and not in our niece--especially if that man were King Richard (Armitage). Ha!
Cheers! Grati ;->
Thankyou for this interesting post. I was captiavted by Josephine Tey's novel, and therefore have always been of the impression that RIII has been maligned throughout history. I will be interested to see if Richard Armitage embarks on this project. (I'm sure he will do it well).
ReplyDeleteI still haven't read Josephine Tey's novel - it's o my 'books to read' list!
DeleteDamn that Shakespeare! If he were around he'd get a blasting or two in 140 characters or less about the smear job he did on poor Richard.
ReplyDeleteIt is so hard to select the right books about this topic and so your review is very helpful.
Thanks
Glad I could help!
DeleteI don't have an opinion on RIII but I think RA's sense of destiny in getting this project made comes across strongly. I wish him well with it. This was a great post!
ReplyDeleteI agree, Richard III is definitely in RA's destiny. Let's hope he gets to make this dream come true!
DeleteMy reading list is very long so I appreciate your book summary! Now can you get to work on summarizing my other books? LOL! ;)
ReplyDeleteIf any of them are on my list, I'm sure they'll end up on this blog at some point. Just sit tight! :-)
DeleteI do hope Richard's dream of making this series happens because there is so much to explore in Richard III story. So interesting about Mancini's telling of the story being the only one written when it happened rather than much later. Thanks for this great book review.
ReplyDeleteHi IngeD3!:)
ReplyDeleteIn fact,I will be severely disappointed if Richard abandoned his project.
Thank you very much, IngeD3, for presenting this research book. I was already thinking about reading it. Now I don't think I will.
ReplyDeleteI find the research, connecting the incidents leading to the misinterpretation of Richard III wanting to marry his niece, to diplomatic contacts with Spain and Portugal quite interesting and they ring more true to me, as they would better fit his political interests to secure his position in Europe. His niece, in my view, would not have helped him in that regard at all, but would have weakened his position, because of her illegitimate status. Her being just slightly older than his own son would have been at that time, to me does not sound all too likely for forming a love interest.
Such a lot of intrigues and political manoeuvering. What a great topic for RA to play and create ;o)