I’ve always been fascinated by English medieval history and Richard III (the last Plantagenet King of England) although King of England for barely two years (July 6, 1483 – August 22, 1485) has always been a monarch of great interest. William Shakespeare who was working for a Tudor (and later a Stuart) monarch introduced Richard as the ultimate villain, the murderer of his two nephews (one of which was King Edward V, the other Edward V’s younger brother also named Richard) and a man whose deformed morality matched his deformed body. Of course the real story is far more nuanced. Richard no doubt was as ruthless as your typical Renaissance monarch but as I pointed out in one of the headlines, he was no more ruthless (and in many ways less) then many of his predecessors (including his brother King Edward IV who was responsible for the murder of King Henry VI) and less ruthless then his great-nephew King Henry VIII would turn out to be. As they say, the history books are written by the victors, and Richard was defeated and killed by the forces of Henry Tudor , the Earl of Richmond (who was aided by the treacherous betrayal of Richard by Lord William Stanley) at the Battle of Bosworth Field, on August 22, 1485 (which was the last battle of the Wars of the Roses).
by Andrew Roberts
The news that the skeleton of King Richard III has been found under a parking lot in Leicester, a city 100 miles north of London, should finally end half a millennium of winters of discontent for the most maligned monarch in English history. It proves that it is never too late to save one’s reputation.
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. [......]
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.
It was Richard’s tragedy that after being betrayed by the turncoat Stanley family at Bosworth, he then had to contend with the greatest poet-playwright in the English language spin-doctoring against him on behalf of the incoming regime. When the Tudors defeated and succeeded the last of the Plantagenets, they constantly briefed against the previous administration, blaming it for all the country’s ills. Shakespeare even has Richard say: “I am determined to prove a villain.” [.......]
Assuming that the skeleton really is that of the king—as the DNA experts at Leicester contend, having connected him to a Canadian carpenter named Michael Ibsen, who is directly descended from King Richard’s mother—its curvature of the spine implies that Shakespeare only slightly exaggerated by making him hunchbacked. A contemporary, the historian John Rous, described Richard as “slight in body and weak in strength,” yet the king led his men into many battles and at Bosworth “to his last breath he held himself nobly in a defending manner.” [.......]
As Josephine Tey so elegantly demonstrated in her 1951 crime novel “The Daughter of Time,” no modern court would convict Richard III of the murder of the princes in the Tower, whose possible skeletons—discovered in 1674 under the staircase leading to the chapel—ought now to be disinterred from Westminster Abbey and subjected to DNA tests and modern pathology examinations. “Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead,” says Richard in the play. Yet the evidence for their murders is at best circumstantial, and at worst pure Tudor invention.
Not merely Richard III, but also his killer and successor Henry VII needed the princes out of the way. It is known that Henry became highly perturbed throughout his reign whenever (as happened regularly) pretenders appeared, claiming to be the princes. This implies that he suspected that they might still have been alive at the time of Bosworth.
Rumors abounded, for example, that they may have escaped the country into the care of their aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy. A DNA test on the bones supposed to be those of the Princes might establish whether they are the royal children, but it wouldn’t tell us how they died.[.......]Certainly Richard’s July 6, 1483, coronation was very well attended, which might not have been the case had his contemporaries believed that he had murdered his brother’s children.
There is something uplifting in the thought that even five centuries years after his death, a wronged monarch might at last find posthumous justice.
Read the rest -Shakespeare has a (Parking) Lot to answer for
Often overlooked by the dynasty that overthrew them, namely the Tudors, the Plantagenet dynasty in England which began with the reign of Henry II in 1154 is a fascinating one. The Plantagenets include several of the monarchs who figure prominently in the history of our Western Civilization such as – Henry II, Richard I (the Lionhearted), the evil John (of the Magna Carta), Edward I (Longshanks), Edward III (a great warrior King and patron of Geoffrey Chaucer), Henry V (the victor of Agincourt), and ending with the death of Richard III in 1485. The Plantagenets traced their dynasty to Geoffrey of Anjou who wore a sprig of a yellow flower in his helmet called a Planta Genesta.
by Andrew Roberts
King Richard III, whose severely wounded body disinterred from under a parking lot in the British Midlands was confirmed by DNA testing this week, was the last of the 14 Plantagenet monarchs who ruled England from 1154 until Richard’s death at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. The Plantagenets are only usually in the news when an ambitious theater director with a big budget chooses to stage all eight of Shakespeare’s “Plantagenet plays,” from Richard II to Richard III via two parts of Henry IV, Henry V, and three parts of Henry VI.
Sometimes written off by historians as mere medieval military oafs with nothing much more interesting to contribute than smiting, in fact the Plantagenet monarchs who ruled from Henry II to Richard III were a fairly accomplished lot. It was hardly their fault that the real literary and artistic renaissance of Britain took place after they lost power, although writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and William Langland did flourish in their era.
[.........]
The clue to the Plantagenets’ success is to be found in King Edward I’s nickname, “The Hammer of the Scots,” because once the Scottish incursions in the north had been defeated it was a relatively simple matter to dominate the rest of the British Isles (with the exception of southern Ireland, always a law unto itself). With the control of mainland Britain and Northern Ireland, and the re-adoption of English as the official language in 1362, came a genuine sense of national identity.
In the realm of law it was the Plantagenet King John, who—albeit extremely reluctantly—gave the English-speaking peoples the right of habeas corpus, perhaps the very cornerstone of all our common law liberties to this day, nearly nine centuries after the signing of the Magna Carta. [.......]John was an appallingly bad king, yet no less an authority on the English-speaking peoples as Winston Churchill believed that “We owe far more to the vices of John than to the labours of virtuous sovereigns.”
An area where the Plantagenets labored virtuously, in a way that still can be admired today, was in building those great structures of medieval Britain that have retained the capacity to impress. The great Gothic cathedrals that were centuries later to inspire Romantic painters such as Gainsborough, the border castles in Wales that still attract millions of visitors every year, the architectural glories of Westminster Abbey, York Minster, and King’s College, Cambridge were all built by Plantagenets. [......]
Another great achievement of the Plantagenets was that they simply lasted on the throne for 331 years, albeit with the last three decades scarred by the Wars of the Roses, which only came to an end with Richard’s death at Bosworth. For a family to occupy something as lethally dangerous as a medieval throne for over three centuries was remarkable, and certainly thrashes their hated rivals, the Tudors (at 118 years), but also the Normans (123 years), Stuarts (85 years), Hanoverians (187 years), and the present House of Windsor (112 years).
The Black Death, Hundred Years’ War, and Peasants’ Revolt all took place during the Plantagenets’ watch, along with endless barons’ wars, great plagues, and the burning of Joan of Arc. Yet there was also Henry V’s victory at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, perhaps the dynasty’s high spot. One Plantagenet king had a red-hot poker inserted into his anus to kill him in such a way that his body could be displayed to the populace (Edward II), another was captured on his return from the Crusades and ransomed at vast expense (Richard the Lionheart), but unlike some of the Hanoverian kings, they were never boring. They weren’t a particularly artistic family—except for Henry VI who, possibly not coincidentally, was one of the weakest of them all—but they certainly provided Shakespeare with a good deal of great material. And Richard III died with a sword in his hand, like a true Plantagenet.
Read the rest - The mighty – and overlooked – Reign of the Plantagenets
Tags: Andrew Roberts, Plantagenets, Richard III, Wars of the Roses
Speranza;
This is so interesting. I’m not sure it will get the attention it deserves. You might want to save it?
Dinner bell.
Why do I think Jimmy Hoffa when I read ‘found under a parking lot’.
I keed.
Strictly speaking, the Hanoverians and the Windsors are the same family; they just changed their name during WWI, if memory serves.
just got to
Although this is a little later than Richard III, this song, “The Vicar of Bray,” is a famous ballad describing religious and political opportunism through a succession of English kings of various religion. A beautiful recording, too, by the great Richard Dyer-Bennet.
The illustrious House of Hanover, and Protestant succession
To them I do allegiance swear—whilst they may hold possession
For in my faith and loyalty, I never more shall falter
And George my lawful king shall be—until the times do alter
And this be law, that I’ll maintain, until my dying day, sir
That whatsoever king may reign, still I’ll be the Vicar of Bray, sir!
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
Yes, they Windsors wanted to hide their German roots.
@ buzzsawmonkey:
Your history knowledge (along with some others here) is truly amazing. I am slowly learning through research and reading, but feel I will never know all I want or need to. I was taught history by “dates” in high school and found it very boring. Now I cannot get enough of it.
I know a lot here have issues with Glenn Beck, but I totally agree with his stance that history is more than dates, it is the stories behind the dates.
slightly off topic…
The Blue Pigeon.
The Mayor of London was very worried about a plague of pigeons in the City Centre.
He Could not remove the pigeons from the city. All of LondonWas full of pigeon poop, the people of London could not walk on the pavements, or drive on the roads.
It Was costing a fortune to keep the streets and pavements Clean.
One Day a man came to the Town Hall and offered the Mayor a Proposition.
‘I Can rid your beautiful city of its plague of pigeons without any cost to the city. But, you must promise not to ask me any questions.
Or, You can pay me one million pounds to ask one question.’
The mayor considered the offer briefly and accepted the free Proposition.
The next day the man climbed to the top of the Nelson’s Column, opened his coat, and released a blue pigeon. The blue pigeon circled in the air and flew up into the bright blue London sky.
All The pigeons in London saw the blue pigeon and gathered up in The air behind the bird. The London pigeons followed The blue pigeon as she flew eastwards out of the city.
The next day the blue pigeon returned completely alone to the man on top of Nelson’s Column
The Mayor was very impressed. He felt the man and the blue pigeon had performed a wonderful miraculous service to rid London of the plague of pigeons. Even though the man with the pigeon had charged Nothing, the mayor presented him with a cheque for 1 million pounds and told the man that, indeed, he did have a question to ask and even though they had agreed to no fee and the man had rid the city of pigeons, he decided to pay the 1 million just to get to ask ONE question
The Man accepted the money and told the mayor to ask his ONE Question.
The Mayor asked:
‘Do You have a blue Muslim ??
@ Dolphin:
He’s right.
Rodan wrote:
Same thing with my ancestors. My last name is that of a German city. 2 brothers from that city emigrated from Germany in the mid 1800′s. One went to England and one went to America and settled in Minnesota. The descendants of the Minnesota bunch still use the German pronunciation. In fact, one of them was involved with the German-American Bund and spent most of WWII in an internment camp. I am descended from the the brother who went to England. Around the time of WWI, they changed to a French pronunciation of the German name and that’s how my family now pronounces it.
@ Dolphin:
Let me recommend, for sheer fun, one of the best history books I know: the Variety Music Cavalcade, 1620-1950.
There is, I understand, another later version that goes up to 1961. It is a fat volume that details the most popular songs for each of the years mentioned, with a batch of intelligent, witty snippets that discuss some of the events that occurred in each year.
It’s a way to learn how old—or new—various songs are, and to get some idea of an awful lot of past incidents in a way that is very interesting.
@ buzzsawmonkey:
I alternate between serious books and true fiction entertainment books. I have to with some of the subject matters. Thanks for the recommendation!
Btw -- best fiction book in the past five years was Life of Pi. Absolutely great book!
yenta-fada wrote:
Yeah I did not schedule it and wonder if it should have gone up at another time. Thanks.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
Correct. The Windsor’s were originally Saxe-Coburg Gotha and being it is a German name, it was changed to Windsor for patriotic reasons in 1917.
Dolphin wrote:
The key to loving history (in my opinion) is to read narrative history and to read it for pure pleasure.
Dolphin wrote:
There are mentions of things like mining and rail disasters, political and diplomatic events, etc., all described in short paragraphs that are a pleasure to read. It was astounding to me to see how recently events which cost hundreds of lives occurred with routine regularity in the US. It was fascinating to watch the emergence of what were then called “Coon Songs,” their overlap with a lot of songs pitched to the Irish market (this was when George M. Cohan was big), and then the move away from such overtly ethnic material. It’s a great way to “meet” America, particularly in the period from 1800 to 1950—and the sort of thing you can, even should, spelunk in rather than read cover to cover.
Face of Richard III, England’s King in the car park revealed
Gasps as archaeologists reveal brutal death of Richard III
Now that they’ve found and moved the body, they’ll have to take down the sign that says “Plantagenet on Premises.”
@ Dolphin:
History gives a guide to what the future holds. Patterns repeat themselves.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
Lol.I would hope that they would have reburied him in Westminster Abbey. hey there are monarchs buried there (Edward I and Henry V) who were a lot crueler then Richard III. Henry VIII by the way is buried in St. George Chapel in Windsor Castle.
Rodan wrote:
I became a history buff when I was a little boy.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats…
—Elvis Costello, “Beyond Belief”
jeeze, that pic in the OP looks exactly like my grandad on my mom’s side. they were english and protestant.
There is one person who used to post here that I wish would come back if only for this particular thread because she was and is a British history buff.
@ Speranza:
Did you listen to “The Vicar of Bray” above? There are a lot of references in each verse to catchwords/issues of that period, only some of which I can get.
yenta-fada wrote:
Jimmy Hoffa’s loud mouth thuggish son Jimmy Hoffa Jr. is one day going to wind up like his Dad. The fates doe not deal kindly with demagogic, loud mouth, bullies.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
No I am going to listen to it soon though.
coldwarrior wrote:
What is OP?
I can only shudder thinking about how politically correct British schools how teach British history.
Speranza wrote:
original post…your post, as it were.
@Buzzsawmonkey
I recognized a reference to James I.
@ coldwarrior:
The portrait of Richard II?
Speranza wrote:
95% of the wars in human history have been fought with the blade, the point and the blunt instrument at close quarters. Talk about the horrors of war. Imagine thousands killed and wounded in an afternoon by those methods. The wounded would most likely die the slow death of infection. No anesthesia or antiseptics.
Richard I (the Lionheart) was King of England for 10 years and spent only 6 months of his reign actually in England.
Speranza wrote:
I wonder if Edward VIII would have changed it back, had he remained King.
Speranza wrote:
III, yes.
@ huckfunn:
The Romans lost 50,000 in one day at Cannae. That was in the 200 BC. Just think what that 50,000 would be in today’s numbers.
@ Speranza:
He was more Aquitanian-French than English.
Speranza wrote:
When I was a kid over there we used to have “Kings and Queens” cards that we used to trade. I think I still have them somewhere or other in an old tobacco pouch; you got them at the sweet shop with some purchase or other. They went from somewhere around Eleanor of Aquitaine up to the present day.
There were also trading cards for old airplanes, bicycles, and automobiles. Each of these would have a picture on the front and a short paragraph describing what was depicted. You learned a lot from these things.
We also had some things called “Jackdaw Packets”—which, I think, still exist and can be found online. They were envelopes which contained a number of paper facsimiles of documents relating to a particular incident or period—I had one from the Plague and Fire of London, and one about the Gunpowder Plot—documents, broadside ballads, warrants, etc.—along with some summary/study guide/question material. The facsimiles really gave you a feeling of connection to the event. Neat stuff.
huckfunn wrote:
Arms and legs cut or hacked off, skulls cleaved through with axes, mace or broadsword, felons hanged without the drop method so they slowly strangled, traitors hanged, drawn and quartered (also castrated), heretics burned alive at the stake, minor crimes punished with ear cropping, -- it wasn’t for the squeamish.
All Quiet on the Western Front (the 1930 original) now on TCM.
@ Speranza:
This is what Обама, the Demo☭rats, and the Left want.
Rodan wrote:
Richard II (reigned from 1377 -- 1399) was the first King of England who used English as his first language. Edward I was the first King of England since the Norman Conquest in 1066 who could speak some English. The Black Death which wiped out a good part of the Anglo-Norman ruling class actually helped English become the first language of the Plantagenet Court.
Macker wrote:
No he prefers an American Gulag.
huckfunn wrote:
Lew Ayers was in it.
Rodan wrote:
I thought it was 70,000. Either way it was an enormous number but like the Soviets in 1941, they formed new armies (Legions).
Speranza wrote:
The boots.
@ huckfunn:
I read that book in High School. A great read.
huckfunn wrote:
There’s a fantastic film I saw, years ago—forget where—called “Life Under the Czars” or something like that, from about 1929. It was a Soviet silent propaganda film showing Russia as it was just before WWI. I got to see the sort of mud-floored hut my grandfather probably was born in; a picture of one of the Duma leaders who was also the leader of the Black Hundreds, the Russian KKK-like antisemitic organization that fomented pogroms.
It also showed some of the preparations for WWI; the manufacture of shells and huge cannon, and the troops going into a completely ordinary field and starting to dig the trenches they would later have to defend.
It was amazing stuff to see.
Henry VIII was descended from the Plantagenet’s through his mother, Elizabeth of York was the daughter of Edward IV and niece of Richard III. Henry VII (Henry VIII’s father) had Plantagent blood in him through his father’s side but it was “illegitimate” through his father Jasper Tudor and mother Margaret Beaufort). Henry VII (Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond) claimed the throne after Bosworth Field through “right of conquest” meaning that God wanted him to be King because God granted him the victory.
Juan Williams shilling for Obama on Hannity right now. Shocker!
I wish Michelle Malkin could just speak softly and firmly like Krauthammer and stop shouting and being snarky. She does make good points but her presentation is awful, it is attack, attack, attack.
Well I killed my own thread.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
I’ve always been a history buff. WWI and the 20 years leading up to it are for me the most fascinating. Total war fought with 19th century tactics and 20th century technology. Bad outcome.
The Centennial anniversary of World War I will be next year. For too many people World War I is as distant in their minds as the Napoleonic Wars.
huckfunn wrote:
20th century diplomacy (including the two World Wars as well as the Cold War) has always been so interesting to me.
huckfunn wrote:
John Dos Passos’ history of WWI, “Mr. Wilson’s War,” is a very good read. Dos Passos wrote it, IIRC, when he was already turning away from the squashy leftism of his youth towards the hard conservatism which marked his later years. The history has a certain resonance in that Dos Passos was first a volunteer ambulance driver, and later a doughboy, in WWI. He was not a fan of Wilson.
@ huckfunn:
Another book of interest is “The Enemy at His Pleasure,” by S. An-Ski. An-Ski was the author of the Yiddish play “The Dybbuk”; he did a fact-finding trip following WWI on what had been the Eastern Front, inquiring about the war and postwar atrocities which were visited on the Jewish villages there.
You realize, reading it, that everything that we hear about what happened in Eastern Europe under the Nazis, with the exception of the ghettos and the labor and death camps, happened there only twenty years earlier; the random roundups of people who were then burned to death in their own synagogue, the rapes and pillaging, etc. It’s overwhelming.
It makes you realize, grudgingly, why there was so much appeasement of Hitler. WWI had been so horrific, in so many ways, to the civilian population as well as to the soldiers who had fought it, and was still so fresh in people’s memory after 20 years, that they really felt almost anything was preferable to the risk of going through that again.
Speranza wrote:
The total disconnect between the monarchies and the real world is amazing. Kaiser Bill truly believed in his Divine Right to rule. SURPRISE! Cousin Nicki was equally surprised.
@ buzzsawmonkey:
Both of those are now on my reading list. Thanks.
huckfunn wrote:
Too many fools write that it would have been better if Germany had won World War I. Imperial Germany’s plans if they won won World War I were imperialism in the extreme.
Big mistake was not forcing the German Army leadership to sign the armistice, the allies did not make that mistake in 1945.
I much prefer David Limbaugh to Rush Limbaugh.
OT:
Catholic Bishop On Planned Parenthood’s Eugenicist Founder Margaret Sanger: “Barack Obama Was Precisely The Sort Of Unfit Child She And Her Allies Would Want To Eliminate”…
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
It doesn’t matter. For the Left she ought to be a saint so therefore she is one.
Speranza wrote:
Maybe if they saw this picture: Margaret Sanger preaches eugenics at a KKK rally.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
The Lord chose to punish us with this baby. And so it is.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
Revolting!
Speranza wrote:
And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
This is for real dude…
Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
is it getting warm in here?
Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain.
OK, there said it… have a good night everyone
speranza, i wanted to contribute to this thread. real life got in the way. well done on the OP.
@ Speranza:
People have differences in opinions on WWI. I view it as an Imperialist pissing match.
Rodan wrote:
a continuation of the 30 years war.
or what europe always does.
ww2 and american force ends pussy assed wars in europe.
Rodan wrote:
Exactly. All of the inbred monarchs of Europe waging war against their cousins on a whim. Their officer corps were made up of the nobility who weren’t trained or experienced and had no more empathy for their troops than they had for a stable hand. They burned off a generation without a thought.
@ huckfunn:
saw a 74 caddy…..
catch me on the next thread.
done here
coldwarrior wrote:
I thought this was going to be the OOT.
Rodan wrote:
WWI was the fault of one nation -- Hohenzollern Germany.
Austria-Hungary would never have declared war on Serbia without Germany’s backing.
Great post, Speranza! I’m a medieval history buff, and I’ve seen the tombs of Edward I and Henry VII. Although the historical plays are good reading, Shakespeare comes off a little like Oliver Stone, sacrificing accuracy for story.
It is hard to judge a King who reigned for little more than two years, yet it can be said that Richard III actually was shaping up well as a monarch until he was killed in battle. He worked for reconciliation between the Yorkists (his own) and Lancastrian factions of the House of Plantagenet, he had Henry VI (a Lancastrian) who had been murdered on his (Richard’s) brother Edward IV’s orders reburied at Windsor with full regal honors, and he was always popular in Northern England where he used to be Edward IV’s Lieutenant of the North. Nevertheless there is little doubt that he could be as ruthless as anyone else in his time period and no more ruthless then the man who defeated him Henry Tudor aka Henry VII.
texasam7 wrote:
Thank you. This thread should have stayed up longer. Shakespeare was a Tudor and Stuart propagandist. I saw the royal tombs at Westminster Abbey and at St. George Chapel in Windsor.