The Only Way Is Up

s soon as i heard the news, More importantly, the skeleton itself upon the young upstart pretender to I rushed up to the city of gave clues to wounds suffered in battle, his throne. Leicester in the English its skull having suffered some kind Delving deeper into the original sources Midlands, and found myself of massive trauma. Perhaps the most and contemporary records, it also became standing in a long queue that alluring clue as to the identity of the body clear that Richard was never the evil A wrapped around the block, patiently came from news that the skeleton had a monster of legend. For most of his life, he waiting my turn to enter the car park. noticeable curvature of the spine. Were had been regarded as a paragon of virtue, At the front of the line, marshals wearing these really the long-lost remains of one of a brilliant military general who had been luminous jackets ushered the next group the most reviled kings in English history, lauded for his successes in the battle of through, as if funneling the crowd at a pop the crook-backed Richard III? Tewkesbury and in military campaigns on concert. Yet this was no ordinary car park, The news of this remarkable discovery the Scottish border. During his early years, and the celebrity of sorts had been dead broke just as I was putting the finishing Richard had worked loyally for his brother for more than 500 years. touches to a book on the Battle of Edward IV, earning praise for his straight Just a few weeks earlier, a team of Bosworth, which felt at times like covering living (unlike Edward, whose debauchery archaeologists from the University of a breaking news story. The book was to was unrivaled) and concern for the Leicester made an announcement that chart the rise of the Tudors, focusing on plight of the common man, especially hit the headlines globally. Beneath a Henry Tudor’s phoenix-like ascent from his devotion to his put-upon northern council car park, they had discovered the the ashes of forced exile at the unripe age followers. It seemed that Richard’s bones of a man believed to be Richard of 14. However, I began to realize that meteoric rise was indeed well-founded III, maligned in William Shakespeare’s Bosworth was not so much a story of how on hard work and sensible judgments. eponymous play. All signs pointed to Henry Tudor won the battle, but more the body being Richard. It had been about how Richard III lost his kingdom. a bloody deed dispatch’d unearthed in the nave of the buried ruins In fact, Henry Tudor’s success owed all Where, then, did it all go wrong, and why of Greyfriars Church, destroyed during to the downfall of Richard, right down is Richard regarded as one of the most the Dissolution of the Monasteries, where to the final moments of the battle when maligned monarchs in English history? Richard had been buried in a pauper’s Richard found himself deserted by his There can be little doubt that the seeds grave after his death at the Battle of supporters and chose to throw all caution of Richard’s downfall were sown in his Bosworth in August 1485. to the wind and launch a suicidal attack decision to usurp the throne from his THE ONLY WAY IS UP England’s King Richard III may have been an early victim of the “dark arts” of political spin, says historian and Member of Parliament chris skidmore 86 brunswick review · issue 8 · spring 2014 brunswick review · issue 8 · spring 2014 87 12-year-old nephew Edward V, whom he of men from his inherited homeland in was charged with protecting, followed by North Yorkshire. Such devotion earned the suspicious disappearance of Edward him a strong following in the north. and his nine-year-old brother, Richard, Duke of York, from the Tower of London. he doth deny to come An Italian visitor to England, Dominic As Henry Tudor grew ever stronger, Mancini, who left a detailed eyewitness Richard knew that confrontation was report of the events of 1483, wrote how inevitable. He should never have lost the after Richard had managed to seize battle. His force of 15,000 men was twice power, Edward V and his brother “were the size of Henry’s army. Yet on the day, withdrawn into the inner apartments half of Richard’s army refused to fight. of the Tower” and “day by day began to In particular, it was the decision of the be seen more and more rarely behind Stanleys that led to defeat – Thomas Lord the bars and windows, till at length they Stanley was married to Henry Tudor’s ceased to appear altogether.” mother. When Richard saw the treachery Rumors of their death began to unfolding around him, he was urged to circulate, while Mancini wrote that he had flee but, according to a Spaniard who was seen men burst into tears at the mention present on Richard’s side, the king flatly of the young king’s name, since “already refused. “God forbid I yield one step,” he there was a suspicion that he had been is reported to have stated. “This day I will done away with.” By September 1483, it die as a king or win.” was clear to everyone, the contemporary Having spied his rival and charged, Crowland Chronicler wrote, that “the Richard came within touching distance princes, by some unknown manner of of Henry Tudor when Sir William Stanley, destruction, had met their fate.” who had sat out the battle, charged against It seems undeniable that while there is him and swept Richard into a marsh no evidence to prove the exact date of the where he was hacked down and killed, princes’ death, they certainly went missing the last English king to be killed on a under their uncle’s watch. Yet if Richard battlefield, reportedly by a Welshman was guilty of killing the princes, then we who beat Richard’s helmet into his are faced with the enigma of why he acted brains. His final words were apparently so ruthlessly, suddenly turning against his “Treason! Treason!” brother’s children, especially after years of loyal service to his brother. orators of miseries Without condoning infanticide, it During his reign, the Bishop of St David’s, The first description of Richard as being is worth considering the dilemma that Thomas Langton, wrote that “many a physically deformed comes from an Richard faced. Edward V was so young poor man” had been “relieved and helped account by the Warwickshire chronicler and barely knew his uncle, having been by him and his commands.” Much later, John Rous, who might be considered the brought up surrounded by his mother’s in 1525, the City of London protested to first author of Richard’s “black legend.” family, whose hostility to Richard was the powerful Lord Chancellor, Thomas While Richard was still alive, Rous an open secret. Believing that his own Wolsey, that in contrast to Henry VIII, had praised the king as being “a mighty position was possibly about to be fatally Richard had made “good acts” of prince and especial good lord.” It was undermined, Richard may have taken the parliament, concerned with achieving only after Richard’s death that his account only option available to him to protect the justice for ordinary citizens. Richard was dramatically altered. Rous pulled Yorkist dynasty. The accession of a child understood that in politics, loyalty above no punches, declaring – somewhat ruler was a potentially destabilizing and all else mattered. His motto was “loyalty implausibly – that Richard had been disastrous development. binds me.” He remembered men who had “retained within his mother’s womb Even allowing that Richard did away fought and died by his side at the battles of for two years, emerging with teeth with the princes, there is evidence that Barnet and Tewkesbury in the 1470s, and and hair to his shoulders.” For Rous, he was a much-loved and popular king. surrounded himself with a loyal group Richard had died “like the Antichrist 88 brunswick review · issue 8 · spring 2014 Found beneath a Leicester car park, Richard’s bones had identifying wounds – and a noticeably curved spine to come ... confounded at his moment “little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, of greatest pride.” crook-backed, his left shoulder much Nor was Rous the only commentator higher than his right.” to change his tune. The praise the king The Tudors were the first dynasty to had received in life soon turned to fully understand not only that history is condemnation in death, as poets and written by the winners, but that it can be writers realized how to curry favor with just as effective as the weapons of war in the new regime. The Italian poet and winning the battle of hearts and minds. In courtier, Pietro Carmeliano, who had many ways, the campaign was a massive come to England in 1480, wrote fondly of success. The familiar image of Richard Richard the year before Bosworth as being reinforce his kingship than to destroy the III as a bloodthirsty, crook-backed tyrant one of the greatest princes in the world. reputation of the man he had conquered? has been handed down to us by one of the Two years later, with Henry Tudor on the The Tudor version of events was first set greatest men of the Tudor era, William throne, Carmeliano suddenly reversed down by Henry VII’s official historian, the Shakespeare.

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