Ricardian Bulletin Magazine of the Richard III Society ISSN 0308 4337 March 2011 Ricardian Bulletin March 2011 Contents 2 From the Chairman 3 Society News and Notices including notice of the 2012 Triennial Conference (p.5) 11 Obituaries: Bill White, Anne Smith, Tony Gayfer 15 News and Reviews 24 Media Retrospective 27 Paul Murray Kendall, born 1911; a centenary tribute, by John Saunders 28 Paul Murray Kendall and his biography of Richard the Third, by Compton Reeves 31 The Man Himself: Hall, More and Shakespeare: are their descriptions of Richard III accurate? By Ariana Ellis 35 „Beeth of good comfort, and dreadeth not‟: Edward IV and the Battle of Mortimer‟s Corss by David Santiuste 39 Medieval Jokes and Fables, part 2, by Heather Falvey 41 Sultan Bayezid II: Richard‟s Turkish Contemporary, by John Saunders 43 St Winefride‟s Well and the Ricardian Chronicle, by Lynda Pidgeon 44 Another Boar Badge, by Rose Skuse 45 Lancashire and the Wars of the Roses, by Graham Ransom 46 Returning to Shakespeare‟s History Plays, by Gillian Lazar 48 Correspondence 53 The Barton Library 55 Future Society Events 56 Branch and Group Contacts 58 Branches and Groups 62 New Members 63 Recently Deceased Members 64 Calendar Contributions Contributions are welcomed from all members. All contributions should be sent to Lesley Boatwright. Bulletin Press Dates 15 January for March issue; 15 April for June issue; 15 July for September issue; 15 October for December issue. Articles should be sent well in advance. Bulletin & Ricardian Back Numbers Back issues of The Ricardian and the Bulletin are available from Judith Ridley. If you are interested in obtaining any back numbers, please contact Mrs Ridley to establish whether she holds the issue(s) in which you are interested. For contact details see back inside cover of the Bulletin The Ricardian Bulletin is produced by the Bulletin Editorial Committee, Printed by Micropress Printers Ltd. © Richard III Society, 2011 From the Chairman ost of us in the British Isles had a rare White Christmas, though whether we enjoyed it is a M moot point since it was also one of the coldest Decembers on record. Naturally we all moaned about the sub-zero temperatures and disruption to daily life, but the New Year brought news of the tragic flooding in Australia and other parts of the world which rather put our complaints into perspective. The thoughts of us all are with our Australian members in particular, and especially those in Queensland, at this time. We hope of course that no members suffered as a result of these floods. Again, your Bulletin carries a wide range of articles, reviews and news which we hope will inform and entertain. David Santiuste writes on the battle of Mortimer‟s Cross, that crucial milestone on Edward IV‟s path to the throne; Graham Ransom takes a look at Lancashire‟s Wars of the Roses heritage; and Heather Falvey offers another medieval joke – I wonder how many more she has in store for us. A new young member from Canada, Ariana Ellis, contributes to The Man Himself and we welcome this new writing. May we have more of it in future. Reviews range from an exhibition at Wakefield to a Dutch production of Shakespeare‟s Richard III. There is a slight Turkish flavour too, with news from John Ashdown-Hill about his time in Turkey and an introduction to Richard‟s Ottoman contemporary, Sultan Bayezid II. For many members, Paul Murray Kendall‟s Richard III remains a classic, being the most comprehensive and sympathetic biography of the king and certainly the best written. We begin our celebration of PMK‟s centenary with Compton Reeves‟ thoughtful reflection on Kendall‟s life and work, and we look forward to hearing from his daughters, Callie and Gillian, in June. The Research Committee has recently been joined by three new members – Marie Barnfield, Tig Lang and Toni Mount – new to the Committee though hardly new to the Society, of course. This addition will greatly strengthen the work of the Committee as all three bring much experience and scholarship with them. I welcome their appointment. Our Research Officer, Lynda Pidgeon, writes on the new Ricardian Chronicle project as well as giving news of the exciting Triennial Conference planned for next year. We are sorry that Diana Lee, our valued Business Manager, is resigning. She will be a hard act to follow, but we hope that someone will volunteer to do so. Our new Branches and Groups Liaison Officers, Pauline Pogmore and Angela Moreton, who are well-known in Yorkshire, introduce themselves to the wider membership. On the subject of branches, let me take this opportunity to congratulate the Worcestershire Branch on their 25th anniversary which they celebrate this year. Sadly, this issue carries a number of obituaries, including those of three prominent Ricardians, Bill White, Anne Smith and Tony Gayfer, a former Treasurer. Bill and Anne were long-standing members and made significant contributions to our work, Bill through his osteological expertise and Anne through her many years as an office holder and Committee member. Both will be greatly missed. Another Ricardian year lies ahead of us, and there is much to look forward to. In a few weeks, some of us will be in York for the study weekend learning about the de la Poles, this being just one of the many dates in the year‟s calendar. As always, I look forward to meeting members at these events and elsewhere throughout the year. 2 Society News and Notices Change is in the Air The Society welcomes three new members to our Research Committee, Marie Barnfield, Tig Lang and Toni Mount; but sadly we must say goodbye to our Business Manager, Diana Lee. This means, of course, that we need a new Business Manager: please see page 7 for details. We have also asked the new Branches and Groups Liaison Officers, Angela Moreton and Pauline Harrison Pogmore of the Yorkshire Branch, to introduce themselves to the wider membership. Their profiles are on page 9. Three New Members for the Research Committee The Research Committee has co-opted three new members, Marie Barnfield (who is also our new Papers Librarian), Tig Lang and Toni Mount. Members of the Society will know all three from their contributions to the Bulletin, and all three worked on the Logge wills project. All are active in fifteenth-century research. We asked each of them to write something about herself for the Bulletin. Marie Barnfield writes I grew up not far outside Barnet, vaguely en route to St Albans, so I suppose an interest in the Wars of the Roses might seem to have been a rather natural occurrence. I still remember the thrill I felt one Sunday lunchtime as a child when my father told us about the great battle that had taken place around the Hadley Highstone in the days of knights in armour, but my interest in Richard III did not actually begin until I reached the age of fifteen and read The Daughter of Time. Why I yanked it off the library shelf is still a mystery – something haunting about the title, I suppose. At any rate, I was then hooked and engineered myself a copy of Kendall‟s biography for a sixteenth birthday present. It was to be another two years, however, before I tracked down and joined the Society, through its stall at the Barnet Quincentenary celebrations. As soon as the Society‟s paleography course came on stream, I signed up. I was a member of the transcription team for the Logge wills project, and have attended most of the research weekends since that time. Although I worked only on English wills for the Logge project, having dropped Latin at school after two years of study, I have since succeeded in reaching a level of competency with Latin transcription just about sufficient for the average will (no bishops, please) and routine legal documents, provided I am not expected to reinstate every abbreviated case-ending. I had also, in my youth, studied French, Middle English and medieval economic history as part of my degree course, but unfortunately ill health now precludes me from committing to any formal course of study. I have written for both the Ricardian and the Bulletin on the subject of Richard and Anne‟s marriage dispensation, and have also written articles for Blanc Sanglier. My long-term aim is a biography of that elusive young man, Edward, Earl of Warwick, and I am currently working on an article about the treason trials of Clarence‟s retainer Thomas Burdet and the astronomers Stacy and Blake. 3 Tig Lang writes I knew nothing about Richard III until my parents took me to the National Portrait Gallery exhibition in 1973. I viewed this with polite interest, and then read The Daughter of Time on the train on the way home, and wanted to go back to see the exhibition all over again (sadly not possible). The same year I also began growing herbs, following an interest in the history of medicine. These interests combined so that my initial interest in Richard III expanded into a more general interest in life in the fifteenth century, and specifically in medicine in the fifteenth century. My first degree was in Anglo-Saxon and Middle English language and literature, but in 1990, following a very inspiring talk by Peter Murray Jones (author of Medieval Medical Miniatures) at the Richard III Society's conference in York, I began postgraduate work in medieval medicine, obtaining my PhD in 1998 for work on early-fifteenth-century London surgeon John Bradmore.