Richard: The Young
King to Be - Josephine
Wilkinson
Yet there is
something fascinating about Richard III. He is arguably the most
intriguing character in English history. Few others have possessed
the ability to polarise opinion in the way he does. Few have
engendered so much hatred—or so much devotion—as Richard has (7).
This
interesting, thorough biography of the first half of Richard III's
life is let down by subpar editing which sees typos on nearly every
other page. However, if you can see past that, it is an interesting
attempt to bring out the aspects of Richard's personality that you
might not be aware of, especially if reared on a diet of Shakespeare.
I am generally in agreement with Wilkinson, who sees the historical
Richard as a pragmatic medieval king, neither wholly noble nor a
bloodthirsty villain. I found this Richard to have much in common
with Sharon Penman's fictional version of him in The Sunne
in Splendour, though Penman has
necessarily made her Richard more noble and sympathetic (and his
affair with Anne Neville one of love and passion). Of course, this
book was written before the discovery of the king's remains in a
Leicester car park, meaning that there is rather a lot of discussion
on the possibility of Richard's deformity, which we know now to have
been rooted in reality. Nevertheless, Wilkinson still brings up some
interesting evidence in her attempt to argue that Richard had no
deformity or impediment.
Wilkinson
begins the life of Richard in a rather unusual way: with his
astrological chart. Did you know Richard was a Scorpio? This
subsides into an examination of the claims that when Richard was
born, he already had teeth and a full head of hair. The second claim
is not possible, but Wilkinson leaves no stone unturned to account
for having been born with teeth. Did you know that Richard's mother
was thirty-seven when she gave birth to him, and that she had already
borne ten children? So a difficult birth is entirely possible. And I
think, despite herself, Wilkinson may be a fan of the bad-boy
Shakespearean Richard III, as she does spend most of a page
discussing the various ways different actors have portrayed his
deformity. I have always thought there was some hidden meaning of
the scene in Shakespeare where Richard asks the Bishop of Ely about
his strawberries, and the clergyman goes off to fetch some, setting
the scene for “the impromptu execution of Lord Hastings” (128).
Fascinatingly, Wilkinson gives this episode her attention as
apparently it is in Thomas More as well, and suggests that Richard
may have suffered from hives.
Clearly, Richard is in some distress and the reader is led to conclude that it is a result of his brooding upon his fancy that he is the victim of witchcraft. On the other hand, More is careful to mention Richard's change of mod and his withered arm in connection with his having eaten strawberries. The hypothesis is that Richard was aware that he was allergic to strawberries and that, if he eats them, they will produce a urticarial rash on his arm. He eats them, therefore, to produce precisely this effect (128).
Granted, Wilkinson thinks this
unlikely, but dammit, I think it's an amazing hypothesis!
Furthermore, Wilkinson delivers a very good link between Biblical
corruption and cognitive bias.
Richard's
life was shaped by his ambitious and courageous (if treacherous,
depending on your point of view) father, the Duke of York, and later
by his brothers Edmund and Edward. “What feelings overwhelmed the
seven-year-old Richard as he watched his father's enemies advance on
the family home can only be imagined. He, his brother [George] and
sister [Margaret] and their mother were left to face the royal army
as best they could” (67), as in some memorable scenes from The
Sunne in Splendour. His brother
Edward was then to become his idol (handsome and regal, Ned, as he is
called in The Sunne in Splendour1
comes across as a
larger-than-life character). Who can forget in Shakespeare when Anne
grills Richard on having killed her husband, Edward, the Lancastrian
Prince of Wales? The truth is, we don't know who exactly killed him.
Nor do we know exactly who killed Henry VI, though Wilkinson admits
it's possible that Richard ordered his death; however, she says it
would have been a way to secure peace and may have been done on King
Edward's orders. The historical Richard's worst crime, it would
seem, is his bullying of the elderly Countess Elizabeth of Oxford
into signing her inheritance away to him, in 1473. This, I really
can find no excuse for (though Wilkinson's excuse is, again, he may
have been acting on King Edward's orders).
Anne
Neville herself, who comes across in Shakespeare as a curious mix
between victim and firebrand, and in Sunne in Splendour as
all you could wish for in a heroine, comes out of The Young
King to Be as a coldly
calculating noblewoman whose marriage to Richard was probably not,
sniff sniff, a matter of love. Furthermore, somewhat shockingly,
Richard and Anne were so much related by blood that they had to get a
special dispensation from the Pope—though it is seems likely they
got married anyway without it. Even more shocking—at least to me—is
the fact that Richard had at least one illegitimate child, a
daughter, Katherine Plantagenet, born perhaps prior to his wedding,
perhaps not. He may also have had a son named John of Gloucester or
Pontefract. Wilkinson mocks my shock; “It could hardly be
surprising that Richard should have enjoyed romantic encounters. He
was young, handsome: small and slender, with blue-grey eyes set in a
strong, lean face2.
He was cultured, athletic and robust” and a duke and a prince,
besides (229). Who wouldn't want to get it on with Richard
Gloucester?
Enjoyably,
Wilkinson discusses Richard's (probable) domestic life from the time
he was a tot (being left to cry as it was supposed to strengthen the
child) to his late teens at Placentia (Greenwich) to his wedding
night with Anne Neville in 1472. One of the most interesting aspects
of this book is its thorough study of religion in Richard III's life,
and given his patronage of many religious sites and houses, this was
a genuine and important motivator in his life. Wilkinson has good
evidence to suggest that Richard may even have been destined for a
role in the clergy before circumstances made him into a warrior. It
is interesting, too, that Wilkinson rather debunks Richard's
connection to the north (though the fact that the north has claimed
him is rather touching and will not be swayed by any amount of
historical fact-showing).
Wilkinson's
analysis of some of the other historical figures is interesting.
Take, for instance, what she has to say about Henry VI: “He is a
man who finds the rather revealing fashions of the time to be a
source of temptation and, as a result, the source of inner guilt as
his repressed but very active sexuality makes its presence felt”
(30). She suggests that sexual repression may have triggered his
schizophrenic catatonia in 1453. Despite the bad rep Elizabeth
Woodville gets for being a wholly unsuitable choice for Queen of
England, you have to admire her ambitious attitude. “How different
things might have been if Edward had married Isabella of Castile.
She would never have married Ferdinand of Aragon, there would have
been no Catherine of Aragon, no Mary Tudor, indeed, there might have
been no Tudor dynasty. England might have remained a Catholic
country” (102).
It
is strange that I feel in a weird way happy that Richard's path
crossed with mine, as in 1459 he stayed at Sir John Falstof's mansion
in Southwark, not far from where I walk every week.
1By
the way, if you are wondering where that name comes from, it was a
December 1460 sighting of a parhelion, which made it look like there
were three suns in the sky. It is quite an arresting image.
Interestingly, no one knows quite how Richard chose the boar as his
emblem.
2Like
Richard Armitage? :-P
