One well known publisher has commented that
a book on Richard III can be published every year and this has certainly
proved the case over recent years as is evidenced in the bibliography
section. Richard also gets mentioned in non-Ricardian books as the Print
Retrospective will demonstrate. Winter 2005
New Books, ‘We
met the author’, Guy Pringle meets up with Marika Cobbold: ‘Q: Which are your three favourite literary villains and what is
the secret of their appeal ?’ ‘A: … Richard III … Richard is also an
arch bloke. When he says to
Elizabeth, who understandably is a little peeved at the fact that he’s
murdered her sons, “Harp not on that string, Madam, that is past”, he
sounds to me like just about everyman.’ Autumn 2005 Flashman on the March –
George Macdonald Fraser, published April 2005, note 2 to page 3 (although
this is a work of fiction, the notes are always factual). One of the characters, who has a major problem, talks of being ‘in
Dickie’s Meadow’. The note reads: ‘’Dickey’, meaning shaky or uncertain,
has a currency centuries old, but ‘in Dickie’s Meadow’, meaning in serious
trouble is, or was, a North Cumbrian expression, and it has been suggested
that, since Richard III was in his younger days Warden of the West March
with his headquarters in Carlisle, where he is commemorated in one of
the city’s principal streets, Rickergate, the proverbial ‘meadow’ may
be Bosworth Field’. Contributed by JC
Knights From: G K Chesterton The Flying Inn, Chapter XI: Vegetarianism in the Drawing-room: ‘Misysra Ammon knew, what next to none of the
English present knew, that Richard III was called a ‘boar’ by an eighteenth-century
poet and a ‘hog’ by a fifteenth-century poet. What he did not know was the habit of sport
and of heraldry. He did not know (what Joan knew instantly, though she
had never thought of it before in her life) that beasts courageous and
hard to kill are noble beasts, by the law of chivalry. Therefore the
boar was a noble beast; and
a common crest for great captains.
Misysra tried to show that Richard had only been called a pig
after he was cold pork at Bosworth’. Contributed by Kirstin
Fletcher Summer 2005Extract from Swimming
with my father: a memoir,
Tim Jeal. Keith comments: ‘the extract relates to a reference to the
author’s mother, Norah Pasley, daughter of Sir Thomas Pasley, Baronet,
and his wife Constance Wilmot Annie Hastings, daughter of the 13th Earl
of Huntingdon. The extract is quite interesting in terms of the stance
the Hastings family appear to have towards Richard III and in the context
of verbally transmitted recollection passed through the generations’. “ .... my mother told
me that her mother’s surname .. had been Hastings, and that her ancestor,
William, Lord Hastings, had been the king’s Lord Chamberlain and his
best friend. “It was during the Wars of the Roses” said my mother
... “Then the king died and poor Hastings’s head was chopped
off”. ... “But had he done something really bad?” ‘Quite the reverse. He tried to stop the dead king’s brother, Duke
Richard, from murdering the Princes in the Tower – they were the old
king’s children. ... Richard wanted to be king himself and knew he couldn’t
be if the children stayed alive. So
he decided to kill Hastings who would have tried to save them.” “Did
the children die too, mummy?” “I’m afraid so”.
... This true story was scarier and nastier ...
One moment Hastings had been walking about in his furs and fine
clothes, being important and looking after the princes, and the next,
a savage, unbelievable thing had been done to him when he wasn’t expecting
it. Realising she had upset me, my mother tried
to soften the blow by telling me that Hastings’s grandson was made an
earl to make up for what had happened, and that this reward for his
family explained why four hundred years later my granny had been ‘a
lady from birth’. This was no comfort. My grandmother was long dead, but I was alive
and soon having nightmares. On several nights, I dreamed that the head
was lying on the ground with its eyes wide open, staring at the spurting
blood.” From Execution,
a guide to the ultimate penalty, Geoffrey Abbott, Summersdale, 2005, chapter on
‘Suffocation’ – uses the story of the princes, based on More and the
1933 examination of the bones, claiming that this proves that Richard
was the instigator, although the outset of the chapter states: ‘While
their deaths were classed as murder rather than judicial execution,
the instigator was nevertheless a king of England, his true identity
still unproven’. Interestingly in light of other references
to John Howard, it also claims that Richard’s grants of the ‘vacant
titles’ of Earl of Nottingham and Duke of Norfolk suggests that he knew
the children were dead, and exhibits some confusion on Anne Mowbray: ‘not only did the king confiscate the older boy’s property but also
the property of the girl, a princess of the House of Plantagenet, the
prince had been contracted to marry’ Contributed
by Sylvia Sherwood A
recent discovery by Peter D Clarke has solved a long-standing mystery
about Richard’s marriage to Anne Neville. For Research Officer Peter
Hammond takes up the story: Most of the details
surrounding Richard’s
marriage are unclear, including the date. However
an article in the most recent issue of the English
Historical Review (‘English
Royal Marriages and the Papal Penitentiary in the Fifteenth Century’,
Peter D Clarke, vol. 120, pp.1014-1029) has thrown some light on the
matter and on three other marriages of interest to us. The
new information comes from work in the Vatican archives, in the records
of the Papal Penitentiary, the functionary who dealt with everything
relating to matters of conscience that appeared before the Pope. These were matters that were reserved to the Pope for absolution
and included dispensations from the provisions of canon law prohibiting
marriage between couples related within four degrees of blood or marriage
(this is second cousin or nearer). This was almost always the case with
royal marriages in the fifteenth century. The four marriages
discussed in Clarke’s paper are those between Margaret of York and Charles
of Burgundy, Anne Neville and Edward of Lancaster, Anne Neville and
Richard of Gloucester and between Elizabeth of York and Henry Tudor,
all of great interest. There has never been any doubt that the first
two and the last marriages had received dispensations although this
paper sheds much light on the politics surrounding the requests for
dispensations. I will only mention here that, while we knew that Henry
and Elizabeth had received a dispensation in early 1486 after the battle
of Bosworth, Clarke’s research reveals that one was granted to them
as early as 27 March 1484, nearly 18 months before Bosworth. However the marriage
concerning us here is that between Anne Neville and Richard.
They were certainly related within the normally forbidden degrees
of kinship and since there appeared to be no record of a dispensation
there has been speculation that they married without one. This has always seemed unlikely since without a dispensation marriage
within the forbidden degrees was always open to challenge. The provision in the act dividing the Neville
estates between Richard and his brother George saying that if Richard
and Anne be subsequently divorced Richard could retain the estates whether
or not they remarried (provided he did not remarry any one else) has
been interpreted to mean that no dispensation had been obtained. However speculation is now at an end. Richard
and Anne did apply and one was granted to them on 22 April 1472. It released them from the impediment of being
related within the third and fourth degrees of kinship, for which relationship
they also needed a littera declaratoria, also granted. Richard was described as dux Glouirestere,
laicus Lincolniensis diocesis (duke of Gloucester, layman of the
Lincoln diocese) and Anne as Anna Nevile, mulier Eboracensis
diocesis (woman of the York diocese).
Normally the diocese is the birth one.
Richard’s is correct, Fotheringhay is in the Lincoln diocese,
but Anne was born in Warwickshire in the Worcester diocese. She may have been described as from York because the Neville estates
obtained by Richard were largely in Yorkshire. These dispensations sometimes are very vague
as to who the parties are, deliberately so in politically sensitive
marriages. For example in the first dispensation of Elizabeth
of York and Henry Tudor they are described as Henry Richemont and Elizabeth
Plantageneta. Although Richard and
Anne received their dispensation on 22 April we still do not really
know when they were married. In the religious sense they were free to
marry from that date but political considerations, i.e. the question
of the division of the Neville estates, might have prevented it and
they may not have married until the dispute was finally settled in 1474.
At least we now know that they did receive a dispensation from
the church to do so. The Three Richards: Richard I, Richard II and
Richard III by
Nigel Saul. 2005. Hambledon and London. London and New York £29.95 The Hollow Crown: A History of the Britain in
the Late Middle Ages by Miri Rubin. 2005. Allen Lane. London £25 Reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement by
Colin Richmond who commented ‘the two pages on the critical months between
the death of Edward IV and Richard’s coronation in July are a tissue
of nonsense’. History of King Richard
III by
Thomas More. 2005. Hesperus, pbk, £6.99, (introduction by Sister Wendy
Beckett. ‘... the received story was used to make a political point
too dangerous to publish. .. It is famous for its tear-jerking account
of the death of the princes, which may or may not have been based on
an actual confession. ... Neither a source for the history of Richard
III, nor a piece of Tudor propaganda; it is quite simply sui generis’ – as
reviewed by Tony Pollard in BBC History, April 2005) The
Catesbys of Ashby St Ledgers and their brasses
Two
brasses currently in Northamptonshire Record Office were newly identified
as coming from Ashby, and as a result of this research are to be restored
to the church. All known brasses from Ashby are studied in the volume
and an overview given of their significance. In addition information
is provided on an important lost heraldic glazing scheme which once
graced the church. The whole is set in context by an essay on the family,
incorporating information from hitherto unpublished sources. The volume is copiously illustrated in colour, with
the contents comprising:
The volume will be
published in spring 2006 at a price of £20, but members of the Society
are invited to subscribe at the pre-publication price of £10 (plus £5
postage and packing). Visitors
to the site who are interested in purchasing this volume click
here for a downloadable flyer
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