Richard III and the North
by Prof A.J. Pollard, University of Teesside

In the general climate of unthinking antagonism towards Richard III which prevailed in English historical writing until the twentieth century, historians were reluctant to acknowledge any special relationship between the king and the north.  Even those with regional roots and connections found it difficult to comprehend.  Francis Drake, the eighteenth-century historian of York, was puzzled that ‘the hypocrite’ seemed ‘to pay an extraordinary regard to’ the city. [7] William Hutchinson the historian of Durham flatly denied later in the century that ‘the dreadful machinations by which Richard duke of Gloucester was opening his passage to the throne’ had ‘any particular influence on the northern parts of the realm’. [19]  It was left to politically incorrect Ricardians, from George Buck through to Caroline Halsted, to praise his good works in the north and proudly proclaim the great love and liking of the duke in the region, a view taken up by Kendall in his portrait of the man shaped by the boy who found the native country of his spirit in the elemental landscape of Wensleydale. [8, 10, 22]

While most political histories written in the twentieth century recognised that Richard III’s apprenticeship was served in the north, that he was active in war against Scotland as warden of the West March, and that he established a close tie with the city of York, they were not disposed to examine in any detail the duke of Gloucester’s relationship with northerners and the role he played in the province before 1483. It was usually enough to note that during his brother’s lifetime he ‘had behaved both loyally and correctly’ [20]. Even as late as 1980 J. R. Lander could restrict his discussion of Richard III and the north to consideration of the wisdom of Edward IV’s policy of entrusting the province to his brother and the use made by him of northerners in the south after the autumn 1483 rebellions (and this latter heavily dependent on one particular recent study). [23]  Richard’s loyalty before Edward IV’s death was as often stressed to point up his perceived treachery in 1483 as to explore his actual relationship with the north. The agenda was firmly focussed on high politics; the provinces and localities were of little interest in themselves.

It was Charles Ross, himself a Yorkshireman, who was not particularly enamoured of the king, who first opened up the modern exploration of the relationship between Richard III and the north.  Although his study of Richard III was not published until 1981, [31] he had already inspired a group of younger scholars – including Keith Dockray, Michael Hicks, Rosemary Horrox, Michael K. Jones and Tony Pollard, four of whom had been his students – to look afresh at the subject. The result was a wave of publications in the following decade which transformed the way in which we have approached the subject. [8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 ,16, 17, 21, 26, 27, 28]

Given the era in which they worked, it is not surprising that the emphasis was at first on ties of patronage and clientage.  It began with the three Ridings of Yorkshire, but spread out to encompass Lancashire, Durham and Cumbria.  While the main emphasis was on the network of peers and gentry who were retained by or were otherwise identified to have been in Richard III’s service as duke of Gloucester, it extended also to urban oligarchies, especially the city of York, and to religious bodies, notably the dean and chapter of York and the priory of Durham. [1,5,6,24,25,26] What was first established, beyond any challenge, was that after 1471 Richard of Gloucester established himself as the dominant magnate in the northern counties and that he exercised a considerable amount of power in the region as a result.

Interpreting Gloucester and the North was and remains more difficult.  It has often been stated that Gloucester was entrusted with the government of the north by Edward IV; that he was even his vice-regent.  To some extent this is incontrovertible. David Morgan has shown how the Yorkist regime in the north fitted into a wider pattern of what one might call devolved rule under Edward IV. [24] But one must never lose sight of the fact that Gloucester exercised what authority he held as the king’s brother and his servant. He was not given carte blanche. Michael Hicks has proposed that he deliberately enhanced his landed interest in the northern counties and that he took more for himself than the king intended. [13, 14] Certainly after 1478 the situation had arisen whereby the king was dangerously dependent on his surviving and apparently loyal brother, who it seems could continue to get his own way.  The question remains as to how much of what transpired between 1471 and 1483 in respect to Gloucester’s growing power in the north was intended by Edward IV.  In one area, in the north west where Edward promoted the controller of his household, Sir William Parr, Gloucester may not have had everything his own way until he secured a palatine grant at the beginning of 1483. [2]

We need also to consider the nature of the relationship between Gloucester and the region. His position was not secured overnight: he had to work for it, as tensions with the earl of Northumberland and Bishop Booth of Durham reveal. [11, 26] The connection between Gloucester and the local elites was two way. It was not just a question of what northern peers, gentry, ecclesiastics, monks and merchants could do for the duke, but equally what the duke could do for them. In the case of the city of York we know that he lobbied for them at court and, when king, did as they hoped; reduced the fee farm. [1] His very dominance pacified a twenty-year period of tension and conflict fuelled by Neville/Percy rivalry. But, as his relationship with Lord Stanley shows, it did not eradicate all conflict.[21] He was also called upon to arbitrate in disputes and appealed to for justice, most of which no doubt passed to his council. When he had no personal interest, he appears to have administered the law impartially; when he did, as in the very process by which he acquired his share of Warwick the Kingmaker’s inheritance, he had no concern whatsoever for the rights of others. [12]  Not every northerner loved him; the city of York, it appears, for all that its council recorded in its minutes its dismay at his overthrow, was divided in its views about him.  Richard III and the north was arguably a marriage of convenience.

And what are we to make of his religious foundations?  Do they reveal an unusual personal piety, or rather a spiritual extension of the exercise of temporal power? It has been noted that he seems never to have settled on one foundation.  First it was to be Barnard Castle, then Middleham, and finally when he was king the extraordinary projected chantry at York.  There seems to have been a restless spirit here, an inability to make up his mind where he wanted to put down his roots. [6, 18]

Intense study of Richard of Gloucester in the north may reveal something about his character.  But what that something might be remains hard to pin down.  Does it indicate that he was a hard-working, constructive, loyal, law-giving deputy to his brother; or does it suggest a man seeking to compensate for his lack of endowment as the younger brother of a king; and forever restlessly looking to advance himself by seizing whatever opportunity for aggrandisement until the ultimate goal appeared within his grasp on his brother’s death?    In other words it does not in itself answer the profound question about the man and his personality which is posed by his actions in 1483.

Equally questions remain about the relationship between the king and north after 1483.  Not everyone who put their trust in this particular prince was satisfied. Arguably the earls of Northumberland and Westmorland were sorely disappointed to discover that he intended to keep his hands on the rule of the north through his new council; a rule extended to Durham through his handling of the vacancy after the death of Bishop Dudley. We still do not fully understand what they did at Bosworth.  And even those such as Ratcliffe, who did flourish in the new regime, seem to have been put out when they discovered that the king was planning a rapprochement with the Woodville family.  Had Richard III been victorious on the field of Bosworth it is by no means certain that the north would have continued to bask in the king’s favour. A distancing from the north, already evident before his overthrow, presaged a rapid realignment in the event of a victory. Ultimately the kingdom of England is ruled from Westminster not Wensleydale. [28]

And after 1485?  How long did it take the north to come to terms with Henry VII?  These peers, gentry, ecclesiastics, merchants and even monks of northern England were hard-headed men, practised in the arts of sailing with the political wind.   Some undoubtedly kept the cause alive.  But they were faced by a determined regime which rapidly placed swingeing bonds on any who so much as thought about supporting any alternative claimant to the throne. [4]  There is no doubt that enemies of Henry Tudor did find early support in the region, but it has to be noted that many who had served Richard III as duke and king, men like Thomas Metcalfe of Nappa in Wensleydale, one of the most skilful accountants of his generation, soon prospered under the new order.[8]  Richard III himself had been planted in the north in 1471; he had had to win round the political elites in the aftermath of Warwick the Kingmaker’s downfall.  He had not been then the expected or natural heir. After 1485 life had to move on without him.  He came and went

To some extent the historiography concerning Richard III and the north has come round in a circle, or perhaps more accurately a spiral. Now that the relationship is firmly established in all discussions of his life both as duke and king, in respect of almost every corner of the province and, as it touched almost all social groups, new questions, uncertainties and controversies have been opened up.  The fact of the association is established; its significance is now disputed. In particular it does not resolve the fundamental questions of how we interpret this whirlwind career.  

The nuances tend to be lost in the popularisation of this history. Tourist and other organisations in the north are aware that the White Boar is good for business. There is even a successful local brew sold under that name. The particular relationship between Richard III and the north has been seized, commodified and sold as part of the heritage industry. The town of Middleham and English Heritage, building on the prominence given to it by successive Ricardians since Caroline Halsted, have capitalised on this by clever marketing.  Pilgrims come from far and wide; visitors to the castle are told that it was his ‘home’. It is of little matter that the remains of the palatial suites and almost obliterated pleasure grounds which we see today were almost certainly built by the first earl and countess of Westmorland; No great magnate or royal duke in the fifteenth century had a ‘home’ in the twentieth-century sense of the word.  Richard of Gloucester formed no more of a personal attachment to Middleham than he did to Barnard Castle or Pontefract, at both of which surviving records suggest he spent more time. Only after his son, Edward of Middleham was established there in the late 1470s in the household of his mother did Middleham become a significant residence and briefly a focal point in his life. And the personal association came to an abrupt end in 1484/5 with the deaths of first his son and then his queen. But we don’t want these uncomfortable facts to get in our way: we need to believe that Wensleydale was the native country of his spirit. 

Further Reading:

1.  Attreed, L. C., ‘The King’s Interest: York’s Fee farm and the Central Government, 1482-92’, Northern History, xvii, 1987.
2.  Booth, P. W., ‘Richard Duke of Gloucester and the West March’, Northern History, xxxvi, 2000
3.  Buck, Sir George, The History of King Richard III (1619) edited by Arthur N Kincaid,Oxford 1973
4.  Cunningham, S., ‘Henry VII and Rebellion in North-Eastern England, 1485-1492’, Northern History, xxxii, 1996
5.  Dobson, R. B. ‘Richard Bell, Prior of Durham (1464-78) and Bishop of Carlisle (1478-95)’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, ns lxv, 1965
6.  Dobson, R. B. ‘Richard III and the Church of York’ in R. A. Griffiths and J. W. Sherborne, eds, Kings and Nobles in the Later Middle Ages, Gloucester, 1986
7.  Drake, Francis Eboracum or the History and Antiquities of the City of York, 1736
8.  Dockray, K. R, ‘The Political Legacy of Richard III in Northern England’, in Griffiths and Sherborne, Kings and Nobles, 1986
9.  Dockray, K. R., ‘Richard III and the Yorkshire Gentry’, in P. W. Hammond, ed. Richard III: Lordship, Loyalty and Law, Gloucester, 1986
10. Halsted, Caroline, Richard III as Duke of Gloucester and King of England (1844), Gloucester 1977
11. Hicks, M. A., ‘Dynastic Change and Northern Society: the career of the fourth earl of Northumberland, 147-89’, Northern History, xiv, 1978
12. Hicks, M. A. ‘Descent, Partition and Extinction: the Warwick Inheritance’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, lii, 1979
13. Hicks, M.A. Richard III as Duke of Gloucester: a study in character Borthwick Institute, York, 1986
14 Hicks, M. A,. Richard, Duke of Gloucester and the North’, in Horrox, ed., Richard III and the North, 1986
15. Horrox, R. E., ed, Richard III and the North, Hull, 1986
16. Richard III and the east Riding’, in Richard III and the North, 1986
17. Horrox, R. E, Richard III: a study of service, Cambridge 1989
18. Hughes, J., ‘”The Ornaments to know a Holy man”: Northern Religious Life and Richard III’, in A. J. Pollard, ed., The North of England in the Age of Richard III, Stroud, 1996
19. Hutchinson, William, The History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham, 1817
20. Jacob, E. F., The fifteenth century (1399-1485), Oxford 1961
21. Jones, M. K., ‘Richard III and the Stanleys’, in Horrox, Richard III and the North, 1986
22. Kendall, Paul Murray, Richard III, London 1955
23. Lander, J. R. Government and Community: England, 1450-1509, London 1980
24. Morgan, D. A. L., ‘The King’s Affinity in the Polity of Yorkist England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5^th Series, xxiii, 1973
25. O’Regan, M., ‘Richard III and the Monks of Durham’, The Ricardian, iv, 1978
26. Palliser, D. M., ‘Richard III and York, in R. E. Horrox, ed, Richard III and the North, Hull, 1986
27. Pollard, A. J., ‘St Cuthbert and the Hog: Richard III and the county palatine of Durham, 1471-85’, in Griffiths and Sherborne, Kings and Nobles.
28. Pollard, A. J., ‘North, South and Richard III’, The Ricardian, v, 1981
29. Pollard, A. J., ‘North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses: Lay Society, War, and Politics, 1450-1500, Oxford, 1990
30. Pollard, A. J., The Worlds of Richard III (Stroud, 2001)
31. Ross, Charles, Edward IV, London 1974
32. Ross, Charles, Richard III, London 1981