The Piety of Richard III
by Mary O'Regan

There was a huge range of responses to religion. How can we judge where Richard ill should come on this scale? Of course, it is impossible to know the depth or the sincerity of another's faith. To those looking at his actions, Richard has the appearance of a good man. He fulfilled his religious duties, seems to have spent time every day in prayer, and because he was a rich man he was able to use part of his wealth in almsgiving and in founding and endowing religious houses and colleges. Certainly, this was the verdict of his contemporaries.

It would not be surprising if it were indeed so, if he was influenced by his family. Richard's mother Cecily, Duchess of York, led a life of private devotion and was accounted one of the most saintly laywomen of her generation. His sister Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, shared her mother's religious interests.

We may have a tangible indicator of Richard III’s religious tastes, and possibly his spiritual life, in his personal library. It has been estimated that ‘of the eleven books that he probably owned only four can be called devotional.’ (Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, p.84) There is no emphasis on any one aspect of religion. For formal prayer there was his Book of Hours, a copy relatively simply written and decorated: not an outstanding work of art. For Scripture he owned an English translation of the New Testament and an English verse paraphrase of the Old Testament. For meditation he had The Book of Special Grace of Mechtild of Hackeborn.

In the late Middle Ages a wave of religious fervour spread across Europe, especially among laypeople. It found expression in private, personal devotions which focussed on the works of famous mystical writers. Blessed Mechtild of Hackeborn (also known in the Middle Ages as Matilde or Maude) was one of these. She was a thirteenth-century Cistercian nun who saw visions of a mystical nature. They were written down in her lifetime as Liber Specialis Gratie, sometimes called ‘The Book of Ghostly Grace’. Cecily, Duchess of York, had a copy of the book. Richard’s ownership of an English version cannot be seen as an unequivocal witness to his spiritual life. It bears the name of his wife Anne Neville also, and might as easily reflect her religious tastes. Meditation demands solitude and freedom from interruption. It is notoriously difficult to fit into the life of a busy public man, such as Richard was as both Duke of Gloucester and as king.

What of his possession of an English New Testament? Much has been made in the past of the fact that it was a translation by John Wycliffe, and the conclusion has been drawn that Richard was perhaps a crypto-Lollard, sympathetic to ideas which in the next century would blossom into Protestantism. This is not however the case. Vernacular translations of various books of the Bible were common in the rest of Europe, and were being produced in quantity by the new process, printing. The proscription of those translations by Wycliffe which displayed his heretical, Lollard, interpretations of Scripture, put back the cause of an English Bible by years. Richard owned an example of an earlier, orthodox translation to which no taint of heresy attached. It is not known how easily Richard read and understood Latin. One can certainly say that an interest in reading the Gospels in the mother tongue perhaps shows an intention to absorb its message as perfectly as possible. It can be said that this was not seen as necessary by most English people of the time.

It is Richard Ill's Book of Hours that has borne the weight of later conjectures concerning Richard's piety. In particular, one of the prayers that were added to the book after it came into Richard's possession has been closely analysed in the hope of throwing light on everything from his spiritual life to his mental health. Richard's own circumstances have been taken to be directly relevant to words and phrases used in the prayer, as if (which was not the case) the latter were composed with the king in mind. It is now called the Prayer of Richard Ill, but texts of it have been found dating from a century before his time, and originating in places as far apart as Italy, Catalonia and Burgundy. It is a long prayer, designed for use by anyone in distress, anxiety, infirmity or affliction of any kind. It would not be surprising if King Richard fervently wished to be free of his political and personal cares and troubles. The prayer seems to have been particularly valued by other medieval rulers: known owners of books containing it include Alexander, Prince of Poland, Maximilian I, Frederick of Aragon, and successive fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Dukes of Burgundy. Recitation of the prayer on thirty successive days was enjoined, in the belief that God would then turn the supplicant's troubles to ‘joy and comfort.’ Did Richard Ill carry out this plan? We have no means of knowing.

Without additions peculiar to a single owner, the normal contents of a Book of Hours were, principally, formal prayers of the Church designed for public recitation but suitable also for private use. The main constituent was the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a simpler version of the Divine Office. The clergy were obliged to say or chant the Office, reciting the Psalms in a prescribed order at set times of the day (and night), with many special variations in them and in the accompanying prayers, according to the saint's day or Church festival. The Little Office was almost unvarying and shorter, making it suitable for laypeople to pray either alone or with a companion. Like the Divine Office it was divided into sections corresponding to hours of the day: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers and Compline.

If Richard Ill used his Book of Hours regularly he would have made himself conscious of God continually during the day. Praise, supplication, thanksgiving, are all encompassed in the Psalms which make up the Little Office. In addition to that Office the book contained many prayers directed to and praising the Virgin Mary. Devotion to the Mother of God was popular among both clergy and laity at all times during the Middle Ages, and there is no reason to think that Richard IIl was any exception.

As well as these private manifestations of piety, Richard Ill fulfilled his duty as one endowed with worldly wealth and ‘distributed a continuous stream of largesse to religious houses, parish churches, houses of friars and chapels and chantries.’ (Ross, p.130) He also founded and endowed religious houses and colleges. The documents relating to his religious foundations have been scrutinised, in particular those relating to his College at Middleham, in the hope of detecting personal touches in the phraseology. It is stated specifically in the Statutes of the College that the saints chosen for the priests' stalls therein were Richard's favourites, and in this he was no different to any other Catholic of his time (or any other time). In addition, it is thought by some that the preamble to the statutes was composed by Richard himself; there is an emphasis on trials and tribulations, ‘the mutability of human fortune and the unworthiness of the individual’ (Ross, p.13l). But it must be said that this was a common theme in late fifteenth century religious thought.

Sutton and Visser-Fuchs place Richard firmly in his time: ‘Richard's religion was that of the later middle ages, humanised, fervent and personal within the strong and controlling framework of the church. ‘ (op.cit. p. 85) They assess from the known facts about him that ‘his private piety was no different from that of his contemporaries, although his sorrows and cares may have been greater than most people's. He directed his attention to the same things: he, too, adopted favourite saints to be his patrons and intermediaries with God and had particular objects of veneration.’(op.cit. pp. 83-84)

Richard left no spiritual or other writings which would help us. But he owned religious books, whose character leads one to suppose that they were for use rather than ornament. He founded colleges and chantries, rather more in number than most of his contemporaries. He gave alms; again, generously in comparison to others. He may, and probably did, pray every day, and no doubt attended Mass and other services of the church regularly. We know he had a confessor, so he will have received the Sacrament of Penance regularly too. As far as we can judge, Richard fulfilled his obligations and more, and for a medieval prince that was remarkable.

It is when some historians try to fathom Richard ill's faith from his actions that they are, as Charles Ross says, ‘bedevilled by the problem of his motivation’ (p. 127). These actions are paradoxical to those who assume as a ‘given’ that Richard III was a wicked man. Writers such as Polydore Vergil solved the problem by adding hypocrisy to the list of his sins: Richard wanted to cover up his wickedness. The similar attitude of later historians is exemplified by James Gairdner, who said that Richard had a ‘desire to appear religious in the eyes of men, so as to draw off from himself’ the suspicion of infamy. In other words, Richard III was not really pious or religious. His prayers and devotions were simply lip-service, and these and his religious foundations and alms were done solely to win worldly approval and conceal his real, discreditable, thoughts and intentions.

It is thus clear that those who accept the proposition that though Richard III appeared good he was, all his life, an evil man who did wicked things, are forced to go behind the appearances and supply the unknown thoughts, feelings and attitudes of an historical figure. This is surely risky and is great presumption in an historian, who thus thinks he can judge a man better, several centuries later, than a man's contemporaries.

But drop the automatic assumption of Richard's wickedness and there is no necessity for convoluted ‘explanations’ of his personal piety .In the words of Charles Ross, ‘There is no good reason to doubt that Richard was a genuinely pious and religious man’.

Books Consulted:

‘The Piety of Cicely, Duchess of York: A Study in Late Mediaeval Culture’ by C.A.J. Armstrong  in  For Hilaire Belloc, ed. Douglas Woodruff (1942).

Richard III by Charles Ross, 1981, pbk.1988

The Hours of Richard III by Anne Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, 1990