A Couple of Richards

 

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All right already. We'll defer talk about actors who PLAY Richard III until later. Instead we'll cut the schmaltz right now and ask the $64,000 question:

DID

RICHARD III

MURDER

THE PRINCES

IN THE

TOWER?

William Shakespeare certainly thought so. In his play about Richard III - commensically named Richard III¹ - the then Richard of Gloucester (pronounced GLOSS-ter) struts onstage and intones:

... and for the rest of the play he schemes and "murthers" his way to be the King of England.

The plot of the play can be a bit difficult to follow with all the convoluted connections between the various characters. That, though, reflects the actual situation in England's Royal Family at the time.

Richard was the younger brother of King Edward IV who had died in 1483. Keeping with the usual mode of succession, Edward's oldest son had been proclaimed King Edward V. But Edward V was only twelve years old and Richard had been appointed Lord Protector for the young king. Richard then had Edward and his younger brother taken to the Tower of London. For their safety, of course.

Of course.

But then Richard calls in Henry Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, who in the play is a rather smarmy schnook who was helping Richard claw his way to the throne. Of course Buckingham² expects Richard to reward him with generous titles and land grants. To this end, Richard asks the Duke to find proof that Edward is not the rightful king.

Here, though, Will is taking a few liberties. What really happened was that after Edward IV died, Robert Stillington, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, pulled Richard aside. Uh, he didn't want to cause any trouble, Robert said. But the marriage of Edward IV and his Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, had not been legal.

You see, King Edward had been previously married to a lady named Eleanor Talbot. He, Bishop Robert, had officiated. Since this first marriage had never been formally dissolved, neither the young Edward or his brother could be the rightful heir to the throne.

All right, then. Who was?

Weeeeehhhheeeeeeellllll, with Edward IV having no legitimate heirs, the throne would then pass to his younger brother. And that was - surprise! surprise! - Richard of Gloucester! Naturally after much soul-searching Richard decided to do the right thing and with Parliament's approval got himself crowned King.

You'd think that would be pretty much that. But then some of the various barons, earls, and dukes were saying there never had been any "first marriage" to Eleanor. Instead Edward and Eleanor had only made a pre-nuptial agreement but had not exchanged vows. So the Young Prince Edward was the rightful King after all!

Naturally Richard was worried, and like many despots was finding that uneasy sits the crown:

There was only one thing to do and Richard figured that since Lord Buckhingham was willing to prove Edward wasn't the legitimate king, then he'd have no qualms about helping bump the kids off. But Buckingham was noncommittal and really didn't seem to want to go that far. So Richard calls in a ne'er-do-well named Sir James Tyrrell and makes his request.

Then to avoid any misunderstanding who he's talking about, Richard - who really has a potty mouth - adds:

Unlike Buckingham, Sir James then proves he is indeed Richard's most humble and obedient servant.

And that took care of Richard's "sweet sleep's disturbers".

Well, everyone knows the story. With the young princes dead, Richard continues to knock off anyone who he sees as a threat. But then Henry Tudor, then the Earl of Richmond and who had been living in exile in France, returns and defeats Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field about ten miles west of Leister or about twenty miles east-northeast of Birmingham. In the fight Richard's horse is killed and he finds himself on his feet in the midst of the battle. So he makes an offer he thought no one could refuse.

Of course then there is the obligatory final combat between Richard and Henry. The stage directions leave a lot of latitude for the actors and director and tells us that Richard and Henry just "fight" and Richard is "slaine" (Will really did have problems with spelling).

So Henry Tudor becomes King Henry VII and establishes the Tudor Dynasty, one of the most stable eras for the country, if not necessarily for the individual English men and women. The Tudor rule ended in 1603 with the death of Queen Elizabeth I.

Although there are a few bits of literary license in the play, Will pretty much sticks with the accepted history. For one thing, Richard III was pictured not just as a "villaine" but as a man with major physical handicaps:

Although Will doesn't specify exactly how Richard's was "Deform'd," Sir Thomas More, who was advisor to both Henry VII and his son Henry VIII, wrote a biography of Richard where he stated that Richard had a significant spinal curvature. So in stage productions Richard is often pictured suffering from kyphosis, that is, a back to front bending of the spine that produces what is commonly called a "hunchback". This requires the actors to wear prosthetics to simulate the handicap. Sir Laurence Olivier, when he played Richard in a 1955 film, went one step further and added a prosthetic nose.

At this point we can say it's not too much of a simplification to say scholarship about the historical Richard III is divided into two camps: the Richard Champions and the Richard Detractors. Richard Detractors tend to be the traditional historians with university professorships and who see Richard as a scheming usurper who to be King really did knock off his friends and family. And his perfidy included murdering children, the Princes in the Tower.

The Champions, though, say all this is nonsense. Richard was a good monarch and as a member of the Plantagenet family the legitimate heir to the Throne of England. He was loyal to England and it was the later kings - the Tudors - who were the real usurpers.

But most of all there is no - that's NO! KEINS! NICHTS!! - proof that Richard III murdered the young Princes in the Tower.

But ... but .... but ... say the Richard Detractors. Sir Thomas More's account detailed Richard's struggle for the throne. Sir Thomas knew people involved and he had access to primary source material. He asserts unambiguously that Richard ordered the Two Princes' deaths. You want the facts, just look at the historical record!

What "historical record?", ask the Champions. Thomas More's so-called "history" cannot be trusted. It was not only written decades after Richard died but is chock full of errors. For instance contemporary portraits of Richard show no indication that he suffered from kyphosis. Clearly, the Champions say, Sir Thomas's rant is merely a case of Tudor propaganda invented to further villainize the Man Who Should Have Remained King.

Pooh, the Richard Detractors disagree. The Champions, they say, are simply "amateur historians" who have created a "romantic cult" about Richard. Being a Richard Champion is nothing more than an ego builder. After all, if the world's greatest historians believe Richard murdered his nephews but you say he didn't, doesn't that mean you are smarter than the world's greatest historians?

And you want proof that Sir Thomas More was right, we'll give you proof!

By now, the Detractors point out, everyone knows that in 2012 the skeleton of Richard III was found in Leister, England, buried underneath a parking lot - a "car park" in British English. Forensic tests (including DNA analysis on Richard's living descendants) has shown beyond reasonable doubt that the bones were of the last Plantagenet King of England.

And during the excavation they found - and pardon us if we shout:

THE SPINE SHOWED EXTREME CURVATURE!

So this astounding discovery has PROVEN that the image of a "Deform'd" Richard is not - that's NOT! NOT! NOT! - mere Tudor propaganda. It is literal FACT!!!!

Not so fast, the Champions say smiling behind their hands. They quickly point out that this so-called "astounding discovery" provides ABSOLUTELY NO CORROBORATION WHATSOEVER for the traditional picture of Richard. The curve of the spine of the skeleton exhibits the condition known as scoliosis. This is a side-to-side bending of the spinal column and would have been scarcely noticeable in someone wearing late Renaissance clothing. At worse, one of the shoulders would simply have been higher than the other. Certainly we see nothing in the historical record that Richard was the "hunchback" of popular legend.

Which is not, the Detractors say wagging an admonitory finger, what the historical record says. Sir Thomas never made a claim that Richard was a hunchback, that is, that he suffered from kyphosis. If the Richard Champions will just read Sir Thomas's actual words, dang it!, they'll see he describes Richard as:

...little of stature, ill featured of limes, croke backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right.

... which is a perfect clinical description of the scoliosis which was indeed severe in Richard's skeleton.

At this point the Champions begin waxing wroth.³ We repeat, they say, this brouhaha has NOTHING TO DO WHETHER RICHARD MURDERED THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER.

AND, the Champions sneer, we are still waiting for the PROOF you so bombastically said you have.

We were hoping you'd ask, the Detractors smile. Sir Thomas was not only spot on about Richard's physical affliction, but he also described how Richard - or his henchmen - not only killed the Young Princes in the Tower, but actually disposed of their bodies.

Which vpon the sight of them, caused those murtherers to burye them at the stayre foote, metely depe in the grounde vnder a great heape of stones.

Well, the Champions ask, so what?

Well, it just so happens, say the Detractors nodding sagely, that in 1674 some workmen were digging beneath one of the stairways in the Tower. There they came upon a wooden box containing human bones. The bones were examined and found to be consistent with those of pre-teenage boys.

As for this being proof, it was certainly proof enough for King Charles II. He accepted the find as being the Princes in the Tower and had them buried in the Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey.

Huh! Call that proof? the Champions sneer. Recent evaluation of the bones have shown that the dental development of the bones found in the Tower show a congenital defect which is completely absent in the skeleton found in the Leister carpark. So there's no indication the bones had any connection to Richard III.

Ha? the Detractor say, quoting Shakespeare. What kind of namby-pamby objection is that? Richard was their uncle, for crying out loud! There's no reason to expect the Princes to have inherited a physical characteristic from an uncle. Read a little genetics, for heaven's sake!

And c'mon, the Detractors add, rolling their eyes. Remember we're talking about a history written by Sir Thomas More. Sir Thomas More was a man of the highest integrity and was scarcely a - quote - "Tudor propagandist" - unquote. This is the man who stood up to Henry VIII at the cost of his life. And we repeat that as far as writing his history of Richard III, Sir Thomas had direct access to people closely related to those who were involved with the murder.

To sum up, Sir Thomas specifically stated that the murdered Princes were buried underneath a staircase in the Tower. Then a century later bones of two young children were found - yes, beneath a staircase in the Tower. Sir Thomas also said that Richard had a crooked spine which resulted in one shoulder higher than the other - a fact confirmed in the 2012 excavation or Richard's burial.

Just what more proof do you need?

Well, how about some REAL PROOF?, sneer the Champions. The - quote - "bones of the Young Princes" - unquote - have never been properly analyzed by reliable forensic methods. There's no proof yet that 1) the bones are related in any way whatsoever to Richard III, 2) the bones are from the late 15th century, or even 3) that the bones are of children.

Well, OK, say the Detractors if the bones haven't been analyzed, then ANALYZE THEM!

Uh, that would be all well and good particularly since in this path forward we have rare agreement between the Champions and the Detractors. But there seems there's just one wee little problem.

To analyze the bones you need to get permission from the Dean of Westminster who is in charge of Westminster Abbey. So far permission has been refused. And to date government officials and the Royal Family have agreed with the Dean. The reason, they say, is that most likely the analysis would prove absolutely nothing.

For instance, carbon-14 dating of the bones would only be accurate to about 50 years. So it would be impossible to determine if the bones were placed under the stairs in the two-year reign of Richard III. In other words, you couldn't tell if the bones were from the time of Edward IV, Richard III, or even Henry VII.

Another problem is the bones have been handled by many people over the centuries and so contamination might render any DNA analysis impossible. Forensic determination of age of death by the skeletal development is also subject to error - sometimes quite large - and even careful objective analysis might leave us still scratching our heads.

Besides the last thing we want is to establish a precedence where we let college professors start digging up dead people so they can publish instead of perish. For instance, there's plenty of questions about the various infirmities of Henry VIII and how they led to the irascibility of his later years. Would analyzing his bones help answer those questions? Maybe. But does that mean we should - as Shakespeare put it - "digg the dvst encloased heare"?

And suppose, just suppose, the bones found in the Tower aren't related to the Richard III. Shouldn't we then have to do more tests to determine who the children really were related to? If they can't be confirmed to be from the Royal Family, would you have to move them out of Westminster Abbey? If so, where would they be buried?

And for any talk about Sir Thomas having unique access to individuals with direct knowledge of Richard III and his deeds, the Champions point out that these "sources" are no more than the "friend-of-a-friend" hearsay on which urban legends are founded. There are no contemporary sources that lay the murders of the Princes at the Feet of Good King Richard.

Not so! Not so! say the Detractors (again quoting Shakespeare.) There are indeed genuine first hand records that prove Richard was regarded as a knave, varlet, and all around jerk even when he was King.

Dominic Mancini was a Franciscan monk visiting England in 1482 to 1483, the exact years when Richard was designated as King and began to rule. Dominic's writings make it clear that the story was already circulating that Richard was responsible for the murder of the two Princes:

At his death Edward [IV] left two sons. He bequeathed the kingdom to Edward the eldest, who had already some time before been proclaimed Prince of Wales at a council meeting of the magnates of the entire realm [Parliament]. The king wished that his second son called the Duke of York should be content with his land and income within his brother's realm.

Men say that in the same Will he appointed a protector of his children and realm his brother Richard duke of Gloucester, who shortly after destroyed Edward's children and then claimed for himself the throne.

Dominic's book was completed before the end of 1483 and so this is a truly contemporaneous proof that the story of the murders of the princes was not created only after Richard had been defeated at the Battle of Bosworth Field. The story is NOT mere (ptui) "Tudor propaganda".

Huh! say the Champions. Just second hand information from someone who simply heard rumors! So the best thing for the Detractors to do is just take their "proof" and ....

Well, obviously the questions won't be decided here whether Richard III was a jerk and a child-murderer or if he was a a man of character and honor who was thrust unwillingly to greatness and simply had the misfortune to lose a battle to the men who ended up writing the history.

But for the nonce, most professional (and professorial) historians tend to accept the traditional story. Richard was indeed a knave and a varlet, they say, and the Princes were "murthered" on his orders.

Richard III, can be called Shakespeare's first masterpiece. True, the plot is a bit difficult to follow since not only do the characters speak using funny words and can't spell, but the relationships between the characters is twisted, intertwined, and convoluted. For this reason like all of Will's plays, Richard III is best seen before it's read.

What the play does - Tudor propaganda or not - is to illustrate that in Medieval England and even later, there was a real problem in deciding who was supposed to be the next King. It's not as simple as sometimes believed.

In Richard's time it was the current monarch who decided who was to be next in line. Although it wasn't exactly forbidden that a woman could inherit the throne, the general rule was the royal heir was the monarch's eldest son.

That's fine, but suppose, just suppose, the eldest son died before he became King. What do you do then?

Well, then the King's #2 son would take his place. And #2 died, then it would be son #3, #4, and on down the line. Seems simple enough.

OK. But NOW suppose the #1 Son died before being crowned and yet he was already married and had children. Who should be King? Should it be the eldest son's own son, that is, the grandson of the current King? Or should it still be the eldest son's younger brother?

This perplexing scenario happened frequently. That is, the original heir to the throne would die, but with "issue" as they say. Sometimes you'd have ALL the sons being grown and married with children and then the first two or three sons would die before their father.

Such circumstances could easily set up a contentious situation where what should have elicited a simple family discussion would erupt into civil war. And it was such succession problems that brought on the famous "Wars of the Roses" where the House of York - symbolized by a white rose - and the House of Lancaster - who sported a red rose - fought over who was to be King.

We won't even try to detail the impossibly complex series of relationships that split England's Royal Family, and so a brief synopsis will have to do. It all started in 1327 when the King of England was Edward III.

And yep, Edward's oldest son was married with children but died before his dad. In this case, though, it was the son of the eldest, that is, the grandson of Edward III who followed him as King Richard II. As for Edward's other sons - he had five in all - they were left out of the line.

But they didn't just go away. By the last decade of the 14th Century, two were still around: Edward's #3 son, John, was the Duke of Lancaster, and his #4 son, Edmund, was the Duke of York. Nominally John and Edmund had willingly accepted their nephew as King Richard II, but soon other members of the House of Lancaster and House of York began to think that it was their house that had the proper claim to the throne.

At first the Lancastrians - being descended from the elder of Edward's surviving sons - had a leg-up on the claim. By 1399 the King was Henry IV, the son of John the Duke of Lancaster and the new King was yet another grandson of Edward III. So by the start of the Fifteenth Century, the Lancastrians - the Red Rose - were in charge.

The next two kings, Henry V and Henry VI were also Lancastrians. But Henry VI was - well, let's be honest - a nutball. He became King at age - get this - 9 months - and was King for almost 50 years. During his reign he exhibited strange behavior and even suffered periods of true mental instability.

Having an irrational King at best and a crazy King at worst for nigh on a half a century is not a recipe for a stable prosperous country. During the early Fifteenth Century the various dukes, earls, and barons had begun assembling large private armies which they used against each other, mostly trying to gain control of various parts of the country and boost their political power. Some of them even began to think they could be a better King than old what's-his-name the - quote - "legitimate" heir - unquote.

But with virtual anarchy rampaging in the country the members of the House of York began to murmur that if they were in charge, they could "straighten things out". By 1415, the Duke of York - the third duke - was Richard. Although this was not our Richard, he was still the great-grandson of Edward III and so he felt he had a good claim to be King. Naturally the Lancastrians disagreed and in 1455 the Wars of the Roses broke out in earnest.

Richard the Third Duke of York was killed in 1460 at the Battle of Wakefield which was won by the Lancastrians. So Henry VI as the great-great-grandson of Edward III became King. But the next year, the Yorkist defeated the Lancastrians and kicked Henry VI out. So Richard's son became King Edward IV - yes, this is the King Edward who had died at the beginning of Shakespeare's play. This brings us down to Edward's youngest brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester - this is OUR Richard.

All of this got Richard thinking. Shoot, if Henry VI was a great-great-grandson of Edward III and he could be King, and he, Richard, was also a great-great-grandson of Edward III, then doesn't that mean he, Richard, should be the King? It certainly seems logical.

Alas, we all know that the best laid plans of mice and kings gang aft aglay. Henry Tudor - "Richmond" in the play - defeated Richard and became King Henry VII of England. The people were now ready for some stability - the Kings of England had switched back and forth seven times in thirty years - but the big question now whether Henry had a real claim to the throne.

Well, at first glance it didn't look like it. Henry's granddad had been a Welsh "adventurer" Sir Owen Tudor. Somewhere along the line Owen had married Catherine of Valois (pronounced val-WHAHZ), who was none other than the widow of King Henry V. Admittedly it's strange that a "Queen dowager" - the mother of the current King - would marry a rather rustic provincial and most histories mention the marriage had been made in secret.

But secret or not the marriage did mean that Owen and Catherine's son, Edmund, was also the half brother of King Henry VI. Edmund became the Earl of Richmond and married a lady named Margaret Beaufort. So their son, Henry Tudor, could trace his ancestry back through his grandmother to King Henry VI.

So when Henry VI died, why shouldn't Henry Tudor proclaim himself King Henry VII? That way his son would then be King Henry VIII. And if anyone questioned his claim, if he was able to defeat in battle the current King of England - say, someone like Richard III - that must mean that God agreed that he should be king.

Well, didn't it?

In any case, that's pretty much what happened and starting with Henry VII it becomes a bit easier to follow who was King and Queen. The irony is Henry Tudor's son, yes, Henry VIII, kept pestering his wives for a male heir, but he ended up giving England one of her greatest ruling Queens, Elizabeth I, who was the last Tudor monarch.

Richard III has been one of Shakespeare's most popular plays and is always being performed at some place or another. Some of the biggest name actors have taken the part including Ian McKellen, Alec Guinness, Ian Holm, Martin Freeman, George C. Scott, and even John Wilkes Booth.

But probably the most famous Richard III - on stage, cinema, or television - was Sir Laurence Olivier in the 1955 film. For the time it was a lengthy movie - over 2½ hours - but the screenwriters still had to edit the play down quite a bit. But at least they did start off with Richard's "Now is the winter of our discontent" soliloquy and also included the "My kingdom for a horse!" line.

Today it's popular to stage Shakespeare in modern costumes since in Will's time that's what they did. Because Elizabethan plays were performed wherever the actors could find a crowd it was just too much trouble to haul around trunks full of historical costumes. So everyone just performed in their street clothes.

A lot of times you'll see the photographs of a modern costume staging of one of Will's plays and think it looks kind of silly. But it usually works out particularly if the actors are good. A 1990 performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company had the staging in the jazz age (they even had a jazz band play at the beginning) and the performance was quite fun. Andrew Jarvis played a particularly smarmy Richard and Michael Pennington was the urbane but scheming Duke of Buckingham.

As good as the play is, it can get a bit tedious watching a murderous schmuck kill his friends and family for three hours including his two young nephews. So Will would often throw in a bit of humor even in his serious plays. But because the humor of the remarks tossed out by Richard is easily lost on modern audiences whose may not have full grasp of the subtleties of Elizabethan English, here the RSC was clearly playing some of the scenes for laughs - such as when Lovel and Ratcliff carried the head of Lord Hastings to Richard and Buckingham in a briefcase.

But the production didn't leave out the parts all Shakespeate fans want to see. Even though in the scenes where Richard (Andrew) is preparing for the Battle at Bosworth Field and everyone is wearing modern combat gear, Richard and Henry Tudor (played by Charles Dale) fight the final duel with swords and wearing medieval armor. And yes, just before the fight, Richard did call for "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" and not "A tracked combat vehicle! A tracked combat vehicle! My kingdom for a tracked combat vehicle!"

References and Further Reading

Richard III : England's Black Legend, Desmond Seward, Pegasus Books, 2015.

Richard III: A Ruler and His Reputation, David Horspool, Bloomsbury, 2015.

The Tragedy of Richard the Third, William Shakespeare, Valentine Sims (publisher), 1597 (Internet Shakespeare Editions).

The Tragedy of Richard the Third, Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, William Shakespeare, Edward Blount and William and Isaac Jaggard Publishers, 1623 [First Folio].

"Shakespeare Quartos: Richard III", British Library.

"Thomas More's History of King Richard III", The British Library.

"Richard III: A Bad Man — and Even Worse King", Nigel Jones, The Spectator.

"Dominic Mancini and 'The Usurpation of Richard III'", The History of England, 2016.

"More on a Murder: The Deaths of the 'Princes in the Tower', and Historiographical Implications for the Regimes of Henry VII and Henry VIII", Tim Thorton, History, Volume 106, Issue 369 pp. 4-25, December 20, 2020.

p>"Richard III, the Princes in the Tower, and Thomas More – Answers to the Mystery?", Tim Thorton, History Journal, February 3, 2021.

"The Princes in the Tower", Ben Johnson, Historic UK.

"Two Princes Staircase, Tower of London, London, England", Atlas Obscura.

"The Lady Chapel", Westminster Abbey.

"The Real Reason the Queen Refused to Allow DNA Tests on Remains of Princes in the Tower", Kate Nicholson, Express, September 4, 2020.

"Henry VIII's Family Tree Explained", Noemi Arellano, February 17, 2023.

"Famous Actors Who Have Played Richard III", September 23, 2021.

"Much Ado About Nothing Gets a Contemporary Twist", Doni Wilson, Houstonia, December 6, 2016.

"Best Shakespeare Productions: What's Your Favourite Richard III?", Michael Billington, The Guardian, March 31, 2014.

Richard III Study Guide, Spark Notes.

Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare, Isaac Asimov, Doubleday, 1970

Richard III, Laurence Olivier (actor), William Shakespeare (writer), Ralph Richardson (actor), Claire Bloom (actor), Cedric Hardwicke (actor),John Gielgud (actor), Laurence Olivier (scriptwriter), London Films, 1955.

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