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My husband is reading a book on the Wars of the Roses and he's finding it difficult to keep track of who's who - even with the aid of the family trees!
Margaret Beaufort is a particular problem ... because she married four times! She seems to pop up everywhere!!
Margaret Beaufort is a problem, full stop. Ask any Ricardian ... her and her ambitions!
Where is the start of the problem? Richard duke of York, 4 living children, Edward, Earl of March, Edmund, earl of Rutland, George, duke of Clarence, Richard, duke of Gloucester. Cousin Richard Neville, earl of Warwick. Richard duke of York and Edmund, Earl of Rutland, killed at Wakefield. Edward earl of March fights battle of Towton, etc. claims the throne. Loses it again to Henry VI and Edward flees to the continent. Comes back to claim the throne for the second time. Marries Elizabeth Woodville, which upsets Warwick who had plans to marry him off to a French princess. Warwick plots rebellion, together with George duke of Clarence, who is denied marriage to WArwick's eldest daughter. He marries her in Calais, to get round the prohibition. Warwick and Clarence forment rebellion. Battle of Edgecote, Warwick captures and beheads Elizabeth Woodville's father and brother. Antony escapes. Meanwhile Margaret Beaufort is busy scheming in the background ...
with me so far?????
Dorothy - I just read your reply out loud to my husband and asked him if he was "with you so far"! He said he's struggling and could you say it more slowly!!!
Desmond Seward is a dirty word, bit like Shakespare. He is very anti-Richard, his other book is Richard III, England's Black Legend and is very very biased. There are better WArs of the Roses books out there, Hubert Cole, JR Lander, John Gillingham. His is new and a lighter read.
It's lucky I didn't read the book first (it's been sitting on the bookcase for ages) or I'd have been yelling at the author!
Until I read Josephine Tey's novel Daughter of Time many years ago I thought Shakespeare's play was based on the truth when it was of course designed to please Elizabeth I.
However if I'd been writing in that era there's no way I'd have dared suggest she had no right to the throne!
one of the big problems Ricardians have is that everyone thinks Shakespeare wrote fact instead of fiction. In fact, he compressed many years of events into small time scales, had Richard at battles before he was born, had him murder everyone just because he needed a villain and the Tudors were happy to have a villain. But he isn't and wasn't and people like Seward and Weir are guilty of perpetuating a myth. I am reading Royal Blood by Bertram Fields who took a lawyer's approach to the whole thing. So far he has demolished every argument Weir has set up, in flames.
the story so far ... continues. (thanks for the tip, I wrote this off line and yes, it timed out!)
Battle of Barnet, Warwick is killed, despite orders not to kill him. Battle fever took over, I think. Fresh from that, Margaret B launches another attack a few weeks later, at Tewkesbury, when her son is killed. Edward does the unthinkable at that time (and they say Richard is a villain!) drags people out of sanctuary and beheads them ... he returns to London in triumph and displaces the fragile Henry VI who is in the Tower and who conveniently dies. So Edward is king. Richard is appointed Lord of the North, sent to control the unruly northerners, they take to him as their great leader, especially the city of York, who love him unreservedly. He marries Anne Neville, daughter of Warwick, who had been married to Margaret's son and so became a widow at Tewkesbury. Edward is married to Elizabeth Woodville, she brings all the Woodvilles into court, and there are a lot of them. Antony is already married to a very wealthy heiress and is Lord Scales by this time. To show the extent of his wealth, he even owned Sandringham. 'Did I?' he asked when I mentioned it to him. 'Suppose I did.' Many properties, many homes, loads of money.
Relative peace in the country, apart from Edward charging off to France to make war and settle scores and ending up with a pension and loads of gifts instead. Clarence is giving him problems, so he shuts him up in the Tower and finally orders his execution. (This murder, for that is what it was, is also laid at Richard's door. He was in fact overcome with grief and went north to his home at Middleham. He rarely came to court after that.)
Meantime Margaret B is in France scheming to get her son on the throne of England. One attempt at invasion fails horribly, so she withdraws to try again.
Edward dies at a relatively young age, just in his 40s, it is presumed now from pneumonia. Richard is appointed Lord Protector. Edward's son, also Edward, is then Edward V and is being brought to London for a coronation by his guardian, Antony, and an army of supporters. Richard, riding from the north, intercepts them at Northampton, arrests Antony and those with him, takes the young king to London and there places him in the tower, in the royal apartments. All is going well, plans are being made for the coronation, when news comes to light of a pre-contract of marriage which Edward entered into before his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. In law at that time, a pre-contract is as good as a marriage licence and if this is right, the children are illegitimate and Richard is the rightful heir to the throne. Parliament ask him to take it. He agrees. Elizabeth, in sanctuary at Westminster Abbey, is persuaded to hand over her second son, Richard duke of York, who is also put in the Tower with his brother.
Antony, Richard Grey (his nephew) and Thomas Vaughan are executed (murdered) at Pontefract on the 25th June 1485. (if anyone has emailed me, they will know my email address is dorothy2583, an abbreviation of the date of Antonys death. Only 1 person has ever asked me what it means!)
Richard and Queen Anne are crowned. They go on a progress, showing themselves around the country.
Meantime, work goes on in the background. He has plenty of ideas, he set up the bail system which we use today, standardised weights and measures across the country, insisted all laws were written in English so everyone could understand them and goodness knows what else. Sadly for him and Anne, after creating their son Prince of Wales, he dies. They are both consumed with grief.
Richard puts down a few insurrections but problems are always simmering. Queen Anne dies, leaving him bereft for she was his one love.
Tudor, or Tydder as he was known then, is heading for England again, as he thinks he has enough support among the aristocracy to mount a full scale invasion and win. Richard hears of this and begins his plans, finding out who he can rely on to support him and who he cant. The Stanleys, related to Margaret Beaufort, are wavering, one side and then the other. They and Northumberland are people not to be relied on.
The battle is joined at Bosworth on the 22nd August 1485. From the start it is clear that the Stanleys are about to change sides, or not join in at all. Richard, impatient as ever, decides to charge down into the battlefield from his safe position. He does this, killing the Tudors standard bearer and another giant of a man, along with a few others, trying to reach Tudor himself. The Stanleys men surge in and cut him down. His last words were supposed to have been Treason! Treason! Even his most violent detractors cannot take from him his bravery on the battlefield.
Bosworth battle lasted a mere 2 hours. A king is killed. He is stripped, mutilated, thrown over a horse and taken into the nearby town, where the body is displayed for a few days. Tudor rides to London to claim his throne.
No one knows what happened to the Princes.
Were they taken ill? There is a report that a doctor was called to see them. If Richard had killed them, Tudor would have made sure the world knew of it. If Tudor killed them, they having a better claim to the throne than he, someone would have known. No secret is a secret if shared with someone else. The simple fact is, apart from Richard and his close advisors, no one knows and no one is saying. I doubt he did it, I doubt Tudor did it. Too risky for both of them. My feeling is they died of natural causes, just as Richards own son did.
But Tudor needed to blacken the name of the king he usurped so he got people to rewrite history, the Croyland Chronicler switched from pro Richard to pro Tudor in his history of the period. Paintings were tampered with. He did not have a hunchback or a withered arm. He did not kill his brother, his wife, his child, the Princes but it makes a good story when a playwright needs a villain.
Ive skipped some essential people but then, how much of a story do you want??????
Thank you Dorothy.
Isn't it surprising how many over ambitious royal mothers there have been.
Hasn't there always been a little bit of a problem in trusting Stanley's and the Percy's in history?
Most families have a history somewhere of switching sides as it suits them. I'm running into flak at the moment on the Richard III Form after asking when Edward Woodville switched from York to Lancaster - I know but wanted to stir up a dead forum for a few days - with comments such as 'you can't trust any Woodville' and so on. The Woodvilles were Lancastrian to start with, as Richard Woodville served the king in France. Then, when they realised things were going badly wrong and Edward was going to win, they switched sides. Fortunately for them, Elizabeth, the eldest of their 13 children (exceptional for that time) married Edward. I think Edward W switched sides when his brother and nephew were executed, personally.
Comments
Margaret Beaufort is a particular problem ... because she married four times! She seems to pop up everywhere!!
Where is the start of the problem? Richard duke of York, 4 living children, Edward, Earl of March, Edmund, earl of Rutland, George, duke of Clarence, Richard, duke of Gloucester. Cousin Richard Neville, earl of Warwick. Richard duke of York and Edmund, Earl of Rutland, killed at Wakefield. Edward earl of March fights battle of Towton, etc. claims the throne. Loses it again to Henry VI and Edward flees to the continent. Comes back to claim the throne for the second time. Marries Elizabeth Woodville, which upsets Warwick who had plans to marry him off to a French princess. Warwick plots rebellion, together with George duke of Clarence, who is denied marriage to WArwick's eldest daughter. He marries her in Calais, to get round the prohibition. Warwick and Clarence forment rebellion. Battle of Edgecote, Warwick captures and beheads Elizabeth Woodville's father and brother. Antony escapes. Meanwhile Margaret Beaufort is busy scheming in the background ...
with me so far?????
Until I read Josephine Tey's novel Daughter of Time many years ago I thought Shakespeare's play was based on the truth when it was of course designed to please Elizabeth I.
However if I'd been writing in that era there's no way I'd have dared suggest she had no right to the throne!
Battle of Barnet, Warwick is killed, despite orders not to kill him. Battle fever took over, I think. Fresh from that, Margaret B launches another attack a few weeks later, at Tewkesbury, when her son is killed. Edward does the unthinkable at that time (and they say Richard is a villain!) drags people out of sanctuary and beheads them ... he returns to London in triumph and displaces the fragile Henry VI who is in the Tower and who conveniently dies. So Edward is king. Richard is appointed Lord of the North, sent to control the unruly northerners, they take to him as their great leader, especially the city of York, who love him unreservedly. He marries Anne Neville, daughter of Warwick, who had been married to Margaret's son and so became a widow at Tewkesbury. Edward is married to Elizabeth Woodville, she brings all the Woodvilles into court, and there are a lot of them. Antony is already married to a very wealthy heiress and is Lord Scales by this time. To show the extent of his wealth, he even owned Sandringham. 'Did I?' he asked when I mentioned it to him. 'Suppose I did.' Many properties, many homes, loads of money.
Relative peace in the country, apart from Edward charging off to France to make war and settle scores and ending up with a pension and loads of gifts instead. Clarence is giving him problems, so he shuts him up in the Tower and finally orders his execution. (This murder, for that is what it was, is also laid at Richard's door. He was in fact overcome with grief and went north to his home at Middleham. He rarely came to court after that.)
Meantime Margaret B is in France scheming to get her son on the throne of England. One attempt at invasion fails horribly, so she withdraws to try again.
Edward dies at a relatively young age, just in his 40s, it is presumed now from pneumonia. Richard is appointed Lord Protector. Edward's son, also Edward, is then Edward V and is being brought to London for a coronation by his guardian, Antony, and an army of supporters. Richard, riding from the north, intercepts them at Northampton, arrests Antony and those with him, takes the young king to London and there places him in the tower, in the royal apartments. All is going well, plans are being made for the coronation, when news comes to light of a pre-contract of marriage which Edward entered into before his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. In law at that time, a pre-contract is as good as a marriage licence and if this is right, the children are illegitimate and Richard is the rightful heir to the throne. Parliament ask him to take it. He agrees. Elizabeth, in sanctuary at Westminster Abbey, is persuaded to hand over her second son, Richard duke of York, who is also put in the Tower with his brother.
Antony, Richard Grey (his nephew) and Thomas Vaughan are executed (murdered) at Pontefract on the 25th June 1485. (if anyone has emailed me, they will know my email address is dorothy2583, an abbreviation of the date of Antonys death. Only 1 person has ever asked me what it means!)
Richard and Queen Anne are crowned. They go on a progress, showing themselves around the country.
Meantime, work goes on in the background. He has plenty of ideas, he set up the bail system which we use today, standardised weights and measures across the country, insisted all laws were written in English so everyone could understand them and goodness knows what else. Sadly for him and Anne, after creating their son Prince of Wales, he dies. They are both consumed with grief.
Richard puts down a few insurrections but problems are always simmering. Queen Anne dies, leaving him bereft for she was his one love.
Tudor, or Tydder as he was known then, is heading for England again, as he thinks he has enough support among the aristocracy to mount a full scale invasion and win. Richard hears of this and begins his plans, finding out who he can rely on to support him and who he cant. The Stanleys, related to Margaret Beaufort, are wavering, one side and then the other. They and Northumberland are people not to be relied on.
The battle is joined at Bosworth on the 22nd August 1485. From the start it is clear that the Stanleys are about to change sides, or not join in at all. Richard, impatient as ever, decides to charge down into the battlefield from his safe position. He does this, killing the Tudors standard bearer and another giant of a man, along with a few others, trying to reach Tudor himself. The Stanleys men surge in and cut him down. His last words were supposed to have been Treason! Treason! Even his most violent detractors cannot take from him his bravery on the battlefield.
Bosworth battle lasted a mere 2 hours. A king is killed. He is stripped, mutilated, thrown over a horse and taken into the nearby town, where the body is displayed for a few days. Tudor rides to London to claim his throne.
No one knows what happened to the Princes.
Were they taken ill? There is a report that a doctor was called to see them. If Richard had killed them, Tudor would have made sure the world knew of it. If Tudor killed them, they having a better claim to the throne than he, someone would have known. No secret is a secret if shared with someone else. The simple fact is, apart from Richard and his close advisors, no one knows and no one is saying. I doubt he did it, I doubt Tudor did it. Too risky for both of them. My feeling is they died of natural causes, just as Richards own son did.
But Tudor needed to blacken the name of the king he usurped so he got people to rewrite history, the Croyland Chronicler switched from pro Richard to pro Tudor in his history of the period. Paintings were tampered with. He did not have a hunchback or a withered arm. He did not kill his brother, his wife, his child, the Princes but it makes a good story when a playwright needs a villain.
Ive skipped some essential people but then, how much of a story do you want??????
He's going to finish this book and then we'll look out for the authors you recommended.
Isn't it surprising how many over ambitious royal mothers there have been.
Hasn't there always been a little bit of a problem in trusting Stanley's and the Percy's in history?