Digging for Richard

Unjustly maligned?
Certainly – but that’s true of lots of people who’ve ended up on the
wrong side of history. I think it’s more
that he’s been caught between two polarised extremes – adoration and
abomination. The possible discovery of
his remains might lead to a more nuanced reading of a very interesting
character who was arguably the right man in the right place at completely the
wrong time.

I don’t think there’ll be any serious impact on
our reading of the Shakespeare play. It’s
been blatantly obvious for years that the theatrical Richard III bears no
relation to the historical personage. Of course, the scoliosis will close down
debate about the extent of the myth-making with regard to one specific aspect
of his life – his appearance. But no serious historian pushes the full
Olivier/Spacey look, kyphosis, which the osteoarchaeologist took pains to rule
out. Many have speculated as to the degree to which one of his shoulders may
have been slightly higher than the other and suggested likely causes, but
that’s as far as it goes.

The word coming out from Leicester is that when
clothed – and, especially, richly clothed – any asymmetry would have been
almost imperceptible, and one suggestion is that the physical quirk of a curve
in the spine only entered popular currency when the body was stripped and
displayed for three days after Bosworth.
It was then exaggerated by propagandists as an outward signifier of
inner monstrosity.

(And on that subject, one thing I’m bothered about
is the easy use of the term “deformity” in the media at the moment.
My day-job is working for a disability charity, and whenever I see it I feel
like I’ve slipped back into the 1480s myself. Scoliosis is actually a comparatively
common complaint. My mother has it. As, apparently, does Usain Bolt. And, as
far as I know, neither has yet made a bid for the throne in consequence.)

One of the problems with discussing Richard – and a
problem exacerbated by Shakespeare – is that everything is reduced to a debate
about what happened to the Princes in the Tower. The trouble is, there’s very little evidence
of anything and it’s virtually impossible to put together a coherent and
plausible narrative, no matter who you accuse. The whole thing degenerates into
a game of celebrity cluedo in which people seem compelled to nominate suspects
in opposition to each other: Richard, Buckingham, Henry Tudor, Margaret
Beaufort etc. It all seems too neat and tidy if you believe more in the cock-up
than conspiracy theory of history.

Regarding Richard, all you can say is that it
would be an out of character act for him, but people do out of character things
in extremis. Yet, *if* he was the instigator, he did it in the manner that
would be of least use in securing his own position (and his subsequent reconciliation with the boys’ mother makes the scenario even odder). I’m not convinced Henry VII
knew what had happened to the Princes – the supposed Tyrell confession, never
published, came years after Bosworth and was probably a put-up job to prevent
further Pretenders, such as Perkin Warbeck, who had posed real danger. And,
speaking of Warbeck, Sir William Stanley, the man whose actions had given Henry
his crown at Bosworth, said if Warbeck were Edward IV’s son, he’d not fight
against him. So there’s a huge void of information – even to the principal
players of the time, let alone 500 years later – and you end up going round in
circles.

The popular imprint of Richard comes from
Shakespeare. This portrait was, in turn,
derived from Thomas More. More’s canonisation
gives a spurious authenticity to his writings, bathing them in the saintly glow
of Paul Schofield in ‘A Man for All Seasons’.
But the historical More was a skilled manipulator, happy to distort the
truth in a “good” cause, and a ferocious persecutor of heretics. His history is not first-hand observation (he
was a child when Richard died) but was probably influenced by Cardinal John
Morton, a political cleric and an ardent supporter of Henry Tudor.

And “history” may not even have been More’s real
intent. His work is riddled with errors
(some of which are so glaring that you wonder if they’re deliberate), highly
theatrical inventions, and vague allusions to gossip. It’s been argued that it was conceived as a
humanist tract or satire for private circulation among friends, and it was neither
finished nor published.

Nevertheless, traditionalist historians have used
More as a touchstone, projecting back from his conclusions. This is most apparent with the use of his
history to validate the bones discovered in 1674 as belonging to the
Princes. That’s a whole other debate,
but their provenance is very dubious.
Their discovery corresponds only in the vaguest terms with what More
wrote and it can’t be said with certainty what sex they are, what age or even
what period of time they date from. A
new investigation could answer some of these questions but, for some reason,
the Westminster Abbey authorities have consistently refused permission.

The victors do tend to get the say over history, or at least they did, but it is a shame that we may never know this. I agree that if we know more about his physical condition it may help to understand him a little more, even if we never can get a full picture of the man himself.

Also, I think that former kings should not end up being buried in what later become car parks, a burial with a monument is rather more fitting.

I wait with baited breath for the results, whichever way they go…