Comments on: Richard III’s death, because it paved the way for Henry VIII, was a pivotal moment in British and world history UPDATED

By: Earl

Earl — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 04:14:43 +0000

Well, the Spectator has Nigel Jones spouting all the usual B.S. about Richard in a blog post from earlier in February. Jones is the author of Tower: an epic history of the Tower of London.

Amazon says: NIGEL JONES is a historian, journalist, and biographer, covering subjects ranging from Nazi Germany to the lives of British writers. He has written for the Cambridge Evening News, the Press Association News Agency, and has been an editor on BBC and independent radio, as well as for History Today and BBC History magazines.

He hardly appears to be a specialist, so I guess we can forgive him a bit…although reading his supercilious and condescending prose will make you reconsider your Anglophilia, at least for a moment.

I’m posting here because I want jj to have a look at the blog entry and share his perspective with us….please?
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/books/2013/02/richard-iii-should-be-reburied-under-leicester-councils-car-park/

By: Mike Devx

Mike Devx — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 19:17:47 +0000

mkfreeburg,
It looks like the Clements Markham’s RIII rehabilitation paper:
Richard III: his life & character, reviewed in the light of recent research (1906)

was a major source for Josephine Tey. She actually mentions Markham’s study, along with two other significant earlier efforts at rehabilitation, in ‘The Daughter Of Time’.

I’ve downloaded the pdf of Markham’s scholarly effort and it looks very readable. Go to this link and click on the source format of your choice at the upper left if you want to grab a copy.

http://archive.org/details/cu31924027929540

By: mkfreeberg

mkfreeberg — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 18:07:12 +0000

Ordered.

Thanks.

By: Mike Devx

Mike Devx — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:57:22 +0000

I have finished ‘The Daughter Of Time’ and re-read all the argumentation above concerning Richard III and Henry VII, and I’m enriched by the experience. Thank you all very much! I heartily recommend ‘The Daughter Of Time’. Josephine Tey (pseudonym) wanted to write a novel to insert into popular culture the rehabilitation of Richard III’s reputation, and she wrote it brilliantly. How carefully she led her readers down a path she knew they might resist every step of the way. It’s a thrilling work of art in many ways.

So, I have my introduction to this period of history via the book and the comments above. From this starting point, I agree concerning the two most important mysteries: 1. Where were the princes during the two years of Richard III’s reign; why are there no contemporaneous accounts of them? 2. Why didn’t Henry VII’s Bill Of Attainder nullifying Richard III’s reign include, in its list of R III’s evils, the murder of the two princes? It seems clear that the murders ought to have led the list, and nothing else comes close.

Aside from those two murders, nothing else in the accounts concerning Richard III indicate any tendency towards murder; and the two princes were almost definitely still alive when Edward IV’s marriage to their mother was declared illegitimate and their claim to the throne then become illegitimate. From that moment on R III would have had no reason at all for murdering them; there were many others, legitimate and otherwise, with similar potential claims.

Add to that the thoroughly accepted history of the Tudors ruthlessly murdering any and all potential claimants to their throne. (“Judicial murders” as the phrase goes, it is true.) But a history of many, many murders nonetheless.

As a result you have more than enough reason to believe that Richard III’s guilt in the murder of the two princes should remain at worst an open question. Of the three options – murder by Richard III, murder by Henry VII, death by natural causes, taking everything you can know at our far remove, I think you’d probably have to lean to Henry VII as the most likely explanation.

It’s been great fun! Thank you all again!

By: Spartacus

Spartacus — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 05:29:46 +0000

Thanks, jj. Much as I try to avoid being one of those people who says, “No! No! It’s true! I read it on the Internet!” this is a strong nudge in the direction of cynicism. FDR was a sleaze, and was known to have made comments about how losing a cruiser or two (presumably in the South Pacific) would be worth it to get us into the war. I put nothing past him.

By: jj

jj — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 02:13:06 +0000

They knew it. Quite precisely. (Well – a very small circle of people knew it.) The Japanese fleet that went missing, and carried out the mission, wasn’t missing: there were those who tracked it every inch of the way and knew exactly where it was. There is no new information, no new documentation, no new nothing: it’s not at all susceptible of proof. Just the word of someone who knew, and was absolutely in a position to know – but was also an expert at maintaining a closed mouth. As were the others in that small circle. I offer you absolutely nothing to back up the assertion: there is nothing. I simply tell you. A report from a primary source. Feel free to believe, or not believe: it’ll never be provable.

By: Spartacus

Spartacus — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 21:20:59 +0000

jj — Not to burden your time or start a whole new thread or anything, but in what way do you mean that Pearl Harbor was phony?

My own working hypothesis, based largely on FDR’s immediate reaction on hearing the news and what Frances Perkins said he had said about the Japanese Fleet in a cabinet meeting, is that he didn’t *exactly* know that an attack was coming, but on hearing the news, he realized that all of the pieces of the puzzle had been right in front of him (and heck, the Navy may well have even arranged the pieces for him), but he brushed it off. Hence the immediate reaction of blamestorming. But I’d love to hear any additional info!

By: jj

jj — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 18:15:01 +0000

Thank you – we try to give good service! I somehow have absurdly broad interests, and will be happy to fight with you on a wide variety of subjects! I also digress a fair amount, entertaining myself, mostly – but if you’re entertained too, I’m pleased. But keep in mind: I’m no expert either. (And I am a believer in observing human behavior: look at what the people around the object of interest were doing and saying. Mostly doing. Straws do indeed show which way the wind is blowing.)

What we have today, I think – thanks to the internet and ready availability of books (as you say, Mike, a phone call to Amazon and it’s in your hands four days later) and references – is unparalleled access to the people who are experts. We’re really the first generation to ever have both curiosity and such availability of information, opinion, etc. to gratify it. That strikes me every now and then, that I have access – nearly instantaneous access – to pretty much everybody, every point of view, and every random thought – on pretty much everything. Which is amazing! Every now and then you have to stop, think back to your frustrating youth when you could never get hold of anything or even find out it existed, and just marvel. (Or at least if you’re me you marvel – maybe I’m simple and easily pleased!)

One thing I’ve done is build up a database over the years. For example I have a cousin who has somewhat the same tastes and interests I do, who works in the catalog and mail room of Hatchards, in London. (One of the world’s great bookstores.) She turned me on to Ian Mortimer years ago, and has expanded my personal database to include little specialty bookshops and used bookshops all over greater London. That fills in gaps I can’t fill in this country. Anybody can build such a network of contacts nowadays – and that’s just astonishing. (And handy!)

Lee – I told Danny once that we’re just now beginning to really find out about WWI and WWII, and there have been more good books (emphasis on the ‘good’) written on the subjects in the last decade of the 20th and the first decade 21st centuries than in the previous fifty years, including right after either war ended. The reason is because it takes time: you have to wait for people whose reputations need protecting to die, and for their descendants to finally suck it up and say: “OK, release the diaries. Yes, it’ll make Uncle George look like a jackass, but he’s gone now; so’s Aunt Minnie, so’s Cousin Mike; and we owe it to history to say what really happened.” The Official Secrets Act – which bound my father for years – has to have time to expire. You hope stuff comes out – sometimes it never does. My father would be the splendid exemplar of that. (Yes, Pearl Harbor was phony.)

Anyway, it’s always fun. You’re all most kind – and feel free to disagree! As I said: I’m no (well, very rarely an) expert!

By: Mike Devx

Mike Devx — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:01:33 +0000

I agree with others: Thanks jj! For the time you took to write many of the above comments, and your knowledge and opinions.

The complexity of the relationships is bewildering to me at first read, given my ignorance. I plan to read them all carefully and draw things out on paper, as well as begin with ‘Daughter Of Time’. This *is* fascinating stuff. Not sure which I will do first of those two activities. I’ll bookmark this commentary page, and I have already received ‘Daughter of Time’ via Amazon. I will enjoy these introductory activities to a period of history I know almost nothing about.

By: lee

lee — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 12:30:23 +0000

Thanks, jj! I agree with Bookworm. (Maybe you could start ablog on History of the English Monarchy… I’d get as addicted to that as I am to Bookworm Room!)

My educational concentration was theater/literature, and I was specifically interested in the historical background. (Unfortunately, when I went on to grad school, that was considered so passe; the chic thing was theory. Vomit.) However, I was more modern than Marlowe, so only a shallow aquaintance with the actual history behind his play. (Np pun intended.)

Before I write what I am about to write, I must say that I appreciated the Ian Mortimer link. Though I already was aware of what he wrote there, it was helpful to read specifically what he had to say. And I know he is write. But I always found that many other historians would get a little weasely about that. And that was the thing that drove me crazy about historians (and archeologists) that events may have happened or may not, but we can’t really say the uniequivocally happened without a, b, c. and… (archeologists are worse–if there’s no archeological evidence, then it may very well NOT have happened at all, and it’s all just fiction… Me, I blame the postmodernists… that’s such a PoMo thing… But back to my thought.)

Since my area was twentieth century, and there is a LOT of information available about the twentieth century, I came to a conclusion: You still don’t know what has happened.

The contemporaneous accounts are very often incorrect, and usually provided by the spinmeister to give it the spin he wants. And it frequently takes DECADES for the “true” story to come out. (A good example is illustrated by the recent article in the Atlantic on the Cuban Missile Crisis: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-real-cuban-missile-crisis/309190/ )

Even more “objective” accounts have some “spin” to them. (One of the things I frequently wrote about had to do with the politics of language. All language is political–you have to make political choices on a daily basis in the words and phrasing you use. Even if you are not specifically aware of the politics, you still make political choices. For someone who has no knowledge or interest in the “troubles” of Northern Ireland still makes a political choice when he mentions the second largest city in Northern Ireland on the River Foyle–is it Londonderry? Or Derry?)

All of which makes me wonder about OLDER historical accounts. Many things I read about events such as the Edward II death, or the murder of the two princes, say that at the time, the contemporaneous accounts say “A,” but the more lurid accounts, “B” came out years later… Maybe history isn’t much different from modernity? It is pretty well accepted that Shakespeare had a vested interested in making Richard III look bad. But what about the people writing the contemporaneous accounts? Which side of their bread was buttered by whom? And even if we know with whom they associated, we still may not know what the heck they were thinking when they wrote their account. They may have actually hated the person buttering their bread and were looking for a passive-agressive way to undermine them.

This all makes the twentieth century easier than a lot of earlier periods. And yet, it is still a bear to have ANY real certainty about anything you research! It can be DECADES before we have any real idea about what is BEHIND someone’s account of something. (Much less what the heck a playwright was thinking when he wrote a play. Because DECADES after he wrote it, he may give an interview to the Atlantic Monthly saying exactly what a professor reamed you for writing about his plays…)

Thanks again, jj! EXTREMELY interesting!!! I LOVE reading it!

Comments on: Richard III’s death, because it paved the way for Henry VIII, was a pivotal moment in British and world history *UPDATED*

By: Earl

By: Mike Devx

By: mkfreeberg

By: Mike Devx

By: Spartacus

By: jj

By: Spartacus

By: jj

By: Mike Devx

By: lee

Comments on: Richard III’s death, because it paved the way for Henry VIII, was a pivotal moment in British and world history UPDATED