Richard III: England's Black Legend

Rating:
Summary: A good blend of popular and academic history
Review: From the outset, prolific historical author Desmond Seward admits to "having strong views on a man who committed the nastiest state murders in English history." Sometimes these strong views - that Richard was a villain, and not a particularly compentent one - are a bit overstressed, making the book appear to lack objectivity. In particular, Seward invariably finds reasons to credit others, or impersonal historical forces, for anything that might be regarded as an accomplishment of Richard's reign. This is unfortunate, since in the main the book is an excellently organized marshalling of the evidence. Seward's mastery of the source material should be clear to anyone who pays attention to the Introduction and extensive notes. A purely academic work like Ross's biography has a less intrusive point of view, but also is less likely to answer the kinds of questions about Richard that interest a general audience. I would recommend "Richard III: England's Black Legend" to anyone sufficiently interested in this fascinating king to look beyond Shakespeare and Tey.

Rating:
Summary: A good blend of popular and academic history
Review: From the outset, prolific historical author Desmond Seward admits to "having strong views on a man who committed the nastiest state murders in English history." Sometimes these strong views - that Richard was a villain, and not a particularly compentent one - are a bit overstressed, making the book appear to lack objectivity. In particular, Seward invariably finds reasons to credit others, or impersonal historical forces, for anything that might be regarded as an accomplishment of Richard's reign. This is unfortunate, since in the main the book is an excellently organized marshalling of the evidence. Seward's mastery of the source material should be clear to anyone who pays attention to the Introduction and extensive notes. A purely academic work like Ross's biography has a less intrusive point of view, but also is less likely to answer the kinds of questions about Richard that interest a general audience. I would recommend "Richard III: England's Black Legend" to anyone sufficiently interested in this fascinating king to look beyond Shakespeare and Tey.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent accessible scholarly history
Review: I got this as a result of seeing Ian McKellen's film version of the Shakespearean play. It left me wanting more History as well as more Drama. I had heard that Shakespeare was essentially writing anti-Richard propaganda, since the man who defeated him, Richmond, went on to become Henry VII grandfather of Queen Elizabeth. But while the truth is no doubt more complicated than the play suggests, Seward convincingly shows that Shakespeare got the essentials right even if he did take a few liberties. He doesn't merely elucidate the character of Richard himself, but of those around him. The Woodvilles, Ann, Catesby, Tyrell, Brackenbury, the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Stanley were all real players in Richard's rise and fall, well known at the time for their victimizations through or their contributions to his tyranny. (Catesby for example was known as the Cat in a popular rhyme of the day.) Seward gives an in depth though not necessarily complete view of the constraints and shared assumptions they were operating under which eventually leads to the characterization of the King himself. It's difficult to tell how much of Richard's tyranny stemmed from the bloodthirstiness of the times he lived in, or if good really triumphed over evil at Bosworth field, and Seward makes no assertions to that effect. But he does throw into sharp relief the flaws that earned Richard his bloody reputation, and they aren't saintly ones. He is also very clear cut about which primary sources he is drawing from, Thomas More, Dominic Mancini and the Croyland Chronicler, how they culled their information, and how he reads them. I'm sure there's a wealth of information on this subject, yet I found this book to be a very satisfying introduction.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent accessible scholarly history
Review: I got this as a result of seeing Ian McKellen's film version of the Shakespearean play. It left me wanting more History as well as more Drama. I had heard that Shakespeare was essentially writing anti-Richard propaganda, since the man who defeated him, Richmond, went on to become Henry VII grandfather of Queen Elizabeth. But while the truth is no doubt more complicated than the play suggests, Seward convincingly shows that Shakespeare got the essentials right even if he did take a few liberties. He doesn't merely elucidate the character of Richard himself, but of those around him. The Woodvilles, Ann, Catesby, Tyrell, Brackenbury, the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Stanley were all real players in Richard's rise and fall, well known at the time for their victimizations through or their contributions to his tyranny. (Catesby for example was known as the Cat in a popular rhyme of the day.) Seward gives an in depth though not necessarily complete view of the constraints and shared assumptions they were operating under which eventually leads to the characterization of the King himself. It's difficult to tell how much of Richard's tyranny stemmed from the bloodthirstiness of the times he lived in, or if good really triumphed over evil at Bosworth field, and Seward makes no assertions to that effect. But he does throw into sharp relief the flaws that earned Richard his bloody reputation, and they aren't saintly ones. He is also very clear cut about which primary sources he is drawing from, Thomas More, Dominic Mancini and the Croyland Chronicler, how they culled their information, and how he reads them. I'm sure there's a wealth of information on this subject, yet I found this book to be a very satisfying introduction.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this book.
Review: If you are interested in Medieval England, this is the book for you.

Facts, Facts, Facts explained clearly and entertainingly. I feel like an expert on both Richard III and the times he lived in. It's not easy to be a royal uncle! Desmond Seward's books have given me many hours of pleasure. If you liked this one, I suggest you get your hands on his Henry V and Marie Antoinette. They are both excellent.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining history and narrative
Review: This is an entertaining mixture of historical story-telling, scholary gumshoe work, and criticism. No aspect overpowers the book, which makes it an interestingly told history, and a well-shaped argument for Seward's perspective of Richard III's reign.

Of course, so much of his work in the primary sources leads him to numerous conjectural qualifications. This state of affairs demonstrates why there is so much divergence of opinion on Richard III. However, if both Richard's contemporary subjects and their progeny have such a consistently malignant view of the man's rule, why go to such effort to rehabilitate (revisionize) him? It is obvious Richard's black legend is not solely a product of Tudor propaganda. The man simply did all the heavy lifting on establishing history's view of his reign.

Seward's book is a good read. It's not a purely speculative, breathless narrative of "Maybe this happened, then that ... probably," but an argued case that approaches all of the sources in the field, primary and modern. This book has the potential to become the definitive history of Richard III and his reign; it simply lacks the appeals to cliched romanticism that surround much work in English history.

Rating:
Summary: The virtues of villainy
Review: Which would you rather be - a martyr to malignant propaganda or a Shakespearean villain? Richard III is perhaps England's most unpopular king, both with posterity and with his contemporaries; the only other one who even comes close is King John. Both monarchs have their defenders, but Richard's seem to be the more vocal, probably because of the enduring popularity of Shakespeare's play. Desmond Seward's book is commendably clear in dealing with the horrendous complexities of fifteenth-century politics, and does much to dispose of the falsehoods committed by Shakespeare in the name of Tudor propaganda. Interestingly, this redress consists less in rehabilitating Richard than in showing his enemies in a less flattering perspective: Elizabeth Woodville, the wife of Edward IV, is a particularly entertaining and abominable example. (My favourite, though, is Lord Stanley, whose son Richard kidnapped, as in the play, in order to ensure the father's loyalty. As in the play, Stanley changed sides anyway; but Shakespeare omits to tell us that when Richard reminded Stanley of the danger to his beloved offspring Stanley sent a message back saying he had plenty of other sons.) Richard himself, though hardly the grotesque hunchback presented in the play, was in Seward's opinion fairly accurately portrayed as far as his character is concerned (a great deal more accurately than, say, Macbeth); the book shows him as an early Machiavellian whose major strategic error seems to have been that he expected his friends to stay bought. Seward is concise, nicely detailed and - best of all - opinionated; he not only argues against Richard's present-day rehabilitators but seems quite indignant that anyone would want to sanitise the reputation of such a fascinating villain.