Richard III

by Chris Skidmore

  —, ‘Richard III, the City of London and Southwark’, in Petre (ed.), Richard III: Crown and People, pp. 289–95

  —, ‘“A curious searcher for our weal public”: Richard III, Piety, Chivalry and the Concept of the “Good Prince”‘, in Hammond (ed.), Richard III: Loyalty, Lordship and Law, pp. 58–90

  —, ‘“And to be delivered to the Lord Richard Duke of Gloucester, the other brother …”‘, The Ricardian, vol. 8, no. 100 (March 1988), pp. 20–25

  Sutton, A. F. and L. Visser-Fuchs, ‘Richard III and St Julian: A New Myth’, ibid., vol. 8, no. 106 (September 1989), pp. 265–70

  —, ‘The Prophecy of G’, ibid., vol. 8, no. 110 (September 1990), pp. 449–50

  —, ‘“Richard Liveth Yet”: An Old Myth’, ibid., vol. 9, no. 117 (June 1992), pp. 262–9

  —, ‘Richard III’s Books: Ancestry and “True Nobility”‘, ibid., vol 9, no. 119 (December 1992), pp. 343–58

  —, ‘Richard III’s Books Observed’, ibid., vol. 9, no. 120 (March 1993), pp. 374–88

  —, ‘Richard of Gloucester and La Grosse Bombarde’, ibid., vol. 10, no. 134 (1996), pp. 461–5

  —, Richard III’s Books: Ideals and Reality in the Life and Library of a Medieval Prince, Stroud, 1997

  —, ‘Richard III, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and Two Turbulent Priests’, The Ricardian, vol. 19 (2009), pp. 95–109

  Thompson, J. A. F., ‘Richard III and Lord Hastings – a Problematical Case Reviewed’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, vol. 48 (1975), pp. 22–30

  —, ‘Bishop Lionel Woodville and Richard III’, ibid., vol. 49 (1986)

  Tudor-Craig, P. (ed.), Richard III, London, 1973

  Virgoe, R., ‘Sir John Risley (1443–1512), Courtier and Councillor’, Norfolk Archaeology, vol. 38 (1981), pp. 140–48

  Visser-Fuchs, L., ‘Richard in Holland, 1461’, The Ricardian, vol. 6, no. 81 (June 1983), pp. 182–9

  —, ‘Richard in Holland, 1471–2’, ibid., vol. 6, no. 82 (September 1983), pp. 220–28

  —, ‘Edward IV’s “Memoir on Paper” to Charles, Duke of Burgundy: The So-called “Short Version of the Arrivall”‘, Nottingham Medieval Studies, vol. 36 (1992), pp. 167–227

  —, ‘“He hardly touched his food”: What Niclas von Popplau Really Wrote about Richard III’, The Ricardian, vol. 11, no. 145 (June 1999), pp. 525–30

  —, ‘Richard was late’, ibid., vol. 11, no. 147 (December 1999), pp. 616–19

  Warnicke, R. M., ‘Lord Morley’s Statements about Richard III’, Albion, vol. XIV (1983)

  —, ‘Sir Ralph Bigod: A Loyal Servant to Richard III’, The Ricardian, vol. 6, no. 84 (March 1984), pp. 299–303

  Weiss, M., ‘A Power in the North? The Percies in the Fifteenth Century’, The Historical Journal, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1976), pp. 501–9

  White, W. J., ‘The Death and Burial of Henry VI, A Review of the Facts and Theories’, The Ricardian, vol. 6, nos. 78 (September 1982), pp. 70–80, and 79 (December 1982), pp. 106–17

  Wilkinson, J., Richard, the Young King to Be, Stroud, 2009

  Williams, B., ‘The Portuguese Connection and the Significance of “the Holy Princess”, The Ricardian, vol. 6, no. 80 (March 1983), pp. 138–45

  Wood, C. T., ‘The Deposition of Edward V’, Traditio, vol. 31 (1975), pp. 247–86

  —, ‘Richard III, Lord Hastings and Friday the Thirteenth’, in Griffiths and Sherborne (eds.), Kings and Nobles, pp. 155–68

  NOTES

  PROLOGUE

  1 Reisebeschreibung Niclas von Popplau, p. 44.

  2 Ibid., pp. 51–2.

  3 Ibid., p. 53.

  4 Ibid., pp. 54–5.

  5 Popplau noted: ‘For the English use these words towards persons of both high and low rank, whether they come from this land or elsewhere. They also use them at gatherings, invitations to meals, and occasions when one blessed another, saying: I welcome you. In the same way the King’s councillors, princes and lords, and gentry addressed me to do me honour.’

  6 Ibid. pp. 58–9.

  7 The word here is dick, which can mean fat, but that seems improbable.

  8 Ibid., p. 59.

  9 Radzikowski, ‘Niclas von Popplau – His Work and Travels’, pp. 239–48, at pp. 242–3.

  10 Mancini, pp. 22–3; Seward, Richard III, p. 253 n.11; Reisebeschreibung Niclas von Popplau, p. 59.

  11 Quoted in Ross, Richard III and His Rivals, p. ix.

  12 Hanham, Richard III and His Early Historians, pp. 106, 120, 123; BL, Additional MS 48976; C. Ross, The Rous Roll, Gloucester, 1980.

  13 See G. R. Elton, England 1200–1640, London, 1969, p. 22; Ross, Edward IV, Appendix I: ‘Note on Narrative Sources’, pp. 429–35.

  14 For some of the debate on the authorship of the Crowland Chronicle, see H. A. Kelly, ‘The Last Chroniclers of Croyland’, The Ricardian, vol. VII, no. 91 (1985), pp. 142–77; H. A. Kelly, ‘The Croyland Chronicle Tragedies’, The Ricardian, vol. VII, no. 99 (1987), pp. 498–515; A. Hanham, ‘Richard Lavender, Continuator?’, The Ricardian, vol. VII, no. 99 (1987), pp. 516–19; L. Visser-Fuchs, ‘A Commentary on the Continuation’, The Ricardian, vol. VII, no. 99 (1987), pp. 520–22; D. Williams (ed.), ‘The Crowland Chronicle, 616–1500’, in England and the Fifteenth Century, (Woodbridge, 1987), pp. 371–90; M. Condon, ‘The Crowland Chronicle Continuations 1459–1486’, History and Archaeology Review, vol. 3 (1988), pp. 5–11; A. Hanham, ‘Croyland Observations’, The Ricardian, vol. VIII, no. 108 (1990), pp. 334–41; A. Hanham, ‘Author! Author! Crowland Revisited’, The Ricardian, vol. XI, no. 140 (1998), pp. 226–39; M. A. Hicks, ‘The Second Anonymous Continuation of the Crowland Abbey Chronicle 1459–86 Revisited’, English Historical Review, vol. CXXII (2007), pp. 346–70.

  15 CC, p. 171.

  16 See Kelly, ‘Last Chroniclers’, pp. 143, 153; Lincolnshire Archives Office, Register of John Russell, fo. 78v.

  17 Vatican, MS Urbs Lat 498, fo. 235r.

  1. SONS OF YORK

  1 Warkworth, p. 21; Arrivall, p. 38.

  2 ‘Yorkist Notes, 1471’, printed in C. L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century, Oxford, 1913, p. 375.

  3 CC, p. 129.

  4 Arrivall, p. 38.

  5 Ibid.

  6 CC, p. 129.

  7 Warkworth, p. 21.

  8 CSP, Milan I, p. 157.

  9 Warkworth, p. 21.

  10 CCR, pp. 229–30.

  11 Hanham, Richard III and His Early Historians, p. 210; More, p. 8: ‘The Duchess his mother had so much a do in her travail, that she could not be delivered of him uncut: and that he came into the world with the feet forward, as men be born outward, and (as the fame runneth) also not untoothed.’

  12 Hanham, Richard III and His Early Historians, p. 210.

  13 Lambeth Palace Library, MS 474 fo. 7v: ‘hac die natus erat Ricardus Rex Anglie iii apud ffodringay anno domini MCCC[Clii]’.

  14 H. K. Bonney, Historic Notices in Relation to Fotheringhay, Oundle, 1921, p. 27.

  15 Anne Crawford (ed.), Letters of Medieval Women, Stroud, 2002, pp. 234–5.

  16 PL, vol. II pp. 295–6.

  17 PL, vol. II p. 13.

  18 Whetehamstede, J., Registrum, ed. H. T. Riley, 2 vols., Rolls Series, 1872–3, I p. 164; R. Griffiths, The Reign of Henry VI, London, 1981, pp. 740–41 n. 144.

  19 Whetehamstede, vol. I p. 341.

  20 The Chronicles of the White Rose of York, ed. J. A. Giles, London, 1843, pp. 5–6.

  21 An English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, London, 1856, p. 83.

  22 RP, vol. V, pp. 349–50.

  23 The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the 15th Century, Containing … Gregory’s Chronicle, ed. J. Gairdner, London, 1876, pp. 206–7.

  24 Ross, Edward IV, Appendix I: ‘Note on Narrative Sources’, pp. 22–6.

  25 William Worcester, Annales rerum anglicarum, 1728, p. 775; Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, ed. J. Gairdner, London, 1880, p. 172. See also Regist
rum Abbatiae Johannis Whethamstede, in Chronica monasterii S. Albani, vol. I, p. 382.

  26 Riley (ed.), Ingulph’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland, p. 422; Registrum Abbatiae Johannis Whethamstede, p. 390; F. W. D. Brie (ed.), The Brute of England; or the Chronicles of England, London, 1906, vol. II, p. 531; Historical … Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 211; Edward Halle, Chronicle, Containing the History of England …, ed. H. Ellis, London, 1809, p. 251.

  27 PL, vol. I, p. 198; See also ‘The Rose of Rouen’, Archaeologia, vol. XXIX (1842), p. 344.

  28 PL, vol. II, pp. 216–17; Carlin, ‘Sir John Fastolf’s Place, Southwark’, pp. 311–14.

  29 TNA, PSO1/23/1247B; Kleineke, ‘Alice Martyn, Widow of London’, pp. 32–6.

  30 GC, p. 195.

  31 See Frederic W. Madden, Political Poems Written in the Reigns of Henry VI and Edward IV, London, 1842, p. 345.

  32 Visser-Fuchs, ‘Richard in Holland, 1461’.

  33 CSP, Milan, p. 73, no. 90.

  34 Visser-Fuchs, ‘Richard in Holland’, p. 188.

  35 HMC, 9th Report, vol. I, Appendix, p. 140; The Chronicle of John Stone, Monk of Christ Church, ed. W. G. Searle, Cambridge, 1902, p. 83.

  36 Sutton, ‘The Return to England of Richard of Gloucester’, pp. 21–2.

  37 TNA, E404/72/1/4.

  38 Historical Collections of a Citizen of London, p. 215; Ross, Edward IV, p. 32.

  39 CSP, Venice I, no. 374.

  2. THE WHEEL TURNS

  1 TNA, E404/72/1/59.

  2 TNA, E361/6 m.53d; Hicks, False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence, p. 20; Sutton, ‘And to be delivered to the Lord Richard Duke’, p. 24.

  3 TNA, E361/6 rot. 54–54d: 2 EIV.

  4 CPR, 1461–7, p. 66.

  5 TNA, E404/73/1/130, 4 February 1462.

  6 Sir John Fortescue, De laudibus legum Angliae, ed. S. B. Chrimes, 1942, pp. 111, 137; Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, ‘Richard III’s Books’, pp. 5–6.

  7 A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household Made in Divers Reigns, London, 1790, pp. 27–8; PL, vol. I, pp. 56–9.

  8 Hardyng, Chronicle of John Hardyng, p. i.

  9 TNA, E404/72/4/2.

  10 TNA, DL 37/31/36.

  11 CPR, 1467–77, pp. 295–6.

  12 Ibid., p. 308; The Chronicle of John Stone, Monk of Christ Church, ed. W. G. Searle, Cambridge, 1902, p. 88.

  13 PL, vol. III, p. 310, 24 September 1461: ‘for men seyn there, as I have be [told], that my Lord of Gloucester should have Caister’.

  14 CPR, 1461–7, pp. 197, 214.

  15 CPR, 1461–7, pp. 212–13.

  16 CSP, Milan, p. 100; M. A. Hicks, Warwick the Kingmaker, Oxford, 2002, p. 256.

  17 TNA, E405/43 m.2.

  18 Warwick County Record Office, CR 26/4, p. 69; Hicks, Warwick the Kingmaker, p. 26.

  19 TNA, E361/6 m.55d.

  20 Ibid.: ‘1 chaffer, 7 brushes of heather, 4 saddles, 3 belts of white cloth, 2 belts of cloth of grey, 3 over-belts of cloth of grey, 10 bits, 5 pairs of pasterns, 4 reins, 14 leading reins, 3 false reins, 2 halters simple, and 3 halters simple with reins.’

  21 Rous Roll no. 56.

  22 R. Warner, Antiquitates Culinariae, London, 1791, pp. 94, 96; Hammond and Sutton, Richard III, p. 31.

  23 Warner, Antiquitates Culinariae, pp. 94, 96; Hammond and Sutton, Richard III, p. 31.

  24 Waurin, Recueil des Croniques et Anchiennes Istories, vol. II, pp. 327–8.

  25 Mancini, p. 63.

  26 PL, vol. III, pp. 203–4.

  27 CSP, Milan, I, p. 109.

  28 Warkworth, p. 3; GC, pp. 202–3.

  29 Mancini, p. 69.

  30 CSP, Milan, p. 131.

  31 William Worcester, Annales rerum anglicarum, 1728, p. 783; Ross, Edward IV, p. 93.

  32 CCR, 1461–8, pp. 456–7; Worcester, Annales rerum anglicarum, p. 786.

  33 GC, p. 207.

  34 CC, p. 115.

  35 CC, p. 115.

  36 TNA, KB9/320; Ross, Edward IV, p. 123.

  37 HMC 78, Report on the Manuscripts of the late R. R. Hastings, 4 vols., vol. I, pp. 290–91.

  38 A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations, p. 98.

  39 CSP, Milan, p. 122.

  40 Hicks, False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence, p. 44; Bodleian Library MD Dugdale 15, p. 75.

  41 BL, Cotton MS Vespasian F III, no. 19; Ellis, Original Letters, 2nd series, vol. I, pp. 143–4.

  42 CC, p. 117.

  43 Ibid.

  44 PL, vol. II, pp. 389–90.

  45 BL, Cotton MS Julius B XII, fo. 121v.

  46 TNA, E404/74/2, 56.

  47 Ross, Edward IV, p. 141.

  48 Nichols (ed.), Chronicle of the Rebellion in Lincolnshire, p. 11.

  49 For events in France, see Commynes, Memoirs, vol. I, pp. 192–200; Waurin, Recueil des Croniques et Anchiennes Istories, vol. III, pp. 28–46; ‘The Manner and Guiding of the Earl of Warwick at Angers’, in Ellis, Original Letters, 2nd series, vol. I, pp. 132–5; background in Ross, Edward IV, pp. 146–7; Scofield, Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, vol. I, pp. 518–36.

  50 Warkworth, p. 9.

  51 PL, vol. V, p. 83.

  52 The Chronicles of the White Rose of York, ed. J. A. Giles, London, 1843, pp. 239–40.

  53 ‘Hearne’s Fragment’ in Thomae Sprotti Chronica, 1715, p. 306; Waurin, Recueil des Croniques et Anchiennes Istories, vol. V p. 611; Warkworth, p. 11; Ross, Edward IV, pp. 153–4.

  54 W. I. Haward, ‘Economic aspects of the Wars of the Roses in East Anglia’, English Historical Review, vol. 41 (1926), p. 179.

  55 Norfolk Record Office, King’s Lynn Hall Books, KL/C7/4, p. 284, fo. 142. I am grateful to Dr Hannes Kleineke for this reference.

  56 Commynes, Memoirs, p. 187.

  57 Ibid., p. 187.

  58 Warkworth, p. 11.

  59 GC, p. 211; P. W. Hammond, The Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, Gloucester, 1990, p. 40.

  60 TNA, E404/71/6/18; A. R. Myers (ed.), English Historical Documents IV, 1327–1485, p. 507.

  61 Maaike Lulofs, ‘King Edward IV in Exile’, The Ricardian, vol. 3, no. 44 (March 1974), p. 10.

  62 BL Additional MS 48031 fo.146; HMC 12 Rutland MSS I p. 4.

  63 Commynes, Memoirs, p. 188.

  64 Ibid.

  65 Scofield, Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, vol. I, p. 546.

  66 CSP, Milan, I, p. 144.

  67 Waurin, Recueil des Croniques et Anchiennes Istories, vol. 5, pp. 608–10; Basin, Histoire de Louis XI, vol. 2, pp. 68–72.

  68 Visser-Fuchs, ‘Richard in Holland’, p. 224.

  69 Arrivall, p. 10.

  70 Ibid.

  71 Ibid., p. 11.

  72 Vergil, p. 141.

  73 GC, pp. 215–16; Hammond, Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, p. 68.

  74 GC, p. 215.

  75 CLRO Journal 7 fo. 232b, Journal 8 fo. 4; Hammond, Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, pp. 67–70.

  76 GC, p. 216.

  77 Jean de Haynin, Memoires, ed. D. D. Brouwers, 2 vols, Liege, 1905–6, vol. II, pp. 125–9.

  78 Arrivall, pp. 19–20.

  79 Ross, ‘Some “Servants and Lovers” of Richard in his Youth’, pp. 2–3.

  80 Warkworth, p. 38.

  81 Ibid., p. 16.

  82 CC, p. 125.

  83 Warkworth, p. 17.

  84 Ibid., p. 17.

  85 H. Kleineke, ‘Gerhard von Wesel’s newsletter from England, 17 April 1471’, The Ricardian, vol. 16 (2016), pp. 66–82, p. 82.

  86 Arrivall, p. 21.

  87 PL, vol. V, pp. 99–100.

  88 Arrivall, p. 29.

  89 Ibid.

  90 Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, vol. III, p. 319.

  91 Arrivall, pp. 28–30.

  92 Ibid., p. 29.

  93 Ibid., p. 30.

  94 A. H. Smith, The Place Names of Gloucestershire, Cambridge, 1965, p. 267.

  95 Arrivall, pp. 30–31.

  96 Warkworth, p. 18.

  97 CC, p. 12
7.

  98 GC, p. 218.

  99 Vergil, p. 152.

  100 Edward Halle, Chronicle, Containing the History of England …, ed. H. Ellis, London, 1809, p. 301; Holinshed, Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, vol. III, p. 320; The Chronicle of Fabyan, London, 1559, p. 662.

  101 HMC, 12th Report, Appendix IV, p. 4.

  102 L. Visser-Fuchs, ‘Edward IV’s “Memoir” on Paper to Charles, Duke of Burgundy: The So-called “Short Version of the Arrivall”‘, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 36, 1992, pp. 167–227.

  103 Arrivall, p. 30.

  104 Warkworth, p. 18.

  105 Hammond, Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, pp. 98–9; C. L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century, Oxford, 1913, p. 377; Gloucestershire Notes and Queries, 1887, vol. 3, p. 505.

  106 Arrivall, p. 31.

  107 GC, p. 218.

  108 BL, Cotton MS Vitellus A XVI, fo. 133; GC, p. 220.

  3. ‘NOT ALTOGETHER BROTHERLY EYES’

  1 Arrivall, p. 17; Waurin, Recueil des Croniques et Anchiennes Istories, vol. III, p. 211.

  2 BL Royal MS 17 D XV fo.327v; T. Wright, Political Poems and Songs Relating to English History, 2 vols., Rolls Series, London 1859–61, vol. II, p.280.

  3 CPR, 1467–77, pp. 260, 262.

  4 Ibid., p. 262; TNA, C76/155 m.31; TNA, C81/1310/4.

  5 Chronicles of London, ed. C. L. Kingsford, Oxford, 1905, p. 185.

  6 Vergil, p. 154.

  7 CPR, 1467–77, p. 288; PL II, pp. 14, 17.

  8 Waurin, Receuil des Chroniques et Anchiennes Istories, vol. V, p. 675: ‘mais son fait fut descouvert et sceu par ledit duc de Clocestre, quy luy fist la teste tranchier’.

  9 Ibid.

  10 Warkworth, p. 20.

  11 TNA, SCI/44/61.

  12 TNA, E405/54 m.4v; GC, p. 221.

  13 RP, VI 193.

  14 CC, pp. 132–3; PL I, p. 447.

  15 CSP, Milan I, no. 255, p. 177.

  16 Clarke, ‘English Royal Marriages and the Papal Penitentiary’, p. 1028 n. 42.

  17 CC, p. 153.

  18 Ibid., p. 133.

  19 BL, Cotton MS Julius B xii, fos. 314r–v.

  20 Hanham, Richard III and His Early Historians, p. 121; ‘electio’: Rous Roll, no. 56.

  21 Ibid.

  22 RP, VI 100–101; BL, Cotton MS Julius B XII, fos. 136v–137v.

  23 RP, VI 124–5.

  24 Hammond and Sutton, Richard III, p. 64, citing A. R. Scoble (ed.).