Category Archives: The Tudors

Richard III’s Bones of Contention

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While I was away on the Baltic Cruise these past couple weeks, my article about the remains of Richard III, “Richard III’s Bones of Contention” was published in the Kingston Whig-Standard on August 23. In this column, I compared the controversy surrounding Richard III to the excavation of the Romanov remains in the 1990s and the uncertainty regarding the last resting place of Tecumseh, the famous Shawnee general from the War of 1812.

Click here to read “Richard III’s Bones of Contention“

Elizabeth’s Bedfellows: An Intimate History of the Queen’s Court by Anna Whitelock (Review)

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On the morning of September 28, 1599, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex burst into Queen Elizabeth I’s bedchamber without permission to explain his return from Ireland against the sovereign’s wishes. There, he found the sixty-six year old Queen devoid of any sign of her carefully crafted public image. When Essex appeared, Elizabeth I had just risen from her bed and was dressed in a simple nightgown and robe. Without the Queen’s usual thick layer of cosmetics, her smallpox scars, age spots and wrinkles were clearly visible. Essex also saw the Queen’s balding head with wispy grey hair “hanging about her ears” that was usually covered by a vibrant red wig.

Despite the circumstances, the Queen received Essex graciously and listened to his protestations. Only after the Earl departed did Elizabeth I reveal that she was not satisfied with his reasons for leaving Ireland and ordered him confined to his chamber. The Queen never saw her former favourite again and he was executed for treason following an attempted coup d’état in 1601. In addition to his dubious political activities, Essex had transgressed by entering the royal bedchamber, the domain of Elizabeth I’s ladies who crafted the Queen’s public appearance, guarded her reputation and even slept in her bed. In Elizabeth’s Bedfellows: An Intimate History of the Queen’s Court, Anna Whitelock, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at Royal Holloway, University of London and author of Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen presents Elizabeth I through the eyes of these devoted “Bedfellows” who spent their days and nights serving the Queen.

The Queen’s reputation is at the heart of Elizabeth’s Bedfellows. Only the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, who changed her sheets and shared her chambers, knew for certain whether she was actually the Virgin Queen. Whitelock reveals that Elizabeth I’s personal life was the focus of intense speculation from her youth in her stepmother, Catherine Parr’s household until her death when her ladies followed the Queen’s wishes and refused to allow her remains to be examined. The Queen’s ladies also became involved the marriage negotiations surrounding their mistress, offering to intercede for individual suitors. While the bookmakers of 2013 were fascinated by whether the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s baby would be a boy or a girl and what the name the child would receive, 16th century speculators placed bets on which – if any – of the foreign Princes and English noblemen would succeed in marrying the Queen.

Whitelock also provides a rich social history of the Queen’s court from the foul smells in her bedchamber caused by her sanitary arrangements and multitude of pets to the ingredients in the cosmetics that obscured her age and illnesses. These details often receive more attention in historical novels, such as Elizabeth I: The Novel by Margaret George, than biographies of Elizabeth I. The Queen’s sumptuous gowns and wigs served both political and personal purposes for the Queen, allowing her to indulge her love of fine clothes and project an image of power and majesty for her court and by extension, the Kingdom of England.

Although Elizabeth’s Bedfellows is ostensibly about Elizabeth I’s ladies, the Queen remains at the centre of the narrative throughout the book. This structure reflects the reality of the court. Elizabeth I expected her ladies-in-waiting to devote their lives to her service. Married Women of the Bedchamber remained by the Queen’s side until late into their pregnancies and gave their children to wet nurses almost immediately after birth so that they could return to service. The main events of Elizabeth I’s life are already well known, however, and a book devoted to the Queen’s ladies could have included more details about the small amount of private life allowed to the court women. Elizabeth’s Bedfellows is a fascinating social history of Elizabeth I’s bedchamber and reputation but her ladies remain in the background, just as the Queen would have wanted.

My recent CBC News interviews about the Upcoming Royal Baby

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In the past week, I have been interviewed by Janet Davison for CBC.ca about numerous topics related to the upcoming royal baby. Here are the three interviews that have been published so far:

Click here for William and Kate’s “Hands-On”  Parenting Plans for the Royal Baby

Click here for Why We Care About Royal Babies and Celebrity Offspring

Click here for Royal Baby Waiting Game Hits High Gear

Historical Fiction Roundup 6: Venus in Winter: A Novel of Bess of Hardwick by Gillian Bagwell

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Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury – Bess of Hardwick – was one of the most prominent noblewomen of the Tudor era. She is best known for her role in Elizabeth I’s reign as a Lady of the Privy Chamber, wife to the jailer of Mary, Queen of Scots, and champion of the succession rights belonging to her granddaughter, Arbella Stuart. Bess’s early life, first three marriages, and rise to prominence at court have received much less attention. In Venus in Winter: A Novel of Bess of Hardwick, Gillian Bagwell, author of The Darling Strumpet: A Novel of Nell Gwynn, Who Captured the Heart of England and King Charles II and The September Queenrecreates the rise of Bess of Hardwick from obscure country gentlewoman to Elizabethan courtier.

There have been numerous novels published in recent years about the court of Henry VIII but most of these books focus on the King’s six wives and their immediate attendants. Bagwell’s novel stands out from the rest because it shows how a sixteenth century English gentlewoman could rise in society through service in noble households rather than the King’s pleasure. Bagwell portrays Bess’s childhood in terms that will be familiar to readers of Jane Austen. The Hardwicks live in genteel poverty and the best chance of improving their fortunes is for Bess to make a good marriage. Joining the household of her distant relation, Lady Zouche then that of Frances Grey (mother of the nine days queen, Lady Jane Grey) enables Bess to make the connections necessary to marry into the elite of Tudor society.

Bess’s position at the margins of the court during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I provide a unique window into Tudor era politics. While the most prominent courtiers such as Edward VI’s uncles, the Seymours or his advisor, the Duke of Northumberland aspired to control the succession, the majority of noble families sought royal favour regardless of who emerged as King or Queen. Throughout the novel, Bess’s household leaves London whenever there is an succession crisis as her patrons and husbands fear being forced to pledge allegiance to a particular candidiate before their succession is ensured. The most disastrous outcome for a Tudor nobleman or woman was to be associated with the cause of an unsuccessful claimant to the throne. Bess’s friendship with the Grey family, Lady Frances and her daughters Jane, Catherine and Mary, proves dangerous as allegiances shift at court.

While most historical novelists write in contemporary parlance, adding the occasional “mayhap” to indicate the time period, Bagwell has a keen eye for Tudor turns of phrase. Henry VIII welcomes Lady Zouche to court as the “beauteous” wife of his friend, Sir George and the young Bess is reminded that “there is still work for idle hands.” Bagwell even separates court from country gentry by their speech. After years serving in noble households, Bess finds that she speaks very differently from her brother James, who remained at Hardwick with her mother. The dialogue shows how the Tudor elite might have expressed themselves while still remaining accessible for the general reader.

The first two thirds of the novel are the strongest as Bess learns how to behave at court, marries her first two successive husbands and struggles for her rights as a widow. Bagwell portrays Bess’s third marriage as a passionate romance, which puts more focus on her feelings for her husband than her keen observations of Tudor court.By the end of the novel, however, Bess is once again facing an uncertain future in the midst of Tudor court politics. I hope that Bagwell will write a sequel to Venus in Winter: A Novel of Bess of Hardwick that will cover the second half of Bess’s life as she became one of Tudor England’s most influential noblewomen.

 

The Tudor Book Reviews 12: Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen by Amy Licence

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Elizabeth of York, consort of the founder of the Tudor dynasty, King Henry VII, is the least well known of the Tudor Queens. Both Henry and Elizabeth have been reduced to one dimensional stereotypes in the popular imagination: Henry the miser and Elizabeth the dutiful wife and mother whose image is the model for the queen on playing cards. In contrast, their son Henry VIII has been the subject of both scholarly analysis and popular biographies, which scrutinize all the known evidence concerning his personality, religious reforms, cultural patronage and his famous marriages.

Henry VIII’s six wives, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr are the subjects of individual and collective studies that discuss them as private women and as queens. Many of Elizabeth of York’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren, such as Queen Mary I, Elizabeth I, Lady Jane Grey and Mary, Queen of Scots are iconic figures in their own right. In Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen, Amy Licence, author of Anne Neville: Richard III’s Tragic Queen and In Bed with the Tudors brings the first Tudor queen out of obscurity, looking at Henry VII’s consort within the context of her times and discussing her role in establishing the legitimacy of the Tudor dynasty.

Throughout Elizabeth of York, Licence emphasizes the importance of viewing the Plantagenet princess and Tudor queen through the worldview of the late 15th century. Recent historical fiction featuring Elizabeth has speculated that the young princess was attracted to the power and personality of her uncle, Richard III, on the basis of an incomplete and no longer extant letter than might refer to any number of marriage plans for the King’s niece. Earlier speculation concerning Elizabeth imagined a romance with the future Henry VII, although it is unlikely that they met before he became King and their marriage was a foregone conclusion.

Licence reminds her readers that romance would have had little influence on Elizabeth’s choices or the choices that were made for her. As the eldest daughter of King Edward IV, her duty was to make a royal marriage that advanced the interests of her family. Once her Uncle, Richard III, seized the English throne in 1483, all Edward IV’s children were declared illegitimate and her brothers, the famous “Princes in the Tower” disappeared, it became all the more important that Elizabeth devote herself to restoring the fortunes of her mother and sisters. Drawing on scholarly studies such as Elizabeth of Yorkby Arlene Naylor Okerlund, Licence speculates that the princess may have served as a kind of spy for her mother, Elizabeth Woodville and future mother-in-law, Margaret Beaufort at the court of Richard III.

Licence’s discussion of the culture of late 15th century suggests some revealing conclusions about the major figures in Elizabeth’s life. The marriage between her parents, Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, took place in secret on the May Day, when the boundaries within the social hierarchy were temporarily set aside. The timing, secrecy and Edward IV’s rumoured history of going through some form of marriage with women who resisted his advances suggests that he may have planned initially to repudiate the union. Licence also looks at Richard III’s reputation during his reign, before the Tudors came to power, highlighting evidence that he was already rumoured to have murdered his nephews before he was killed at the Battle of Bosworth field in 1485.

The final chapter of Elizabeth of York is the strongest because the best documented year of the Queen’s life was the last one before she died of childbirth in 1503  at the age of 37. Elizabeth’s accounts in the last year of her life reveal an active queen consort whose reputation for charity and intercession tempered Henry VII’s perceived severity and frugality. Records of her religious donations and pilgrimages reveal a strong identification with the Virgin Mary as an intercessor and bereaved mother. Elizabeth’s devotions increased after the death of her eldest son Arthur and she and Henry VII appear to have been particularly united in the aftermath of this family tragedy.

As Queen, Elizabeth of York is less well documented than future generations of Tudor women but Amy Licence reveals hints of the personality behind the illustration on playing cards to a broad popular audience in Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen. Elizabeth’s Yorkist ancestry, popularity with the English people and intercessory activities were crucial to establishing the Tudors as a legitimate dynasty during the reign of Henry VII>

The Tudor Book Reviews 11: The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look At England’s Most Notorious Queen by Susan Bordo

by CarolynHarris | 3 Comments

Anne Boleyn is the most famous of King Henry VIII’s six wives because every era creates their own version of her that best suits the times. Changing attitudes toward women over the centuries also changed Anne’s reputation. In The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen, feminist scholar Susan Bordo reveals just how little we know of Anne’s actual relationship with Henry VIII then provides as fascinating cultural history of the famous queen over the centuries.

In the reign of Mary I, the stepdaughter who blamed Anne for the collapse of her parents’ marriage, the queen was a scheming temptress, leading Henry VIII away from the papacy with her feminine wiles. In the reign of Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth I, Anne was reborn as the Protestant champion who brought much needed religious reform to England. This religious reputation persisted into the seventeenth century.

In the 19th century, much of the English public viewed Anne Boleyn as the innocent victim of Tudor tyranny similar to Lady Jane Grey. Jane Austen believed that Anne was indeed an innocent victim while Charles Dickens broke with prevailing wisdom to suggest that she might have been the author of her own demise. The historical novels of the 20th century introduced a new Anne Boleyn, the plucky, vivacious young woman who was destroyed by her ambition and her marriage to Henry VIII. In the 1969 film, Anne Of The Thousand Days, Anne openly challenges the King until the end of her life, suffering a marriage that ends disastrously because their passions only briefly overlap.

For the twenty-first century, historical novelist Philippa Gregory revived the old sixteenth century image of Anne the scheming temptress, stopping at nothing to achieve her ambitions in The Other Boleyn Girl. Meanwhile, actress Natalie Dormer portrayed an Anne who was intelligent as well as alluring in the Showtime series, The Tudors, an interpretation that has made Anne an inspiration to countless young women.

After Anne was executed in 1536, Henry VIII appears to have destroyed her letters to him as well as her portraits painted from life. As a result, much of what historians know about the relationship between Henry and Anne comes the dispatches of Eustace Chapuys, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V’s Ambassador to England. Chapuys was a strong supporter of Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, his master’s Aunt, and inevitably described Anne in extremely negative terms. Despite the clear bias of Chapuys’ writings, Bordo reveals that they had a profound impact on future scholars and novelists alike, creating a received wisdom about Anne’s ambition, character and sexuality. Balanced and critical biographies, such as The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: ‘The Most Happy’ by Eric Ives are comparatively few.

Bordo’s work stands out from all other scholarship about Anne Boleyn because she takes the popular influence of historical fiction seriously. Historians rarely engage with fictional portrayals of historical figures beyond the most famous works such as William Shakespeare’s plays.  Bordo’s research shows that so many aspects of Anne Boleyn’s life that the public believes it “knows” actually emerged from fictional accounts that became received wisdom.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Bordo’s work is her interviews with the various actresses who played Anne Boleyn over the decades including Geneviève Bujold from Anne Of The Thousand Days and Natalie Dormer from The Tudors. Both Bujold and Dormer did their own research about Anne Boleyn’s life and brought new insights to their portrayals of the famous queen. In contrast the cast of the 2008 film version of The Other Boleyn Girl appear to have been almost entirely ignorant of both the actual historical figures they portrayed and the nature of historical scholarship.

I highly recommend The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen to anyone interested in either the historical Anne Boleyn or the broader impact of popular culture and changing attitudes toward women on historical figures. I hope that additional books of this kind are written about other women in history with a significant modern pop culture presence including Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia and her daughters and Anne Boleyn’s own daughter Elizabeth I.

The Medieval Book Reviews 7: Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses by Sarah Gristwood

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The Wars of the Roses or “The Cousins Wars” as they were known in the fifteenth century are a difficult period for any historian. The Latin monastic chronicles that described the main events of the Middle Ages were going out of style at this time and England did not yet have a strong tradition of secular historical writing. The surviving primary sources often contradict one another, resulting in wildly different interpretations of the same historical figures.

The current controversy about whether King Richard III was an honorable Prince who assumed the throne in 1483 for the good of England or a power hungry usurper who ordered the murder of his nephews may never be resolved because of the absence of key sources. The lives of the mothers, wives and daughters of the Princes who fought in the Wars of the Roses are even more difficult to reconstruct. In Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses, Sarah Gristwood, a journalist and author of Elizabeth & Leicester and Arbella: England’s Lost Queen pieces together both the political role of the women of the Wars of the Roses and the social history of women at court in fifteenth century England.

Gristwood looks at seven pivotal figures from Henry VI’s coming of age in 1437 to the ascension of Henry VIII in 1509. Henry VI’s wife Marguerite of Anjou came from a family of powerful Queens and noblewomen. Marguerite’s grandmother Yolande of Aragon, was a patron of Joan of Arc who influenced King Charles VII of France’s rise to power during the Hundred Years War. When Henry VI developed what would now be diagnosed as catatonic schizophrenia, Marguerite assumed a leadership role at his court but discovered that the English were hostile to foreign queens assuming power.

Cecily Neville was the matriarch of the House of York, wife of Richard, Duke of York and mother of King Edward IV and King Richard III. Despite her influence over her husband and sons and connections to other powerful figures of the period, she has never been the subject of a full biography. Cecily’s youngest daughter, Margaret of York, supported the her family’s ambitions from Burgundy. Her support for Yorkist claimants to the English throne threatened the legitimacy of Margaret Beaufort’s son, Henry VII. Margaret Beaufort was a senior member of the House of Lancaster in England. Following the birth of her son, Henry Tudor, at the age of thirteen, she was unable to have more children and became fiercely ambitious for her only child.

Elizabeth Woodville was an unlikely Queen of England, a Lancastrian widow with two sons who caught the eye of Edward IV. Gristwood reminds her readers that Elizabeth Woodville was not simply a commoner who had married above her station but a descendant of the ruling House of Luxembourg through her mother. The favour shown to her numerous relatives at court alienated Edward IV’s supporters including Anne Neville’s father, the Earl of Warwick. Despite first marrying Marguerite of Anjou’s only son Edward then becoming the consort of Richard III, Anne is the most under-documented figure in Gristwood’s book. Gristwood speculates that she was politically marginalized by Richard III, who assumed control over her extensive lands in the North of England.

Following the Battle of Bosworth field in 1485, the Houses of Lancaster and York were united through the wedding of Henry VII to Edward IV’s daughter Elizabeth of York. The first Tudor queen is often assumed to have been a passive figure but Gristwood analyzes evidence that Elizabeth had been raised to become a queen and attempted to shape her own destiny at the court of Richard III. Elizabeth of York appears to have exerted a profound a influence on her daughters, Queen Margaret of Scotland and Queen Mary of France and her younger son, King Henry VIII.

Through her comparative study of the seven most prominent women of the Wars of the Roses, Gristwood reveals the abrupt changes in the fortune that were typical for royal and aristocratic families of the period. Cecily Neville narrowly missed her opportunity to become queen when her husband Richard of York was killed in battle. Elizabeth Woodville’s eldest son was born in sanctuary but she regained her throne when Edward IV triumphed over Marguerite of Anjou. Margaret Beaufort was accused of treason during the reign of Richard III then became a respected councillor to her son, Henry VII.

Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses is a fascinating joint biography of seven of the most prominent women in fifteenth century England. Gristwood makes excellent use of the limited source material about the women behind the conflict that defined the last decades of Plantagenet rule in England. The leadership roles assumed by the wives, mother and daughters of England’s last Plantagenet Kings set precedents for the famous reigning queens of the Tudor dynasty, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

The Richard III Funeral Controversy and 5 Unknown Royal Grave Sites

by CarolynHarris | 6 Comments

The earliest surviving portrait of Richard III

The controversy surrounding the burial of Richard III, whose remains were discovered last year in a Leicester parking lot, continues this week as fifteen surviving descendants of the King’s relatives threaten legal action if the King is not buried in York Minster cathedral. The University of Leicester responded to the members of the Plantagenet Alliance on March 26, stating in a press release, “The plan for re-interment in Leicester Cathedral was clearly stated and unambiguous at the start of the project and announced in a statement on Friday 24 August 2012. This was before the dig started.”

Leicester Cathedral has faced criticism in recent weeks for planning a plain stone stab as a memorial for Richard III instead of the elaborate tomb designed by members of the Richard III society.  The nature of the planned funeral service has also received scrutiny because Leicester Cathedral is a Church of England place of worship but the King reigned before the Protestant Reformation and would have worshipped according to Roman Catholic rites.

The Russian Imperial family in 1913

The debate concerning the funeral of Richard III may appear unique but it has much in common with the controversies that surrounded the excavation and reburial of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, his wife Alexandra, their five children and four of their servants during the 1990s. Russia’s Imperial capital, St. Petersburg, its current capital, Moscow, and the location of the family’s 1918 murder, Yekaterinburg were all potential locations for the reburial of the remains. Russia’s last Imperial family were ultimately laid to rest in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, which is the burial place of all but two Russian rulers since the reign of Peter the Great.

Richard III’s funeral may set precedents governing the discovery and reburial of other lost royal remains in the British Isles. There are numerous prominent royal personages who still do not have a known grave for numerous reasons including the dissolution of the English monasteries during the reign of Henry VIII, disgrace at the time of death or even rumours of survival at the time of the official funeral.

Portrait of the Princes in the Tower, Kind Edward V and Richard, Duke of York by Paul Delaroche

Here are 5 Examples of Unknown or Contested Royal Grave Sites in the British Isles:

1) The Princes in the Tower The deposed King Edward V and his brother, Richard, Duke of York disappeared in 1483, after their uncle, Richard III, seized the throne and confined them to the Tower of London. In 1674, a box containing the skeletons of two children was discovered near the White Tower. King Charles II interred the remains in an urn in Westminster Abbey. The remains were last analyzed in 1933, before the advent of DNA analysis, which made it impossible to confirm that the remains were actually those of the Princes of the Tower. The 2012 discovery of Richard III revived popular interest in modern analysis of the bones in the urn but both Westminster Abbey and Queen Elizabeth II have refused permission for further study of the alleged remains of the Princes in the Tower. Further Reading: Alison Weir, The Princes in the Tower

Statue of Alfred the Great in Winchester

2) Alfred the Great The famous Saxon King died in 899 after a long and painful illness that may have been Crohn’s Disease. Alfred, his wife Ealhswith, and son, Edward the Elder were originally buried in the Old Minster of Winchester Cathedral then moved to the New Minster. When the monks moved to Hyde Abbey in 1110, they took the royal remains with them where they remained until the Abbey was demolished on the orders of King Henry VIII in 1539. By the time a prison was constructed on the Hyde Abbey site in the eighteenth century, the bones were lost. Stone coffins inscribed with the names of Alfred, Ealhswith and Edward were discovered recently but they were empty, suggesting that the monks moved the royal remains before the dissolution of the monasteries. In 2013, archaeologists exhumed an unmarked grave in St Bartholomew’s Church, Winchester. Researchers from the University of Winchester are currently seeking permission to analyze these remains, which may be those of the long lost Alfred the Great. Further Reading: Benjamin Mekkle, The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great

“Boadicea Haranguing the Britons” by John Opie

3) Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni The Celtic Queen fought her last battle against the Romans in 60 or 61 AD and is believed to have committed suicide following her defeat to avoid being paraded in a Roman Triumph. The precise location of the battle and the Queen’s final resting place in unknown. King’s Cross railway station in London is located on the site of a village known as “Battle Bridge” near the site of an ancient crossing of the River Fleet. According to legend, Boudicca fought her last stand on this location and was buried in the area. There is speculation that Boudicca’s tomb may be located under platform 8,9 or 10 at King’s Cross railway station. There is not currently sufficient evidence to merit an excavation of King’s Cross station. Further Reading: Marguerite Johnson, Boudicca

4) Simon de Montfort King Henry III’s brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort was killed at the Battle of Evesham during the Second Barons War in 1265. Montfort seized control of the government after defeating Henry III at the Battle of Lewes in 1264 and taking the King and his heir prisoner. During his year in power, Montfort pioneered representative government, summoning elected representatives from the counties for a 1265 parliament at Westminster. Henry III’s son, the future Edward I, escaped in 1265 and raised a 10,000 man army that defeated Montfort’s 5,000 supporters at Evesham. Monfort’s remains were mutilated on the battlefield and displayed in various regions of England before being buried at Evesham Abbey. Henry III was dismayed by the number of pilgrims who visited Montfort’s grave and ordered the remains to be removed to an unknown location on the Abbey grounds. Evesham Abbey was almost entirely destroyed in 1540, during the dissolution of the monasteries. Further Reading: J. R. Maddicott, Simon de Montfort

Edward II receiving the English Crown

5) Edward II King Edward II was deposed by his wife, Queen Isabella and her lover, Roger Mortimer in 1327. The former King was imprisoned in Berkeley Castle while Isabella and Mortimer governed on behalf of his young son, Edward III. There were rumours that Edward II was quietly smothered in prison later in 1327. Isabella held a public funeral for her late husband in Gloucester Cathedral that same year. In his 1592 play Edward II, Christopher Marlowe popularized a more brutal legend about the King’s passing by having Mortimer’s agents come onstage with a table and a red hot poker and one of murderers declare, “So, lay the table down, and stamp on it/But not too hard lest that you bruise his body.”

Despite the funeral and the legends surrounding Edward II’s manner of death, Edward III’s biographer, Ian Mortimer has discovered evidence that the deposed King may have escaped from Berkeley Castle and lived out his natural life in retirement in Italy. In this hypothesis, Edward II exchanged clothing with a servant who closely resembled him and left Berkeley Castle for Ireland and, ultimately, Italy. The unlucky servant was murdered and buried in Gloucester Cathedral. Mortimer’s theory has been contested by other scholars of Edward II’s life and death. For further Reading on Edward II’s reign, see Seymour Phillips, Edward II

What’s Next for the Remains of King Richard III?

by CarolynHarris | Leave a comment

 

The earliest surviving portrait of King Richard III, dating from 1520

Researchers at the University of Leicester announced yesterday that the remains discovered in a Leicester parking lot in September, 2012 had been authenticated as those of King Richard III of England, who died at the age of thirty-two on the Battle of Bosworth field. Mitochondrial DNA from the skeleton matched that of Michael Ibsen, a Canadian seventeenth generation descendant of Richard III’s sister, Anne of York, in the female line.

The authentication of Richard’s remains provides a wealth of information for historians beyond confirmation of where he was buried. The King’s skeleton shows evidence of scoliosis, curvature of the spine resulting in one shoulder being higher than the other. The symptoms of scoliosis are not the same as the hunched back displayed by the King in William Shakespeare’s play Richard III, but it demonstrates that the playwright was exaggerating Richard’s actual appearance rather than inventing a physical condition for his central character.

King Henry VII, the victor at Bosworth Field

Analysis of Richard’s remains also reveals the extent of his battle injuries at Bosworth Field. The King suffered an arrow wound to the spine, sword blows to the head that were the likely cause of his death and “humiliation” wounds inflicted after his death by members of the victorious forces of his opponent, Henry Tudor, who succeeded Richard as King Henry VII.

Now that the question of the authenticity of Richard III’s remains has been answered further questions have emerged about the nature of the funeral and how the discovery will inform the often conflicting accounts of the King’s character and brief reign. The Richard III society  has received a substantial donation toward the King’s burial in Leicester cathedral.

As Leicester has experienced recent economic troubles, the presence of the remains of the famous King would benefit tourism in the region. The suitability of Leicester cathedral as a final resting place for the King is already controversial, however, as Richard did not have any connection with the region beyond his violent death. Furthermore, Richard reigned before the English Reformation and was therefore a Roman Catholic and Leicester Cathedral is an Anglican place of worship

The historical significance of the discovery is also a matter of debate as the University of Leicester researchers have worked closely with the Richard III society, which is committed to presenting a sympathetic biography of the King and dismisses Shakespeare’s interpretation as Tudor propaganda. In today’s Guardian, History Today editor Paul Lay accused the University of Leicester of “abandoning impartiality with its embrace of the Ricardians.”

19th century depiction of “The Princes in the Tower.”

The analysis of the remains provide some insights into Richard’s life and death but they do not reveal whether he was responsible for the deaths of his nephews, the deposed King Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, often described as “The Princes in the Tower.” Even with the discovery of his remains, Richard III’s legacy will continue to be fiercely contested as contradictory evidence exists regarding his motives for seizing the throne from his young nephew, Edward V, in 1483. One of the King’s most recent biographers, David Baldwin, argues that Richard may have had a “split personality,” acting honourably as King Edward IV’s brother, the Duke of Gloucester but displaying ruthless political instincts when his interests seemed to be threatened by the influence of Edward IV’s widow’s family, the Woodvilles, during the reign of Edward V.

Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, his wife, Empress Alexandra and their five children (clockwise from left), Maria, Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia and Alexei in 1913

The controversy surrounding the burial and significance of Richard III’s remains is unsurprising as the last significant discovery of a lost royal burial ground also generated considerable religious and political debate. In 1979, amateur Russian archaeologists discovered the remains of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Empress Alexandra, three of their children and four of their servants outside Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg) where the entire family had been murdered by Bolsheviks in 1918. In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a full excavation of the grave site took place by a combined team of Russian and American researchers.

In common with Richard III, the Romanov remains were identified through mitochondrial DNA analysis. Empress Alexandra’s grand nephew, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, provided the DNA to authenticate Alexandra and her children while a granddaughter of Nicholas II’s niece, Princess Irina, provided the DNA match for the Emperor. Despite the success of this research, the Russian Orthodox Church did not accept the authenticity of the remains of the Imperial family, who had been canonized as saints, and Nicholas, Alexandra, three of their daughters and their servants were interred in St. Petersburg’s Peter and Paul Cathedral in 1998 as nameless victims of the Russian Revolution.

The absence of two of the Imperial children from the original grave site also appeared to support decades old legends that Nicholas and Alexandra’s youngest daughter, Anastasia, survived the murder of her family. The discovery and authentication of the remains of two more Imperial children in 2007 proved that this longstanding myth was false and the entire family had died at the same time in 1918. The canonization of the Imperial Family by the Russian Orthodox Church and the legend of Anastasia’s survival complicated the response to the discovery and authentication of the Romanov remains, generating historical and religious controversy.

Yesterday’s authentication of Richard III’s remains is part of a long tradition of historical and religious debate regarding the significance of lost royal burial sites. The nature of Richard’s burial and the contribution of the discovery of his remains to the understanding of his life, reign and death remain controversial issues. It remains to be seen how the discovery will be written into the King’s contested biography.

Interviews about Richard III on CTV News Channel, CBC Toronto and and Global News

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I will be discussing the authentication of King Richard III’s remains on the CTV news channel today (February 4, 2013) at 1:10pm EST and on the Global News Hour at 5:30pm EST today (February 4) and on CBC News Toronto at 5:55pm EST today.

Tomorrow (February 5), I will be interviewed on Global News Regina at 8:10am EST.

Click here to watch the Global News Interview about Richard III