Richard III - A Small Guide to the Great Debate

By Annette Carson

New edition includes discoveries seen on TV in The Princes in the Tower: The New Evidence

With the discovery of Richard the Third’s grave in 2012, and the film The Lost King in 2022, the eyes of the world have been drawn to the twists and turns surrounding King Richard III of England. And exciting new insights about the ‘Princes in the Tower’ have now been revealed by Philippa Langley on TV and in print. Annette Carson published the first of her five Ricardian books in 2008, Richard III: The Maligned King (revised editions in 2013 and 2023). She was a member of Langley’s Looking For Richard Project and her latest Missing Princes Project.

An acclaimed author and historian of Richard’s reign, Carson has produced this Small Guide as a deliberately brief, straightforward handbook summarizing the facts in a non-scholarly style. It has proved a popular guide outlining how he came to be the Tudors’ monster-villain figure, and how a backlash over this portrayal created the Great Debate in later years.

With Langley’s new evidence challenging the usual claims that Richard murdered the princes, predictably the Great Debate now rages again. In this small book is a wealth of historical background behind the centuries-old assumption that they were killed (and who killed them and why).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Sep 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9780957684010

Annette Carson

Annette Carson is a professional writer and has been an editor and award-winning copywriter. A prominent Ricardian, in 2011 she was invited by Philippa Langley to join the team searching for the king's lost grave, which found and exhumed Richard's remains for honourable reburial.

Book preview

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WHO WAS THE REAL RICHARD III?

To view a member of the mediaeval nobility in the context of his time you need to slot him into his place in a society which was divided roughly into ‘those who work’, ‘those who pray’, and ‘those who fight’. The primary duty of the nobility, from the king downwards, was the feudal responsibility to bear arms and to preserve the realm from threats, both external and internal.

It is extremely difficult to build an accurate profile of any person from the distant past, especially a 15th-century duke or king – but the starting point has to be his rank and role in life.

By the time his detractors had finished with Richard he was a deformed, hobbling hunchbacked monster with a string of murders to his name, whose good actions were sheer hypocrisy, and whose high reputation for valour was merely the mark of an effective killing machine. This summary is not an exaggeration, and the charges of ‘hypocrite’ and ‘hatchet-man’ have pursued him into the 21st century.

The problem is how to find the human being underneath it all, without wandering off into equally unacceptable realms of supposition. For this brief thumbnail sketch I will try to stick to facts verifiable in records dating from the time of his reign.

From what we know of him, Richard was a conscientious and conventional member of his class, in an age when the ties that bound them were those of good lordship to their retainers and supporters, oath-swearing to their superiors, and fides publica, loyalty to the state.

Among their preferred reading matter would be books of chivalry and military strategy such as Richard owned. His father, the Duke of York, had a lengthy military career and Richard himself was provided with a military and courtly education as a boy, at least partly in the household of the Earl of Warwick.

Born on 2 October 1452, Richard was not to enjoy a life of ease even though his father was a royal duke. By the time he was nine he’d already had many frightening and disastrous experiences due to the armed hostilities between his extended family and other noble houses. He had spent time as a captive and fugitive, and knew hardship and loss culminating in the death of a father and a brother in 1460. But then suddenly within a few months had come the accession of his eldest brother as King Edward IV and his own elevation to Duke of Gloucester.

Such an elevation brought problems of its own. Richard was certainly not brought up as a pampered prince at a royal court, and like most younger sons he had no personal inheritance. Edward IV had two younger brothers and both needed financial provision, supplied mainly by means of confiscations from wrongdoers and asset-stripping from their families (Edward also asset-stripped from his own supporters when it suited him).

Edward’s rule did not go uncontested. From age 16 to 18 Richard found himself supporting his brother through sporadic uprisings, battles, and a flight to safety into the Low Countries when he briefly lost his throne. Remember the Low Countries, as they figure largely in our tale! By the time Edward retrieved the throne again, Richard had distinguished himself in the field and led the vanguard in the final, decisive battle of Tewkesbury (May 1471). He would remain Edward IV’s foremost general for the rest of his brother’s life. In a poem of praise he was addressed as:

The Duke of Gloucester, that noble prince,

Young of age and victorious in battle,

To the honour of Hector that he might come,

Grace him followeth, fortune and good speed.

By the age of 17 Richard was already Edward’s right-hand man, the very image of the king’s prop and loyal support, a position recognized in his appointment as High Constable of England for life.

This appointment placed him at England’s heraldic and chivalric pinnacle. It made him responsible for the Law of Arms on behalf of the crown in his own summary court, the Court of Chivalry (or Constable’s Court), where he judged and delivered sentence in cases of armed insurrection and treason.

This career of military and public service may sound quite unremarkable, but it was a model of devotion by comparison with the feuds and intrigues frequently carried on within European ruling families. Edward entrusted Richard with offices and powers ‘for his nearness and fidelity of relationship … for his proved skill in military matters and his other virtues’. Such dignities were not bestowed upon the other surviving York brother, George Duke of Clarence, despite being Richard’s elder by three years.

George coveted Edward’s crown and, ever hopeful of gaining it, whipped up rebellion against him. When Edward eventually tried and executed George for treason, Richard was said to have been ‘moved by anguish’. It was a cruel lesson in the awesome necessity for a king to preserve his person, protect his throne and prevent civil war.

Of Richard’s personal interests we know that he owned a number of books, several of them well-thumbed, among which were books of religion. This, together with his many religious endowments, has convinced historians that he was genuinely pious. He was renowned for his love of music, and was known to have sent around the country seeking to recruit gifted musicians to his service.

His intelligence has been deduced from many evidences, including the large proportion of Latin books in his possession, even the quality of his handwriting. Actually all three brothers of the house of York were renowned for their intelligence, like their father before them. When a legal dispute arose between the brothers, it was commented that ‘all who stood around, even those learned in law, marvelled at the profusion of their

Reviews for Richard III - A Small Guide to the Great Debate

[mimal_5 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

published-2013, history, archaeology, net-galley, nonfiction, plantagenet-1154-1485, britain-englandRead on September 05, 2013About the author: Carson has researched and written extensively on Richard III. Her book Richard III: The Maligned King (The History Press, 2008) was revised in 2013 and sold out within 3 months. The print edition of A Small Guide was published on 1 July this year and is already stocked, in hundreds, by visitors’ centres at Leicester, Bosworth Battlefield and elsewhere. (Source: netgalley.com )ARC from Troubador Publishing Ltd, MatadorOpening: The recent dramatic discovery of Richard III's grave in Leicester gave rise to enormous media interest.The debate in question is 'was Dicky as dire as he was drawn?', and for one of the answers Carson urges us to take a look at how William the Conqueror branded Henry II as an usurper, thereby clearing the way to grab bounty from Harold Godwinson's traitorous followers. It was such, that this coffer-filling parallel move, made by Henry IV against Richard III and his followers, that has influenced the way we think about Richard III.So if it's a quick view you are looking for, at 80 pages this is really worth the hour or so it takes to read; if you are wanting more, as I am, Richard III: The Maligned King looks good.2 likes

[cbl_tn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I had hoped that this overview of the controversy surrounding Richard III would have a bit more about the recent discovery of his remains in a Leicester car park. While the author alludes a couple of times to what has been learned from Richard’s skeletal remains and to DNA evidence, the main thrust of the book is to analyze the evidence either substantiating or refuting the accusations that Richard III usurped the throne and murdered his nephews. Even though it is aimed at a popular rather than an academic audience, the book could have benefited from a bibliography of recommended sources for readers who want to explore the topic in greater depth. Primary sources are mentioned throughout the book, such as Thomas More’s History of King Richard III and Polydore Vergil’s English history, and it would be helpful to non-academics to provide a little more information about the availability of modern editions of these works. This book covers a lot of the same ground as Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time. Readers who have already read Tey’s book may not feel like they’re picking up many new details.This review is based on an electronic advanced reading copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley.