Month: April 2015

With the Making Monuments on Rapa Nui: the Statues of Easter Island exhibition open I had the unaccustomed luxury of spending a free weekend in York and was delighted to see that there is a new exhibition about Richard III at the Yorkshire Museum. It seems almost gratuitous to say that the Richard III: Man and Myth capitalises on the incredible discovery of Richard’s remains in a car park at Leicester and the recent reburial which was covered on prime time TV. Readers of this blog who have been members of the Medieval Section over the last couple of years will be familiar with the story because Bob Woosnam-Savage from Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds spoke to us a year ago last Christmas and presented what were then very recent findings from the detailed examination of the last Plantagenet king’s skeleton. The Richard III Man and Myth exhibition occupies several of the rooms facing onto the Chapter House section of the Museum where the Medieval objects are displayed so it is worth pointing out that this is a relatively small exhibition, but it is a welcome extension to the earlier exhibition about Richard that was featured on this blog.

The exhibition is divided into several sections looking at ‘the Man’ and ‘the Myth’. It uses several well-known and beautiful exhibits from the Yorkshire Museum’s collection including the gold and sapphire reliquary pendant known as the Middleham Jewel, a silver gilt boar badge from Stillingfleet and the hoard of coins from Ryther in North Yorkshire.

As the introduction makes clear, the challenge is to try and untangle what we know for certain about Richard the man from the myth that has grown up around him, not least because of the way he is presented in Shakespeare’s play as a man ‘whose thoughts were evil and actions diabolical’. Was he a tyrant and a murderer or a fair and benevolent ruler, much maligned by history? The exhibition leaves it up to the visitor to decide.

Richard’s life was shaped by the Wars of the Roses, the civil wars between the Houses of Lancaster and York between 1455 and 1485. Richard was born at Fotheringhay Castle on 2nd October 1452. His father Richard Duke of York was killed at Sandal in 1460 and his elder brother Edward was killed soon after. This was a time of great danger for the family. Following the Yorkist victory at Towton in 1461, Richard was made Duke of Gloucester by his brother Edward. Richard was eight years old. This part of the Wars of the Roses is shown by one of the skeletons recovered from a burial pit close to the battlefield of Towton.The study of the skeletons shows that the men were mistreated by their captors before they were killed.

Richard entered the household of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick at Middleham castle in North Yorkshire to be brought up as a nobleman. There he met his future wife Anne, the Earl’s daughter, and Middleham became their home when they married in 1472. Richard was steadfastly loyal to his brother Edward and shared his exile when Warwick conspired to replace Edward with the second brother George in 1470 and to bring Henry VI back to power. Richard led one of the battle lines at the battle of Tewkesbury in May 1471. The Lancastrian threat was all but eliminated.

When he was appointed Lord President of the Council of the North in 1472 Richard became the most powerful man in northern England. The council met in a number of places including York. One of the most fascinating exhibits in the exhibition are minutes of York Council meetings known as minute books. They provide valuable information about the relationship with Richard. The volume between 1480 and 1486 shows the city council sent gifts of food and wine to Middleham and provided hospitality. Richard for his part intervened on behalf of the city in disputes and legal cases. As the exhibition points out: ‘it seems unlikely that the relationship was altruistic, or motivated entirely by affection or loyalty to the city’. That the relationship was more one of realpolitik was made clear when Edward and Richard, having returned to the North of England via Ravenser at Spurn Point in East Yorkshire to recover the throne in 1470, were hardly welcomed with open arms by the city. Edward had to ‘blag’ his way in. This should put any claim that Richard deserved to be reburied at York rather than Leicester because of his special relationship with the city into context. As is stated in the exhibition Richard had much to gain from securing the support of the leading men in the city at the centre of his powerbase. The city too derived real benefit in having the support of so powerful a nobleman as Richard, even more so after he became king.

Following the unexpected death of Edward IV, Richard became Protector of the Realm and moved quickly to secure his nephew the son of Edward IV. Richard’s behaviour at this time is hard to fathom. Was he plotting all along to usurp the throne or was he simply responding to actions taken by his in-laws the Woodvilles to secure the person of Prince Edward? Whoever had the prince in their control was in an extremely powerful position. A coronation was planned but then doubt was cast on the princes’ legitimacy when it was claimed that Edward IV had been married previously before he married Elizabeth Woodville.

Richard was crowned king in London on 6th July 1483 and made a royal progress around the kingdom, arriving in York with his entourage on 29th August. Of course, it was at this time that the Princes in the Tower disappeared in mysterious circumstances and the interpretation of this is decisive in any evaluation of Richard’s reign. During the three week stay, on 8th September, Richard and Anne’s son Edward of Middleham was invested as Prince of Wales. Eight hundred badges showing Richard’s heraldic insignia were issued and a further 13,000 were sent to York for distribution during his stay. One of these badges can be seen in the exhibition.

Although no record of the feast eaten at Richard’s arrival in York has survived the exhibition not unreasonably draws upon accounts of Richard’s coronation celebrations as an example. This an opportunity to show an impressive selection from the Yorkshire Museum’s impressive collection of Medieval pottery against a painted backdrop.

On 23rd August following news of the battle of Bosworth, the council wrote to the Earl of Northumberland saying ‘King Richard late mercifully reigning upon us was through great treason of the duc of Norfolk that turned ayainst hyme with many other lordes and nobiles of this north parties, was piteously slain and murdered to the great hevynesse of this city.’ This looks like a genuine expression of grief for the king in circumstances in which such declarations might seem ill-advised but the context of the relationship between Richard as powerful nobleman and the city council makes it clear one shouldn’t read to much into the letter.

In one respect this differs from the earlier exhibition in showing an image, not the 3D facial reconstruction of Richard based on the remains recovered from the car park in Leicester. This may be as close as we can come to seeing Richard’s likeness. As the exhibition points out, coins are of no help in providing a portrait of the king because they were standardised, whilst the painted portraits of Richard that have survived post date his death, and in some cases appear to have been tampered with in order to show his deformity. As Bob Woosnam-Savage said in a Christmas lecture to the section Richard’s scoliosis need not have been visible to people in the street and may only have been known to his tailor.

Richard III: Man and Myth runs from 27th March to 2nd October