Good King Richard

Richard III

this picture of King Richard III is quite well known I think, though it was not painted in his lifetime. It seems to be a copy of one that was, but is now lost. He's one of the better known kings of England, largely because of Shakespeare's play and the numerous subsequent film adaptations, especially perhaps Laurence Olivier in the part, with his hunchback and tights. The title of this post makes my view of Richard clear - he has been maligned throughout history, and the record should be set straight - but the story is not a simple one. Shakespeare was hired to trash his reputation, because the grandfather of Elizabeth I, queen in Shakespeare's time, was the usurper of the throne victor in the last battle of the Wars of the Roses, at Bosworth Field on 22nd August 1485. Shakespeare wrote about other kings, but it's only really Richard, and to some extent Henry V, who are remembered because of him. Shakespeare had to trash Richard's reputation, because even then, a century later, there were still people who knew, or suspected, that Richard was not the villain his Tudor successors had called him.

I came to Richard through the Shakespeare play, in my schooldays. The cartoon villain that play makes him uses such glorious language that I started wondering why he needed to be trashed. He was king for only two years, after all. He was defeated in battle. Why was he not forgotten? So I got to reading other things about him, and a teacher pointed me at Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time", most editions of which use this picture on the cover. I discovered that he was the last king of England to be English. The last king of England to die in battle. And the first one to have the laws of England written in English so that the people could understand them.

Nobody knew then that the remains of Richard, the only king of England not to have a marked grave, would be found underneath a car park in Leicester. But they were, in 2012. Something that was so unlikely that it's still hard to believe now, but it happened. I went to Leicester last month to see the visitor centre they have created, and to see the grave site in the former car park. It was rather affecting, like going to a funeral can be. But I was impressed. Richard is to be reinterred in Leicester Cathedral next March. I shall be there to pay my respects to his coffin, which will lie in the cathedral for three days before the burial. They are building him a tomb there now, and I hope it is fit for Good King Richard, which is how the north of England knew him.

Who killed the Princes in theTower? Nobody knows. Possibly no one did.

Did Richard have a hunchback and a withered arm? No, the bones establish that. He had scoliosis, which would have made one shoulder higher than the other, but the clothes of those days, and especially armour, would have disguised that very effectively.

The visitor centre in Leicester has a terrific display of pictures of actors who have played Richard. I never saw Kevin Spacey or Antony Sher play him, and wish I had. I saw the film with Ian McKellen, which is my personal favourite, and is quite terrifying. The display includes a picture of John Lydon in his Johnny Rotten days, and says that Lydon modelled his physical stage persona on Richard as played by Olivier. Really?

Things not many people know. When Richard was killed on Bosworth Field, his crown was found under a bush. I remember that from school history. But the crown was placed on Henry Tudor's head, then and there, by Stanley, who was supposed to be Richard's ally and had betrayed him. When Henry was king he got an Act passed declaring his kingship to have begun the day before Bosworth, which made Richard guilty of treason. So Henry Tudor's reign started with a lie.

Rest in peace King Richard.

After the bones were found, a camping equipment shop in Leicester put a sign in its window for its January sale: "Now is the winter of our discount tents". Oh, please yourselves.