LIC Blog

None dare call it treason!

On 22nd August 1485 the Battle of Bosworth took place. The location and actions of the participants in that combat are, to this day, a matter of conjecture and speculation.

But some things are clear and beyond question.

King Richard III arrived at Bosworth with three battles or battalions. The vanguard was commanded by the ever loyal John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, accompanied by his son Thomas. The rearguard was under the banner of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, whilst the King and his household knights directed the centre.

Footsteps to War: Part 6 - A fool and his money

Henry the Third was totally unfit to be king of England. In this he was neither the first nor sadly would he be the last. He possessed no martial skills. His futile foray into North Wales in 1257 showed that he lacked any military acumen. His devotion to his half-brothers, the Lusignons, in the teeth of their manifest evil character and deeds, succeeded in alienating the best of his nobles and people.

That he was blind to the corrosive effect they were having on his eldest son, Edward, who adored his uncles, proved disastrous for many of his subjects.

Recommendation: "The Iron King" by Maurice Druon

In 1972 French television produced a series entitled, "Les Rois Maudits", which was screened on BBC 2 with English subtitles. The British dumped the drama into the graveyard slot - after 11pm on a Saturday. As one habituated to late rising I decided to take a peek at the first episode and was hooked.

Some years later my French friend told me that it had been based on a set of seven books written by Maurice Druon, but she did not know if they had ever been translated into English.

And there the matter rested.

Footsteps to War: Part 5 - Blood is thicker than water

The Feast of Edward the Confessor fell on 13th October. As a devotee to the cult of the Saint, Henry III always celebrated his feast day. However, if proof were needed that the godly Saxon King had no power over the affairs of this world, his festive day in the year 1247 showed it. For surely the late King would have protected his realm from a dangerous invasion, if he was able?

On this day ... Tewkesbury

The news reached London only two days after the battle of Barnet. Two short days! Why my Lord of Warwick would scarce have been cold before those ships put in at Weymouth. What must his wife and daughter have felt when they heard? But it was the other cargo that put fear into the hearts of Londoners, for the former Queen, Margaret of Anjou was back. And this time she'd brought her son, Prince Edouard, with her to reclaim the throne of England.

On this day ... The Battle of Barnet

Easter Sunday fell on 14th April in 1471. That day was to see the utter ruin of one of the great families of England.

Barnet was a small town 10 miles north of London.

North of the town itself, the Earl of Warwick, Richard Neville, had assembled an army of around 20,000 men in a line stretching from west on the St. Alban's Road to the east. That side was protected by a steep slope dropping to Dead Man's Bottom. Warwick waited on Saturday for the arrival of his opponent, Edward IV, King of England.

Fit to Broadcast?

The BBC have recently broadcast the first of three episodes of a series entitled "Fit to Rule". This purports to consider whether British Monarchs, from Henry Tudor onwards, were capable of exercising the functions of the Crown.

Footsteps to War: Part 4 - Enter the Dragon

Gruffydd ap Llywelyn died in 1244 leaving 3 sons - Owain, Llywelyn and Dafydd.

On the death of their uncle Dafydd, Owain and Llywelyn were persuaded to divide the land of Gwynedd between them. These two continued the war with Henry III throughout 1246, but were outflanked by an English army which pushed from the South of Wales sweeping all before it until it reached Degannway.

Following a truce made at Chester, Owain and Llywelyn met Henry at Woodstock on 30th April 1247.

On this day ... The Battle of Towton

Palm Sunday fell on the 29th March in 1461. On that day the bloodiest ever conflict took place between Englishmen on their native soil. After a brutal skirmish at Ferrybridge Edward IV brought his army to the southern edge of a platform south of Tadcaster. Only a few hundred yards away the Lancastrian army of Henry VI had formed its battle line stretching from the Cock Beck in the west to straddle the approach to the village of Towton at their rear.

More violence and cruelty

As Thomas More's political power increased, he began to show a side of his character which had been hidden under his supposed wit and penchant for teasing.

On 14th May 1529 he summoned the influential London merchant, Humphrey Monmouth, to appear before him. Privy Councillor More interrogated Monmouth thoroughly. What books and letters had he received from Europe? What support did he give to William Tyndale, who had translated the Greek New Testament into English? What books did he own? Monmouth gave More clear answers to these questions, but the heretic-hunter had Monmouth's London home searched from top to bottom, just in case. No compromising material was found, but that did not prevent More, th lawyer, from imprisoning Monmouth in the Tower of London.

To Prove a Villain

"See, I told you that Shakespeare was right!"

Over the last month this jibe had echoed down the internet from the ignorant and misinformed in a variety of ways.

But the message is unmistakeable.

The skeleton found in Leicester has a severe curvature of the spine - crippling in its severity and this is precisely the kind of deformity envisaged in the play of "Richard III".

Science can "prove" anything

In 1974 as a post-graduate student in Theoretical Physics I attended a course of lectures in Cambridge onThe Structure and Evolution of Stars. The lecturer, Dr. Gough, good humouredly spent about 8 one hour sessions constructing a mathematical model to show how he believed stars had evolved over vast amounts of time. Such a structure was full of guesses, approximations and some tough mathematics, as are all complex theories.

An intolerable little priest

John Rous was born around 1411 near Warwick. Having been education at Oxford he only left it in 1445 to enter the employ of the Beauchamp family. He became one of the two priests retained as Chaplain of St. Mary Magdalene at Guy's Cliff 2 miles from Warwick. Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick founded it for masses to be sung for himself, his wife, parents and friends. When Richard Neville succeeded to the earldom in 1449 by right of his wife Anne, Rous simply exchanged one patron for another. He remained totally loyal to the earls of Warwick and their descendents even after Richard Neville fell at Barnet in 1471.

A Lack of Back-bone

At the start of Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones has surmounted spiders, poisoned darts, murder and treachery. Having finally reached the safety of his friend's sea-plane the audience is allowed a welcome slice of comedy, as our hero, freaks out, when he discovers the pilot's pet snake coiled next to him. His friend acidly remarks, "Come on, show a little back-bone, Indy!"

Footsteps to War: Part 3 - The Welsh Connection

Wales and England were countries governed by different laws and customs. The latter had been unified under the merciless hands of first Norman and then Angevin kings. Wales was governed by many lords and its people lived in villages rather than towns.

In 1240 Llywelyn the Great died. He had brought a greater degree of unity and cohesion to the land than any previous lord. Llywelyn had married Joanna, illegitimate daughter of King John. They had two sons Gruffydd and Dafydd. According to Welsh law each should have shared in their late father's estate, but Llywelyn ensured that the lion's share passed to Dafydd. To make doubly sure Dafydd imprisoned his elder brother in Cricieth.

The Judgment of Richard III

We lose sight of our purpose in pursuing the life and character of Richard III, when we make such a fuss about whether his bones have, or have not, been found. The Lord God Almighty knows where the remains of his child are laid and will raise him to glory at the last day.

What matters is the truth. Digging out bones does not tell us whether he was a malicious deceiver, who engineered the death of his brother, Clarence, stabbed Henry VI to death with his own hand, murdered his nephews, stole the crown, poisoned his wife, lusted after his niece and died manfully fighting those, who had betrayed him.

These, and these alone, make the man. And these elements are outside the competence of pseudo-scientific methodology. These matters cannot be decided with mattocks and DNA.

A Shadow of a Doubt

The history of mathematics is riddled with good practitioners, who were convinced that they had proved a theorem, only to find a fatal error buried in their algebra.

So, when the University of Leicester announces that the skeleton on display is "beyond reasonable doubt" that of King Richard III, this mathematician reaches for a bottle of caution.

Proof is a tricky business.

Unanswered Questions

Following the evidence presented in Leicester this morning:

1. Richard III did not have a withered arm and a hunchback. Paintings of him were known to have had been amended to show these and historians have been more than willing to accept both features as true. Now that the withered arm has been showed to be a lie, and the hunchback a false conjecture at best, will the historians responsible be regarded as suspect from now on?

More4 has just broadcast their programme "Richard III: Fact or Fiction?"

As usual this presented the establishment version of events through the mouth of Tony Robinson, who explicitly stated that Richard murdered his nephews. He said this in the same breath that he admitted that the meagre evidence against the King was only circumstantial.

The programme illustrated that objectivity is a complete myth. The historians Dockray and Pollard - both of whom in close up are far more scary than Richard III - were the spokesmen of the enlightenment, presiding god-like over the "wicked" King. Clearly their view must be right, since gods do not err.

When we produced our DVD on Sandal Castle, several reviewers were shocked by my lack of "objectivity" in uttering a precise and passionate condemnation of Henry Tudor, the upstart Welsh traitor.

Let us be clear.

There is no such thing as objectivity.

All men and women are inextricably biased.

Our loyalties bind us as surely as they did Richard.

Footsteps to War: Part 2 - Marriage and Money

2. Marriage and Money

Young Edward's household expanded as he grew. The initial grants from the exchequer had to be replaced with more permanent sources of income. In 1244, at the age of 5, his father gave him the Honour of Tickhill in Yorkshire, confiscated from the Countess of Eu. The income from this estate was augmented by the revenues of the vacant bishopric of Chichester.

Lost in Castles