Re: getting back to Richard III

A few posts back, Marie wrote, when asked to cite the sources for some
of the information she laid out


"...the sources are generally clear, and most of them are
not online. I have given you Rous, and said whether I am citing the
Historia or the Roll. I have referred the Beauchamp Pageant (the book
on this is by Alexandra Sinclair and I have a copy), to the latest
Ricardian and to parliamentary petitions. The petition to Henry VII
was granted in 1489, and appears on the rolls for that parliament.
That the Countess first introduced it in 1485 we know from a report
made by the Colchester MPs and preserved in The Red Paper Book of
Colchester (ed. W. Gurney, pub. Benham, 1902); Gurney's edition is
very rare, and I believe the Book is also reproduced in Pronay and
Taylor's Parliamentary Texts of the Late Middle Ages. The petition
to Edward IV's parliament from Beaulieu was not enrolled - rejected
bills were not. It is preserved in British Library MS Julius BXII,
but a version with modernised spelling appears in Letters of Royal
and Illustrious Ladies by Mary Anne Everett Green, which is available
online via Googlebooks.
The petitions of the heirs general I refer to are discussed by
Michael Hicks in one of the essays published in his Richard III and
his Rivals – I'm sorry, I don't have the book to hand. But I do have
photocopies of most of the original petitions surviving from the
case, which are in the English National Archives. The wine provided
in Stratford in noted in a document in the Stratford archives, which
call themselves Shakespeare's Birthplace or some such. I haven't
viewed the document since there is a detailed summary in the
catalogue. Go to the National Archives website –
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk – and then click on Search the Archives,
then on A2A, which takes you into the amalgamated catalogue for the
local record offices."


I would like to point out, as I have before, that Marie is incredibly
generous to provide specific citations like this. Much of the
information she possesses has not been gathered by surfing the web,
googling names, or opening books, but by original research on her
part, involving travel time and expenses, the cost of ordering copies
of documents, in some cases the effort of deciphering Medieval
handwriting and translating the Latin, often full of abbreviations and
clerical shorthand, and the imagination to search out paths of inquiry
and evidence that have been neglected or ignored.

Many researchers would keep their information, acquired with such
effort, jealously to themselves until they were ready to present a
paper, publish, or turn in a thesis. Marie is exceptionally willing
to share her sources with anyone who is sincerely interested in the
subject, and I appreciate that. I hope others in this forum do, too.

Katy

<I would like to point out, as I have before, that Marie is incredibly
generous to provide specific citations like this. <snipped, with
apologies>.

Many researchers would keep their information, acquired with such
effort, jealously to themselves until they were ready to present a
paper, publish, or turn in a thesis. Marie is exceptionally willing
to share her sources with anyone who is sincerely interested in the
subject, and I appreciate that. I hope others in this forum do, too..>

Hi folks

It's a long time, perhaps too long, since I posted anything on any of
the R3 forums, what with one thing and another, and mostly I've been
skimming through the posts and just being grateful that others have
taken time to discuss and debate Richard's life and times in detail
and with passion.

The recent posts between Carol and Marie, with interjections from
Katy, have attracted my attention mainly because there has been
something different about this particular discussion/debate.

There seems to be almost a bad-tempered element to some of the more
recent responses, which perhaps is borne out of frustration on both
sides. I sort of understand this since my husband George and I always
spectactularly fall out most when we *very nearly* agree on something,
much more than we ever do when our views are miles apart!;-)

Carol: <If you can actually quote from your sources (at least those
that are online) and provide a link where one is available, I would
appreciate it.>

When I was a regular poster to Lists like this one I used to provide
very specific source references, page numbers and particular editions
included. Indeed, I was so thorough about this that on one particular
List it was claimed that some members found this intimidating and, to
be honest, when I read back through some of my old draft List
messages, the interminable absolute recording of such details often
overshadowed the gist of what I was actually trying to put across. I
would have said sources aplenty have been been mentioned, regarding
this recent discussion, so the repeated request for sources has
surprised me somewhat,

Also, the trouble is, Carol, as Marie pointed out, online accounts
about R3, with which to support one's statements and assertions, are
still pretty thin on the ground.

And, arguably ought to remain so because, to my mind, nothing beats
physically diving into the sources!

Any Ricardian knows one has to use and interpret a huge amount of
primary and secondary sources, both independent and completely biased,
contemporaneous and donkeys years after the event,
wherever we can access them, if one is to seriously research Richard's
life and times thoroughly.

Personally, I'm grateful to both R3's supporters AND the detractors
that went before. The hostile accounts re: Richard have always
interested me a lot more than the glowing accounts! Like Marie I've
spent nigh on 40 years researching R3 and - like many, many others on
this Forum - have spent oodles of money and time on travel and books
and papers and photos and study etc. I want my Richard to be complex
and infuriating, not a plaster saint. I couldn't care less if he has
Scorpio rising or Capricorn falling myself!

FWIW Marie's comment: 'I'm not your tutor' chimes with me.
Why should she be? Any more than Pollard should be, or Rous should be,
or Croyland/Crowland (A Brit myself, I'll stick w.saying 'Croyland'
because that's how most people on the Internet refer to the darn
thing!). That's not a condescending remark, merely a statement of fact.

I'll rabbit on about Richard to anyone who is daft enough to stand
next to me for long enough and I am happy to share what I know with
anybody, whilst at the same time wanting my research into Richard to
be mine. What I'm saying here is that I get an enormous amount of
satisfaction by doing the actual digging into Richard myself. So, I
read, digest, learn from, reassess, agree or argue with my source
material. I want to live with what I discover for a while, relate to
it, roll it around in my mind and make my peace with it before I take
it out and parade it in public.

I know it's tough on R3 supporters in Europe and the US, who can't get
on a bus and fetch up at York to see the City Archives on demand, or
whatever. I'm geographically-challenged myself at times, and have had
to be creative. I'm miles away from the southern-housed Ricardian
records, and yet, in recent times, on a very limited budget, have been
granted access to many 15thC and specifically R3-related records and
artefacts, both well-known and obscure, from various archives, simply
by phoning, emailing or booling up in person, wanting to know. Where
there's a will, y'know. [Actually some of the knock-backs I've had
are worth an article in themselves... ;-0 ].

Incidentally, regarding R3's sister Ursula's birth month which has
been debated in recent posts: I've got a feeling that Markham lists
these dates. (Rummages in card files...). Yep! I've got listed:
'Ursula. Born Fotheringhay 20 July 1445. Died in infancy. Source
ref.: Markham Richard III, p.6 from W Wyrecester Annales 460-77)'.
Betcha neither work is on the Net!

And I note Warkworth (was it?) got a mention re Richard and H6 in the
Tower. I'm not going to dig out the sources just now, but I do recall
that other accounts - the Close Rolls or something like them - gives
Richard an alibi anyhow for the timeframe when he was supposed to have
murdered H6. Bed and board expenses for specific dates at the Tower
exist for the old King plus several of his attendents. The dates
noted in the official record are interesting because it suggests H6
was probably still alive several days after the Duke had left the
Tower on some military mission [in Sandwich, IIRC] which is also
recorded somewhere.

Of course the record trail laid could be false...! ;-(

Finally, the Tony Pollard of recent times is a different academic
beastie to the one from the mid-80s, Carol. Like Richard's one-time
keen supporter Walpole, TP now knows more than he did and in the light
of it has reassessed some of his earlier work (c/f Tony's intro in his
collection of essays published a couple of years back). He retired in
2006 I think, but was teaching at Teesside University where I was
enrolled on a multimedia course at a different faculty there.
Previously our paths [and swords!] had crossed professionally many
times, from when he was a callow research fellow and I was a stroppy
Durham University admin personage in the mid-1970s.

However, I confess that I was quite touched that one of our last
encounters was just before he retired when he was interested to know
if computer technology was available that could render a 3D
representation of R3 from a 2D portrait (I'm guessing he was thinking
of the NPG painting). [I'm told it is, but that it would be
prohibitively expensive to do, BTW!].

Regards, Lorraine

(Who has probably gone on for long enough without adding more once
she's signed off!)