The Kingmaker's Daughter

I just finished Phillipa Gregory's The Kingmaker's Daughter. Has anyone read it? I am not sure how accurate the portion about Anne Neville's mother is! The book says that Richard imprisoned the countess and declared her dead in court of law! And made provision's to keep Anne's lands in case their marriage is put aside because of lack of the papal dispension........ Is any of it true?

I read the book and really didn't like it for all sorts of reasons. As to
the countess of Warwick:
1. No, she wasn't locked away in a tower. Whether she had apartments at
Middleham or her own establishment isn't clear, but she did have an
allowance (not particularly generous);
2. The countess of Warwick was declared dead in court. She wasn't charged
with treason, neither she nor her late husband were attainted after Barnet.
She took sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey when she heard her husband was dead.
She was kept their against her will and fought hard to be released and
regain control of her property and her late husband's. She was declared dead
so that her daughters could 'inherit' not only their father's property and
title, but their mother's.
3. This shows that PG either misread the relevant parliamentary roll or was
misadvised by a researcher. The clause that gives Gloucester control of his
wife's estates &c was there to protect his and Anne's interests. Clarence
was trying to have the marriage declared illegal, in which case he and
Isobel had the chance to get control of Anne's share of her 'inheritance'.
The clause, stating that if the marriage ended Gloucester would have
control, referred to a life interest only, and there were two other
conditions: that he didn't marry anyone else; and that he worked to ensure a
legal marriage between him and Anne.
The thing that annoyed me most about that book was the constant reference
(by his daughter, no less!) to Warwick as 'the kingmaker'. He was never
known as that during his lifetime. There's another writer of historical
fiction who does the same thing, in fact goes one better, as she calls
Warwick 'kingmaker' pre-1461, when he hadn't made even a single king.

Karen

From: bandyoi <bandyoi@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 22:10:23 -0000
To: <>
Subject: The Kingmaker's Daughter






I just finished Phillipa Gregory's The Kingmaker's Daughter. Has anyone read
it? I am not sure how accurate the portion about Anne Neville's mother is!
The book says that Richard imprisoned the countess and declared her dead in
court of law! And made provision's to keep Anne's lands in case their
marriage is put aside because of lack of the papal dispension........ Is any
of it true?

PG also supported the idea that RIII and Bess were lovers..... Since Marie from this forum sent me the article that refutes this idea, I found this assertion quite unpalatable! PG must have known about negotiations of Bess's marraige to Manuel of Potugal. These popular fictions does perpetuate Riii's bad reputation to a certain degree..... I wish her researchers advised her better!!
I am little disappointed with Glouchester that he actually went along in declaring the Countess dead!

--- In , Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@...> wrote:
>
> I read the book and really didn't like it for all sorts of reasons. As to
> the countess of Warwick:
> 1. No, she wasn't locked away in a tower. Whether she had apartments at
> Middleham or her own establishment isn't clear, but she did have an
> allowance (not particularly generous);
> 2. The countess of Warwick was declared dead in court. She wasn't charged
> with treason, neither she nor her late husband were attainted after Barnet.
> She took sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey when she heard her husband was dead.
> She was kept their against her will and fought hard to be released and
> regain control of her property and her late husband's. She was declared dead
> so that her daughters could 'inherit' not only their father's property and
> title, but their mother's.
> 3. This shows that PG either misread the relevant parliamentary roll or was
> misadvised by a researcher. The clause that gives Gloucester control of his
> wife's estates &c was there to protect his and Anne's interests. Clarence
> was trying to have the marriage declared illegal, in which case he and
> Isobel had the chance to get control of Anne's share of her 'inheritance'.
> The clause, stating that if the marriage ended Gloucester would have
> control, referred to a life interest only, and there were two other
> conditions: that he didn't marry anyone else; and that he worked to ensure a
> legal marriage between him and Anne.
> The thing that annoyed me most about that book was the constant reference
> (by his daughter, no less!) to Warwick as 'the kingmaker'. He was never
> known as that during his lifetime. There's another writer of historical
> fiction who does the same thing, in fact goes one better, as she calls
> Warwick 'kingmaker' pre-1461, when he hadn't made even a single king.
>
> Karen
>
> From: bandyoi <bandyoi@...>
> Reply-To: <>
> Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 22:10:23 -0000
> To: <>
> Subject: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I just finished Phillipa Gregory's The Kingmaker's Daughter. Has anyone read
> it? I am not sure how accurate the portion about Anne Neville's mother is!
> The book says that Richard imprisoned the countess and declared her dead in
> court of law! And made provision's to keep Anne's lands in case their
> marriage is put aside because of lack of the papal dispension........ Is any
> of it true?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Don't be disappointed! When my interest in the Wars of the Roses and Richard
began decades ago, I was of the 'he could do not wrong!' school of thinking,
and I went along with all the excuses, justifications that go along with
that. I've adjusted that over the years and now I find complex, flawed,
imperfect, unsaintly, man-of-his-times Richard much more interesting. I
don't have to tie myself in knots anymore trying to find a way to get him
off the hook all the time. If he did something that wasn't entirely
altruistic or noble, then he did it and there's no way that can be changed.
And I really do like the real man I'm finding much more than the one I first
met.

Karen

From: bandyoi <bandyoi@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:49:49 -0000
To: <>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter






PG also supported the idea that RIII and Bess were lovers..... Since Marie
from this forum sent me the article that refutes this idea, I found this
assertion quite unpalatable! PG must have known about negotiations of Bess's
marraige to Manuel of Potugal. These popular fictions does perpetuate Riii's
bad reputation to a certain degree..... I wish her researchers advised her
better!!
I am little disappointed with Glouchester that he actually went along in
declaring the Countess dead!

--- In
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Karen Clark
<Ragged_staff@...> wrote:
>
> I read the book and really didn't like it for all sorts of reasons. As to
> the countess of Warwick:
> 1. No, she wasn't locked away in a tower. Whether she had apartments at
> Middleham or her own establishment isn't clear, but she did have an
> allowance (not particularly generous);
> 2. The countess of Warwick was declared dead in court. She wasn't charged
> with treason, neither she nor her late husband were attainted after Barnet.
> She took sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey when she heard her husband was dead.
> She was kept their against her will and fought hard to be released and
> regain control of her property and her late husband's. She was declared dead
> so that her daughters could 'inherit' not only their father's property and
> title, but their mother's.
> 3. This shows that PG either misread the relevant parliamentary roll or was
> misadvised by a researcher. The clause that gives Gloucester control of his
> wife's estates &c was there to protect his and Anne's interests. Clarence
> was trying to have the marriage declared illegal, in which case he and
> Isobel had the chance to get control of Anne's share of her 'inheritance'.
> The clause, stating that if the marriage ended Gloucester would have
> control, referred to a life interest only, and there were two other
> conditions: that he didn't marry anyone else; and that he worked to ensure a
> legal marriage between him and Anne.
> The thing that annoyed me most about that book was the constant reference
> (by his daughter, no less!) to Warwick as 'the kingmaker'. He was never
> known as that during his lifetime. There's another writer of historical
> fiction who does the same thing, in fact goes one better, as she calls
> Warwick 'kingmaker' pre-1461, when he hadn't made even a single king.
>
> Karen
>
> From: bandyoi <bandyoi@...>
> Reply-To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 22:10:23 -0000
> To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Subject: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I just finished Phillipa Gregory's The Kingmaker's Daughter. Has anyone read
> it? I am not sure how accurate the portion about Anne Neville's mother is!
> The book says that Richard imprisoned the countess and declared her dead in
> court of law! And made provision's to keep Anne's lands in case their
> marriage is put aside because of lack of the papal dispension........ Is any
> of it true?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Haha!
I have been trying to do just that! Trying to exonerate him of anything unpleasant!




--- In , Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@...> wrote:
>
> Don't be disappointed! When my interest in the Wars of the Roses and Richard
> began decades ago, I was of the 'he could do not wrong!' school of thinking,
> and I went along with all the excuses, justifications that go along with
> that. I've adjusted that over the years and now I find complex, flawed,
> imperfect, unsaintly, man-of-his-times Richard much more interesting. I
> don't have to tie myself in knots anymore trying to find a way to get him
> off the hook all the time. If he did something that wasn't entirely
> altruistic or noble, then he did it and there's no way that can be changed.
> And I really do like the real man I'm finding much more than the one I first
> met.
>
> Karen
>
> From: bandyoi <bandyoi@...>
> Reply-To: <>
> Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:49:49 -0000
> To: <>
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
>
> PG also supported the idea that RIII and Bess were lovers..... Since Marie
> from this forum sent me the article that refutes this idea, I found this
> assertion quite unpalatable! PG must have known about negotiations of Bess's
> marraige to Manuel of Potugal. These popular fictions does perpetuate Riii's
> bad reputation to a certain degree..... I wish her researchers advised her
> better!!
> I am little disappointed with Glouchester that he actually went along in
> declaring the Countess dead!
>
> --- In
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Karen Clark
> <Ragged_staff@> wrote:
> >
> > I read the book and really didn't like it for all sorts of reasons. As to
> > the countess of Warwick:
> > 1. No, she wasn't locked away in a tower. Whether she had apartments at
> > Middleham or her own establishment isn't clear, but she did have an
> > allowance (not particularly generous);
> > 2. The countess of Warwick was declared dead in court. She wasn't charged
> > with treason, neither she nor her late husband were attainted after Barnet.
> > She took sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey when she heard her husband was dead.
> > She was kept their against her will and fought hard to be released and
> > regain control of her property and her late husband's. She was declared dead
> > so that her daughters could 'inherit' not only their father's property and
> > title, but their mother's.
> > 3. This shows that PG either misread the relevant parliamentary roll or was
> > misadvised by a researcher. The clause that gives Gloucester control of his
> > wife's estates &c was there to protect his and Anne's interests. Clarence
> > was trying to have the marriage declared illegal, in which case he and
> > Isobel had the chance to get control of Anne's share of her 'inheritance'.
> > The clause, stating that if the marriage ended Gloucester would have
> > control, referred to a life interest only, and there were two other
> > conditions: that he didn't marry anyone else; and that he worked to ensure a
> > legal marriage between him and Anne.
> > The thing that annoyed me most about that book was the constant reference
> > (by his daughter, no less!) to Warwick as 'the kingmaker'. He was never
> > known as that during his lifetime. There's another writer of historical
> > fiction who does the same thing, in fact goes one better, as she calls
> > Warwick 'kingmaker' pre-1461, when he hadn't made even a single king.
> >
> > Karen
> >
> > From: bandyoi <bandyoi@>
> > Reply-To: <
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> > Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 22:10:23 -0000
> > To: <
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> > Subject: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I just finished Phillipa Gregory's The Kingmaker's Daughter. Has anyone read
> > it? I am not sure how accurate the portion about Anne Neville's mother is!
> > The book says that Richard imprisoned the countess and declared her dead in
> > court of law! And made provision's to keep Anne's lands in case their
> > marriage is put aside because of lack of the papal dispension........ Is any
> > of it true?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

I think a mistake too many of us make is to see him exclusively through 21st century glasses.  While this might be justified for the Richard in Joan Szechtman's books (which I like very much), we should here try to see him as he would have been seen 500 odd tears ago.  David Baldwin points out in his biography of Richard that a nobleman like him at that time was expected to augment his and his family's wealth.  If he had not, he would have been seen as someone who lets his family down.  While I have some reservations about the book, I think here he makes very much sense.

Dorothea




________________________________
From: Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@...>
To:
Sent: Tuesday, 23 October 2012 11:05 AM
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter


 
Don't be disappointed! When my interest in the Wars of the Roses and Richard
began decades ago, I was of the 'he could do not wrong!' school of thinking,
and I went along with all the excuses, justifications that go along with
that. I've adjusted that over the years and now I find complex, flawed,
imperfect, unsaintly, man-of-his-times Richard much more interesting. I
don't have to tie myself in knots anymore trying to find a way to get him
off the hook all the time. If he did something that wasn't entirely
altruistic or noble, then he did it and there's no way that can be changed.
And I really do like the real man I'm finding much more than the one I first
met.

Karen

From: bandyoi <bandyoi@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:49:49 -0000
To: <>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter

PG also supported the idea that RIII and Bess were lovers..... Since Marie
from this forum sent me the article that refutes this idea, I found this
assertion quite unpalatable! PG must have known about negotiations of Bess's
marraige to Manuel of Potugal. These popular fictions does perpetuate Riii's
bad reputation to a certain degree..... I wish her researchers advised her
better!!
I am little disappointed with Glouchester that he actually went along in
declaring the Countess dead!

--- In
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Karen Clark
<Ragged_staff@...> wrote:
>
> I read the book and really didn't like it for all sorts of reasons. As to
> the countess of Warwick:
> 1. No, she wasn't locked away in a tower. Whether she had apartments at
> Middleham or her own establishment isn't clear, but she did have an
> allowance (not particularly generous);
> 2. The countess of Warwick was declared dead in court. She wasn't charged
> with treason, neither she nor her late husband were attainted after Barnet.
> She took sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey when she heard her husband was dead.
> She was kept their against her will and fought hard to be released and
> regain control of her property and her late husband's. She was declared dead
> so that her daughters could 'inherit' not only their father's property and
> title, but their mother's.
> 3. This shows that PG either misread the relevant parliamentary roll or was
> misadvised by a researcher. The clause that gives Gloucester control of his
> wife's estates &c was there to protect his and Anne's interests. Clarence
> was trying to have the marriage declared illegal, in which case he and
> Isobel had the chance to get control of Anne's share of her 'inheritance'.
> The clause, stating that if the marriage ended Gloucester would have
> control, referred to a life interest only, and there were two other
> conditions: that he didn't marry anyone else; and that he worked to ensure a
> legal marriage between him and Anne.
> The thing that annoyed me most about that book was the constant reference
> (by his daughter, no less!) to Warwick as 'the kingmaker'. He was never
> known as that during his lifetime. There's another writer of historical
> fiction who does the same thing, in fact goes one better, as she calls
> Warwick 'kingmaker' pre-1461, when he hadn't made even a single king.
>
> Karen
>
> From: bandyoi <bandyoi@...>
> Reply-To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 22:10:23 -0000
> To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Subject: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I just finished Phillipa Gregory's The Kingmaker's Daughter. Has anyone read
> it? I am not sure how accurate the portion about Anne Neville's mother is!
> The book says that Richard imprisoned the countess and declared her dead in
> court of law! And made provision's to keep Anne's lands in case their
> marriage is put aside because of lack of the papal dispension........ Is any
> of it true?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Dorothea, I get the feeling Baldwin's book must be fairly balanced, though I
haven't read it yet. Anyone who can annoy as many people on both sides, as
he seems to have, must be doing something right! Having said that, I have
some reservations about Baldwin after his book on Warwick's sisters. It
wasn't bad, but there were some errors that just shouldn't have been made.

Karen

From: Dorothea Preis <dorotheapreis@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:28:43 -0700 (PDT)
To: ""
<>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter






I think a mistake too many of us make is to see him exclusively through 21st
century glasses. While this might be justified for the Richard in Joan
Szechtman's books (which I like very much), we should here try to see him as
he would have been seen 500 odd tears ago. David Baldwin points out in his
biography of Richard that a nobleman like him at that time was expected to
augment his and his family's wealth. If he had not, he would have been seen
as someone who lets his family down. While I have some reservations about
the book, I think here he makes very much sense.

Dorothea

My main problem with the Baldwin book was that there was nothing much new, it would probably be better suited to someone who hasn't got much knowledge about the period.  Some of it was a bit "flowery", like when he tells us what Richard thought and felt when he was looking out over London as a little boy, but on the whole it wasn't terrible either. 


Dorothea




________________________________
From: Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@...>
To:
Sent: Tuesday, 23 October 2012 12:52 PM
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter


 
Dorothea, I get the feeling Baldwin's book must be fairly balanced, though I
haven't read it yet. Anyone who can annoy as many people on both sides, as
he seems to have, must be doing something right! Having said that, I have
some reservations about Baldwin after his book on Warwick's sisters. It
wasn't bad, but there were some errors that just shouldn't have been made.

Karen

From: Dorothea Preis <dorotheapreis@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:28:43 -0700 (PDT)
To: ""
<>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter

I think a mistake too many of us make is to see him exclusively through 21st
century glasses. While this might be justified for the Richard in Joan
Szechtman's books (which I like very much), we should here try to see him as
he would have been seen 500 odd tears ago. David Baldwin points out in his
biography of Richard that a nobleman like him at that time was expected to
augment his and his family's wealth. If he had not, he would have been seen
as someone who lets his family down. While I have some reservations about
the book, I think here he makes very much sense.

Dorothea

Hi, All 

Richard took Anne's mother under his protection, didn't he? She was living at Middleham? He got her released from . . . wherever she had been, in a nunnery or whatever. (You can see I don't know much about this.) It's possible that she was not able to effectively manage her assets. Today, someone like Richard might well be appointed Power of Attorney, so that he could handle her affairs as effectively as she could do herself. I doubt very much that there was such a thing as Power of Attorney in those days. So, it is very possible that the declaration of death was the only way that her assets could be managed. It's possible that it would have been for the family's benefit, if not for her benefit in particular. If she got a not-particular-generous allowance, it's also possible that she didn't need much of an allowance if she was living at Middleham and Richard was paying the expenses of the household.



Just a thought,



Johanne



From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Dorothea Preis
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 10:29 PM
To:
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter





I think a mistake too many of us make is to see him exclusively through 21st century glasses. While this might be justified for the Richard in Joan Szechtman's books (which I like very much), we should here try to see him as he would have been seen 500 odd tears ago. David Baldwin points out in his biography of Richard that a nobleman like him at that time was expected to augment his and his family's wealth. If he had not, he would have been seen as someone who lets his family down. While I have some reservations about the book, I think here he makes very much sense.

Dorothea

________________________________
From: Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@... <mailto:Ragged_staff%40bigpond.com> >
To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 23 October 2012 11:05 AM
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter



Don't be disappointed! When my interest in the Wars of the Roses and Richard
began decades ago, I was of the 'he could do not wrong!' school of thinking,
and I went along with all the excuses, justifications that go along with
that. I've adjusted that over the years and now I find complex, flawed,
imperfect, unsaintly, man-of-his-times Richard much more interesting. I
don't have to tie myself in knots anymore trying to find a way to get him
off the hook all the time. If he did something that wasn't entirely
altruistic or noble, then he did it and there's no way that can be changed.
And I really do like the real man I'm finding much more than the one I first
met.

Karen

From: bandyoi <bandyoi@... <mailto:bandyoi%40yahoo.com> >
Reply-To: < <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:49:49 -0000
To: < <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter

PG also supported the idea that RIII and Bess were lovers..... Since Marie
from this forum sent me the article that refutes this idea, I found this
assertion quite unpalatable! PG must have known about negotiations of Bess's
marraige to Manuel of Potugal. These popular fictions does perpetuate Riii's
bad reputation to a certain degree..... I wish her researchers advised her
better!!
I am little disappointed with Glouchester that he actually went along in
declaring the Countess dead!

--- In <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Karen Clark
<Ragged_staff@...> wrote:
>
> I read the book and really didn't like it for all sorts of reasons. As to
> the countess of Warwick:
> 1. No, she wasn't locked away in a tower. Whether she had apartments at
> Middleham or her own establishment isn't clear, but she did have an
> allowance (not particularly generous);
> 2. The countess of Warwick was declared dead in court. She wasn't charged
> with treason, neither she nor her late husband were attainted after Barnet.
> She took sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey when she heard her husband was dead.
> She was kept their against her will and fought hard to be released and
> regain control of her property and her late husband's. She was declared dead
> so that her daughters could 'inherit' not only their father's property and
> title, but their mother's.
> 3. This shows that PG either misread the relevant parliamentary roll or was
> misadvised by a researcher. The clause that gives Gloucester control of his
> wife's estates &c was there to protect his and Anne's interests. Clarence
> was trying to have the marriage declared illegal, in which case he and
> Isobel had the chance to get control of Anne's share of her 'inheritance'.
> The clause, stating that if the marriage ended Gloucester would have
> control, referred to a life interest only, and there were two other
> conditions: that he didn't marry anyone else; and that he worked to ensure a
> legal marriage between him and Anne.
> The thing that annoyed me most about that book was the constant reference
> (by his daughter, no less!) to Warwick as 'the kingmaker'. He was never
> known as that during his lifetime. There's another writer of historical
> fiction who does the same thing, in fact goes one better, as she calls
> Warwick 'kingmaker' pre-1461, when he hadn't made even a single king.
>
> Karen
>
> From: bandyoi <bandyoi@...>
> Reply-To: < <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 22:10:23 -0000
> To: < <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Subject: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I just finished Phillipa Gregory's The Kingmaker's Daughter. Has anyone read
> it? I am not sure how accurate the portion about Anne Neville's mother is!
> The book says that Richard imprisoned the countess and declared her dead in
> court of law! And made provision's to keep Anne's lands in case their
> marriage is put aside because of lack of the papal dispension........ Is any
> of it true?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Johanne

I have come across no suggestion that Anne Beauchamp was incapable of
handling her affairs. I urge you to read the letter she wrote to the Commons
from sanctuary.

Karen

From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:07:19 -0300
To: <>
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter






Hi, All ­

Richard took Anne¹s mother under his protection, didn¹t he? She was living
at Middleham? He got her released from . . . wherever she had been, in a
nunnery or whatever. (You can see I don¹t know much about this.) It¹s
possible that she was not able to effectively manage her assets. Today,
someone like Richard might well be appointed ³Power of Attorney,² so that he
could handle her affairs as effectively as she could do herself. I doubt
very much that there was such a thing as ³Power of Attorney² in those days.
So, it is very possible that the declaration of death was the only way that
her assets could be managed. It¹s possible that it would have been for the
family¹s benefit, if not for her benefit in particular. If she got a
not-particular-generous allowance, it¹s also possible that she didn¹t need
much of an allowance if she was living at Middleham and Richard was paying
the expenses of the household.

Just a thought,

Johanne

Hi, Karen –



I am not suggesting that she was mentally incompetent; I have no knowledge
of that, but I do believe that her situation may have been precarious. (Even
today, powers of attorney can be used in all sorts of cases other than
mental incompetence, for example, where the grantor of the power is
physically absent from the jurisdiction – e.g. my mother always had my power
of attorney to do my banking for me in my hometown, because I was living in
Canada.) Or even that the position of any widow in her day would have been
difficult, let alone the widow of someone who had been declared a traitor.
Therefore I do believe that there would have been good practical reasons for
Richard to take over management of her assets.



Take care,



Johanne



From:
[mailto:] On Behalf Of Karen Clark
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 8:29 AM
To:
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter





Johanne

I have come across no suggestion that Anne Beauchamp was incapable of
handling her affairs. I urge you to read the letter she wrote to the Commons
from sanctuary.

Karen

From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...
<mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
Reply-To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:07:19 -0300
To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter

Hi, All ­

Richard took Anne¹s mother under his protection, didn¹t he? She was living
at Middleham? He got her released from . . . wherever she had been, in a
nunnery or whatever. (You can see I don¹t know much about this.) It¹s
possible that she was not able to effectively manage her assets. Today,
someone like Richard might well be appointed ³Power of Attorney,² so that he
could handle her affairs as effectively as she could do herself. I doubt
very much that there was such a thing as ³Power of Attorney² in those days.
So, it is very possible that the declaration of death was the only way that
her assets could be managed. It¹s possible that it would have been for the
family¹s benefit, if not for her benefit in particular. If she got a
not-particular-generous allowance, it¹s also possible that she didn¹t need
much of an allowance if she was living at Middleham and Richard was paying
the expenses of the household.

Just a thought,

Johanne

Johanne

We've had this discussion on this forum quite recently. Richard didn't take
over the management of her estates, he and his brothers had the countess
declared dead in parliament so her daughters could 'inherit' both her
property and their father's. The good, practical reason for this was that
Clarence and Gloucester both needed incomes and this was a way of providing
them. No-one was appointed the equivalent of a power of attorney. Whatever
allowance the countess was given was at the discretion of her sons-in-law
and paid out of the wealth they had taken from her. As a widow, she was
indeed vulnerable, as events proved. She took sanctuary and was prevented
from leaving until the Act of Parliament declaring her dead and giving
everything she had to her daughters and sons-in-law was completed. This
wasn't any kind of act of charity. For the full text of her letter to the
Commons, my annotations and a general round up of the Countess in three
works of non-fiction, see here:

http://nevillfeast.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/anne-beauchamp-countess-of-warwi
ck-wife-widow/

Karen

From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 09:06:03 -0300
To: <>
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter






Hi, Karen ý

I am not suggesting that she was mentally incompetent; I have no knowledge
of that, but I do believe that her situation may have been precarious. (Even
today, powers of attorney can be used in all sorts of cases other than
mental incompetence, for example, where the grantor of the power is
physically absent from the jurisdiction ý e.g. my mother always had my power
of attorney to do my banking for me in my hometown, because I was living in
Canada.) Or even that the position of any widow in her day would have been
difficult, let alone the widow of someone who had been declared a traitor.
Therefore I do believe that there would have been good practical reasons for
Richard to take over management of her assets.

Take care,

Johanne

From:
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
[mailto:
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Karen Clark
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 8:29 AM
To:
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter

Johanne

I have come across no suggestion that Anne Beauchamp was incapable of
handling her affairs. I urge you to read the letter she wrote to the Commons
from sanctuary.

Karen

From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...
<mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>
<mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
Reply-To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:07:19 -0300
To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter

Hi, All ­

Richard took Anne¹s mother under his protection, didn¹t he? She was living
at Middleham? He got her released from . . . wherever she had been, in a
nunnery or whatever. (You can see I don¹t know much about this.) It¹s
possible that she was not able to effectively manage her assets. Today,
someone like Richard might well be appointed ³Power of Attorney,² so that he
could handle her affairs as effectively as she could do herself. I doubt
very much that there was such a thing as ³Power of Attorney² in those days.
So, it is very possible that the declaration of death was the only way that
her assets could be managed. It¹s possible that it would have been for the
family¹s benefit, if not for her benefit in particular. If she got a
not-particular-generous allowance, it¹s also possible that she didn¹t need
much of an allowance if she was living at Middleham and Richard was paying
the expenses of the household.

Just a thought,

Johanne

Karen Clark wrote:

> We've had this discussion on this forum quite recently. Richard didn't take over the management of her estates, he and his brothers had the countess declared dead in parliament so her daughters could 'inherit' both her property and their father's. The good, practical reason for this was that Clarence and Gloucester both needed incomes and this was a way of providing them. No-one was appointed the equivalent of a power of attorney. Whatever allowance the countess was given was at the discretion of her sons-in-law and paid out of the wealth they had taken from her. As a widow, she was indeed vulnerable, as events proved. She took sanctuary and was prevented from leaving until the Act of Parliament declaring her dead and giving
> everything she had to her daughters and sons-in-law was completed. This wasn't any kind of act of charity. For the full text of her letter to the Commons, my annotations and a general round up of the Countess in three works of non-fiction, see here:
>
> http://nevillfeast.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/anne-beauchamp-countess-of-warwick-wife-widow/

Carol responds:

I agree that Johanne should read the entire thread of the recent discussion, which also establishes that Richard, alone of the many people that the countess wrote to, heeded her plea to be released from sanctuary and gave her a home with him and Anne at Middleham. He could not, of course, undo the act of Parliament that declared her dead even if he had wanted to. Let me suggest that "was prevented from leaving" (passive voice) should be "Edward prevented her from leaving" (active voice). He was the only one who had that power. And probably only Richard could have persuaded him to allow her to come home to Middleham, escorted by Sir James Tyrrel.

What I'm wondering is why we're going back over the same ground when our positions have already been established and there's nothing more to add. Johanne, if you can't find the older thread, let me know off list and I'll give you a link to the first post.

Carol

No, ladies, my questions about what transpired are not ones that were
answered or even considered, as far as I can recall, in that recent thread,
which I remember fairly well. In fact, I am not the one that brought the
situation vis-à-vis Anne’s mother up again just now. It is this most recent
discussion which raised some possible issues that I felt had not been dealt
with, at least not in these two most recent threads.



I am very unhappy that when I raise some new questions, I am not allowed to
express my feelings. I feel it is a sign of close-mindedness not to be
allowed to investigate all possible aspects of the matter. However, have it
your way; I won’t discuss it any further.



Yours sincerely,



Johanne



From:
[mailto:] On Behalf Of justcarol67
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 2:11 PM
To:
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter





Karen Clark wrote:

> We've had this discussion on this forum quite recently. Richard didn't
take over the management of her estates, he and his brothers had the
countess declared dead in parliament so her daughters could 'inherit' both
her property and their father's. The good, practical reason for this was
that Clarence and Gloucester both needed incomes and this was a way of
providing them. No-one was appointed the equivalent of a power of attorney.
Whatever allowance the countess was given was at the discretion of her
sons-in-law and paid out of the wealth they had taken from her. As a widow,
she was indeed vulnerable, as events proved. She took sanctuary and was
prevented from leaving until the Act of Parliament declaring her dead and
giving
> everything she had to her daughters and sons-in-law was completed. This
wasn't any kind of act of charity. For the full text of her letter to the
Commons, my annotations and a general round up of the Countess in three
works of non-fiction, see here:
>
>
http://nevillfeast.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/anne-beauchamp-countess-of-warwi
ck-wife-widow/

Carol responds:

I agree that Johanne should read the entire thread of the recent discussion,
which also establishes that Richard, alone of the many people that the
countess wrote to, heeded her plea to be released from sanctuary and gave
her a home with him and Anne at Middleham. He could not, of course, undo the
act of Parliament that declared her dead even if he had wanted to. Let me
suggest that "was prevented from leaving" (passive voice) should be "Edward
prevented her from leaving" (active voice). He was the only one who had that
power. And probably only Richard could have persuaded him to allow her to
come home to Middleham, escorted by Sir James Tyrrel.

What I'm wondering is why we're going back over the same ground when our
positions have already been established and there's nothing more to add.
Johanne, if you can't find the older thread, let me know off list and I'll
give you a link to the first post.

Carol

Johanne Tournier wrote:
>
> No, ladies, my questions about what transpired are not ones that were answered or even considered, as far as I can recall, in that recent thread, which I remember fairly well. In fact, I am not the one that brought the situation vis-à-vis Anne's mother up again just now. It is this most recent discussion which raised some possible issues that I felt had not been dealt with, at least not in these two most recent threads.
>
> I am very unhappy that when I raise some new questions, I am not allowed to express my feelings. I feel it is a sign of close-mindedness not to be allowed to investigate all possible aspects of the matter. However, have it your way; I won't discuss it any further.

Carol responds:

Johanne, my sincere apologies. I just felt that we were going around in circles, and I did ignore your new question. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about power of attorney or whether it existed in the fifteenth century. My fault entirely, especially implying that you didn't remember the thread. I should have realized how unlikely that was.

Carol

Karen,

Yes we have had this discussion. The facts are:-

1) The Countess' estates were seized by Edward IV, together with her husband's, in 1470 for manifest treason, and when he returned to the throne he continued to treat them as forfeit. It was normal to confiscate estates before prosecution, but whether Edward should have kept hold of them without further legal action would have to be for another discussion.
2) When she heard of her husband's death at Barnet, the Countess took sanctuary in Beaulieu Abbey. Edward IV had the sanctuary surrounded by an armed guard so that she became imprisoned there.
3) Clarence entered the Countess's lands after Tewkesbury and treated them as if they belonged to himself and Isabel. Since Edward did not stop him, it would seem that this is what Clarence had been promised as the price of his return to Edward's side.
3) The Countess wrote letters to every member of the royal family she could think of petitioning for grace, and for custody of her lands, but without success.
4) When Richard asked if he could marry Anne, Clarence (into whose care she had been placed) seems to have said no initially, then agreed but only on condition that they 'part no livelode' ie that Clarence & Isabel continued to own the entire Beauchamp inheritance.
5) Richard eventually persuaded Edward to let the Countess leave sanctuary, and Sir James Tyrell escorted her up to Middleham. There were rumours that the King had restored her estates and she was going to give them to Richard, but this was not so.
6) Clarence took up arms against Richard, presumably over the Beauchamp inheritance, at the same time claiming that Richard's marriage to Anne was invalid anyway because it had been effected by force.
7) A settlement between Clarence and Gloucester was made by Act of Parliament; it was, therefore, a settlement agreeable to the King as well as the two brothers and their wives. It divided the lands between the brothers and their wives as though the Countess were dead, and in the event of his marriage being declared void made provision for Richard to retain their share of the lands indefinitely whilst he and Anne attempted to regularise their union.
8) We don't know exactly what allowance the Countess had. There is a reference in Harley 433, dating to 1484, to an annuity of £80 from the lands of Richard's ward Edward Pilkington, but we don't know whether this was the sum total of her allowance. In my opinion it probably wasn't since the Pilkington wardship only dated from 1478. It is also possible that she received an annuity from Clarence and Isabel. What we do know, from a letter of the Clairvaux family found by chance a few years ago by Tony Pollard, is that early in 1478 the Countess was commissioning a 'great tablet of gold' with religious imagery on it; this would have been a gold icon, possibly a diptych, to set on an altar; the pictures were probably done mainly from brightly coloured enamel though there could well have been previous stones as well. It also seems probable that the Beauchamp Pageant, a lavish book about the Countess's family that was made during Richard's reign, was commissioned by her as well. So she had spending power. She also had her own servants, as one of them is mentioned in a contemporary will.
9) From that same letter we also know that during the 1470s she was in the habit of attending local festivals.
10) Richard was not pleased about the 'great tablet', though the letter doesn't tell us why. And IF Rows based anything he wrote about the Countess on first-hand knowledge, then it would seem that she wasn't happy with the situation as it had turned out either. But Rows' claim that she was imprisoned at Middleham is shown by the Clairvaux letter to be false. (It is probable that Rows was trying to put as much political distance as possible between the Countess and Richard when he presented his work to Henry VII in 1488/9, if for no other reason than to get her young grandson out of the Tower).
11) Petitions by the Beauchamp heirs for restitution of some enfeoffed lands did not include the Countess' name during Edward IV's reign, but did during Richard III's. Also, in the documents I have seen, between the Act of Parliament and Edward IV's death she is referred to as "Anne, late Countess of Warwick", but this relaxes during Richard's reign and she becomes again simply "Anne Countess of Warwick" or "Lady Warwick".
My own feeling is that Edward did not trust the Countess and was not going to restore her lands to her personally, but we'll never know for sure.
Marie

--- In , Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@...> wrote:
>
> Johanne
>
> We've had this discussion on this forum quite recently. Richard didn't take
> over the management of her estates, he and his brothers had the countess
> declared dead in parliament so her daughters could 'inherit' both her
> property and their father's. The good, practical reason for this was that
> Clarence and Gloucester both needed incomes and this was a way of providing
> them. No-one was appointed the equivalent of a power of attorney. Whatever
> allowance the countess was given was at the discretion of her sons-in-law
> and paid out of the wealth they had taken from her. As a widow, she was
> indeed vulnerable, as events proved. She took sanctuary and was prevented
> from leaving until the Act of Parliament declaring her dead and giving
> everything she had to her daughters and sons-in-law was completed. This
> wasn't any kind of act of charity. For the full text of her letter to the
> Commons, my annotations and a general round up of the Countess in three
> works of non-fiction, see here:
>
> http://nevillfeast.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/anne-beauchamp-countess-of-warwi
> ck-wife-widow/
>
> Karen
>
> From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
> Reply-To: <>
> Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 09:06:03 -0300
> To: <>
> Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi, Karen –
>
> I am not suggesting that she was mentally incompetent; I have no knowledge
> of that, but I do believe that her situation may have been precarious. (Even
> today, powers of attorney can be used in all sorts of cases other than
> mental incompetence, for example, where the grantor of the power is
> physically absent from the jurisdiction – e.g. my mother always had my power
> of attorney to do my banking for me in my hometown, because I was living in
> Canada.) Or even that the position of any widow in her day would have been
> difficult, let alone the widow of someone who had been declared a traitor.
> Therefore I do believe that there would have been good practical reasons for
> Richard to take over management of her assets.
>
> Take care,
>
> Johanne
>
> From:
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> [mailto:
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Karen Clark
> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 8:29 AM
> To:
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
> Johanne
>
> I have come across no suggestion that Anne Beauchamp was incapable of
> handling her affairs. I urge you to read the letter she wrote to the Commons
> from sanctuary.
>
> Karen
>
> From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...
> <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>
> <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
> Reply-To: <
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:07:19 -0300
> To: <
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
> Hi, All ¡©
>
> Richard took Anne©ös mother under his protection, didn©öt he? She was living
> at Middleham? He got her released from . . . wherever she had been, in a
> nunnery or whatever. (You can see I don©öt know much about this.) It©ös
> possible that she was not able to effectively manage her assets. Today,
> someone like Richard might well be appointed ©øPower of Attorney,©÷ so that he
> could handle her affairs as effectively as she could do herself. I doubt
> very much that there was such a thing as ©øPower of Attorney©÷ in those days.
> So, it is very possible that the declaration of death was the only way that
> her assets could be managed. It©ös possible that it would have been for the
> family©ös benefit, if not for her benefit in particular. If she got a
> not-particular-generous allowance, it©ös also possible that she didn©öt need
> much of an allowance if she was living at Middleham and Richard was paying
> the expenses of the household.
>
> Just a thought,
>
> Johanne
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

I've never seen power of attorney. It is quite common to see the lands of one family member being put into the charge of another family member because the first was 'a fool and an idiot' (fatua & ideota). Often these individuals seem not to have been mentally retarded as such, but simply not bright enough to deal with the hazards of medieval estate management. I've never seen the equivalent of enduring PoA being given on any other grounds, but people often appointed attorneys to deal with specific issues and the likes of the King and Gloucester employed a permanent Attorney General.
There is no reference anywhere to the Countess being 'fatua' or the like, and as has been said by someone else already her surviving petitions to parliament suggest she was anything but.
Marie

--- In , "justcarol67" <justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
> Johanne Tournier wrote:
> >
> > No, ladies, my questions about what transpired are not ones that were answered or even considered, as far as I can recall, in that recent thread, which I remember fairly well. In fact, I am not the one that brought the situation vis-à-vis Anne's mother up again just now. It is this most recent discussion which raised some possible issues that I felt had not been dealt with, at least not in these two most recent threads.
> >
> > I am very unhappy that when I raise some new questions, I am not allowed to express my feelings. I feel it is a sign of close-mindedness not to be allowed to investigate all possible aspects of the matter. However, have it your way; I won't discuss it any further.
>
> Carol responds:
>
> Johanne, my sincere apologies. I just felt that we were going around in circles, and I did ignore your new question. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about power of attorney or whether it existed in the fifteenth century. My fault entirely, especially implying that you didn't remember the thread. I should have realized how unlikely that was.
>
> Carol
>

Do you realise what you have just said?
"Also, in the documents I have seen, between the Act of Parliament and Edward IV's death she is referred to as "Anne, LATE Countess of Warwick"" - yet she is still alive.
Does this not impact on descriptions of Hastings, "LATE Lord Chamberlain"?

----- Original Message -----
From: mariewalsh2003
To:
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 7:22 PM
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter



Karen,

Yes we have had this discussion. The facts are:-

1) The Countess' estates were seized by Edward IV, together with her husband's, in 1470 for manifest treason, and when he returned to the throne he continued to treat them as forfeit. It was normal to confiscate estates before prosecution, but whether Edward should have kept hold of them without further legal action would have to be for another discussion.
2) When she heard of her husband's death at Barnet, the Countess took sanctuary in Beaulieu Abbey. Edward IV had the sanctuary surrounded by an armed guard so that she became imprisoned there.
3) Clarence entered the Countess's lands after Tewkesbury and treated them as if they belonged to himself and Isabel. Since Edward did not stop him, it would seem that this is what Clarence had been promised as the price of his return to Edward's side.
3) The Countess wrote letters to every member of the royal family she could think of petitioning for grace, and for custody of her lands, but without success.
4) When Richard asked if he could marry Anne, Clarence (into whose care she had been placed) seems to have said no initially, then agreed but only on condition that they 'part no livelode' ie that Clarence & Isabel continued to own the entire Beauchamp inheritance.
5) Richard eventually persuaded Edward to let the Countess leave sanctuary, and Sir James Tyrell escorted her up to Middleham. There were rumours that the King had restored her estates and she was going to give them to Richard, but this was not so.
6) Clarence took up arms against Richard, presumably over the Beauchamp inheritance, at the same time claiming that Richard's marriage to Anne was invalid anyway because it had been effected by force.
7) A settlement between Clarence and Gloucester was made by Act of Parliament; it was, therefore, a settlement agreeable to the King as well as the two brothers and their wives. It divided the lands between the brothers and their wives as though the Countess were dead, and in the event of his marriage being declared void made provision for Richard to retain their share of the lands indefinitely whilst he and Anne attempted to regularise their union.
8) We don't know exactly what allowance the Countess had. There is a reference in Harley 433, dating to 1484, to an annuity of £80 from the lands of Richard's ward Edward Pilkington, but we don't know whether this was the sum total of her allowance. In my opinion it probably wasn't since the Pilkington wardship only dated from 1478. It is also possible that she received an annuity from Clarence and Isabel. What we do know, from a letter of the Clairvaux family found by chance a few years ago by Tony Pollard, is that early in 1478 the Countess was commissioning a 'great tablet of gold' with religious imagery on it; this would have been a gold icon, possibly a diptych, to set on an altar; the pictures were probably done mainly from brightly coloured enamel though there could well have been previous stones as well. It also seems probable that the Beauchamp Pageant, a lavish book about the Countess's family that was made during Richard's reign, was commissioned by her as well. So she had spending power. She also had her own servants, as one of them is mentioned in a contemporary will.
9) From that same letter we also know that during the 1470s she was in the habit of attending local festivals.
10) Richard was not pleased about the 'great tablet', though the letter doesn't tell us why. And IF Rows based anything he wrote about the Countess on first-hand knowledge, then it would seem that she wasn't happy with the situation as it had turned out either. But Rows' claim that she was imprisoned at Middleham is shown by the Clairvaux letter to be false. (It is probable that Rows was trying to put as much political distance as possible between the Countess and Richard when he presented his work to Henry VII in 1488/9, if for no other reason than to get her young grandson out of the Tower).
11) Petitions by the Beauchamp heirs for restitution of some enfeoffed lands did not include the Countess' name during Edward IV's reign, but did during Richard III's. Also, in the documents I have seen, between the Act of Parliament and Edward IV's death she is referred to as "Anne, late Countess of Warwick", but this relaxes during Richard's reign and she becomes again simply "Anne Countess of Warwick" or "Lady Warwick".
My own feeling is that Edward did not trust the Countess and was not going to restore her lands to her personally, but we'll never know for sure.
Marie

--- In , Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@...> wrote:
>
> Johanne
>
> We've had this discussion on this forum quite recently. Richard didn't take
> over the management of her estates, he and his brothers had the countess
> declared dead in parliament so her daughters could 'inherit' both her
> property and their father's. The good, practical reason for this was that
> Clarence and Gloucester both needed incomes and this was a way of providing
> them. No-one was appointed the equivalent of a power of attorney. Whatever
> allowance the countess was given was at the discretion of her sons-in-law
> and paid out of the wealth they had taken from her. As a widow, she was
> indeed vulnerable, as events proved. She took sanctuary and was prevented
> from leaving until the Act of Parliament declaring her dead and giving
> everything she had to her daughters and sons-in-law was completed. This
> wasn't any kind of act of charity. For the full text of her letter to the
> Commons, my annotations and a general round up of the Countess in three
> works of non-fiction, see here:
>
> http://nevillfeast.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/anne-beauchamp-countess-of-warwi
> ck-wife-widow/
>
> Karen
>
> From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
> Reply-To: <>
> Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 09:06:03 -0300
> To: <>
> Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi, Karen -
>
> I am not suggesting that she was mentally incompetent; I have no knowledge
> of that, but I do believe that her situation may have been precarious. (Even
> today, powers of attorney can be used in all sorts of cases other than
> mental incompetence, for example, where the grantor of the power is
> physically absent from the jurisdiction - e.g. my mother always had my power
> of attorney to do my banking for me in my hometown, because I was living in
> Canada.) Or even that the position of any widow in her day would have been
> difficult, let alone the widow of someone who had been declared a traitor.
> Therefore I do believe that there would have been good practical reasons for
> Richard to take over management of her assets.
>
> Take care,
>
> Johanne
>
> From:
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> [mailto:
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Karen Clark
> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 8:29 AM
> To:
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
> Johanne
>
> I have come across no suggestion that Anne Beauchamp was incapable of
> handling her affairs. I urge you to read the letter she wrote to the Commons
> from sanctuary.
>
> Karen
>
> From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...
> <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>
> <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
> Reply-To: <
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:07:19 -0300
> To: <
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
> Hi, All ¡©
>
> Richard took Anne©ös mother under his protection, didn©öt he? She was living
> at Middleham? He got her released from . . . wherever she had been, in a
> nunnery or whatever. (You can see I don©öt know much about this.) It©ös
> possible that she was not able to effectively manage her assets. Today,
> someone like Richard might well be appointed ©øPower of Attorney,©÷ so that he
> could handle her affairs as effectively as she could do herself. I doubt
> very much that there was such a thing as ©øPower of Attorney©÷ in those days.
> So, it is very possible that the declaration of death was the only way that
> her assets could be managed. It©ös possible that it would have been for the
> family©ös benefit, if not for her benefit in particular. If she got a
> not-particular-generous allowance, it©ös also possible that she didn©öt need
> much of an allowance if she was living at Middleham and Richard was paying
> the expenses of the household.
>
> Just a thought,
>
> Johanne
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

I am new to the forum and such did not know about any other thread.... I would have looked it up! Can someone direct me to the thread?
It seems some of the points PG makes are true even if she has twisted the information to suit the novel! Thanks guys, I am so much more informed now than when I was reading the novel:)

--- In , mariewalsh2003 <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> Karen,
>
> Yes we have had this discussion. The facts are:-
>
> 1) The Countess' estates were seized by Edward IV, together with her husband's, in 1470 for manifest treason, and when he returned to the throne he continued to treat them as forfeit. It was normal to confiscate estates before prosecution, but whether Edward should have kept hold of them without further legal action would have to be for another discussion.
> 2) When she heard of her husband's death at Barnet, the Countess took sanctuary in Beaulieu Abbey. Edward IV had the sanctuary surrounded by an armed guard so that she became imprisoned there.
> 3) Clarence entered the Countess's lands after Tewkesbury and treated them as if they belonged to himself and Isabel. Since Edward did not stop him, it would seem that this is what Clarence had been promised as the price of his return to Edward's side.
> 3) The Countess wrote letters to every member of the royal family she could think of petitioning for grace, and for custody of her lands, but without success.
> 4) When Richard asked if he could marry Anne, Clarence (into whose care she had been placed) seems to have said no initially, then agreed but only on condition that they 'part no livelode' ie that Clarence & Isabel continued to own the entire Beauchamp inheritance.
> 5) Richard eventually persuaded Edward to let the Countess leave sanctuary, and Sir James Tyrell escorted her up to Middleham. There were rumours that the King had restored her estates and she was going to give them to Richard, but this was not so.
> 6) Clarence took up arms against Richard, presumably over the Beauchamp inheritance, at the same time claiming that Richard's marriage to Anne was invalid anyway because it had been effected by force.
> 7) A settlement between Clarence and Gloucester was made by Act of Parliament; it was, therefore, a settlement agreeable to the King as well as the two brothers and their wives. It divided the lands between the brothers and their wives as though the Countess were dead, and in the event of his marriage being declared void made provision for Richard to retain their share of the lands indefinitely whilst he and Anne attempted to regularise their union.
> 8) We don't know exactly what allowance the Countess had. There is a reference in Harley 433, dating to 1484, to an annuity of £80 from the lands of Richard's ward Edward Pilkington, but we don't know whether this was the sum total of her allowance. In my opinion it probably wasn't since the Pilkington wardship only dated from 1478. It is also possible that she received an annuity from Clarence and Isabel. What we do know, from a letter of the Clairvaux family found by chance a few years ago by Tony Pollard, is that early in 1478 the Countess was commissioning a 'great tablet of gold' with religious imagery on it; this would have been a gold icon, possibly a diptych, to set on an altar; the pictures were probably done mainly from brightly coloured enamel though there could well have been previous stones as well. It also seems probable that the Beauchamp Pageant, a lavish book about the Countess's family that was made during Richard's reign, was commissioned by her as well. So she had spending power. She also had her own servants, as one of them is mentioned in a contemporary will.
> 9) From that same letter we also know that during the 1470s she was in the habit of attending local festivals.
> 10) Richard was not pleased about the 'great tablet', though the letter doesn't tell us why. And IF Rows based anything he wrote about the Countess on first-hand knowledge, then it would seem that she wasn't happy with the situation as it had turned out either. But Rows' claim that she was imprisoned at Middleham is shown by the Clairvaux letter to be false. (It is probable that Rows was trying to put as much political distance as possible between the Countess and Richard when he presented his work to Henry VII in 1488/9, if for no other reason than to get her young grandson out of the Tower).
> 11) Petitions by the Beauchamp heirs for restitution of some enfeoffed lands did not include the Countess' name during Edward IV's reign, but did during Richard III's. Also, in the documents I have seen, between the Act of Parliament and Edward IV's death she is referred to as "Anne, late Countess of Warwick", but this relaxes during Richard's reign and she becomes again simply "Anne Countess of Warwick" or "Lady Warwick".
> My own feeling is that Edward did not trust the Countess and was not going to restore her lands to her personally, but we'll never know for sure.
> Marie
>
> --- In , Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@> wrote:
> >
> > Johanne
> >
> > We've had this discussion on this forum quite recently. Richard didn't take
> > over the management of her estates, he and his brothers had the countess
> > declared dead in parliament so her daughters could 'inherit' both her
> > property and their father's. The good, practical reason for this was that
> > Clarence and Gloucester both needed incomes and this was a way of providing
> > them. No-one was appointed the equivalent of a power of attorney. Whatever
> > allowance the countess was given was at the discretion of her sons-in-law
> > and paid out of the wealth they had taken from her. As a widow, she was
> > indeed vulnerable, as events proved. She took sanctuary and was prevented
> > from leaving until the Act of Parliament declaring her dead and giving
> > everything she had to her daughters and sons-in-law was completed. This
> > wasn't any kind of act of charity. For the full text of her letter to the
> > Commons, my annotations and a general round up of the Countess in three
> > works of non-fiction, see here:
> >
> > http://nevillfeast.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/anne-beauchamp-countess-of-warwi
> > ck-wife-widow/
> >
> > Karen
> >
> > From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@>
> > Reply-To: <>
> > Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 09:06:03 -0300
> > To: <>
> > Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi, Karen –
> >
> > I am not suggesting that she was mentally incompetent; I have no knowledge
> > of that, but I do believe that her situation may have been precarious. (Even
> > today, powers of attorney can be used in all sorts of cases other than
> > mental incompetence, for example, where the grantor of the power is
> > physically absent from the jurisdiction – e.g. my mother always had my power
> > of attorney to do my banking for me in my hometown, because I was living in
> > Canada.) Or even that the position of any widow in her day would have been
> > difficult, let alone the widow of someone who had been declared a traitor.
> > Therefore I do believe that there would have been good practical reasons for
> > Richard to take over management of her assets.
> >
> > Take care,
> >
> > Johanne
> >
> > From:
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> > [mailto:
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Karen Clark
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 8:29 AM
> > To:
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> > Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> >
> > Johanne
> >
> > I have come across no suggestion that Anne Beauchamp was incapable of
> > handling her affairs. I urge you to read the letter she wrote to the Commons
> > from sanctuary.
> >
> > Karen
> >
> > From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@
> > <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>
> > <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
> > Reply-To: <
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> > Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:07:19 -0300
> > To: <
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> > Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> >
> > Hi, All ¡©
> >
> > Richard took Anne©ös mother under his protection, didn©öt he? She was living
> > at Middleham? He got her released from . . . wherever she had been, in a
> > nunnery or whatever. (You can see I don©öt know much about this.) It©ös
> > possible that she was not able to effectively manage her assets. Today,
> > someone like Richard might well be appointed ©øPower of Attorney,©÷ so that he
> > could handle her affairs as effectively as she could do herself. I doubt
> > very much that there was such a thing as ©øPower of Attorney©÷ in those days.
> > So, it is very possible that the declaration of death was the only way that
> > her assets could be managed. It©ös possible that it would have been for the
> > family©ös benefit, if not for her benefit in particular. If she got a
> > not-particular-generous allowance, it©ös also possible that she didn©öt need
> > much of an allowance if she was living at Middleham and Richard was paying
> > the expenses of the household.
> >
> > Just a thought,
> >
> > Johanne
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

Of course. Perhaps I should have got involved in that. Late, like the Latin equivalent nuper, defintely meant simply formerly, and only the context could tell you if it was formerly because deceased or not.
Marie


--- In , "Stephen Lark" <stephenmlark@...> wrote:
>
> Do you realise what you have just said?
> "Also, in the documents I have seen, between the Act of Parliament and Edward IV's death she is referred to as "Anne, LATE Countess of Warwick"" - yet she is still alive.
> Does this not impact on descriptions of Hastings, "LATE Lord Chamberlain"?
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: mariewalsh2003
> To:
> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 7:22 PM
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
> Karen,
>
> Yes we have had this discussion. The facts are:-
>
> 1) The Countess' estates were seized by Edward IV, together with her husband's, in 1470 for manifest treason, and when he returned to the throne he continued to treat them as forfeit. It was normal to confiscate estates before prosecution, but whether Edward should have kept hold of them without further legal action would have to be for another discussion.
> 2) When she heard of her husband's death at Barnet, the Countess took sanctuary in Beaulieu Abbey. Edward IV had the sanctuary surrounded by an armed guard so that she became imprisoned there.
> 3) Clarence entered the Countess's lands after Tewkesbury and treated them as if they belonged to himself and Isabel. Since Edward did not stop him, it would seem that this is what Clarence had been promised as the price of his return to Edward's side.
> 3) The Countess wrote letters to every member of the royal family she could think of petitioning for grace, and for custody of her lands, but without success.
> 4) When Richard asked if he could marry Anne, Clarence (into whose care she had been placed) seems to have said no initially, then agreed but only on condition that they 'part no livelode' ie that Clarence & Isabel continued to own the entire Beauchamp inheritance.
> 5) Richard eventually persuaded Edward to let the Countess leave sanctuary, and Sir James Tyrell escorted her up to Middleham. There were rumours that the King had restored her estates and she was going to give them to Richard, but this was not so.
> 6) Clarence took up arms against Richard, presumably over the Beauchamp inheritance, at the same time claiming that Richard's marriage to Anne was invalid anyway because it had been effected by force.
> 7) A settlement between Clarence and Gloucester was made by Act of Parliament; it was, therefore, a settlement agreeable to the King as well as the two brothers and their wives. It divided the lands between the brothers and their wives as though the Countess were dead, and in the event of his marriage being declared void made provision for Richard to retain their share of the lands indefinitely whilst he and Anne attempted to regularise their union.
> 8) We don't know exactly what allowance the Countess had. There is a reference in Harley 433, dating to 1484, to an annuity of £80 from the lands of Richard's ward Edward Pilkington, but we don't know whether this was the sum total of her allowance. In my opinion it probably wasn't since the Pilkington wardship only dated from 1478. It is also possible that she received an annuity from Clarence and Isabel. What we do know, from a letter of the Clairvaux family found by chance a few years ago by Tony Pollard, is that early in 1478 the Countess was commissioning a 'great tablet of gold' with religious imagery on it; this would have been a gold icon, possibly a diptych, to set on an altar; the pictures were probably done mainly from brightly coloured enamel though there could well have been previous stones as well. It also seems probable that the Beauchamp Pageant, a lavish book about the Countess's family that was made during Richard's reign, was commissioned by her as well. So she had spending power. She also had her own servants, as one of them is mentioned in a contemporary will.
> 9) From that same letter we also know that during the 1470s she was in the habit of attending local festivals.
> 10) Richard was not pleased about the 'great tablet', though the letter doesn't tell us why. And IF Rows based anything he wrote about the Countess on first-hand knowledge, then it would seem that she wasn't happy with the situation as it had turned out either. But Rows' claim that she was imprisoned at Middleham is shown by the Clairvaux letter to be false. (It is probable that Rows was trying to put as much political distance as possible between the Countess and Richard when he presented his work to Henry VII in 1488/9, if for no other reason than to get her young grandson out of the Tower).
> 11) Petitions by the Beauchamp heirs for restitution of some enfeoffed lands did not include the Countess' name during Edward IV's reign, but did during Richard III's. Also, in the documents I have seen, between the Act of Parliament and Edward IV's death she is referred to as "Anne, late Countess of Warwick", but this relaxes during Richard's reign and she becomes again simply "Anne Countess of Warwick" or "Lady Warwick".
> My own feeling is that Edward did not trust the Countess and was not going to restore her lands to her personally, but we'll never know for sure.
> Marie
>
> --- In , Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@> wrote:
> >
> > Johanne
> >
> > We've had this discussion on this forum quite recently. Richard didn't take
> > over the management of her estates, he and his brothers had the countess
> > declared dead in parliament so her daughters could 'inherit' both her
> > property and their father's. The good, practical reason for this was that
> > Clarence and Gloucester both needed incomes and this was a way of providing
> > them. No-one was appointed the equivalent of a power of attorney. Whatever
> > allowance the countess was given was at the discretion of her sons-in-law
> > and paid out of the wealth they had taken from her. As a widow, she was
> > indeed vulnerable, as events proved. She took sanctuary and was prevented
> > from leaving until the Act of Parliament declaring her dead and giving
> > everything she had to her daughters and sons-in-law was completed. This
> > wasn't any kind of act of charity. For the full text of her letter to the
> > Commons, my annotations and a general round up of the Countess in three
> > works of non-fiction, see here:
> >
> > http://nevillfeast.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/anne-beauchamp-countess-of-warwi
> > ck-wife-widow/
> >
> > Karen
> >
> > From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@>
> > Reply-To: <>
> > Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 09:06:03 -0300
> > To: <>
> > Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi, Karen -
> >
> > I am not suggesting that she was mentally incompetent; I have no knowledge
> > of that, but I do believe that her situation may have been precarious. (Even
> > today, powers of attorney can be used in all sorts of cases other than
> > mental incompetence, for example, where the grantor of the power is
> > physically absent from the jurisdiction - e.g. my mother always had my power
> > of attorney to do my banking for me in my hometown, because I was living in
> > Canada.) Or even that the position of any widow in her day would have been
> > difficult, let alone the widow of someone who had been declared a traitor.
> > Therefore I do believe that there would have been good practical reasons for
> > Richard to take over management of her assets.
> >
> > Take care,
> >
> > Johanne
> >
> > From:
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> > [mailto:
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Karen Clark
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 8:29 AM
> > To:
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> > Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> >
> > Johanne
> >
> > I have come across no suggestion that Anne Beauchamp was incapable of
> > handling her affairs. I urge you to read the letter she wrote to the Commons
> > from sanctuary.
> >
> > Karen
> >
> > From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@
> > <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>
> > <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
> > Reply-To: <
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> > Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:07:19 -0300
> > To: <
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> > Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> >
> > Hi, All ¡©
> >
> > Richard took Anne©ös mother under his protection, didn©öt he? She was living
> > at Middleham? He got her released from . . . wherever she had been, in a
> > nunnery or whatever. (You can see I don©öt know much about this.) It©ös
> > possible that she was not able to effectively manage her assets. Today,
> > someone like Richard might well be appointed ©øPower of Attorney,©÷ so that he
> > could handle her affairs as effectively as she could do herself. I doubt
> > very much that there was such a thing as ©øPower of Attorney©÷ in those days.
> > So, it is very possible that the declaration of death was the only way that
> > her assets could be managed. It©ös possible that it would have been for the
> > family©ös benefit, if not for her benefit in particular. If she got a
> > not-particular-generous allowance, it©ös also possible that she didn©öt need
> > much of an allowance if she was living at Middleham and Richard was paying
> > the expenses of the household.
> >
> > Just a thought,
> >
> > Johanne
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Marie wrote:
<snip>
> Also, in the documents I have seen, between the Act of Parliament and Edward IV's death she is referred to as "Anne, late Countess of Warwick", but this relaxes during Richard's reign and she becomes again simply "Anne Countess of Warwick" or "Lady Warwick". <snip>

Stephen Lark responded:
>
> Do you realise what you have just said?
> "Also, in the documents I have seen, between the Act of Parliament and Edward IV's death she is referred to as "Anne, LATE Countess of Warwick"" - yet she is still alive.
> Does this not impact on descriptions of Hastings, "LATE Lord Chamberlain"?

Carol adds:

I found another example of "late" referring to a person very much alive. After Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, Cecily Neville began to style herself as "Cecily, the king's mother, and *late wife* unto Richard, by right king of England and of France and lord of Ireland." (Actually, I think she spelled her name Cecille, but that's beside the point here.)

http://www.richardiii-nsw.org.au/?p=5440#more-5440

Earlier, I referred to another instance referring to Jasper Tudor as "late Earl of Pembroke."

I think we can safely conclude that "late" meant "former" and did not necessarily imply "deceased."

By the way, does anyone know whether Cecily continued to use this signature when Richard was king? If so, it would go a long way toward showing her approval of his assumption of the throne.

Carol

--- In , "bandyoi" <bandyoi@...> wrote:
>
> I am new to the forum and such did not know about any other thread.... I would have looked it up! Can someone direct me to the thread?
> It seems some of the points PG makes are true even if she has twisted the information to suit the novel! Thanks guys, I am so much more informed now than when I was reading the novel:)

Carol responds:

If you come to the website, http://groups.yahoo.com/group//?yguid=69059971, you can do a search for any topic. A search for "Countess of Warwick" (in quotes) will (eventually) lead you to a thread called "Beaufort Tears--and Richard's Book." The relevant discussion, which is long and detailed, begins about here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group//message/15921

But Marie's recent post at http://groups.yahoo.com/group//message/17333 sums up the relevant points nicely and perhaps will save you the trouble of reading through the thread.

Carol

--- In , "justcarol67" <justcarol67@...> wrote:


> What I'm wondering is why we're going back over the same ground when our positions have already been established and there's nothing more to add.
> Carol


I'm not against going over (and over and over) the same ground in these discussions. Even if our positions are established, there is not necessarily nothing more to add. Even if no new information has turned up, you never know when someone will have an interesting new way at looking at old material, or make hitherto unnoticed connections between events -- the marriage arrangements underway for Elizabeth or York, and her letter to Norfolk about longing to be married, for example.

Katy

My aim was to answer bandyoi's questions as quickly, uncontroversially and
objectively as I could. It wasn't my intention to revive the subject. Not
that I have any objection to it being revived by anyone else.

Karen


From: oregon_katy <oregon_katy@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 22:06:36 -0000
To: <>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter








--- In
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , "justcarol67"
<justcarol67@...> wrote:

> What I'm wondering is why we're going back over the same ground when our
positions have already been established and there's nothing more to add.
> Carol

I'm not against going over (and over and over) the same ground in these
discussions. Even if our positions are established, there is not
necessarily nothing more to add. Even if no new information has turned up,
you never know when someone will have an interesting new way at looking at
old material, or make hitherto unnoticed connections between events -- the
marriage arrangements underway for Elizabeth or York, and her letter to
Norfolk about longing to be married, for example.

Katy

We exonerate you for covering the forum in exclamation marks !!!!!

LOL

--- In , "bandyoi" <bandyoi@...> wrote:
>
>
> Haha!
> I have been trying to do just that! Trying to exonerate him of anything unpleasant!
>
>
>
>
> --- In , Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@> wrote:
> >
> > Don't be disappointed! When my interest in the Wars of the Roses and Richard
> > began decades ago, I was of the 'he could do not wrong!' school of thinking,
> > and I went along with all the excuses, justifications that go along with
> > that. I've adjusted that over the years and now I find complex, flawed,
> > imperfect, unsaintly, man-of-his-times Richard much more interesting. I
> > don't have to tie myself in knots anymore trying to find a way to get him
> > off the hook all the time. If he did something that wasn't entirely
> > altruistic or noble, then he did it and there's no way that can be changed.
> > And I really do like the real man I'm finding much more than the one I first
> > met.
> >
> > Karen
> >
> > From: bandyoi <bandyoi@>
> > Reply-To: <>
> > Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:49:49 -0000
> > To: <>
> > Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > PG also supported the idea that RIII and Bess were lovers..... Since Marie
> > from this forum sent me the article that refutes this idea, I found this
> > assertion quite unpalatable! PG must have known about negotiations of Bess's
> > marraige to Manuel of Potugal. These popular fictions does perpetuate Riii's
> > bad reputation to a certain degree..... I wish her researchers advised her
> > better!!
> > I am little disappointed with Glouchester that he actually went along in
> > declaring the Countess dead!
> >
> > --- In
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Karen Clark
> > <Ragged_staff@> wrote:
> > >
> > > I read the book and really didn't like it for all sorts of reasons. As to
> > > the countess of Warwick:
> > > 1. No, she wasn't locked away in a tower. Whether she had apartments at
> > > Middleham or her own establishment isn't clear, but she did have an
> > > allowance (not particularly generous);
> > > 2. The countess of Warwick was declared dead in court. She wasn't charged
> > > with treason, neither she nor her late husband were attainted after Barnet.
> > > She took sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey when she heard her husband was dead.
> > > She was kept their against her will and fought hard to be released and
> > > regain control of her property and her late husband's. She was declared dead
> > > so that her daughters could 'inherit' not only their father's property and
> > > title, but their mother's.
> > > 3. This shows that PG either misread the relevant parliamentary roll or was
> > > misadvised by a researcher. The clause that gives Gloucester control of his
> > > wife's estates &c was there to protect his and Anne's interests. Clarence
> > > was trying to have the marriage declared illegal, in which case he and
> > > Isobel had the chance to get control of Anne's share of her 'inheritance'.
> > > The clause, stating that if the marriage ended Gloucester would have
> > > control, referred to a life interest only, and there were two other
> > > conditions: that he didn't marry anyone else; and that he worked to ensure a
> > > legal marriage between him and Anne.
> > > The thing that annoyed me most about that book was the constant reference
> > > (by his daughter, no less!) to Warwick as 'the kingmaker'. He was never
> > > known as that during his lifetime. There's another writer of historical
> > > fiction who does the same thing, in fact goes one better, as she calls
> > > Warwick 'kingmaker' pre-1461, when he hadn't made even a single king.
> > >
> > > Karen
> > >
> > > From: bandyoi <bandyoi@>
> > > Reply-To: <
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> > > Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 22:10:23 -0000
> > > To: <
> > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> > > Subject: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I just finished Phillipa Gregory's The Kingmaker's Daughter. Has anyone read
> > > it? I am not sure how accurate the portion about Anne Neville's mother is!
> > > The book says that Richard imprisoned the countess and declared her dead in
> > > court of law! And made provision's to keep Anne's lands in case their
> > > marriage is put aside because of lack of the papal dispension........ Is any
> > > of it true?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

Thank you for this detailed history, Marie. I don't recollect all this
detailed information being laid out previously.



Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier



Email - jltournier60@...

or jltournier@...



"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~







From:
[mailto:] On Behalf Of mariewalsh2003
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 3:22 PM
To:
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter





Karen,

Yes we have had this discussion. The facts are:-

1) The Countess' estates were seized by Edward IV, together with her
husband's, in 1470 for manifest treason, and when he returned to the throne
he continued to treat them as forfeit. It was normal to confiscate estates
before prosecution, but whether Edward should have kept hold of them without
further legal action would have to be for another discussion.



[Johanne Tournier] <snip for brevity>

Dear Marie & Everyone –



This is kind of where I left off a couple of days ago. For now, I just want
to clarify (hopefully) what I was talking about. Then I want to go off,
think about the issues and hopefully do some research on the matter.



I was not suggesting that there was a power of attorney. I was suggesting
that a “legal fiction,” such as a Parliamentary declaration of the
Countess’s death, might have been used to accomplish something that a power
of attorney might have enabled the parties to do much more simply at a later
time. I was suggesting, again as a very tentative suggestion, that if there
was a statute of Parliament which declared the Countess dead, and if it was
known that she was very much alive, that one possible reason that something
like that might have been done was in order to allow management of her
estates, at least partly for her benefit and/or for her family’s benefit.
Now, trusts (in former times, called “uses”) were in existence at this
period. But perhaps her situation did not allow for holding all of her
property in trust for her. I was not suggesting that the Countess was
mentally incompetent; I didn’t say that. I was suggesting that as the widow
of a declared traitor, it might have been impossible for her to proceed
normally to deal with her property, assuming that a widow in that era was
allowed to own property in her own right. Perhaps because of the situation,
her property would otherwise been forfeited to the Crown. Or perhaps the
property would have passed directly to Warwick’s heirs (his children). I
don’t know the details of the legal situation of the parties, and that is
something I would like to investigate.



My reaction (and I admit a bias in favour of Richard’s essential sense of
fairness and justice, which I certainly don’t have regarding George) at the
outset is to be skeptical of whether Richard’s actions were as self-serving
as they have been portrayed. Now, with the information that you and others
have provided, it seems even more likely that there are inferences that can
reasonably be made that will in large part “exonerate” Richard. I admit that
I don’t know all the facts; I don’t even know all the law, but I do have an
idea of some of the law and some of the facts. As I said, my hope is to work
on this further and perhaps come up with a fuller explanation.



BTW, like most people here, I admire Richard but I am not seeking to
whitewash him; and it may be that I don’t have the resources to do what I
want to do. But I am willing, after having investigated further, to come
back and report my findings, or lack thereof.



That’s all for now –



Johanne



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier



Email - jltournier60@...

or jltournier@...



"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~







From:
[mailto:] On Behalf Of mariewalsh2003
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 3:29 PM
To:
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter





I've never seen power of attorney. It is quite common to see the lands of
one family member being put into the charge of another family member because
the first was 'a fool and an idiot' (fatua & ideota). Often these
individuals seem not to have been mentally retarded as such, but simply not
bright enough to deal with the hazards of medieval estate management. I've
never seen the equivalent of enduring PoA being given on any other grounds,
but people often appointed attorneys to deal with specific issues and the
likes of the King and Gloucester employed a permanent Attorney General.
There is no reference anywhere to the Countess being 'fatua' or the like,
and as has been said by someone else already her surviving petitions to
parliament suggest she was anything but.
Marie

--- In
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , "justcarol67"
<justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
> Johanne Tournier wrote:
> >
> > No, ladies, my questions about what transpired are not ones that were
answered or even considered, as far as I can recall, in that recent thread,
which I remember fairly well. In fact, I am not the one that brought the
situation vis-à-vis Anne's mother up again just now. It is this most recent
discussion which raised some possible issues that I felt had not been dealt
with, at least not in these two most recent threads.
> >
> > I am very unhappy that when I raise some new questions, I am not allowed
to express my feelings. I feel it is a sign of close-mindedness not to be
allowed to investigate all possible aspects of the matter. However, have it
your way; I won't discuss it any further.
>
> Carol responds:
>
> Johanne, my sincere apologies. I just felt that we were going around in
circles, and I did ignore your new question. Unfortunately, I don't know
anything about power of attorney or whether it existed in the fifteenth
century. My fault entirely, especially implying that you didn't remember the
thread. I should have realized how unlikely that was.
>
> Carol
>

From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
To:
Sent: Thursday, 25 October 2012, 14:37
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter

"My reaction (and I admit a bias in favour of Richard's essential sense of
fairness and justice, which I certainly don't have regarding George) at the
outset is to be skeptical of whether Richard's actions were as self-serving
as they have been portrayed."



I don't see Richard as being particularly self-serving, but nor do I view him as entirely and super-humanly altruistic.  More to the point, I don't think he *needs* to be for any Ricardian to justify their regard for him.  He has enough of a decent track record for us to be able to admire him without needing to exonerate him of behaviour that was part of the remit for being a 15th century noble.  (And, by the same token, Henry VII has a sufficiently dodgy track record for us not to need to demonise him further.)  It's understandable but counter-productive to challenge 500 years of partisan history with an approach that's equally partisan from the opposite side.  We need to be not zealots, but simply better and more open-minded readers of history than Weir, Hicks and Seward et al.

I was struck by a recent review of a highly favourable biography of Nelson, which included a line about his "his still-controversial actions in Naples in 1799 when he hanged a Jacobin admiral (which Sugden does not see as a war crime but which he says does not redound to Nelson's credit)".  I know Nelson's reputation starts from a much higher base, but I look forward to the day when Richard's career can be discussed in three dimensions without defenders or detractors feeling compelled to retreat to an entrenched viewpoint that owes more to caricature than a living, breathing person.

Jonathan

Jonathan

Everything I've been trying to say. Very well put. At times, Richard does
seem to be self-serving, but he wasn't alone in that. At other times, he
wasn't, and he wasn't alone in that either. Whatever he did, good or bad,
there's nothing anyone can say or do now to change it, whichever side of the
fence they're on.

Karen

Karen

From: Jonathan Evans <jmcevans98@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:22:39 +0100 (BST)
To: ""
<>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter






From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...
<mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
To:
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, 25 October 2012, 14:37
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter

"My reaction (and I admit a bias in favour of Richard¹s essential sense of
fairness and justice, which I certainly don¹t have regarding George) at the
outset is to be skeptical of whether Richard¹s actions were as self-serving
as they have been portrayed."

I don't see Richard as being particularly self-serving, but nor do I view
him as entirely and super-humanly altruistic. More to the point, I don't
think he *needs* to be for any Ricardian to justify their regard for him.
He has enough of a decent track record for us to be able to admire him
without needing to exonerate him of behaviour that was part of the remit for
being a 15th century noble. (And, by the same token, Henry VII has a
sufficiently dodgy track record for us not to need to demonise him further.)
It's understandable but counter-productive to challenge 500 years of
partisan history with an approach that's equally partisan from the opposite
side. We need to be not zealots, but simply better and more open-minded
readers of history than Weir, Hicks and Seward et al.

I was struck by a recent review of a highly favourable biography of Nelson,
which included a line about his "his still-controversial actions in Naples
in 1799 when he hanged a Jacobin admiral (which Sugden does not see as a
war crime but which he says ³does not redound to Nelson¹s credit²)". I know
Nelson's reputation starts from a much higher base, but I look forward to
the day when Richard's career can be discussed in three dimensions without
defenders or detractors feeling compelled to retreat to an entrenched
viewpoint that owes more to caricature than a living, breathing person.

Jonathan

Hi, Jonathan 

I am not an expert on Richard, by any means. I do admire him. And I do believe there may have been valid reasons for what he did. Yes, in my heart I believe he was capable of being, if not completely altruistic, at least acting from enlightened self-interest.



As I wrote earlier, it is possible that what, on its face, looks like a bald-faced seizure of someone else's property may not have actually been that at all. If you read the facts as laid out in Marie's email, for instance, you can see some details that were not mentioned before, and those details put a somewhat different cast on the situation.



My aim is to get at the truth by careful examination and considering all the possible alternatives. But I do believe that Richard deserves both a painstaking but also a sympathetic scrutiny of his actions, and then if they come up . . . less than what we would approve of today, well, so be it. As someone said earlier today (Marie, Carol T., help?), she loves researching the Medieval period in part because it is so foreign. That means there are a lot of concepts that are alien to us. But I will say that there is a lot in the field of property and estate law that harks back to the Middle Ages, which is why I felt if I examined the details, I might be able to turn up an interesting wrinkle or two. And then again, maybe not. C'est la vie.



I do know that the Church laid down ideals, which I believe many people could not live up to, but given his upbringing, I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly world. I don't think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his time, and that is what I think people are saying here who say that, had he lived, he would have been one of England's greatest kings.



Johanne



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier



Email - jltournier60@...

or jltournier@...



"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~







From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 12:23 PM
To:
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter





From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, 25 October 2012, 14:37
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter

"My reaction (and I admit a bias in favour of Richard's essential sense of
fairness and justice, which I certainly don't have regarding George) at the
outset is to be skeptical of whether Richard's actions were as self-serving
as they have been portrayed."

I don't see Richard as being particularly self-serving, but nor do I view him as entirely and super-humanly altruistic. More to the point, I don't think he *needs* to be for any Ricardian to justify their regard for him. He has enough of a decent track record for us to be able to admire him without needing to exonerate him of behaviour that was part of the remit for being a 15th century noble. (And, by the same token, Henry VII has a sufficiently dodgy track record for us not to need to demonise him further.) It's understandable but counter-productive to challenge 500 years of partisan history with an approach that's equally partisan from the opposite side. We need to be not zealots, but simply better and more open-minded readers of history than Weir, Hicks and Seward et al.

I was struck by a recent review of a highly favourable biography of Nelson, which included a line about his "his still-controversial actions in Naples in 1799 when he hanged a Jacobin admiral (which Sugden does not see as a war crime but which he says does not redound to Nelson's credit)". I know Nelson's reputation starts from a much higher base, but I look forward to the day when Richard's career can be discussed in three dimensions without defenders or detractors feeling compelled to retreat to an entrenched viewpoint that owes more to caricature than a living, breathing person.

Jonathan

Karen and All, I am really enjoying this discussion! I am new to the forum(and Richard) and if there is rehashing I am not aware of it! So it is all new and exciting for me:)
IShita
--- In , Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@...> wrote:
>
> My aim was to answer bandyoi's questions as quickly, uncontroversially and
> objectively as I could. It wasn't my intention to revive the subject. Not
> that I have any objection to it being revived by anyone else.
>
> Karen
>
>
> From: oregon_katy <oregon_katy@...>
> Reply-To: <>
> Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 22:06:36 -0000
> To: <>
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --- In
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , "justcarol67"
> <justcarol67@> wrote:
>
> > What I'm wondering is why we're going back over the same ground when our
> positions have already been established and there's nothing more to add.
> > Carol
>
> I'm not against going over (and over and over) the same ground in these
> discussions. Even if our positions are established, there is not
> necessarily nothing more to add. Even if no new information has turned up,
> you never know when someone will have an interesting new way at looking at
> old material, or make hitherto unnoticed connections between events -- the
> marriage arrangements underway for Elizabeth or York, and her letter to
> Norfolk about longing to be married, for example.
>
> Katy
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

I just had to say Johanne that I agree 100% with you on this....Eileen
>
>
>
> I do know that the Church laid down ideals, which I believe many people could not live up to, but given his upbringing, I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly world. I don’t think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his time, and that is what I think people are saying here who say that, had he lived, he would have been one of England’s greatest kings.
>
>
>
> Johanne
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Johanne L. Tournier
>
>
>
> Email - jltournier60@...
>
> or jltournier@...
>
>
>
> "With God, all things are possible."
>
> - Jesus of Nazareth
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
> Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 12:23 PM
> To:
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
> To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, 25 October 2012, 14:37
> Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
> "My reaction (and I admit a bias in favour of Richard’s essential sense of
> fairness and justice, which I certainly don’t have regarding George) at the
> outset is to be skeptical of whether Richard’s actions were as self-serving
> as they have been portrayed."
>
> I don't see Richard as being particularly self-serving, but nor do I view him as entirely and super-humanly altruistic. More to the point, I don't think he *needs* to be for any Ricardian to justify their regard for him. He has enough of a decent track record for us to be able to admire him without needing to exonerate him of behaviour that was part of the remit for being a 15th century noble. (And, by the same token, Henry VII has a sufficiently dodgy track record for us not to need to demonise him further.) It's understandable but counter-productive to challenge 500 years of partisan history with an approach that's equally partisan from the opposite side. We need to be not zealots, but simply better and more open-minded readers of history than Weir, Hicks and Seward et al.
>
> I was struck by a recent review of a highly favourable biography of Nelson, which included a line about his "his still-controversial actions in Naples in 1799 when he hanged a Jacobin admiral (which Sugden does not see as a war crime but which he says “does not redound to Nelson’s credit”)". I know Nelson's reputation starts from a much higher base, but I look forward to the day when Richard's career can be discussed in three dimensions without defenders or detractors feeling compelled to retreat to an entrenched viewpoint that owes more to caricature than a living, breathing person.
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Ah now, Johanne, if that is all you meant, then I would pretty much agree. My reading of the situation is that Edward was not going to let the Countess have personal control of those vast estates again (she who reminded Henry VII's parliament of "the true and feithfull servyce and alliegeaunce that the seid countesse had and owed to the seid most excellent prynce Kyng Henry the vith"), but this arrangement did keep the estates in the family and protect them for her heirs. They were with her own daughters, so would surely have been partly used for her benefit, and the daughters' husbands were the King's brothers so Edward did not have to worry about the money being used to fund future rebellion against him - particularly as she was living with reliable Richard rather than George.
I have to say I think the Countess was a fool to petition for the return of her lands in 1487. She should have known Henry VII would only agree if he had a cunning plan to outwit her. All she achieved was to disinherit her grandchildren.
Marie



--- In , Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Marie & Everyone –
>
>
>
> This is kind of where I left off a couple of days ago. For now, I just want
> to clarify (hopefully) what I was talking about. Then I want to go off,
> think about the issues and hopefully do some research on the matter.
>
>
>
> I was not suggesting that there was a power of attorney. I was suggesting
> that a "legal fiction," such as a Parliamentary declaration of the
> Countess's death, might have been used to accomplish something that a power
> of attorney might have enabled the parties to do much more simply at a later
> time. I was suggesting, again as a very tentative suggestion, that if there
> was a statute of Parliament which declared the Countess dead, and if it was
> known that she was very much alive, that one possible reason that something
> like that might have been done was in order to allow management of her
> estates, at least partly for her benefit and/or for her family's benefit.
> Now, trusts (in former times, called "uses") were in existence at this
> period. But perhaps her situation did not allow for holding all of her
> property in trust for her. I was not suggesting that the Countess was
> mentally incompetent; I didn't say that. I was suggesting that as the widow
> of a declared traitor, it might have been impossible for her to proceed
> normally to deal with her property, assuming that a widow in that era was
> allowed to own property in her own right. Perhaps because of the situation,
> her property would otherwise been forfeited to the Crown. Or perhaps the
> property would have passed directly to Warwick's heirs (his children). I
> don't know the details of the legal situation of the parties, and that is
> something I would like to investigate.
>
>
>
> My reaction (and I admit a bias in favour of Richard's essential sense of
> fairness and justice, which I certainly don't have regarding George) at the
> outset is to be skeptical of whether Richard's actions were as self-serving
> as they have been portrayed. Now, with the information that you and others
> have provided, it seems even more likely that there are inferences that can
> reasonably be made that will in large part "exonerate" Richard. I admit that
> I don't know all the facts; I don't even know all the law, but I do have an
> idea of some of the law and some of the facts. As I said, my hope is to work
> on this further and perhaps come up with a fuller explanation.
>
>
>
> BTW, like most people here, I admire Richard but I am not seeking to
> whitewash him; and it may be that I don't have the resources to do what I
> want to do. But I am willing, after having investigated further, to come
> back and report my findings, or lack thereof.
>
>
>
> That's all for now –
>
>
>
> Johanne
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Johanne L. Tournier
>
>
>
> Email - jltournier60@...
>
> or jltournier@...
>
>
>
> "With God, all things are possible."
>
> - Jesus of Nazareth
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From:
> [mailto:] On Behalf Of mariewalsh2003
> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 3:29 PM
> To:
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
> I've never seen power of attorney. It is quite common to see the lands of
> one family member being put into the charge of another family member because
> the first was 'a fool and an idiot' (fatua & ideota). Often these
> individuals seem not to have been mentally retarded as such, but simply not
> bright enough to deal with the hazards of medieval estate management. I've
> never seen the equivalent of enduring PoA being given on any other grounds,
> but people often appointed attorneys to deal with specific issues and the
> likes of the King and Gloucester employed a permanent Attorney General.
> There is no reference anywhere to the Countess being 'fatua' or the like,
> and as has been said by someone else already her surviving petitions to
> parliament suggest she was anything but.
> Marie
>
> --- In
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , "justcarol67"
> <justcarol67@> wrote:
> >
> > Johanne Tournier wrote:
> > >
> > > No, ladies, my questions about what transpired are not ones that were
> answered or even considered, as far as I can recall, in that recent thread,
> which I remember fairly well. In fact, I am not the one that brought the
> situation vis-à-vis Anne's mother up again just now. It is this most recent
> discussion which raised some possible issues that I felt had not been dealt
> with, at least not in these two most recent threads.
> > >
> > > I am very unhappy that when I raise some new questions, I am not allowed
> to express my feelings. I feel it is a sign of close-mindedness not to be
> allowed to investigate all possible aspects of the matter. However, have it
> your way; I won't discuss it any further.
> >
> > Carol responds:
> >
> > Johanne, my sincere apologies. I just felt that we were going around in
> circles, and I did ignore your new question. Unfortunately, I don't know
> anything about power of attorney or whether it existed in the fifteenth
> century. My fault entirely, especially implying that you didn't remember the
> thread. I should have realized how unlikely that was.
> >
> > Carol
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Hi, Marie -

Yes, that was the main point I wanted to make in my earlier emails on this
thread. It seemed to me that that particular possibility hadn't been
considered, but as I wrote earlier, you seem to have an excellent grasp of
the facts and I feel the matter has been clarified to a great extent. I've
learned a lot about an episode in Richard's life of which I previously knew
almost nothing.



Ironic, isn't it, that Henry had the last word where the Countess's and her
family's legacy was concerned. That suggests, btw, sweet Ricardian revenge
might be wreaked on Henry VII's memory if an accurate biography were written
about him. It seems to me that the Tudors have largely gotten a free pass
over the centuries for their extortions and judicial murders.



Can you recommend one or two worthwhile books that focus on Warwick that
might consider these issues in more detail? (I seem to recall some
disparaging comments on this forum about Kendall's book on Warwick.) I see
there are some books in my university library on women and property issues
in the late Middle Ages, which I am going to try to pick up, but I am not
sure if they will be useful for analyzing the Countess's specific situation.




Thanks!



Johanne



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier



Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...

or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...



"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



From:
[mailto:] On Behalf Of mariewalsh2003
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:31 PM
To:
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter





Ah now, Johanne, if that is all you meant, then I would pretty much agree.
My reading of the situation is that Edward was not going to let the Countess
have personal control of those vast estates again (she who reminded Henry
VII's parliament of "the true and feithfull servyce and alliegeaunce that
the seid countesse had and owed to the seid most excellent prynce Kyng Henry
the vith"), but this arrangement did keep the estates in the family and
protect them for her heirs. They were with her own daughters, so would
surely have been partly used for her benefit, and the daughters' husbands
were the King's brothers so Edward did not have to worry about the money
being used to fund future rebellion against him - particularly as she was
living with reliable Richard rather than George.
I have to say I think the Countess was a fool to petition for the return of
her lands in 1487. She should have known Henry VII would only agree if he
had a cunning plan to outwit her. All she achieved was to disinherit her
grandchildren.
Marie

Johanne Tournier wrote:
<snip>
> Ironic, isn't it, that Henry had the last word where the Countess's and her family's legacy was concerned. That suggests, btw, sweet Ricardian revenge might be wreaked on Henry VII's memory if an accurate biography were written about him. It seems to me that the Tudors have largely gotten a free pass over the centuries for their extortions and judicial murders. <snip>

Carol responds:

Yes, how ironic that *their* disposing of Yorkist heirs, including poor Edward or Warwick and John of Gloucester, not to mention old Margaret Pole, is applauded as sound policy!

It seems that Sean Cunningham, author of "Richard III: A Royal Enigma" (which Elaine recently recommended) is writing a new biography of Henry VII. However, despite his attempts at objectivity in "Enigma," he believes that Richard's nephews were killed during Richard's reign (presumably by Richard), which does not bode well for the new biography. Still, better Cunningham than, say, Starkey!

Carol

She also reminded Edward IV's parliament that "she hath duly kept her
fidelite and ligeaunce and obeied the kynges commaundementz". It's the kind
of thing people say to kings when they want something from them. Henry VII
"he had a cunning plan" regarding her property, yet Richard 'protected' it.
Both the cunning planning and the protecting, strangely, had the same end
result. Of course Edward (and his brothers) weren't about to let the
countess have control of her estates. That's blindingly obvious. There was a
perfectly good, much precedented, legal way for her to be separated from
that property, and that was attainder. Uniquely, of all the people who might
have committed treason against Edward IV, the countess was declared dead in
parliament and her property handed over to two men who just happened to be
the king's brothers, and just happened to be married to her daughters. I
wonder if anyone thinks this course of action (rather than due legal
process) would have been followed had Isobel and Anne Nevill been married to
anyone else. And I wonder if 'protection' would be anyone's first thought if
Isobel had been her only daughter. Starting from the premise "Richard could
do no wrong, therefore this or that action must have been right" skews the
picture. Of course, people can hold any picture of Richard they choose. That
includes those who strive to be objective as well as those who believe him
incapable of doing any wrong.

Karen

From: mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:30:41 -0000
To: <>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter






Ah now, Johanne, if that is all you meant, then I would pretty much agree.
My reading of the situation is that Edward was not going to let the Countess
have personal control of those vast estates again (she who reminded Henry
VII's parliament of "the true and feithfull servyce and alliegeaunce that
the seid countesse had and owed to the seid most excellent prynce Kyng Henry
the vith"), but this arrangement did keep the estates in the family and
protect them for her heirs. They were with her own daughters, so would
surely have been partly used for her benefit, and the daughters' husbands
were the King's brothers so Edward did not have to worry about the money
being used to fund future rebellion against him - particularly as she was
living with reliable Richard rather than George.
I have to say I think the Countess was a fool to petition for the return of
her lands in 1487. She should have known Henry VII would only agree if he
had a cunning plan to outwit her. All she achieved was to disinherit her
grandchildren.
Marie

--- In
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Johanne Tournier
<jltournier60@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Marie & Everyone ?
>
>
>
> This is kind of where I left off a couple of days ago. For now, I just want
> to clarify (hopefully) what I was talking about. Then I want to go off,
> think about the issues and hopefully do some research on the matter.
>
>
>
> I was not suggesting that there was a power of attorney. I was suggesting
> that a "legal fiction," such as a Parliamentary declaration of the
> Countess's death, might have been used to accomplish something that a power
> of attorney might have enabled the parties to do much more simply at a later
> time. I was suggesting, again as a very tentative suggestion, that if there
> was a statute of Parliament which declared the Countess dead, and if it was
> known that she was very much alive, that one possible reason that something
> like that might have been done was in order to allow management of her
> estates, at least partly for her benefit and/or for her family's benefit.
> Now, trusts (in former times, called "uses") were in existence at this
> period. But perhaps her situation did not allow for holding all of her
> property in trust for her. I was not suggesting that the Countess was
> mentally incompetent; I didn't say that. I was suggesting that as the widow
> of a declared traitor, it might have been impossible for her to proceed
> normally to deal with her property, assuming that a widow in that era was
> allowed to own property in her own right. Perhaps because of the situation,
> her property would otherwise been forfeited to the Crown. Or perhaps the
> property would have passed directly to Warwick's heirs (his children). I
> don't know the details of the legal situation of the parties, and that is
> something I would like to investigate.
>
>
>
> My reaction (and I admit a bias in favour of Richard's essential sense of
> fairness and justice, which I certainly don't have regarding George) at the
> outset is to be skeptical of whether Richard's actions were as self-serving
> as they have been portrayed. Now, with the information that you and others
> have provided, it seems even more likely that there are inferences that can
> reasonably be made that will in large part "exonerate" Richard. I admit that
> I don't know all the facts; I don't even know all the law, but I do have an
> idea of some of the law and some of the facts. As I said, my hope is to work
> on this further and perhaps come up with a fuller explanation.
>
>
>
> BTW, like most people here, I admire Richard but I am not seeking to
> whitewash him; and it may be that I don't have the resources to do what I
> want to do. But I am willing, after having investigated further, to come
> back and report my findings, or lack thereof.
>
>
>
> That's all for now ?
>
>
>
> Johanne
>

Johanne

Both Hicks and Pollard have written books about Warwick called 'Warwick the
Kingmaker'. Pollard's has more on the countess than Hicks, though still not
a great deal. Pollard has an excellent book, Northeastern England During the
Wars of the Roses, that talks about the Nevills (and others) but again the
countess isn't well represented. He has a chapter on Richard's reign and
Henry VII's. I recall mentioning Kendall's Warwick book, but I wasn't the
least disparaging. I said I didn't much rate it. I first read it years ago,
when it was the only thing I could find, but since buying Hicks (who's had
far more disparaging things said about him on this forum) and Pollard, I
realised that Kendall's book wasn't particularly good. Charles Oman's
Warwick the Kingmaker is available free on google books. It's old, but good.
Waurin and Commynes are both useful in this regard as well. As to works
dealing specifically with the Countess herself, Pollard (again) wrote an
article 'The Smethon letter, St Penket and the tablet of gold', but I
haven't found much else. The relevant parliamentary rolls can be accessed
through British History Online {http://www.british-history.ac.uk/}. Good
luck with your research, it's a fascinating subject!

Karen



From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 18:32:20 -0300
To: <>
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter






Hi, Marie -

Yes, that was the main point I wanted to make in my earlier emails on this
thread. It seemed to me that that particular possibility hadn't been
considered, but as I wrote earlier, you seem to have an excellent grasp of
the facts and I feel the matter has been clarified to a great extent. I've
learned a lot about an episode in Richard's life of which I previously knew
almost nothing.

Ironic, isn't it, that Henry had the last word where the Countess's and her
family's legacy was concerned. That suggests, btw, sweet Ricardian revenge
might be wreaked on Henry VII's memory if an accurate biography were written
about him. It seems to me that the Tudors have largely gotten a free pass
over the centuries for their extortions and judicial murders.

Can you recommend one or two worthwhile books that focus on Warwick that
might consider these issues in more detail? (I seem to recall some
disparaging comments on this forum about Kendall's book on Warwick.) I see
there are some books in my university library on women and property issues
in the late Middle Ages, which I am going to try to pick up, but I am not
sure if they will be useful for analyzing the Countess's specific situation.

Thanks!

Johanne

Johanne, the point you snipped here shows a legal act that, in other
circumstances, might have led to attainder or rehabilitation, not the
dividing up of the confiscated property between two members of the king's
family. When the property of the Yorkists was similarly confiscated after
the Parliament of Devils, it was given into the care of various people, not
taken by Henry VI personally and given out to his half-brothers. Nor were
any of them declared dead when they were very much alive. The Yorkists were
attainted, which attainder was later overturned. I know I keep repeating
myself, but this is a crucial point. The countess of Warwick wasn't
attainted. Warwick wasn't attainted. And I can only stress again, looking at
this particular act in the way I've come to hasn't suddenly made me think
him an evil monster. Having an open mind about him, being objective and
realistic about him, has given me a greater appreciation of the man than I
had when I was a dewy eyed romantic teenager.

Karen

From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:08:05 -0300
To: <>
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter






Thank you for this detailed history, Marie. I don't recollect all this
detailed information being laid out previously.

Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier

Email - jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>

or jltournier@... <mailto:jltournier%40xcountry.tv>

"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From:
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
[mailto:
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of
mariewalsh2003
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 3:22 PM
To:
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter

Karen,

Yes we have had this discussion. The facts are:-

1) The Countess' estates were seized by Edward IV, together with her
husband's, in 1470 for manifest treason, and when he returned to the throne
he continued to treat them as forfeit. It was normal to confiscate estates
before prosecution, but whether Edward should have kept hold of them without
further legal action would have to be for another discussion.

[Johanne Tournier] <snip for brevity>

Hi, Ishita. Being very much of the minority view on this, I didn't want
anyone to think I was dredging it up again. Discussing it is absolutely fine
with me! Richard's life and reign, the broader Wars of the Roses, is a
fascinating time. Like a lot of people here, I've been interested in it for
a long time now and it just never gets old. It's always good to meet someone
new.

Karen

From: bandyoi <bandyoi@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 17:01:44 -0000
To: <>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter







Karen and All, I am really enjoying this discussion! I am new to the
forum(and Richard) and if there is rehashing I am not aware of it! So it is
all new and exciting for me:)
IShita
--- In
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Karen Clark
<Ragged_staff@...> wrote:
>
> My aim was to answer bandyoi's questions as quickly, uncontroversially and
> objectively as I could. It wasn't my intention to revive the subject. Not
> that I have any objection to it being revived by anyone else.
>
> Karen
>
>
> From: oregon_katy <oregon_katy@...>
> Reply-To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 22:06:36 -0000
> To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --- In
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , "justcarol67"
> <justcarol67@> wrote:
>
> > What I'm wondering is why we're going back over the same ground when our
> positions have already been established and there's nothing more to add.
> > Carol
>
> I'm not against going over (and over and over) the same ground in these
> discussions. Even if our positions are established, there is not
> necessarily nothing more to add. Even if no new information has turned up,
> you never know when someone will have an interesting new way at looking at
> old material, or make hitherto unnoticed connections between events -- the
> marriage arrangements underway for Elizabeth or York, and her letter to
> Norfolk about longing to be married, for example.
>
> Katy
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Oop!
I am American who facebooks, and !!! Is a big part of it:)
Will try to it less here.

--- In , "blancsanglier1452" <blancsanglier1452@...> wrote:
>
>
> We exonerate you for covering the forum in exclamation marks !!!!!
>
> LOL
>
> --- In , "bandyoi" <bandyoi@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Haha!
> > I have been trying to do just that! Trying to exonerate him of anything unpleasant!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In , Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Don't be disappointed! When my interest in the Wars of the Roses and Richard
> > > began decades ago, I was of the 'he could do not wrong!' school of thinking,
> > > and I went along with all the excuses, justifications that go along with
> > > that. I've adjusted that over the years and now I find complex, flawed,
> > > imperfect, unsaintly, man-of-his-times Richard much more interesting. I
> > > don't have to tie myself in knots anymore trying to find a way to get him
> > > off the hook all the time. If he did something that wasn't entirely
> > > altruistic or noble, then he did it and there's no way that can be changed.
> > > And I really do like the real man I'm finding much more than the one I first
> > > met.
> > >
> > > Karen
> > >
> > > From: bandyoi <bandyoi@>
> > > Reply-To: <>
> > > Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:49:49 -0000
> > > To: <>
> > > Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > PG also supported the idea that RIII and Bess were lovers..... Since Marie
> > > from this forum sent me the article that refutes this idea, I found this
> > > assertion quite unpalatable! PG must have known about negotiations of Bess's
> > > marraige to Manuel of Potugal. These popular fictions does perpetuate Riii's
> > > bad reputation to a certain degree..... I wish her researchers advised her
> > > better!!
> > > I am little disappointed with Glouchester that he actually went along in
> > > declaring the Countess dead!
> > >
> > > --- In
> > > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Karen Clark
> > > <Ragged_staff@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I read the book and really didn't like it for all sorts of reasons. As to
> > > > the countess of Warwick:
> > > > 1. No, she wasn't locked away in a tower. Whether she had apartments at
> > > > Middleham or her own establishment isn't clear, but she did have an
> > > > allowance (not particularly generous);
> > > > 2. The countess of Warwick was declared dead in court. She wasn't charged
> > > > with treason, neither she nor her late husband were attainted after Barnet.
> > > > She took sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey when she heard her husband was dead.
> > > > She was kept their against her will and fought hard to be released and
> > > > regain control of her property and her late husband's. She was declared dead
> > > > so that her daughters could 'inherit' not only their father's property and
> > > > title, but their mother's.
> > > > 3. This shows that PG either misread the relevant parliamentary roll or was
> > > > misadvised by a researcher. The clause that gives Gloucester control of his
> > > > wife's estates &c was there to protect his and Anne's interests. Clarence
> > > > was trying to have the marriage declared illegal, in which case he and
> > > > Isobel had the chance to get control of Anne's share of her 'inheritance'.
> > > > The clause, stating that if the marriage ended Gloucester would have
> > > > control, referred to a life interest only, and there were two other
> > > > conditions: that he didn't marry anyone else; and that he worked to ensure a
> > > > legal marriage between him and Anne.
> > > > The thing that annoyed me most about that book was the constant reference
> > > > (by his daughter, no less!) to Warwick as 'the kingmaker'. He was never
> > > > known as that during his lifetime. There's another writer of historical
> > > > fiction who does the same thing, in fact goes one better, as she calls
> > > > Warwick 'kingmaker' pre-1461, when he hadn't made even a single king.
> > > >
> > > > Karen
> > > >
> > > > From: bandyoi <bandyoi@>
> > > > Reply-To: <
> > > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> > > > Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 22:10:23 -0000
> > > > To: <
> > > <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
> > > > Subject: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I just finished Phillipa Gregory's The Kingmaker's Daughter. Has anyone read
> > > > it? I am not sure how accurate the portion about Anne Neville's mother is!
> > > > The book says that Richard imprisoned the countess and declared her dead in
> > > > court of law! And made provision's to keep Anne's lands in case their
> > > > marriage is put aside because of lack of the papal dispension........ Is any
> > > > of it true?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>

Karen Clark wrote:
She also reminded Edward IV's parliament that "she hath duly kept her
fidelite and ligeaunce and obeied the kynges commaundementz". It's the kind
of thing people say to kings when they want something from them. Henry VII
"he had a cunning plan" regarding her property, yet Richard 'protected' it.
Both the cunning planning and the protecting, strangely, had the same end
result. Of course Edward (and his brothers) weren't about to let the
countess have control of her estates. That's blindingly obvious. There was
a
perfectly good, much precedented, legal way for her to be separated from
that property, and that was attainder. Uniquely, of all the people who
might
have committed treason against Edward IV, the countess was declared dead in
parliament and her property handed over to two men who just happened to be
the king's brothers, and just happened to be married to her daughters. I
wonder if
anyone thinks this course of action (rather than due legal
process) would have been followed had Isobel and Anne Nevill been married
to
anyone else. And I wonder if 'protection' would be anyone's first thought
if
Isobel had been her only daughter. Starting from the premise "Richard could
do no wrong, therefore this or that action must have been right" skews the
picture. Of course, people can hold any picture of Richard they choose.
That
includes those who strive to be objective as well as those who believe him
incapable of doing any wrong.


If I had to venture a guess as to why Edward IV decided to have the Countess
declared dead by Act of Parliament and not attainted, I would say that
inheritance, even based on having someone declared "as if dead" rather than
waiting for nature to take its' course, was considered a way to prevent the
heirs of George and Isobel and Richard and Anne from being, at some future
time and under another king, possibly having those lands returned to the
possession of the crown.
Is there any evidence of George and/or Richard being behind Edward's having
the Countess declared legally dead? It was Edward, after all, who was king.
I understand that when a man was attainted, his wife retained her dower. In
such a case, Warwick COULD have been attainted, HIS properties taken by
Edward and THEN given out to whomever he pleased. The Countess' dower lands,
on the other hand, would remain with her for her life and then pass to her
descendents.
Honestly, what it looks like to me is that Edward himself, for whatever
reason/s, decided against attainting either Warwick or his wife and either
came up with the idea himself or someone pointed out that an Act of
Parliament could declare her legally dead so George/Isobel and Richard/Anne
could INHERIT at once. If it wasn't Edward who thought this up, who was it?
At any rate, WE (emphasis mine) know that Edward IV and his brothers died
fairly young and were outlived by the Countess, but THEY didn't know that
would occur and could, with very reasonable expectations, feel that within
ten years, twenty at most, nature would have settled the problem. Meanwhile,
the Countess HADN'T been executed for treason or locked up in some castle
dungeon, she had at least some funds of her own and her wealth was in the
fairly safe hands of Edward's brothers, and would pass on to her descendents
via her daughters marriages to George and Richard.
Most likely NOT what the Countess herself preferred, but much better than
what could have been, certainly?
Doug

--- In , "Douglas Eugene Stamate" <destama@...> wrote:
>

> Is there any evidence of George and/or Richard being behind Edward's having
> the Countess declared legally dead? It was Edward, after all, who was king.
> I understand that when a man was attainted, his wife retained her dower. In
> such a case, Warwick COULD have been attainted, HIS properties taken by
> Edward and THEN given out to whomever he pleased. The Countess' dower lands,
> on the other hand, would remain with her for her life and then pass to her
> descendents.
> Honestly, what it looks like to me is that Edward himself, for whatever
> reason/s, decided against attainting either Warwick or his wife and either
> came up with the idea himself or someone pointed out that an Act of
> Parliament could declare her legally dead so George/Isobel and Richard/Anne
> could INHERIT at once. If it wasn't Edward who thought this up, who was it?


Bishop Morton? I don't have a clear picture of the timeline in my head, so maybe Morton was lurking across the Channel at the time, but the idea Edward acted upon was daring, unprecedented, clever, and convoluted. Sounds like Morton to me.

Katy

Whoever came up with it (assuming for a moment it wasn't Richard) he went
along with it and he hugely benefited from it. And I can't for the life of
me think why Morton would have had any involvement at all.

Karen

From: oregon_katy <oregon_katy@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 05:22:59 -0000
To: <>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter








--- In
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , "Douglas Eugene Stamate"
<destama@...> wrote:
>

> Is there any evidence of George and/or Richard being behind Edward's having
> the Countess declared legally dead? It was Edward, after all, who was king.
> I understand that when a man was attainted, his wife retained her dower. In
> such a case, Warwick COULD have been attainted, HIS properties taken by
> Edward and THEN given out to whomever he pleased. The Countess' dower lands,
> on the other hand, would remain with her for her life and then pass to her
> descendents.
> Honestly, what it looks like to me is that Edward himself, for whatever
> reason/s, decided against attainting either Warwick or his wife and either
> came up with the idea himself or someone pointed out that an Act of
> Parliament could declare her legally dead so George/Isobel and Richard/Anne
> could INHERIT at once. If it wasn't Edward who thought this up, who was it?

Bishop Morton? I don't have a clear picture of the timeline in my head, so
maybe Morton was lurking across the Channel at the time, but the idea Edward
acted upon was daring, unprecedented, clever, and convoluted. Sounds like
Morton to me.

Katy

Douglas

"If I had to venture a guess as to why Edward IV decided to have the
Countess declared dead by Act of Parliament and not attainted, I would say
that inheritance, even based on having someone declared "as if dead" rather
than waiting for nature to take its' course, was considered a way to prevent
the heirs of George and Isobel and Richard and Anne from being, at some
future time and under another king, possibly having those lands returned to
the possession of the crown."

Edward was certainly looking after members of his family. Considering the
next king (so far as Edward was concerned) was his son, I'm not sure your
'just in case' argument holds, though.

"Is there any evidence of George and/or Richard being behind Edward's having
the Countess declared legally dead? It was Edward, after all, who was king.
I understand that when a man was attainted, his wife retained her dower. In
such a case, Warwick COULD have been attainted, HIS properties taken by
Edward and THEN given out to whomever he pleased. The Countess' dower lands,
on the other hand, would remain with her for her life and then pass to her
descendents."

The three brothers were involved and the three of them benefited. Richard
and George materially, Edward in being able to do what had eluded him so
far, ie providing his brothers with an income.
The Countess's property (inherited from her Dispenser mother), her title,
her dower and her jointure were all taken. You're absolutely right, though,
in that the wife of an attainted traitor was usually allowed to keep all
that. Cecily Nevill was given an allowance when her husband was attainted.
The other wives of the Yorkists (except the countess of Salisbury) were
explicitly excluded from any penalty in 1459. Some of them had a fight to
get back what was theirs (Thomas Nevill's wife, for one) but their personal
property and their jointures weren't touched. (Ok, Maud's personal property
was touched, even clothes, but they were ordered returned to her quickly and
an incorrectly seized property put into viscount Beaumont's hands with Maud
receiving the income.)

"Honestly, what it looks like to me is that Edward himself, for whatever
reason/s, decided against attainting either Warwick or his wife and either
came up with the idea himself or someone pointed out that an Act of
Parliament could declare her legally dead so George/Isobel and Richard/Anne
could INHERIT at once. If it wasn't Edward who thought this up, who was it?"

I have no idea which of the brothers thought this up but all three were
involved in the process, which is why I've been careful not to suggest that
Richard alone was the driving force behind it. He might have been, but it's
not something anyone could state with any confidence. That he wasn't an
innocent bystander, wringing his hands and hoping the nice countess wasn't
hurt is fairly clear to me. He and Anne benefited absolutely from this.

"Meanwhile, the Countess HADN'T been executed for treason or locked up in
some castle dungeon, she had at least some funds of her own and her wealth
was in the fairly safe hands of Edward's brothers, and would pass on to her
descendents via her daughters marriages to George and Richard."

The countess also HADN'T been acquitted of all charges because no charges
were laid. She states her innocence in her petition to the Commons and, yes,
all sorts of people claim to be innocent, not just the innocent. But let's
just say she was genuine in this, for a moment. She was denied a chance to
know what charges might be against her, what evidence there was. She was
denied the chance to face her accusers. I'm not sure how many of us would
say "I didn't do anything wrong and they took my house and all my property,
cleaned out my bank account, but hey, I've got a nice room at my daughter's
house and some pocket money!"

Karen

Hi, Karen -



Perhaps it is your comments about Kendall's book on Warwick that I am
thinking of. I would consider those negative, at least in comparison with
the general view of his biography of Richard. And you're right of course
about Hicks - I hear the name and I cringe! Pollard is a name I know I've
heard before, but I don't know much about him.



Anyway, thank you for your comments - I'll get the Charles Oman book right
away - it's online and it's free after all - then I'll go from there.
Sometimes older books have been superseded by subsequent research. Sometimes
they represent a height of scholarship and literary achievement which is
unsurpassed by later works, despite their age. At least it's a starting
point.



Johanne



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier



Email - jltournier60@...

or jltournier@...



"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



From:
[mailto:] On Behalf Of Karen Clark
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 9:31 PM
To:
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter





Johanne

Both Hicks and Pollard have written books about Warwick called 'Warwick the
Kingmaker'. Pollard's has more on the countess than Hicks, though still not
a great deal. Pollard has an excellent book, Northeastern England During the
Wars of the Roses, that talks about the Nevills (and others) but again the
countess isn't well represented. He has a chapter on Richard's reign and
Henry VII's. I recall mentioning Kendall's Warwick book, but I wasn't the
least disparaging. I said I didn't much rate it. I first read it years ago,
when it was the only thing I could find, but since buying Hicks (who's had
far more disparaging things said about him on this forum) and Pollard, I
realised that Kendall's book wasn't particularly good. Charles Oman's
Warwick the Kingmaker is available free on google books. It's old, but good.
Waurin and Commynes are both useful in this regard as well. As to works
dealing specifically with the Countess herself, Pollard (again) wrote an
article 'The Smethon letter, St Penket and the tablet of gold', but I
haven't found much else. The relevant parliamentary rolls can be accessed
through British History Online {http://www.british-history.ac.uk/}. Good
luck with your research, it's a fascinating subject!

Karen

From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...
<mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
Reply-To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 18:32:20 -0300
To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter

Hi, Marie -

Yes, that was the main point I wanted to make in my earlier emails on this
thread. It seemed to me that that particular possibility hadn't been
considered, but as I wrote earlier, you seem to have an excellent grasp of
the facts and I feel the matter has been clarified to a great extent. I've
learned a lot about an episode in Richard's life of which I previously knew
almost nothing.

Ironic, isn't it, that Henry had the last word where the Countess's and her
family's legacy was concerned. That suggests, btw, sweet Ricardian revenge
might be wreaked on Henry VII's memory if an accurate biography were written
about him. It seems to me that the Tudors have largely gotten a free pass
over the centuries for their extortions and judicial murders.

Can you recommend one or two worthwhile books that focus on Warwick that
might consider these issues in more detail? (I seem to recall some
disparaging comments on this forum about Kendall's book on Warwick.) I see
there are some books in my university library on women and property issues
in the late Middle Ages, which I am going to try to pick up, but I am not
sure if they will be useful for analyzing the Countess's specific situation.

Thanks!

Johanne

Hi Johanne


One thing you wrote particularly caught my eye:

"I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist
making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly
world. I don't think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his
time"

I'd turn that around slightly and say that Richard was trying very much to be a man of his time, albeit an exemplary one - the warrior prince noted for piety and good governance.  His legislation is impressive, but I don't get much sense of the revolutionary about him.  (Henry VII perhaps had more of a genuinely new vision for the crown, but as that became the foundation for a proto-police state, we can perhaps agree it was *not* a good thing!)

I find the concept of transcending your time quite difficult.  When I think about it, I can apply that to only a very few people.  Shakespeare is the obvious one, and most of the others tend to be writers, thinkers or artists - people who change how we view the world.  There are a few political leaders who can be said to transcend their time, but as this would generally involve re-shaping continents by marching over the bodies of thousands (e.g. Napoleon) you really wouldn't want to give them house-room.

Jonathan



________________________________
From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
To:
Sent: Thursday, 25 October 2012, 17:45
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter


 
Hi, Jonathan 

I am not an expert on Richard, by any means. I do admire him. And I do believe there may have been valid reasons for what he did. Yes, in my heart I believe he was capable of being, if not completely altruistic, at least acting from enlightened self-interest.

As I wrote earlier, it is possible that what, on its face, looks like a bald-faced seizure of someone else's property may not have actually been that at all. If you read the facts as laid out in Marie's email, for instance, you can see some details that were not mentioned before, and those details put a somewhat different cast on the situation.

My aim is to get at the truth by careful examination and considering all the possible alternatives. But I do believe that Richard deserves both a painstaking but also a sympathetic scrutiny of his actions, and then if they come up . . . less than what we would approve of today, well, so be it. As someone said earlier today (Marie, Carol T., help?), she loves researching the Medieval period in part because it is so foreign. That means there are a lot of concepts that are alien to us. But I will say that there is a lot in the field of property and estate law that harks back to the Middle Ages, which is why I felt if I examined the details, I might be able to turn up an interesting wrinkle or two. And then again, maybe not. C'est la vie.

I do know that the Church laid down ideals, which I believe many people could not live up to, but given his upbringing, I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly world. I don't think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his time, and that is what I think people are saying here who say that, had he lived, he would have been one of England's greatest kings.

Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier

Email - jltournier60@...

or jltournier@...

"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 12:23 PM
To:
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter

From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, 25 October 2012, 14:37
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter

"My reaction (and I admit a bias in favour of Richard's essential sense of
fairness and justice, which I certainly don't have regarding George) at the
outset is to be skeptical of whether Richard's actions were as self-serving
as they have been portrayed."

I don't see Richard as being particularly self-serving, but nor do I view him as entirely and super-humanly altruistic. More to the point, I don't think he *needs* to be for any Ricardian to justify their regard for him. He has enough of a decent track record for us to be able to admire him without needing to exonerate him of behaviour that was part of the remit for being a 15th century noble. (And, by the same token, Henry VII has a sufficiently dodgy track record for us not to need to demonise him further.) It's understandable but counter-productive to challenge 500 years of partisan history with an approach that's equally partisan from the opposite side. We need to be not zealots, but simply better and more open-minded readers of history than Weir, Hicks and Seward et al.

I was struck by a recent review of a highly favourable biography of Nelson, which included a line about his "his still-controversial actions in Naples in 1799 when he hanged a Jacobin admiral (which Sugden does not see as a war crime but which he says does not redound to Nelson's credit)". I know Nelson's reputation starts from a much higher base, but I look forward to the day when Richard's career can be discussed in three dimensions without defenders or detractors feeling compelled to retreat to an entrenched viewpoint that owes more to caricature than a living, breathing person.

Jonathan

Johanne

You're most welcome!

Karen

From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 07:19:43 -0300
To: <>
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter






Hi, Karen -

Perhaps it is your comments about Kendall's book on Warwick that I am
thinking of. I would consider those negative, at least in comparison with
the general view of his biography of Richard. And you're right of course
about Hicks - I hear the name and I cringe! Pollard is a name I know I've
heard before, but I don't know much about him.

Anyway, thank you for your comments - I'll get the Charles Oman book right
away - it's online and it's free after all - then I'll go from there.
Sometimes older books have been superseded by subsequent research. Sometimes
they represent a height of scholarship and literary achievement which is
unsurpassed by later works, despite their age. At least it's a starting
point.

Johanne

BTW, when I searched in the kindle store for anything on "Warwick the
Kingmaker," the bio by Michael Hicks was the only thing that popped up. I
might have taken a chance on it, but it's listed at over $35.00!! Yikes! So,
it's Oman's book for me for the time being. I won't be able to read it on my
kindle, which is not compatible with Google books, but I will be able to
read it on either my laptop PC or my Android smartphone.



TTFN J



Johanne



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier



Email - jltournier60@...

or jltournier@...



"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



From:
[mailto:] On Behalf Of Karen Clark
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 8:06 AM
To:
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter





Johanne

You're most welcome!

Karen

From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...
<mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
Reply-To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 07:19:43 -0300
To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter

Hi, Karen -

Perhaps it is your comments about Kendall's book on Warwick that I am
thinking of. I would consider those negative, at least in comparison with
the general view of his biography of Richard. And you're right of course
about Hicks - I hear the name and I cringe! Pollard is a name I know I've
heard before, but I don't know much about him.

Anyway, thank you for your comments - I'll get the Charles Oman book right
away - it's online and it's free after all - then I'll go from there.
Sometimes older books have been superseded by subsequent research. Sometimes
they represent a height of scholarship and literary achievement which is
unsurpassed by later works, despite their age. At least it's a starting
point.

Johanne

Hicks' Warwick is pretty good. I got my copy of Pollard through Amazon as
well, so it should be there. There's another one (can't remember who by, but
I seem to remember it being a good solid name), but I have four Warwick the
Kingmaker books already (not counting the utterly irresistible Ladybird book
I got on ebay) and I'm not sure I can justify another one. I got the Oman
from google books onto my kindle. Can't remember how, just at the moment,
but when I do, I'll let you know.

Karen

From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 09:23:59 -0300
To: <>
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter






BTW, when I searched in the kindle store for anything on "Warwick the
Kingmaker," the bio by Michael Hicks was the only thing that popped up. I
might have taken a chance on it, but it's listed at over $35.00!! Yikes! So,
it's Oman's book for me for the time being. I won't be able to read it on my
kindle, which is not compatible with Google books, but I will be able to
read it on either my laptop PC or my Android smartphone.

TTFN J

Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier

Email - jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>

or jltournier@... <mailto:jltournier%40xcountry.tv>

"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From:
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
[mailto:
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Karen Clark
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 8:06 AM
To:
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter

Johanne

You're most welcome!

Karen

From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...
<mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>
<mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
Reply-To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 07:19:43 -0300
To: <
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> >
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter

Hi, Karen -

Perhaps it is your comments about Kendall's book on Warwick that I am
thinking of. I would consider those negative, at least in comparison with
the general view of his biography of Richard. And you're right of course
about Hicks - I hear the name and I cringe! Pollard is a name I know I've
heard before, but I don't know much about him.

Anyway, thank you for your comments - I'll get the Charles Oman book right
away - it's online and it's free after all - then I'll go from there.
Sometimes older books have been superseded by subsequent research. Sometimes
they represent a height of scholarship and literary achievement which is
unsurpassed by later works, despite their age. At least it's a starting
point.

Johanne

Thanks, Karen - let me know about how you got Google onto kindle when you
figure it out, because that is something I would definitely appreciate!



If you've got the time, tell me more about the "Ladybird" book. Is that the
publisher, author, or the title?



Johanne



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier



Email - jltournier60@...

or jltournier@...



"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



From:
[mailto:] On Behalf Of Karen Clark
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 9:33 AM
To:
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter





Hicks' Warwick is pretty good. I got my copy of Pollard through Amazon as
well, so it should be there. There's another one (can't remember who by, but
I seem to remember it being a good solid name), but I have four Warwick the
Kingmaker books already (not counting the utterly irresistible Ladybird book
I got on ebay) and I'm not sure I can justify another one. I got the Oman
from google books onto my kindle. Can't remember how, just at the moment,
but when I do, I'll let you know.

Karen
._,_.___



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Hi, Jonathan 

Some of the apparent disagreement between us may be more a matter of semantics than reality. When you write that Richard was trying to be an exemplary man of his time, that is basically what I am saying when I say I believe that Richard was at heart an idealist. I don't think anyone sets out to be *not* of their time. I believe that the idea of transcendence is something that we in our time sense, part of what gives Richard's life such deep meaning for us so many years after his passing.



I don't believe that I am placing Richard on an unrealistic pedestal. But given that I believe he was idealistic, capable and intelligent, I believe that in many cases his actions, if they seem to us to be heartless, grasping or cruel, may cry out for us to investigate further and try to determine what was really going on and what Richard's intentions were in a particular instance. And not to deal with it by saying, The 15th. century was a harsh and cruel era, and Richard was a man of his time. I am urging this precisely because I wish to see Richard judged as a three dimensional person rather than simply dismissed: The people in the 15th. century were corrupt and Machiavellian; therefore Richard was corrupt and Machiavellian. He was a man of his time. I am not suggesting that Richard was super-humanly altruistic. But he may have been humanly altruistic, or as I wrote earlier, at least acting from enlightened self-interest in many of his actions. As opposed to, say, giving in to the blandishments of his courtiers (or his Queen or his mistress(es)) while in a drunken stupor.



In Richard's case, however, I believe his innate idealism and decency, though it may sometimes have been expressed according to different standards than what we would hold to today, resulted in him being caught in a constricting web of undesirable options. If he had been more ruthless I believe he could have secured his place on the English throne. And, yes, it's true that it's his humankindness in part that draws us to him, but, hey, Richard didn't know that we'd be obsessing over him 5 centuries after his death, so I am pretty sure his actions weren't dictated by such thoughts, although it is very likely that his actions may have been determined by concern for his immortal soul and his prospects in eternity.



Given his scruples, it seems his instinct was to reach out to his enemies, to attempt to bring them into the fold  that he was in fact almost the opposite of the portrait of him that we get in Shakespeare's *Richard III*.



So  think of Richard as a faithful man of ideals. One of surpassing intelligence in an unprepossessing physical frame. The last in a family in which the older boys were all taller, fairer, outwardly had all the advantages that he did not. What he did have was determination, integrity, and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one.



It appears, from what I have seen, that Edward his brother frittered away most of his fine attributes by indulgent living  wine, women and song. And it appears that Edward may have acted from time to time from base motives. It appears that Richard avoided many of those traps by his withdrawal away from court into the North. But he had also created powerful enemies  perhaps simply by refusing to kowtow to them, perhaps because he was relatively incorruptible. And by his withdrawal to a place of relative peace and sanctuary, he would have given those enemies more or less free reign in the South.



My bottom line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt based on our essential admiration of the man. Research carefully  see if there are gaps in the record or examples of bias and then achieve the best conclusion possible in the circumstances.



Take care,



Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier



Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...

or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...



"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 7:52 AM
To:
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter





Hi Johanne

One thing you wrote particularly caught my eye:

"I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist
making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly
world. I don't think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his
time"

I'd turn that around slightly and say that Richard was trying very much to be a man of his time, albeit an exemplary one - the warrior prince noted for piety and good governance. His legislation is impressive, but I don't get much sense of the revolutionary about him. (Henry VII perhaps had more of a genuinely new vision for the crown, but as that became the foundation for a proto-police state, we can perhaps agree it was *not* a good thing!)

I find the concept of transcending your time quite difficult. When I think about it, I can apply that to only a very few people. Shakespeare is the obvious one, and most of the others tend to be writers, thinkers or artists - people who change how we view the world. There are a few political leaders who can be said to transcend their time, but as this would generally involve re-shaping continents by marching over the bodies of thousands (e.g. Napoleon) you really wouldn't want to give them house-room.

Jonathan





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Ladybird were (still are?) a UK publisher of children's books. They had all
sorts of titles. Here's a link to the Warwick book. (It was my first and, so
far, only ebay purchase.)

I'm still trying to remember the other thing!

http://www.theweeweb.co.uk/ladybird/ladybird_book_detail.php?gallery_id=1104

Karen

From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 09:55:53 -0300
To: <>
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter






Thanks, Karen - let me know about how you got Google onto kindle when you
figure it out, because that is something I would definitely appreciate!

If you've got the time, tell me more about the "Ladybird" book. Is that the
publisher, author, or the title?

Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier

Email - jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>

or jltournier@... <mailto:jltournier%40xcountry.tv>

"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From:
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
[mailto:
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Karen Clark
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 9:33 AM
To:
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter

Hicks' Warwick is pretty good. I got my copy of Pollard through Amazon as
well, so it should be there. There's another one (can't remember who by, but
I seem to remember it being a good solid name), but I have four Warwick the
Kingmaker books already (not counting the utterly irresistible Ladybird book
I got on ebay) and I'm not sure I can justify another one. I got the Oman
from google books onto my kindle. Can't remember how, just at the moment,
but when I do, I'll let you know.

Karen
._,_.___

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Johanne...I just have to comment on your posting, which I found both thought provoking and moving....Excellent and thank you. And your comment "What he did have was determination, integrity and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one" - Bosworth with all the betrayal that entailed - made my eyes water a little. Thank God for people like you who remain absolute and steadfast in your loyalty to King Richard....Eileen



--- In , Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...> wrote:
>
> Hi, Jonathan â€"
>
> Some of the apparent disagreement between us may be more a matter of semantics than reality. When you write that Richard was trying to be an “exemplary” man of his time, that is basically what I am saying when I say I believe that Richard was at heart an idealist. I don’t think anyone sets out to be *not* of their time. I believe that the idea of transcendence is something that we in our time sense, part of what gives Richard’s life such deep meaning for us so many years after his passing.
>
>
>
> I don’t believe that I am placing Richard on an unrealistic pedestal. But given that I believe he was idealistic, capable and intelligent, I believe that in many cases his actions, if they seem to us to be heartless, grasping or cruel, may cry out for us to investigate further and try to determine what was really going on and what Richard’s intentions were in a particular instance. And not to deal with it by saying, “The 15th. century was a harsh and cruel era, and Richard was a man of his time.” I am urging this precisely because I wish to see Richard judged as a three dimensional person rather than simply dismissed: “The people in the 15th. century were corrupt and Machiavellian; therefore Richard was corrupt and Machiavellian. He was a man of his time.” I am not suggesting that Richard was “super-humanly” altruistic. But he may have been “humanly” altruistic, or as I wrote earlier, at least acting from “enlightened self-interest” in many of his actions. As opposed to, say, giving in to the blandishments of his courtiers (or his Queen or his mistress(es)) while in a drunken stupor.
>
>
>
> In Richard’s case, however, I believe his innate idealism and decency, though it may sometimes have been expressed according to different standards than what we would hold to today, resulted in him being caught in a constricting web of undesirable options. If he had been more ruthless I believe he could have secured his place on the English throne. And, yes, it’s true that it’s his humankindness in part that draws us to him, but, hey, Richard didn’t know that we’d be obsessing over him 5 centuries after his death, so I am pretty sure his actions weren’t dictated by such thoughts, although it is very likely that his actions may have been determined by concern for his immortal soul and his prospects in eternity.
>
>
>
> Given his scruples, it seems his instinct was to reach out to his enemies, to attempt to bring them into the fold â€" that he was in fact almost the opposite of the portrait of him that we get in Shakespeare’s *Richard III*.
>
>
>
> So â€" think of Richard as a faithful man of ideals. One of surpassing intelligence in an unprepossessing physical frame. The last in a family in which the older boys were all taller, fairer, outwardly had all the advantages that he did not. What he did have was determination, integrity, and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one.
>
>
>
> It appears, from what I have seen, that Edward his brother frittered away most of his fine attributes by indulgent living â€" wine, women and song. And it appears that Edward may have acted from time to time from base motives. It appears that Richard avoided many of those traps by his withdrawal away from court into the North. But he had also created powerful enemies â€" perhaps simply by refusing to kowtow to them, perhaps because he was relatively incorruptible. And by his withdrawal to a place of relative peace and sanctuary, he would have given those enemies more or less free reign in the South.
>
>
>
> My bottom line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt based on our essential admiration of the man. Research carefully â€" see if there are gaps in the record or examples of bias and then achieve the best conclusion possible in the circumstances.
>
>
>
> Take care,
>
>
>
> Johanne
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Johanne L. Tournier
>
>
>
> Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...
>
> or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...
>
>
>
> "With God, all things are possible."
>
> - Jesus of Nazareth
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
> From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 7:52 AM
> To:
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Johanne
>
> One thing you wrote particularly caught my eye:
>
> "I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist
> making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly
> world. I don’t think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his
> time"
>
> I'd turn that around slightly and say that Richard was trying very much to be a man of his time, albeit an exemplary one - the warrior prince noted for piety and good governance. His legislation is impressive, but I don't get much sense of the revolutionary about him. (Henry VII perhaps had more of a genuinely new vision for the crown, but as that became the foundation for a proto-police state, we can perhaps agree it was *not* a good thing!)
>
> I find the concept of transcending your time quite difficult. When I think about it, I can apply that to only a very few people. Shakespeare is the obvious one, and most of the others tend to be writers, thinkers or artists - people who change how we view the world. There are a few political leaders who can be said to transcend their time, but as this would generally involve re-shaping continents by marching over the bodies of thousands (e.g. Napoleon) you really wouldn't want to give them house-room.
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
>
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply&messageNum=17489> Reply via web post
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>
>
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>
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By being faithful to Richard, as he was faithful, we ourselves may become better human beings.



Johanne



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier



Email - jltournier60@...

or jltournier@...



"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of EileenB
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:17 AM
To:
Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)





Johanne...I just have to comment on your posting, which I found both thought provoking and moving....Excellent and thank you. And your comment "What he did have was determination, integrity and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one" - Bosworth with all the betrayal that entailed - made my eyes water a little. Thank God for people like you who remain absolute and steadfast in your loyalty to King Richard....Eileen

--- In <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...> wrote:
>
> Hi, Jonathan â¬"
>
> Some of the apparent disagreement between us may be more a matter of semantics than reality. When you write that Richard was trying to be an â¬Sexemplary⬝ man of his time, that is basically what I am saying when I say I believe that Richard was at heart an idealist. I donâ¬"t think anyone sets out to be *not* of their time. I believe that the idea of transcendence is something that we in our time sense, part of what gives Richardâ¬"s life such deep meaning for us so many years after his passing.
>
>
>
> I donâ¬"t believe that I am placing Richard on an unrealistic pedestal. But given that I believe he was idealistic, capable and intelligent, I believe that in many cases his actions, if they seem to us to be heartless, grasping or cruel, may cry out for us to investigate further and try to determine what was really going on and what Richardâ¬"s intentions were in a particular instance. And not to deal with it by saying, â¬SThe 15th. century was a harsh and cruel era, and Richard was a man of his time.⬝ I am urging this precisely because I wish to see Richard judged as a three dimensional person rather than simply dismissed: â¬SThe people in the 15th. century were corrupt and Machiavellian; therefore Richard was corrupt and Machiavellian. He was a man of his time.⬝ I am not suggesting that Richard was â¬Ssuper-humanly⬝ altruistic. But he may have been â¬Shumanly⬝ altruistic, or as I wrote earlier, at least acting from â¬Senlightened self-interest⬝ in many of his actions. As opposed to, say, giving in to the blandishments of his courtiers (or his Queen or his mistress(es)) while in a drunken stupor.
>
>
>
> In Richardâ¬"s case, however, I believe his innate idealism and decency, though it may sometimes have been expressed according to different standards than what we would hold to today, resulted in him being caught in a constricting web of undesirable options. If he had been more ruthless I believe he could have secured his place on the English throne. And, yes, itâ¬"s true that itâ¬"s his humankindness in part that draws us to him, but, hey, Richard didnâ¬"t know that weâ¬"d be obsessing over him 5 centuries after his death, so I am pretty sure his actions werenâ¬"t dictated by such thoughts, although it is very likely that his actions may have been determined by concern for his immortal soul and his prospects in eternity.
>
>
>
> Given his scruples, it seems his instinct was to reach out to his enemies, to attempt to bring them into the fold â¬" that he was in fact almost the opposite of the portrait of him that we get in Shakespeareâ¬"s *Richard III*.
>
>
>
> So â¬" think of Richard as a faithful man of ideals. One of surpassing intelligence in an unprepossessing physical frame. The last in a family in which the older boys were all taller, fairer, outwardly had all the advantages that he did not. What he did have was determination, integrity, and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one.
>
>
>
> It appears, from what I have seen, that Edward his brother frittered away most of his fine attributes by indulgent living â¬" wine, women and song. And it appears that Edward may have acted from time to time from base motives. It appears that Richard avoided many of those traps by his withdrawal away from court into the North. But he had also created powerful enemies â¬" perhaps simply by refusing to kowtow to them, perhaps because he was relatively incorruptible. And by his withdrawal to a place of relative peace and sanctuary, he would have given those enemies more or less free reign in the South.
>
>
>
> My bottom line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt based on our essential admiration of the man. Research carefully â¬" see if there are gaps in the record or examples of bias and then achieve the best conclusion possible in the circumstances.
>
>
>
> Take care,
>
>
>
> Johanne
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Johanne L. Tournier
>
>
>
> Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...
>
> or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...
>
>
>
> "With God, all things are possible."
>
> - Jesus of Nazareth
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
> From: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 7:52 AM
> To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Johanne
>
> One thing you wrote particularly caught my eye:
>
> "I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist
> making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly
> world. I donâ¬"t think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his
> time"
>
> I'd turn that around slightly and say that Richard was trying very much to be a man of his time, albeit an exemplary one - the warrior prince noted for piety and good governance. His legislation is impressive, but I don't get much sense of the revolutionary about him. (Henry VII perhaps had more of a genuinely new vision for the crown, but as that became the foundation for a proto-police state, we can perhaps agree it was *not* a good thing!)
>
> I find the concept of transcending your time quite difficult. When I think about it, I can apply that to only a very few people. Shakespeare is the obvious one, and most of the others tend to be writers, thinkers or artists - people who change how we view the world. There are a few political leaders who can be said to transcend their time, but as this would generally involve re-shaping continents by marching over the bodies of thousands (e.g. Napoleon) you really wouldn't want to give them house-room.
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
>
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply&messageNum=17489> &messageNum=17489> Reply via web post
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>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Johanne, your sentiment moves me to say: Regardless of the absolute truths surrounding Richard, he has indeed become for some persons an emotional icon. Of loyalty, integrity, etc. Disabusing people of all their cherished beliefs may be very satisfying for a Devil's Advocate, but what if it leaves a person sad and demoralized?

My grandmother, a very wise woman, once said to me: "Being 'absolutely right' has a cost. Choose your battles and most of all, choose your opponents with care. Only a few 'truths' are worth total devastation."

This isn't aimed at anyone. Just a thought for Today.  

Judy 
 
Loyaulte me lie


________________________________
From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
To:
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 9:22 AM
Subject: RE: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)


 
By being faithful to Richard, as he was faithful, we ourselves may become better human beings.

Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier

Email - jltournier60@...

or jltournier@...

"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of EileenB
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:17 AM
To:
Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)

Johanne...I just have to comment on your posting, which I found both thought provoking and moving....Excellent and thank you. And your comment "What he did have was determination, integrity and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one" - Bosworth with all the betrayal that entailed - made my eyes water a little. Thank God for people like you who remain absolute and steadfast in your loyalty to King Richard....Eileen

--- In <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...> wrote:
>
> Hi, Jonathan â¬"
>
> Some of the apparent disagreement between us may be more a matter of semantics than reality. When you write that Richard was trying to be an â¬Sexemplary⬠man of his time, that is basically what I am saying when I say I believe that Richard was at heart an idealist. I donâ¬"t think anyone sets out to be *not* of their time. I believe that the idea of transcendence is something that we in our time sense, part of what gives Richardâ¬"s life such deep meaning for us so many years after his passing.
>
>
>
> I donâ¬"t believe that I am placing Richard on an unrealistic pedestal. But given that I believe he was idealistic, capable and intelligent, I believe that in many cases his actions, if they seem to us to be heartless, grasping or cruel, may cry out for us to investigate further and try to determine what was really going on and what Richardâ¬"s intentions were in a particular instance. And not to deal with it by saying, â¬SThe 15th. century was a harsh and cruel era, and Richard was a man of his time.⬠I am urging this precisely because I wish to see Richard judged as a three dimensional person rather than simply dismissed: â¬SThe people in the 15th. century were corrupt and Machiavellian; therefore Richard was corrupt and Machiavellian. He was a man of his time.⬠I am not suggesting that Richard was â¬Ssuper-humanly⬠altruistic. But he may have been â¬Shumanly⬠altruistic, or as I wrote earlier, at least
acting from â¬Senlightened self-interest⬠in many of his actions. As opposed to, say, giving in to the blandishments of his courtiers (or his Queen or his mistress(es)) while in a drunken stupor.
>
>
>
> In Richardâ¬"s case, however, I believe his innate idealism and decency, though it may sometimes have been expressed according to different standards than what we would hold to today, resulted in him being caught in a constricting web of undesirable options. If he had been more ruthless I believe he could have secured his place on the English throne. And, yes, itâ¬"s true that itâ¬"s his humankindness in part that draws us to him, but, hey, Richard didnâ¬"t know that weâ¬"d be obsessing over him 5 centuries after his death, so I am pretty sure his actions werenâ¬"t dictated by such thoughts, although it is very likely that his actions may have been determined by concern for his immortal soul and his prospects in eternity.
>
>
>
> Given his scruples, it seems his instinct was to reach out to his enemies, to attempt to bring them into the fold â¬" that he was in fact almost the opposite of the portrait of him that we get in Shakespeareâ¬"s *Richard III*.
>
>
>
> So â¬" think of Richard as a faithful man of ideals. One of surpassing intelligence in an unprepossessing physical frame. The last in a family in which the older boys were all taller, fairer, outwardly had all the advantages that he did not. What he did have was determination, integrity, and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one.
>
>
>
> It appears, from what I have seen, that Edward his brother frittered away most of his fine attributes by indulgent living â¬" wine, women and song. And it appears that Edward may have acted from time to time from base motives. It appears that Richard avoided many of those traps by his withdrawal away from court into the North. But he had also created powerful enemies â¬" perhaps simply by refusing to kowtow to them, perhaps because he was relatively incorruptible. And by his withdrawal to a place of relative peace and sanctuary, he would have given those enemies more or less free reign in the South.
>
>
>
> My bottom line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt based on our essential admiration of the man. Research carefully â¬" see if there are gaps in the record or examples of bias and then achieve the best conclusion possible in the circumstances.
>
>
>
> Take care,
>
>
>
> Johanne
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Johanne L. Tournier
>
>
>
> Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...
>
> or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...
>
>
>
> "With God, all things are possible."
>
> - Jesus of Nazareth
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
> From: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 7:52 AM
> To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Johanne
>
> One thing you wrote particularly caught my eye:
>
> "I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist
> making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly
> world. I donâ¬"t think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his
> time"
>
> I'd turn that around slightly and say that Richard was trying very much to be a man of his time, albeit an exemplary one - the warrior prince noted for piety and good governance. His legislation is impressive, but I don't get much sense of the revolutionary about him. (Henry VII perhaps had more of a genuinely new vision for the crown, but as that became the foundation for a proto-police state, we can perhaps agree it was *not* a good thing!)
>
> I find the concept of transcending your time quite difficult. When I think about it, I can apply that to only a very few people. Shakespeare is the obvious one, and most of the others tend to be writers, thinkers or artists - people who change how we view the world. There are a few political leaders who can be said to transcend their time, but as this would generally involve re-shaping continents by marching over the bodies of thousands (e.g. Napoleon) you really wouldn't want to give them house-room.
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
>
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Hi Johanne

I don't think there's much disagreement between us at all, and a lot does come down to semantics.

Re the matter of the Countess of Warwick, which a lot of recent discussion has focussed on, I think Richard would have been mad to have objected to the settlement engineered by Edward IV.  It was a good outcome for him and his wife and - although not "fair" by objective standards - it may have, realistically, been a good outcome for the Countess in those very specific circumstances.  Perhaps "enlightened self-interest" is a good term for that, but even if the self-interest were somewhat less than enlightened, my instinct would be to view that as the rough edge that you'll find on any human character and not something that needs to be explained away.  (And although the legal process was a little dubious, I think, at worst, Richard would have viewed it as a necessary bit of realpolitik to avoid a more damaging outcome.)


I've been a committed Ricardian for 30-odd years (since I was about 12), and I'm probably more "pro" than I sound sometimes.  But I'm very keen to separate the "emotional" response from the "historical" response - ever since, in fact, I heard someone refer disparagingly to "the Richard III Appreciation Society".  My bottom-line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt, too, but unless the evidence is unequivocal (which it frequently isn't), we need to at least look at the possibility that he could have had moments when he failed to meet the standards he set for himself.  Only be doing this can we hope to win over moderate opinion.  If we become too defensive, the natural response is to assume we have something to be defensive about.

But more than that, I'm interested in people as flawed human beings, rather than paragons.  Look back at any admired figure from the last century - from Churchill, to Kennedy to Mother Theresa - and you'll find those same rough edges I mentioned earlier - very rough, in some cases!  And, for me, part of the resonance of Richard's story comes from where his own flaws met the "parfit gentil knight" that he undoubtedly aspired to be.  The latter, by itself, is only fit for an alabaster figure on a tomb; it's the confluence that has kept him living and breathing for the last 500 years.

Cheers

Jonathan





________________________________
From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
To:
Sent: Friday, 26 October 2012, 14:54
Subject: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)


 
Hi, Jonathan 

Some of the apparent disagreement between us may be more a matter of semantics than reality. When you write that Richard was trying to be an exemplary man of his time, that is basically what I am saying when I say I believe that Richard was at heart an idealist. I don't think anyone sets out to be *not* of their time. I believe that the idea of transcendence is something that we in our time sense, part of what gives Richard's life such deep meaning for us so many years after his passing.

I don't believe that I am placing Richard on an unrealistic pedestal. But given that I believe he was idealistic, capable and intelligent, I believe that in many cases his actions, if they seem to us to be heartless, grasping or cruel, may cry out for us to investigate further and try to determine what was really going on and what Richard's intentions were in a particular instance. And not to deal with it by saying, The 15th. century was a harsh and cruel era, and Richard was a man of his time. I am urging this precisely because I wish to see Richard judged as a three dimensional person rather than simply dismissed: The people in the 15th. century were corrupt and Machiavellian; therefore Richard was corrupt and Machiavellian. He was a man of his time. I am not suggesting that Richard was super-humanly altruistic. But he may have been humanly altruistic, or as I wrote earlier, at least acting from enlightened
self-interest in many of his actions. As opposed to, say, giving in to the blandishments of his courtiers (or his Queen or his mistress(es)) while in a drunken stupor.

In Richard's case, however, I believe his innate idealism and decency, though it may sometimes have been expressed according to different standards than what we would hold to today, resulted in him being caught in a constricting web of undesirable options. If he had been more ruthless I believe he could have secured his place on the English throne. And, yes, it's true that it's his humankindness in part that draws us to him, but, hey, Richard didn't know that we'd be obsessing over him 5 centuries after his death, so I am pretty sure his actions weren't dictated by such thoughts, although it is very likely that his actions may have been determined by concern for his immortal soul and his prospects in eternity.

Given his scruples, it seems his instinct was to reach out to his enemies, to attempt to bring them into the fold  that he was in fact almost the opposite of the portrait of him that we get in Shakespeare's *Richard III*.

So  think of Richard as a faithful man of ideals. One of surpassing intelligence in an unprepossessing physical frame. The last in a family in which the older boys were all taller, fairer, outwardly had all the advantages that he did not. What he did have was determination, integrity, and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one.

It appears, from what I have seen, that Edward his brother frittered away most of his fine attributes by indulgent living  wine, women and song. And it appears that Edward may have acted from time to time from base motives. It appears that Richard avoided many of those traps by his withdrawal away from court into the North. But he had also created powerful enemies  perhaps simply by refusing to kowtow to them, perhaps because he was relatively incorruptible. And by his withdrawal to a place of relative peace and sanctuary, he would have given those enemies more or less free reign in the South.

My bottom line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt based on our essential admiration of the man. Research carefully  see if there are gaps in the record or examples of bias and then achieve the best conclusion possible in the circumstances.

Take care,

Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier

Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...

or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...

"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 7:52 AM
To:
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter

Hi Johanne

One thing you wrote particularly caught my eye:

"I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist
making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly
world. I don't think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his
time"

I'd turn that around slightly and say that Richard was trying very much to be a man of his time, albeit an exemplary one - the warrior prince noted for piety and good governance. His legislation is impressive, but I don't get much sense of the revolutionary about him. (Henry VII perhaps had more of a genuinely new vision for the crown, but as that became the foundation for a proto-police state, we can perhaps agree it was *not* a good thing!)

I find the concept of transcending your time quite difficult. When I think about it, I can apply that to only a very few people. Shakespeare is the obvious one, and most of the others tend to be writers, thinkers or artists - people who change how we view the world. There are a few political leaders who can be said to transcend their time, but as this would generally involve re-shaping continents by marching over the bodies of thousands (e.g. Napoleon) you really wouldn't want to give them house-room.

Jonathan

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Karen Clark wrote:

> Edward was certainly looking after members of his family. Considering the next king (so far as Edward was concerned) was his son, I'm not sure your 'just in case' argument holds, though.
>
> The three brothers were involved and the three of them benefited. Richard and George materially, Edward in being able to do what had eluded him so far, ie providing his brothers with an income.
<snip>

> I have no idea which of the brothers thought this up but all three were involved in the process, which is why I've been careful not to suggest that Richard alone was the driving force behind it. <snip>
>
Carol responds:

As I understand it, *Edward* came up with these arrangements, in part because he had to placate the avaricious and unpredictable George. Richard had given up some of his lands and at least one office (was it Chancellor?) to George so that he could marry Anne. Possibly, Edward wanted to make up his losses to him. Certainly, he wanted him to have strong possessions in the North so that he (Richard) could in essence rule it. (The North had strong Lancastrian ties; it was Richard as Duke of Gloucester who later made it Yorkist.) And, of course, we already know that Edward ignored the countess's pleas to be released from sanctuary but Richard didn't. Under those circumstances, and given that Edward, not Richard was king, it was almost certainly Edward (perhaps with the help of clever counselors) who came up with the idea. Marie or Annette, do you have any more information? I know that Kendall thinks it was Edward, but I don't recall his sources offhand.

I agree with you that neither Edward nor anyone else was anticipating some other king taking his brothers' lands away. The true Lancastrian line was extinct (not counting continental branches from female lines), and the idea that Henry Tudor would make a serious bid for the throne was laughable. Edward and Richard had no reason not to anticipate that Edward and his heirs would continue to rule. George, perhaps, still had delusions that he would be the next king, but I doubt that the drafters of the act of Parliament had that in mind. <Grin>

Carol

Good post Jonathan.....
Re the Countess of Warwick....I believe that Richard did his best in this situation for both the Countess and for his wife....I see nothing base here in his actions. Who could possibly blame him for not making sure that his wife got her inheritance. Which if he had turned his back on the situation, if say he was against it, would have been nil if left to Clarence. He was the younger brother and I doubt if he could have made a jot of difference in the outcome. We do know that the Countess went to Middleham to live at least for a while....A lot worse could have befallen her....We do not know of the personal feelings between Richard and his mother-in-law but it is perfectly possible that actually Richard was fond of her having spent a good deal of his childhood under her wing as it were...

I hope I am not sounding 'too defensive' of Richard in this particular situation. I am not aware of feeling too defensive...its just my gut feeling/perception. Eileen

--- In , Jonathan Evans <jmcevans98@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Johanne
>
> I don't think there's much disagreement between us at all, and a lot does come down to semantics.
>
> Re the matter of the Countess of Warwick, which a lot of recent discussion has focussed on, I think Richard would have been mad to have objected to the settlement engineered by Edward IV.  It was a good outcome for him and his wife and - although not "fair" by objective standards - it may have, realistically, been a good outcome for the Countess in those very specific circumstances.  Perhaps "enlightened self-interest" is a good term for that, but even if the self-interest were somewhat less than enlightened, my instinct would be to view that as the rough edge that you'll find on any human character and not something that needs to be explained away.  (And although the legal process was a little dubious, I think, at worst, Richard would have viewed it as a necessary bit of realpolitik to avoid a more damaging outcome.)
>
>
> I've been a committed Ricardian for 30-odd years (since I was about 12), and I'm probably more "pro" than I sound sometimes.  But I'm very keen to separate the "emotional" response from the "historical" response - ever since, in fact, I heard someone refer disparagingly to "the Richard III Appreciation Society".  My bottom-line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt, too, but unless the evidence is unequivocal (which it frequently isn't), we need to at least look at the possibility that he could have had moments when he failed to meet the standards he set for himself.  Only be doing this can we hope to win over moderate opinion.  If we become too defensive, the natural response is to assume we have something to be defensive about.
>
> But more than that, I'm interested in people as flawed human beings, rather than paragons.  Look back at any admired figure from the last century - from Churchill, to Kennedy to Mother Theresa - and you'll find those same rough edges I mentioned earlier - very rough, in some cases!  And, for me, part of the resonance of Richard's story comes from where his own flaws met the "parfit gentil knight" that he undoubtedly aspired to be.  The latter, by itself, is only fit for an alabaster figure on a tomb; it's the confluence that has kept him living and breathing for the last 500 years.
>
> Cheers
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
> To:
> Sent: Friday, 26 October 2012, 14:54
> Subject: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
>
>
>  
> Hi, Jonathan â€"
>
> Some of the apparent disagreement between us may be more a matter of semantics than reality. When you write that Richard was trying to be an “exemplary” man of his time, that is basically what I am saying when I say I believe that Richard was at heart an idealist. I don’t think anyone sets out to be *not* of their time. I believe that the idea of transcendence is something that we in our time sense, part of what gives Richard’s life such deep meaning for us so many years after his passing.
>
> I don’t believe that I am placing Richard on an unrealistic pedestal. But given that I believe he was idealistic, capable and intelligent, I believe that in many cases his actions, if they seem to us to be heartless, grasping or cruel, may cry out for us to investigate further and try to determine what was really going on and what Richard’s intentions were in a particular instance. And not to deal with it by saying, “The 15th. century was a harsh and cruel era, and Richard was a man of his time.” I am urging this precisely because I wish to see Richard judged as a three dimensional person rather than simply dismissed: “The people in the 15th. century were corrupt and Machiavellian; therefore Richard was corrupt and Machiavellian. He was a man of his time.” I am not suggesting that Richard was “super-humanly” altruistic. But he may have been “humanly” altruistic, or as I wrote earlier, at least acting from “enlightened
> self-interest” in many of his actions. As opposed to, say, giving in to the blandishments of his courtiers (or his Queen or his mistress(es)) while in a drunken stupor.
>
> In Richard’s case, however, I believe his innate idealism and decency, though it may sometimes have been expressed according to different standards than what we would hold to today, resulted in him being caught in a constricting web of undesirable options. If he had been more ruthless I believe he could have secured his place on the English throne. And, yes, it’s true that it’s his humankindness in part that draws us to him, but, hey, Richard didn’t know that we’d be obsessing over him 5 centuries after his death, so I am pretty sure his actions weren’t dictated by such thoughts, although it is very likely that his actions may have been determined by concern for his immortal soul and his prospects in eternity.
>
> Given his scruples, it seems his instinct was to reach out to his enemies, to attempt to bring them into the fold â€" that he was in fact almost the opposite of the portrait of him that we get in Shakespeare’s *Richard III*.
>
> So â€" think of Richard as a faithful man of ideals. One of surpassing intelligence in an unprepossessing physical frame. The last in a family in which the older boys were all taller, fairer, outwardly had all the advantages that he did not. What he did have was determination, integrity, and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one.
>
> It appears, from what I have seen, that Edward his brother frittered away most of his fine attributes by indulgent living â€" wine, women and song. And it appears that Edward may have acted from time to time from base motives. It appears that Richard avoided many of those traps by his withdrawal away from court into the North. But he had also created powerful enemies â€" perhaps simply by refusing to kowtow to them, perhaps because he was relatively incorruptible. And by his withdrawal to a place of relative peace and sanctuary, he would have given those enemies more or less free reign in the South.
>
> My bottom line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt based on our essential admiration of the man. Research carefully â€" see if there are gaps in the record or examples of bias and then achieve the best conclusion possible in the circumstances.
>
> Take care,
>
> Johanne
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Johanne L. Tournier
>
> Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...
>
> or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...
>
> "With God, all things are possible."
>
> - Jesus of Nazareth
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 7:52 AM
> To:
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
> Hi Johanne
>
> One thing you wrote particularly caught my eye:
>
> "I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist
> making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly
> world. I don’t think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his
> time"
>
> I'd turn that around slightly and say that Richard was trying very much to be a man of his time, albeit an exemplary one - the warrior prince noted for piety and good governance. His legislation is impressive, but I don't get much sense of the revolutionary about him. (Henry VII perhaps had more of a genuinely new vision for the crown, but as that became the foundation for a proto-police state, we can perhaps agree it was *not* a good thing!)
>
> I find the concept of transcending your time quite difficult. When I think about it, I can apply that to only a very few people. Shakespeare is the obvious one, and most of the others tend to be writers, thinkers or artists - people who change how we view the world. There are a few political leaders who can be said to transcend their time, but as this would generally involve re-shaping continents by marching over the bodies of thousands (e.g. Napoleon) you really wouldn't want to give them house-room.
>
> Jonathan
>
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply&messageNum=17489> Reply via web post
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I'm not sure what you mean by 'disabusing people of all their cherished
beliefs', Judy. Surely we're here to discuss history and Richard's place in
it.

Karen

From: Judy Thomson <judygerard.thomson@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 07:53:37 -0700 (PDT)
To: ""
<>
Subject: Re: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The
Kingmaker's Daughter)






Johanne, your sentiment moves me to say: Regardless of the absolute truths
surrounding Richard, he has indeed become for some persons an emotional
icon. Of loyalty, integrity, etc. Disabusing people of all their cherished
beliefs may be very satisfying for a Devil's Advocate, but what if it leaves
a person sad and demoralized?

My grandmother, a very wise woman, once said to me: "Being 'absolutely
right' has a cost. Choose your battles and most of all, choose your
opponents with care. Only a few 'truths' are worth total devastation."

This isn't aimed at anyone. Just a thought for Today.

Judy

Loyaulte me lie

Johanne wrote:
Pollard is a name I know I've heard before, but I don't know much about him. <snip>

Carol responds:

Among other things, Pollard wrote a richly illustrated but hostile book called "Richard III and the Princes in the Tower." He recently spoke at Sheriff Hutton about, I think, Richard's connections with that city. I'll find the link if anyone wants it. I don't know what he's like now, but in the 1980s "Trial of Richard III" (available on You Tube and definitely worth watching), he was youngish, handsome, blond, and full of himself, very cocky and rude, laughing and whispering when others were testifying. He could have played George of Clarence or Buckingham in a production of "Richard III" (Shakespearean or otherwise). It's quite amusing to contrast him with the more virulently anti-Richard historian David Starkey (who specializes in the Tudors), who was like a little mustached weasel--straight out of a British comedy. And poor Anne Sutton, so brilliant but so shy that she evidently couldn't support her point that the precontract was no invention.

Anyway, I don't like Pollard's views, but he is or was quite a character. "Flamboyant" is the word that comes to mind when I think of him.

Carol

Pollard's work on the north of England can't be bettered, I think. I know
it's tempting to write off historians who are 'hostile' to Richard, but
there's a risk of missing out on some fine stuff that way. I have both his
Warwick book and Hicks' (another historian who's done some great non-Richard
related work that, I think, shouldn't be ignored) and the focus is different
in each of them. If I had to get rid of one of them (for whatever
hypothetical reason) I really don't think I could make a choice. The
difference between these and Kendall's Warwick book is the lack of
speculation and the absence of Louis XI. I found he got in the way. A lot.
Stuff like stating (as if he knew) what was going through John Nevill's mind
before Barnet I also found a little annoying.

I have both Hicks' and Pollard's Richard books, as well, but haven't done
much more than dip at this point.

I've watched part of the trial video, and just wanted to slap Starkey. I
know people who are into the Tudors who love him and his work, but he
irritates the heck out of me.

Karen

From: justcarol67 <justcarol67@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 15:58:49 -0000
To: <>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter






Johanne wrote:
Pollard is a name I know I've heard before, but I don't know much about him.
<snip>

Carol responds:

Among other things, Pollard wrote a richly illustrated but hostile book
called "Richard III and the Princes in the Tower." He recently spoke at
Sheriff Hutton about, I think, Richard's connections with that city. I'll
find the link if anyone wants it. I don't know what he's like now, but in
the 1980s "Trial of Richard III" (available on You Tube and definitely worth
watching), he was youngish, handsome, blond, and full of himself, very cocky
and rude, laughing and whispering when others were testifying. He could have
played George of Clarence or Buckingham in a production of "Richard III"
(Shakespearean or otherwise). It's quite amusing to contrast him with the
more virulently anti-Richard historian David Starkey (who specializes in the
Tudors), who was like a little mustached weasel--straight out of a British
comedy. And poor Anne Sutton, so brilliant but so shy that she evidently
couldn't support her point that the precontract was no invention.

Anyway, I don't like Pollard's views, but he is or was quite a character.
"Flamboyant" is the word that comes to mind when I think of him.

Carol

Jonathan Evans wrote:
<snip>
> Re the matter of the Countess of Warwick, which a lot of recent discussion has focussed on, I think Richard would have been mad to have objected to the settlement engineered by Edward IV.  It was a good outcome for him and his wife and - although not "fair" by objective standards - it may have, realistically, been a good outcome for the Countess in those very specific circumstances.  Perhaps "enlightened self-interest" is a good term for that, but even if the self-interest were somewhat less than enlightened, my instinct would be to view that as the rough edge that you'll find on any human character and not something that needs to be explained away.  (And although the legal process was a little dubious, I think, at worst, Richard would have viewed it as a necessary bit of realpolitik to avoid a more damaging outcome.)
>
>
> I've been a committed Ricardian for 30-odd years (since I was about 12), and I'm probably more "pro" than I sound sometimes.  But I'm very keen to separate the "emotional" response from the "historical" response - ever since, in fact, I heard someone refer disparagingly to "the Richard III Appreciation Society".  <snip>

Carol responds:

I agree with your first paragraph except for the last sentence. I think that Richard would have been appalled by the concept of realpolitik (and by Machiavelli's "The Prince").

I also agree with your second paragraph. Regarding the "Richard III Appreciation Society," we seem to be regarded in the media as a kind of Flat Earth Society, naively seeing a devil as an angel. I tried to indicate to CBS after "CBS This Morning" quoted Philippa Langley out of context that we weren't a fan club for a medieval monster but got exactly no response. The depiction in novels isn't much better. Much as I love "The Murders of Richard III," which despite its name is a pro-Ricardian detective novel, the author depicts the members of the society as eccentrics, some loveable, some not. I recently tried to read the appalling "On the Trail of Richard III" in which the Society members are mostly female, all of them emotionally attached to a dead man whom they refuse to see clearly. (The only one who sees him clearly is a psychic who dreams of him killing Henry VI and brother George. At that point, I requested a refund on my Kindle book!)

But my point is that even those of us--no, *especially* those of us --who admire Richard and think that he would have been the best monarch England ever had if he had lived need to be careful outside the safe haven of this list not to overstate our case or present it in emotional terms if we want to be taken seriously. Here, of course, it's safe to express our emotions because everyone here is already interested in Richard III and his reputation regardless of the differences in our views that make the discussions interesting. But it's sad that those few non-Ricardians who have heard of the Society tend to view it in such disparaging terms, and I think that the best way to counter the stereotype is to avoid wearing our hearts on our sleeves when we speak of him outside the group. The facts of his legislation and his reputation for fairness as Lord of the North speak for themselves. The best way to disprove the myth to the public at large is through evidence, not emotions.

Which is not to say that we shouldn't still feel those emotions or express them here! To each his or her own style of posting.

Loyaulte me lie.

Carol

From: justcarol67 <justcarol67@...>
To:
Sent: Friday, 26 October 2012, 18:02
Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)

> Carol responds: "I agree with your first paragraph except for the last sentence. I think
that Richard would have been appalled by the concept of realpolitik (and
by Machiavelli's "The Prince")."

Hi Carole

Forgive the unfortunate choice of word (that's what comes of trying to write in the middle of doing the day-job!).  It's anachronistic and carries quite the wrong connotations.  What I meant was something more like "an unfortunate necessity", "the better of two evils", or simply "an unconventional way out of an awkward family situation".

Cheers

Jonathan




________________________________
From: justcarol67 <justcarol67@...>
To:
Sent: Friday, 26 October 2012, 18:02
Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)


 
Jonathan Evans wrote:
<snip>
> Re the matter of the Countess of Warwick, which a lot of recent discussion has focussed on, I think Richard would have been mad to have objected to the settlement engineered by Edward IV.  It was a good outcome for him and his wife and - although not "fair" by objective standards - it may have, realistically, been a good outcome for the Countess in those very specific circumstances.  Perhaps "enlightened self-interest" is a good term for that, but even if the self-interest were somewhat less than enlightened, my instinct would be to view that as the rough edge that you'll find on any human character and not something that needs to be explained away.  (And although the legal process was a little dubious, I think, at worst, Richard would have viewed it as a necessary bit of realpolitik to avoid a more damaging outcome.)
>
>
> I've been a committed Ricardian for 30-odd years (since I was about 12), and I'm probably more "pro" than I sound sometimes.  But I'm very keen to separate the "emotional" response from the "historical" response - ever since, in fact, I heard someone refer disparagingly to "the Richard III Appreciation Society".  <snip>

Carol responds:

I agree with your first paragraph except for the last sentence. I think that Richard would have been appalled by the concept of realpolitik (and by Machiavelli's "The Prince").

I also agree with your second paragraph. Regarding the "Richard III Appreciation Society," we seem to be regarded in the media as a kind of Flat Earth Society, naively seeing a devil as an angel. I tried to indicate to CBS after "CBS This Morning" quoted Philippa Langley out of context that we weren't a fan club for a medieval monster but got exactly no response. The depiction in novels isn't much better. Much as I love "The Murders of Richard III," which despite its name is a pro-Ricardian detective novel, the author depicts the members of the society as eccentrics, some loveable, some not. I recently tried to read the appalling "On the Trail of Richard III" in which the Society members are mostly female, all of them emotionally attached to a dead man whom they refuse to see clearly. (The only one who sees him clearly is a psychic who dreams of him killing Henry VI and brother George. At that point, I requested a refund on my Kindle book!)

But my point is that even those of us--no, *especially* those of us --who admire Richard and think that he would have been the best monarch England ever had if he had lived need to be careful outside the safe haven of this list not to overstate our case or present it in emotional terms if we want to be taken seriously. Here, of course, it's safe to express our emotions because everyone here is already interested in Richard III and his reputation regardless of the differences in our views that make the discussions interesting. But it's sad that those few non-Ricardians who have heard of the Society tend to view it in such disparaging terms, and I think that the best way to counter the stereotype is to avoid wearing our hearts on our sleeves when we speak of him outside the group. The facts of his legislation and his reputation for fairness as Lord of the North speak for themselves. The best way to disprove the myth to the public at large is through
evidence, not emotions.

Which is not to say that we shouldn't still feel those emotions or express them here! To each his or her own style of posting.

Loyaulte me lie.

Carol

Thanks for your thoughts, Judy. Richard's memory is one of the few things in this world that I feel impelled to commit myself to. I don't fully understand it, but it has something to do with love, as well as loyalty. I recall Prof. Arthur Lennig saying about Bela Lugosi, my favourite actor, that he has to be taken con amore or not at all. I feel somewhat the same about Richard  that given the difficulties of studying and understanding him and his era, one has to start from an intuitive sense that he is admirable, excellent and worthy, despite the reams of slanderous material that has been published about him over the centuries. As C.S. Lewis said (more or less: I'm paraphrasing) in his *The Four Loves,* the secret of loving is to be able to love someone when they are at their most unloveable. Richard is certainly the victim of one of history's greatest smear jobs; it takes people with vision to be able to see the reality underneath, like cleaning away the abominable Tudor over-painting on some of Richard's portraits.



Johanne



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier



Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...

or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...



"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Judy Thomson
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:54 AM
To:
Subject: Re: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)





Johanne, your sentiment moves me to say: Regardless of the absolute truths surrounding Richard, he has indeed become for some persons an emotional icon. Of loyalty, integrity, etc. Disabusing people of all their cherished beliefs may be very satisfying for a Devil's Advocate, but what if it leaves a person sad and demoralized?

My grandmother, a very wise woman, once said to me: "Being 'absolutely right' has a cost. Choose your battles and most of all, choose your opponents with care. Only a few 'truths' are worth total devastation."

This isn't aimed at anyone. Just a thought for Today.

Judy

Loyaulte me lie

________________________________
From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 9:22 AM
Subject: RE: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)



By being faithful to Richard, as he was faithful, we ourselves may become better human beings.

Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier

Email - jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>

or jltournier@... <mailto:jltournier%40xcountry.tv>

"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of EileenB
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:17 AM
To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)

Johanne...I just have to comment on your posting, which I found both thought provoking and moving....Excellent and thank you. And your comment "What he did have was determination, integrity and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one" - Bosworth with all the betrayal that entailed - made my eyes water a little. Thank God for people like you who remain absolute and steadfast in your loyalty to King Richard....Eileen

--- In <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...> wrote:
>
> Hi, Jonathan â¬"
>
> Some of the apparent disagreement between us may be more a matter of semantics than reality. When you write that Richard was trying to be an â¬Sexemplary⬠man of his time, that is basically what I am saying when I say I believe that Richard was at heart an idealist. I donâ¬"t think anyone sets out to be *not* of their time. I believe that the idea of transcendence is something that we in our time sense, part of what gives Richardâ¬"s life such deep meaning for us so many years after his passing.
>
>
>
> I donâ¬"t believe that I am placing Richard on an unrealistic pedestal. But given that I believe he was idealistic, capable and intelligent, I believe that in many cases his actions, if they seem to us to be heartless, grasping or cruel, may cry out for us to investigate further and try to determine what was really going on and what Richardâ¬"s intentions were in a particular instance. And not to deal with it by saying, â¬SThe 15th. century was a harsh and cruel era, and Richard was a man of his time.⬠I am urging this precisely because I wish to see Richard judged as a three dimensional person rather than simply dismissed: â¬SThe people in the 15th. century were corrupt and Machiavellian; therefore Richard was corrupt and Machiavellian. He was a man of his time.⬠I am not suggesting that Richard was â¬Ssuper-humanly⬠altruistic. But he may have been â¬Shumanly⬠altruistic, or as I wrote earlier, at least
acting from â¬Senlightened self-interest⬠in many of his actions. As opposed to, say, giving in to the blandishments of his courtiers (or his Queen or his mistress(es)) while in a drunken stupor.
>
>
>
> In Richardâ¬"s case, however, I believe his innate idealism and decency, though it may sometimes have been expressed according to different standards than what we would hold to today, resulted in him being caught in a constricting web of undesirable options. If he had been more ruthless I believe he could have secured his place on the English throne. And, yes, itâ¬"s true that itâ¬"s his humankindness in part that draws us to him, but, hey, Richard didnâ¬"t know that weâ¬"d be obsessing over him 5 centuries after his death, so I am pretty sure his actions werenâ¬"t dictated by such thoughts, although it is very likely that his actions may have been determined by concern for his immortal soul and his prospects in eternity.
>
>
>
> Given his scruples, it seems his instinct was to reach out to his enemies, to attempt to bring them into the fold â¬" that he was in fact almost the opposite of the portrait of him that we get in Shakespeareâ¬"s *Richard III*.
>
>
>
> So â¬" think of Richard as a faithful man of ideals. One of surpassing intelligence in an unprepossessing physical frame. The last in a family in which the older boys were all taller, fairer, outwardly had all the advantages that he did not. What he did have was determination, integrity, and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one.
>
>
>
> It appears, from what I have seen, that Edward his brother frittered away most of his fine attributes by indulgent living â¬" wine, women and song. And it appears that Edward may have acted from time to time from base motives. It appears that Richard avoided many of those traps by his withdrawal away from court into the North. But he had also created powerful enemies â¬" perhaps simply by refusing to kowtow to them, perhaps because he was relatively incorruptible. And by his withdrawal to a place of relative peace and sanctuary, he would have given those enemies more or less free reign in the South.
>
>
>
> My bottom line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt based on our essential admiration of the man. Research carefully â¬" see if there are gaps in the record or examples of bias and then achieve the best conclusion possible in the circumstances.
>
>
>
> Take care,
>
>
>
> Johanne
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Johanne L. Tournier
>
>
>
> Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...
>
> or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...
>
>
>
> "With God, all things are possible."
>
> - Jesus of Nazareth
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
> From: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 7:52 AM
> To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Johanne
>
> One thing you wrote particularly caught my eye:
>
> "I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist
> making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly
> world. I donâ¬"t think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his
> time"
>
> I'd turn that around slightly and say that Richard was trying very much to be a man of his time, albeit an exemplary one - the warrior prince noted for piety and good governance. His legislation is impressive, but I don't get much sense of the revolutionary about him. (Henry VII perhaps had more of a genuinely new vision for the crown, but as that became the foundation for a proto-police state, we can perhaps agree it was *not* a good thing!)
>
> I find the concept of transcending your time quite difficult. When I think about it, I can apply that to only a very few people. Shakespeare is the obvious one, and most of the others tend to be writers, thinkers or artists - people who change how we view the world. There are a few political leaders who can be said to transcend their time, but as this would generally involve re-shaping continents by marching over the bodies of thousands (e.g. Napoleon) you really wouldn't want to give them house-room.
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
>
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>
> http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=5527791/grpspId=1705297333/msgId=17489/stime=1351248716/nc1=3848614/nc2=5008814/nc3=4025338
>
>
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>
>
>
>

Karen Clark wrote:

"Edward was certainly looking after members of his family. Considering the
next king (so far as Edward was concerned) was his son, I'm not sure your
'just in case' argument holds, though."

You're quite right Edward likely didn't think George, Richard and their
wives would have to worry about any action to reclaim the lands by their
nephew.
My idea of a not-too-future king, via Parliament, "reclaiming" crown
property gained by an attainder came from, I believe, occurences under
Richard II and again under the early Stuarts. Both occasions were based, at
least partly, on the crown needing more money and using Parliament to show
that the "gifts" of land taken by attainder shouldn't have been made, or
should have only been for the recipient's life. I'll start digging to see
where I got the idea from.


"The three brothers were involved and the three of them benefited. Richard
and George materially, Edward in being able to do what had eluded him so
far, ie providing his brothers with an income."

The only real disagreement I have with the above is with, as it appears to
me, the emphasis. To me it seems that this whole mess (I mean having
Parliament declare the Countess "as if dead") started with the last
conclusion you have: that Edward was the main mover of this for his own
reasons - to provide his brothers with an income. If that was the case then
Richard, and George and their respective wives, were faced with either going
along with what Edward wanted and making the best of it or forfeiting, in
the case of Anne/Richard or Isobel/George, their rightful inheritance.
Besides angering Edward IV.
I'm not sure whether "if life gives you a lemon, make lemonade" or "can't
put an egg back in its' shell applies, but one certainly must!

"The Countess's property (inherited from her Dispenser mother), her title,
her dower and her jointure were all taken. You're absolutely right, though,
in that the wife of an attainted traitor was usually allowed to keep all
that. Cecily Nevill was given an allowance when her husband was attainted.
The other wives of the Yorkists (except the countess of Salisbury) were
explicitly excluded from any penalty in 1459. Some of them had a fight to
get back what was theirs (Thomas Nevill's wife, for one) but their personal
property and their jointures weren't touched. (Ok, Maud's personal property
was touched, even clothes, but they were ordered returned to her quickly
and
an incorrectly seized property put into viscount Beaumont's hands with Maud
receiving the income.)"

Oh good, I remembered something correctly! I've reached an age where
remembering things correctly is a major plus. Escpecially when what's
"remembered" actually applies.

"I have no idea which of the brothers thought this up but all three were
involved in the process, which is why I've been careful not to suggest that
Richard alone was the driving force behind it. He might have been, but it's
not something anyone could state with any confidence. That he wasn't an
innocent bystander, wringing his hands and hoping the nice countess wasn't
hurt is fairly clear to me. He and Anne benefited absolutely from this."

To me "the driving force behind it" is the most important part. Not because
it might show Richard as being less than perfect, but because if said
driving force was Edward IV, then Richard/Anne and George/Isobel had very
limited options in responding to the King's actions. Everything I've learned
about "politics" during this era, and for quite some time after it, suggests
that there was no such concept as "loyal" opposition to the monarch. If the
monarch wanted to do something, one could argue against that policy right up
until the monarch decided to do go ahead. After that, one went along. If one
didn't, the best to be hoped for was royal disfavor that might, eventually,
be overcome; the worst, royal distrust never to be completely erased.


"The countess also HADN'T been acquitted of all charges because no charges
were laid. She states her innocence in her petition to the Commons and,
yes,
all sorts of people claim to be innocent, not just the innocent. But let's
just say she was genuine in this, for a moment. She was denied a chance to
know what charges might be against her, what evidence there was. She was
denied the chance to face her accusers. I'm not sure how many of us would
say 'I didn't do anything wrong and they took my house and all my property,
cleaned out my bank account, but hey, I've got a nice room at my daughter's
house and some pocket money!'"

I sort of half agree with the above, except - it seems obvious that, for
whatever reason/s the Countess WASN'T going to get a trial where she would
be able to face her accusers. What she would, at best, have gotten was an
Act of Attainder for treason, which required no proof, just the agreement of
Parliament. And Edward undoubtedly had the votes!
I have wondered why Edward DIDN'T take the Countess to court, as there
certainly HAD been trials for such offences and my thinking seems to boil
down to several possibilities. First, that there just wasn't enough evidence
to present to a judge and jury and obtain a conviction. If that were the
case, then Edward, George and Richard, and their wives, connived in robbing
the Countess of her property.
Second, that there WAS enough evidence, which left Edward with the option
of a trial or an Act of Attainder. Both had been used against political
opponents (which Edward apparently believed the Countess to be), yet he did
neither. Why?
Because the Countess was the mother of his brothers' wives? And by having
Parliament declare her to be "as if dead" was Edward's rather clumsy way of
NOT executing her?
Talk about a mess!

Anyway, I just hope you've enjoyed these electronic converstions as much as
I have. They've been very, very interesting and given me more than enough
things to research/think about during this coming winter (anything to NOT
have to shovel the walk!).
Doug

Hi, again, Carol

Please also forgive me adding an "e" to the end of your name.

Jonathan



Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android

Yes, Jonathan, I do agree with what you are saying. No one wants the Society to be dismissed as a Ricardian fan club. But casual condescension is endemic in our society. I see it often as a student at a seminary  people often make unwarranted assumptions about my belief systems and mock what they don't understand. It shows, imho, ignorance more than superiority. I am afraid that if people want to diss the Society and Richard, there is not much in the short term that can be done to alter that. We aren't going to be able to change the attitudes of people whose minds are closed. It's a matter of the drip, drip, drip and patience (that probably no one here really wants to exercise) that will allow the trickle of water to wear away the stone  I think we are all passionate to have the truth disclosed and the heathens converted. <grin>



For reasons I don't quite understand, I find Richard to be inspirational and that is inspiring to give my best in whatever way I am able.



I believe that although manifested in slightly different ways, we are both expressing affection and admiration for Richard, the pursuit of knowledge of him and his era by rigorous scholarship  and in my view, by the occasional judicious application of the meta-physical traits of intuition, sympathy, and empathy - the art as opposed to the science of historical analysis. I think if we all contribute the best that we can give, in whatever way we can, it will eventually make a difference in how the world perceives Richard.



Johanne



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier



Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...

or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...



"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 12:24 PM
To:
Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)





Hi Johanne

I don't think there's much disagreement between us at all, and a lot does come down to semantics.

Re the matter of the Countess of Warwick, which a lot of recent discussion has focussed on, I think Richard would have been mad to have objected to the settlement engineered by Edward IV. It was a good outcome for him and his wife and - although not "fair" by objective standards - it may have, realistically, been a good outcome for the Countess in those very specific circumstances. Perhaps "enlightened self-interest" is a good term for that, but even if the self-interest were somewhat less than enlightened, my instinct would be to view that as the rough edge that you'll find on any human character and not something that needs to be explained away. (And although the legal process was a little dubious, I think, at worst, Richard would have viewed it as a necessary bit of realpolitik to avoid a more damaging outcome.)

I've been a committed Ricardian for 30-odd years (since I was about 12), and I'm probably more "pro" than I sound sometimes. But I'm very keen to separate the "emotional" response from the "historical" response - ever since, in fact, I heard someone refer disparagingly to "the Richard III Appreciation Society". My bottom-line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt, too, but unless the evidence is unequivocal (which it frequently isn't), we need to at least look at the possibility that he could have had moments when he failed to meet the standards he set for himself. Only be doing this can we hope to win over moderate opinion. If we become too defensive, the natural response is to assume we have something to be defensive about.

But more than that, I'm interested in people as flawed human beings, rather than paragons. Look back at any admired figure from the last century - from Churchill, to Kennedy to Mother Theresa - and you'll find those same rough edges I mentioned earlier - very rough, in some cases! And, for me, part of the resonance of Richard's story comes from where his own flaws met the "parfit gentil knight" that he undoubtedly aspired to be. The latter, by itself, is only fit for an alabaster figure on a tomb; it's the confluence that has kept him living and breathing for the last 500 years.

Cheers

Jonathan

________________________________
From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, 26 October 2012, 14:54
Subject: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)



Hi, Jonathan 

Some of the apparent disagreement between us may be more a matter of semantics than reality. When you write that Richard was trying to be an exemplary man of his time, that is basically what I am saying when I say I believe that Richard was at heart an idealist. I don't think anyone sets out to be *not* of their time. I believe that the idea of transcendence is something that we in our time sense, part of what gives Richard's life such deep meaning for us so many years after his passing.

I don't believe that I am placing Richard on an unrealistic pedestal. But given that I believe he was idealistic, capable and intelligent, I believe that in many cases his actions, if they seem to us to be heartless, grasping or cruel, may cry out for us to investigate further and try to determine what was really going on and what Richard's intentions were in a particular instance. And not to deal with it by saying, The 15th. century was a harsh and cruel era, and Richard was a man of his time. I am urging this precisely because I wish to see Richard judged as a three dimensional person rather than simply dismissed: The people in the 15th. century were corrupt and Machiavellian; therefore Richard was corrupt and Machiavellian. He was a man of his time. I am not suggesting that Richard was super-humanly altruistic. But he may have been humanly altruistic, or as I wrote earlier, at least acting from enlightened
self-interest in many of his actions. As opposed to, say, giving in to the blandishments of his courtiers (or his Queen or his mistress(es)) while in a drunken stupor.

In Richard's case, however, I believe his innate idealism and decency, though it may sometimes have been expressed according to different standards than what we would hold to today, resulted in him being caught in a constricting web of undesirable options. If he had been more ruthless I believe he could have secured his place on the English throne. And, yes, it's true that it's his humankindness in part that draws us to him, but, hey, Richard didn't know that we'd be obsessing over him 5 centuries after his death, so I am pretty sure his actions weren't dictated by such thoughts, although it is very likely that his actions may have been determined by concern for his immortal soul and his prospects in eternity.

Given his scruples, it seems his instinct was to reach out to his enemies, to attempt to bring them into the fold  that he was in fact almost the opposite of the portrait of him that we get in Shakespeare's *Richard III*.

So  think of Richard as a faithful man of ideals. One of surpassing intelligence in an unprepossessing physical frame. The last in a family in which the older boys were all taller, fairer, outwardly had all the advantages that he did not. What he did have was determination, integrity, and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one.

It appears, from what I have seen, that Edward his brother frittered away most of his fine attributes by indulgent living  wine, women and song. And it appears that Edward may have acted from time to time from base motives. It appears that Richard avoided many of those traps by his withdrawal away from court into the North. But he had also created powerful enemies  perhaps simply by refusing to kowtow to them, perhaps because he was relatively incorruptible. And by his withdrawal to a place of relative peace and sanctuary, he would have given those enemies more or less free reign in the South.

My bottom line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt based on our essential admiration of the man. Research carefully  see if there are gaps in the record or examples of bias and then achieve the best conclusion possible in the circumstances.

Take care,

Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier

Email - <mailto:jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> > jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>

or <mailto:jltournier@... <mailto:jltournier%40xcountry.tv> > jltournier@... <mailto:jltournier%40xcountry.tv>

"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 7:52 AM
To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter

Hi Johanne

One thing you wrote particularly caught my eye:

"I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist
making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly
world. I don't think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his
time"

I'd turn that around slightly and say that Richard was trying very much to be a man of his time, albeit an exemplary one - the warrior prince noted for piety and good governance. His legislation is impressive, but I don't get much sense of the revolutionary about him. (Henry VII perhaps had more of a genuinely new vision for the crown, but as that became the foundation for a proto-police state, we can perhaps agree it was *not* a good thing!)

I find the concept of transcending your time quite difficult. When I think about it, I can apply that to only a very few people. Shakespeare is the obvious one, and most of the others tend to be writers, thinkers or artists - people who change how we view the world. There are a few political leaders who can be said to transcend their time, but as this would generally involve re-shaping continents by marching over the bodies of thousands (e.g. Napoleon) you really wouldn't want to give them house-room.

Jonathan

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Jonathan Evans wrote:
>
> Hi, again, Carol
>
> Please also forgive me adding an "e" to the end of your name.
>
> Jonathan

Carol responds:

No problem. I was so interested in your response that I didn't even notice.

Carol

Dear Karen,

> I'm not sure what you mean by 'disabusing people of all their
> cherished
> beliefs', Judy. Surely we're here to discuss history and Richard's
> place in
> it.

Quite. Historical research is not about 'faith positions'.

I was worried by Judy's post:

> Disabusing people of all their cherished
> beliefs may be very satisfying for a Devil's Advocate, but what if
> it leaves
> a person sad and demoralized?

That suggests a mind-set completely the antithesis of historical
research and study: consoling fairy-tales. If someone is left "sad
and demoralised" by discovering the historical reality of events or
characters, then they need to grow up. Most of us who work in history
have had to deal with new material overturning things we had thought
we knew for certain, and having to revise our opinions on a range of
subjects. When I returned to working on a time-period that I hadn't
looked at in about 20 years, there was a huge amount I had to catch
up on and which considerably shifted what I had learned as a student.
That's how the subject develops and how advances in knowledge are
made. It's not about maintaining 'faith positions' contrary to
evidence: that's what religion does.
best wishes,
Marianne

You're welcome, Johanne. And thanks for understanding what I meant. Richard was a real man - imperfect as all real people are - but there is also a "Richard" that transcends the historic person. As a symbol or what-you-will. If that "symbol" provides especial comfort to some among us, is this such a bad thing? 

In recent years, people have uncovered the darker sides of historic persons like Dr. Martin Luther King. From the standpoint of history, this is necessary. But I'd never use the Truth as a club to batter someone who truly loves Dr. King the Symbol into losing her faith in the transcendent figure.

Judy  
 
Loyaulte me lie


________________________________
From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
To:
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 12:33 PM
Subject: RE: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)


 
Thanks for your thoughts, Judy. Richard's memory is one of the few things in this world that I feel impelled to commit myself to. I don't fully understand it, but it has something to do with love, as well as loyalty. I recall Prof. Arthur Lennig saying about Bela Lugosi, my favourite actor, that he has to be taken con amore or not at all. I feel somewhat the same about Richard  that given the difficulties of studying and understanding him and his era, one has to start from an intuitive sense that he is admirable, excellent and worthy, despite the reams of slanderous material that has been published about him over the centuries. As C.S. Lewis said (more or less: I'm paraphrasing) in his *The Four Loves,* the secret of loving is to be able to love someone when they are at their most unloveable. Richard is certainly the victim of one of history's greatest smear jobs; it takes people with vision to be able to see the reality
underneath, like cleaning away the abominable Tudor over-painting on some of Richard's portraits.

Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier

Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...

or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...

"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Judy Thomson
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:54 AM
To:
Subject: Re: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)

Johanne, your sentiment moves me to say: Regardless of the absolute truths surrounding Richard, he has indeed become for some persons an emotional icon. Of loyalty, integrity, etc. Disabusing people of all their cherished beliefs may be very satisfying for a Devil's Advocate, but what if it leaves a person sad and demoralized?

My grandmother, a very wise woman, once said to me: "Being 'absolutely right' has a cost. Choose your battles and most of all, choose your opponents with care. Only a few 'truths' are worth total devastation."

This isn't aimed at anyone. Just a thought for Today.

Judy

Loyaulte me lie

________________________________
From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 9:22 AM
Subject: RE: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)

By being faithful to Richard, as he was faithful, we ourselves may become better human beings.

Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier

Email - jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>

or jltournier@... <mailto:jltournier%40xcountry.tv>

"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of EileenB
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:17 AM
To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)

Johanne...I just have to comment on your posting, which I found both thought provoking and moving....Excellent and thank you. And your comment "What he did have was determination, integrity and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one" - Bosworth with all the betrayal that entailed - made my eyes water a little. Thank God for people like you who remain absolute and steadfast in your loyalty to King Richard....Eileen

--- In <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...> wrote:
>
> Hi, Jonathan â¬"
>
> Some of the apparent disagreement between us may be more a matter of semantics than reality. When you write that Richard was trying to be an â¬Sexemplary⬠man of his time, that is basically what I am saying when I say I believe that Richard was at heart an idealist. I donâ¬"t think anyone sets out to be *not* of their time. I believe that the idea of transcendence is something that we in our time sense, part of what gives Richardâ¬"s life such deep meaning for us so many years after his passing.
>
>
>
> I donâ¬"t believe that I am placing Richard on an unrealistic pedestal. But given that I believe he was idealistic, capable and intelligent, I believe that in many cases his actions, if they seem to us to be heartless, grasping or cruel, may cry out for us to investigate further and try to determine what was really going on and what Richardâ¬"s intentions were in a particular instance. And not to deal with it by saying, â¬SThe 15th. century was a harsh and cruel era, and Richard was a man of his time.⬠I am urging this precisely because I wish to see Richard judged as a three dimensional person rather than simply dismissed: â¬SThe people in the 15th. century were corrupt and Machiavellian; therefore Richard was corrupt and Machiavellian. He was a man of his time.⬠I am not suggesting that Richard was â¬Ssuper-humanly⬠altruistic. But he may have been â¬Shumanly⬠altruistic, or as I wrote earlier, at least
acting from â¬Senlightened self-interest⬠in many of his actions. As opposed to, say, giving in to the blandishments of his courtiers (or his Queen or his mistress(es)) while in a drunken stupor.
>
>
>
> In Richardâ¬"s case, however, I believe his innate idealism and decency, though it may sometimes have been expressed according to different standards than what we would hold to today, resulted in him being caught in a constricting web of undesirable options. If he had been more ruthless I believe he could have secured his place on the English throne. And, yes, itâ¬"s true that itâ¬"s his humankindness in part that draws us to him, but, hey, Richard didnâ¬"t know that weâ¬"d be obsessing over him 5 centuries after his death, so I am pretty sure his actions werenâ¬"t dictated by such thoughts, although it is very likely that his actions may have been determined by concern for his immortal soul and his prospects in eternity.
>
>
>
> Given his scruples, it seems his instinct was to reach out to his enemies, to attempt to bring them into the fold â¬" that he was in fact almost the opposite of the portrait of him that we get in Shakespeareâ¬"s *Richard III*.
>
>
>
> So â¬" think of Richard as a faithful man of ideals. One of surpassing intelligence in an unprepossessing physical frame. The last in a family in which the older boys were all taller, fairer, outwardly had all the advantages that he did not. What he did have was determination, integrity, and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one.
>
>
>
> It appears, from what I have seen, that Edward his brother frittered away most of his fine attributes by indulgent living â¬" wine, women and song. And it appears that Edward may have acted from time to time from base motives. It appears that Richard avoided many of those traps by his withdrawal away from court into the North. But he had also created powerful enemies â¬" perhaps simply by refusing to kowtow to them, perhaps because he was relatively incorruptible. And by his withdrawal to a place of relative peace and sanctuary, he would have given those enemies more or less free reign in the South.
>
>
>
> My bottom line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt based on our essential admiration of the man. Research carefully â¬" see if there are gaps in the record or examples of bias and then achieve the best conclusion possible in the circumstances.
>
>
>
> Take care,
>
>
>
> Johanne
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Johanne L. Tournier
>
>
>
> Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...
>
> or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...
>
>
>
> "With God, all things are possible."
>
> - Jesus of Nazareth
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
> From: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 7:52 AM
> To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Johanne
>
> One thing you wrote particularly caught my eye:
>
> "I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist
> making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly
> world. I donâ¬"t think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his
> time"
>
> I'd turn that around slightly and say that Richard was trying very much to be a man of his time, albeit an exemplary one - the warrior prince noted for piety and good governance. His legislation is impressive, but I don't get much sense of the revolutionary about him. (Henry VII perhaps had more of a genuinely new vision for the crown, but as that became the foundation for a proto-police state, we can perhaps agree it was *not* a good thing!)
>
> I find the concept of transcending your time quite difficult. When I think about it, I can apply that to only a very few people. Shakespeare is the obvious one, and most of the others tend to be writers, thinkers or artists - people who change how we view the world. There are a few political leaders who can be said to transcend their time, but as this would generally involve re-shaping continents by marching over the bodies of thousands (e.g. Napoleon) you really wouldn't want to give them house-room.
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
>
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply&messageNum=17489> &messageNum=17489> &messageNum=17489> Reply via web post
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>
>
>
>
>
>
>

--- In , Judy Thomson <judygerard.thomson@...> wrote:
>
> You're welcome, Johanne. And thanks for understanding what I meant. Richard was a real man - imperfect as all real people are - but there is also a "Richard" that transcends the historic person. As a symbol or what-you-will. If that "symbol" provides especial comfort to some among us, is this such a bad thing? 

Judy...Well I have certainly gained a lot from my long held interest in all things to do with King Richard....I love no better pastime than walking and standing where I know Richard and Anne have been.....I have sat and stared at the place where he and Anne were crowned and I have run my hands over the plaque near Anne's burial place...I have walked the walk at the new Bosworth site and just stood there with my thoughts. I have wandered Minster Lovell and stood at the gateway where I know Richard must have rode across and so forth...Oxford, Middleham...I love all these places. And I have spent countless hours, usually while I am walking, mulling over it all including could Richard have been responsible for his nephews deaths. And so forth.....I have gained so much pleasure and one small benefit from it has it has certainly taken my mind off family troubles and stuff at times when I could have instead spent worrying.....So yes....Richard in some ways has brought me comfort...Someone posted on here a little while ago Richard would probably blush at all the accolades he receives on here...and that is probably about right...but Im afraid he will just have to blush away...God Bless King Richard and all his family...Eileen

>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
> To:
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 12:33 PM
> Subject: RE: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
>
>
>  
> Thanks for your thoughts, Judy. Richard’s memory is one of the few things in this world that I feel impelled to commit myself to. I don’t fully understand it, but it has something to do with love, as well as loyalty. I recall Prof. Arthur Lennig saying about Bela Lugosi, my favourite actor, that “he has to be taken con amore or not at all.” I feel somewhat the same about Richard â€" that given the difficulties of studying and understanding him and his era, one has to start from an intuitive sense that he is admirable, excellent and worthy, despite the reams of slanderous material that has been published about him over the centuries. As C.S. Lewis said (more or less: I’m paraphrasing) in his *The Four Loves,* “the secret of loving is to be able to love someone when they are at their most unloveable.” Richard is certainly the victim of one of history’s greatest smear jobs; it takes people with vision to be able to see the reality
> underneath, like cleaning away the abominable Tudor over-painting on some of Richard’s portraits.
>
> Johanne
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Johanne L. Tournier
>
> Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...
>
> or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...
>
> "With God, all things are possible."
>
> - Jesus of Nazareth
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Judy Thomson
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:54 AM
> To:
> Subject: Re: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
>
> Johanne, your sentiment moves me to say: Regardless of the absolute truths surrounding Richard, he has indeed become for some persons an emotional icon. Of loyalty, integrity, etc. Disabusing people of all their cherished beliefs may be very satisfying for a Devil's Advocate, but what if it leaves a person sad and demoralized?
>
> My grandmother, a very wise woman, once said to me: "Being 'absolutely right' has a cost. Choose your battles and most of all, choose your opponents with care. Only a few 'truths' are worth total devastation."
>
> This isn't aimed at anyone. Just a thought for Today.
>
> Judy
>
> Loyaulte me lie
>
> ________________________________
> From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
> To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 9:22 AM
> Subject: RE: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
>
> By being faithful to Richard, as he was faithful, we ourselves may become better human beings.
>
> Johanne
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Johanne L. Tournier
>
> Email - jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>
>
> or jltournier@... <mailto:jltournier%40xcountry.tv>
>
> "With God, all things are possible."
>
> - Jesus of Nazareth
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> From: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of EileenB
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:17 AM
> To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
>
> Johanne...I just have to comment on your posting, which I found both thought provoking and moving....Excellent and thank you. And your comment "What he did have was determination, integrity and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one" - Bosworth with all the betrayal that entailed - made my eyes water a little. Thank God for people like you who remain absolute and steadfast in your loyalty to King Richard....Eileen
>
> --- In <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi, Jonathan â€"
> >
> > Some of the apparent disagreement between us may be more a matter of semantics than reality. When you write that Richard was trying to be an â€Å"exemplary†man of his time, that is basically what I am saying when I say I believe that Richard was at heart an idealist. I don’t think anyone sets out to be *not* of their time. I believe that the idea of transcendence is something that we in our time sense, part of what gives Richard’s life such deep meaning for us so many years after his passing.
> >
> >
> >
> > I don’t believe that I am placing Richard on an unrealistic pedestal. But given that I believe he was idealistic, capable and intelligent, I believe that in many cases his actions, if they seem to us to be heartless, grasping or cruel, may cry out for us to investigate further and try to determine what was really going on and what Richard’s intentions were in a particular instance. And not to deal with it by saying, â€Å"The 15th. century was a harsh and cruel era, and Richard was a man of his time.†I am urging this precisely because I wish to see Richard judged as a three dimensional person rather than simply dismissed: â€Å"The people in the 15th. century were corrupt and Machiavellian; therefore Richard was corrupt and Machiavellian. He was a man of his time.†I am not suggesting that Richard was â€Å"super-humanly†altruistic. But he may have been â€Å"humanly†altruistic, or as I wrote earlier, at least
> acting from â€Å"enlightened self-interest†in many of his actions. As opposed to, say, giving in to the blandishments of his courtiers (or his Queen or his mistress(es)) while in a drunken stupor.
> >
> >
> >
> > In Richard’s case, however, I believe his innate idealism and decency, though it may sometimes have been expressed according to different standards than what we would hold to today, resulted in him being caught in a constricting web of undesirable options. If he had been more ruthless I believe he could have secured his place on the English throne. And, yes, it’s true that it’s his humankindness in part that draws us to him, but, hey, Richard didn’t know that we’d be obsessing over him 5 centuries after his death, so I am pretty sure his actions weren’t dictated by such thoughts, although it is very likely that his actions may have been determined by concern for his immortal soul and his prospects in eternity.
> >
> >
> >
> > Given his scruples, it seems his instinct was to reach out to his enemies, to attempt to bring them into the fold â€" that he was in fact almost the opposite of the portrait of him that we get in Shakespeare’s *Richard III*.
> >
> >
> >
> > So â€" think of Richard as a faithful man of ideals. One of surpassing intelligence in an unprepossessing physical frame. The last in a family in which the older boys were all taller, fairer, outwardly had all the advantages that he did not. What he did have was determination, integrity, and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one.
> >
> >
> >
> > It appears, from what I have seen, that Edward his brother frittered away most of his fine attributes by indulgent living â€" wine, women and song. And it appears that Edward may have acted from time to time from base motives. It appears that Richard avoided many of those traps by his withdrawal away from court into the North. But he had also created powerful enemies â€" perhaps simply by refusing to kowtow to them, perhaps because he was relatively incorruptible. And by his withdrawal to a place of relative peace and sanctuary, he would have given those enemies more or less free reign in the South.
> >
> >
> >
> > My bottom line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt based on our essential admiration of the man. Research carefully â€" see if there are gaps in the record or examples of bias and then achieve the best conclusion possible in the circumstances.
> >
> >
> >
> > Take care,
> >
> >
> >
> > Johanne
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > Johanne L. Tournier
> >
> >
> >
> > Email - <mailto:jltournier60@> jltournier60@
> >
> > or <mailto:jltournier@> jltournier@
> >
> >
> >
> > "With God, all things are possible."
> >
> > - Jesus of Nazareth
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> >
> >
> > From: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
> > Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 7:52 AM
> > To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> > Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi Johanne
> >
> > One thing you wrote particularly caught my eye:
> >
> > "I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist
> > making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly
> > world. I don’t think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his
> > time"
> >
> > I'd turn that around slightly and say that Richard was trying very much to be a man of his time, albeit an exemplary one - the warrior prince noted for piety and good governance. His legislation is impressive, but I don't get much sense of the revolutionary about him. (Henry VII perhaps had more of a genuinely new vision for the crown, but as that became the foundation for a proto-police state, we can perhaps agree it was *not* a good thing!)
> >
> > I find the concept of transcending your time quite difficult. When I think about it, I can apply that to only a very few people. Shakespeare is the obvious one, and most of the others tend to be writers, thinkers or artists - people who change how we view the world. There are a few political leaders who can be said to transcend their time, but as this would generally involve re-shaping continents by marching over the bodies of thousands (e.g. Napoleon) you really wouldn't want to give them house-room.
> >
> > Jonathan
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply&messageNum=17489> &messageNum=17489> &messageNum=17489> Reply via web post
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> > <mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ?subject=Re%3A%20%5BRichard%20III%20Society%20Forum%5D%20The%20Kingmaker%27s%20Daughter> Reply to group
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> >
> > Recent Activity:
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Oh wow, talk about nostalgia!  Not that I've read the one on Warwick, but Ladybird brings back so many memories.




________________________________
From: Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@...>
To:
Sent: Friday, 26 October 2012, 14:14
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter

 
Ladybird were (still are?) a UK publisher of children's books. They had all
sorts of titles. Here's a link to the Warwick book. (It was my first and, so
far, only ebay purchase.)

I'm still trying to remember the other thing!

http://www.theweeweb.co.uk/ladybird/ladybird_book_detail.php?gallery_id=1104

Karen

From: Johanne Tournier <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>
Reply-To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 09:55:53 -0300
To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter

Thanks, Karen - let me know about how you got Google onto kindle when you
figure it out, because that is something I would definitely appreciate!

If you've got the time, tell me more about the "Ladybird" book. Is that the
publisher, author, or the title?

Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johanne L. Tournier

Email - mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>

or mailto:jltournier%40xcountry.tv <mailto:jltournier%40xcountry.tv>

"With God, all things are possible."

- Jesus of Nazareth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From: mailto:%40yahoogroups.com
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
[mailto:mailto:%40yahoogroups.com
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Karen Clark
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 9:33 AM
To: mailto:%40yahoogroups.com
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter

Hicks' Warwick is pretty good. I got my copy of Pollard through Amazon as
well, so it should be there. There's another one (can't remember who by, but
I seem to remember it being a good solid name), but I have four Warwick the
Kingmaker books already (not counting the utterly irresistible Ladybird book
I got on ebay) and I'm not sure I can justify another one. I got the Oman
from google books onto my kindle. Can't remember how, just at the moment,
but when I do, I'll let you know.

Karen
._,_.___

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I'm a little surprised that nobody has mentioned Richard's dealings with the Countess of Oxford, whose executed husband's lands he had been granted.

Here's a rather hostile view:

http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/subpages/richardiii.html


And, er, another:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MWRj2vZQnxsC&pg=PA297&lpg=PA297&dq=elizabeth+howard+countess+of+oxford+richard+gloucester&source=bl&ots=JF_TmwHyJb&sig=l3ojc2gxDi_qKmlV6ic5_R6Up_4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vvCKUNibOaqX1AX4uIHwAg&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=elizabeth%20howard%20countess%20of%20oxford%20richard%20gloucester&f=false



An old discussion on the subject:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group//message/5552




________________________________
From: Douglas Eugene Stamate <destama@...>
To:
Sent: Thursday, 25 October 2012, 19:38
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter


 

Karen Clark wrote:

"Edward was certainly looking after members of his family. Considering the
next king (so far as Edward was concerned) was his son, I'm not sure your
'just in case' argument holds, though."

You're quite right Edward likely didn't think George, Richard and their
wives would have to worry about any action to reclaim the lands by their
nephew.
My idea of a not-too-future king, via Parliament, "reclaiming" crown
property gained by an attainder came from, I believe, occurences under
Richard II and again under the early Stuarts. Both occasions were based, at
least partly, on the crown needing more money and using Parliament to show
that the "gifts" of land taken by attainder shouldn't have been made, or
should have only been for the recipient's life. I'll start digging to see
where I got the idea from.

"The three brothers were involved and the three of them benefited. Richard
and George materially, Edward in being able to do what had eluded him so
far, ie providing his brothers with an income."

The only real disagreement I have with the above is with, as it appears to
me, the emphasis. To me it seems that this whole mess (I mean having
Parliament declare the Countess "as if dead") started with the last
conclusion you have: that Edward was the main mover of this for his own
reasons - to provide his brothers with an income. If that was the case then
Richard, and George and their respective wives, were faced with either going
along with what Edward wanted and making the best of it or forfeiting, in
the case of Anne/Richard or Isobel/George, their rightful inheritance.
Besides angering Edward IV.
I'm not sure whether "if life gives you a lemon, make lemonade" or "can't
put an egg back in its' shell applies, but one certainly must!

"The Countess's property (inherited from her Dispenser mother), her title,
her dower and her jointure were all taken. You're absolutely right, though,
in that the wife of an attainted traitor was usually allowed to keep all
that. Cecily Nevill was given an allowance when her husband was attainted.
The other wives of the Yorkists (except the countess of Salisbury) were
explicitly excluded from any penalty in 1459. Some of them had a fight to
get back what was theirs (Thomas Nevill's wife, for one) but their personal
property and their jointures weren't touched. (Ok, Maud's personal property
was touched, even clothes, but they were ordered returned to her quickly
and
an incorrectly seized property put into viscount Beaumont's hands with Maud
receiving the income.)"

Oh good, I remembered something correctly! I've reached an age where
remembering things correctly is a major plus. Escpecially when what's
"remembered" actually applies.

"I have no idea which of the brothers thought this up but all three were
involved in the process, which is why I've been careful not to suggest that
Richard alone was the driving force behind it. He might have been, but it's
not something anyone could state with any confidence. That he wasn't an
innocent bystander, wringing his hands and hoping the nice countess wasn't
hurt is fairly clear to me. He and Anne benefited absolutely from this."

To me "the driving force behind it" is the most important part. Not because
it might show Richard as being less than perfect, but because if said
driving force was Edward IV, then Richard/Anne and George/Isobel had very
limited options in responding to the King's actions. Everything I've learned
about "politics" during this era, and for quite some time after it, suggests
that there was no such concept as "loyal" opposition to the monarch. If the
monarch wanted to do something, one could argue against that policy right up
until the monarch decided to do go ahead. After that, one went along. If one
didn't, the best to be hoped for was royal disfavor that might, eventually,
be overcome; the worst, royal distrust never to be completely erased.

"The countess also HADN'T been acquitted of all charges because no charges
were laid. She states her innocence in her petition to the Commons and,
yes,
all sorts of people claim to be innocent, not just the innocent. But let's
just say she was genuine in this, for a moment. She was denied a chance to
know what charges might be against her, what evidence there was. She was
denied the chance to face her accusers. I'm not sure how many of us would
say 'I didn't do anything wrong and they took my house and all my property,
cleaned out my bank account, but hey, I've got a nice room at my daughter's
house and some pocket money!'"

I sort of half agree with the above, except - it seems obvious that, for
whatever reason/s the Countess WASN'T going to get a trial where she would
be able to face her accusers. What she would, at best, have gotten was an
Act of Attainder for treason, which required no proof, just the agreement of
Parliament. And Edward undoubtedly had the votes!
I have wondered why Edward DIDN'T take the Countess to court, as there
certainly HAD been trials for such offences and my thinking seems to boil
down to several possibilities. First, that there just wasn't enough evidence
to present to a judge and jury and obtain a conviction. If that were the
case, then Edward, George and Richard, and their wives, connived in robbing
the Countess of her property.
Second, that there WAS enough evidence, which left Edward with the option
of a trial or an Act of Attainder. Both had been used against political
opponents (which Edward apparently believed the Countess to be), yet he did
neither. Why?
Because the Countess was the mother of his brothers' wives? And by having
Parliament declare her to be "as if dead" was Edward's rather clumsy way of
NOT executing her?
Talk about a mess!

Anyway, I just hope you've enjoyed these electronic converstions as much as
I have. They've been very, very interesting and given me more than enough
things to research/think about during this coming winter (anything to NOT
have to shovel the walk!).
Doug

<Jonathan said:

 <Look back at any admired figure from the last century - from Churchill, to Kennedy to Mother Theresa - and you'll find those same rough edges I mentioned earlier - very rough, in some cases!  
 
Anyone remember the article Christopher Hitchens wrote about Mother Theresa which caused a storm?
 
I also know - although he died before I was born - that my Welsh grandfather used to refer to Churchill as "the five year wonder". A lot of people in Wales didn't like him because of Tonypandy and my cousin told me that he thinks my grandfather may have been there.
 
But they were both human, rather than the saints we are led to believe

My Grandfather was shipwrecked in the Dardanelles campaign, so never had a good word for Churchill.


Hitchens on Mother Teresa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WQ0i3nCx60



________________________________
From: liz williams <ferrymansdaughter@...>
To: "" <>
Sent: Friday, 26 October 2012, 21:29
Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)


 
<Jonathan said:

 <Look back at any admired figure from the last century - from Churchill, to Kennedy to Mother Theresa - and you'll find those same rough edges I mentioned earlier - very rough, in some cases!  
 
Anyone remember the article Christopher Hitchens wrote about Mother Theresa which caused a storm?
 
I also know - although he died before I was born - that my Welsh grandfather used to refer to Churchill as "the five year wonder". A lot of people in Wales didn't like him because of Tonypandy and my cousin told me that he thinks my grandfather may have been there.
 
But they were both human, rather than the saints we are led to believe

Churchill sent many thousands of men to their deaths....they were simply cannon fodder...Its funny how the generals always survived Eileen

--- In , david rayner <theblackprussian@...> wrote:
>
> My Grandfather was shipwrecked in the Dardanelles campaign, so never had a good word for Churchill.
>
>
> Hitchens on Mother Teresa:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WQ0i3nCx60
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: liz williams <ferrymansdaughter@...>
> To: "" <>
> Sent: Friday, 26 October 2012, 21:29
> Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
>
>
>  
> <Jonathan said:
>
>  <Look back at any admired figure from the last century - from Churchill, to Kennedy to Mother Theresa - and you'll find those same rough edges I mentioned earlier - very rough, in some cases!  
>  
> Anyone remember the article Christopher Hitchens wrote about Mother Theresa which caused a storm?
>  
> I also know - although he died before I was born - that my Welsh grandfather used to refer to Churchill as "the five year wonder". A lot of people in Wales didn't like him because of Tonypandy and my cousin told me that he thinks my grandfather may have been there.
>  
> But they were both human, rather than the saints we are led to believe
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Brava, Eileen. I'm perfectly at home with painstaking history. I own copies of Harleian, the Coronation book, the York House Records, etc.

But there's a part of me that holds Richard "special," and I'm not ashamed of those feelings. If he inspires the "better angels" of our nature, so be it. People nowadays get pleasure digging up "dirt" on everyone; if you dig long enough, there's always plenty to be found.

What I don't much like is the ad hom. spirit that's sprouted on this Forum of late. A kind of "nit-picking" and snideness of one Forum member toward another, not necessarily toward Richard. Richard has plenty of defenders. Individuals on this Forum must depend upon Courtesy...and it's been in shorter supply.

Judy 
 
Loyaulte me lie


________________________________
From: EileenB <cherryripe.eileenb@...>
To:
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)


 


--- In , Judy Thomson <judygerard.thomson@...> wrote:
>
> You're welcome, Johanne. And thanks for understanding what I meant. Richard was a real man - imperfect as all real people are - but there is also a "Richard" that transcends the historic person. As a symbol or what-you-will. If that "symbol" provides especial comfort to some among us, is this such a bad thing? 

Judy...Well I have certainly gained a lot from my long held interest in all things to do with King Richard....I love no better pastime than walking and standing where I know Richard and Anne have been.....I have sat and stared at the place where he and Anne were crowned and I have run my hands over the plaque near Anne's burial place...I have walked the walk at the new Bosworth site and just stood there with my thoughts. I have wandered Minster Lovell and stood at the gateway where I know Richard must have rode across and so forth...Oxford, Middleham...I love all these places. And I have spent countless hours, usually while I am walking, mulling over it all including could Richard have been responsible for his nephews deaths. And so forth.....I have gained so much pleasure and one small benefit from it has it has certainly taken my mind off family troubles and stuff at times when I could have instead spent worrying.....So yes....Richard in some ways
has brought me comfort...Someone posted on here a little while ago Richard would probably blush at all the accolades he receives on here...and that is probably about right...but Im afraid he will just have to blush away...God Bless King Richard and all his family...Eileen

>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
> To:
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 12:33 PM
> Subject: RE: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
>
>
>  
> Thanks for your thoughts, Judy. Richardâ¬"s memory is one of the few things in this world that I feel impelled to commit myself to. I donâ¬"t fully understand it, but it has something to do with love, as well as loyalty. I recall Prof. Arthur Lennig saying about Bela Lugosi, my favourite actor, that â¬She has to be taken con amore or not at all.â¬ý I feel somewhat the same about Richard â¬" that given the difficulties of studying and understanding him and his era, one has to start from an intuitive sense that he is admirable, excellent and worthy, despite the reams of slanderous material that has been published about him over the centuries. As C.S. Lewis said (more or less: Iâ¬"m paraphrasing) in his *The Four Loves,* â¬Sthe secret of loving is to be able to love someone when they are at their most unloveable.â¬ý Richard is certainly the victim of one of historyâ¬"s greatest smear jobs; it takes people with
vision to be able to see the reality
> underneath, like cleaning away the abominable Tudor over-painting on some of Richardâ¬"s portraits.
>
> Johanne
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Johanne L. Tournier
>
> Email - <mailto:jltournier60@...> jltournier60@...
>
> or <mailto:jltournier@...> jltournier@...
>
> "With God, all things are possible."
>
> - Jesus of Nazareth
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Judy Thomson
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:54 AM
> To:
> Subject: Re: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
>
> Johanne, your sentiment moves me to say: Regardless of the absolute truths surrounding Richard, he has indeed become for some persons an emotional icon. Of loyalty, integrity, etc. Disabusing people of all their cherished beliefs may be very satisfying for a Devil's Advocate, but what if it leaves a person sad and demoralized?
>
> My grandmother, a very wise woman, once said to me: "Being 'absolutely right' has a cost. Choose your battles and most of all, choose your opponents with care. Only a few 'truths' are worth total devastation."
>
> This isn't aimed at anyone. Just a thought for Today.
>
> Judy
>
> Loyaulte me lie
>
> ________________________________
> From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
> To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 9:22 AM
> Subject: RE: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
>
> By being faithful to Richard, as he was faithful, we ourselves may become better human beings.
>
> Johanne
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Johanne L. Tournier
>
> Email - jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>
>
> or jltournier@... <mailto:jltournier%40xcountry.tv>
>
> "With God, all things are possible."
>
> - Jesus of Nazareth
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> From: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of EileenB
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:17 AM
> To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
>
> Johanne...I just have to comment on your posting, which I found both thought provoking and moving....Excellent and thank you. And your comment "What he did have was determination, integrity and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one" - Bosworth with all the betrayal that entailed - made my eyes water a little. Thank God for people like you who remain absolute and steadfast in your loyalty to King Richard....Eileen
>
> --- In <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi, Jonathan ââ¬"
> >
> > Some of the apparent disagreement between us may be more a matter of semantics than reality. When you write that Richard was trying to be an ââ¬Å"exemplaryâ⬠man of his time, that is basically what I am saying when I say I believe that Richard was at heart an idealist. I donââ¬â¢t think anyone sets out to be *not* of their time. I believe that the idea of transcendence is something that we in our time sense, part of what gives Richardââ¬â¢s life such deep meaning for us so many years after his passing.
> >
> >
> >
> > I donââ¬â¢t believe that I am placing Richard on an unrealistic pedestal. But given that I believe he was idealistic, capable and intelligent, I believe that in many cases his actions, if they seem to us to be heartless, grasping or cruel, may cry out for us to investigate further and try to determine what was really going on and what Richardââ¬â¢s intentions were in a particular instance. And not to deal with it by saying, ââ¬Å"The 15th. century was a harsh and cruel era, and Richard was a man of his time.â⬠I am urging this precisely because I wish to see Richard judged as a three dimensional person rather than simply dismissed: ââ¬Å"The people in the 15th. century were corrupt and Machiavellian; therefore Richard was corrupt and Machiavellian. He was a man of his time.â⬠I am not suggesting that Richard was ââ¬Å"super-humanlyâ⬠altruistic. But he may have been
ââ¬Å"humanlyâ⬠altruistic, or as I wrote earlier, at least
> acting from ââ¬Å"enlightened self-interestâ⬠in many of his actions. As opposed to, say, giving in to the blandishments of his courtiers (or his Queen or his mistress(es)) while in a drunken stupor.
> >
> >
> >
> > In Richardââ¬â¢s case, however, I believe his innate idealism and decency, though it may sometimes have been expressed according to different standards than what we would hold to today, resulted in him being caught in a constricting web of undesirable options. If he had been more ruthless I believe he could have secured his place on the English throne. And, yes, itââ¬â¢s true that itââ¬â¢s his humankindness in part that draws us to him, but, hey, Richard didnââ¬â¢t know that weââ¬â¢d be obsessing over him 5 centuries after his death, so I am pretty sure his actions werenââ¬â¢t dictated by such thoughts, although it is very likely that his actions may have been determined by concern for his immortal soul and his prospects in eternity.
> >
> >
> >
> > Given his scruples, it seems his instinct was to reach out to his enemies, to attempt to bring them into the fold ââ¬" that he was in fact almost the opposite of the portrait of him that we get in Shakespeareââ¬â¢s *Richard III*.
> >
> >
> >
> > So ââ¬" think of Richard as a faithful man of ideals. One of surpassing intelligence in an unprepossessing physical frame. The last in a family in which the older boys were all taller, fairer, outwardly had all the advantages that he did not. What he did have was determination, integrity, and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one.
> >
> >
> >
> > It appears, from what I have seen, that Edward his brother frittered away most of his fine attributes by indulgent living ââ¬" wine, women and song. And it appears that Edward may have acted from time to time from base motives. It appears that Richard avoided many of those traps by his withdrawal away from court into the North. But he had also created powerful enemies ââ¬" perhaps simply by refusing to kowtow to them, perhaps because he was relatively incorruptible. And by his withdrawal to a place of relative peace and sanctuary, he would have given those enemies more or less free reign in the South.
> >
> >
> >
> > My bottom line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt based on our essential admiration of the man. Research carefully ââ¬" see if there are gaps in the record or examples of bias and then achieve the best conclusion possible in the circumstances.
> >
> >
> >
> > Take care,
> >
> >
> >
> > Johanne
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > Johanne L. Tournier
> >
> >
> >
> > Email - <mailto:jltournier60@> jltournier60@
> >
> > or <mailto:jltournier@> jltournier@
> >
> >
> >
> > "With God, all things are possible."
> >
> > - Jesus of Nazareth
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> >
> >
> > From: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
> > Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 7:52 AM
> > To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> > Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi Johanne
> >
> > One thing you wrote particularly caught my eye:
> >
> > "I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist
> > making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly
> > world. I donââ¬â¢t think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his
> > time"
> >
> > I'd turn that around slightly and say that Richard was trying very much to be a man of his time, albeit an exemplary one - the warrior prince noted for piety and good governance. His legislation is impressive, but I don't get much sense of the revolutionary about him. (Henry VII perhaps had more of a genuinely new vision for the crown, but as that became the foundation for a proto-police state, we can perhaps agree it was *not* a good thing!)
> >
> > I find the concept of transcending your time quite difficult. When I think about it, I can apply that to only a very few people. Shakespeare is the obvious one, and most of the others tend to be writers, thinkers or artists - people who change how we view the world. There are a few political leaders who can be said to transcend their time, but as this would generally involve re-shaping continents by marching over the bodies of thousands (e.g. Napoleon) you really wouldn't want to give them house-room.
> >
> > Jonathan
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply&messageNum=17489> &messageNum=17489> &messageNum=17489> Reply via web post
> >
> > <mailto:jmcevans98@?subject=Re%3A%20%5BRichard%20III%20Society%20Forum%5D%20The%20Kingmaker%27s%20Daughter> Reply to sender
> >
> > <mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ?subject=Re%3A%20%5BRichard%20III%20Society%20Forum%5D%20The%20Kingmaker%27s%20Daughter> Reply to group
> >
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Judy....I joined the Society and then this forum only after many years...and I mean many....of a very strong interest in Richard which was triggered off by reading The Daughter of Time plus an article in a Sunday supplement that said he had argued in Parliament to be allowed to marry Anne Neville. I read everything I could get hold of regarding him and there was not an awful lot around then..this was prior to Kendall..and mulling over the mystery of the Princes in the Tower and real anger at the way he had been treated...maligned king is in truth the perfect description for Richard. Now if you cannot ring Richard's praises on here where can you? I certainly did not dream I would have to defend him on here of all places. Besides of which I have not the slightest inclination to do so...life is too short to argue everyday on a forum... but rather 'speak' with likeminded people...

Bottom line...I make no apologies for the fact my faith in Richard remains unshakable and will continue to be unshakeable...I even wonder when I pop my cloggs I might get the chance to be introduced to him :0)
Eileen







,

--- In , Judy Thomson <judygerard.thomson@...> wrote:
>
> Brava, Eileen. I'm perfectly at home with painstaking history. I own copies of Harleian, the Coronation book, the York House Records, etc.
>
> But there's a part of me that holds Richard "special," and I'm not ashamed of those feelings. If he inspires the "better angels" of our nature, so be it. People nowadays get pleasure digging up "dirt" on everyone; if you dig long enough, there's always plenty to be found.
>
> What I don't much like is the ad hom. spirit that's sprouted on this Forum of late. A kind of "nit-picking" and snideness of one Forum member toward another, not necessarily toward Richard. Richard has plenty of defenders. Individuals on this Forum must depend upon Courtesy...and it's been in shorter supply.
>
> Judy 
>  
> Loyaulte me lie
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: EileenB <cherryripe.eileenb@...>
> To:
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 2:20 PM
> Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
>
>
>  
>
>
> --- In , Judy Thomson <judygerard.thomson@> wrote:
> >
> > You're welcome, Johanne. And thanks for understanding what I meant. Richard was a real man - imperfect as all real people are - but there is also a "Richard" that transcends the historic person. As a symbol or what-you-will. If that "symbol" provides especial comfort to some among us, is this such a bad thing? 
>
> Judy...Well I have certainly gained a lot from my long held interest in all things to do with King Richard....I love no better pastime than walking and standing where I know Richard and Anne have been.....I have sat and stared at the place where he and Anne were crowned and I have run my hands over the plaque near Anne's burial place...I have walked the walk at the new Bosworth site and just stood there with my thoughts. I have wandered Minster Lovell and stood at the gateway where I know Richard must have rode across and so forth...Oxford, Middleham...I love all these places. And I have spent countless hours, usually while I am walking, mulling over it all including could Richard have been responsible for his nephews deaths. And so forth.....I have gained so much pleasure and one small benefit from it has it has certainly taken my mind off family troubles and stuff at times when I could have instead spent worrying.....So yes....Richard in some ways
> has brought me comfort...Someone posted on here a little while ago Richard would probably blush at all the accolades he receives on here...and that is probably about right...but Im afraid he will just have to blush away...God Bless King Richard and all his family...Eileen
>
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@>
> > To:
> > Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 12:33 PM
> > Subject: RE: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
> >
> >
> >  
> > Thanks for your thoughts, Judy. Richard’s memory is one of the few things in this world that I feel impelled to commit myself to. I don’t fully understand it, but it has something to do with love, as well as loyalty. I recall Prof. Arthur Lennig saying about Bela Lugosi, my favourite actor, that â€Å"he has to be taken con amore or not at all.� I feel somewhat the same about Richard â€" that given the difficulties of studying and understanding him and his era, one has to start from an intuitive sense that he is admirable, excellent and worthy, despite the reams of slanderous material that has been published about him over the centuries. As C.S. Lewis said (more or less: I’m paraphrasing) in his *The Four Loves,* â€Å"the secret of loving is to be able to love someone when they are at their most unloveable.� Richard is certainly the victim of one of history’s greatest smear jobs; it takes people with
> vision to be able to see the reality
> > underneath, like cleaning away the abominable Tudor over-painting on some of Richard’s portraits.
> >
> > Johanne
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > Johanne L. Tournier
> >
> > Email - <mailto:jltournier60@> jltournier60@
> >
> > or <mailto:jltournier@> jltournier@
> >
> > "With God, all things are possible."
> >
> > - Jesus of Nazareth
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Judy Thomson
> > Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:54 AM
> > To:
> > Subject: Re: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
> >
> > Johanne, your sentiment moves me to say: Regardless of the absolute truths surrounding Richard, he has indeed become for some persons an emotional icon. Of loyalty, integrity, etc. Disabusing people of all their cherished beliefs may be very satisfying for a Devil's Advocate, but what if it leaves a person sad and demoralized?
> >
> > My grandmother, a very wise woman, once said to me: "Being 'absolutely right' has a cost. Choose your battles and most of all, choose your opponents with care. Only a few 'truths' are worth total devastation."
> >
> > This isn't aimed at anyone. Just a thought for Today.
> >
> > Judy
> >
> > Loyaulte me lie
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@ <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com> >
> > To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> > Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 9:22 AM
> > Subject: RE: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
> >
> > By being faithful to Richard, as he was faithful, we ourselves may become better human beings.
> >
> > Johanne
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > Johanne L. Tournier
> >
> > Email - jltournier60@ <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>
> >
> > or jltournier@ <mailto:jltournier%40xcountry.tv>
> >
> > "With God, all things are possible."
> >
> > - Jesus of Nazareth
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > From: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of EileenB
> > Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:17 AM
> > To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> > Subject: Re: Assessing Richard (was RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter)
> >
> > Johanne...I just have to comment on your posting, which I found both thought provoking and moving....Excellent and thank you. And your comment "What he did have was determination, integrity and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one" - Bosworth with all the betrayal that entailed - made my eyes water a little. Thank God for people like you who remain absolute and steadfast in your loyalty to King Richard....Eileen
> >
> > --- In <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi, Jonathan â€"
> > >
> > > Some of the apparent disagreement between us may be more a matter of semantics than reality. When you write that Richard was trying to be an â€Å"exemplary†man of his time, that is basically what I am saying when I say I believe that Richard was at heart an idealist. I don’t think anyone sets out to be *not* of their time. I believe that the idea of transcendence is something that we in our time sense, part of what gives Richard’s life such deep meaning for us so many years after his passing.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I don’t believe that I am placing Richard on an unrealistic pedestal. But given that I believe he was idealistic, capable and intelligent, I believe that in many cases his actions, if they seem to us to be heartless, grasping or cruel, may cry out for us to investigate further and try to determine what was really going on and what Richard’s intentions were in a particular instance. And not to deal with it by saying, â€Å"The 15th. century was a harsh and cruel era, and Richard was a man of his time.†I am urging this precisely because I wish to see Richard judged as a three dimensional person rather than simply dismissed: â€Å"The people in the 15th. century were corrupt and Machiavellian; therefore Richard was corrupt and Machiavellian. He was a man of his time.†I am not suggesting that Richard was â€Å"super-humanly†altruistic. But he may have been
> â€Å"humanly†altruistic, or as I wrote earlier, at least
> > acting from â€Å"enlightened self-interest†in many of his actions. As opposed to, say, giving in to the blandishments of his courtiers (or his Queen or his mistress(es)) while in a drunken stupor.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > In Richard’s case, however, I believe his innate idealism and decency, though it may sometimes have been expressed according to different standards than what we would hold to today, resulted in him being caught in a constricting web of undesirable options. If he had been more ruthless I believe he could have secured his place on the English throne. And, yes, it’s true that it’s his humankindness in part that draws us to him, but, hey, Richard didn’t know that we’d be obsessing over him 5 centuries after his death, so I am pretty sure his actions weren’t dictated by such thoughts, although it is very likely that his actions may have been determined by concern for his immortal soul and his prospects in eternity.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Given his scruples, it seems his instinct was to reach out to his enemies, to attempt to bring them into the fold â€" that he was in fact almost the opposite of the portrait of him that we get in Shakespeare’s *Richard III*.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > So â€" think of Richard as a faithful man of ideals. One of surpassing intelligence in an unprepossessing physical frame. The last in a family in which the older boys were all taller, fairer, outwardly had all the advantages that he did not. What he did have was determination, integrity, and intelligence that enabled him to overcome many of the obstacles until the last one.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > It appears, from what I have seen, that Edward his brother frittered away most of his fine attributes by indulgent living â€" wine, women and song. And it appears that Edward may have acted from time to time from base motives. It appears that Richard avoided many of those traps by his withdrawal away from court into the North. But he had also created powerful enemies â€" perhaps simply by refusing to kowtow to them, perhaps because he was relatively incorruptible. And by his withdrawal to a place of relative peace and sanctuary, he would have given those enemies more or less free reign in the South.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > My bottom line is to give Richard the benefit of the doubt based on our essential admiration of the man. Research carefully â€" see if there are gaps in the record or examples of bias and then achieve the best conclusion possible in the circumstances.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Take care,
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Johanne
> > >
> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > >
> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > >
> > > Johanne L. Tournier
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Email - <mailto:jltournier60@> jltournier60@
> > >
> > > or <mailto:jltournier@> jltournier@
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > "With God, all things are possible."
> > >
> > > - Jesus of Nazareth
> > >
> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > >
> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > From: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> [mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of Jonathan Evans
> > > Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 7:52 AM
> > > To: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> > > Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi Johanne
> > >
> > > One thing you wrote particularly caught my eye:
> > >
> > > "I believe that Richard was not only smart, he was at heart an idealist
> > > making his way, in his last two years, in a cold, cruel, unfriendly
> > > world. I don’t think it does him justice, either, to view him simply as a man of his time. I do believe that in some respects he transcended his
> > > time"
> > >
> > > I'd turn that around slightly and say that Richard was trying very much to be a man of his time, albeit an exemplary one - the warrior prince noted for piety and good governance. His legislation is impressive, but I don't get much sense of the revolutionary about him. (Henry VII perhaps had more of a genuinely new vision for the crown, but as that became the foundation for a proto-police state, we can perhaps agree it was *not* a good thing!)
> > >
> > > I find the concept of transcending your time quite difficult. When I think about it, I can apply that to only a very few people. Shakespeare is the obvious one, and most of the others tend to be writers, thinkers or artists - people who change how we view the world. There are a few political leaders who can be said to transcend their time, but as this would generally involve re-shaping continents by marching over the bodies of thousands (e.g. Napoleon) you really wouldn't want to give them house-room.
> > >
> > > Jonathan
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply <http://groups.yahoo.com/group//post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxN3NtN2JpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzU1Mjc3OTEEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1Mjk3MzMzBG1zZ0lkAzE3NDg5BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTM1MTI0ODcxNg--?act=reply&messageNum=17489> &messageNum=17489> &messageNum=17489> Reply via web post
> > >
> > > <mailto:jmcevans98@?subject=Re%3A%20%5BRichard%20III%20Society%20Forum%5D%20The%20Kingmaker%27s%20Daughter> Reply to sender
> > >
> > > <mailto: <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ?subject=Re%3A%20%5BRichard%20III%20Society%20Forum%5D%20The%20Kingmaker%27s%20Daughter> Reply to group
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> > >
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Actually she was not declared dead, however many times this is repeated. The Act only stated "that George, Duke of Clarence and Isabel his wife, and Richard Duke of Gloucester and Anne his wife, ... should possess and enjoy as in the right of the said wives all possessions belonging to the said countess AS THOUGH she were naturally dead and that she should be barred and excluded therefrom."
Marie


--- In , Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@...> wrote:
>
> She also reminded Edward IV's parliament that "she hath duly kept her
> fidelite and ligeaunce and obeied the kynges commaundementz". It's the kind
> of thing people say to kings when they want something from them. Henry VII
> "he had a cunning plan" regarding her property, yet Richard 'protected' it.
> Both the cunning planning and the protecting, strangely, had the same end
> result. Of course Edward (and his brothers) weren't about to let the
> countess have control of her estates. That's blindingly obvious. There was a
> perfectly good, much precedented, legal way for her to be separated from
> that property, and that was attainder. Uniquely, of all the people who might
> have committed treason against Edward IV, the countess was declared dead in
> parliament and her property handed over to two men who just happened to be
> the king's brothers, and just happened to be married to her daughters. I
> wonder if anyone thinks this course of action (rather than due legal
> process) would have been followed had Isobel and Anne Nevill been married to
> anyone else. And I wonder if 'protection' would be anyone's first thought if
> Isobel had been her only daughter. Starting from the premise "Richard could
> do no wrong, therefore this or that action must have been right" skews the
> picture. Of course, people can hold any picture of Richard they choose. That
> includes those who strive to be objective as well as those who believe him
> incapable of doing any wrong.
>
> Karen
>
> From: mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]>
> Reply-To: <>
> Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:30:41 -0000
> To: <>
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Ah now, Johanne, if that is all you meant, then I would pretty much agree.
> My reading of the situation is that Edward was not going to let the Countess
> have personal control of those vast estates again (she who reminded Henry
> VII's parliament of "the true and feithfull servyce and alliegeaunce that
> the seid countesse had and owed to the seid most excellent prynce Kyng Henry
> the vith"), but this arrangement did keep the estates in the family and
> protect them for her heirs. They were with her own daughters, so would
> surely have been partly used for her benefit, and the daughters' husbands
> were the King's brothers so Edward did not have to worry about the money
> being used to fund future rebellion against him - particularly as she was
> living with reliable Richard rather than George.
> I have to say I think the Countess was a fool to petition for the return of
> her lands in 1487. She should have known Henry VII would only agree if he
> had a cunning plan to outwit her. All she achieved was to disinherit her
> grandchildren.
> Marie
>
> --- In
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Johanne Tournier
> <jltournier60@> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Marie & Everyone ?
> >
> >
> >
> > This is kind of where I left off a couple of days ago. For now, I just want
> > to clarify (hopefully) what I was talking about. Then I want to go off,
> > think about the issues and hopefully do some research on the matter.
> >
> >
> >
> > I was not suggesting that there was a power of attorney. I was suggesting
> > that a "legal fiction," such as a Parliamentary declaration of the
> > Countess's death, might have been used to accomplish something that a power
> > of attorney might have enabled the parties to do much more simply at a later
> > time. I was suggesting, again as a very tentative suggestion, that if there
> > was a statute of Parliament which declared the Countess dead, and if it was
> > known that she was very much alive, that one possible reason that something
> > like that might have been done was in order to allow management of her
> > estates, at least partly for her benefit and/or for her family's benefit.
> > Now, trusts (in former times, called "uses") were in existence at this
> > period. But perhaps her situation did not allow for holding all of her
> > property in trust for her. I was not suggesting that the Countess was
> > mentally incompetent; I didn't say that. I was suggesting that as the widow
> > of a declared traitor, it might have been impossible for her to proceed
> > normally to deal with her property, assuming that a widow in that era was
> > allowed to own property in her own right. Perhaps because of the situation,
> > her property would otherwise been forfeited to the Crown. Or perhaps the
> > property would have passed directly to Warwick's heirs (his children). I
> > don't know the details of the legal situation of the parties, and that is
> > something I would like to investigate.
> >
> >
> >
> > My reaction (and I admit a bias in favour of Richard's essential sense of
> > fairness and justice, which I certainly don't have regarding George) at the
> > outset is to be skeptical of whether Richard's actions were as self-serving
> > as they have been portrayed. Now, with the information that you and others
> > have provided, it seems even more likely that there are inferences that can
> > reasonably be made that will in large part "exonerate" Richard. I admit that
> > I don't know all the facts; I don't even know all the law, but I do have an
> > idea of some of the law and some of the facts. As I said, my hope is to work
> > on this further and perhaps come up with a fuller explanation.
> >
> >
> >
> > BTW, like most people here, I admire Richard but I am not seeking to
> > whitewash him; and it may be that I don't have the resources to do what I
> > want to do. But I am willing, after having investigated further, to come
> > back and report my findings, or lack thereof.
> >
> >
> >
> > That's all for now ?
> >
> >
> >
> > Johanne
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Karen,
Am I right and you are saying you would like the York brothers to have been even nastier and had the Countess attainted - and whatever happened next?
Marie

--- In , Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@...> wrote:
>
> Johanne, the point you snipped here shows a legal act that, in other
> circumstances, might have led to attainder or rehabilitation, not the
> dividing up of the confiscated property between two members of the king's
> family. When the property of the Yorkists was similarly confiscated after
> the Parliament of Devils, it was given into the care of various people, not
> taken by Henry VI personally and given out to his half-brothers. Nor were
> any of them declared dead when they were very much alive. The Yorkists were
> attainted, which attainder was later overturned. I know I keep repeating
> myself, but this is a crucial point. The countess of Warwick wasn't
> attainted. Warwick wasn't attainted. And I can only stress again, looking at
> this particular act in the way I've come to hasn't suddenly made me think
> him an evil monster. Having an open mind about him, being objective and
> realistic about him, has given me a greater appreciation of the man than I
> had when I was a dewy eyed romantic teenager.
>
> Karen
>
> From: Johanne Tournier <jltournier60@...>
> Reply-To: <>
> Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:08:05 -0300
> To: <>
> Subject: RE: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Thank you for this detailed history, Marie. I don't recollect all this
> detailed information being laid out previously.
>
> Johanne
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Johanne L. Tournier
>
> Email - jltournier60@... <mailto:jltournier60%40hotmail.com>
>
> or jltournier@... <mailto:jltournier%40xcountry.tv>
>
> "With God, all things are possible."
>
> - Jesus of Nazareth
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> From:
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> [mailto:
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of
> mariewalsh2003
> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 3:22 PM
> To:
> <mailto:%40yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
> Karen,
>
> Yes we have had this discussion. The facts are:-
>
> 1) The Countess' estates were seized by Edward IV, together with her
> husband's, in 1470 for manifest treason, and when he returned to the throne
> he continued to treat them as forfeit. It was normal to confiscate estates
> before prosecution, but whether Edward should have kept hold of them without
> further legal action would have to be for another discussion.
>
> [Johanne Tournier] <snip for brevity>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

>
> I have no idea which of the brothers thought this up but all three were
> involved in the process, which is why I've been careful not to suggest that
> Richard alone was the driving force behind it. He might have been, but it's
> not something anyone could state with any confidence. That he wasn't an
> innocent bystander, wringing his hands and hoping the nice countess wasn't
> hurt is fairly clear to me. He and Anne benefited absolutely from this.

Karen,
I'll check but I think one of the Acts of parliament specifically states that either Warwick or Montagu or both had not been attainted because Richard asked the King not to.
As for Richard and George cooking this up together like a pair of conspirators, remember they had just been at virtual open war with each other and the King had had to confiscate George's lands to bring him to the table. He was one furious man and had made it very clear all along that he didn't want to share the Countess' lands either with her or his brother & wife. It looks to me as though this deal would have been agreed to by George very grudgingly. It might have suited Richard if the Countess got all her lands back since they shared the same household - that way he could administer them and avail of the profit and regional power that went with them.
It was a compromise solution. It wasn't too bad for any one concerned really, and that includes the Countess who as you say, could have been attainted or kept locked in Beaulieu Sanctuary for ever but instead got to live in her old home and see the lands passed on to her two daughters. As a mother myself I'd have been content with that, though somehow I doubt the Countess was.
Also, there is a difference in tone between her expressions of loyalty to Edward IV and Henry VII. To Edward IV she said only that she had "duly kept her liegeance and fidelity and obeyed [his] commandments"; but to Henry VII, as well as assuring him she had been a good girl during his reign, she also volunteered the rather unnecessary reminder of her "true and faithful service and allegiance" to the last Lancastrian king, Henry VI.
Marie



>
> "Meanwhile, the Countess HADN'T been executed for treason or locked up in
> some castle dungeon, she had at least some funds of her own and her wealth
> was in the fairly safe hands of Edward's brothers, and would pass on to her
> descendents via her daughters marriages to George and Richard."
>
> The countess also HADN'T been acquitted of all charges because no charges
> were laid. She states her innocence in her petition to the Commons and, yes,
> all sorts of people claim to be innocent, not just the innocent. But let's
> just say she was genuine in this, for a moment. She was denied a chance to
> know what charges might be against her, what evidence there was. She was
> denied the chance to face her accusers. I'm not sure how many of us would
> say "I didn't do anything wrong and they took my house and all my property,
> cleaned out my bank account, but hey, I've got a nice room at my daughter's
> house and some pocket money!"
>
> Karen
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Marie...can I just pop in here to say I find some of your messages so informative that I have started to save them....You really should write a book....It would be a lot easier for me to have them all in one place :0)

For example your recent message re Henry dating his reign much earlier than I thought...the day before Bosworth..I had thought it could not possibly get worse..how wrong can you be?....And this message here re an Act of Parliament stating that either Warwick, Montague or both had not been attainted because Richard had asked Edward not to...news to me...and most marvellous ...just reiterating once again that Richard stood out in his times as noble and generous spirited. Thanks Eileen

--- In , mariewalsh2003 <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > I have no idea which of the brothers thought this up but all three were
> > involved in the process, which is why I've been careful not to suggest that
> > Richard alone was the driving force behind it. He might have been, but it's
> > not something anyone could state with any confidence. That he wasn't an
> > innocent bystander, wringing his hands and hoping the nice countess wasn't
> > hurt is fairly clear to me. He and Anne benefited absolutely from this.
>
> Karen,
> I'll check but I think one of the Acts of parliament specifically states that either Warwick or Montagu or both had not been attainted because Richard asked the King not to.
> As for Richard and George cooking this up together like a pair of conspirators, remember they had just been at virtual open war with each other and the King had had to confiscate George's lands to bring him to the table. He was one furious man and had made it very clear all along that he didn't want to share the Countess' lands either with her or his brother & wife. It looks to me as though this deal would have been agreed to by George very grudgingly. It might have suited Richard if the Countess got all her lands back since they shared the same household - that way he could administer them and avail of the profit and regional power that went with them.
> It was a compromise solution. It wasn't too bad for any one concerned really, and that includes the Countess who as you say, could have been attainted or kept locked in Beaulieu Sanctuary for ever but instead got to live in her old home and see the lands passed on to her two daughters. As a mother myself I'd have been content with that, though somehow I doubt the Countess was.
> Also, there is a difference in tone between her expressions of loyalty to Edward IV and Henry VII. To Edward IV she said only that she had "duly kept her liegeance and fidelity and obeyed [his] commandments"; but to Henry VII, as well as assuring him she had been a good girl during his reign, she also volunteered the rather unnecessary reminder of her "true and faithful service and allegiance" to the last Lancastrian king, Henry VI.
> Marie
>
>
>
> >
> > "Meanwhile, the Countess HADN'T been executed for treason or locked up in
> > some castle dungeon, she had at least some funds of her own and her wealth
> > was in the fairly safe hands of Edward's brothers, and would pass on to her
> > descendents via her daughters marriages to George and Richard."
> >
> > The countess also HADN'T been acquitted of all charges because no charges
> > were laid. She states her innocence in her petition to the Commons and, yes,
> > all sorts of people claim to be innocent, not just the innocent. But let's
> > just say she was genuine in this, for a moment. She was denied a chance to
> > know what charges might be against her, what evidence there was. She was
> > denied the chance to face her accusers. I'm not sure how many of us would
> > say "I didn't do anything wrong and they took my house and all my property,
> > cleaned out my bank account, but hey, I've got a nice room at my daughter's
> > house and some pocket money!"
> >
> > Karen
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

I agree that we shouldn't totally write off historians just because they are hostile to Richard. There is some fine solid research behind Michael Hicks' early work in particular (I often refer to his biography of Clarence), but in my opinion he let himself down badly as time went on, becoming too populist and amusing himself by dreaming up interpretations of the data that would most annoy Ricardians. The nadir of that phase was his "Anne Neville" with Anne as a sort of frivolous young flapper whose life was full of 'sex and parties' and Richard as 'serial incestor' (and, for anyone who hasn't read it, I am quoting). Fortunately he seems to have pulled himself together since and I see has just published a serious work on the fifteenth century inquisitions post mortem which sounds like a really useful study tool.
Tony Pollard is still around. He's maybe calmed down a bit now. He likes a little tease as well but in a quite good-natured way.
A book on Richard and his northen following is Rosemary Horrox' "Richard III: A Study in Service".
Marie


--- In , Karen Clark <Ragged_staff@...> wrote:
>
> Pollard's work on the north of England can't be bettered, I think. I know
> it's tempting to write off historians who are 'hostile' to Richard, but
> there's a risk of missing out on some fine stuff that way. I have both his
> Warwick book and Hicks' (another historian who's done some great non-Richard
> related work that, I think, shouldn't be ignored) and the focus is different
> in each of them. If I had to get rid of one of them (for whatever
> hypothetical reason) I really don't think I could make a choice. The
> difference between these and Kendall's Warwick book is the lack of
> speculation and the absence of Louis XI. I found he got in the way. A lot.
> Stuff like stating (as if he knew) what was going through John Nevill's mind
> before Barnet I also found a little annoying.
>
> I have both Hicks' and Pollard's Richard books, as well, but haven't done
> much more than dip at this point.
>
> I've watched part of the trial video, and just wanted to slap Starkey. I
> know people who are into the Tudors who love him and his work, but he
> irritates the heck out of me.
>
> Karen
>
> From: justcarol67 <justcarol67@...>
> Reply-To: <>
> Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 15:58:49 -0000
> To: <>
> Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Johanne wrote:
> Pollard is a name I know I've heard before, but I don't know much about him.
> <snip>
>
> Carol responds:
>
> Among other things, Pollard wrote a richly illustrated but hostile book
> called "Richard III and the Princes in the Tower." He recently spoke at
> Sheriff Hutton about, I think, Richard's connections with that city. I'll
> find the link if anyone wants it. I don't know what he's like now, but in
> the 1980s "Trial of Richard III" (available on You Tube and definitely worth
> watching), he was youngish, handsome, blond, and full of himself, very cocky
> and rude, laughing and whispering when others were testifying. He could have
> played George of Clarence or Buckingham in a production of "Richard III"
> (Shakespearean or otherwise). It's quite amusing to contrast him with the
> more virulently anti-Richard historian David Starkey (who specializes in the
> Tudors), who was like a little mustached weasel--straight out of a British
> comedy. And poor Anne Sutton, so brilliant but so shy that she evidently
> couldn't support her point that the precontract was no invention.
>
> Anyway, I don't like Pollard's views, but he is or was quite a character.
> "Flamboyant" is the word that comes to mind when I think of him.
>
> Carol
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

I'm sure somebody is going to make this point later in the thread than I've read so far, but isn't this the same incident about which George, Duke of Clarence, was being such a complete prat? He wanted 100% of Isobel's inheritance right this second, and for that reason went to the extreme of hiding Anne Nevill in the guise of a kitchen maid so Richard wouldn't marry her and demand the same thing for his own family. That pretty much tells me that spoiled little Georgie, he who would throw armed tantrums if thwarted in minor things, was driving this train right over that cliff.

I can imagine Edward throwing his hands up and going, "Oh, for Christ's sake, George, if I have your mother-in-law declared dead so you can sneak into her summer home and steal the antimacassars, will that make you happy?" Wouldn't he have been surprised at George's immediate "YES!"

I can further imagine Richard showing his mother-in-law into a nicely furnished suite of rooms and saying, "Um... I'm sorry about this whole ghastly mess. If it's any comfort, we think George is an utter jerk too."

--- In , "Douglas Eugene Stamate" <destama@...> wrote:
>
>
> Karen Clark wrote:
>
> "Edward was certainly looking after members of his family. Considering the
> next king (so far as Edward was concerned) was his son, I'm not sure your
> 'just in case' argument holds, though."
>
> You're quite right Edward likely didn't think George, Richard and their
> wives would have to worry about any action to reclaim the lands by their
> nephew.
> My idea of a not-too-future king, via Parliament, "reclaiming" crown
> property gained by an attainder came from, I believe, occurences under
> Richard II and again under the early Stuarts. Both occasions were based, at
> least partly, on the crown needing more money and using Parliament to show
> that the "gifts" of land taken by attainder shouldn't have been made, or
> should have only been for the recipient's life. I'll start digging to see
> where I got the idea from.
>
>
> "The three brothers were involved and the three of them benefited. Richard
> and George materially, Edward in being able to do what had eluded him so
> far, ie providing his brothers with an income."
>
> The only real disagreement I have with the above is with, as it appears to
> me, the emphasis. To me it seems that this whole mess (I mean having
> Parliament declare the Countess "as if dead") started with the last
> conclusion you have: that Edward was the main mover of this for his own
> reasons - to provide his brothers with an income. If that was the case then
> Richard, and George and their respective wives, were faced with either going
> along with what Edward wanted and making the best of it or forfeiting, in
> the case of Anne/Richard or Isobel/George, their rightful inheritance.
> Besides angering Edward IV.
> I'm not sure whether "if life gives you a lemon, make lemonade" or "can't
> put an egg back in its' shell applies, but one certainly must!
>
> "The Countess's property (inherited from her Dispenser mother), her title,
> her dower and her jointure were all taken. You're absolutely right, though,
> in that the wife of an attainted traitor was usually allowed to keep all
> that. Cecily Nevill was given an allowance when her husband was attainted.
> The other wives of the Yorkists (except the countess of Salisbury) were
> explicitly excluded from any penalty in 1459. Some of them had a fight to
> get back what was theirs (Thomas Nevill's wife, for one) but their personal
> property and their jointures weren't touched. (Ok, Maud's personal property
> was touched, even clothes, but they were ordered returned to her quickly
> and
> an incorrectly seized property put into viscount Beaumont's hands with Maud
> receiving the income.)"
>
> Oh good, I remembered something correctly! I've reached an age where
> remembering things correctly is a major plus. Escpecially when what's
> "remembered" actually applies.
>
> "I have no idea which of the brothers thought this up but all three were
> involved in the process, which is why I've been careful not to suggest that
> Richard alone was the driving force behind it. He might have been, but it's
> not something anyone could state with any confidence. That he wasn't an
> innocent bystander, wringing his hands and hoping the nice countess wasn't
> hurt is fairly clear to me. He and Anne benefited absolutely from this."
>
> To me "the driving force behind it" is the most important part. Not because
> it might show Richard as being less than perfect, but because if said
> driving force was Edward IV, then Richard/Anne and George/Isobel had very
> limited options in responding to the King's actions. Everything I've learned
> about "politics" during this era, and for quite some time after it, suggests
> that there was no such concept as "loyal" opposition to the monarch. If the
> monarch wanted to do something, one could argue against that policy right up
> until the monarch decided to do go ahead. After that, one went along. If one
> didn't, the best to be hoped for was royal disfavor that might, eventually,
> be overcome; the worst, royal distrust never to be completely erased.
>
>
> "The countess also HADN'T been acquitted of all charges because no charges
> were laid. She states her innocence in her petition to the Commons and,
> yes,
> all sorts of people claim to be innocent, not just the innocent. But let's
> just say she was genuine in this, for a moment. She was denied a chance to
> know what charges might be against her, what evidence there was. She was
> denied the chance to face her accusers. I'm not sure how many of us would
> say 'I didn't do anything wrong and they took my house and all my property,
> cleaned out my bank account, but hey, I've got a nice room at my daughter's
> house and some pocket money!'"
>
> I sort of half agree with the above, except - it seems obvious that, for
> whatever reason/s the Countess WASN'T going to get a trial where she would
> be able to face her accusers. What she would, at best, have gotten was an
> Act of Attainder for treason, which required no proof, just the agreement of
> Parliament. And Edward undoubtedly had the votes!
> I have wondered why Edward DIDN'T take the Countess to court, as there
> certainly HAD been trials for such offences and my thinking seems to boil
> down to several possibilities. First, that there just wasn't enough evidence
> to present to a judge and jury and obtain a conviction. If that were the
> case, then Edward, George and Richard, and their wives, connived in robbing
> the Countess of her property.
> Second, that there WAS enough evidence, which left Edward with the option
> of a trial or an Act of Attainder. Both had been used against political
> opponents (which Edward apparently believed the Countess to be), yet he did
> neither. Why?
> Because the Countess was the mother of his brothers' wives? And by having
> Parliament declare her to be "as if dead" was Edward's rather clumsy way of
> NOT executing her?
> Talk about a mess!
>
> Anyway, I just hope you've enjoyed these electronic converstions as much as
> I have. They've been very, very interesting and given me more than enough
> things to research/think about during this coming winter (anything to NOT
> have to shovel the walk!).
> Doug
>

I've mentioned it, but it got rather shortshrift. (I'm not sure I'd call
Susan Higginbotham 'hostile', she has her views as others have theirs.)

Karen

From: david rayner <theblackprussian@...>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 21:27:42 +0100 (BST)
To: ""
<>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter






I'm a little surprised that nobody has mentioned Richard's dealings with the
Countess of Oxford, whose executed husband's lands he had been granted.

Here's a rather hostile view:

http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/subpages/richardiii.html

And, er, another:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MWRj2vZQnxsC&pg=PA297&lpg=PA297&dq=elizab
eth+howard+countess+of+oxford+richard+gloucester&source=bl&ots=JF_TmwHyJb&si
g=l3ojc2gxDi_qKmlV6ic5_R6Up_4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vvCKUNibOaqX1AX4uIHwAg&ved=0CCIQ
6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=elizabeth%20howard%20countess%20of%20oxford%20richard%20g
loucester&f=false

An old discussion on the subject:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group//message/5552

'As though she were naturally dead' amounts to the same thing. She had
become a non-person.

Karen

From: mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 21:48:12 -0000
To: <>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter







Actually she was not declared dead, however many times this is repeated. The
Act only stated "that George, Duke of Clarence and Isabel his wife, and
Richard Duke of Gloucester and Anne his wife, ... should possess and enjoy
as in the right of the said wives all possessions belonging to the said
countess AS THOUGH she were naturally dead and that she should be barred and
excluded therefrom."
Marie

No, Marie, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying she wasn't attainted. That
was a course of action open to kings and parliaments when the had evidence
of treason. The treatment of the countess of Warwick had nothing to do with
treason and everything do to money. Attainting her wouldn't have resulted in
her daughters 'inheriting' her property. In fact, it would have done the
opposite. Whether there was evidence of treason on her part or not,
attainder was her least likely fate.

Karen

From: mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]>
Reply-To: <>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 21:51:15 -0000
To: <>
Subject: Re: The Kingmaker's Daughter






Karen,
Am I right and you are saying you would like the York brothers to have been
even nastier and had the Countess attainted - and whatever happened next?
Marie

--- In
<mailto:%40yahoogroups.com> , Karen Clark
<Ragged_staff@...> wrote:
>
> Johanne, the point you snipped here shows a legal act that, in other
> circumstances, might have led to attainder or rehabilitation, not the
> dividing up of the confiscated property between two members of the king's
> family. When the property of the Yorkists was similarly confiscated after
> the Parliament of Devils, it was given into the care of various people, not
> taken by Henry VI personally and given out to his half-brothers. Nor were
> any of them declared dead when they were very much alive. The Yorkists were
> attainted, which attainder was later overturned. I know I keep repeating
> myself, but this is a crucial point. The countess of Warwick wasn't
> attainted. Warwick wasn't attainted. And I can only stress again, looking at
> this particular act in the way I've come to hasn't suddenly made me think
> him an evil monster. Having an open mind about him, being objective and
> realistic about him, has given me a greater appreciation of the man than I
> had when I was a dewy eyed romantic teenager.
>
> Karen
>