Réf.: RE: Re: Re : Re: Re: [Richard III Society Forum] RE: Re: Comb

Carol,
I am sorry if I implied that you had dismissed Vergil. You clearly had not. I was trying to reply to two posts that had made similar point at the same time. The one that was dismissive was Stephen's one liner.

Kind regards
David


------------------------------
Le sam. 28 sept. 2013 23:58 UTC+01:00, justcarol67@... a écrit :

>
> 
>Stephen wrote: I disagree [with Durose David]. JA-H has accessed sources from well
>before 1502. Vergil, like others, was paid by "Tudor" to write propaganda
>much later and should be judged on that basis. He is also possibly the "Human
>Shredder" who destroyed documents that subsequent real historians cannot
>read. <snip> Carol responds: I suspect that the "human shredder" was Bishop Morton's nephew Robert, as suggested by Audrey Williamson, though admittedly there's no evidence to support the charge (other than the gaps in the record, especially the records of Richard's council meetings) except that Robert's position as Master of the Rolls would have given him access to whatever documents were available. If he destroyed them, it must have been on Henry's orders as he certainly would not have dared to destroy documents without permission. I agree with the rest of your post, which I snipped. In any case, I doubt that Vergil had access to original records that are now missing, as Durose David suggested. Vergil himself complained about the absence of documents for the period (though much has come to light since that he was unaware of, including the documents unearthed by J A-H. Certainly, we can't blame Vergil for being unaware of the contents of Titulus
Regius, which Henry Tudor had ordered all copies burned unread. The result for Vergil is an absolute ignorance of Eleanor Butler and the real nature of Richard's claim to the throne. He does seem to have had access to the wardrobe accounts, which he apparently used to time the "murder" of the "princes" to coincide with Sir James Tyrrell's ride to London relating to Edward of Middleham's investiture as Prince of Wales. As for the dates of his Anglica Historia, he began writing not when he first arrived in England in 1502 as David mentioned but in 1512-13, by which time Henry VII (his main source for events relating to Bosworth and Buckingham's Rebellion) was already dead--as were John de la Pole, Perkin Warbeck, Edward of Warwick, and, but April 1513, Edmund de la Pole. The crown was safely in Tudor hands and few would have dared to present Richard's perspective. Even William Stanley, to whom Henry owed his life and crown, had been executed for
supporting a Yorkist pretender (as had Sir James Tyrrell, associated with Richard and perhaps the rescuer rather than the murderer of the "Princes"). Would anyone--say Thomas Howard, finally restored to his father's titles after loyally serving the crown of England, regardless of the head it sat on, for all those years? Richard's perspective is nowhere in evidence in Vergil's work. He operates on the assumption that Richard was a wicked man, both a ururper and a murderer, and his interpretation of events, even where he knows the facts and is not relying on rumor, reflects that assumption. So, David, Vergil undoubtedly did his best, but he was handicapped by lack of materials, biased sources, and his own assumptions, having arrived in England at a time when Henry Tudor had been king--and Richard had been dead--for seventeen years and beginning his work still later. For all these reasons, his work should be treated with caution. Primary sources--that is,
original documents such as legislation, letters, and expense accounts--disprove many of his conclusions about a man he never had the chance to meet. Had he come to Richard's court rather than Henry's in 1502, assuming that Richard had won Bosworth and survived to the age of fifty, we would have had a very different history and a very different view of Richard, in part because Vergil would have had no altered Rous Roll and perhaps a very different Historia Regum Angliae (or none at all) to use as a source for Richard's (supposed) appearance and character (two years in his mother's womb and all). Yahoo may be messing with my formatting. On that point, I agree with you, DD! Carol
>

Carol,
I am sorry if I implied that you had dismissed Vergil. You clearly had not. I was trying to reply to two posts that had made similar point at the same time. The one that was dismissive was Stephen's one liner.

Kind regards
David


------------------------------
Le sam. 28 sept. 2013 23:58 UTC+01:00, justcarol67@... a écrit :

>
> 
>Stephen wrote: I disagree [with Durose David]. JA-H has accessed sources from well
>before 1502. Vergil, like others, was paid by "Tudor" to write propaganda
>much later and should be judged on that basis. He is also possibly the "Human
>Shredder" who destroyed documents that subsequent real historians cannot
>read. <snip> Carol responds: I suspect that the "human shredder" was Bishop Morton's nephew Robert, as suggested by Audrey Williamson, though admittedly there's no evidence to support the charge (other than the gaps in the record, especially the records of Richard's council meetings) except that Robert's position as Master of the Rolls would have given him access to whatever documents were available. If he destroyed them, it must have been on Henry's orders as he certainly would not have dared to destroy documents without permission. I agree with the rest of your post, which I snipped. In any case, I doubt that Vergil had access to original records that are now missing, as Durose David suggested. Vergil himself complained about the absence of documents for the period (though much has come to light since that he was unaware of, including the documents unearthed by J A-H. Certainly, we can't blame Vergil for being unaware of the contents of Titulus
Regius, which Henry Tudor had ordered all copies burned unread. The result for Vergil is an absolute ignorance of Eleanor Butler and the real nature of Richard's claim to the throne. He does seem to have had access to the wardrobe accounts, which he apparently used to time the "murder" of the "princes" to coincide with Sir James Tyrrell's ride to London relating to Edward of Middleham's investiture as Prince of Wales. As for the dates of his Anglica Historia, he began writing not when he first arrived in England in 1502 as David mentioned but in 1512-13, by which time Henry VII (his main source for events relating to Bosworth and Buckingham's Rebellion) was already dead--as were John de la Pole, Perkin Warbeck, Edward of Warwick, and, but April 1513, Edmund de la Pole. The crown was safely in Tudor hands and few would have dared to present Richard's perspective. Even William Stanley, to whom Henry owed his life and crown, had been executed for
supporting a Yorkist pretender (as had Sir James Tyrrell, associated with Richard and perhaps the rescuer rather than the murderer of the "Princes"). Would anyone--say Thomas Howard, finally restored to his father's titles after loyally serving the crown of England, regardless of the head it sat on, for all those years? Richard's perspective is nowhere in evidence in Vergil's work. He operates on the assumption that Richard was a wicked man, both a ururper and a murderer, and his interpretation of events, even where he knows the facts and is not relying on rumor, reflects that assumption. So, David, Vergil undoubtedly did his best, but he was handicapped by lack of materials, biased sources, and his own assumptions, having arrived in England at a time when Henry Tudor had been king--and Richard had been dead--for seventeen years and beginning his work still later. For all these reasons, his work should be treated with caution. Primary sources--that is,
original documents such as legislation, letters, and expense accounts--disprove many of his conclusions about a man he never had the chance to meet. Had he come to Richard's court rather than Henry's in 1502, assuming that Richard had won Bosworth and survived to the age of fifty, we would have had a very different history and a very different view of Richard, in part because Vergil would have had no altered Rous Roll and perhaps a very different Historia Regum Angliae (or none at all) to use as a source for Richard's (supposed) appearance and character (two years in his mother's womb and all). Yahoo may be messing with my formatting. On that point, I agree with you, DD! Carol
>