Birth

Here we go again!
Richard's birth in the BBC book "The Full Story" was later described by
his mother, yes his mother, as "encumberous" and we are told she wrote
was "to me full painful and uneasy" causing, she noted, "an infirmity
not hid on my wretched body".
Of course, no source is mentioned for this new found diary of Cecily
Neville!
In all my years of study and reading about Richard, even in the most
vilifying writings about him have I ever heard of mention of any
writings by Cecily about the birth of Richard, or any of her children.
The only mention of Richard's birth is the famous "Richard liveth yet".
Could someone perhaps enlighten me as to where this latest nonsense has
come from?
Why have I missed it for so many years?
Paul

Here we go again!
Richard's birth in the BBC book "The Full Story" was later described by
his mother, yes his mother, as "encumberous" and we are told she wrote
was "to me full painful and uneasy" causing, she noted, "an infirmity
not hid on my wretched body".
Of course, no source is mentioned for this new found diary of Cecily
Neville!
In all my years of study and reading about Richard, even in the most
vilifying writings about him have I ever heard of mention of any
writings by Cecily about the birth of Richard, or any of her children.
The only mention of Richard's birth is the famous "Richard liveth yet".
Could someone perhaps enlighten me as to where this latest nonsense has
come from?
Why have I missed it for so many years?
Paul

Oh, I suspect that is from the letter Cecily wrote to Margaret of Anjou in 1453 begging her to use her influence to get her husband restored to royal favour. She talked about her 'labour' in his cause and how ill the whole business had made her, and some professional historian who should have known better didn't read the thing properly, leapt on the word labour and decided Cecily was complaining about her last childbirth. This misinterpretation has been copied God knows how many times since.

Surely said prof historian should have known that 'labour' was the verb used back then where we might now say 'lobby.'

Marie

"Oh, I suspect that is from the letter Cecily wrote to Margaret of Anjou in 1453 begging her to use her influence to get her husband restored to royal favour. She talked about her 'labour' in his cause and how ill the whole business had made her, and some professional historian who should have known better didn't read the thing properly, leapt on the word labour and decided Cecily was complaining about her last childbirth. This misinterpretation has been copied God knows how many times since.

Surely said prof historian should have known that 'labour' was the verb used back then where we might now say 'lobby.'"

Carol responds:

You're undoubtedly right, Marie.

Paul (and anyone else interested in this topic), the letter is in our Files (posted by Marie) under "Cecily's letter to Queen Margaret." In context, "labour" and "heavyness" and everything else that "historians" (among them Desmond Seward, IIRC) have interpreted to relate to Richard's birth really apply, as Marie has said, to Cecily's distress over her husband's undeserved estrangement from the queen (and, in consequence, the king). Possibly the juxtaposition of Cecily's good wishes for the birth of queen Margaret's child with her own "labours" for her husband have aided the misinterpretation. But, obviously, (as I think Marie stated in another post ages ago), Cecily would not be stupid enough (or tactless enough) to mention her own (supposedly) distressful labor to a woman about to face labor and childbirth for the first time, especially when that woman is a queen whose mercy she is seeking (for her husband's plight).

It's another case of a document twisted to support Sir Thomas More, who implies that the birth was so difficult that it resulted in a Caesarean section (though that operation was so dangerous in those days that it was not performed unless the mother died in childbirth). The letter, once cited, becomes "proof" of the "difficult birth" depicted by More and implied by Rous--and is then incessantly repeated as fact by "historians" who don't check their sources carefully.

Carol

Oh, I suspect that is from the letter Cecily wrote to Margaret of Anjou in 1453 begging her to use her influence to get her husband restored to royal favour. She talked about her 'labour' in his cause and how ill the whole business had made her, and some professional historian who should have known better didn't read the thing properly, leapt on the word labour and decided Cecily was complaining about her last childbirth. This misinterpretation has been copied God knows how many times since.

Surely said prof historian should have known that 'labour' was the verb used back then where we might now say 'lobby.'

Marie

Oh, I suspect that is from the letter Cecily wrote to Margaret of Anjou in 1453 begging her to use her influence to get her husband restored to royal favour. She talked about her 'labour' in his cause and how ill the whole business had made her, and some professional historian who should have known better didn't read the thing properly, leapt on the word labour and decided Cecily was complaining about her last childbirth. This misinterpretation has been copied God knows how many times since.

Surely said prof historian should have known that 'labour' was the verb used back then where we might now say 'lobby.'

Marie