Elizabeth of York

Roslyn wrote: ...it would depend upon the wording of
the alleged letter.

****

Unfortunately, no one knows the wording of the letter.
All that survives is Sir George Buck's note that he
made from the letter. Apparently Buck went back and
added phrases from memory later on.

Alison Hanham gives a reproduction of Buck's note in
her article: "Sir George Buck and Princess
Elizabeth's Letter: A Problem in Detection," published
in The Ricardian (Vol. 7, No. 97, June 1987). This
reproduction shows which phrases Buck added later.

I won't recopy the whole note. The phrase that stuck
with me is:

"...she feared the queene would neuer die..." This
phrase was in Sir George Buck's original note.

It's followed by "...and these bee her own wordes
[written with her own hand] and this is the summe of
her letter." The phrase "... written with her own
hand..." was added later.

I'm not willing to say whether Buck was misled or
whether he was deliberately distorting the letter he
saw. But I wish he'd asked whether it was likely that
Elizabeth of York would have put such an incriminating
thought in writing. I still don't believe she would
have done that.

There's an interesting article on Sir George Buck's
credibiliy in "Richard III: Crown and People." ed. by
J. Petre. London: Richard III Society, c1985. It's
called "George Buck senior and George Buck junior: a
literary-historical mystery story," by A.N. Kincaid,
pp. 245-251.

Kincaid says that Sir George Buck is relatively
accurate in his use of historical sources. He
suggests that Buck referred to Elizabeth of York's
letter because he wanted to compliment his patron, who
owned the letter and showed it to him.

When George Buck junior published George Buck senior's
book, he made a lot of revisions that changed the
sense of some passages. So our impression of
Elizabeth of York's letter isn't necessarily what
George Buck senior intended to create.

Unless someone finds Elizabeth of York's letter, we'll
never know what she actually wrote. All we can do is
ask how likely it was that she wrote what appears in
Sir George Buck's note, with later additions.

Marion



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