getting back to Richard III

As some regulars to this forum may know, I am interested in the
possibility that Richard actually did have something odd about one arm
or shoulder. He was not a hunchback, and it's doubtful he had a
withered arm, but I think it is possible that there actually was some
unevenness or disproportion in one arm or shoulder -- that there was
some kernel of fact around which the Tudors later built their propaganda.

For one thing, in ore's account of the ruckus in the council chambers
that ended up with Hasting's arrest and execution, probably
plagiarized from Morton. who was there the business about Richard
exhibiting his withered arm and claiming it was Elizabeth Woodville's
witchcraft, whereas everyone knew he had had it since childhood.

(Wait, Paul -- don't explode. I'm trying to lay out evidence.)

We know More was a Tudor toadie and rabidly anti-Richard. But think
of this. Whenever Morton wrote that account, More had "his" History
of King Richard III, which incorporated that vivid sequence that
occurred in June 1483, in circulation by 1513 and possibly earlier.
It had occurred within living memory, in other words. Many people who
read More's work would have known Richard III, or their parents had,
and they would have known whether he had a withered arm or not, even
if "withered" was an exaggeration. More/Morton was trying to convince
his readers of something in those passages -- throwing in a very
important part such as Richard raving about witchcraft and his arm
would have simply brought the whole story to a crashing halt if the
readers were going to look at each other and say "What withered arm?
He didn't have a withered arm!"

I wonder if anything could be deduced from the fact (if it is a fact
-- I haven't done original research but I have read it in a number of
works by historians) that Richard's weapon of choice in battle was an
ax, not a sword. That seems unusual, since it was remarked upon, to
follow the adage that things remarked upon are remarkable. Is an ax
lighter than a sword? Is it easier to use? Does it entail a
different kind of stroke or motion to strike with an ax versus a
sword? What would lead someone to prefer an ax to a sword in a
battle? Is this a so what, or is it something important?

Katy

--- In , oregonkaty
<no_reply@...> wrote:
>
>> For one thing, in ore's account of the ruckus in the council
chambers
> that ended up with Hasting's arrest and execution, probably
> plagiarized from Morton. who was there the business about Richard
> exhibiting his withered arm and claiming it was Elizabeth
Woodville's
> witchcraft, whereas everyone knew he had had it since childhood.

The good Sir Thomas was not above including demonstrable falsehoods i
his account. For example he claimed that Edward IV was publicly
married will full solemnity, or words to that effect, when any fule
knows that he married Elizabeth in secret and hugger-mugger.

Had Richard behaved as suggested, I can only think the Council would
have concluded that he had run mad. Displaying his arm for inspection
would only make sense if there was some novel change to it.
(Discolouring caused by poisoning, for example.)


>> -- I haven't done original research but I have read it in a number
of
> works by historians) that Richard's weapon of choice in battle was
an
> ax, not a sword. That seems unusual, since it was remarked upon, to
> follow the adage that things remarked upon are remarkable. Is an ax
> lighter than a sword? Is it easier to use? Does it entail a
> different kind of stroke or motion to strike with an ax versus a
> sword? What would lead someone to prefer an ax to a sword in a
> battle? Is this a so what, or is it something important?

I'd love to know the factual origin for this Katy, although it is
often so suggested in novels. The sword was a pretty inadequate
weapon against full plate armour, an axe or war hammer being more
effective in that it concentrates the force of a blow into a small
area. It's the difference between attacking a can of food with a
pointed instrument and sawing at it with a knife!

Brian W

oregonkaty wrote:

> I wonder if anything could be deduced from the
> fact(if it is a fact -- I haven't done original
> research but I have read it in a number of
> works by historians) that Richard's weapon of
> choice in battle was an ax, not a sword. That
> seems unusual, since it was remarked upon, to
> follow the adage that things remarked upon are
> remarkable. Is an ax lighter than a sword? Is
> it easier to use? Does it entail a different
> kind of stroke or motion to strike with an
> ax versus a sword? What would lead someone to
> prefer an ax to a sword in a battle? Is this a
> so what, or is it something important?

A battle ax is heavier than the swords commonly used
in England at the time. The method of use was
different and required more strength. There has been
some speculation that the 'withered arm' bit came
from one of Richard's arms being more heavily muscled
from swinging a heavy ax. I find that far more
credible than any talk about witchcraft or birth defect.

As for why an ax? Probably it was little more than
personal preference and what he was good with. For a
young man in those times who probably didn't have the
impressive height and mass that his brother(s?) had,
perhaps the 'badass' factor shouldn't be dismissed
either. ;-)


Take care,
Rogue


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com

--- In , "Brian Wainwright"
<wainwright.brian@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , oregonkaty
> <no_reply@> wrote:

> The good Sir Thomas was not above including demonstrable falsehoods i
> his account. For example he claimed that Edward IV was publicly
> married will full solemnity, or words to that effect, when any fule
> knows that he married Elizabeth in secret and hugger-mugger.

No, no, that's not the point. I must not have expressed myself
clearly. It's certainly true that the sainted More tells outright
lies at times -- he perjured himself six ways from Sunday in the Hunne
affair, to cite one thundering example -- but his penchant for
exaggeration is not what I was talking about.

What I was focusing on was that he (almost certainly cribbing from
Morton, an eyewitness) said that Richard was going on about his
withered arm, and that those present knew full well that he had had it
from childhood so it couldn't have been caused by anyone's witchcraft.
Those present did not say to themselves and each other "He doesn't
have a withered arm...he'd delusional." I conclude from that that
there actually was something about his arm, and Morton seized upon
that fact.

If Morton or More simply wanted to say that Richard was physically
abnormal (on the Medieval mindset that body and mind and soul are
interlinked, so a defective body is the manifestation of a defective
mind or a twisted soul) and Richard had no actual visible abnormality,
it would have made far more sense and been more theatrical to have
claimed that he had some sort of hideous birthmark on a part of his
body normally hidden by clothing. Medieval thought put great weight
on birthmarks both as secret identification and as evidence of a pact
with the devil. Fairy tales frequently feature the former, and the
latter got quite a few people executed for witchcraft. So it would
have been more logical to have concocted a scene in which Richard
dramatically tore his shirt open and revealed a birthmark, than to
have had him going on about a withered arm if he didn't have something
odd about one arm. An arm or shoulder are quite visible in ordinary
life so the public would know about any abnormality; few people would
have had opportunity to view a noble's trunk or backside.



>
> Had Richard behaved as suggested, I can only think the Council would
> have concluded that he had run mad. Displaying his arm for inspection
> would only make sense if there was some novel change to it.
> (Discolouring caused by poisoning, for example.)


I believe that was the point the narrator, almost certainly Morton,
was trying to make -- that Richard was mad, or in a fever delirium, or
otherwise out of his head, to go on about a defect he had had all his
life as though it was recent. The point is to cast doubt on the
validity, if not the legality, of the accusations against Hastings.
And, by extension, the people who were in league with Hastings -- it
looks like Morton was involved in whatever Hastings was up to that
cost him his head, though as usual Morton wiggled out of it.



> >> -- I haven't done original research but I have read it in a number
> of
> > works by historians) that Richard's weapon of choice in battle was
> an
> > ax, not a sword. That seems unusual, since it was remarked upon, to
> > follow the adage that things remarked upon are remarkable. Is an ax
> > lighter than a sword? Is it easier to use? Does it entail a
> > different kind of stroke or motion to strike with an ax versus a
> > sword? What would lead someone to prefer an ax to a sword in a
> > battle? Is this a so what, or is it something important?
>
> I'd love to know the factual origin for this Katy,


Me too. Does anyone know where I got this idea?


although it is
> often so suggested in novels. The sword was a pretty inadequate
> weapon against full plate armour, an axe or war hammer being more
> effective in that it concentrates the force of a blow into a small
> area. It's the difference between attacking a can of food with a
> pointed instrument and sawing at it with a knife!

True, but a sword seems to have been de riguer for a leader. It's
symbolic. That continues to the present day -- full dress uniform for
Navy officers, at least, includes a sword. I used to work on a Navy
base, and at the change of command ceremonies the officers had sabers
-- swords -- slung from their belts.



Katy

--- In , "Rogue" <roguefem@...>
wrote:
>

There has been
> some speculation that the 'withered arm' bit came
> from one of Richard's arms being more heavily muscled
> from swinging a heavy ax. I find that far more
> credible than any talk about witchcraft or birth defect.


I have read that also. I believe Paul Murray Kendall, perhaps others,
suggested that.

But overdevelopment of one arm and/or shoulder is simply that. It may
provide a contrast with the appearance of the other,normal, side, but
it would not make the other arm appear withered or underdeveloped.

Katy

--- In , oregonkaty <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , "Brian Wainwright"
> <wainwright.brian@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In , oregonkaty
> > <no_reply@> wrote:
>
> > The good Sir Thomas was not above including demonstrable falsehoods i
> > his account. For example he claimed that Edward IV was publicly
> > married will full solemnity, or words to that effect, when any fule
> > knows that he married Elizabeth in secret and hugger-mugger.
Brian
>
>
>
> What I was focusing on was that he (almost certainly cribbing from
> Morton, an eyewitness) said that Richard was going on about his
> withered arm, and that those present knew full well that he had had it
> from childhood so it couldn't have been caused by anyone's witchcraft.

> Those present did not say to themselves and each other "He doesn't
> have a withered arm...he'd delusional." I conclude from that that
> there actually was something about his arm, and Morton seized upon
> that fact.

Katy, bear with me, but I must confess I am not entirely following you here - are you
saying that you(maybe) believe that Richard did roll up his sleeve & display his arm to the
council?
I must say I have never given that part of More's/Morton's story any credence at all simply
because Richard never had a withered arm - 'obviously some of it (More's story) does have
some element of truth, the part where there was a council meeting on that particular day
in the Tower! - but has anyone ever considered that when Richard made this statement he
was speaking metaphorically- when he said the Queen/Shore had withered his arm was
his meaning in a similar vein as when we, in the 21st century say "my hands are tied".
This could have been twisted at a later stage. I think we have all had the misfortune to
have come across people that cause the most diabolical trouble by twisting something you
have said innocently and making it into something else entirely (well I have anyway:-{ )

Eileen



>
> If Morton or More simply wanted to say that Richard was physically
> abnormal (on the Medieval mindset that body and mind and soul are
> interlinked, so a defective body is the manifestation of a defective
> mind or a twisted soul) and Richard had no actual visible abnormality,
> it would have made far more sense and been more theatrical to have
> claimed that he had some sort of hideous birthmark on a part of his
> body normally hidden by clothing. Medieval thought put great weight
> on birthmarks both as secret identification and as evidence of a pact
> with the devil. Fairy tales frequently feature the former, and the
> latter got quite a few people executed for witchcraft. So it would
> have been more logical to have concocted a scene in which Richard
> dramatically tore his shirt open and revealed a birthmark, than to
> have had him going on about a withered arm if he didn't have something
> odd about one arm. An arm or shoulder are quite visible in ordinary
> life so the public would know about any abnormality; few people would
> have had opportunity to view a noble's trunk or backside.
>
>
>
> >
> > Had Richard behaved as suggested, I can only think the Council would
> > have concluded that he had run mad. Displaying his arm for inspection
> > would only make sense if there was some novel change to it.
> > (Discolouring caused by poisoning, for example.)
>
>
> I believe that was the point the narrator, almost certainly Morton,
> was trying to make -- that Richard was mad, or in a fever delirium, or
> otherwise out of his head, to go on about a defect he had had all his
> life as though it was recent. The point is to cast doubt on the
> validity, if not the legality, of the accusations against Hastings.
> And, by extension, the people who were in league with Hastings -- it
> looks like Morton was involved in whatever Hastings was up to that
> cost him his head, though as usual Morton wiggled out of it.
>
>
>
> > >> -- I haven't done original research but I have read it in a number
> > of
> > > works by historians) that Richard's weapon of choice in battle was
> > an
> > > ax, not a sword. That seems unusual, since it was remarked upon, to
> > > follow the adage that things remarked upon are remarkable. Is an ax
> > > lighter than a sword? Is it easier to use? Does it entail a
> > > different kind of stroke or motion to strike with an ax versus a
> > > sword? What would lead someone to prefer an ax to a sword in a
> > > battle? Is this a so what, or is it something important?
> >
> > I'd love to know the factual origin for this Katy,
>
>
> Me too. Does anyone know where I got this idea?
>
>
> although it is
> > often so suggested in novels. The sword was a pretty inadequate
> > weapon against full plate armour, an axe or war hammer being more
> > effective in that it concentrates the force of a blow into a small
> > area. It's the difference between attacking a can of food with a
> > pointed instrument and sawing at it with a knife!
>
> True, but a sword seems to have been de riguer for a leader. It's
> symbolic. That continues to the present day -- full dress uniform for
> Navy officers, at least, includes a sword. I used to work on a Navy
> base, and at the change of command ceremonies the officers had sabers
> -- swords -- slung from their belts.
>
>
>
> Katy
>

--- In , "eileen"
<ebatesparrot@...> wrote:
>


> Katy, bear with me, but I must confess I am not entirely following
you here - are you
> saying that you(maybe) believe that Richard did roll up his sleeve &
display his arm to the
> council?

So says the story. I'll get my copy and quote it later.



> I must say I have never given that part of More's/Morton's story any
credence at all simply
> because Richard never had a withered arm

I doubt he had a withered arm, but I can't say he obviously didn't. I
do think there was something unusual about one of his arms or
shoulder. I don't think the story was made up out of whole cloth
because it was too easily contradicted by people who had actually seen
the man. A story about a hidden blemish or deformity would have
better served the purpose of slandering him, if someone had wanted to
make up a complete fabrication.


- 'obviously some of it (More's story) does have
> some element of truth, the part where there was a council meeting on
that particular day
> in the Tower! - but has anyone ever considered that when Richard
made this statement he
> was speaking metaphorically- when he said the Queen/Shore had
withered his arm was
> his meaning in a similar vein as when we, in the 21st century say
"my hands are tied".



Possibly. An intriguing suggestion. It would require a lot iof
research into colloquialisms and figures of speech in use at the time.
I don't have the facilities to do it. Nor the education -- a lot of
the material would be in Latin. I can and will look in my OED, but it
deals with words rather than phrases.


This could have been twisted at a later stage. I think we have all
had the misfortune to
> have come across people that cause the most diabolical trouble by
twisting something you
> have said innocently and making it into something else entirely
(well I have anyway:-{ )
>
> Eileen



And those who take personal offense at comments made in a general way.

Katy

On Jul 8, 2008, at 3:55 PM, oregonkaty wrote:
>
> I doubt he had a withered arm, but I can't say he obviously didn't. I
> do think there was something unusual about one of his arms or
> shoulder. I don't think the story was made up out of whole cloth
> because it was too easily contradicted by people who had actually seen
> the man. A story about a hidden blemish or deformity would have
> better served the purpose of slandering him, if someone had wanted to
> make up a complete fabrication.
>
> Katy

Hidden how? And if that hidden, how would his detractors know about
it? And how would the general public know that the withered arm was
taken from something a tad closer to the truth than an out and out
lie if they'd never known about the hidden blemish or deformity to
begin with? Either could be contradicted by people who had actually
seen him. I'm inclined to take the withered arm story as just that. A
story. Along the same lines as the hunchback story.

Gilda

--- In , oregonkaty <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , "eileen"
> <ebatesparrot@> wrote:
> >
>
>
> > Katy, bear with me, but I must confess I am not entirely following
> you here - are you
> > saying that you(maybe) believe that Richard did roll up his sleeve &
> display his arm to the
> > council?
>
> So says the story. I'll get my copy and quote it later.
Katy

No need Katy, More's "History" definitely makes that statement, that is for certain
>
>
> I doubt he had a withered arm, but I can't say he obviously didn't. I
> do think there was something unusual about one of his arms or
> shoulder

Maybe - as someone mentioned earlier, one shoulder more strongly developed through
strenuous exercise - but other than that, I have never been able to give this story much
credence simply because Richard took part in many battles - were the horses used in
battle more powerful/harder to handle? Pure guesswork here! I just cannot see how he
could have had that much wrong.

What about people who actually met him and left descriptions - Von Popplau says
something on the lines he was small built but does not mention anything else. I dont
think anything is mentioned in the Croyland Chronicle appertaining to Richard having
anything unusual in his apperance. John Rous was a turncoat therefore anything he has to
say about Richard has to be discounted.

- 'obviously some of it (More's story) does have
> > some element of truth, the part where there was a council meeting on
> that particular day
> > in the Tower! - but has anyone ever considered that when Richard
> made this statement he
> > was speaking metaphorically- when he said the Queen/Shore had
> withered his arm was
> > his meaning in a similar vein as when we, in the 21st century say
> "my hands are tied".
>
> Possibly. An intriguing suggestion. It would require a lot iof
> research into colloquialisms and figures of speech in use at the time.
> I don't have the facilities to do it. Nor the education -- a lot of
> the material would be in Latin. I can and will look in my OED, but it
> deals with words rather than phrases.

Idioms?



>
>
> This could have been twisted at a later stage. I think we have all
> had the misfortune to
> > have come across people that cause the most diabolical trouble by
> twisting something you
> > have said innocently and making it into something else entirely
> (well I have anyway:-{ )
> >
> > Eileen
>
>
>
> And those who take personal offense at comments made in a general way.
>
> Katy
>

No I won't explode Katy though I do think there was nothing wrong
physically with Richard else more people would have remarked on it.
More's history we are told had not been intended for publication, so
he probably ran fast and loose with the physical 'facts' he included
as well as the other things he clearly got wrong, like the point
Brian makes.
Morton was undoubtedly the source for More's 'history', and it was
that Shakespeare used later in the century. The deformed body to
Medieval man indicated a deformed spirit, so as Richard was being
painted as wicked with a deformed soul, naturally the reader would
accept his being subject to physical problems too.
I don't see why his using an axe should indicate some sort of
physical problem, far from it in fact, a battle axe being heavier
than a sword, and deadlier. Though I imagine Richard using the axe
and the sword, one in each hand. Pretty deadly in the hands of a well
trained warrior.
Paul


On 8 Jul 2008, at 16:56, oregonkaty wrote:

> As some regulars to this forum may know, I am interested in the
> possibility that Richard actually did have something odd about one arm
> or shoulder. He was not a hunchback, and it's doubtful he had a
> withered arm, but I think it is possible that there actually was some
> unevenness or disproportion in one arm or shoulder -- that there was
> some kernel of fact around which the Tudors later built their
> propaganda.
>
> For one thing, in ore's account of the ruckus in the council chambers
> that ended up with Hasting's arrest and execution, probably
> plagiarized from Morton. who was there the business about Richard
> exhibiting his withered arm and claiming it was Elizabeth Woodville's
> witchcraft, whereas everyone knew he had had it since childhood.
>
> (Wait, Paul -- don't explode. I'm trying to lay out evidence.)
>
> We know More was a Tudor toadie and rabidly anti-Richard. But think
> of this. Whenever Morton wrote that account, More had "his" History
> of King Richard III, which incorporated that vivid sequence that
> occurred in June 1483, in circulation by 1513 and possibly earlier.
> It had occurred within living memory, in other words. Many people who
> read More's work would have known Richard III, or their parents had,
> and they would have known whether he had a withered arm or not, even
> if "withered" was an exaggeration. More/Morton was trying to convince
> his readers of something in those passages -- throwing in a very
> important part such as Richard raving about witchcraft and his arm
> would have simply brought the whole story to a crashing halt if the
> readers were going to look at each other and say "What withered arm?
> He didn't have a withered arm!"
>
> I wonder if anything could be deduced from the fact (if it is a fact
> -- I haven't done original research but I have read it in a number of
> works by historians) that Richard's weapon of choice in battle was an
> ax, not a sword. That seems unusual, since it was remarked upon, to
> follow the adage that things remarked upon are remarkable. Is an ax
> lighter than a sword? Is it easier to use? Does it entail a
> different kind of stroke or motion to strike with an ax versus a
> sword? What would lead someone to prefer an ax to a sword in a
> battle? Is this a so what, or is it something important?
>
> Katy
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

On 8 Jul 2008, at 21:56, eileen wrote:

> Maybe - as someone mentioned earlier, one shoulder more strongly
> developed through
> strenuous exercise

This is Kendall's fault really, as it was he trying to explain the
story of deformity, who first put it forward as a reason.
But I doubt an experienced training master would allow any boy to
concentrate on just one part of his body and develop it to the
detriment of other muscle groups. Building a boy into a warrior was
akin to putting on muscle at the modern gym, nobody neglects one side
in favour of the other. I'm sure the teachers at Middleham made sure
Richard built all his parts up!
Paul

On 8 Jul 2008, at 20:36, eileen wrote:

> Katy, bear with me, but I must confess I am not entirely following
> you here - are you
> saying that you(maybe) believe that Richard did roll up his sleeve
> & display his arm to the
> council?
> I must say I have never given that part of More's/Morton's story
> any credence at all simply
> because Richard never had a withered arm - 'obviously some of it
> (More's story) does have
> some element of truth, the part where there was a council meeting
> on that particular day
> in the Tower! - but has anyone ever considered that when Richard
> made this statement he
> was speaking metaphorically- when he said the Queen/Shore had
> withered his arm was
> his meaning in a similar vein as when we, in the 21st century say
> "my hands are tied".
> This could have been twisted at a later stage. I think we have all
> had the misfortune to
> have come across people that cause the most diabolical trouble by
> twisting something you
> have said innocently and making it into something else entirely
> (well I have anyway:-{ )
>
> Eileen

Very nicely put Eileen!
Paul

--- In , Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...> wrote:
>
>
> I don't see why his using an axe should indicate some sort of
> physical problem, far from it in fact, a battle axe being heavier
> than a sword, and deadlier. Though I imagine Richard using the axe
> and the sword, one in each hand. Pretty deadly in the hands of a well
> trained warrior.
> Paul
>
What I know about weapons etc., I could put on a postage stamp but I think if you were on
horseback in the midst of battle, an axe would have been much superior to a sword and
your first choice. Atop a strong, tall war horse pity anyone that got in your way. Just such
a injustice Richard never reached Tudor in that last gallant charge.

I am now going to my bed where no doubt I will dream about withered arms!! :-\

Eileen


>
> On 8 Jul 2008, at 16:56, oregonkaty wrote:
>
> > As some regulars to this forum may know, I am interested in the
> > possibility that Richard actually did have something odd about one arm
> > or shoulder. He was not a hunchback, and it's doubtful he had a
> > withered arm, but I think it is possible that there actually was some
> > unevenness or disproportion in one arm or shoulder -- that there was
> > some kernel of fact around which the Tudors later built their
> > propaganda.
> >
> > For one thing, in ore's account of the ruckus in the council chambers
> > that ended up with Hasting's arrest and execution, probably
> > plagiarized from Morton. who was there the business about Richard
> > exhibiting his withered arm and claiming it was Elizabeth Woodville's
> > witchcraft, whereas everyone knew he had had it since childhood.
> >
> > (Wait, Paul -- don't explode. I'm trying to lay out evidence.)
> >
> > We know More was a Tudor toadie and rabidly anti-Richard. But think
> > of this. Whenever Morton wrote that account, More had "his" History
> > of King Richard III, which incorporated that vivid sequence that
> > occurred in June 1483, in circulation by 1513 and possibly earlier.
> > It had occurred within living memory, in other words. Many people who
> > read More's work would have known Richard III, or their parents had,
> > and they would have known whether he had a withered arm or not, even
> > if "withered" was an exaggeration. More/Morton was trying to convince
> > his readers of something in those passages -- throwing in a very
> > important part such as Richard raving about witchcraft and his arm
> > would have simply brought the whole story to a crashing halt if the
> > readers were going to look at each other and say "What withered arm?
> > He didn't have a withered arm!"
> >
> > I wonder if anything could be deduced from the fact (if it is a fact
> > -- I haven't done original research but I have read it in a number of
> > works by historians) that Richard's weapon of choice in battle was an
> > ax, not a sword. That seems unusual, since it was remarked upon, to
> > follow the adage that things remarked upon are remarkable. Is an ax
> > lighter than a sword? Is it easier to use? Does it entail a
> > different kind of stroke or motion to strike with an ax versus a
> > sword? What would lead someone to prefer an ax to a sword in a
> > battle? Is this a so what, or is it something important?
> >
> > Katy
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>

--- In , "eileen"
<ebatesparrot@...> wrote:

> What about people who actually met him and left descriptions - Von
Popplau says
> something on the lines he was small built but does not mention
anything else. I dont
> think anything is mentioned in the Croyland Chronicle appertaining
to Richard having
> anything unusual in his apperance. John Rous was a turncoat
therefore anything he has to
> say about Richard has to be discounted.


Quite true. And in the painting that is supposed to show Richard, the
figure thought to be him is slim and graceful, with no hint of
deformity.

I'm not insisting he was abnormal in any way. I just find it
interesting to try to reconcile the two points of view.

Katy

--- In , "eileen"
<ebatesparrot@...> wrote:

> Maybe - as someone mentioned earlier, one shoulder more strongly
developed through
> strenuous exercise - but other than that, I have never been able to
give this story much
> credence simply because Richard took part in many battles - were the
horses used in
> battle more powerful/harder to handle?


Certainly. A destrier was a weapon unto itself. Sometimes nails were
hammered into their hooves, with the points protruding out the top of
the hoof, so the horse could do great damage when it was rearing and
pawing and striking with its front feet, as it was trained to do.
They also bit men and other horses in battle. They were always
stallions, high-strung and irritable to begin with, and when they were
excited by approaching battle they sometimes killed the grooms who
tried to handle them. In the Bayeux Tapestry you can see some
destriers attacking the grooms who are trying to unload them from one
of the boats.

Anyone who could handle a destrier was in great physical shape. But
on the ever-popular other hand, men who had physical abnormalities
die. The fearsome John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury (Eleanor Butker's
father, incidebntally) had the very short fingers, missing onme of the
phalanges, that run in his family up to the present day. But he
handled his wart-horse and his weapons just fine, evidence shows.

Robert de Beaumont, earl of Leicester, was called a hunchback. He was
the second-born twin and probably had Erb's palsy, a common birth
injury before modern obstetrics, which causes one arm and shoulder to
be underdeveloped due to damage to the nerves.

Katy

--- In , oregonkaty
<no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> Anyone who could handle a destrier was in great physical shape. But
> on the ever-popular other hand, men who had physical abnormalities
> die.


"Did" not "die."

Katy

--- In , oregonkaty
<no_reply@...> wrote:
But he
> handled his wart-horse and his weapons just fine, evidence shows.


Wart-horse. I like that. My fingers were on autopilot when I wrote
this post, I'm afraid. Apologies for all the typos.

Katy

as stated in previous discussions related to this topic, i think it is possible richard had some kind of mild stroke causing his "arm" to wither. or it is an idiom for "my hands are tied".
 
now with that being said, we all know richard was a warrior and battle commander. therefore, is it possible that during a battle he had a shoulder or arm broken or dislocated and it just never healed properly giving rise to the hunchback/deformity legend?
 
additionally, when you read the assorted reports of what went on at stoney stratford: you have rivers and grey locked in their rooms, or they were brought to meet e5 and then arrested..or they were intercepted on their ride to e5 and arrested..it all depends upon which version you favour as to what you might believe.
 
i've not seen any "offical/primary source record" regarding this incident... therefore, is it possible there was a squirmish and richard was injured in that foray and medieval medical treatments weren't going so well for him.
 
also, i've read somewhere a long the line, that in a yorkshire pub it was heard that richard was called a crouchback. a derogatory term not only for hunchback, but also crusader. again in my reading, i have read that richard wanted to go on a crusade against the turks/ottomans.
 
a tudor propagandist could twist richard's crusader dreams into a physical nightmare.
 
btw, here's some trivia on hunchbacks. the website is now dead. if you use archive.org you can access the info. i've copied and pasted it from my notes.
http://www.portcult.com/SAINT_CYPRIAN.03.htm
Remedy against hunchbacks
When we meet a hunchback in the morning, who can make our business affairs go badly, Saint Cyprian says that we should proceed like this:
"Porpoise, hunchback, who twists to the front, go, go quietly, and leave me in peace, Porpoise, Porpoise do not pursue me; here goes a figa (a closed hand), do not look back."
Then you should make a figa with your left hand, and put out your right arm with the hand open, as if you were trying to catch a butterfly.
Then keep walking with your hand closed, until you meet any of the following people:
A hunchback--a policeman--a white horse--a cripple--a one armed man--a black cat--a black dog--an albino man.
As soon as you meet any of these people open your hand saying outloud:
"Go away, in the name of Maria Padilha, and all her family, so that you don't bother either rich or poor, or anyone under the sky. Amen.
This spell is infallible; we have used it on several occasions and we have always avoided the crossing of hunchbacks, who are fatal for those who see them, although they are not to blame for this.
Curiously, the name of Maria Padilha, or Maria Padilla, in Castillian, shows us the influence of Spain on the popular superstitions in the book. Maria Pacheco Padilla, wife of Juan Padilla, the caudillo of Toledo, was an important rebel leader in the revolt of the comuneros against Charles V in 16th century Castille. There is another Maria Padilla, who was the mistress of Pedro the Cruel and was the name of an opera by Donizetti.
====
end excerpt..
curiously, maria padilla was richard's great grandmother. it would be interesting to find out when and where this "remedy" was used.


--- On Tue, 7/8/08, oregonkaty <[email protected]> wrote:

From: oregonkaty <[email protected]>
Subject: getting back to Richard III
To:
Received: Tuesday, July 8, 2008, 11:56 AM






As some regulars to this forum may know, I am interested in the
possibility that Richard actually did have something odd about one arm
or shoulder. He was not a hunchback, and it's doubtful he had a
withered arm, but I think it is possible that there actually was some
unevenness or disproportion in one arm or shoulder -- that there was
some kernel of fact around which the Tudors later built their propaganda.

For one thing, in ore's account of the ruckus in the council chambers
that ended up with Hasting's arrest and execution, probably
plagiarized from Morton. who was there the business about Richard
exhibiting his withered arm and claiming it was Elizabeth Woodville's
witchcraft, whereas everyone knew he had had it since childhood.

(Wait, Paul -- don't explode. I'm trying to lay out evidence.)

We know More was a Tudor toadie and rabidly anti-Richard. But think
of this. Whenever Morton wrote that account, More had "his" History
of King Richard III, which incorporated that vivid sequence that
occurred in June 1483, in circulation by 1513 and possibly earlier.
It had occurred within living memory, in other words. Many people who
read More's work would have known Richard III, or their parents had,
and they would have known whether he had a withered arm or not, even
if "withered" was an exaggeration. More/Morton was trying to convince
his readers of something in those passages -- throwing in a very
important part such as Richard raving about witchcraft and his arm
would have simply brought the whole story to a crashing halt if the
readers were going to look at each other and say "What withered arm?
He didn't have a withered arm!"

I wonder if anything could be deduced from the fact (if it is a fact
-- I haven't done original research but I have read it in a number of
works by historians) that Richard's weapon of choice in battle was an
ax, not a sword. That seems unusual, since it was remarked upon, to
follow the adage that things remarked upon are remarkable. Is an ax
lighter than a sword? Is it easier to use? Does it entail a
different kind of stroke or motion to strike with an ax versus a
sword? What would lead someone to prefer an ax to a sword in a
battle? Is this a so what, or is it something important?

Katy

The best-known case of Erb's Palsy is Kaiser Wilhelm II. He had it on the left side and his left arm was some 6 inches shorter than the right and of very limited use. The Kaiser did ride, using his left hand for the reins, as is usual for a cavalryman (who needs the right hand free for his sabre) but he never had to fight on horseback, unlike Richard. There are plenty of photos surviving of the Kaiser riding; he was apparently a keen rider and rode good horses. However, his horses had to be trained to be mounted from the 'wrong' side, i.e. the right-hand side.
Evidence (in case I'm asked!)
Various biographies of the Kaiser (John Rohl: Young Wilhelm, tells you all you will ever wish to know about Erb's Palsy), plus seeing some of his uniforms in a museum, with the left sleeve noticeably short.
Ann


----- Original Message ----
From: oregonkaty <[email protected]>
To:
Sent: Tuesday, 8 July, 2008 11:07:28 PM
Subject: Re: getting back to Richard III


--- In richardiiisocietyfo rum@yahoogroups. com, "eileen"
<ebatesparrot@ ...> wrote:

> Maybe - as someone mentioned earlier, one shoulder more strongly
developed through
> strenuous exercise - but other than that, I have never been able to
give this story much
> credence simply because Richard took part in many battles - were the
horses used in
> battle more powerful/harder to handle?

Certainly. A destrier was a weapon unto itself. Sometimes nails were
hammered into their hooves, with the points protruding out the top of
the hoof, so the horse could do great damage when it was rearing and
pawing and striking with its front feet, as it was trained to do.
They also bit men and other horses in battle. They were always
stallions, high-strung and irritable to begin with, and when they were
excited by approaching battle they sometimes killed the grooms who
tried to handle them. In the Bayeux Tapestry you can see some
destriers attacking the grooms who are trying to unload them from one
of the boats.

Anyone who could handle a destrier was in great physical shape. But
on the ever-popular other hand, men who had physical abnormalities
die. The fearsome John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury (Eleanor Butker's
father, incidebntally) had the very short fingers, missing onme of the
phalanges, that run in his family up to the present day. But he
handled his wart-horse and his weapons just fine, evidence shows.

Robert de Beaumont, earl of Leicester, was called a hunchback. He was
the second-born twin and probably had Erb's palsy, a common birth
injury before modern obstetrics, which causes one arm and shoulder to
be underdeveloped due to damage to the nerves.

Katy

Small point, but Richard fought on foot at Barnet and Tewkesbury, the
two battles in which he was most successful.
Paul

On 8 Jul 2008, at 23:07, oregonkaty wrote:

> --- In , "eileen"
> <ebatesparrot@...> wrote:
>
>> Maybe - as someone mentioned earlier, one shoulder more strongly
> developed through
>> strenuous exercise - but other than that, I have never been able to
> give this story much
>> credence simply because Richard took part in many battles - were the
> horses used in
>> battle more powerful/harder to handle?
>
>
> Certainly. A destrier was a weapon unto itself. Sometimes nails were
> hammered into their hooves, with the points protruding out the top of
> the hoof, so the horse could do great damage when it was rearing and
> pawing and striking with its front feet, as it was trained to do.
> They also bit men and other horses in battle. They were always
> stallions, high-strung and irritable to begin with, and when they were
> excited by approaching battle they sometimes killed the grooms who
> tried to handle them. In the Bayeux Tapestry you can see some
> destriers attacking the grooms who are trying to unload them from one
> of the boats.
>
> Anyone who could handle a destrier was in great physical shape. But
> on the ever-popular other hand, men who had physical abnormalities
> die. The fearsome John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury (Eleanor Butker's
> father, incidebntally) had the very short fingers, missing onme of the
> phalanges, that run in his family up to the present day. But he
> handled his wart-horse and his weapons just fine, evidence shows.
>
> Robert de Beaumont, earl of Leicester, was called a hunchback. He was
> the second-born twin and probably had Erb's palsy, a common birth
> injury before modern obstetrics, which causes one arm and shoulder to
> be underdeveloped due to damage to the nerves.
>
> Katy
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

--- In , oregonkaty
<no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , "Brian Wainwright"
> <wainwright.brian@> wrote:
> >
>>
> True, but a sword seems to have been de riguer for a leader. It's
> symbolic. That continues to the present day -- full dress uniform for
> Navy officers, at least, includes a sword. I used to work on a Navy
> base, and at the change of command ceremonies the officers had sabers
> -- swords -- slung from their belts.
>

Sorry to be slow coming back Katy due to not looking at the computer
for 48 hours.

I agree the Council chamber scene is puzzling but I am increasingly
worried about the feebleness of the sources on which we base our
beliefs on Richard. That cuts both ways, by the way. As far as
Morton/More are concerned, if they told me my name, I'd check my birth
certificate to be sure. It's equally true that some of the positive
beliefs held about Richard seem to me to hang on flimsy evidence. The
bottom line being that the evidence, generally, is scanty.

Richard would almost certainly have carried a sword *as well*. His
preference for an axe, if true, would simply mean he regarded the sword
as a secondary or reserve weapon.

I agree the sword has *become* a symbol of rank, and at some level it
probably did symbolise knighthood. In the late middle ages though it
was quite common for archers (for example) to carry a sword as a
secondary weapon, albeit an archer's sword would be nowhere near the
quality of a knight's or nobleman's.

If a knight chose to use another weapon I don't think that implied
anything odd, still less degrading. Simply a case of a professional
choosing a tool that suited his style of fighting best.

I wonder if the legend of Richard's axe originates from Shakespeare,
where 'Richard' talks about cutting his way through his problems with
a 'bloody axe.'? A Tudor audience might well associate the 'bloody axe'
with political executions as much as battle. I can't think of any
contemporary source that goes into the detail of how Richard fought,
beyond saying that he fought bravely, or whatever.

Brian W

oregonkaty wrote:
>
> As some regulars to this forum may know, I am interested in the
possibility that Richard actually did have something odd about one arm
or shoulder. He was not a hunchback, and it's doubtful he had a
withered arm, but I think it is possible that there actually was some
unevenness or disproportion in one arm or shoulder -- that there was
some kernel of fact around which the Tudors later built their propaganda.
>
> For one thing, in [M]ore's account of the ruckus in the council
chambers that ended up with Hasting's arrest and execution, probably
plagiarized from Morton. who was there the business about Richard
exhibiting his withered arm and claiming it was Elizabeth Woodville's
witchcraft, whereas everyone knew he had had it since childhood.
>
<snip>
> We know More was a Tudor toadie and rabidly anti-Richard. But think
of this. Whenever Morton wrote that account, More had "his" History
of King Richard III, which incorporated that vivid sequence that
occurred in June 1483, in circulation by 1513 and possibly earlier.
It had occurred within living memory, in other words. <snip>

Carol responds:
Please forgive a newbie for jumping in here, but it seems to me that
you're conflating the story of the withered arm, which is clearly
More's invention (or Morton's, if you prefer--I have other theories
that I won't go into here) with the disproportionate shoulders. As I'm
sure you know, the supposed unevenness of the shoulders was first
mentioned by Rous in the version of the Rous Roll that he wrote for
Henry, the same one that stated that Richard was two years in his
mother's womb and born with teeth and hair streaming to his shoulders,
a statement that no one credits, yet many people, including Kendall
and Ricardian novelists, seem to credit it.

Rous says only, "he was small of stature with a short face and unequal
shoulders." The raised shoulder is repeated by More, who was known to
have one shoulder higher than the other himself (see the description
by Erasmus), along with Rous's absurd story of Richard's being two
years in his mother's womb, (which he has the grace to doubt ("it is
for truth reported"):

More follows Rous in describing Richard as being small, with one
shoulder higher than the other, but he adds a great deal to that
original description: More's Richard is "little of stature, ill
fetured of limmes, croke backed, his left shoulder much higher then
his right, hard fauoured of visage, and suche as is in states called
warlye, in other menne otherwise, he was malicious, wrathfull,
enuious, and from afore his birth, euer frowarde." Even here, however,
there's no mention of the withered arm that Richard displays in More's
version of Hastings' execution, repeated as fact by later historians
despite the complete absence of any such details in contemporary
chronicles.

I think, but I'm not sure, that many people (including modern
historians) believe the story of Hastings' execution--strawberries,
withered arm, and all--because it's so detailed. Surely, they think
such detail must have a basis in observed fact. But the account of the
murder of Edward IV's sons is equally detailed, and neither More nor
Morton could have witnessed what really happened. (More, of course,
admits that he doesn't know and that rumors persisted into his time
that at least one of the boys survived.) If More can invent such a
detailed story basd on the supposed confession of Tyrell ("given out"
in generalized form by henry VII after tyrell was safely executed),
why couldn't he, a humanist writer of great wit and imagination, have
invented the whole Hastings story as well?

At any rate, Morton as author or co-author of More's "Historie" is
just one theory, and I doubt that these vivid details were his, even
granting his undeniable animus against richard and the distortions and
limitations of human memory. He was not a writer as far as I know
(please correct me if I'm wrong), nor was he noted for his imagination
unless shrewd propaganda tactics count as imagination, and that's not
the same thing as creating a dialogue as the humanist historians did.
(Look, for example, at the supposed dialogue between Richard,
Buckingham, the uncrowned King Edward V, Richard Grey, and Earl Rivers
(Anthony Woodville). Unless we consider the unlikely possibility that
Edward survived to tell the story to Sir Thomas, every one of the
participants in that conversation was dead by 1485. Who could have
reported it? Nobody. it must have been invented by More.

If More invented conversations and details, as he certainly did in the
other two scenes mentioned, why not in the strawberry scene as well?
And why could he not have invented the withered arm (which is distinct
from the raised shoulder, first described and perhaps invented by
Rous) along with the crooked back, hard visage, and wrathful,
malicious disposition? If Shakespeare (in one of the Henry VI plays)
invented a dialogue between Clarence and Gloucester on the field of a
battle that was fought when they were eleven and eight respectively,
why credit More, also a genius, with any less creativity? (I'm not
talking about his motives here, which may or may not be to discredit
the already discredited Richard, but it's important, in my opinion,
that the "Historie" was written for private distribution, not for
publication.)

All we really have to go on are the contemporary chronicles,
particularly the Croyland Chronicle, which noted Richard's excessive
emotion on his son's death and would, perhaps, have noted it in this
instance as well.

At any rate, Richard may or may not have had one shoulder higher than
the other comtemporary chronicles, even those hostile to Richard,
mention no such imperfection), but he certainly did not have the
withered arm that he claims, in this account, was withered by sorcery,
and which is not mentioned in More's earlier list of Richard's
supposed deformities and vices.

And now I have a question. Has anyone in this group noticed that More
gives Edward IV's age at death as "fiftie and three yeares, seven
monethes, and five dayes" when in fact he was nineteen days short of
his forty-first birthday (forty years, eleven months, and eleven days,
if my math is right). How could he be so seemingly precise and ye to
far off on all counts unless he was indicating through an easily
verifiable fact, that *nothing* in his history was to be believed?

Please don't think that I'm picking a quarrel with established members
of this group. I'm just presenting my own views as a fellow Ricardian.

Carol, who is still holding back on some of her ideas till she sees
the reaction to these few

Very interesting. How can anyone who mismanages Edward IV's age by
twelve years expect to be taken at all seriously?
I think Carson's case is to look first at what was written in
Richard's lifetime and believe that before anything else.

--- In , "Carol"
<justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
> oregonkaty wrote:
> >
> > As some regulars to this forum may know, I am interested in the
> possibility that Richard actually did have something odd about one
arm
> or shoulder. He was not a hunchback, and it's doubtful he had a
> withered arm, but I think it is possible that there actually was
some
> unevenness or disproportion in one arm or shoulder -- that there
was
> some kernel of fact around which the Tudors later built their
propaganda.
> >
> > For one thing, in [M]ore's account of the ruckus in the council
> chambers that ended up with Hasting's arrest and execution,
probably
> plagiarized from Morton. who was there the business about Richard
> exhibiting his withered arm and claiming it was Elizabeth
Woodville's
> witchcraft, whereas everyone knew he had had it since childhood.
> >
> <snip>
> > We know More was a Tudor toadie and rabidly anti-Richard. But
think
> of this. Whenever Morton wrote that account, More had "his"
History
> of King Richard III, which incorporated that vivid sequence that
> occurred in June 1483, in circulation by 1513 and possibly
earlier.
> It had occurred within living memory, in other words. <snip>
>
> Carol responds:
> Please forgive a newbie for jumping in here, but it seems to me
that
> you're conflating the story of the withered arm, which is clearly
> More's invention (or Morton's, if you prefer--I have other theories
> that I won't go into here) with the disproportionate shoulders. As
I'm
> sure you know, the supposed unevenness of the shoulders was first
> mentioned by Rous in the version of the Rous Roll that he wrote for
> Henry, the same one that stated that Richard was two years in his
> mother's womb and born with teeth and hair streaming to his
shoulders,
> a statement that no one credits, yet many people, including Kendall
> and Ricardian novelists, seem to credit it.
>
> Rous says only, "he was small of stature with a short face and
unequal
> shoulders." The raised shoulder is repeated by More, who was known
to
> have one shoulder higher than the other himself (see the
description
> by Erasmus), along with Rous's absurd story of Richard's being two
> years in his mother's womb, (which he has the grace to doubt ("it
is
> for truth reported"):
>
> More follows Rous in describing Richard as being small, with one
> shoulder higher than the other, but he adds a great deal to that
> original description: More's Richard is "little of stature, ill
> fetured of limmes, croke backed, his left shoulder much higher then
> his right, hard fauoured of visage, and suche as is in states
called
> warlye, in other menne otherwise, he was malicious, wrathfull,
> enuious, and from afore his birth, euer frowarde." Even here,
however,
> there's no mention of the withered arm that Richard displays in
More's
> version of Hastings' execution, repeated as fact by later
historians
> despite the complete absence of any such details in contemporary
> chronicles.
>
> I think, but I'm not sure, that many people (including modern
> historians) believe the story of Hastings' execution--strawberries,
> withered arm, and all--because it's so detailed. Surely, they think
> such detail must have a basis in observed fact. But the account of
the
> murder of Edward IV's sons is equally detailed, and neither More
nor
> Morton could have witnessed what really happened. (More, of course,
> admits that he doesn't know and that rumors persisted into his time
> that at least one of the boys survived.) If More can invent such a
> detailed story basd on the supposed confession of Tyrell ("given
out"
> in generalized form by henry VII after tyrell was safely executed),
> why couldn't he, a humanist writer of great wit and imagination,
have
> invented the whole Hastings story as well?
>
> At any rate, Morton as author or co-author of More's "Historie" is
> just one theory, and I doubt that these vivid details were his,
even
> granting his undeniable animus against richard and the distortions
and
> limitations of human memory. He was not a writer as far as I know
> (please correct me if I'm wrong), nor was he noted for his
imagination
> unless shrewd propaganda tactics count as imagination, and that's
not
> the same thing as creating a dialogue as the humanist historians
did.
> (Look, for example, at the supposed dialogue between Richard,
> Buckingham, the uncrowned King Edward V, Richard Grey, and Earl
Rivers
> (Anthony Woodville). Unless we consider the unlikely possibility
that
> Edward survived to tell the story to Sir Thomas, every one of the
> participants in that conversation was dead by 1485. Who could have
> reported it? Nobody. it must have been invented by More.
>
> If More invented conversations and details, as he certainly did in
the
> other two scenes mentioned, why not in the strawberry scene as
well?
> And why could he not have invented the withered arm (which is
distinct
> from the raised shoulder, first described and perhaps invented by
> Rous) along with the crooked back, hard visage, and wrathful,
> malicious disposition? If Shakespeare (in one of the Henry VI
plays)
> invented a dialogue between Clarence and Gloucester on the field
of a
> battle that was fought when they were eleven and eight
respectively,
> why credit More, also a genius, with any less creativity? (I'm not
> talking about his motives here, which may or may not be to
discredit
> the already discredited Richard, but it's important, in my opinion,
> that the "Historie" was written for private distribution, not for
> publication.)
>
> All we really have to go on are the contemporary chronicles,
> particularly the Croyland Chronicle, which noted Richard's
excessive
> emotion on his son's death and would, perhaps, have noted it in
this
> instance as well.
>
> At any rate, Richard may or may not have had one shoulder higher
than
> the other comtemporary chronicles, even those hostile to Richard,
> mention no such imperfection), but he certainly did not have the
> withered arm that he claims, in this account, was withered by
sorcery,
> and which is not mentioned in More's earlier list of Richard's
> supposed deformities and vices.
>
> And now I have a question. Has anyone in this group noticed that
More
> gives Edward IV's age at death as "fiftie and three yeares, seven
> monethes, and five dayes" when in fact he was nineteen days short
of
> his forty-first birthday (forty years, eleven months, and eleven
days,
> if my math is right). How could he be so seemingly precise and ye
to
> far off on all counts unless he was indicating through an easily
> verifiable fact, that *nothing* in his history was to be believed?
>
> Please don't think that I'm picking a quarrel with established
members
> of this group. I'm just presenting my own views as a fellow
Ricardian.
>
> Carol, who is still holding back on some of her ideas till she sees
> the reaction to these few
>

--- In , "Carol"
<justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
> At any rate, Morton as author or co-author of More's "Historie" is
> just one theory, and I doubt that these vivid details were his, even
> granting his undeniable animus against richard and the distortions and
> limitations of human memory. He was not a writer as far as I know
> (please correct me if I'm wrong), nor was he noted for his imagination
> unless shrewd propaganda tactics count as imagination, and that's not
> the same thing as creating a dialogue as the humanist historians did.

Forgive me for snipping so much out of your very well-reasoned
argument (in the good sense) about the reliability of More et al in
many examples. You make some very good points.


As for Morton, actually, he was known as a gifted writer. At quite a
young age, relatively, he was the principle author of the attainder of
the Duke of York at the "Parliament of Devils."

The History of King Richard III, attributed to More, clearly has two
authors. There is a profound difference in style, and the style
changes so abruptly that the reader can get whip-lash. The second
writer is undoubtedly More -- the turgid prose is typical of his work.
More tells you what he is going to tell you, then he tells you, then
he tells you what her just told you and what he meant. The narrative
also backs up and retells a section, the one about the murder of the boys.

Personally, I don't think More was any kind of genius, except a a
genius at self-promotion.

>
> Please don't think that I'm picking a quarrel with established members
> of this group. I'm just presenting my own views as a fellow Ricardian.

I think there is room for all sorts of views in this group. As you
said in an earlier post, if everything had been figured out, there
would be nothing left to talk about.
>
> Carol, who is still holding back on some of her ideas till she sees
> the reaction to these few

I'll be interested in hearing them. I have all sorts of crackpot
what-ifs and questions and theories, which I trot out from time to
time when activity in this forum falls off.

Katy

Katy wrote:
> Forgive me for snipping so much out of your very well-reasoned
argument (in the good sense) about the reliability of More et al in
many examples. You make some very good points.

Carol responds:

Thank you. and don't worry. I believe in snipping everything but the
point that's being responded to. Makes the thread easier to follow.

I did make one mistake, though, in my typo-filled post (for some
reason, even though I hold down the shift key, my capital letters
don't always materialize). I wrote:

"As I'm sure you know, the supposed unevenness of the shoulders was
first mentioned by Rous in the version of the Rous Roll that he wrote
for Henry, the same one that stated that Richard was two years in his
mother's womb and born with teeth and hair streaming to his shoulders,
a statement that no one credits, yet many people, including Kendall
and Ricardian novelists, seem to credit it."

That last self-contradictory statement should read, "a statement that
no one credits [meaning the bit about Richard's being two years in his
mother's womb], yet many people, including Kendall and Ricardian
novelists, seem to credit the statement about uneven shoulders."
Apparently, everyone understood what I meant, but still, I should have
typed what I meant in the first place.

Katy:
> As for Morton, actually, he was known as a gifted writer. At quite
a young age, relatively, he was the principle author of the attainder
of the Duke of York at the "Parliament of Devils."
>
> The History of King Richard III, attributed to More, clearly has two
authors. There is a profound difference in style, and the style
changes so abruptly that the reader can get whip-lash. The second
writer is undoubtedly More -- the turgid prose is typical of his work.
More tells you what he is going to tell you, then he tells you, then
he tells you what her just told you and what he meant. The narrative
also backs up and retells a section, the one about the murder of the
boys. <snip>

Carol:
That's interesting. I haven't read "the Parliament of Devils," but
I'll check it out. If it's online, could you provide a link? If it's a
humanist "history" with invented dialogue, I may have to revise my
view. At what point do you see this whiplash stylistic change? I don't
see it. I don't doubt, by the way, that Morton had an influence on the
"Historie," but I still think it's More's (with the possible exception
of the implausible Buckingham/Morton dialogue), written for reasons
that I don't want to discuss yet because I haven't researched it
fully. What I do think is that, whoever the author was, his account is
so full of errors and outright lies (along with insinuations and
rumors and invented dialogue) that none of it, in particular the
withered arm, can be credited. More (Morton, if you prefer) simply
substituted sorcery for the conspiracy to murder him and Buckingham
(for which we have the evidence of Richard's letter to York).

Carol earlier:
> > Carol, who is still holding back on some of her ideas till she
sees the reaction to these few

Katy:
> I'll be interested in hearing them. I have all sorts of crackpot
what-ifs and questions and theories, which I trot out from time to
time when activity in this forum falls off.

Carol:
Well, okay. I'll give you my views in a nutshell.

1) Richard was not deformed in any way. Even the raised shoulder is
Rous's invention.

2) Although More, unlike Polydore Vergil, was not paid to rewrite
history to glorify Henry Tudor, his "Historie" is a work of fiction
that has done more harm than good to the cause of truth and accuracy.

3) The troth plight between Edward IV and Eleanor Butler was no
invention; it made Edward's children illegitimate by the standards of
the time. It provided the justification for Richard's assumption of
the crown, which was otherwise a political necessity to prevent the
turmoil and bloodshed commonly associated with minority reigns.
Titulus Regius plainly lays out the reasons why Parliament (like the
"three estates" in the earlier petition) wanted Richard as king, most
of which are valid even by the standards of our times. It was only
commonsense to choose a man of proven ability with the requisite blood
royal over a child who would be the puppet of the Woodvilles.

4a) Richard is innocent of most of the "murders" attributed to him;
the rest are political executions. (Edward of Lancaster died in
battle, "in the field," according to the chroniclers--he was, BTW,
almost exactly one year younger than Richard; Henry VI was executed on
Edward IV's order--if the eighteen-year-old Richard had a part in that
judicial murder, it was as the Constable of England, who would have
carried the orders to the Constable of the Tower, who in turn would
have given them to an executioner. The entire council must have backed
Edward's decision; Richard's wife, Anne Neville, whom he evidently
loved; died of tuberculosis; Hastings was too hastily executed but
nevertheless guilty of conspiring with the Woodvilles to murder
Richard and Buckingham and control the young king themselves (I'll
elaborate on that in the Hastings thread if anyone wants me to);
Rivers, Grey, and Vaughn were political executions (they were tried by
the Earl of Northumberland, and they were guilty to the extent that
they had attempted to circumvent Richard's protectorship; the
confiscated wagons of armor suggest that they would have resorted to
civil war had Richard not neatly circumvented them at Stony
Stratford); Haute, sometimes mentioned as dying with them, was not
executed; Buckingham was a traitor and fully deserved his execution.

4b) As for the lords bastard in the Tower, they are spoken of in the
present tense in the Titulus Regius, which means that they were known
to be alive at that time, and Richard had no reason to kill them. He
did, however, have every reason to hide their whereabouts so that they
couldn't be used in a rebellion against them, and if the Tydder or his
adherents got hold of them, they would certainly be murdered. The
Croyland Chronicler never said that they were killed, only that
"rumors were spread" by Richard's enemies that they were dead, a
propaganda tactic to turn the Woodville contingent into Tudor supporters.

5) It was not in Richard's interest to kill his nephews; to do so
would aid Henry Tudor's cause, not his own, and he was already king by
the acclamation of Parliament. He protected his other nephew, Edward
of Warwick, who was also ahead of him in the succession, barred only
by an attainder that could have been reversed if Parliament had wanted
a child king other than the illegitimate sons of King Edward.

6) The bones found ten feet under the foundations of a staircase (not
the same thing as "meetly deep in the ground at the foot of a
staircase under an heap of stones," from which point in any case, the
bodies were supposedly removed and hidden) are unlikely to be those of
the "Princes" because they could not have been buried *under the
foundations* of a staircase that had to be removed to reach them, nor
could a lone priest or anyone else have buried them there, in
Richard's reign or Henry's, without making a lot of noise and calling
attention to their deed. The bones could as easily be those of a pair
of Roman girls as the so-called Princes in the Tower.

7) As for who killed Edward IV's sons, there is no proof that they
died. Richard had opportunity but no motive; Henry had motive but no
opportunity. The one person who had both was the Duke of Buckingham,
Richard's pretended ally who had a claim of his own to the throne,
weaker than Richard's but stronger than the Tudor's. If they died in
1483, he is the most likely candidate for murderer. However, we don't
know what happened, and More's story, far from being "hard if it were
not true," is so full of lies, contradictions, and improbabilities
that even he admits it's only one version of events and that they
might still be alive in his time. The Tyrrell family tradition that
the boys and their mother were in Tyrrell's care--with their uncle
Richard's--consent at Gipping Hall in Suffolk, deserves more attention
that it has received, in my opinion.

I don't think that any of these views are eccentric; they're fairly
moderate, in my view. I haven't mentioned Richard's legislation, which
indicates more than anything else what kind of man he was and what
kind of reign he hoped to have. The glimpse we get of him in the
letter regarding Thomas Lynom is enlightening, too. The monster of
Tudor myth is wholly absent in these very real documents, the only
real evidence we have of who he really was.

Again, I'm not arguing with anybody, just stating where I stand on the
most important Ricardian issues.

Carol, who is clearly incapable of writing terse summaries that will
fit in a figurative nutshell

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

> Katy:
> > As for Morton, actually, he was known as a gifted writer. At quite
> a young age, relatively, he was the principle author of the attainder
> of the Duke of York at the "Parliament of Devils."
> Carol:
> That's interesting. I haven't read "the Parliament of Devils," but
> I'll check it out. If it's online, could you provide a link? If it's a
> humanist "history" with invented dialogue, I may have to revise my
> view.


The Parliament of Devils is the nickname of the Parliament of Coventry
in the winter of 1459.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Devils

The language of the attainder is unusually vivid and well-constructed,
and Morton is credited as being the principal (not principle as I
typoed in my previous post) author.

The attainder of the Duke of York, produced at this Parliament, pretty
much brought the long-simmering tensions in the government of the
realm to the boiling point, and ignited what was later poetically
called the Wars of the Roses.

I don't have a link to the attainder itself, but I'm sure it is
included in many histories of the era.

Katy

Hello All,

Earlier Carol and Katy were discussing the topic of Richard having (or
not having) a withered arm and/or uneven shoulders. I enjoyed reading
the posts! Good stuff. I'd like to contribute a little to the
subject I didn't see covered. Sorry if it was and I'm being repetitive.

Anyway, it is interesting to note that during his corination Richard
and Anne were "Divested of their robes, they stood naked to the waist
to be anoited with sacred chrism." (Paul Murry Kendall). Thomas B.
Costain points out stripping from the waist up to be anointed was a
"French custom and it was being employed at Westminister for the first
time." The point being, why would Richard switch from the old custom
and appear naked in front of the most of the nobility, if he did have
withered arm, hunched back, or some other physical deformity? OR did
he switch customs to show that there was no deformity? Or some other
reason?

Just a different angle I though was interesting.
Howard



--- In , "Carol"
<justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
> oregonkaty wrote:
> >
> > As some regulars to this forum may know, I am interested in the
> possibility that Richard actually did have something odd about one arm
> or shoulder. He was not a hunchback, and it's doubtful he had a
> withered arm, but I think it is possible that there actually was some
> unevenness or disproportion in one arm or shoulder -- that there was
> some kernel of fact around which the Tudors later built their
propaganda.
> >
> > For one thing, in [M]ore's account of the ruckus in the council
> chambers that ended up with Hasting's arrest and execution, probably
> plagiarized from Morton. who was there the business about Richard
> exhibiting his withered arm and claiming it was Elizabeth Woodville's
> witchcraft, whereas everyone knew he had had it since childhood.
> >
> <snip>
> > We know More was a Tudor toadie and rabidly anti-Richard. But think
> of this. Whenever Morton wrote that account, More had "his" History
> of King Richard III, which incorporated that vivid sequence that
> occurred in June 1483, in circulation by 1513 and possibly earlier.
> It had occurred within living memory, in other words. <snip>
>
> Carol responds:
> Please forgive a newbie for jumping in here, but it seems to me that
> you're conflating the story of the withered arm, which is clearly
> More's invention (or Morton's, if you prefer--I have other theories
> that I won't go into here) with the disproportionate shoulders. As I'm
> sure you know, the supposed unevenness of the shoulders was first
> mentioned by Rous in the version of the Rous Roll that he wrote for
> Henry, the same one that stated that Richard was two years in his
> mother's womb and born with teeth and hair streaming to his shoulders,
> a statement that no one credits, yet many people, including Kendall
> and Ricardian novelists, seem to credit it.
>
> Rous says only, "he was small of stature with a short face and unequal
> shoulders." The raised shoulder is repeated by More, who was known to
> have one shoulder higher than the other himself (see the description
> by Erasmus), along with Rous's absurd story of Richard's being two
> years in his mother's womb, (which he has the grace to doubt ("it is
> for truth reported"):
>
> More follows Rous in describing Richard as being small, with one
> shoulder higher than the other, but he adds a great deal to that
> original description: More's Richard is "little of stature, ill
> fetured of limmes, croke backed, his left shoulder much higher then
> his right, hard fauoured of visage, and suche as is in states called
> warlye, in other menne otherwise, he was malicious, wrathfull,
> enuious, and from afore his birth, euer frowarde." Even here, however,
> there's no mention of the withered arm that Richard displays in More's
> version of Hastings' execution, repeated as fact by later historians
> despite the complete absence of any such details in contemporary
> chronicles.
>
> I think, but I'm not sure, that many people (including modern
> historians) believe the story of Hastings' execution--strawberries,
> withered arm, and all--because it's so detailed. Surely, they think
> such detail must have a basis in observed fact. But the account of the
> murder of Edward IV's sons is equally detailed, and neither More nor
> Morton could have witnessed what really happened. (More, of course,
> admits that he doesn't know and that rumors persisted into his time
> that at least one of the boys survived.) If More can invent such a
> detailed story basd on the supposed confession of Tyrell ("given out"
> in generalized form by henry VII after tyrell was safely executed),
> why couldn't he, a humanist writer of great wit and imagination, have
> invented the whole Hastings story as well?
>
> At any rate, Morton as author or co-author of More's "Historie" is
> just one theory, and I doubt that these vivid details were his, even
> granting his undeniable animus against richard and the distortions and
> limitations of human memory. He was not a writer as far as I know
> (please correct me if I'm wrong), nor was he noted for his imagination
> unless shrewd propaganda tactics count as imagination, and that's not
> the same thing as creating a dialogue as the humanist historians did.
> (Look, for example, at the supposed dialogue between Richard,
> Buckingham, the uncrowned King Edward V, Richard Grey, and Earl Rivers
> (Anthony Woodville). Unless we consider the unlikely possibility that
> Edward survived to tell the story to Sir Thomas, every one of the
> participants in that conversation was dead by 1485. Who could have
> reported it? Nobody. it must have been invented by More.
>
> If More invented conversations and details, as he certainly did in the
> other two scenes mentioned, why not in the strawberry scene as well?
> And why could he not have invented the withered arm (which is distinct
> from the raised shoulder, first described and perhaps invented by
> Rous) along with the crooked back, hard visage, and wrathful,
> malicious disposition? If Shakespeare (in one of the Henry VI plays)
> invented a dialogue between Clarence and Gloucester on the field of a
> battle that was fought when they were eleven and eight respectively,
> why credit More, also a genius, with any less creativity? (I'm not
> talking about his motives here, which may or may not be to discredit
> the already discredited Richard, but it's important, in my opinion,
> that the "Historie" was written for private distribution, not for
> publication.)
>
> All we really have to go on are the contemporary chronicles,
> particularly the Croyland Chronicle, which noted Richard's excessive
> emotion on his son's death and would, perhaps, have noted it in this
> instance as well.
>
> At any rate, Richard may or may not have had one shoulder higher than
> the other comtemporary chronicles, even those hostile to Richard,
> mention no such imperfection), but he certainly did not have the
> withered arm that he claims, in this account, was withered by sorcery,
> and which is not mentioned in More's earlier list of Richard's
> supposed deformities and vices.
>
> And now I have a question. Has anyone in this group noticed that More
> gives Edward IV's age at death as "fiftie and three yeares, seven
> monethes, and five dayes" when in fact he was nineteen days short of
> his forty-first birthday (forty years, eleven months, and eleven days,
> if my math is right). How could he be so seemingly precise and ye to
> far off on all counts unless he was indicating through an easily
> verifiable fact, that *nothing* in his history was to be believed?
>
> Please don't think that I'm picking a quarrel with established members
> of this group. I'm just presenting my own views as a fellow Ricardian.
>
> Carol, who is still holding back on some of her ideas till she sees
> the reaction to these few
>

--- In , "Howard Heller"
<howard_heller@...> wrote:
>
> Hello All,
>
> Earlier Carol and Katy were discussing the topic of Richard having (or
> not having) a withered arm and/or uneven shoulders. I enjoyed reading
> the posts! Good stuff. I'd like to contribute a little to the
> subject I didn't see covered. Sorry if it was and I'm being
repetitive.
>
> Anyway, it is interesting to note that during his corination Richard
> and Anne were "Divested of their robes, they stood naked to the waist
> to be anoited with sacred chrism." (Paul Murry Kendall). Thomas B.
> Costain points out stripping from the waist up to be anointed was a
> "French custom and it was being employed at Westminister for the first
> time." The point being, why would Richard switch from the old custom
> and appear naked in front of the most of the nobility, if he did have
> withered arm, hunched back, or some other physical deformity? OR did
> he switch customs to show that there was no deformity? Or some other
> reason?


It may be that he had no physical deformity. Or it may be that if he
did, it was no secret and he saw no reason not to show it.

Katy

--- In , oregonkaty <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , "Howard Heller"
> <howard_heller@> wrote:
> >
>
> >
> > Anyway, it is interesting to note that during his corination Richard
> > and Anne were "Divested of their robes, they stood naked to the waist
> > to be anoited with sacred chrism." (Paul Murry Kendall). Thomas B.
> > Costain points out stripping from the waist up to be anointed was a
> > "French custom and it was being employed at Westminister for the first
> > time." The point being, why would Richard switch from the old custom
> > and appear naked in front of the most of the nobility, if he did have
> > withered arm, hunched back, or some other physical deformity? OR did
> > he switch customs to show that there was no deformity? Or some other
> > reason?

I understood from something I read long ago that this did not mean literally naked - but
stripped of their rich outer garments down to, in Anne's case her shift and Richard his
shirt.
Eileen

>
>
> It may be that he had no physical deformity. Or it may be that if he
> did, it was no secret and he saw no reason not to show it.
>
> Katy
>

--- In , "eileen"
<ebatesparrot@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , oregonkaty
<no_reply@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In , "Howard Heller"
> > <howard_heller@> wrote:
> > >
> >
> > >
> > > Anyway, it is interesting to note that during his corination Richard
> > > and Anne were "Divested of their robes, they stood naked to the
waist
> > > to be anoited with sacred chrism." (Paul Murry Kendall). Thomas B.
> > > Costain points out stripping from the waist up to be anointed was a
> > > "French custom and it was being employed at Westminister for the
first
> > > time." The point being, why would Richard switch from the old
custom
> > > and appear naked in front of the most of the nobility, if he did
have
> > > withered arm, hunched back, or some other physical deformity? OR did
> > > he switch customs to show that there was no deformity? Or some
other
> > > reason?
>
> I understood from something I read long ago that this did not mean
literally naked - but
> stripped of their rich outer garments down to, in Anne's case her
shift and Richard his
> shirt.
> Eileen


That's another possibility. I know that when some commander
complained that his soldiers were in the field naked, he did not mean
they were out there in the nude -- he meant that they were not
properly provided with equipment.

Katy

Katy wrote:
> It may be that he had no physical deformity. Or it may be that if
he did, it was no secret and he saw no reason not to show it.
>
> Katy


Carol responds:
I was also going to bring up the coronation ceremony. Considering how
well-attended it was, if there had been any noticeable deformity, his
enemies would have spread the word. They were using any slander or
calunmny they could find against him. Thomas Stanley was there, as was
Margaret Beaufort, who must have smouldered with resentment at having
the honor of bearing Queen Anne's train. And yet none of the Tudor
slanders spread while Richard lived mentioned so much as a raised
shoulder, and the hostile Croyland Chronicler says nothing about it.
Nor do Commynes and Mancini. It seems to be the invention of Rous, the
foundation on which More, Vergil and others built their myth of the
deformed monster.

Any reason, Katy, why you credit the story? Since it's first mentioned
along with the obviously fallacious tale of his being two months in
his mother's womb, I think it can safely be discarded.

Carol, noting that even Sharon Kay Penman works a broken shoulder into
her novel and wondering why so many people cling to this one element
of the myth

Is it also possible that far from having a deformity of one shoulder, he actually had better developed muscles on one side from wielding a sword or ax in battle and the practise required to be skilled? You often see this with athletes such as javelin throwers etc.

Doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to see how Henry would have built on this to make it a deformed shoulder - the perennial is one foot bigger than the other or one foot smaller than the other.

vicki


Join us to celebrate 50 years of BONANZA, the greatest ever TV western
At the 50th Anniversary Convention - Sept 10-14 2009
www.Bonanza-convention.com

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

> Any reason, Katy, why you credit the story? Since it's first mentioned
> along with the obviously fallacious tale of his being two months in
> his mother's womb, I think it can safely be discarded.


I don't credit it, Carol, but I think it merits discussion, just like
other facets of his life. Plus, bringing up the subject always seems
to get things going again in this forum when posts are few and far
between.

The information about the coronation has not come up before, at least
not recently, and that in itself was worth our going over the
hunchback story again.

Katy

I'm with you Carol all the way, especially wondering why people seem
to want it to have some basis in truth. As you say, no-one at all
mentioned anything after the coronation, where the king and queen
were in fact stripped to the waist. No point anointing a shirt with
the sacred oil really, was there?
Paul


On 7 Aug 2008, at 05:06, Carol wrote:

> Katy wrote:
>> It may be that he had no physical deformity. Or it may be that if
> he did, it was no secret and he saw no reason not to show it.
>>
>> Katy
>
>
> Carol responds:
> I was also going to bring up the coronation ceremony. Considering how
> well-attended it was, if there had been any noticeable deformity, his
> enemies would have spread the word. They were using any slander or
> calunmny they could find against him. Thomas Stanley was there, as was
> Margaret Beaufort, who must have smouldered with resentment at having
> the honor of bearing Queen Anne's train. And yet none of the Tudor
> slanders spread while Richard lived mentioned so much as a raised
> shoulder, and the hostile Croyland Chronicler says nothing about it.
> Nor do Commynes and Mancini. It seems to be the invention of Rous, the
> foundation on which More, Vergil and others built their myth of the
> deformed monster.
>
> Any reason, Katy, why you credit the story? Since it's first mentioned
> along with the obviously fallacious tale of his being two months in
> his mother's womb, I think it can safely be discarded.
>
> Carol, noting that even Sharon Kay Penman works a broken shoulder into
> her novel and wondering why so many people cling to this one element
> of the myth
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Richard liveth yet

--- In , Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...> wrote:
>
>

>
t. No point anointing a shirt with
> the sacred oil really, was there?
> Paul

Our present queen was annointed but I dont recall in the film footage seeing her stripped
to her waist
Eileen
>
>
> On 7 Aug 2008, at 05:06, Carol wrote:
>
> > Katy wrote:
> >> It may be that he had no physical deformity. Or it may be that if
> > he did, it was no secret and he saw no reason not to show it.
> >>
> >> Katy
> >
> >
> > Carol responds:
> > I was also going to bring up the coronation ceremony. Considering how
> > well-attended it was, if there had been any noticeable deformity, his
> > enemies would have spread the word. They were using any slander or
> > calunmny they could find against him. Thomas Stanley was there, as was
> > Margaret Beaufort, who must have smouldered with resentment at having
> > the honor of bearing Queen Anne's train. And yet none of the Tudor
> > slanders spread while Richard lived mentioned so much as a raised
> > shoulder, and the hostile Croyland Chronicler says nothing about it.
> > Nor do Commynes and Mancini. It seems to be the invention of Rous, the
> > foundation on which More, Vergil and others built their myth of the
> > deformed monster.
> >
> > Any reason, Katy, why you credit the story? Since it's first mentioned
> > along with the obviously fallacious tale of his being two months in
> > his mother's womb, I think it can safely be discarded.
> >
> > Carol, noting that even Sharon Kay Penman works a broken shoulder into
> > her novel and wondering why so many people cling to this one element
> > of the myth
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>
> Richard liveth yet
>

--- In , "Vicki Christian" <vicki.christian@...>
wrote:
>
> Is it also possible that far from having a deformity of one shoulder, he actually had
better developed muscles on one side from wielding a sword or ax in battle and the
practise required to be skilled? You often see this with athletes such as javelin throwers
etc.

Vicki - here is an article about the skeletons found in a mass grave from the Battle of
Towton - it mentions Richard and the possibilty of practising with weapons etc., causing a
build up of muscle.
>
http://www.richardiii.net/PDFS/blood_red_roses_white_review.pdf.pdf
Eileen

> Doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to see how Henry would have built on this to
make it a deformed shoulder - the perennial is one foot bigger than the other or one foot
smaller than the other.
>
> vicki
>
>
> Join us to celebrate 50 years of BONANZA, the greatest ever TV western
> At the 50th Anniversary Convention - Sept 10-14 2009
> www.Bonanza-convention.com
>
>
>
>

Vicki Christian wrote:
>
> Is it also possible that far from having a deformity of one
shoulder, he actually had better developed muscles on one side from
wielding a sword or ax in battle and the practise required to be
skilled? You often see this with athletes such as javelin throwers etc.
>
> Doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to see how Henry would
have built on this to make it a deformed shoulder - the perennial is
one foot bigger than the other or one foot smaller than the other.

Carol:

It wasn't Henry, though. It was Rous, writing to please Henry--after
having told the monstrous lie that Richard was two years in his
mother's womb. The raised shoulder is not a very believable assertion
under the circumstances, and no one, not even hostile chroniclers,
mentioned it during Richard's lifetime.

BTW, I mentioned earlier that Sir Thomas More definitely had one
shoulder higher than the other. I read somewhere (I'll try to find a
link) that Bishop Morton was of "mean" stature, in fact, tiny. Talk
about the pot calling the kettle black, if that's the case.

Carol, realizing that one shoulder higher than the other is a very
minor disfigurement but still doubting the truth of Rous's assertion

The word "naked" used during the coronation ceremony could be another
example of how words used/defined today are different from how the
word was used/defined centuries ago. Which this group has discussed
recently. But, that doesn't rule out the fact that we could use it
the same as they did.

I have to agree with Paul, in that it makes much more sense that they
anointed the flesh and not an undergarment.

Also, I have to admit, I found it odd that the queen would bare her
breasts in public (if that is considered public, simply meaning other
males around). Maybe they held up robes or screens to block prying
eyes???

Anyway, if it is true that the ceremony was switched from the
traditional way to the French coronation way, I guess it could be
researched to see how the French ceremony was performed. If the
king/queen were stripped naked, or, just undergarments.

Why they switched the ceremony (if indeed it was switched) to the
French style is an entirely different question. I was under the
impression Richard was not too fond of the French. So why would he
copy their coronation ritual?
Maybe he was still sore after Picquigny and had his sights on the
French throne.
OK..Ok..Ok.. I know I am really stretching here. Forgive me, it is
late and my imagination is running wild.

Howard



--- In , Paul Trevor Bale
<paul.bale@...> wrote:
>
> I'm with you Carol all the way, especially wondering why people seem
> to want it to have some basis in truth. As you say, no-one at all
> mentioned anything after the coronation, where the king and queen
> were in fact stripped to the waist. No point anointing a shirt with
> the sacred oil really, was there?
> Paul
>
>
> On 7 Aug 2008, at 05:06, Carol wrote:
>
> > Katy wrote:
> >> It may be that he had no physical deformity. Or it may be that if
> > he did, it was no secret and he saw no reason not to show it.
> >>
> >> Katy
> >
> >
> > Carol responds:
> > I was also going to bring up the coronation ceremony. Considering how
> > well-attended it was, if there had been any noticeable deformity, his
> > enemies would have spread the word. They were using any slander or
> > calunmny they could find against him. Thomas Stanley was there, as was
> > Margaret Beaufort, who must have smouldered with resentment at havin


g
> > the honor of bearing Queen Anne's train. And yet none of the Tudor
> > slanders spread while Richard lived mentioned so much as a raised
> > shoulder, and the hostile Croyland Chronicler says nothing about it.
> > Nor do Commynes and Mancini. It seems to be the invention of Rous, the
> > foundation on which More, Vergil and others built their myth of the
> > deformed monster.
> >
> > Any reason, Katy, why you credit the story? Since it's first mentioned
> > along with the obviously fallacious tale of his being two months in
> > his mother's womb, I think it can safely be discarded.
> >
> > Carol, noting that even Sharon Kay Penman works a broken shoulder into
> > her novel and wondering why so many people cling to this one element
> > of the myth
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>
> Richard liveth yet
>

people weren't as modest about their bodies prior to the reformation/puritan era.
the codspiece was introduced in the 15th C because of the short shirts of men, and also that they didn't wear trousers. they wore leggings held up by a belt and garters. codspieces were to cover their genitalia. during the tudor era the codpieces got grotesque and overly large. which brings me to elizabeth i. during her era it was not uncommon for single women to walk about with one or both breasts bare. somewhere in my files, i have a report written by a german or euro tourist to london and england. he reports elizabeth being in her late 60's walking in a procession with her breasts bare.
 
also, consider renaissance art. it was full of nudity. it was in the 17th C that they started painting fig leaves and draping fabric over the important bits. being ashamed of physical beauty is more modern invention caused by the reformation and the fallout of the king james version of the bible.
--- On Thu, 8/7/08, Howard Heller <howard_heller@...> wrote:

From: Howard Heller <howard_heller@...>
Subject: Re: getting back to Richard III
To:
Received: Thursday, August 7, 2008, 11:42 PM






The word "naked" used during the coronation ceremony could be another
example of how words used/defined today are different from how the
word was used/defined centuries ago. Which this group has discussed
recently. But, that doesn't rule out the fact that we could use it
the same as they did.

I have to agree with Paul, in that it makes much more sense that they
anointed the flesh and not an undergarment.

Also, I have to admit, I found it odd that the queen would bare her
breasts in public (if that is considered public, simply meaning other
males around). Maybe they held up robes or screens to block prying
eyes???

Anyway, if it is true that the ceremony was switched from the
traditional way to the French coronation way, I guess it could be
researched to see how the French ceremony was performed. If the
king/queen were stripped naked, or, just undergarments.

Why they switched the ceremony (if indeed it was switched) to the
French style is an entirely different question. I was under the
impression Richard was not too fond of the French. So why would he
copy their coronation ritual?
Maybe he was still sore after Picquigny and had his sights on the
French throne.
OK..Ok..Ok.. I know I am really stretching here. Forgive me, it is
late and my imagination is running wild.

Howard

--- In richardiiisocietyfo rum@yahoogroups. com, Paul Trevor Bale
<paul.bale@. ..> wrote:
>
> I'm with you Carol all the way, especially wondering why people seem
> to want it to have some basis in truth. As you say, no-one at all
> mentioned anything after the coronation, where the king and queen
> were in fact stripped to the waist. No point anointing a shirt with
> the sacred oil really, was there?
> Paul
>
>
> On 7 Aug 2008, at 05:06, Carol wrote:
>
> > Katy wrote:
> >> It may be that he had no physical deformity. Or it may be that if
> > he did, it was no secret and he saw no reason not to show it.
> >>
> >> Katy
> >
> >
> > Carol responds:
> > I was also going to bring up the coronation ceremony. Considering how
> > well-attended it was, if there had been any noticeable deformity, his
> > enemies would have spread the word. They were using any slander or
> > calunmny they could find against him. Thomas Stanley was there, as was
> > Margaret Beaufort, who must have smouldered with resentment at havin

g
> > the honor of bearing Queen Anne's train. And yet none of the Tudor
> > slanders spread while Richard lived mentioned so much as a raised
> > shoulder, and the hostile Croyland Chronicler says nothing about it.
> > Nor do Commynes and Mancini. It seems to be the invention of Rous, the
> > foundation on which More, Vergil and others built their myth of the
> > deformed monster.
> >
> > Any reason, Katy, why you credit the story? Since it's first mentioned
> > along with the obviously fallacious tale of his being two months in
> > his mother's womb, I think it can safely be discarded.
> >
> > Carol, noting that even Sharon Kay Penman works a broken shoulder into
> > her novel and wondering why so many people cling to this one element
> > of the myth
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------ --------- --------- ------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>
> Richard liveth yet
>

--- In , "Carol"
<justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
> Vicki Christian wrote:
> >
> > Is it also possible that far from having a deformity of one
> shoulder, he actually had better developed muscles on one side from
> wielding a sword or ax in battle and the practise required to be
> skilled? You often see this with athletes such as javelin throwers
etc.
> >
> > Doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to see how Henry would
> have built on this to make it a deformed shoulder - the perennial is
> one foot bigger than the other or one foot smaller than the other.
>
> Carol:
>
> It wasn't Henry, though. It was Rous, writing to please Henry--
after
> having told the monstrous lie that Richard was two years in his
> mother's womb. The raised shoulder is not a very believable
assertion
> under the circumstances, and no one, not even hostile chroniclers,
> mentioned it during Richard's lifetime.
>
> BTW, I mentioned earlier that Sir Thomas More definitely had one
> shoulder higher than the other. I read somewhere (I'll try to find a
> link) that Bishop Morton was of "mean" stature, in fact, tiny. Talk
> about the pot calling the kettle black, if that's the case.
>
> Carol, realizing that one shoulder higher than the other is a very
> minor disfigurement but still doubting the truth of Rous's assertion

Hi,

I know this won't be a popular view, but I'm inclined to credit Rous'
claims about Richard's appearance, both adult and neo-natal, and I'll
tell you why.
1) There is actually nothing unusual or grim about any of them except
by virtue of the spin he puts on them. Frankly, if it was the worst
he could say of Richard's appearance or birth, then there was nothing
much odd about him in those respects.
2) rous almost certainly saw Richard, perhaps quite a lot, when he
and Anne spent a week at Warwick on their progress in 1483. He
certainly seems to have gathered a lot of his information on
Richard's (good) deeds at that point, as he gives a lot of
information on what Richard had done during the progress up to that
point. So it looks as if he didn't spend the whol week hiding up at
Guy's Cliffe, but came down to Warwick and spoke to members of
Richard' entourage.
3) He could have got the information on Richard's birth from the
Countess of Warwick, who was very likely present.
To recap on Rous's infamous claims:-
a) Richard spent 2 years in his mother's womb and was born with teeth
and hair down to his shoulders.
He was, in fact, born almost two years after his mother's last child,
Thomas, the first time in a decade she had not produced more or less
annually - this may have occasioned some jokes in the household about
a 2-year gestation. Though most babies are born with very little
hair, a significant minority have a good shock of hair at birth. Both
my babies had a proper head of hair, and my son's was 2-3 inches
long, parti-coloured and stuck up on end. Another mother in my circle
had a little girl who looked exactly like Ken Dodd. It doesn't take
much for a newborn baby's hair to be shoulder-length because they
essentially have no necks. Some babies are also born with a couple of
little rootless teeth. None of this indicates any abnormality.
b) Of Richard's appearance, he says it wasn't much cop as he was
short and his right shoulder was higher than his left. Big deal! I
suggest this wasn't normally remarked upon because it is so
unremarkable, some unevenness in the shoulders, for whatever reason,
being incredibly common and not very noticeable. My shoulders are a
bit uneven, but no one other than a couple of physiotherapists has
ever remarked on it. People often don't realise it themselves. I
didn't till I was told, and Erasmus remarked that from behind it was
quite plain that Thomas More had one shoulder higher than the other!

I suggest Richard, in common with loads of the population, had some
unevenness in his shoulders, and Rous happened to have noticed it,
possibly whilst gazing at him from behind, and it was the nearest
thing to a deformity he could come up with. It could have been due to
training - okay, so all these muscly wartrained nobles had
overdeveloped right shoulders and this was not remarkable to
themselves, but perhaps it would have been to a sedentary priest like
John Rous. Perhaps it was because a raised right shoulder was so
unremarkable at court that More decided to swap the shoulders over -
that and the literally sinister associations of the left side.

Anyway, that's the way Rous worked, it seems to me. Like the scorpion
analagy he uses. All because Scorpio was in the ascendant at the time
of Richard's birth. I believe this does fit with Richard's horoscope
but, well, I ask you, about 1/6 of the population will have Scorpio
as either their sun sign or their rising sign (it's my rising sign
too), and it's not actually sinister in astrology.

So, to summarise, for me Rous' "calumny" regarding Richard's
appearance lies in the spin rather than the facts. What the continued
heated discussion over it shows is just how good a spin doctor he was.

Marie

>
t. No point anointing a shirt with
> the sacred oil really, was there?
> Paul

Our present queen was annointed but I dont recall in the film footage
seeing her stripped
to her waist
Eileen

I remember that when our Queen was anointed she was shielded from
public view by a canopy and surrounding priests and at that point she
was dressed only in a loose white robe. This could easily be opened
for the anointing but I doubt that it was removed.
Pam P (resident lurker)


--- In , "Howard Heller"
<howard_heller@...> wrote:
>
> The word "naked" used during the coronation ceremony could be
another
> example of how words used/defined today are different from how the
> word was used/defined centuries ago. Which this group has discussed
> recently. But, that doesn't rule out the fact that we could use it
> the same as they did.
>
> I have to agree with Paul, in that it makes much more sense that
they
> anointed the flesh and not an undergarment.
>
> Also, I have to admit, I found it odd that the queen would bare her
> breasts in public (if that is considered public, simply meaning
other
> males around). Maybe they held up robes or screens to block prying
> eyes???
>
> Anyway, if it is true that the ceremony was switched from the
> traditional way to the French coronation way, I guess it could be
> researched to see how the French ceremony was performed. If the
> king/queen were stripped naked, or, just undergarments.
>
> Why they switched the ceremony (if indeed it was switched) to the
> French style is an entirely different question. I was under the
> impression Richard was not too fond of the French. So why would he
> copy their coronation ritual?
> Maybe he was still sore after Picquigny and had his sights on the
> French throne.
> OK..Ok..Ok.. I know I am really stretching here. Forgive me, it is
> late and my imagination is running wild.
>
> Howard
>
>
>
> --- In , Paul Trevor Bale
> <paul.bale@> wrote:
> >
> > I'm with you Carol all the way, especially wondering why people
seem
> > to want it to have some basis in truth. As you say, no-one at
all
> > mentioned anything after the coronation, where the king and
queen
> > were in fact stripped to the waist. No point anointing a shirt
with
> > the sacred oil really, was there?
> > Paul
> >
> >
> > On 7 Aug 2008, at 05:06, Carol wrote:
> >
> > > Katy wrote:
> > >> It may be that he had no physical deformity. Or it may be
that if
> > > he did, it was no secret and he saw no reason not to show it.
> > >>
> > >> Katy
> > >
> > >
> > > Carol responds:
> > > I was also going to bring up the coronation ceremony.
Considering how
> > > well-attended it was, if there had been any noticeable
deformity, his
> > > enemies would have spread the word. They were using any slander
or
> > > calunmny they could find against him. Thomas Stanley was there,
as was
> > > Margaret Beaufort, who must have smouldered with resentment at
havin
>
>
> g
> > > the honor of bearing Queen Anne's train. And yet none of the
Tudor
> > > slanders spread while Richard lived mentioned so much as a
raised
> > > shoulder, and the hostile Croyland Chronicler says nothing
about it.
> > > Nor do Commynes and Mancini. It seems to be the invention of
Rous, the
> > > foundation on which More, Vergil and others built their myth of
the
> > > deformed monster.
> > >
> > > Any reason, Katy, why you credit the story? Since it's first
mentioned
> > > along with the obviously fallacious tale of his being two
months in
> > > his mother's womb, I think it can safely be discarded.
> > >
> > > Carol, noting that even Sharon Kay Penman works a broken
shoulder into
> > > her novel and wondering why so many people cling to this one
element
> > > of the myth
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------
> > >
> > > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Richard liveth yet
> >
>

--- In , "Pamela" <tuftytwo@...> wrote:
>
> >
> I remember that when our Queen was anointed she was shielded from
> public view by a canopy and surrounding priests and at that point she
> was dressed only in a loose white robe. This could easily be opened
> for the anointing but I doubt that it was removed.
> Pam P (resident lurker)

I should think this is exactly what happened at Richard's and Anne's coronation, and every
coronation since. I dont think coronations ever diviate that much throughout the
centuries.
Eileen
>
>
> --- In , "Howard Heller"
> <howard_heller@> wrote:
> >
> > The word "naked" used during the coronation ceremony could be
> another
> > example of how words used/defined today are different from how the
> > word was used/defined centuries ago. Which this group has discussed
> > recently. But, that doesn't rule out the fact that we could use it
> > the same as they did.
> >
> > I have to agree with Paul, in that it makes much more sense that
> they
> > anointed the flesh and not an undergarment.
> >
> > Also, I have to admit, I found it odd that the queen would bare her
> > breasts in public (if that is considered public, simply meaning
> other
> > males around). Maybe they held up robes or screens to block prying
> > eyes???
> >
> > Anyway, if it is true that the ceremony was switched from the
> > traditional way to the French coronation way, I guess it could be
> > researched to see how the French ceremony was performed. If the
> > king/queen were stripped naked, or, just undergarments.
> >
> > Why they switched the ceremony (if indeed it was switched) to the
> > French style is an entirely different question. I was under the
> > impression Richard was not too fond of the French. So why would he
> > copy their coronation ritual?
> > Maybe he was still sore after Picquigny and had his sights on the
> > French throne.
> > OK..Ok..Ok.. I know I am really stretching here. Forgive me, it is
> > late and my imagination is running wild.
> >
> > Howard
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In , Paul Trevor Bale
> > <paul.bale@> wrote:
> > >
> > > I'm with you Carol all the way, especially wondering why people
> seem
> > > to want it to have some basis in truth. As you say, no-one at
> all
> > > mentioned anything after the coronation, where the king and
> queen
> > > were in fact stripped to the waist. No point anointing a shirt
> with
> > > the sacred oil really, was there?
> > > Paul
> > >
> > >
> > > On 7 Aug 2008, at 05:06, Carol wrote:
> > >
> > > > Katy wrote:
> > > >> It may be that he had no physical deformity. Or it may be
> that if
> > > > he did, it was no secret and he saw no reason not to show it.
> > > >>
> > > >> Katy
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Carol responds:
> > > > I was also going to bring up the coronation ceremony.
> Considering how
> > > > well-attended it was, if there had been any noticeable
> deformity, his
> > > > enemies would have spread the word. They were using any slander
> or
> > > > calunmny they could find against him. Thomas Stanley was there,
> as was
> > > > Margaret Beaufort, who must have smouldered with resentment at
> havin
> >
> >
> > g
> > > > the honor of bearing Queen Anne's train. And yet none of the
> Tudor
> > > > slanders spread while Richard lived mentioned so much as a
> raised
> > > > shoulder, and the hostile Croyland Chronicler says nothing
> about it.
> > > > Nor do Commynes and Mancini. It seems to be the invention of
> Rous, the
> > > > foundation on which More, Vergil and others built their myth of
> the
> > > > deformed monster.
> > > >
> > > > Any reason, Katy, why you credit the story? Since it's first
> mentioned
> > > > along with the obviously fallacious tale of his being two
> months in
> > > > his mother's womb, I think it can safely be discarded.
> > > >
> > > > Carol, noting that even Sharon Kay Penman works a broken
> shoulder into
> > > > her novel and wondering why so many people cling to this one
> element
> > > > of the myth
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ------------------------------------
> > > >
> > > > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > Richard liveth yet
> > >
> >
>

Marie wrote:

> I know this won't be a popular view, but I'm inclined to credit
Rous' claims about Richard's appearance, both adult and neo-natal, and
I'll tell you why. 1) There is actually nothing unusual or grim about
any of them except by virtue of the spin he puts on them.

Carol responds:
Nothing unusual about being two years in his mother's womb when the
normal human gestation is nine months? The whole idea was to make him
a freak of nature. How, in any case, would Rous even know what the
infant Richard looked like? The only thing written about him besides
his birthdate and his birthplace is "Richard liveth yet" (which has
been taken, perhaps erroneously, to indicate that he was a sickly
child but not that he had a twenty-four month gestation).

Marie:
> All because Scorpio was in the ascendant at the time of Richard's
birth. I believe this does fit with Richard's horoscope but, well, I
ask you, about 1/6 of the population will have Scorpio as either their
sun sign or their rising sign (it's my rising sign too), and it's not
actually sinister in astrology.

Carol:
I don't know much about astrology, but if "Scorpio in the ascendant"
means that he was born under the sign of Scorpio, that's another lie
or distortion. He was born on October 2, which puts him in Libra. But
Rous chose to make him a Scorpio so that the traits associated to that
sign could be attributed to him. If "Scorpio rising" means something
other than his birth sign, why emphasize that minor aspect rather than
the major one, the birth sign? Simple. Libra, the scales of justice,
fits the just king that Rous depicted in the original Rous Roll but
the monster born with a full set of teeth, ready to bite and destroy
before he was even born. scorpio may not imply anything sinister in
modern astrology, but we're dealing here with the medieval mind.

Marie:
>
> So, to summarise, for me Rous' "calumny" regarding Richard's
appearance lies in the spin rather than the facts. What the continued
heated discussion over it shows is just how good a spin doctor he was.

Carol:

I think you're forgetting the rest of Rous's accusations, which he
surely didn't believe in Richard's lifetime. Here's the full quotation:

"The usurper King Richard III then ascended the throne of the
slaughtered children whose protector he was himself. [Whether they
were murdered later or not, they were not dead when Richard took the
throne, as Rous surely knew.--Carol] Richard was born at Fotheringhay
in Northamptonshire, retained within his mother's womb for two years
and emerging with teeth and hair to his shoulders. He was born at the
Feast of the Eleven Thousand Virgins. [another lie--Richard was *not*
born on the Feast of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, a day when St.
Ursula and her eleven thousand companions were supposedly martyred, he
was born on *the Feast of the Guardian Angels*. But like his birth
sign, Libra, the true date doesn't fit the impression that Rous is
trying to create.--Carol] At his nativity Scorpio was in the
ascendant, which is the sign of a house of Mars. And like a scorpion
he combined a smooth front with a stinging tail. He received his lord
King Edward V blandly, with embraces and kisses and within about three
months or a little more, he killed him, together with his brother. And
Lady Anne, his queen, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, he poisoned.
Anne, his mother-in-law, the venerable Countess, widow and right heir
of this noble lord, fled to him for refuge and he locked her up for
the duration of her life. And, what is most detestable to God and all
Englishmen and indeed to all nations to whom it became known, he
caused others to kill the holy man King Henry VI or, as many think,
did so by his own hands."

http://www.r3.org/rnt1991/royaltree.html

So the monster born under the murderous sign of Scorpio lives up to
his name, murdering not only his nephews but his wife (whom Rous must
have known was frail and consumptive). Rous starts the rumor--clearly
knowing that it wasn't true considering how highly he praised Richard
in a book not even written for Richard's eyes--that Richard may have
killed Henry VI with his own hands. And he must also have known, given
his association with the Nevilles, that Richard, far from locking up
the Countess of Warwick for life, rescued her from sanctuary and
invited her to live with him and Anne at Middleham. (It was Henry VII
who gave her back her lands so that she could give them to him.)

Clearly the timeserver Rous, who had never believed any of these
things in Richard's lifetime and probably didn't believe them in
Henry's, either, was writing what Henry wanted to hear. These charges
of murder are not minor calumnies; they are the acts of the monster
that Rous has created to please his tyrannical new master.

Henry believed in the power of *myth*--not just with regard to making
Richard monstrous but with regard to his own supposed origin as a
descendant of Cadwallader. He deliberately had his first child born at
Winchester (thought to be Camelot) and named him Arthur to play up the
(imaginary) Arthurian connection. He was the heroic deliverer of
England from the monstrous usurper, who must be depicted as physically
as well as morally deformed. (And woe betide the man who pointed out
that Henry himself was the usurper.)

The problem isn't so much the time-server Rous himself (who, I think,
actually admired Richard when Richard was king but didn't have the
courage to stand his ground in the face of a tyrant who backdated his
reign to make those who faithfully served their king into traitors and
so wrote what that usurping and tyrannical king wanted him to write).
His lies, or some of them are utterly transparent, or would have been
to anyone who had lived through Richard's reign and actually seen and
heard him. It's that the lies he wrote, surely knowing that his words
were lies, was picked up and added onto by later Tudor historians,
who, unlike Rous, had never known Richard and may actually have
believed at least some of what he wrote to be true. True, More scoffs
at the "two years in his mother's womb" and Vergil omits that
ridiculous detail, but both add new invented details of their own
(Vergil adds the biting of Richard's lower lip and playing with his
dagger, nervous gestures befitting a restless villain whose designs
may be found out and thwarted at any moment and More gives him a
crooked back (and, later in the book, a withered arm) into the
bargain. Both make him crafty and malicious, prone to deceit (which
surely they must have realized fit Henry VII all too well).

Carol, noting that within a few short years, Rous's lies had replaced
the truth for all but the few who knew and remembered Richard but
could not fight the Tudor myth that had grown up around him

Pamela wrote:
> >
> > I remember that when our Queen was anointed she was shielded from
public view by a canopy and surrounding priests and at that point she
was dressed only in a loose white robe. This could easily be opened
for the anointing but I doubt that it was removed.
> > Pam P (resident lurker)

Eileen responded:
> I should think this is exactly what happened at Richard's and Anne's
coronation, and every coronation since. I dont think coronations ever
diviate that much throughout the centuries.

Carol adds:

I suspect that coronations vary according to the times and the
monarch, with, say, Queen Victoria's differing markedly from
Richard's. Anglicanism in place of Catholicism may have altered some
details.

If I'm not mistaken, Richard's was the first coronation in which the
religious service was held in English. It was notably splendid (and
attended by nearly every peer of the realm except a few minors). It
can be contrasted with Henry VII's (which, I've read, was modeled on
Richard's in some respects) in that Richard and Anne were crowned
together, whereas poor Elizabeth of York had to wait more than a year
after her first child was born for her coronation, which Henry watched
from behind a screen.

Richard's coronation is described in Kendall's biography and other
sources, down to the robes that Buckingham wore and who carried which
mace and sceptre. Kendall includes the naked-to-the-waist detail (p.
274). His source for the coronation is "a detailed, contemporary
description . . . printed in Excerpta Historica, pp. 379-84" (Kendall,
p. 557, n. 1).

Since I doubt that many of us have Excerpta Historica at our
fingertips, I'm wondering whether anyone has a book edited by Anne F.
Sutton and P. W. Hammond called "The Coronation of Richard III: the
Extant Documents" (Gloucester, 1983). If so, the passage that Kendall
and others are referring to is probably in that book and would answer
our question authoritatively. Unfortunately, the book is out of print
and hard to come by, but someone with ready access to a university
library could consult it for us.

Carol, who no longer fits that description

Excerpta Historica, Or, Illustrations of English History By Samuel Bentley..444 pgs, printed in 1833 available for free download via google books.
http://books.google.com/books?id=bj_ComOGEEMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Excerpta+Historica+%22&as_brr=1#PPA176,M1
 
i own coronation, unfortunately it is about 400 miles from me at the moment. i maybe be able to have access by next weekend.

--- On Fri, 8/8/08, Carol <justcarol67@...> wrote:

From: Carol <justcarol67@...>
Subject: Re: getting back to Richard III
To:
Received: Friday, August 8, 2008, 11:56 PM






Pamela wrote:
> >
> > I remember that when our Queen was anointed she was shielded from
public view by a canopy and surrounding priests and at that point she
was dressed only in a loose white robe. This could easily be opened
for the anointing but I doubt that it was removed.
> > Pam P (resident lurker)

Eileen responded:
> I should think this is exactly what happened at Richard's and Anne's
coronation, and every coronation since. I dont think coronations ever
diviate that much throughout the centuries.

Carol adds:

I suspect that coronations vary according to the times and the
monarch, with, say, Queen Victoria's differing markedly from
Richard's. Anglicanism in place of Catholicism may have altered some
details.

If I'm not mistaken, Richard's was the first coronation in which the
religious service was held in English. It was notably splendid (and
attended by nearly every peer of the realm except a few minors). It
can be contrasted with Henry VII's (which, I've read, was modeled on
Richard's in some respects) in that Richard and Anne were crowned
together, whereas poor Elizabeth of York had to wait more than a year
after her first child was born for her coronation, which Henry watched
from behind a screen.

Richard's coronation is described in Kendall's biography and other
sources, down to the robes that Buckingham wore and who carried which
mace and sceptre. Kendall includes the naked-to-the- waist detail (p.
274). His source for the coronation is "a detailed, contemporary
description . . . printed in Excerpta Historica, pp. 379-84" (Kendall,
p. 557, n. 1).

Since I doubt that many of us have Excerpta Historica at our
fingertips, I'm wondering whether anyone has a book edited by Anne F.
Sutton and P. W. Hammond called "The Coronation of Richard III: the
Extant Documents" (Gloucester, 1983). If so, the passage that Kendall
and others are referring to is probably in that book and would answer
our question authoritatively. Unfortunately, the book is out of print
and hard to come by, but someone with ready access to a university
library could consult it for us.

Carol, who no longer fits that description

Carol earlier:
><snip>
> Richard's coronation is described in Kendall's biography and other
sources, down to the robes that Buckingham wore and who carried which
mace and sceptre. Kendall includes the naked-to-the- waist detail (p.
274). His source for the coronation is "a detailed, contemporary
description . . . printed in Excerpta Historica, pp. 379-84" (Kendall,
p. 557, n. 1). <snip>

fayre rose responded:
>
> Excerpta Historica, Or, Illustrations of English History By Samuel
Bentley..444 pgs, printed in 1833 available for free download via
google books.
>
http://books.google.com/books?id=bj_ComOGEEMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Excerpta+Historica+%22&as_brr=1#PPA176,M1
<snip>

Carol again:

Thank you very much! Here's the relevant passage--too bab google Books
won't let me copy and paste, so I have to type it:

"And in the mean whyle that this servyce was doing, the Kyng and the
Quene. put of ther robes and there stode all nakyd from the medell
upwards, and anone the Bishops anoynted bothe the Kyng and the Quyne.
And when this was done, the Kyng and Quyne changed ther robes into
clothe of gold, and then the Cardenall crowned them bothe w[ith] great
solempnitye, and the organs went full shortly."

It certainly sounds to me as if they were indeed naked to the waist
(though the crowd would have seen them only from the back). There is,
of course, no mention of any deformity or of any irregularity in this
proceeding.

The only other coronation account in this interesting volume, whose
editor, writing in 1833, tries valiantly to understand Richard's
"usurpation" based on the Stonor letters in comparison with More(!!),
is that of Edward I, which, unfortunately, is in Latin.

Carol, wondering who wrote the coronation account, which seems to have
been written immediately after the event and is very well disposed
toward "our Soveraine Lord Kinge Richard the 3d"

--- In , "Carol"
<justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , "Carol"
<justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
> Marie wrote:
>
> > I know this won't be a popular view, but I'm inclined to credit
> Rous' claims about Richard's appearance, both adult and neo-natal,
and
> I'll tell you why. 1) There is actually nothing unusual or grim
about
> any of them except by virtue of the spin he puts on them.
>
> Carol responds:
> Nothing unusual about being two years in his mother's womb when the
> normal human gestation is nine months? The whole idea was to make
him
> a freak of nature.

I didn't say it was normal. I said it was built up from fact - ie the
2-year gap between Thomas and Richard - upon which Rous put a
sinister (and, yes, ridiculous interpretation).

How, in any case, would Rous even know what the
> infant Richard looked like? The only thing written about him besides
> his birthdate and his birthplace is "Richard liveth yet" (which has
> been taken, perhaps erroneously, to indicate that he was a sickly
> child but not that he had a twenty-four month gestation).

As I explained, I believe his employer the Countess of Warwick, was
probably at the birth, and that's how he came to hear these details.
I'll explain my reasons if you want.

>
> Marie:
> > All because Scorpio was in the ascendant at the time of Richard's
> birth. I believe this does fit with Richard's horoscope but, well, I
> ask you, about 1/6 of the population will have Scorpio as either
their
> sun sign or their rising sign (it's my rising sign too), and it's
not
> actually sinister in astrology.
>
> Carol:
> I don't know much about astrology, but if "Scorpio in the ascendant"
> means that he was born under the sign of Scorpio, that's another lie
> or distortion. He was born on October 2, which puts him in Libra.
But
> Rous chose to make him a Scorpio so that the traits associated to
that
> sign could be attributed to him. If "Scorpio rising" means something
> other than his birth sign, why emphasize that minor aspect rather
than
> the major one, the birth sign?

Er, Carol, the rising sign is something else and it's actually more
important than the "birth sign". The birth sign is the sign the sun
was in at the time of one's birth. Since the sun takes a year to go
round the signs of the zodiac, it spends a month in each. So everyone
can identify their sun sign just from their dob. That is why it is
used by newspaper astrologers, not because it is the most important
item in a person's horoscope.
Astrologers attach more imprtance to the Ascendant or rising sign,
which is the sign the eastern horizon was in at the time of birth. To
find that, you have to cast the person's horoscope.


Simple. Libra, the scales of justice,
> fits the just king that Rous depicted in the original Rous Roll but
> the monster born with a full set of teeth, ready to bite and destroy
> before he was even born. scorpio may not imply anything sinister in
> modern astrology, but we're dealing here with the medieval mind.

Astrology is astrology, Carol. Every sign, I believe, has its
positive and negative possibilities.
>
> Marie:
> >
> > So, to summarise, for me Rous' "calumny" regarding Richard's
> appearance lies in the spin rather than the facts. What the
continued
> heated discussion over it shows is just how good a spin doctor he
was.
>
> Carol:
>
> I think you're forgetting the rest of Rous's accusations, which he
> surely didn't believe in Richard's lifetime.

No I'm not. I've recently read the whole of rous's sections on
Richard and Henry, and copied them up.

Here's the full quotation:
>
> "The usurper King Richard III then ascended the throne of the
> slaughtered children whose protector he was himself. [Whether they
> were murdered later or not, they were not dead when Richard took the
> throne, as Rous surely knew.--Carol] Richard was born at
Fotheringhay
> in Northamptonshire, retained within his mother's womb for two years
> and emerging with teeth and hair to his shoulders. He was born at
the
> Feast of the Eleven Thousand Virgins. [another lie--Richard was
*not*
> born on the Feast of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, a day when St.
> Ursula and her eleven thousand companions were supposedly martyred,
he
> was born on *the Feast of the Guardian Angels*. But like his birth
> sign, Libra, the true date doesn't fit the impression that Rous is
> trying to create.--Carol]

True, rous got the wrong feast, and true, the Eleven Thousand Virgins
would have given him a Scorpio sun sign as well, but I think it may
have been a simple error because the Feast of the Eleven Thousand
Virgins is 21st October. Had Rous realised Scorpio was Richard's sun
sign as well, surely he would have capitalised on the fact.


At his nativity Scorpio was in the
> ascendant, which is the sign of a house of Mars. And like a scorpion
> he combined a smooth front with a stinging tail. He received his
lord
> King Edward V blandly, with embraces and kisses and within about
three
> months or a little more, he killed him, together with his brother.
And
> Lady Anne, his queen, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, he poisoned.
> Anne, his mother-in-law, the venerable Countess, widow and right
heir
> of this noble lord, fled to him for refuge and he locked her up for
> the duration of her life. And, what is most detestable to God and
all
> Englishmen and indeed to all nations to whom it became known, he
> caused others to kill the holy man King Henry VI or, as many think,
> did so by his own hands."
>
> http://www.r3.org/rnt1991/royaltree.html
>
> So the monster born under the murderous sign of Scorpio lives up to
> his name, murdering not only his nephews but his wife (whom Rous
must
> have known was frail and consumptive). Rous starts the rumor--
clearly
> knowing that it wasn't true considering how highly he praised
Richard
> in a book not even written for Richard's eyes--that Richard may have
> killed Henry VI with his own hands. And he must also have known,
given
> his association with the Nevilles, that Richard, far from locking up
> the Countess of Warwick for life, rescued her from sanctuary and
> invited her to live with him and Anne at Middleham. (It was Henry
VII
> who gave her back her lands so that she could give them to him.)

Look, I would like to distinguish between items of common rumour,
which Rous relayed without question, and the novelties he introduced,
which he spun up from some foundation in fact. He did not in fact
invent the story that Richard had Henry VI killed. Warwkworth hints
at it in taking the trouble to let his readers know richard was in
the Tower at the time, and the latest Ricardian has an article on a
Welsh poem written just after Bosworth which also refers to this
rumour.
The Countess of Warwick probably wasn't entirely free once Richard
took her to middleham, though I suggest the real culprit was King
Edward. I would like to banish the notion that she was a mere victim
who had never involved herself in politics and suggest she was right
behind the Kingmaker in his rebellion against Edward, and in his
accommodation with Henry VI. Her father had been Henry VI's guardian,
and she made much of that in the Beauchamp Pageant, which she
probably commissioned. The same, I think, also shows Anne off proudly
as the widow of Edward of Lancaster as well as Richard III's queen.
And when she petitioned parliament for restitution of her estates
straight after Bosworth she claimed she had "ever loved" Henry VI and
had never willingly done anything against him.
She had made a nuisance of herself in sanctuary writing to the entire
royal family and petitioning parliament about her unjust imprisonment
at Beaulieu. Then Richard is allowed to take her to Middleham and
Edward brokers a settlement rendering her legally dead. Do you think
Richard would have been allowed to let her go down to Westminster and
harangue Edward again? What evidence there is suggests she enjoyed
rather more freedom after Bosworth, and I'm sure she was well pleased
to have a daughter queen at last, but the evidence is slight. Again
what Rous has done is spin things up.
What we should perhaps remember is the context in which Rous wrote
this for Henry VII. Henry had snatched all the Warwick estates for
the crown (at least, as it had stood before he did that, her grandson
Warwick had been the heir of Isabel's half) and had shut said young
grandson in the Tower. From the details of some attainders that took
place in 1491 it is fairly clear the Countess was plotting on her
grandson's behalf, and so she was clearly very concerned about his
fate. If she approved this charge of Rous's, and the charge that
Richard had poisoned Queen Anne, it may have been in order to
distance herself in Henry's eyes from Richard, both in order to get
her estates restored and to get her grandson released. It is notable
that Rous is (genuinely this time) the first to claim that Richard
changed his mind about having Warwick for his heir and chose Lincoln
instead. Keen to persuade Henry that Warwick was no real threat?

Marie

> The Countess of Warwick probably wasn't entirely free once Richard
> took her to middleham, though I suggest the real culprit was King
> Edward. I would like to banish the notion that she was a mere
victim
> who had never involved herself in politics and suggest she was
right
> behind the Kingmaker in his rebellion against Edward, and in his
> accommodation with Henry VI. Her father had been Henry VI's
guardian,
> and she made much of that in the Beauchamp Pageant, which she
> probably commissioned. The same, I think, also shows Anne off
proudly
> as the widow of Edward of Lancaster as well as Richard III's queen.
> And when she petitioned parliament for restitution of her estates
> straight after Bosworth she claimed she had "ever loved" Henry VI
and
> had never willingly done anything against him.
> She had made a nuisance of herself in sanctuary writing to the
entire
> royal family and petitioning parliament about her unjust
imprisonment
> at Beaulieu. Then Richard is allowed to take her to Middleham and
> Edward brokers a settlement rendering her legally dead. Do you
think
> Richard would have been allowed to let her go down to Westminster
and
> harangue Edward again? What evidence there is suggests she enjoyed
> rather more freedom after Bosworth,

Oops! MAJOR error. I meant after Edward IV's death - during Richard's
reign, in fact.
Also, in the post about Sheriff Hutton that should have been a 3/4
length houppelande, not a 2/4 length one.

Marie

--- In , mariewalsh2003
<no_reply@...> wrote:
(heavily snipped)

>> The Countess of Warwick probably wasn't entirely free once Richard
> took her to middleham, though I suggest the real culprit was King
> Edward. I would like to banish the notion that she was a mere
victim
> who had never involved herself in politics and suggest she was
right
> behind the Kingmaker in his rebellion against Edward, and in his
> accommodation with Henry VI. Her father had been Henry VI's
guardian,
> and she made much of that in the Beauchamp Pageant, which she
> probably commissioned. The same, I think, also shows Anne off
proudly
> as the widow of Edward of Lancaster as well as Richard III's queen.
> And when she petitioned parliament for restitution of her estates
> straight after Bosworth she claimed she had "ever loved" Henry VI
and
> had never willingly done anything against him.

Interesting post, Marie.

I'd just like to add that Henry VI was brought up in the household of
Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, and Anne's brother, Henry Duke of
Warwick as he became, was a close personal friend of Henry VI until
his premature death at age 21. It's therefore possible (depending on
when Anne left for the Neville household) that she was well
acquainted with Henry VI, and was attached to him.

Of course it's also true that the Kingmaker and his father Salisbury
were not initially 'Yorkists'. For example they lined up with the
King against York in 1452. It was the threats posed to them by
Somerset (claims in Glamorgan) and Northumberland (rivalry in North)
that pushed them towards York.

If Edward IV suspected Anne Beauchamp of active hostility it would
help explain her relatively harsh treatment after 1471. Not that
Edward needed any excuses when it came to grabbing lands on grounds
of dubious legality.

Brian W

--- In , "Brian Wainwright"
<wainwright.brian@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , mariewalsh2003
> <no_reply@> wrote:
> (heavily snipped)
>
> >> The Countess of Warwick probably wasn't entirely free once
Richard
> > took her to middleham, though I suggest the real culprit was King
> > Edward. I would like to banish the notion that she was a mere
> victim
> > who had never involved herself in politics and suggest she was
> right
> > behind the Kingmaker in his rebellion against Edward, and in his
> > accommodation with Henry VI. Her father had been Henry VI's
> guardian,
> > and she made much of that in the Beauchamp Pageant, which she
> > probably commissioned. The same, I think, also shows Anne off
> proudly
> > as the widow of Edward of Lancaster as well as Richard III's
queen.
> > And when she petitioned parliament for restitution of her estates
> > straight after Bosworth she claimed she had "ever loved" Henry VI
> and
> > had never willingly done anything against him.
>
> Interesting post, Marie.
>
> I'd just like to add that Henry VI was brought up in the household
of
> Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, and Anne's brother, Henry Duke
of
> Warwick as he became, was a close personal friend of Henry VI until
> his premature death at age 21. It's therefore possible (depending
on
> when Anne left for the Neville household) that she was well
> acquainted with Henry VI, and was attached to him.
>
> Of course it's also true that the Kingmaker and his father
Salisbury
> were not initially 'Yorkists'. For example they lined up with the
> King against York in 1452. It was the threats posed to them by
> Somerset (claims in Glamorgan) and Northumberland (rivalry in
North)
> that pushed them towards York.
>
> If Edward IV suspected Anne Beauchamp of active hostility it would
> help explain her relatively harsh treatment after 1471. Not that
> Edward needed any excuses when it came to grabbing lands on grounds
> of dubious legality.
>
> Brian W

Thanks, Brian. We seem to be thinking the same way on this. The best
excuse the Countess could come up with in her petition to Edward IV's
parliament was that she couldn't be held legally responsible for
anything she had done in support of her husband's treason while he
lived, because she was baron covered, and that she hadn't actually
committed any treason since his death. She made no protestation about
having "ever loved" Edward IV. In fact, she was very rude about the
way he had treated her. You'd have to wonder whether she didn't in
fact contribute to her husband's change of sides.
It is interesting that a Chancery petition by the Warwick heirs
general, made after Clarence's attainder but before Edward's death,
is made in the names of (amongst others) the Gloucesters and Warwick
as the heirs of the "late" countess of Warwick, but in a second
petition, seemingly made during Richard's reign, the Countess
petitioned in her own right. Hicks discussed these petitions in an
article, but as he likes to blame Richard for the Countess's plight,
he naughtily suppressed the information that this dispute shows her
re-emerging as a live entity during Richard's reign.

By the by, Rous indicates a possible reason (other than the possible
presence of Richard at the Tower) for the widespread belief that
Richard was responsible for the murder of Henry VI. He refers to an
old prophecy - clearly dating from the lifetime of Duke Humphrey -
that Henry VI would die by the hands of the Duke of Gloucester.
I'm afraid prophecies and horoscopes were red-hot stuff at the time.

Marie

--- In , "Carol"
<justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
>
> So the monster born under the murderous sign of Scorpio lives up to
> his name, murdering not only his nephews but his wife (whom Rous must
> have known was frail and consumptive).

One point, here -- I know that the idea that Anne had consumption
(tuberculosis) is so ingrained in the literature that it has come to
be accepted as fact (along with Henry VIII's syphilis) but there is no
proof in either case, and in both cases there can be other conditions
and diseases to account for the symptoms.

Anne is almost invariably described as frail and sickly. Could
someone quote the sources? It would be interesting to determine when
she was first referred to that way and how long it was before her death.

Katy

There are very few contemporary descriptions of Anne: Rous and the note from the coronation book describer her only as "gracious". Rous has a sketch, showing a rather generic young woman with long blond hair. In a sketch of Richard and Anne, she has long blond hair (with many split ends...) and Richard, with the big bush brown hair we see in coin illustrations, inclines toward her. In the Croyland acount of Richard and Anne's last Christmas, Anne and Elizabeth of York exchange clothing, so there must have been some physical likeness there: Lizzy seems to have been a good-sized girl, so a question opens up right there about Anne. It's possible she was in fairly good shape until any time from 1483 till 1484 and the death of little Edward (similarly, Emily Bronte was generally acknowledged as the healthiest of the Bronte sisters, but she went downhill rapidly after Branwell died, and passed on two months afterward). She had only one child that survived infancy (we don't know how many miscarriages and other disasters there may have been). This contributes to the idea of frailty, but it doesn't necessarily clinch it. She seemed fairly active in public life up North, though that doesn't clinch things either. My own feling is that there was strength involved in her life in France and up until her marriage to Richard (including the whole kitchen wench incident), so I'm very much on the fence about the idea of a frail, delicate Anne Neville.

Maria
elena@...

----------
>Anne is almost invariably described as frail and sickly. Could
>someone quote the sources? It would be interesting to determine when
>she was first referred to that way and how long it was before her death.
>
>Katy
>
>
>
>
>

--- In , oregonkaty <no_reply@...> wrote:
>

>
> One point, here -- I know that the idea that Anne had consumption
> (tuberculosis) is so ingrained in the literature that it has come to
> be accepted as fact

This is so interesting. Now - am I correct when I say that to have consumption/tb you
must have caught it from someone suffering from that illness? Of course this possibly
was the case, but I am inclined to think that anyone suffering from such a contageous
illness would have been kept well away from the royal family. Also, Anne would have been
well nourished and lived in nice and clean surroundings. Is it possible Anne was perhaps
depressed (following on from the loss of her son) could have made her susceptible to this
illness? Now, it would seem that Anne was reasonably well at Christmas, what with the
giving and accepting of fine dresses etc., and it has been said that she fell ill after
Christmas. Is that correct that consumption can carry you off so quickly -between 2 and
a half to 3 months. Bearing in mind that there was probably not a lot the doctors could
do to help at that time with that particular illness.
>
> Anne is almost invariably described as frail and sickly. Could
> someone quote the sources? It would be interesting to determine when
> she was first referred to that way and how long it was before her death.

I dont know if she was that sickly - when you think about what she went through and
survived - she certainly survived one child birth, possibly there could have been others,
miscarriages/still births that we do not know about. Anne does seem to have done a fair
amount of travelling - I dont think she would have undertaken so much if she had been
frail. It would have been a good excuse to have stayed back in Middleham with her son.

Eileen
>
> Katy
>

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

>
> Carol, wondering who wrote the coronation account, which seems to have
> been written immediately after the event and is very well disposed
> toward "our Soveraine Lord Kinge Richard the 3d"


A herald, I would think. Recording such events in detail was one of
their jobs. Since it was the coronation, it would most likely be the
royal herald.



(In trying to look up the French version of "white boar" so I could
suggest that herald -- blanc sanglier, I think -- I came upon this
interesting R III Organization web site. Probably everyone but me
knew about it. It has lots of interesting photos and information. I
plan to go back and explore it thoroughly.)

http://www.r3.org/rnt1991/deadlyboar.html

Katy

--- In , "eileen"
<ebatesparrot@...> wrote:
>

>
> This is so interesting. Now - am I correct when I say that to have
consumption/tb you
> must have caught it from someone suffering from that illness?

Yes. Here's a reference that addresses that subject:

http://www.r3.org/rnt1991/deadlyboar.html


It is spread by airborne droplets from an infected person's lungs.
The only way Anne could have "caught" tuberculosis is by being in
direct contact with a person who had an active case -- and direct
enough to have been coughed upon by that person.

It usually seems to have been assumed that Anne caught tuberculosis
during her famous stint as a kitchen wench when Clarence was trying to
hide her from Richard, who was searching for her with a glass slipper
in his hand. I don't think that much of that Cinderella story is
rooted in fact, either. Clarence was trying to prevent the marriage,
and he may have been trying to hide Anne somewhere, but I'd love to
know where the scullery maid business first appeared, since it so
clearly echoes the Cinderella folk tale, which seems to come from
northern Europe. You'll see familiar folk motifs crop up over and
over in Medieval society because casting a current event in a familiar
mold seems to give it extra credibility. Certain motifs are
evergreens -- the child raised by commoners in some remote place who
turns out to be the royal heir, often with an identifying birthmark
that is recognized and proves the pedigree, or with a talisman, often
a ring or jewel that proves identity, or the leader presumed dead who
is "only away" and will return to lead the people against the
oppressors (King Arthur for one), and many others.

Personally, I don't think many households would have someone sick and
coughing working in their kitchen. The germ theory contagion was
centuries in the future, but observing that if someone is sick, people
around them are likely to become sick, too, is not exactly rocket
science.


Of course this possibly
> was the case, but I am inclined to think that anyone suffering from
such a contageous
> illness would have been kept well away from the royal family. Also,
Anne would have been
> well nourished and lived in nice and clean surroundings. Is it
possible Anne was perhaps
> depressed (following on from the loss of her son) could have made
her susceptible to this
> illness? Now, it would seem that Anne was reasonably well at
Christmas, what with the
> giving and accepting of fine dresses etc., and it has been said that
she fell ill after
> Christmas. Is that correct that consumption can carry you off so
quickly -between 2 and
> a half to 3 months. Bearing in mind that there was probably not a
lot the doctors could
> do to help at that time with that particular illness.
> >
> > Anne is almost invariably described as frail and sickly. Could
> > someone quote the sources? It would be interesting to determine when
> > she was first referred to that way and how long it was before her
death.
>
> I dont know if she was that sickly - when you think about what she
went through and
> survived - she certainly survived one child birth, possibly there
could have been others,
> miscarriages/still births that we do not know about. Anne does seem
to have done a fair
> amount of travelling - I dont think she would have undertaken so
much if she had been
> frail. It would have been a good excuse to have stayed back in
Middleham with her son.
>

>

--- In , oregonkaty
<no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , "eileen"
> <ebatesparrot@> wrote:
> >
>
> >
> > This is so interesting. Now - am I correct when I say that to have
> consumption/tb you
> > must have caught it from someone suffering from that illness?
>
> Yes. Here's a reference that addresses that subject:
>
> http://www.r3.org/rnt1991/deadlyboar.html



Sorry -- I hadn't cleared the clipboard. Here's the correct link:

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/t/tuberculosis/contagious.htm

Katy

--- In , mariewalsh2003
<no_reply@...> wrote: <snipped]
>
>> By the by, Rous indicates a possible reason (other than the possible
> presence of Richard at the Tower) for the widespread belief that
> Richard was responsible for the murder of Henry VI. He refers to an
> old prophecy - clearly dating from the lifetime of Duke Humphrey -
> that Henry VI would die by the hands of the Duke of Gloucester.
> I'm afraid prophecies and horoscopes were red-hot stuff at the time.
>
> Marie
>

I am intrigued, Marie, by the dagger that was once preserved in the
chapel that used to be on Caversham Bridge, supposedly the one Richard
used to stab Henry VI. While in the past I have mocked this, given the
medieval tendency to fake relics, it does at least demonstrate that
there was an early tradition that Richard had murdered Henry, certainly
prior to Shakespeare.

It may be utterly irrelevant, but Caversham was a Beauchamp (formerly
Despenser)manor.

Another random thought. After the rout at Ludford Bridge, Lady
Salisbury was attainted, presumably because she was an heiress. But
Lady Warwick, and even bigger heiress, was not. Now given that their
legal status was the same (under coverture) it's tempting to ask
whether this was because Anne Beauchamp was, from a Lancastrian
POV, 'one of us.'

Mind you, I'm not convinced by this, it could equally be that Lady
Salisbury was 'definitely NOT one of us.' I think I'm right in saying
she was the first woman to be attainted.

Brian W

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


[Quoting Rous] "

And
> Lady Anne, his queen, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, he poisoned.


That's something else that contradicts the accepted notion of the
frail Anne Neville dying of consumption. Poisoning suggests a sudden
death, or at least a quick one -- days at the most -- and a painful
one with abdominal symptoms. That doesn't tie in well with the idea
of condition that causes slow decline and progressive emaciation,
accompanied by coughing, breathlessness, weakness, and perhaps lung
hemorrhages.

Medieval society was inclined to see poisoning behind any sudden death
that didn't have any other obvious cause and involved pain and
abdominal symptoms. There were rumors of poisoning in the death of
John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, who died suddenly at age 31 after
seemingly being in good health. Over in Italy, one of the de Medici
women was supposedly poisoned, but since she was in the early months
of a difficult pregnancy when she suddenly collapsed in agony and
quickly died, I think the rupture of an ectopic pregnancy should be
strongly considered.

If Anne died with signs that could be interpreted as poisoning, the
same may be true for her, and such a catastrophe can occur before a
woman in that time would even know she was pregnant. In a ruptured
ectopic pregnancy, the hemorrhage is internal and there may be no sign
externally. Plus, since Prince Edward had died the year before, it
would be very reasonable to think Richard and Anne would be trying to
have another child.

If Rous or whoever simply wanted to blame Richard for Anne's death,
and if she was actually slowly dying of a wasting disease, the story
could have been that he deliberately over-tired her, in her precarious
health, by making her accompany him everywhere, or compelling her to
take part in long exhausting ceremonies, or even forcing her to go out
riding in the Dales with him.

Katy

Marie:
> As I explained, I believe his employer the Countess of Warwick, was
> probably at the birth, and that's how he came to hear these details.
> I'll explain my reasons if you want.

Carol responds:
Why would the Countess of Warwick have been at Fotheringhay for
Richard's birth? Yes, I'd be interested in hearing your reasons, but,
in my view, it's most unlikely that the Countess, even if she were in
attendance at Richard's birth, would have told Rous that Richard was
born with teeth, or even with hair streaming to his shoulders, or even
that the Duchess of York had had a (seemingly) long and difficult
pregnancy, or yet another difficult birth (her eleventh).

The Countess would have been the mother of one-year-old Isabel (born
at Warwick Castle) at the time, but I don't know whether that would
have made any difference to her movements. Unlike Duchess Cecily, she
wasn't known for following her husband around. So, even if the Earl of
Warwick was at Fotheringhay in October 1452 (do we have any evidence
that he was?), I doubt that his wife was there with him.

Sidenote here: I wonder if baby Ursula, the little sister who died in
her cradle, was born on the Feast of the Eleven Thousand Virgins
(October 21), which is associated with St. Ursula. Or the mere fact
that Richard had a baby sister named Ursula who died in infancy could
have given Rous the idea to alter Richard's birthdate from October 2
to October 21 (which would *almost* make him a Scorpio--off by only
two days). Maybe it's that sort of "accuracy" that suggested the idea
of altering Edward IV's age at death by nearly thirteen years.

Marie:
> Er, Carol, the rising sign is something else and it's actually more
important than the "birth sign". The birth sign is the sign the sun
was in at the time of one's birth. <snip> Astrologers attach more
imprtance to the Ascendant or rising sign, which is the sign the
eastern horizon was in at the time of birth. To find that, you have to
cast the person's horoscope.

Carol:
You're right. He does say that Scorpio was in the ascendant. But do
you think, then, that he actually cast Richard's horoscope?
>
Carol earlier:
> Simple. Libra, the scales of justice, fits the just king that Rous
depicted in the original Rous Roll but the monster born with a full
set of teeth, ready to bite and destroy before he was even born.
Scorpio may not imply anything sinister in modern astrology, but we're
dealing here with the medieval mind.

Marie:
> Astrology is astrology, Carol. Every sign, I believe, has its
positive and negative possibilities.

Carol:
No doubt. But, as I said, we're dealing with the medieval mind. If you
look at the propaganda, Scorpio is not depicted as having a balance
between good and bad qualities, either in Rous or in those who picked
up on this detail from his work. The sign of the scorpion (again, not
even his birth sign, which Rous omitted as not fitting his little
tirade, was used much as some chroniclers chose to use Richard's sign
of the boar--as "evidence" of Richard's supposed fierceness. Rous says
that Scorpio is "the sign of a house of Mars. And like a scorpion he
combined a smooth front with a stinging tail." This is propaganda,
pure and simple, and it ignores any good qualities associated with
Scorpio in the medieval mind, as it carefully bypasses the favorable
medieval view of Libra. And even a modern historian, A. J. Pollard,
devotes a section of "Richard III and the Princes in the Tower" to
"Richard's Birth sign, Scorpio.) (Nothing about Scorpio in the
ascendant there.)

By the way, just for fun, you'll find Richard in some rather unusual
company here as a famous person who had Pluto in Leo (I don't even
want to know what that means):

http://www.astrotheme.fr/en/celebrites/pluto/leo/14.htm

Marie:
> True, rous got the wrong feast, and true, the Eleven Thousand
Virgins would have given him a Scorpio sun sign as well, but I think
it may have been a simple error because the Feast of the Eleven
Thousand Virgins is 21st October. Had Rous realised Scorpio was
Richard's sun sign as well, surely he would have capitalised on the fact.

Carol:
"Simple error"? "Realized"? He could not have *realized* that
Richard's sun sign was Scorpio because it was Libra, whether or not
Scorpio was in the ascendant at his birth. He was born on October 2,
an easily verifiable fact, and October 2 is in Libra. And even if he'd
been born on October 21, Scorpio the sun sign doesn't begin until
October 23. It wasn't a matter of "realizing" anything, IMO. It was a
matter of making the "facts" fit the monster who was two years in his
mother's womb and committed all those murders that Rous knew perfectly
well he didn't commit.

A feast commemorating the (supposed) slaughter of eleven thousand
innocent young women was more appropriate to Rous's propaganda
purposes than a feast commemorating Guardian Angels, just as Scorpio
was more appropriate to his depiction of Richard as the murderer, not
only of his nephews but of his wife and poor, simple Henry VI, than
Libra, the scales of justice.

Marie:
> Look, I would like to distinguish between items of common rumour,
which Rous relayed without question, and the novelties he introduced,
which he spun up from some foundation in fact.

Carol:
So would I. My whole focus here is to examine the texts and attempt to
determine which statements are fabrications, which are rumours, and
which are distortions of fact. I believe that's also your objective.
We simply disagree in our interpretation of Rous.

As I've noted, Richard obviously wasn't two years in his mother's womb
and he wasn't born on the Feast of the Eleven thousand Virgins. There
is no basis in fact for those lies. (The space of two years between
Richard's birth and that of the previous child is no evidence at all.
Was Anne Neville (nearly) five years in her mother's womb because she
was (nearly) five years younger than her only sister? No one would
make such an argument.) One is a fabrication that no one believed; the
second is a lie created by moving Richard's birthdate to a more
"appropriate" time for the purposes of propaganda. There can be no
other reason.

Moreover, Rous knew perfectly well that Richard didn't keep the
Countess of Warwick under house arrest or kill his consumptive wife.
The second was a rumor, the first a lie.

marie:
> He did not in fact invent the story that Richard had Henry VI
killed. Warwkworth hints at it in taking the trouble to let his
readers know richard was in the Tower at the time, and the latest
Ricardian has an article on a Welsh poem written just after Bosworth
which also refers to this rumour.

Carol:
All Warkworth says is "And the same nyghte that Kynge Edwarde came to
Londone, Kynge Herry, beynge inwarde in presone in the Toure of
Londone, was putt to dethe (20), the xxj. day of Maij, on a tywesday
nyght, betwyx xj. and xij. of the cloke, beynge thenne at the Toure
the Duke of Gloucetre, brothere to Kynge Edwarde, and many other."
Being at the Tower with many others is not an accusation of murder.
the implication is that Edward ordered Henry's death and that Richard
and many others were with him at the Tower. It's not even suggested
that Richard as Constable of England delivered the orders to the
Constable of the Tower. Warkworth does say straight out that Henry was
put to death, but that's very different from Rous's accusation that
Richard killed him with his own hands. (As for Welsh poems written
just after Bosworth, Henry Tudor's propaganda machine was very active
in Wales at that time--it's the only place where he succeeded in
recruiting followers thanks to his dragon banner and the Cadwallader
myth.)

Marie:
> The Countess of Warwick probably wasn't entirely free once Richard
took her to middleham, though I suggest the real culprit was King
Edward.

Carol:
The Countess of Warwick went into sanctuary after her husband was
killed. Edward took her lands as well as Warwick's. (George of
Clarence, of course, wanted them all to himself, which is why he
opposed Richard's marriage to Anne.) Once Richard was married, he
asked Edward's permission to take the Countess out of sanctuary and
had Sir James Tyrrell escort her home to Middleham. Can you cite any
evidence that she wasn't free there? True, her lands had been given to
her daughters, but at least she was living in her former home. And
Richard also did other favors for the Nevilles at this time, which I
won't go into here. At any rate, I see no basis for your assumption.

Marie:
I would like to banish the notion that she was a mere victim who had
never involved herself in politics and suggest she was right behind
the Kingmaker in his rebellion against Edward, and in his
accommodation with Henry VI. Her father had been Henry VI's guardian,
and she made much of that in the Beauchamp Pageant, which she
probably commissioned.

Carol:
I don't see what this "notion" has to do with my point. I never
referred to the Countess of Warwick as a victim. She put herself in
sanctuary; Edward robbed her of her lands; Richard took her home to
Middleham. I have no idea whether she was "right behind the Kingmaker"
in his decisions, but it's not relevant to the glaring falsity of
Rous's remark.

Marie:
> <snip> And when she petitioned parliament for restitution of her
estates straight after Bosworth she claimed she had "ever loved" Henry
VI and had never willingly done anything against him. She had made a
nuisance of herself in sanctuary writing to the entire royal family
and petitioning parliament about her unjust imprisonment at Beaulieu.
Then Richard is allowed to take her to Middleham and Edward brokers a
settlement rendering her legally dead. Do you think Richard would have
been allowed to let her go down to Westminster and harangue Edward again?

Carol:
All I know is that Richard, who could have left her in sanctuary, took
her home to Middleham. I don't think it was a matter of "allowing" her
to "harangue" Edward. If we're going to make assumptions, we might as
well assume that she was content to have her lands go to her daughters
)or their husbands) rather than losing them to strangers. At least
they would (she must have thought) go to her descendants.

All I can find online about Henry VII and the Countess of Warwick is
that Parliament "in consideration of the true and faithful service and
allegiance by her borne to Henry VI" restored her lands, which she was
promptly "persuaded" to turn over to Henry. (What Henry VI has to do
with it, I don't know.)
http://www.queens.cam.ac.uk/Queens/Record/2002/The%20Historical%20Record/Richard.html
As for the Countess of Warwick saying that she had "ever loved" Henry
VI, if Henry VI is meant, it's irrelevant; if Henry VII is meant, it
has to be a lie--or, more likely, words placed in her mouth.

Marie:
What evidence there is suggests she enjoyed rather more freedom after
Bosworth, and I'm sure she was well pleased to have a daughter queen
at last, but the evidence is slight.

Carol:
Okay, I'm thoroughly confused. Her daughter was queen *before*
Bosworth. After Bosworth, she petitioned for two years to get her
lands back (evidently she'd been ousted from Middleham by the
retainers of Henry VII just as her grandson, the young Earl of
Warwick, was immediately escorted to the Tower. After two years, she
was granted her lands only to be coerced into returning all 114
estates to Henry VII. Her powerful son-in-law and only protector was
dead. Her daughters were dead. One grandson was dead; another was in
the Tower, the captive of Henry Tudor. Her lands were taken from her.
It's unlikely that she was allowed to return to Middleham to live.
What evidence do you find in that to indicate that she was happy after
Bosworth?

Again
> what Rous has done is spin things up. What we should perhaps
remember is the context in which Rous wrote this for Henry VII.

Carol:
Yes, indeed. We should also remember for whom and for what purpose he
was writing.

Marie:
> Henry had snatched all the Warwick estates for the crown (at least,
as it had stood before he did that, her grandson Warwick had been the
heir of Isabel's half) and had shut said young grandson in the Tower.

Carol:
Exactly. It wasn't Richard who put her in dire straits. It was Henry.

Marie:
> From the details of some attainders that took place in 1491 it is
fairly clear the Countess was plotting on her grandson's behalf, and
so she was clearly very concerned about his fate.

Carol:
I've read that she was approached to participate in the conspiracy,
but an accusation under the Tudors should be taken with a grain of salt.

Marie:
> If she approved this charge of Rous's, and the charge that Richard
had poisoned Queen Anne, it may have been in order to distance herself
in Henry's eyes from Richard, both in order to get her estates
restored and to get her grandson released.

Carol:
What evidence is there that she was even aware of Rous's accusations,
much less that she approved of them? Most likely, id she knew about
them, she kept her mouth shut.

Marie:
It is notable that Rous is (genuinely this time)

Carol:
See above. He *was* the first to say that Richard killed Henry VI with
his own hand. (Forgive me, but I'm detecting some uncalled for
condescenscion here.)

Marie:
the first to claim that Richard changed his mind about having Warwick
for his heir and chose Lincoln instead. Keen to persuade Henry that
Warwick was no real threat?

Carol:
I'm not convinced that Richard ever considered having the Earl of
Warwick, who was both a child and attainted (but ahead of him in the
line of succession) as his heir. Perhaps Rous invented that statement,
too. In any case, I doubt that Henry needed Rous to tell him that the
boy was no threat. (Then, again, the Lambert Simnel affair might have
caused him to think differenctly for awhile.)

Carol, hoping that Marie will quote from and identify her sources next
time, preferably with links to make it easier to view the quotations
in context

Katy wrote:
> (In trying to look up the French version of "white boar" so I could
suggest that herald -- blanc sanglier, I think -- I came upon this
interesting R III Organization web site. Probably everyone but me
knew about it. It has lots of interesting photos and information. I
plan to go back and explore it thoroughly.)
>
> http://www.r3.org/rnt1991/deadlyboar.html

Carol:
It's part of the very interesting but misleadingly titled "To Prove a
Villain" section of the American branch's website. All sorts of
interesting stuff can be found there. The URL for that branch's home
page is http://www.r3.org/ and the URL for the main page of the "To
Prove a Villain" section is http://www.r3.org/rnt1991/index.html

Have fun!

Carol, who actually prefers the American site to the British one in
terms of useful links to manuscripts and other materials

Katy wrote:
> Anne is almost invariably described as frail and sickly. Could
> someone quote the sources? It would be interesting to determine when
> she was first referred to that way and how long it was before her death.

Carol responds:

Unless we count the letter that Buck attributes to Elizabeth of York,
who allegedly claims that she can't wait for the queen to die so she
can marry her "only joy and maker in this world," the only
contemporary source that mentions her illness and death is the
Croyland Chronicle, from which the bare facts can be deduced if we
ignore the bias:

"[D]uring this feast of the Nativity, far too much attention was given
to dancing and gaiety, and vain changes of apparal presented to queen
Anne and the lady Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the late king,
being of similar colour and shape; a thing that caused the people to
murmur and the nobles and prelates greatly to wonder thereat; while it
was said by many that the king was bent, either on the anticipated
death of the queen taking place, or else, by means of divorce, for
which he supposed he had quite sufficient grounds, on contracting a
marriage with the said Elizabeth. For it appeared that in no other way
could his kingly power be established, or the hopes of his rival be
put an end to.

"In the course of a few days after this, the queen fell extremely
sick, and her illness was supposed to have increased still more and
more, because the king entirely shunned her bed, declaring that it was
by the advice of his physicians that he did so. Why enlarge? About the
middle of the following month, upon the day of the great eclipse of
the sun, which then took place, queen Anne, before-named, departed
this life, and was buried at Westminster, with no less honors than
befitted the interment of a queen."

http://www.r3.org/bookcase/croyland/croy8.html

Apparently, Elizabeth of York and the queen appeared in similar
clothing, which may have started rumors that Richard intended to marry
Elizabeth. If rumors were indeed already circulating regarding "the
anticipated death of the queen," she must already have been showing
signs of illness at Christmas. The chronicler says that "in the course
of a few days" after the end of the Christmas celebrations (they would
end with Twelfth Night or Epiphany, January 6), the queen fell very
ill. Though the chronicler insinuates that Richard shunned Anne's bed,
claiming that his physicians advised him to do so, I think we can
safely assume that they did indeed forbid him to share her bed because
of the danger to him from what was known to be a contagious illness.
She did not, however, die "in the middle of the following month." She
died on March 16, more than two months after her illness confined her
to her bed.

Kendall and others have assumed that the illness was tuberculosis
because the physicians forbade Richard to share her bed and because
Anne's sister Isabel also seems to have died of tuberculosis. her
inablility to have more than one child (perhaps she suffered
miscarriages--Isabel had a stillborn child) is another reason why she
was thought to be frail. And it's generally believed that the loss of
her only son took its toll on her mental and physical health.

Whether the illness was tuberculosis or not, we can't know. Given the
physicians' concerns, it was clearly a contagious disease. However,
since there was no report other people falling ill at about the same
time, it was clearly not the result of an epidemic. That actually
makes tuberculosis a likely candidate since latent tuberculosis can
live in the bloodstream for a long time, even a lifetime, without
manifesting itself. The shock of her son's death combined with the
strain of pretending to enjoy the elaborate twelve-day-long Christmas
festivities could have weakened her immune system sufficiently to
cause the disease to become active.

"What is latent TB infection?

"In most people who breathe in TB bacteria and become infected, the
body is able to fight the bacteria to stop them from growing. The
bacteria become inactive, but they remain alive in the body and can
become active later. This is called latent TB infection. People with
latent TB infection

* have no symptoms
* don't feel sick
* can't spread TB to others
<snip reference to TB test>
* may develop active TB disease if they do not receive treatment
for latent TB infection

"Many people who have latent TB infection never develop active TB
disease. In these people, the TB bacteria remain inactive for a
lifetime without causing disease. But in other people, especially
people who have weak immune systems, the bacteria become active and
cause TB disease."

http://www.cdc.gov/tb/faqs/qa_introduction.htm#Intro3

I don't pretend to be an expert on tuberculosis, but it seems to me at
least a reasonable conjecture. It could, however, have been some other
contagious disease. (Does anyone know of another disease known in
Richard's time that could have incapacitated Anne for two and a half
months before killing her?)

Carol, noting that not even the spiteful old Croyland Chronicler (who
strikes me as the clone of Rotherham) suggests poison

Carol earlier:
> <snip> Or the mere fact that Richard had a baby sister named Ursula
who died in infancy could have given Rous the idea to alter Richard's
birthdate from October 2 to October 21 (which would *almost* make him
a Scorpio--off by only two days). Maybe it's that sort of "accuracy"
that suggested the idea of altering Edward IV's age at death by nearly
thirteen years.

Carol again:

Oops. I meant "suggested *to Sir Thomas More* the idea of altering
Edward IV's age at death by nearly thirteen years."

Carol, wishing that her fingers would always type what her mind intended!

--- In , "Carol"
<justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
> Katy wrote:
> > Anne is almost invariably described as frail and sickly. Could
> > someone quote the sources? It would be interesting to determine when
> > she was first referred to that way and how long it was before her
death.
>
> Carol responds:
>
> Unless we count the letter that Buck attributes to Elizabeth of York,
> who allegedly claims that she can't wait for the queen to die so she
> can marry her "only joy and maker in this world," the only
> contemporary source that mentions her illness and death is the
> Croyland Chronicle, from which the bare facts can be deduced if we
> ignore the bias:
>
> "[D]uring this feast of the Nativity, far too much attention was given
> to dancing and gaiety, and vain changes of apparal presented to queen
> Anne and the lady Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the late king,
> being of similar colour and shape; a thing that caused the people to
> murmur and the nobles and prelates greatly to wonder thereat; while it
> was said by many that the king was bent, either on the anticipated
> death of the queen taking place, or else, by means of divorce, for
> which he supposed he had quite sufficient grounds, on contracting a
> marriage with the said Elizabeth. For it appeared that in no other way
> could his kingly power be established, or the hopes of his rival be
> put an end to.
>
> "In the course of a few days after this, the queen fell extremely
> sick, and her illness was supposed to have increased still more and
> more, because the king entirely shunned her bed, declaring that it was
> by the advice of his physicians that he did so. Why enlarge? About the
> middle of the following month, upon the day of the great eclipse of
> the sun, which then took place, queen Anne, before-named, departed
> this life, and was buried at Westminster, with no less honors than
> befitted the interment of a queen."
>
> http://www.r3.org/bookcase/croyland/croy8.html
>
> Apparently, Elizabeth of York and the queen appeared in similar
> clothing, which may have started rumors that Richard intended to marry
> Elizabeth. If rumors were indeed already circulating regarding "the
> anticipated death of the queen," she must already have been showing
> signs of illness at Christmas. The chronicler says that "in the course
> of a few days" after the end of the Christmas celebrations (they would
> end with Twelfth Night or Epiphany, January 6), the queen fell very
> ill. Though the chronicler insinuates that Richard shunned Anne's bed,
> claiming that his physicians advised him to do so, I think we can
> safely assume that they did indeed forbid him to share her bed because
> of the danger to him from what was known to be a contagious illness.


You are picking and choosing which statements from the Croyland
Chronicler (and others) you choose to believe and which you reject out
of hand, according to whether or not they bolster your own theories.


> She did not, however, die "in the middle of the following month." She
> died on March 16, more than two months after her illness confined her
> to her bed.
>
> Kendall and others have assumed that the illness was tuberculosis
> because the physicians forbade Richard to share her bed and because
> Anne's sister Isabel also seems to have died of tuberculosis.


Who says that? Clarence believed she had been poisoned and made
formal accusations. Another theory is that she died of a remarkably
protracted case of puerperal infection.

Katy

--- In , "Carol"
<justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
> Marie:
> > As I explained, I believe his employer the Countess of Warwick,
was
> > probably at the birth, and that's how he came to hear these
details.
> > I'll explain my reasons if you want.
>
> Carol responds:
> Why would the Countess of Warwick have been at Fotheringhay for
> Richard's birth? Yes, I'd be interested in hearing your reasons,
but,
> in my view, it's most unlikely that the Countess, even if she were
in
> attendance at Richard's birth, would have told Rous that Richard was
> born with teeth, or even with hair streaming to his shoulders, or
even
> that the Duchess of York had had a (seemingly) long and difficult
> pregnancy, or yet another difficult birth (her eleventh).
>
> The Countess would have been the mother of one-year-old Isabel (born
> at Warwick Castle) at the time, but I don't know whether that would
> have made any difference to her movements. Unlike Duchess Cecily,
she
> wasn't known for following her husband around. So, even if the Earl
of
> Warwick was at Fotheringhay in October 1452 (do we have any evidence
> that he was?), I doubt that his wife was there with him.

Not evidence that she was, but evidence that it was not unlikely. The
Countess seems to have become more sedentary after she passed
childbearing age. For the earlier years of her marriage there is not
enough evidence to make much of a judgement, but since the couple
desperately needed a son I suggest the couple would have been
together as much as possible.
In any case it is not necessary for the Kingmaker to have been
present in order for Anne to have attended the birth. She certainly
travelled without him on occasions, and probably made some journeys
during pregnancy. There is a tantalising entry in the accounts of the
Holy Cross Guild of Stratford on Avon for the year starting July 1450
for "wine given to the Countess of Warwick in the house of Agnes
Chacomb".
Rous tells us (in the Roll) that she was "Glad to be at and with
women that traueld of chyld. full comfortable and plenteus then of
all thyng that shuld be helpyng to hem. . . ". Fotheringhay is only
60 miles from Warwick. Cecily had stood godmother to Isabel (we know
this from Clarence's dispensation), so it is very likely Cecily would
have asked the Countess of Warwick to stand godmother to her next
child. The original dispensation for Richard and Anne's marriage, if
it were ever to turn up, would answer that question.
I suggested the two-year pregnancy started as a family joke and has
nothing to do with a difficult or genuinely long pregnancy. It is the
sort of joke the era seems to have enjoyed. I'm afraid I can't find
the details offhand but a similar and even more farfetched joke was
made by Henry's side about Margaret of Burgundy, Simnel and Warbeck
being the newborn result of an umpteen-year twin pregnancy or
something like it. Anyway, the Countess would not have needed to tell
Rous any of this directly. Walls have ears and gossip circulates
within a household. Rous possibly just didn't get the joke.
But I do think there is the possibility – no more than that – that
the revision and presentation of Rous' Historia was done in collusion
with the Countess of Warwick, for the reasons I outlined in my last
post. Alternatively, Rous may have taken it on himself to do this,
desperate to get his major work "outed" before his death, and hoping
it might also help his former patrons the Countess and her grandson.
I don't think personal ambition is likely to have been his motivation
as he was already elderly, but the hope of a retirement pension for
his pains may have been a real concern.


>
> Sidenote here: I wonder if baby Ursula, the little sister who died
in
> her cradle, was born on the Feast of the Eleven Thousand Virgins
> (October 21), which is associated with St. Ursula.

She was born in July. She was probably given the name because Ursula
was supposed to have been a British princess.

Or the mere fact
> that Richard had a baby sister named Ursula who died in infancy
could
> have given Rous the idea to alter Richard's birthdate from October 2
> to October 21 (which would *almost* make him a Scorpio--off by only
> two days).

Bear in mind that the medieval calendar was out of synch with ours.
They would have passed into Scorpio about 12 days earlier than we do.

Maybe it's that sort of "accuracy" that suggested the idea
> of altering Edward IV's age at death by nearly thirteen years.
>
> Marie:
> > Er, Carol, the rising sign is something else and it's actually
more
> important than the "birth sign". The birth sign is the sign the sun
> was in at the time of one's birth. <snip> Astrologers attach more
> imprtance to the Ascendant or rising sign, which is the sign the
> eastern horizon was in at the time of birth. To find that, you have
to
> cast the person's horoscope.
>
> Carol:
> You're right. He does say that Scorpio was in the ascendant. But do
> you think, then, that he actually cast Richard's horoscope?

Well, if he did it himself, it would have been inaccurate if he was
using 21st October as the birthdate. But I'm sure Richard's horoscope
had been cast and, again, the results would have been well known to
both Clarence and the Countess of Warwick. Rous belongs to the class
of minor clergy and chaplains who were often involved in esoteric
matters such as astrology, alchemy, prognostication and even
necromancy, and his work does indicate an interest in astrology and
prophecy.

> >
> Carol earlier:
> > Simple. Libra, the scales of justice, fits the just king that Rous
> depicted in the original Rous Roll but the monster born with a full
> set of teeth, ready to bite and destroy before he was even born.
> Scorpio may not imply anything sinister in modern astrology, but
we're
> dealing here with the medieval mind.
>
> Marie:
> > Astrology is astrology, Carol. Every sign, I believe, has its
> positive and negative possibilities.
>
> Carol:
> No doubt. But, as I said, we're dealing with the medieval mind. If
you
> look at the propaganda, Scorpio is not depicted as having a balance
> between good and bad qualities, either in Rous or in those who
picked
> up on this detail from his work. The sign of the scorpion (again,
not
> even his birth sign, which Rous omitted as not fitting his little
> tirade, was used much as some chroniclers chose to use Richard's
sign
> of the boar--as "evidence" of Richard's supposed fierceness. Rous
says
> that Scorpio is "the sign of a house of Mars. And like a scorpion he
> combined a smooth front with a stinging tail." This is propaganda,
> pure and simple, and it ignores any good qualities associated with
> Scorpio in the medieval mind, as it carefully bypasses the favorable
> medieval view of Libra. And even a modern historian, A. J. Pollard,
> devotes a section of "Richard III and the Princes in the Tower" to
> "Richard's Birth sign, Scorpio.) (Nothing about Scorpio in the
> ascendant there.)

It's called spin, Carol. My point entirely – these people were
writing to dnigrate Richard. Do you think if an astrologer had a
client they wished to flatter who had Scorpio in their chart they
would put it like that? I suggest not.

>
> By the way, just for fun, you'll find Richard in some rather unusual
> company here as a famous person who had Pluto in Leo (I don't even
> want to know what that means):
>
> http://www.astrotheme.fr/en/celebrites/pluto/leo/14.htm

The zodiac signs appear on a person's chart as 12 equal slices of the
cake. The sun, moon and planets will therefore all fall within one or
other of these signs – it what part of the heavens that planet was in
at the time of the person's birth. The planet Pluto hadn't been
discovered in the 15th century and didn't appear on anyone's chart.

>
> Marie:
> > True, rous got the wrong feast, and true, the Eleven Thousand
> Virgins would have given him a Scorpio sun sign as well, but I think
> it may have been a simple error because the Feast of the Eleven
> Thousand Virgins is 21st October. Had Rous realised Scorpio was
> Richard's sun sign as well, surely he would have capitalised on the
fact.
>
> Carol:
> "Simple error"? "Realized"? He could not have *realized* that
> Richard's sun sign was Scorpio because it was Libra, whether or not
> Scorpio was in the ascendant at his birth. He was born on October 2,
> an easily verifiable fact, and October 2 is in Libra. And even if
he'd
> been born on October 21, Scorpio the sun sign doesn't begin until
> October 23. It wasn't a matter of "realizing" anything, IMO. It was
a
> matter of making the "facts" fit the monster who was two years in
his
> mother's womb and committed all those murders that Rous knew
perfectly
> well he didn't commit.
I'm losing the will to live at this point. What I meant was that the
birthdate Rous put down as Richard's would have made Scorpio his Sun
Sign as well as his Ascendant. Had he realised that he would have
surely have capitalised on it.

>
> A feast commemorating the (supposed) slaughter of eleven thousand
> innocent young women was more appropriate to Rous's propaganda
> purposes than a feast commemorating Guardian Angels, just as Scorpio
> was more appropriate to his depiction of Richard as the murderer,
not
> only of his nephews but of his wife and poor, simple Henry VI, than
> Libra, the scales of justice.

Carol, don't forget Richard was born with Scorpio in the Ascendant.
Leaving out Libra is spin, isn't it? You are looking at the feasts of
martyrs with a modern eye. The feast was dedicated to these glorious
virgin martyrs, blissful saints in heaven, not to their murderers.

>
> Marie:
> > Look, I would like to distinguish between items of common rumour,
> which Rous relayed without question, and the novelties he
introduced,
> which he spun up from some foundation in fact.
>
> Carol:
> So would I. My whole focus here is to examine the texts and attempt
to
> determine which statements are fabrications, which are rumours, and
> which are distortions of fact. I believe that's also your objective.
> We simply disagree in our interpretation of Rous.

We seem to disagree in our interpretation of the term "spin"!

>
> As I've noted, Richard obviously wasn't two years in his mother's
womb
> and he wasn't born on the Feast of the Eleven thousand Virgins.
There
> is no basis in fact for those lies. (The space of two years between
> Richard's birth and that of the previous child is no evidence at
all.
> Was Anne Neville (nearly) five years in her mother's womb because
she
> was (nearly) five years younger than her only sister? No one would
> make such an argument.) One is a fabrication that no one believed;
the
> second is a lie created by moving Richard's birthdate to a more
> "appropriate" time for the purposes of propaganda. There can be no
> other reason.

Carol, I have clearly never at any point suggested Richard was two
years in his mother's womb. Talk about uncalled-for condescension.

>
> Moreover, Rous knew perfectly well that Richard didn't keep the
> Countess of Warwick under house arrest or kill his consumptive wife.
> The second was a rumor, the first a lie.

Lie is a word I would rather not bring into historical discussion. We
have no contemporary evidence whatsoever that Anne was consumptive,
and for reasons I have explained, I believe there were conditions
attached when Edward allowed Richard to bring the Countess to
Middleham, and her movements probably were restricted, until 1483 at
least.


>
> marie:
> > He did not in fact invent the story that Richard had Henry VI
> killed. Warwkworth hints at it in taking the trouble to let his
> readers know richard was in the Tower at the time, and the latest
> Ricardian has an article on a Welsh poem written just after Bosworth
> which also refers to this rumour.
>
> Carol:
> All Warkworth says is "And the same nyghte that Kynge Edwarde came
to
> Londone, Kynge Herry, beynge inwarde in presone in the Toure of
> Londone, was putt to dethe (20), the xxj. day of Maij, on a tywesday
> nyght, betwyx xj. and xij. of the cloke, beynge thenne at the Toure
> the Duke of Gloucetre, brothere to Kynge Edwarde, and many other."
> Being at the Tower with many others is not an accusation of murder.
> the implication is that Edward ordered Henry's death and that
Richard
> and many others were with him at the Tower. It's not even suggested
> that Richard as Constable of England delivered the orders to the
> Constable of the Tower. Warkworth does say straight out that Henry
was
> put to death, but that's very different from Rous's accusation that
> Richard killed him with his own hands. (As for Welsh poems written
> just after Bosworth, Henry Tudor's propaganda machine was very
active
> in Wales at that time--it's the only place where he succeeded in
> recruiting followers thanks to his dragon banner and the Cadwallader
> myth.)

So you are agreeing, then, that Rous did not invent this charge. Also
I forgot to mention the allusion in Crowland. I'm not going to look
it up, but he says the person who killed henry VI has justly earned
the name of tyrant. Now, Crowland did not consider Edward IV to be a
tyrant, but he was hostile to Richard III. The English translation of
the relevant passage of the Welsh poem is:-
"God from heaven, our creator,
Was angered when Henry was killed.
If he killed the saint
On Thursday night, he sentenced himself to death.
The little boar is no more,
There was not killed one who more deserved it."


>
> Marie:
> > The Countess of Warwick probably wasn't entirely free once Richard
> took her to middleham, though I suggest the real culprit was King
> Edward.
>
> Carol:
> The Countess of Warwick went into sanctuary after her husband was
> killed. Edward took her lands as well as Warwick's. (George of
> Clarence, of course, wanted them all to himself, which is why he
> opposed Richard's marriage to Anne.) Once Richard was married, he
> asked Edward's permission to take the Countess out of sanctuary and
> had Sir James Tyrrell escort her home to Middleham. Can you cite any
> evidence that she wasn't free there? True, her lands had been given
to
> her daughters, but at least she was living in her former home. And
> Richard also did other favors for the Nevilles at this time, which I
> won't go into here. At any rate, I see no basis for your assumption.

She doesn't make any appearances at all during those years, though
there is a reference to a servant of hers purchasing goods in York.
The Beauchamp Pageant, and the Rows Roll, which also celebrates the
Beauchamps, weren't commissioned until after Edward IV's death. It
was Edward who brokered the deal that rendered her legally dead, and
when Earl Richard Beauchamp's heirs general petitioned Chancery in
1478 she was unable to participate, the Gloucesters and little
Warwick being subsituted as the heirs of the "late" Countess of
Warwick. All that changed after Edward's death and she was able to
petition in her own right.


>
> Marie:
> I would like to banish the notion that she was a mere victim who had
> never involved herself in politics and suggest she was right behind
> the Kingmaker in his rebellion against Edward, and in his
> accommodation with Henry VI. Her father had been Henry VI's
guardian,
> and she made much of that in the Beauchamp Pageant, which she
> probably commissioned.
>
> Carol:
> I don't see what this "notion" has to do with my point.

Think about it. If Edward regarded her as a traitor he would have
been less likely to agree to her release without some terms,
particularly as she was fuming mad about her lands.


I never
> referred to the Countess of Warwick as a victim. She put herself in
> sanctuary; Edward robbed her of her lands; Richard took her home to
> Middleham. I have no idea whether she was "right behind the
Kingmaker"
> in his decisions, but it's not relevant to the glaring falsity of
> Rous's remark.
>
> Marie:
> > <snip> And when she petitioned parliament for restitution of her
> estates straight after Bosworth she claimed she had "ever loved"
Henry
> VI and had never willingly done anything against him. She had made a
> nuisance of herself in sanctuary writing to the entire royal family
> and petitioning parliament about her unjust imprisonment at
Beaulieu.
> Then Richard is allowed to take her to Middleham and Edward brokers
a
> settlement rendering her legally dead. Do you think Richard would
have
> been allowed to let her go down to Westminster and harangue Edward
again?
>
> Carol:
> All I know is that Richard, who could have left her in sanctuary,
took
> her home to Middleham. I don't think it was a matter of "allowing"
her
> to "harangue" Edward. If we're going to make assumptions, we might
as
> well assume that she was content to have her lands go to her
daughters
> )or their husbands) rather than losing them to strangers. At least
> they would (she must have thought) go to her descendants.

I'm sure that was better than nothing, but there are two pieces of
evidence that contradict it:-
1) Her petition to Edward IV, at a time when Clarence and Isabel held
her inheritance
2) Her petition to Henry VII, at a time when her grandson Warwick
held half her inheritance. She didn't ask for only Anne's half back.
She asked for the complete repeal of the Act rendering her legally
dead so that she could have the lot again.

>
> All I can find online about Henry VII and the Countess of Warwick is
> that Parliament "in consideration of the true and faithful service
and
> allegiance by her borne to Henry VI" restored her lands, which she
was
> promptly "persuaded" to turn over to Henry. (What Henry VI has to do
> with it, I don't know.)

Well, I've been trying to explain that. She was at heart, seemingly,
a Lancastrian, and her attachment to Henry VI helped her with Henry
VII.
There's a whole story there, Carol, but I'm not ready to share it yet.

> Carol, hoping that Marie will quote from and identify her sources
next
> time, preferably with links to make it easier to view the quotations
> in context.

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

Marie (well behind with jobs now)

--- In , "Brian Wainwright"
<wainwright.brian@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , mariewalsh2003
> <no_reply@> wrote: <snipped]
> >
> >> By the by, Rous indicates a possible reason (other than the
possible
> > presence of Richard at the Tower) for the widespread belief that
> > Richard was responsible for the murder of Henry VI. He refers to
an
> > old prophecy - clearly dating from the lifetime of Duke Humphrey -

> > that Henry VI would die by the hands of the Duke of Gloucester.
> > I'm afraid prophecies and horoscopes were red-hot stuff at the
time.
> >
> > Marie
> >
>
> I am intrigued, Marie, by the dagger that was once preserved in the
> chapel that used to be on Caversham Bridge, supposedly the one
Richard
> used to stab Henry VI. While in the past I have mocked this, given
the
> medieval tendency to fake relics, it does at least demonstrate that
> there was an early tradition that Richard had murdered Henry,
certainly
> prior to Shakespeare.
>
> It may be utterly irrelevant, but Caversham was a Beauchamp
(formerly
> Despenser)manor.

That's really interesting. I have read about Caversham, and this is
on websites I'd looked at before, but I too must have ignored it.
Yes, not only did Caversham belong to family, but it was Anne's
birthplace and one of the family's favourite residences. William of
Worcester (Itineraries) says her father rebuilt the manor house
there. Her father was there when he made his lengthy will in 1437. In
her will, written in 1439, her mother also referred to the place,
viz: "And to Our Lady of Caversham I bequeath a crown of gold, made
of my chain weighing twenty-five pounds and other broken gold in my
cabinet and two tables [tablets] (the one of St Katherine and the
other of St George), the precious stones of which tablets to be set
in the said crown." One of her bequests to Walsingham was "a
tabernacle of silver like in the timber [timbre?] to that over Our
Lady of Caversham."
The little duchess Anne Beauchamp was buried in Reading Abbey, which
is on the opposite bank of the Thames facing Caversham.
Caversham was in the diocese of Salisbury, and the Countess described
herself (and indeed Anne Neville was described) in petitions to the
Pope as "of the diocese of Salisbury".
Caversham was also one of the estates to wich the Countess was
restored, for life only, in 1490 or 1491. I think the place was very
important to her. Indeed, the chapel was dedicated to St. Anne, and
she may even have been named for St. Anne of Caversham.
I found this on the net, which seems to be the source of the story.
It is a letter from Dr. john London to Thomas Cromwell during the
dissolution of the mnasteries (18 September 1538):-
"I have sent upp the principal relik of idolatrie within this realm,
an aungell wt oon wyng that browght to Caversham the spere hedde that
percyd or Saviours syde upon the crosse. It was conveyd home to
Notley. butt I sent my Servant purposely for ytt. I have sent also
iij cots of the Images wt such things as I fownde upon them, wt the
dagger that they slew [sic] King Henry the vj and the knyff that
kylled saynt Edward, wt many other lyk holy things. I have defacyd
that chapell inward and have sent home the chanon to hys monastery to
Notley."
From: 'Houses of Benedictine monks: The abbey of Reading', A History
of the County of Berkshire: Volume 2 (1907), pp. 62-73. URL:
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=40057. Date
accessed: 09 August 2008.

This letter doesn't actually mention Richard, so shows only that
whoever donated the dagger believed Henry had been murdered by
someone.
But anyway, it would have become just another crown property on the
Countess's death, but it is possible that anyone with a veneration
for the place might have donated this dagger. But how would anyone
get such a thing, real or feigned? You would imagine the murderer
would wipe the blade and stick the thing back in his belt.
But a possible link with the Countess, given her links to both Henry
VI and Caversham, is certainly not to be dismissed, is it?
There may be earlier references to this dagger lying in unpublished
documents. It would be nice to know more.





>
> Another random thought. After the rout at Ludford Bridge, Lady
> Salisbury was attainted, presumably because she was an heiress. But
> Lady Warwick, and even bigger heiress, was not. Now given that
their
> legal status was the same (under coverture) it's tempting to ask
> whether this was because Anne Beauchamp was, from a Lancastrian
> POV, 'one of us.'
>
> Mind you, I'm not convinced by this, it could equally be that Lady
> Salisbury was 'definitely NOT one of us.' I think I'm right in
saying
> she was the first woman to be attainted.


Yes, that just struck me recently too (you might have guessed I've
been compiling information on Anne Beauchamp). Certainly the two
women were not being treated the same. Had Anne Beauchamp's lands
been seized anyway, though? I haven't looked into that yet, but I
have in my notes that on 20th October, a week after the flight from
Ludlow, the King and his ministers lodged at Warwick Castle -
unfortunately I haven't noted the source, which is very bad of me.
There is no doubt that at this time nobody's lands had been seized.
The Countess was probably present at Warwick at the time - it was the
couple's main residence at that period, and it was from Warwick that
her husband had set out for Ludlow.
Was she a willing hostess? Or not? Was she being interrogated for
information about her husband? Hard to think that she wouldn't have
been. If so I suggest she may have been co-operative since she was
not attainted. Very interesting.

Marie

--- In , mariewalsh2003
<no_reply@...> wrote: (snipped)
>
>> The little duchess Anne Beauchamp was buried in Reading Abbey,
which
> is on the opposite bank of the Thames facing Caversham.
> Caversham was in the diocese of Salisbury, and the Countess
described
> herself (and indeed Anne Neville was described) in petitions to the
> Pope as "of the diocese of Salisbury".
> Caversham was also one of the estates to wich the Countess was
> restored, for life only, in 1490 or 1491. I think the place was
very
> important to her. Indeed, the chapel was dedicated to St. Anne, and
> she may even have been named for St. Anne of Caversham.
> I found this on the net, which seems to be the source of the story.
> It is a letter from Dr. john London to Thomas Cromwell during the
> dissolution of the mnasteries (18 September 1538):-
> "I have sent upp the principal relik of idolatrie within this
realm,
> an aungell wt oon wyng that browght to Caversham the spere hedde
that
> percyd or Saviours syde upon the crosse. It was conveyd home to
> Notley. butt I sent my Servant purposely for ytt. I have sent also
> iij cots of the Images wt such things as I fownde upon them, wt the
> dagger that they slew [sic] King Henry the vj and the knyff that
> kylled saynt Edward, wt many other lyk holy things. I have defacyd
> that chapell inward and have sent home the chanon to hys monastery
to
> Notley."
> From: 'Houses of Benedictine monks: The abbey of Reading', A
History
> of the County of Berkshire: Volume 2 (1907), pp. 62-73. URL:
> http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=40057. Date
> accessed: 09 August 2008.
>
> This letter doesn't actually mention Richard, so shows only that
> whoever donated the dagger believed Henry had been murdered by
> someone.
> But anyway, it would have become just another crown property on the
> Countess's death, but it is possible that anyone with a veneration
> for the place might have donated this dagger. But how would anyone
> get such a thing, real or feigned? You would imagine the murderer
> would wipe the blade and stick the thing back in his belt.
> But a possible link with the Countess, given her links to both
Henry
> VI and Caversham, is certainly not to be dismissed, is it?
>>

As you may have guessed I first got interested in Caversham when
researching Constance of York for my novel. However, although I
picked up on St Anne's Well, I did *not* appreciate what a big
pilgrimage site it was in toto. This site gives some of the
historical info

http://www.ourladyandstanne.org.uk/shrine.htm

And the story is quite complex as there seem to be at least two
chapels, one for St Anne (on the bridge) and another for the BVM.

My understanding is that the alleged dagger was in the St Anne chapel
and was venerated by pilgrims on their way to Henry VI's tomb at
Windsor. Now that latter wasn't in your source and I'm pretty sure I
didn't dream it.

Now what the heck was my source??? I don't *think* it was the one you
quoted, Marie, for the reason above, although that certainly adds to
the evidence. I've a feeling it might have been Leland. I *hope* I
didn't jump to the conclusion that it was allegedly Richard's dagger.
I'm afraid my memory is rubbish these days - at one time I'd have
been able to say 'Oh, it was in the _Ricardian_ April 1996' or
whatever.

It's highly unlikely that Richard (or anyone else) labelled up a
dagger as 'used to kill Henry VI 1471' and then put it away for
posterity. But given the local and family connection, Anne Beauchamp
would be in a good position to provide a dagger and claim a
provenance. I may be doing the lady a gross injustice, but in fact
*someone* must have done exactly that, and the location of Caversham
for this 'relic' hints strongly at a Beauchamp connection.

Brian W

> The petition to Henry VII
> was granted in 1489,

Sorry, meant 1487

and appears on the rolls for that parliament.

Carol earlier:
> >
> > Unless we count the letter that Buck attributes to Elizabeth of
York, who allegedly claims that she can't wait for the queen to die so
she can marry her "only joy and maker in this world," the only
contemporary source that mentions her illness and death is the
Croyland Chronicle, from which the bare facts can be deduced if we
ignore the bias:
> >
> > "[D]uring this feast of the Nativity, far too much attention was
given to dancing and gaiety, and vain changes of apparal presented to
queen Anne and the lady Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the late
king, being of similar colour and shape; a thing that caused the
people to murmur and the nobles and prelates greatly to wonder
thereat; while it was said by many that the king was bent, either on
the anticipated death of the queen taking place, or else, by means of
divorce, for which he supposed he had quite sufficient grounds, on
contracting a marriage with the said Elizabeth. For it appeared that
in no other way
> > could his kingly power be established, or the hopes of his rival be
> > put an end to.
> >
> > "In the course of a few days after this, the queen fell extremely
> > sick, and her illness was supposed to have increased still more and
> > more, because the king entirely shunned her bed, declaring that it was
> > by the advice of his physicians that he did so. Why enlarge? About the
> > middle of the following month, upon the day of the great eclipse of
> > the sun, which then took place, queen Anne, before-named, departed
> > this life, and was buried at Westminster, with no less honors than
> > befitted the interment of a queen."
> >
> > http://www.r3.org/bookcase/croyland/croy8.html
> >
> > Apparently, Elizabeth of York and the queen appeared in similar
> > clothing, which may have started rumors that Richard intended to marry
> > Elizabeth. If rumors were indeed already circulating regarding "the
> > anticipated death of the queen," she must already have been showing
> > signs of illness at Christmas. The chronicler says that "in the course
> > of a few days" after the end of the Christmas celebrations (they would
> > end with Twelfth Night or Epiphany, January 6), the queen fell very
> > ill. Though the chronicler insinuates that Richard shunned Anne's bed,
> > claiming that his physicians advised him to do so, I think we can
> > safely assume that they did indeed forbid him to share her bed because
> > of the danger to him from what was known to be a contagious illness.
>
Katy:
> You are picking and choosing which statements from the Croyland
> Chronicler (and others) you choose to believe and which you reject out
> of hand, according to whether or not they bolster your own theories.

Carol responds:
I was under the impression that the purpose of this forum was to
present and interpret the available evidence. I've presented the
Croyland Chronicler's statement, along with my interpretation,
including his error in the date of Anne's death. I would be happy to
hear your alternate interpretation. (You do concede, I hope, that the
Croyland chronicler is biased against Richard and that he is sometimes
inaccurate in his information.) And note "it was said by many," always
an indicator that the source for that particular piece of apparent
information is rumor.
>
Carol earlier:
> > She did not, however, die "in the middle of the following month."
She died on March 16, more than two months after her illness confined
her to her bed.
> >
> > Kendall and others have assumed that the illness was tuberculosis
because the physicians forbade Richard to share her bed and because
Anne's sister Isabel also seems to have died of tuberculosis.
>
Katy:
> Who says that?

Carol:

First, please note that I said "assumed" with regard to Anne's death
and "seems" with regard to Isabel's. I'm not stating the cause of
Isabel's (or Anne's) death as fact. I'm stating that Kendall and
others have made that assumption. And since I was discussing Kendall,
I thought it was clear that "who says that" referred to him. (I also
had in mind Penman, but since she's a novelist rather than a
historian, I didn't mention her. <smile>)

Here's Kendall on the subject:

"[Richard's] wife Anne, for all the golry of her dress [at the
Christmas celbrations mentioned by the Croyland Chronicler], was fast
failing. The tireless, robust Kingmaker had brought forth two delicate
daughters. Isabel had died befor she was twenty-four, probably of
tuberculosis. The same disease was now ravaging Anne, crushed in
spirit by the death of her son." (365)

I was also pointing out the Croyland chronicler's error in Anne's
death date, an important point with regard to his reliability.(Also,
he can't make up his mind whether Richard is contemplating divorce,
for which there is no shred of evidence, only rumor, or anticipating
the queen's death.)

Katy:

> Clarence believed she had been poisoned and made formal accusations.

Carol:
Forgive me. I don't want to sound rude. But no one, to my knowledge,
credits Clarence's accusation. I would be indebted to you if you could
name a reputable historian who regards Ankarette Twynyho's execution
without trial as anything other than an act of murder by the
increasingly unstable Clerence (who also declared his brother Edward a
bastard and himself the rightful king because Edward of Lancaster had
died without issue)? If you have any evidence in support of Clarence's
accusation, I'd be very interested to hear it.

I'm not here to promote my own agenda. I'm here to share information
and ideas with other people interested in Richard III. That doesn't
mean, however, that I intend to refrain from expressing opinions that
I believe can be substantiated, one of which is that the Croyland
chronicler is not an objective commentator and we need to look closely
at what he says rather than taking it on faith as accurate. (I would
say the same of any medieval chronicler or commentator, including
those with a Yorkist or pro-Richard bias.)

Katy:
> Another theory is that she died of a remarkably protracted case of
puerperal infection.

Carol:
Now there's a theory that sounds plausible given that she died
following childbirth and her infant son followed her to the grave
shortly afterward. In fact, it sounds more plausible than Kendall's
tuberculosis theory. Since Isabel did previously give birth to a
still-born child, it's possible that she was frail, but Kendall seems
to be taking it for granted. (It's interesting, though, that Isabel,
who died at twenty-three, gave birth to four children, two of whom
survived her, whereas Anne, who died at twenty-eight, gave birth to
only one child, who *appears* to have been frail and certainly
predeceased her. In her case, at any rate, we can rule out puerperal
fever, and the chronicler's testimony, setting aside his assumptions
about Richard's thoughts and motives, *appears* to indicate that the
disease was indeed contagious.

Carol, whose original intention was merely to answer the question of
where the belief that Anne was consumptive came from

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

>
> I'm not here to promote my own agenda. I'm here to share information
> and ideas with other people interested in Richard III. That doesn't
> mean, however, that I intend to refrain from expressing opinions that
> I believe can be substantiated,


There. thee, Carol. We often disagree with each other in this forum,
but we do try to be civil about it.

Katy

Carol earlier:
> > Why would the Countess of Warwick have been at Fotheringhay for
> > Richard's birth? <snip> in my view, it's most unlikely that the
Countess, even if she were in attendance at Richard's birth, would
have told Rous that Richard was born with teeth, or even with hair
streaming to his shoulders, or even that the Duchess of York had had a
(seemingly) long and difficult pregnancy, or yet another difficult
birth (her eleventh).
> >
<snip> Unlike Duchess Cecily, she wasn't known for following her
husband around. So, even if the Earl of Warwick was at Fotheringhay in
October 1452 <snip>, I doubt that his wife was there with him.

Marie:
> Not evidence that she was, but evidence that it was not unlikely. <snip>

Carol responds:

Exactly. it's unlikely that she was present for Richard's birth. Not
impossible, just unlikely.

Marie:

> Rous tells us (in the Roll) that she was "Glad to be at and with
> women that traueld of chyld. full comfortable and plenteus then of
> all thyng that shuld be helpyng to hem. . . ".


Carol:
Ah, yes. Rous. But since he deleted his earlier praise of Richard and
substituted assertions indicating that Richard was a monster born, I
hope you'll forgive me for not taking anything Rous says at face
value. Even his praise of Richard is suspect because of the source
(although it agrees with statements made by Langton and others at the
time and the details ring true, in contrast to the mythmaking of the
two years in his mother's womb).

marie:
Fotheringhay is only 60 miles from Warwick. Cecily had stood godmother
to Isabel (we know this from Clarence's dispensation), so it is very
likely Cecily would have asked the Countess of Warwick to stand
godmother to her next child. The original dispensation for Richard and
Anne's marriage, if it were ever to turn up, would answer that question.

Carol:
I thought that Richard and Anne married without a dispensation. Do you
think that one existed but was destroyed?

In any case, even if the Countess of Warwick was Richard's godmother,
she wouldn't necessarily have been present at his birth, and even if
she were, it seems unlikely that she'd confide the details of his
birth or that of any other child to Rous, a chantry priest, who was
primarily interested (at least when he wrote the Rous Roll) in
celebrating the Nevilles, not the husbands of Neville wives. By the
time he had any reason to attack Richard III, he was probably no
longer in contact with her--and as Richard had apparently been a good
son-in-law to her, whereas Henry VII had taken away her lands, I doubt
that she had any motive for providing Rous with information that could
be distorted to make Richard look monstrous. He must have invented the
two-year pregnancy (adding the teeth and long hair as characteristics
of a fifteen-month-old child (twenty-four months minus the nine months
of normal gestation.) Pollard notes that the birth sign Scorpio was
sometimes assigned to the entire month of October, which would give
Rous an excuse for changing Richard's birth sign from Libra to Scorpio
(he doesn't say anything about Scorpio in the ascendant). I agree with
him (and I'm no fan of Pollard in general) that this change was a
propaganda device. (I can quote him if you like, but I'd have to type
it in and I'm being lazy at the moment.)

Marie:
> But I do think there is the possibility – no more than that – that
the revision and presentation of Rous' Historia was done in collusion
with the Countess of Warwick, for the reasons I outlined in my last
post. Alternatively, Rous may have taken it on himself to do this,
desperate to get his major work "outed" before his death, and hoping
it might also help his former patrons the Countess and her grandson. I
don't think personal ambition is likely to have been his motivation
as he was already elderly, but the hope of a retirement pension for
his pains may have been a real concern.
>
Carol:
It's possible. I don't think we have sufficient evidence to exp;ore
Rous's psychology or to assign him any motive other than pleasing
Henry VII. Nor do I think it at all likely that the countess would
have given him any details about Richard's birth (especially not a
two-year pregnancy) that could be used against him.

May I ask you, just as your own opinion: Do you think that Rous's
original praise of Richard was sincere? He could not have had any
personal grudge against Richard, and he surely didn't believe that
Richard had really poisoned Queen Anne or murdered Henry VI (as an
eighteen-year-old war hero) with his own hands, whatever he believed
about Edward IV's sons. and he may have wanted, as you say, to call
the Countess of Warwick's sufferings to Henry's attention, prudently
laying them at Richard's door rather than Henry's.

Complete sidenote: It's interesting to me how many people either
forget or don't realize how young Richard was at Barnet and
Tewkesbury. We read references to Edward of Lancaster as "the young
prince," but Richard was only one year older, almost to the day.
(Sorry for the digression!)

Carol earlier:
> > Sidenote here: I wonder if baby Ursula, the little sister who died
in her cradle, was born on the Feast of the Eleven Thousand Virgins
(October 21), which is associated with St. Ursula.

Marie:
> She was born in July. She was probably given the name because Ursula
was supposed to have been a British princess.

Carol again:
Really? What's your source of information and can you link me to it?
(Maybe Cecily, whose name was rather unusual, decided to give her last
daughter a less common name than Elizabeth, Anne, or Margaret!)
>
Carol earlier:
> Or the mere fact that Richard had a baby sister named Ursula who
died in infancy could have given Rous the idea to alter Richard's
birthdate from October 2 to October 21 (which would *almost* make him
a Scorpio--off by only two days).

Marie:
> Bear in mind that the medieval calendar was out of synch with ours.
> They would have passed into Scorpio about 12 days earlier than we do.

Carol:
Okay, then. That strengthens my little hypothesis. Moving his birthday
to October 21 would change him from a Libra to a full-fledged Scorpio
by their calendar, allowing Rous to associate scorpion imagery with
him. And I still think that Richard's having a sister named Ursula
*could* have planted the idea of having Richard born on the Feast of
the Eleven Thousand (Martyred) Virgins, the chief of whom was St.
Ursula, rather than the Feast of the Guardian Angels, associating him
with slaughter rather than protection (all to please Henry--I don't
see how it could have helped the Countess of Warwick).

Carol earlier:
> > You're right. He does say that Scorpio was in the ascendant. But
do you think, then, that he actually cast Richard's horoscope?

marie:
> Well, if he did it himself, it would have been inaccurate if he was
using 21st October as the birthdate. But I'm sure Richard's horoscope
had been cast and, again, the results would have been well known to
both Clarence and the Countess of Warwick.

Carol:
How does Clarence fit in here? He'd been dead for years before Rous
altered the Rous Roll. And Rous doesn't seem to have consulted
Richard, a mere husband of a Neville (unless you count his Neville
mother. I doubt that he consulted Clarence, either--certainly not
regarding the details of Richard's birth and probably not regarding
the details of his horoscope, either. And I've already explained why I
doubt that he consulted the Countess of Warwick about anything
relating to the altered Rous Roll or the Historium Regum Angliae.

Marie:
> Rous belongs to the class of minor clergy and chaplains who were
often involved in esoteric matters such as astrology, alchemy,
prognostication and even necromancy, and his work does indicate an
interest in astrology and prophecy.

Carol:
Which means that he probably cast the horoscope himself based on the
wrong birthdate. Not that it matters to us today, but it might have
mattered to his readers. But it's that scorpion imagery and the
altered birthdate that matter in terms of propaganda value rather than
the horoscope itself, in my view.

mari:
> It's called spin, Carol. My point entirely – these people were
writing to dnigrate Richard. Do you think if an astrologer had a
client they wished to flatter who had Scorpio in their chart they
would put it like that? I suggest not. <snip>

Carol:
You call it spin. I call it invention and distortion. Richard was
*not* a Scorpio; his birthday had to be changed to make him one. (Or
he had to be given Scorpio in the ascendant rather than Scorpio as the
sun sign, which seems redundant since the birthdate had already been
altered to allow the scorpion imagery. We agree that it was propaganda
and that its intention was to denigrate Richard. I just think it's
something more than "spin." (Please forgive me, but I don't like the
condescending tone here.) And, *of course*, if, say, Henry VII were a
Scorpio, Rous would have found some other form of propaganda than the
imagery associated with Henry's birth sign. *My* point is that
Richard's true birth sign, Libra, the scales of justice, would have
been perfect for the idealized Richard that Rous had originally
depicted. Perhaps to make up for his earlier praise, he moved in the
other direction, altering the birth sign and birth date for propaganda
purposes because he could associate a scorpion with malice and wrath
and murder. That's hard to do with a pair of scales, Marie, whether or
not it's associated with justice. (Sorry to adopt your tactic here,
but I thought that you might understand my point about condescenscion
better if I illustrated it by temporarily adopting the same strategy.)

Carol earlier:
<snip> He could not have *realized* that Richard's sun sign was
Scorpio because it was Libra, whether or not Scorpio was in the
ascendant at his birth. He was born on October 2, an easily verifiable
fact, and October 2 is in Libra. And even if he'd been born on October
21, Scorpio the sun sign doesn't begin until October 23. It wasn't a
matter of "realizing" anything, IMO. It was a matter of making the
"facts" fit the monster who was two years in his mother's womb and
committed all those murders that Rous knew perfectly well he didn't
commit.

Marie:
> <snip> What I meant was that the birthdate Rous put down as
Richard's would have made Scorpio his Sun Sign as well as his
Ascendant. Had he realised that he would have surely have capitalised
on it.

Carol:
Possibly, but I see no need to do so. He already had the scorpion
imagery and the murderously suggestive birthdate. Maybe "Scorpio in
the ascendant" is just a slip, referring to Richard's original
horoscope (based on his real birthday), a phrase that should have been
changed to "birth sign" to make the lie consistent throughout. In any
case, the distortions served Rous's purpose, whether he called Scorpio
the sun sign or the rising sign. All he wanted was the imagery and the
connotations (ignoring, of course, any favorable connotations
associated with that sign).
>
Carol earlier:
> > A feast commemorating the (supposed) slaughter of eleven thousand
innocent young women was more appropriate to Rous's propaganda
purposes than a feast commemorating Guardian Angels, just as Scorpio
was more appropriate to his depiction of Richard as the murderer, not
only of his nephews but of his wife and poor, simple Henry VI, than
Libra, the scales of justice.

Marie:
> Carol, don't forget Richard was born with Scorpio in the Ascendant.
> Leaving out Libra is spin, isn't it?

Carol:
First, we don't even know that Richard was born with Scorpio in the
ascendant. *Rous* says that he was. You can believe him if you like. I
have no idea whether that particular statement is true or not. Second,
Richard was *not* born in the *sun sign* of Scorpio. His sun sign is
Libra, but Rous moves his birthday to October 21 to undo that
inconvenient little detail. Whether you call it "spin" or
"distortion," he's changed the sign from Libra, with its favorable
connotations (scales of justice), to Scorpio with its murderous,
stinging scorpion symbol, for propaganda purposes.

I actually don't think we're that far apart in our positions. You
apparently see him as putting a negative spin on a "fact," and I see
him as changing the facts because the actual birth date and birth sign
didn't fit his propaganda purposes.

Marie:
> You are looking at the feasts of martyrs with a modern eye. The
feast was dedicated to these glorious virgin martyrs, blissful saints
in heaven, not to their murderers.

Carol:
Please don't tell me how I'm looking at things. If I looked at the
Feast of Eleven Thousand Virgins with a modern eye, I'd consider first
the matter of the probable copying error that led to such an
improbably huge number of virgin martyrs. I am *attempting* to look at
matters with a *medieval* eye, one that would see a birth on the date
ocommemorating eleven thousand virgin martyrs as an evil omen (rather
like being born on the Feast of the Holy Innocents (an even better
birth date for Richard the Monster if Rous could have made his
birthday fall on December 28--Richard as a born Herod!) *Of course*
the day celebrates the martyrs, not their murderers. But it also
suggests that they *were* murdered. The feast doesn't commemorate
their unknown and, given that they were virgins, possibly uneventful
lives. It celebrates their deaths. Think of the passion plays
depicting the slaughter of the innocents and the portrayal of Herod in
those plays.
>
Marie earlier:
> > > Look, I would like to distinguish between items of common
rumour, which Rous relayed without question, and the novelties he
introduced, which he spun up from some foundation in fact.
> >
Carol erlier:
> > So would I. My whole focus here is to examine the texts and
attempt to determine which statements are fabrications, which are
rumours, and which are distortions of fact. I believe that's also your
objective. We simply disagree in our interpretation of Rous.

Marie:
> We seem to disagree in our interpretation of the term "spin"!

Carol:
Either that or what I said earlier: you think he's merely giving
slightly exaggerated facts a negative spin, whereas I see him as
deliberately distorting the facts. The end result is the same in terms
of the effect on Richard. Rous's distortions, whatever we wish to call
them, became the foundation on which other lies and distortions were
built. ,snip>

*Unless* we credit the one shoulder higher than the other idea first
put forward by Rous along with this morass of lies and distortions
regarding his birth, I can't think of one true statement in Rous's
description. Richard was not two years in his mother's womb. He was
not born on October 21. He was not a Scorpio, whether or not he had
Scorpio in the ascendant. He did not kill his wife. He did not kill
Henry VI with his own hands or even order his execution; that was
Edward's doing. He did not mistreat the Countess of Warwick (unless
you count not giving her back her lands after he became king). There
is no proof that he killed his nephews or ordered them to be killed.

If that's "spin," save me from spin.

Marie:
> Lie is a word I would rather not bring into historical discussion.

Carol:
Even as regards two years in his mother's womb? How about "invention"
or "fabrication" (which would also apply to much of More and Vergil,
especially the imagined dialogues)?

marie:
We have no contemporary evidence whatsoever that Anne was consumptive,

Carol:
I've discussed that topic in another post. I plead guilty to taking
Kendall at his word on that particular matter.

Marie:
> and for reasons I have explained, I believe there were conditions
attached when Edward allowed Richard to bring the Countess to
Middleham, and her movements probably were restricted, until 1483 at
least.

Carol:
I understand that you believe that. I believe otherwise, I've already
explained. Perhaps we should drop this particular point.

Marie:
> So you are agreeing, then, that Rous did not invent this charge.

Carol:
All right, I'll revise my position slightly. Rous is the first
chronicler to state that Richard killed Henry *with his own hands*,
which is not at all what Warkworth's chronicle says or implies. It
says only that Richard was at the tower that day "with many other." No
indication is given of his business there.

Marie (moved to fit the discussion):
The English translation of the relevant passage of the Welsh poem is:-
> "God from heaven, our creator,
> Was angered when Henry was killed.
> If he killed the saint
> On Thursday night, he sentenced himself to death.
> The little boar is no more,
> There was not killed one who more deserved it."

Carol:
thanks for quoting the ballad. However, if you look at this charming
little ditty, you'll see that it *implies* that "the little boar"
killed "the saint." But it says "If* he killed the saint," and "he"
has no antecedent in the quoted lines except "God from heaven" or
"Henry." The *implication* is that "the little boar" sentenced himself
to death by killing the saint, but the accusation that *Richard killed
Henry with his own hands* is not made straight out.

Here's a paraphrase:
God was angry when Henry was killed.
*If* he (unidentified) killed Henry, he sentenced himself to death.
Richard is dead. Nobody who died deserved it more.

All that the ballad (which doesn't actually *say* that Richard killed
Henry though the insinuation is clear) indicates is that, among Henry
Tudor's followers, the rumor that Richard was responsible for Henry's
death was already being spread (rather like a similar rumor that the
so-called princes were dead but none knew how).

But there's no indication that Rous was familiar with those ballads,
and he's the first of the chroniclers to make that accusation. (I'm
not talking about Richard being *associated* with Henry's death, as in
Warkworth. I'm talking about the obviously false charge that the
king's eighteen-year-old brother murdered the king's prisoner *with
his own hands* (and, by implication, without authorization). Rous
could have invented the "with his own hands" part independently of the
Welsh ballads, which insinuate rather than state, or he could have
adapted it from rumors. My point is that there's all the difference in
the world between being at the Tower on the day somebody was executed
there (as hundreds of people undoubtedly also were) and performing a
murder (not even depicted as an execution ordered by the king) with
his own hands. It's rather like saying, Mary Todd Lincoln was at
Ford's Theater when her husband was shot. She must be responsible for
his murder, or at least implicated in the conspiracy.

In Richard's case, there may have been a rumor at the time that he, as
England's Constable, was involved in the execution (I doubt that many
people believed the official line about dying of "pure displeasure and
melancholy")

Marie:
> Also I forgot to mention the allusion in Crowland. I'm not going to
look it up, but he says the person who killed henry VI has justly
earned the name of tyrant. Now, Crowland did not consider Edward IV to
be a tyrant, but he was hostile to Richard III.

Carol:
Nevertheless, that's very different from saying outright, as he could
have safely done under Henry Tudor, that *Richard killed Henry with
his own hands*). And obviously the Croyland chronicler would have
known that it was in *Edward's* interest, not Richard's, to kill Henry
to prevent uprisings and that it was *Edward*, not his much-loved
younger brother, whom he continued to trust, who gave the order.
Insinuations don't count. I'm talking about straight out saying that
Richard himself killed Henry. (Of course, even Rous admits that the
accusation is just a rumor.) Moreover, the eighteen-year-old Richard
could not have been called a tyrant because he wasn't a king. He was,
at most, a loyal servant of the king, high-ranking, to be sure, but
there could be no question who was in charge.

BTW, I notice that everyone here says "Crowland." the American RII
Society calls it "Croyland," as does Kendall. Is "Crowland" the modern
usage and "Croyland" the usage in Richard's time? Who is the authority
for the use of "Crowland" in preference to "Croyland"? Maybe it's a
British usage?

Marie:
> She doesn't make any appearances at all during those years, though
there is a reference to a servant of hers purchasing goods in York.

Carol:
Yes. I know about that. Hardly an indication that her freedom was
restricted after Richard had her brought home to Middleham.

Marie:
> The Beauchamp Pageant, and the Rows Roll, which also celebrates the
Beauchamps, weren't commissioned until after Edward IV's death. It was
Edward who brokered the deal that rendered her legally dead, and when
Earl Richard Beauchamp's heirs general petitioned Chancery in 1478 she
was unable to participate, the Gloucesters and little Warwick being
subsituted as the heirs of the "late" Countess of Warwick.

Carol:
I have no argument with your assertion that Edward mistreated her.
Obviously, he did. But Richard managed to persuade Edward to allow him
(Richard) to take his mother-in-law out of sanctuary. If he wanted to
restrict her movements, keeping her in sanctuary was the way to do it.
nor does Edward's reference to her as the "late" (former) Countess of
Warwick have any bearing on Richard's treatment of her.

Marie:
> All that changed after Edward's death and she was able to petition
in her own right.
>
Carol:
Again, that has to do with Edward, not with Richard.

> > Carol:
> > I don't see what this "notion" [that she was a victim] has to do
with my point.

Marie:
> Think about it. If Edward regarded her as a traitor he would have
been less likely to agree to her release without some terms,
particularly as she was fuming mad about her lands.

Carol:
Forgive me if I sound rude, but think about what? (I'd rather that you
didn't tell me what to think, but never mind that now.) Your statement
has no connection with *my* point, which is that *Richard* didn't
restrict her, as far as can be determined. I am not talking about
*Edward's* treatment of her. I am not talking about her as anyone's
victim (except Henry's when he reversed the attainder only so that he
could take her lands away). I'm not sure why you're rgarding me as
defending some position that has nothing to do with my position. You
are clearly misunderstanding my argument, and your "obvious" point has
no connection with what I'm saying at all. Edward's regarding her as a
traitor (which was probably a legal fiction to allow him to attaint
her along with Warwick) has absolutely nothing to do with *Richard's*
view of her and treatment of her or with Rous's accusation of Richard
regarding her, which is my concern here.

It occurs to me that perhaps you're involved in some sort of long-term
discussion involving the Countess of Warwick and you're apparently
assuming that I hold the opposing view. If so, you're mistaken. I'm
not interested at this point in the Countess of Warwick except with
regard to Rous's statement that Richard "locked her up" when she "fled
to him for refuge." That's an od "spin" to put on getting permission
to take her *out* of sanctuary so that she can live with her daughter
and son-in-law at her former home.

Carol earlier:
<snip> I don't think it was a matter of "allowing" her to "harangue"
Edward. If we're going to make assumptions, we might as well assume
that she was content to have her lands go to her daughters (or their
husbands) rather than losing them to strangers. At least they would
(she must have thought) go to her descendants.

Marie:
> I'm sure that was better than nothing, but there are two pieces of
> evidence that contradict it:-
> 1) Her petition to Edward IV, at a time when Clarence and Isabel
held her inheritance

Carol:
Which would have occurred while she was still in sanctuary and is
therefore irrelevant to this discussion about Richard's supposedly
restricting her movements after he took her to Middleham.

Marie:
> 2) Her petition to Henry VII, at a time when her grandson Warwick
held half her inheritance. She didn't ask for only Anne's half back.
She asked for the complete repeal of the Act rendering her legally
dead so that she could have the lot again.

Carol:
Of course she did. Anne, Richard, George, and Isabel were all dead,
and her poor little grandson was held prisoner in the tower by Henry.
None of that has anything whatever to do with Richard's treatment of
her while she was at Middleham.
>
Carol:
> > All I can find online about Henry VII and the Countess of Warwick
is that Parliament "in consideration of the true and faithful service
and allegiance by her borne to Henry VI" restored her lands, which she
was promptly "persuaded" to turn over to Henry. (What Henry VI has to
do with it, I don't know.)

Marie:
> Well, I've been trying to explain that. She was at heart, seemingly,
a Lancastrian, and her attachment to Henry VI helped her with Henry VII.

Carol:
It certainly didn't help her to get her land back. The attainder was
reversed, yes, but then she was "persuaded" to return it. Anyway,
whatever her loyalties were after Henry VII usurped the throne, they
have nothing to do with Richard's treatment of her at Middleham while
he was still Duke of Gloucester. It seems to me that your interest in
the Countess of Warwick as a person in her own right, in itself
unusual and highly commendable, has caused you to bring in matters
that are extraneous to this particular discussion, which is about Rous.

Marie:
> There's a whole story there, Carol, but I'm not ready to share it yet.

Carol:
I'll be happy to hear it when the time comes. I can see that you have
a lot to say about the Countess and *Edward* and your idea that she
had Lancastrian sympathies is interesting (though I suspect that those
sympathies didn't necessarily translate into support of the Tudor
regime, however much she may have wished it to appear so in her desire
to have her lands back). However, I think you may be pushing the
argument too far in assuming that she would slander her former
son-in-law, who had treated her well, in an effort to obtain lands
taken from her by Edward, not Richard. We'll see when the time comes,
but I hope that you'll be able to build your argument on more solid
ground than conjecture.

Thank you for explaining that your sources are mostly not online. I
hope that you have another source for similar materials to counter the
anti-Ricardian bias of Michael Hicks. that's the problem with
materials related to Richard, though. They all have a bias one way or
another and too much is based on assumptions.

In any case, I think we've finished our discussion here and have come
to as close a consensus regarding Rous as we're likely ever to reach.
If you can actually quote from your sources (at least those that are
online) and provide a link where one is available, I would appreciate it.

Carol, rather burned out by this discussion and not sure whether she
wants to resume it

Carol earlier:
> > I'm not here to promote my own agenda. I'm here to share
information and ideas with other people interested in Richard III.
That doesn't mean, however, that I intend to refrain from expressing
opinions that I believe can be substantiated,
>
Katy:
> There. thee, Carol. We often disagree with each other in this forum,
but we do try to be civil about it.

Carol:
That's good to know. Any chance that I can get you to go upthread and
respond to my points about the Croyland Chronicler's explanation of
Anne's decline and death? I'd be interested in knowing how you and
others interpret the quotation and why you see it differently than I do.

Carol, who also believes in civil debate, of course!

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

Any chance that I can get you to go upthread and
> respond to my points about the Croyland Chronicler's explanation of
> Anne's decline and death? I'd be interested in knowing how you and
> others interpret the quotation and why you see it differently than I do.


I'll repeat the Chronicler's words that you quoted here:

" the only
contemporary source that mentions her illness and death is the
Croyland Chronicle, from which the bare facts can be deduced if we
ignore the bias:
> >
> > "[D]uring this feast of the Nativity, far too much attention was
given to dancing and gaiety, and vain changes of apparal presented to
queen Anne and the lady Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the late
king, being of similar colour and shape; a thing that caused the
people to murmur and the nobles and prelates greatly to wonder
thereat; while it was said by many that the king was bent, either on
the anticipated death of the queen taking place, or else, by means of
divorce, for which he supposed he had quite sufficient grounds, on
contracting a marriage with the said Elizabeth. For it appeared that
in no other way
> > could his kingly power be established, or the hopes of his rival be
> > put an end to.
> >
> > "In the course of a few days after this, the queen fell extremely
> > sick, and her illness was supposed to have increased still more and
> > more, because the king entirely shunned her bed, declaring that it was
> > by the advice of his physicians that he did so. Why enlarge? About the
> > middle of the following month, upon the day of the great eclipse of
> > the sun, which then took place, queen Anne, before-named, departed
> > this life, and was buried at Westminster,


He says she fell very sick suddenly and that Richard shunned her bed
on advice of his physicians. And she died a few weeks later on the
day of a great solar eclipse. (Parenthetically, I suppose someone has
checked into this and discovered whether there actually was a solar
eclipse visible in England on March 16, 1485.)

A sudden severe illness and death about ten weeks later could be a
very rapidly progressing tuberculosis. Or it could be a long course
of peritonitis after a miscarriage. Her sister Isabel lived about
that long after the birth of her last baby, after falling ill the
third day after his birth, suggesting that her illness was childbed
fever. Maybe Isabel also had tuberculosis, but if so, where did she
get it from? Not likely from Anne -- even if the notion that Anne
caught it during her stint as a kitchen wench, which in itself is
unproven (both the kitchen wench business and the idea that she
contracted tuberculosis then) Anne probably did not spend much time
with her sister after Gloucester rescued her, since the brothers were
estranged by then. So where would the well-fed, well-kept Duchess of
Clarence have managed to coincidentally pick up the same disease as
her sister?

Anyway, Croyland says Richard shunned her bed on advice of his
doctors, and that worsened her condition. Evidently the doctors
thought she was contagious. But I can't make the jump from that to
declaring that she had tuberculosis. I know it has become one of
those things "everybody knows" but I don't think anybody knows.

Her body exists, if it could be positively identified, at Westminster
Abbey. An examination of it might determine whether she had suffered
from tuberculosis. But I doubt there will be any exhumation.

(When Croyland says "Why enlarge?" or "Let us say no more" it means
he has no more information and has run out of gossip.)

Katy

--- In , "Carol"
<justcarol67@...> wrote:
>
> Carol earlier:
> > > Why would the Countess of Warwick have been at Fotheringhay for
> > > Richard's birth? <snip> in my view, it's most unlikely that the
> Countess, even if she were in attendance at Richard's birth, would
> have told Rous that Richard was born with teeth, or even with hair
> streaming to his shoulders, or even that the Duchess of York had
had a
> (seemingly) long and difficult pregnancy, or yet another difficult
> birth (her eleventh).
> > >
> <snip> Unlike Duchess Cecily, she wasn't known for following her
> husband around. So, even if the Earl of Warwick was at Fotheringhay
in
> October 1452 <snip>, I doubt that his wife was there with him.
>
> Marie:
> > Not evidence that she was, but evidence that it was not unlikely.
<snip>
>
> Carol responds:
>
> Exactly. it's unlikely that she was present for Richard's birth. Not
> impossible, just unlikely.


Carol, I wrote NOT unlikely
Marie
>
> Marie:
>
> > Rous tells us (in the Roll) that she was "Glad to be at and with
> > women that traueld of chyld. full comfortable and plenteus then
of
> > all thyng that shuld be helpyng to hem. . . ".
>
>
> Carol:
> Ah, yes. Rous. But since he deleted his earlier praise of Richard
and
> substituted assertions indicating that Richard was a monster born, I
> hope you'll forgive me for not taking anything Rous says at face
> value. Even his praise of Richard is suspect because of the source
> (although it agrees with statements made by Langton and others at
the
> time and the details ring true, in contrast to the mythmaking of the
> two years in his mother's womb).
>
> marie:
> Fotheringhay is only 60 miles from Warwick. Cecily had stood
godmother
> to Isabel (we know this from Clarence's dispensation), so it is very
> likely Cecily would have asked the Countess of Warwick to stand
> godmother to her next child. The original dispensation for Richard
and
> Anne's marriage, if it were ever to turn up, would answer that
question.
>
> Carol:
> I thought that Richard and Anne married without a dispensation. Do
you
> think that one existed but was destroyed?

It was frequently asserted by historians that they married without a
dispensation because no dispensation had yet been discovered in the
papal archives. This was always a foolish assertion since absence of
evidence is not evidence of absence, and in this case doubly foolish
since some of the Vatican archives remained secret. A couple of years
ago an historian named Peter D. Clarke published a paper on his work
in the newly opened archives of the Papal penitentiary, in wich he
had discovered several previously unknown dispensations relating to
the Yorkist era. One of these was for Rihard and Anne. It was issued
in April 1472 and it absolved them from the impediment known as
affinity that had arisen between them as a result of Anne's marriage
to Richard's second cousin once removed (off the top of my head, he
was) Edward of Lancaster. It did not address any other impediment,
although they had two separate blood relationships that needed a
dispensation. There has been much debate about the significance of
this since, but the likeliest reason appears to be that they had
actually obtained a dispensation before Anne's marriage to Edward,
and just needed this top-up - in other words, that Warwick obtained
dispensations for the marriages of both his daughters to both of King
Edward's sons.
I referred in my earlier post to Clarence's dispensation to marry
Isabel. We know about this only because Clarence's copy survived into
the 17th century and was copied by Dugdale. The Vatican copy has not
yet been found in any of the papal registers. That and Richard and
anne's initial dispensation are probably together.


>
> In any case, even if the Countess of Warwick was Richard's
godmother,
> she wouldn't necessarily have been present at his birth,


The top people tried to have their godparents on site in good time
for the birth, so the baptism would not be delayed (an unbaptised
baby could not go to heaven); so what you are suggesting is she may
have been at Fotheringhay but not attended the birth. Unlikely. Even
if that wrere true, she would have seen the newborn infant at his
christening.


and even if
> she were, it seems unlikely that she'd confide the details of his
> birth or that of any other child to Rous, a chantry priest, who was
> primarily interested (at least when he wrote the Rous Roll) in
> celebrating the Nevilles, not the husbands of Neville wives. By the
> time he had any reason to attack Richard III, he was probably no
> longer in contact with her--and as Richard had apparently been a
good
> son-in-law to her, whereas Henry VII had taken away her lands, I
doubt
> that she had any motive for providing Rous with information that
could
> be distorted to make Richard look monstrous. He must have invented
the
> two-year pregnancy (adding the teeth and long hair as
characteristics
> of a fifteen-month-old child (twenty-four months minus the nine
months
> of normal gestation.)

Pollard notes that the birth sign Scorpio was
> sometimes assigned to the entire month of October, which would give
> Rous an excuse for changing Richard's birth sign from Libra to
Scorpio
> (he doesn't say anything about Scorpio in the ascendant). I agree
with
> him (and I'm no fan of Pollard in general) that this change was a
> propaganda device. (I can quote him if you like, but I'd have to
type
> it in and I'm being lazy at the moment.)

Pollard and Jonathan Hughes have both misinterpreted Rous, imagining
he was talking about Richard's sun sign. Rous doesn't mention
Richard's sun sign. When a person's horoscope is cast the sun falls
where it falls, in the part of the zodiac it was actually in.
Pollard's statement makes no sense except on the level of
magazine "What's in your Horoscope's".

>
> Marie:
> > But I do think there is the possibility – no more than that –
that
> the revision and presentation of Rous' Historia was done in
collusion
> with the Countess of Warwick, for the reasons I outlined in my last
> post. Alternatively, Rous may have taken it on himself to do this,
> desperate to get his major work "outed" before his death, and
hoping
> it might also help his former patrons the Countess and her
grandson. I
> don't think personal ambition is likely to have been his motivation
> as he was already elderly, but the hope of a retirement pension for
> his pains may have been a real concern.
> >
> Carol:
> It's possible. I don't think we have sufficient evidence to exp;ore
> Rous's psychology or to assign him any motive other than pleasing
> Henry VII.

But you are happy to label him a lying timeserver??

Nor do I think it at all likely that the countess would
> have given him any details about Richard's birth (especially not a
> two-year pregnancy) that could be used against him.
>
> May I ask you, just as your own opinion: Do you think that Rous's
> original praise of Richard was sincere? He could not have had any
> personal grudge against Richard, and he surely didn't believe that
> Richard had really poisoned Queen Anne or murdered Henry VI (as an
> eighteen-year-old war hero) with his own hands, whatever he believed
> about Edward IV's sons. and he may have wanted, as you say, to call
> the Countess of Warwick's sufferings to Henry's attention, prudently
> laying them at Richard's door rather than Henry's.
>
> Complete sidenote: It's interesting to me how many people either
> forget or don't realize how young Richard was at Barnet and
> Tewkesbury. We read references to Edward of Lancaster as "the young
> prince," but Richard was only one year older, almost to the day.
> (Sorry for the digression!)
>
> Carol earlier:
> > > Sidenote here: I wonder if baby Ursula, the little sister who
died
> in her cradle, was born on the Feast of the Eleven Thousand Virgins
> (October 21), which is associated with St. Ursula.
>
> Marie:
> > She was born in July. She was probably given the name because
Ursula
> was supposed to have been a British princess.
>
> Carol again:
> Really? What's your source of information and can you link me to it?

Carol, I really can't recall. I have been into this subject for forty
years! I know there is a contemporary list of York's children which
gives birthdates and even times, probably made originally for the
very purpose of casting the children's horoscopes.


> (Maybe Cecily, whose name was rather unusual, decided to give her
last
> daughter a less common name than Elizabeth, Anne, or Margaret!)
> >
> Carol earlier:
> > Or the mere fact that Richard had a baby sister named Ursula who
> died in infancy could have given Rous the idea to alter Richard's
> birthdate from October 2 to October 21 (which would *almost* make
him
> a Scorpio--off by only two days).
>
> Marie:
> > Bear in mind that the medieval calendar was out of synch with
ours.
> > They would have passed into Scorpio about 12 days earlier than we
do.
>
> Carol:
> Okay, then. That strengthens my little hypothesis. Moving his
birthday
> to October 21 would change him from a Libra to a full-fledged
Scorpio
> by their calendar, allowing Rous to associate scorpion imagery with
> him. And I still think that Richard's having a sister named Ursula
> *could* have planted the idea of having Richard born on the Feast of
> the Eleven Thousand (Martyred) Virgins, the chief of whom was St.
> Ursula, rather than the Feast of the Guardian Angels, associating
him
> with slaughter rather than protection (all to please Henry--I don't
> see how it could have helped the Countess of Warwick).
>
> Carol earlier:
> > > You're right. He does say that Scorpio was in the ascendant. But
> do you think, then, that he actually cast Richard's horoscope?
>
> marie:
> > Well, if he did it himself, it would have been inaccurate if he
was
> using 21st October as the birthdate. But I'm sure Richard's
horoscope
> had been cast and, again, the results would have been well known to
> both Clarence and the Countess of Warwick.
>
> Carol:
> How does Clarence fit in here? He'd been dead for years before Rous
> altered the Rous Roll.

We don't know how long Rous had had this information. If it was a
long time, that could account for the error in Richard's birthdate.

And Rous doesn't seem to have consulted
> Richard, a mere husband of a Neville (unless you count his Neville
> mother. I doubt that he consulted Clarence, either--certainly not
> regarding the details of Richard's birth and probably not regarding
> the details of his horoscope, either.

You don't think Clarence may have been casting the horoscopes of his
brothers? His retainer Thomas Burdet and the astrologer John Stacy
died traitors' death in 1477 because they had (allegedly) cast the
horoscopes of the King and Prince of Wales without royal permission -
even going so far as to calculate their lifespans.


And I've already explained why I
> doubt that he consulted the Countess of Warwick about anything
> relating to the altered Rous Roll or the Historium Regum Angliae.
>
> Marie:
> > Rous belongs to the class of minor clergy and chaplains who were
> often involved in esoteric matters such as astrology, alchemy,
> prognostication and even necromancy, and his work does indicate an
> interest in astrology and prophecy.
>
> Carol:
> Which means that he probably cast the horoscope himself based on the
> wrong birthdate. Not that it matters to us today, but it might have
> mattered to his readers. But it's that scorpion imagery and the
> altered birthdate that matter in terms of propaganda value rather
than
> the horoscope itself, in my view.

He could only do it if he had the exact time of day of Richard's
birth. Richard's horoscope has been cast a couple of times in modern
times - there is one in the Barton Library. The ascendant sign
relates to the position of the dawn horizon, and for a birth at the
same time of day may or may not have shifted into another sign over a
period of just twenty days.

>
> mari:
> > It's called spin, Carol. My point entirely – these people were
> writing to dnigrate Richard. Do you think if an astrologer had a
> client they wished to flatter who had Scorpio in their chart they
> would put it like that? I suggest not. <snip>
>
> Carol:
> You call it spin. I call it invention and distortion. Richard was
> *not* a Scorpio; his birthday had to be changed to make him one. (Or
> he had to be given Scorpio in the ascendant rather than Scorpio as
the
> sun sign, which seems redundant since the birthdate had already been
> altered to allow the scorpion imagery.

So why did Rous not mention Richard's sun sign if it is so important?
He did not "lie" to make Richard a Scorpio - that is your spin. He
gave a wrong birthdate but made nothing of its implications. He gave
the correct rising sign and spun up on that. I thought I had already
explained that the sun sign is of LESS importance to an astrologer
than the rising sign, whatever you may have grown up believing. I'm
not discussing this any more, Carol.



>
> I actually don't think we're that far apart in our positions. You
> apparently see him as putting a negative spin on a "fact," and I see
> him as changing the facts because the actual birth date and birth
sign
> didn't fit his propaganda purposes.

Exactly, Carol, I don't know what you're arguing about really.
As for whether he totally made up Richard's appearance, which is what
my initial post was actually about, let us put it another way.
Suppose you were Rous (God Forbid! I hear your scream), wanting to
give a nasty description of Richard's appearance to please the Tudor.
You are (according to your position) prepared to just lie outright
and make it up from scratch. Is being small with a raised shoulder
the best your imagination can run to?

I would also suggest to you that if Rous had any intelligence he
would not write things that, so soon after Richard's death, could be
seen to be obviously false. Better to ground your description in
fact, but make it sound bad. Also not good to claim the Countess was
held prisoner at middleham if she had been notoriously gadding about
the country. At this early date, claims have to avoid contradicting
known facts.


>
> Marie:
> > You are looking at the feasts of martyrs with a modern eye. The
> feast was dedicated to these glorious virgin martyrs, blissful
saints
> in heaven, not to their murderers.
>
> Carol:
> Please don't tell me how I'm looking at things. If I looked at the
> Feast of Eleven Thousand Virgins with a modern eye, I'd consider
first
> the matter of the probable copying error that led to such an
> improbably huge number of virgin martyrs. I am *attempting* to look
at
> matters with a *medieval* eye, one that would see a birth on the
date
> ocommemorating eleven thousand virgin martyrs as an evil omen
(rather
> like being born on the Feast of the Holy Innocents (an even better
> birth date for Richard the Monster if Rous could have made his
> birthday fall on December 28--Richard as a born Herod!) *Of course*
> the day celebrates the martyrs, not their murderers. But it also
> suggests that they *were* murdered. The feast doesn't commemorate
> their unknown and, given that they were virgins, possibly uneventful
> lives. It celebrates their deaths. Think of the passion plays
> depicting the slaughter of the innocents and the portrayal of Herod
in
> those plays.
> >
> Marie earlier:
> > > > Look, I would like to distinguish between items of common
> rumour, which Rous relayed without question, and the novelties he
> introduced, which he spun up from some foundation in fact.
> > >
> Carol erlier:
> > > So would I. My whole focus here is to examine the texts and
> attempt to determine which statements are fabrications, which are
> rumours, and which are distortions of fact. I believe that's also
your
> objective. We simply disagree in our interpretation of Rous.
>
> Marie:
> > We seem to disagree in our interpretation of the term "spin"!
>
> Carol:
> Either that or what I said earlier: you think he's merely giving
> slightly exaggerated facts a negative spin, whereas I see him as
> deliberately distorting the facts. The end result is the same in
terms
> of the effect on Richard. Rous's distortions, whatever we wish to
call
> them, became the foundation on which other lies and distortions were
> built. ,snip>
>
> *Unless* we credit the one shoulder higher than the other idea first
> put forward by Rous along with this morass of lies and distortions
> regarding his birth, I can't think of one true statement in Rous's
> description. Richard was not two years in his mother's womb. He was
> not born on October 21. He was not a Scorpio, whether or not he had
> Scorpio in the ascendant. He did not kill his wife. He did not kill
> Henry VI with his own hands or even order his execution; that was
> Edward's doing. He did not mistreat the Countess of Warwick (unless
> you count not giving her back her lands after he became king). There
> is no proof that he killed his nephews or ordered them to be killed.
>
> If that's "spin," save me from spin.


Carol, I am getting cross now. I have distinguished between the
existing rumours he simply repeats, and his novelties, which I have
tried to demonstrate were probably based on something even though
that something may have been dreadfully distorted. A lot of the above
is in the former category. I would call this spin in itself.

Save you from spin? Did you think spin was a complemetary term?
Perhaps it's not used as often in the States. It's a very common term
here to describe political propaganda, usually governments misusing
statistics, etc, to portray paarticularly disastrous policies as a
wonderful success. The term is, I think, of British origin, a
reference to the ability of some cricketers to put a spin on the ball
when bowling that makes it almost impossible to hit.



>
> Marie:
> > Lie is a word I would rather not bring into historical
discussion.
>
> Carol:
> Even as regards two years in his mother's womb? How
about "invention"
> or "fabrication" (which would also apply to much of More and Vergil,
> especially the imagined dialogues)?
>
> marie:
> We have no contemporary evidence whatsoever that Anne was
consumptive,
>
> Carol:
> I've discussed that topic in another post. I plead guilty to taking
> Kendall at his word on that particular matter.
>
> Marie:
> > and for reasons I have explained, I believe there were conditions
> attached when Edward allowed Richard to bring the Countess to
> Middleham, and her movements probably were restricted, until 1483 at
> least.
>
> Carol:
> I understand that you believe that. I believe otherwise, I've
already
> explained. Perhaps we should drop this particular point.
>
> Marie:
> > So you are agreeing, then, that Rous did not invent this charge.
>
> Carol:
> All right, I'll revise my position slightly. Rous is the first
> chronicler to state that Richard killed Henry *with his own hands*,
> which is not at all what Warkworth's chronicle says or implies. It
> says only that Richard was at the tower that day "with many other."
No
> indication is given of his business there.
>
> Marie (moved to fit the discussion):
> The English translation of the relevant passage of the Welsh poem
is:-
> > "God from heaven, our creator,
> > Was angered when Henry was killed.
> > If he killed the saint
> > On Thursday night, he sentenced himself to death.
> > The little boar is no more,
> > There was not killed one who more deserved it."
>
> Carol:
> thanks for quoting the ballad. However, if you look at this charming
> little ditty, you'll see that it *implies* that "the little boar"
> killed "the saint." But it says "If* he killed the saint," and "he"
> has no antecedent in the quoted lines except "God from heaven" or
> "Henry." The *implication* is that "the little boar" sentenced
himself
> to death by killing the saint, but the accusation that *Richard
killed
> Henry with his own hands* is not made straight out.


I'm well aware of that. He does the same with re killing the Princes.
I wrote that this poem "refers to" the rumour of Richard killing
Henry. It is proof that this was already current.


> But there's no indication that Rous was familiar with those ballads,
> and he's the first of the chroniclers to make that accusation.

Do you think the bard made it up? Then why isn't he sure if it is
true? How come it chimes in with the hints of Crowland and Warkworth?
This ballad is evidence of the CURRENCY of the rumour as early as
1485.


(I'm
> not talking about Richard being *associated* with Henry's death, as
in
> Warkworth. I'm talking about the obviously false charge that the
> king's eighteen-year-old brother murdered the king's prisoner *with
> his own hands* (and, by implication, without authorization). Rous
> could have invented the "with his own hands" part independently of
the
> Welsh ballads, which insinuate rather than state, or he could have
> adapted it from rumors. My point is that there's all the difference
in
> the world between being at the Tower on the day somebody was
executed
> there (as hundreds of people undoubtedly also were) and performing a
> murder (not even depicted as an execution ordered by the king) with
> his own hands. It's rather like saying, Mary Todd Lincoln was at
> Ford's Theater when her husband was shot. She must be responsible
for
> his murder, or at least implicated in the conspiracy.

Carol, Warwkworth's Chronicle was written during Edward IV's reign.
The writer had to be circumspect. Can I just ask you why you think he
bothered to include the information that Richard was there? What, as
his aching hand worked it's way through those words, did he think was
the point of including them?


>
> In Richard's case, there may have been a rumor at the time that he,
as
> England's Constable, was involved in the execution (I doubt that
many
> people believed the official line about dying of "pure displeasure
and
> melancholy")
>
> Marie:
> > Also I forgot to mention the allusion in Crowland. I'm not going
to
> look it up, but he says the person who killed henry VI has justly
> earned the name of tyrant. Now, Crowland did not consider Edward IV
to
> be a tyrant, but he was hostile to Richard III.
>
> Carol:
> Nevertheless, that's very different from saying outright, as he
could
> have safely done under Henry Tudor, that *Richard killed Henry with
> his own hands*).

I haven't got my copy to hand, but the notion that the whole thing
was written during 10 days in April 1486 has been discarded by
academics. This appears to refer to just the last little section,
which is a fresh start. So we can't assume this bit was written
during Henry's reign, and even if it were, in April 1486 Henry's
throne looked far from secure. There was rebellion in the North, in
pursuance of which Henry narrowly escaped a kidnap attempt on 23rd;
another rebellion launched in the West midlands on the 25th. Any
sensible chronicler writing at that juncture would have been sure to
hedge his bets.


And obviously the Croyland chronicler would have
> known that it was in *Edward's* interest, not Richard's, to kill
Henry
> to prevent uprisings and that it was *Edward*, not his much-loved
> younger brother, whom he continued to trust, who gave the order.
> Insinuations don't count. I'm talking about straight out saying that
> Richard himself killed Henry. (Of course, even Rous admits that the
> accusation is just a rumor.) Moreover, the eighteen-year-old Richard
> could not have been called a tyrant because he wasn't a king. He
was,
> at most, a loyal servant of the king, high-ranking, to be sure, but
> there could be no question who was in charge.

I agree there is no question who was in charge. And Crowland, we both
know, didn't say the man was called a tyrant AT THAT TIME.


>
> BTW, I notice that everyone here says "Crowland." the American RII
> Society calls it "Croyland," as does Kendall. Is "Crowland" the
modern
> usage and "Croyland" the usage in Richard's time? Who is the
authority
> for the use of "Crowland" in preference to "Croyland"? Maybe it's a
> British usage?

'Crowland' is the modern form of the placename. The latest
translation uses it in preference to Croyland. I think that's right.
We don't use the medieval forms of other placenames when we're
writing history.



>
> Marie:
> > She doesn't make any appearances at all during those years, though
> there is a reference to a servant of hers purchasing goods in York.
>
> Carol:
> Yes. I know about that. Hardly an indication that her freedom was
> restricted after Richard had her brought home to Middleham.
>
> Marie:
> > The Beauchamp Pageant, and the Rows Roll, which also celebrates
the
> Beauchamps, weren't commissioned until after Edward IV's death. It
was
> Edward who brokered the deal that rendered her legally dead, and
when
> Earl Richard Beauchamp's heirs general petitioned Chancery in 1478
she
> was unable to participate, the Gloucesters and little Warwick being
> subsituted as the heirs of the "late" Countess of Warwick.
>
> Carol:
> I have no argument with your assertion that Edward mistreated her.
> Obviously, he did. But Richard managed to persuade Edward to allow
him
> (Richard) to take his mother-in-law out of sanctuary. If he wanted
to
> restrict her movements, keeping her in sanctuary was the way to do
it.
> nor does Edward's reference to her as the "late" (former) Countess
of
> Warwick have any bearing on Richard's treatment of her.


Carol, you seem to have missed my point again by bringing in rous's
spin. I am not suggesting Richard treated her badly, but I think
anyone arguing that Edward would have allowed her to take herself to
Westminster and start lobbying again (as she had done in sanctuary) -
or even lobby by post from Middleham - would have to explain their
reasons.



>
> Marie:
> > All that changed after Edward's death and she was able to petition
> in her own right.
> >
> Carol:
> Again, that has to do with Edward, not with Richard.
>
> > > Carol:
> > > I don't see what this "notion" [that she was a victim] has to do
> with my point.
>
> Marie:
> > Think about it. If Edward regarded her as a traitor he would have
> been less likely to agree to her release without some terms,
> particularly as she was fuming mad about her lands.
>
> Carol:
> Forgive me if I sound rude, but think about what? (I'd rather that
you
> didn't tell me what to think,

I just told you TO think, not WHAT to think.


but never mind that now.) Your statement
> has no connection with *my* point, which is that *Richard* didn't
> restrict her, as far as can be determined. I am not talking about
> *Edward's* treatment of her. I am not talking about her as anyone's
> victim (except Henry's when he reversed the attainder only so that
he
> could take her lands away). I'm not sure why you're rgarding me as
> defending some position that has nothing to do with my position. You
> are clearly misunderstanding my argument, and your "obvious" point
has
> no connection with what I'm saying at all. Edward's regarding her
as a
> traitor (which was probably a legal fiction to allow him to attaint
> her along with Warwick) has absolutely nothing to do with
*Richard's*
> view of her and treatment of her or with Rous's accusation of
Richard
> regarding her, which is my concern here.

Look, Carol, since you are wasting your time trying to persuade me
that Rous was wrong when he said Richard personally kept her
incarcerated, you have evidently miunderstood my position. This is a
fruitless discussion because, rather than try to take in the
complexity of my position on Rous, you see only two possibilities -
complete lies or complete truth.





>
> It occurs to me that perhaps you're involved in some sort of long-
term
> discussion involving the Countess of Warwick and you're apparently
> assuming that I hold the opposing view. If so, you're mistaken. I'm
> not interested at this point in the Countess of Warwick except with
> regard to Rous's statement that Richard "locked her up" when
she "fled
> to him for refuge." That's an od "spin" to put on getting permission
> to take her *out* of sanctuary so that she can live with her
daughter
> and son-in-law at her former home.
>
> Carol earlier:
> <snip> I don't think it was a matter of "allowing" her to "harangue"
> Edward. If we're going to make assumptions, we might as well assume
> that she was content to have her lands go to her daughters (or their
> husbands) rather than losing them to strangers. At least they would
> (she must have thought) go to her descendants.
>
> Marie:
> > I'm sure that was better than nothing, but there are two pieces
of
> > evidence that contradict it:-
> > 1) Her petition to Edward IV, at a time when Clarence and Isabel
> held her inheritance
>
> Carol:
> Which would have occurred while she was still in sanctuary and is
> therefore irrelevant to this discussion about Richard's supposedly
> restricting her movements after he took her to Middleham.

It's relevant to your suggestion that she was happy to let her
daughters have her lands.

>
> Marie:
> > 2) Her petition to Henry VII, at a time when her grandson Warwick
> held half her inheritance. She didn't ask for only Anne's half back.
> She asked for the complete repeal of the Act rendering her legally
> dead so that she could have the lot again.
>
> Carol:
> Of course she did. Anne, Richard, George, and Isabel were all dead,
> and her poor little grandson was held prisoner in the tower by
Henry.


Warwick was not yet at that time s prisoner in the Tower.


> None of that has anything whatever to do with Richard's treatment of
> her while she was at Middleham.
> >
> Carol:
> > > All I can find online about Henry VII and the Countess of
Warwick
> is that Parliament "in consideration of the true and faithful
service
> and allegiance by her borne to Henry VI" restored her lands, which
she
> was promptly "persuaded" to turn over to Henry. (What Henry VI has
to
> do with it, I don't know.)
>
> Marie:
> > Well, I've been trying to explain that. She was at heart,
seemingly,
> a Lancastrian, and her attachment to Henry VI helped her with Henry
VII.
>
> Carol:
> It certainly didn't help her to get her land back. The attainder was
> reversed, yes, but then she was "persuaded" to return it. Anyway,
> whatever her loyalties were after Henry VII usurped the throne, they
> have nothing to do with Richard's treatment of her at Middleham
while
> he was still Duke of Gloucester. It seems to me that your interest
in
> the Countess of Warwick as a person in her own right, in itself
> unusual and highly commendable, has caused you to bring in matters
> that are extraneous to this particular discussion, which is about
Rous.
>
> Marie:
> > There's a whole story there, Carol, but I'm not ready to share it
yet.
>
> Carol:
> I'll be happy to hear it when the time comes. I can see that you
have
> a lot to say about the Countess and *Edward* and your idea that she
> had Lancastrian sympathies is interesting (though I suspect that
those
> sympathies didn't necessarily translate into support of the Tudor
> regime, however much she may have wished it to appear so in her
desire
> to have her lands back).

Nor me, as I have already said!



However, I think you may be pushing the
> argument too far in assuming that she would slander her former
> son-in-law, who had treated her well, in an effort to obtain lands
> taken from her by Edward, not Richard. We'll see when the time
comes,
> but I hope that you'll be able to build your argument on more solid
> ground than conjecture.

Carol, we have proof of almost nothing in this business. You might be
surprised at how little evidence a lot of what is taken as fact for
this period rests on. What one has to do is find an xplanation that
fits all the known facts, and does not rely (as so many historians'
interpretations do) on nearly all the major players being dismissed
as "unstable", "enigmatic" or any other such term dreamed up to
explain the gross inconsistencies in their behaviour as per that
particular historian's interpretation of events.


>
> Thank you for explaining that your sources are mostly not online. I
> hope that you have another source for similar materials to counter
the
> anti-Ricardian bias of Michael Hicks. that's the problem with
> materials related to Richard, though. They all have a bias one way
or
> another and too much is based on assumptions.
>
> In any case, I think we've finished our discussion here and have
come
> to as close a consensus regarding Rous as we're likely ever to
reach.
> If you can actually quote from your sources (at least those that are
> online) and provide a link where one is available, I would
appreciate it.

Carol, I'm sorry but I'm not your tutor. I don't know if you have any
idea how much time I've devoted to responding to you. The information
is all out there, if you're really interested in getting deeper into
this period.

Marie

I think Katy's post just about sums it up. I'm openminded about
causes of death for the sisters, but I think the following factors
are useful to bear in mind, though they don't all point in the same
direction:-
1) Both sisters lingered for 2 to 3 months
2) Accusations of poison surround both deaths
3) Slow poisoning was known about, and considered the best way to get
away with it if it could be carried off
4)There were a lot of members of the family who either died very
young or (if female) had low fertility, or both
4) Modern historians laugh at Clarence's accusation against Ankarette
Twynyho and John Thoresby, but they were tried, and contemporary
reports are divided as to whether the jury convicted through fear of
Clarence or because they took him at his word. Stow, in the 16th
century, appears to have studied the indictments and believed them
too, stating baldly (Annales) that Isabel was poisoned. Clarence was
bad but not mad. What made him - rightly or wrongly - suspect poison?
5) We don;t know where the rumours that Anne was poisoned emanated
from - the palace or Richard's enemies outside. That is, we don't
know whether in Anne's case it could provide any clue as to symptoms
6) It was an age where poison was much used as a means of murder,
with the consequence that people were paranoid about it. Edward IV
once refused to go near a French ambassador because he believed the
man had already poisoned a French nobleman at Louis' behest. On the
road to Picquigny Edward received a false report that James III of
Scotland had died of poison by Louis' agents, and the Scots were
invading England. Given that Richard was childless and his wife had
been barren for almost a decade, he would have been deemed to have a
motive to get rid of Anne and rumour would not necessarily have been
based on any evidence at all.
6) TB causes inferitility. Isabel died following childbirth.
7) If Crowland can be trusted, Anne's doctors believed or suspected,
wrongly or rightly, that her illness was contagious.

Marie



--- In , "oregonkaty"
<oregon_katy@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , "Carol"
> <justcarol67@> wrote:
>
> Any chance that I can get you to go upthread and
> > respond to my points about the Croyland Chronicler's explanation
of
> > Anne's decline and death? I'd be interested in knowing how you and
> > others interpret the quotation and why you see it differently
than I do.
>
>
> I'll repeat the Chronicler's words that you quoted here:
>
> " the only
> contemporary source that mentions her illness and death is the
> Croyland Chronicle, from which the bare facts can be deduced if we
> ignore the bias:
> > >
> > > "[D]uring this feast of the Nativity, far too much attention was
> given to dancing and gaiety, and vain changes of apparal presented
to
> queen Anne and the lady Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the late
> king, being of similar colour and shape; a thing that caused the
> people to murmur and the nobles and prelates greatly to wonder
> thereat; while it was said by many that the king was bent, either on
> the anticipated death of the queen taking place, or else, by means
of
> divorce, for which he supposed he had quite sufficient grounds, on
> contracting a marriage with the said Elizabeth. For it appeared that
> in no other way
> > > could his kingly power be established, or the hopes of his
rival be
> > > put an end to.
> > >
> > > "In the course of a few days after this, the queen fell
extremely
> > > sick, and her illness was supposed to have increased still more
and
> > > more, because the king entirely shunned her bed, declaring that
it was
> > > by the advice of his physicians that he did so. Why enlarge?
About the
> > > middle of the following month, upon the day of the great
eclipse of
> > > the sun, which then took place, queen Anne, before-named,
departed
> > > this life, and was buried at Westminster,
>
>
> He says she fell very sick suddenly and that Richard shunned her bed
> on advice of his physicians. And she died a few weeks later on the
> day of a great solar eclipse. (Parenthetically, I suppose someone
has
> checked into this and discovered whether there actually was a solar
> eclipse visible in England on March 16, 1485.)
>
> A sudden severe illness and death about ten weeks later could be a
> very rapidly progressing tuberculosis. Or it could be a long course
> of peritonitis after a miscarriage. Her sister Isabel lived about
> that long after the birth of her last baby, after falling ill the
> third day after his birth, suggesting that her illness was childbed
> fever. Maybe Isabel also had tuberculosis, but if so, where did she
> get it from? Not likely from Anne -- even if the notion that Anne
> caught it during her stint as a kitchen wench, which in itself is
> unproven (both the kitchen wench business and the idea that she
> contracted tuberculosis then) Anne probably did not spend much time
> with her sister after Gloucester rescued her, since the brothers
were
> estranged by then. So where would the well-fed, well-kept Duchess
of
> Clarence have managed to coincidentally pick up the same disease as
> her sister?
>
> Anyway, Croyland says Richard shunned her bed on advice of his
> doctors, and that worsened her condition. Evidently the doctors
> thought she was contagious. But I can't make the jump from that to
> declaring that she had tuberculosis. I know it has become one of
> those things "everybody knows" but I don't think anybody knows.
>
> Her body exists, if it could be positively identified, at
Westminster
> Abbey. An examination of it might determine whether she had
suffered
> from tuberculosis. But I doubt there will be any exhumation.
>
> (When Croyland says "Why enlarge?" or "Let us say no more" it means
> he has no more information and has run out of gossip.)
>
> Katy
>

--- In , mariewalsh2003
<no_reply@...> wrote:


>Given that Richard was childless and his wife had
> been barren for almost a decade, he would have been deemed to have a
> motive to get rid of Anne and rumour would not necessarily have been
> based on any evidence at all.


Unless I am mistaken (always a distinct possibility) that decade of
barrenness, after one child now dead, would in itself be grounds for
dissolving the marriage. Not merely a motive, but grounds in both
secular and canon law.

Perhaps that is what Croyland meant when he said

"...it was said by many that the king was bent, either on
the anticipated death of the queen taking place, or else, by means of
divorce, for which he supposed he had quite sufficient grounds...."

Katy

--- In , "oregonkaty"
<oregon_katy@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , mariewalsh2003
> <no_reply@> wrote:
>
>
> >Given that Richard was childless and his wife had
> > been barren for almost a decade, he would have been deemed to
have a
> > motive to get rid of Anne and rumour would not necessarily have
been
> > based on any evidence at all.
>
>
> Unless I am mistaken (always a distinct possibility) that decade of
> barrenness, after one child now dead, would in itself be grounds for
> dissolving the marriage. Not merely a motive, but grounds in both
> secular and canon law.
>
> Perhaps that is what Croyland meant when he said
>
> "...it was said by many that the king was bent, either on
> the anticipated death of the queen taking place, or else, by means
of
> divorce, for which he supposed he had quite sufficient grounds...."
>
> Katy

No, male impotence was indeed grounds for annulment as it made the
physical union impossible. Sterility, however, was not grounds for
divorce.
There is reference in the 1474 settlement between the brothers to the
possibility that Richard's marriage might be annulled and he might
have to try to marry Anne again legally, and Crowland was probably
referring back to whatever was being alluded to there. It used to be
assumed the problem was lack of a dispensation, but this now looks
less likely.
The only hint of what may have been at the root of this is in the
Calendar of Milanese State Papers, where the Milanese ambassador to
France, writing early in 1474, after the arrival of Oxford's brother
Richard de Vere at the French court, refers to the quarrel between
the two brothers and said it was sparked by Richard having married
Anne "by force", Clarence having been against the marriage because he
did not wish to share his wife's inheritance.
Now, before I get harpooned for this, I would like to explain that
force or abduction (raptus), which invalidated a marriage, didn't
always mean what we would mean by it, leastways not when it was
members of the bride's family, rather than the bride herself, who
were bringing the charge. Two strands fed into muddying the waters.
The first was that, in order for the bride to be able to demonstrate
free consent, the Church ruled that she could not marry from the
custody of her abductor or alleged abductor. The second strand is
that:-
"Raptus was not a public crime, however, but a kind of theft, a wrong
against the man under whose authority the female victim
lived." 'Ravishing Maidens', Katherine Gravdal, p.6, available on
googlebooks)
All this contributed to a climate in which it was difficult for a
couple to elope without the girl's outraged family crying 'raptus'.
Anne had been placed by the King in Clarence's care after Tewkesbury,
and there is no doubt, both from Crowland and the Paston Letters,
that he considered himself her rightful guardian and was only
prepared to agree to the marriage if Richard and Anne promised not to
claim any rights in the Warwick inheritance. Whatever about the
kitchenmaid story, since the marriage did take place Crowland is
probably correct in claiming that Richard removed her from Clarence's
control. This, I think myself, would have been the basis of
Clarence's allegation of 'raptus', and of the references to possible
divorce in the 1474 settlement and Crowland.

Marie




>

--- In , mariewalsh2003
<no_reply@...> wrote: <snipped>
>
>> The only hint of what may have been at the root of this is in the
> Calendar of Milanese State Papers, where the Milanese ambassador to
> France, writing early in 1474, after the arrival of Oxford's brother
> Richard de Vere at the French court, refers to the quarrel between
> the two brothers and said it was sparked by Richard having married
> Anne "by force", Clarence having been against the marriage because he
> did not wish to share his wife's inheritance.
>

My understanding is that this issue is why Richard delivered Anne into
sanctuary (rather than for example simply handing her over to his
mother or the Queen). Not only was she beyond Clarence's reach, she was
technically not in Richard's power either.

Of course the lawyers could probably have had a field day if Edward IV
had not taken the matter into his own hands. But that was always going
to be the outcome.

As to grounds for divorce I've no doubt Richard *could* have found
some, and as a sovereign he would almost certainly have found the Pope
co-operative. (Henry VIII's anger over his divorce was that the Pope's
denial was exceptional and looked like a hostile act.)

However there were powerful political imperatives *not* to divorce
Anne, in particular that she was the means by which he exercised power
in the North as Warwick's heir. Ditching her would have weakened those
ties and since the former Neville affinity was still the mainstay of
his personal power this would have been a risky strategy to say the
least.

Some might see this as a motive for murder, but given that the medical
treatment for consumption (TB), up until - believe it or not - the mid
20th century, included doses of arsenic, it is quite possible that she
*was* poisoned but in good faith. (Assuming of course that she *did*
have consumption, which is pretty much a legend based on guesswork.)

Of course if her remains are ever examined and found to be full of
arsenic, I'm sure Richard will be condemned outright as a murderer by
every red-top and publicity-minded 'academic' in Britain.

Brian W

> And the story is quite complex as there seem to be at least two
> chapels, one for St Anne (on the bridge) and another for the BVM.

I've checked my notes and you'e right. My memory was playing tricks
with me. I'm sorry this isn't a live link, but one of the websites I
found was:-
www.ourladyandstanne.rg.uk/shrine.htm
David Nash Ford's site www.berkshirehistory.com has quite a lot of
nice stuff.
>
> My understanding is that the alleged dagger was in the St Anne
chapel
> and was venerated by pilgrims on their way to Henry VI's tomb at
> Windsor. Now that latter wasn't in your source and I'm pretty sure
I
> didn't dream it.
>
> Now what the heck was my source??? I don't *think* it was the one
you
> quoted, Marie, for the reason above, although that certainly adds
to
> the evidence. I've a feeling it might have been Leland.

I was thinking Leland's Itineraries would have been a good place to
look, but I only have one volume and it isn't the right one.


I *hope* I
> didn't jump to the conclusion that it was allegedly Richard's
dagger.
> I'm afraid my memory is rubbish these days - at one time I'd have
> been able to say 'Oh, it was in the _Ricardian_ April 1996' or
> whatever.

Snap. There's no doubt the memory gets fuzzier with age. Also, as the
years go by the head gets more and more full of competing stuff,
doesn't it?

>
> It's highly unlikely that Richard (or anyone else) labelled up a
> dagger as 'used to kill Henry VI 1471' and then put it away for
> posterity. But given the local and family connection, Anne
Beauchamp
> would be in a good position to provide a dagger and claim a
> provenance. I may be doing the lady a gross injustice, but in fact
> *someone* must have done exactly that, and the location of
Caversham
> for this 'relic' hints strongly at a Beauchamp connection.

I'm trying not to get over-excited but I have the same feeling.
Thanks very much, Brian, for bringing this to my attention. I see I
must try and learn some more about Caversham.

My mind is still boggling with the idea of how the Countess got hold
of the supposed murder weapon. As Lorraine has done well to remind
us, there are surviving expenses for Richard's expedition to Kent
against Fauconberg which show him having left the Tower before Henry
VI's death. Some of us will remember this being discussed on the
forum a few years ago, and there were some who queried whether the
dates in it are reliable. I personally think they would be, as they
would surely have been based on some sort of an expenses claim made
up by Richard's clerks, who would have been able to refer to their
records. That's why I suggested that the rumour Richard murdered
Henry could have been due to the prophecy plus his being in the Tower
at or even just near the date in question.
So, anyway, the purpose of this digression was to explain that I
don't believe the Countess (supposing she were the donor) could have
got the real murder weapon from Richard because I don't think he
actually was in the Tower that night, though she could have nicked
one of his daggers having convinced herself he was the culprit. Could
Queen Margaret have got hold of this dagger, maybe, and given it to
the Countess?

Marie

--- In , "Brian Wainwright"
<wainwright.brian@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , mariewalsh2003
> <no_reply@> wrote: <snipped>
> >
> >> The only hint of what may have been at the root of this is in
the
> > Calendar of Milanese State Papers, where the Milanese ambassador
to
> > France, writing early in 1474, after the arrival of Oxford's
brother
> > Richard de Vere at the French court, refers to the quarrel
between
> > the two brothers and said it was sparked by Richard having
married
> > Anne "by force", Clarence having been against the marriage
because he
> > did not wish to share his wife's inheritance.
> >
>
> My understanding is that this issue is why Richard delivered Anne
into
> sanctuary (rather than for example simply handing her over to his
> mother or the Queen). Not only was she beyond Clarence's reach, she
was
> technically not in Richard's power either.
>
> Of course the lawyers could probably have had a field day if Edward
IV
> had not taken the matter into his own hands. But that was always
going
> to be the outcome.

I agree this is why he would have placed her in sanctuary. I also
think Clarence's case cannot have been very strong - it took him a
long while to come up with it and he felt he needed to back it up
with armed force. But you can imagine the sort of loopholes his canon
lawyers might have tried pushing their master through. For instance,
did Richard provide Anne with an armed guard in sanctuary to prevent
Clarence having her forcibly removed? Was she dependent on him for
financial support? Did she travel to her wedding with an escort paid
for by Richard? Etc.


>
> As to grounds for divorce I've no doubt Richard *could* have found
> some, and as a sovereign he would almost certainly have found the
Pope
> co-operative. (Henry VIII's anger over his divorce was that the
Pope's
> denial was exceptional and looked like a hostile act.)
>
> However there were powerful political imperatives *not* to divorce
> Anne, in particular that she was the means by which he exercised
power
> in the North as Warwick's heir. Ditching her would have weakened
those
> ties and since the former Neville affinity was still the mainstay
of
> his personal power this would have been a risky strategy to say the
> least.
>
> Some might see this as a motive for murder, but given that the
medical
> treatment for consumption (TB), up until - believe it or not - the
mid
> 20th century, included doses of arsenic, it is quite possible that
she
> *was* poisoned but in good faith. (Assuming of course that she
*did*
> have consumption, which is pretty much a legend based on
guesswork.)
>
> Of course if her remains are ever examined and found to be full of
> arsenic, I'm sure Richard will be condemned outright as a murderer
by
> every red-top and publicity-minded 'academic' in Britain.


I absolutely agree. In fact I meant to add medical poisoning to my
list. It was not understood that the body has very limited ability to
excrete arsenic, so the danger of repeated small doses was just not
recognised.
As for the rumours, the general population would not base their
opinion on a thoughtful appraisal of Richard's situation, and they
didn't know him as a person. When it comes to politics and the
political classses, you can indeed fool most of the people most of
the time. Those who had already accepted the story that Richard had
murdered his young nephews (and maybe Henry VI as well) would have no
difficulty believing he poisoned his queen to marry his niece.

By the by, returning to the subject of Richard's birthday, the Feast
of the Guardian Angels did not yet exist in the 15th century. Does
anyone know by what feast 2nd October was generally referred in the
Middle Ages?

Marie

marie asks in this post..how did anne beauchamp come to possess the knife that killed henry vi.
this webpage offers some valuable clues. it is a bio of anne by susan higginbotham.
http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/anne_beauchamp.htm
 
 
anne appears to have been a life long companion of henry vi. they may have been raised together. her father was his tutor. her possession of the knife may have had absolutely nothing to do with richard, but simply and most directly because of her feelings for close life long companion and friend that she "ever loved." henry would/could have been like an adopted big brother to her.
 
it is possible anne requested the knife..or took it as a momento/relic.
 
roslyn

--- On Tue, 8/12/08, mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]> wrote:

From: mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: getting back to Richard III
To:
Received: Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 6:35 AM







> And the story is quite complex as there seem to be at least two
> chapels, one for St Anne (on the bridge) and another for the BVM.

I've checked my notes and you'e right. My memory was playing tricks
with me. I'm sorry this isn't a live link, but one of the websites I
found was:-
www.ourladyandstann e.rg.uk/shrine. htm
David Nash Ford's site www.berkshirehistor y.com has quite a lot of
nice stuff.
>
> My understanding is that the alleged dagger was in the St Anne
chapel
> and was venerated by pilgrims on their way to Henry VI's tomb at
> Windsor. Now that latter wasn't in your source and I'm pretty sure
I
> didn't dream it.
>
> Now what the heck was my source??? I don't *think* it was the one
you
> quoted, Marie, for the reason above, although that certainly adds
to
> the evidence. I've a feeling it might have been Leland.

I was thinking Leland's Itineraries would have been a good place to
look, but I only have one volume and it isn't the right one.

I *hope* I
> didn't jump to the conclusion that it was allegedly Richard's
dagger.
> I'm afraid my memory is rubbish these days - at one time I'd have
> been able to say 'Oh, it was in the _Ricardian_ April 1996' or
> whatever.

Snap. There's no doubt the memory gets fuzzier with age. Also, as the
years go by the head gets more and more full of competing stuff,
doesn't it?

>
> It's highly unlikely that Richard (or anyone else) labelled up a
> dagger as 'used to kill Henry VI 1471' and then put it away for
> posterity. But given the local and family connection, Anne
Beauchamp
> would be in a good position to provide a dagger and claim a
> provenance. I may be doing the lady a gross injustice, but in fact
> *someone* must have done exactly that, and the location of
Caversham
> for this 'relic' hints strongly at a Beauchamp connection.

I'm trying not to get over-excited but I have the same feeling.
Thanks very much, Brian, for bringing this to my attention. I see I
must try and learn some more about Caversham.

My mind is still boggling with the idea of how the Countess got hold
of the supposed murder weapon. As Lorraine has done well to remind
us, there are surviving expenses for Richard's expedition to Kent
against Fauconberg which show him having left the Tower before Henry
VI's death. Some of us will remember this being discussed on the
forum a few years ago, and there were some who queried whether the
dates in it are reliable. I personally think they would be, as they
would surely have been based on some sort of an expenses claim made
up by Richard's clerks, who would have been able to refer to their
records. That's why I suggested that the rumour Richard murdered
Henry could have been due to the prophecy plus his being in the Tower
at or even just near the date in question.
So, anyway, the purpose of this digression was to explain that I
don't believe the Countess (supposing she were the donor) could have
got the real murder weapon from Richard because I don't think he
actually was in the Tower that night, though she could have nicked
one of his daggers having convinced herself he was the culprit. Could
Queen Margaret have got hold of this dagger, maybe, and given it to
the Countess?

Marie

--- In , mariewalsh2003
<no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , "oregonkaty"
> <oregon_katy@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In , mariewalsh2003
> > <no_reply@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > >Given that Richard was childless and his wife had
> > > been barren for almost a decade, he would have been deemed to
> have a
> > > motive to get rid of Anne and rumour would not necessarily have
> been
> > > based on any evidence at all.
> >


[Katy said]
> > Unless I am mistaken (always a distinct possibility) that decade of
> > barrenness, after one child now dead, would in itself be grounds for
> > dissolving the marriage. Not merely a motive, but grounds in both
> > secular and canon law.
> >
> > Perhaps that is what Croyland meant when he said
> >
> > "...it was said by many that the king was bent, either on
> > the anticipated death of the queen taking place, or else, by means
> of
> > divorce, for which he supposed he had quite sufficient grounds...."
> >
> > Katy
>
> No, male impotence was indeed grounds for annulment as it made the
> physical union impossible. Sterility, however, was not grounds for
> divorce.


Oops. I based my unresearched opinion on King John's annulment from
his first queen, Isabelle of Gloucester, when he wanted to marry
Isabelle of Angouleme. I thought, perhaps even read somewhere. that
Isabelle G's infertility was the grounds. She had never become
pregnant in ten years of marriage, and evidently she really was
barren, since she was married twice afterwards and never produced a child.

By the checking I should have done before posting in the first place,
I see that the grounds for the annulment were consanguinity -- her
paternal grandfather was an illegitimate son of Henry I, who was
John's great grandfather.

Katy

Katy

--- In , mariewalsh2003 <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , "Brian Wainwright"
> <wainwright.brian@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In , mariewalsh2003
> > <no_reply@> wrote: <snipped>
> > >
>
> > >
> >
> > My understanding is that this issue is why Richard delivered Anne
> into
> > sanctuary (rather than for example simply handing her over to his
> > mother or the Queen). Not only was she beyond Clarence's reach, she
> was
> > technically not in Richard's power either.
> > Marie

> I agree this is why he would have placed her in sanctuary. I also
> think Clarence's case cannot have been very strong - it took him a
> long while to come up with it and he felt he needed to back it up
> with armed force. But you can imagine the sort of loopholes his canon
> lawyers might have tried pushing their master through. For instance,
> did Richard provide Anne with an armed guard in sanctuary to prevent
> Clarence having her forcibly removed? Was she dependent on him for
> financial support? Did she travel to her wedding with an escort paid
> for by Richard? Etc.
Brian

I am inclined to believe the story of the kitchen maid disguise - because when you couple
it along with Richard having delivered her to sanctury at St Martin-le-Grand it makes
sense and has a ring of truth about it i.e. Richard must have *found/discovered* her
somewhere to have enabled him to have taken her into sanctuary. What Im not too sure
about is:

a) Was she hidden there (in the kitchen) by George
or
b) Did she hide herself there from George or Richard or the pair of them - hardly a wilting
violet!!

Possible scenarios:
She could have escaped from George's clutches - he does not seem to have been the most
reasonable of men to say the least.
She hid herself and managed to get a message to Richard. What better result could there
have been than for Richard to escort her to St Martins.

A kitchen would seem a rather bizarre place for George to have hidden her. What Anne
must have know about working in a kitchen you could fit on the head of a pin - she would
have stood out like a sore thumb. I would have thought he could have thought up a better
plan than that. On the other hand if the young Anne (I believe she was about 14 years old
at this time????) had been trying to escape George (and Richard) she might, possibly, have
thought this one up herself (maybe with the help of a servant). It would have been a
rather crackpot plan but hey, when you desperate!!

Another thing, if she had allowed herself to be hidden in the kitchen by George, what did
he tell her to get her to go along with the masquerade. Maybe he put the fear of God into
her with stories about what Richard's intentions were - however, when push came to
shove she did trust Richard enough to go along with him.

Who knows, Katy, this could be where the folkstories you have mentioned may have begun
:-]
Eileen

>
>
> >
> > As to grounds for divorce I've no doubt Richard *could* have found
> > some, and as a sovereign he would almost certainly have found the
> Pope
> > co-operative. (Henry VIII's anger over his divorce was that the
> Pope's
> > denial was exceptional and looked like a hostile act.)
> >
> > However there were powerful political imperatives *not* to divorce
> > Anne, in particular that she was the means by which he exercised
> power
> > in the North as Warwick's heir. Ditching her would have weakened
> those
> > ties and since the former Neville affinity was still the mainstay
> of
> > his personal power this would have been a risky strategy to say the
> > least.
> >
> > Some might see this as a motive for murder, but given that the
> medical
> > treatment for consumption (TB), up until - believe it or not - the
> mid
> > 20th century, included doses of arsenic, it is quite possible that
> she
> > *was* poisoned but in good faith. (Assuming of course that she
> *did*
> > have consumption, which is pretty much a legend based on
> guesswork.)
> >
> > Of course if her remains are ever examined and found to be full of
> > arsenic, I'm sure Richard will be condemned outright as a murderer
> by
> > every red-top and publicity-minded 'academic' in Britain.
>
>
> I absolutely agree. In fact I meant to add medical poisoning to my
> list. It was not understood that the body has very limited ability to
> excrete arsenic, so the danger of repeated small doses was just not
> recognised.
> As for the rumours, the general population would not base their
> opinion on a thoughtful appraisal of Richard's situation, and they
> didn't know him as a person. When it comes to politics and the
> political classses, you can indeed fool most of the people most of
> the time. Those who had already accepted the story that Richard had
> murdered his young nephews (and maybe Henry VI as well) would have no
> difficulty believing he poisoned his queen to marry his niece.
>
> By the by, returning to the subject of Richard's birthday, the Feast
> of the Guardian Angels did not yet exist in the 15th century. Does
> anyone know by what feast 2nd October was generally referred in the
> Middle Ages?
>
> Marie
>

--- In , mariewalsh2003
<no_reply@...> wrote:

> By the by, returning to the subject of Richard's birthday, the Feast
> of the Guardian Angels did not yet exist in the 15th century. Does
> anyone know by what feast 2nd October was generally referred in the
> Middle Ages?
>



I looked up Medieval saints' days in The Medievalist and this is what
comes up for October 2:

October 2
Clare, virgin (Translation) [GTZ: Franciscans]
Eusebius, priest, confessor [GTZ: Aix, Arles, Narbonne]Gerard, bishop
(of Toul) (Translation) [GTZ: Toul]
Guardian Angels [MR]
Leodegar (Léger), bishop (of Autun), martyr [common]
Maximus, bishop (of Reji), confessor (Display of relics) [GTZ: Thérouanne]
Serenus, priest, confessor [GTZ: Paris, Sens; PCP (Paris)]
Thomas (Cantelupe), bishop (of Hereford), confessor [BLS; GTZ:
England; PRI: England]

Here's the link:

http://medievalist.net/calendar/oct.htm#2

Which says

"Note: This document was produced as a research tool for Medieval and
Renaissance studies, so it focuses on people recognized as saints in
the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The saints indexed here are those you
might find listed in the calendars of Medieval and Renaissance
manuscripts. Occasionally, a later saint may appear, but no effort has
been made to include them. For information on saints from later
periods (by which I mean c. 1500 to the present) you will have to look
elsewhere (try the Catholic Online Saints Pages). For Greek Saints
Days, see the Orthodox Ministry Access Calendar."

The source abbreviations are

"The various abbreviations that appear in the entry above indicate the
sources from which the information was drawn. The sources consulted
for this project were:

* HBD: F.G. Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints (St.
Louis: B. Herder, 1924. Reprint. Detroit: Gale Research, 1969).
* BLS: Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and other
Principal Saints (London: Virtue, [1936?]).
* GTZ: Hermann Grotefend, Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung des
Deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 10th edition (Hannover:
Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1960). See online version.
* MR: Missale Romanum (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana,
1975).
* PCP: Paul Perdrizet, Le Calendrier Parisien à la fin du moyen
âge, d'après le bréviaire et les livres d'heures (Paris: Les Belles
Lettres, 1933).
* WTS: Roger Wieck, Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval
Art and Life (New York: George Braziller, in association with the
Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1988).

Some entries still contain references to sources used in an
experimental phase of this project. These are:

* HCC: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, introduction and commentaries
by John Plummer (New York: George Braziller, n.d.).
* PRI: The Primer, or Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in Latin
and English (Antwerp: Arnold Conings, 1599).
* 6082: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 6082, a
twelfth-century Benedictine manuscript from southern Italy."


My guess would be that the one most likely to be recognized in England
for October 2 would be the Feast of the Guardian Angels.

Katy

--- In , "oregonkaty"
<oregon_katy@...> wrote:
>
> My guess would be that the one most likely to be recognized in England
> for October 2 would be the Feast of the Guardian Angels.


Duh...you just said that feast did not exist in Richard's time. Which
of the others do you think most likely to have been attached to
October 2 at that time?

Katy who should think longer before opening her mouth

--- In , "oregonkaty"
<oregon_katy@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , mariewalsh2003
> <no_reply@> wrote:
>
> > By the by, returning to the subject of Richard's birthday, the
Feast
> > of the Guardian Angels did not yet exist in the 15th century.
Does
> > anyone know by what feast 2nd October was generally referred in
the
> > Middle Ages?
> >
>
>
>
> I looked up Medieval saints' days in The Medievalist and this is
what
> comes up for October 2:
>
> October 2
> Clare, virgin (Translation) [GTZ: Franciscans]
> Eusebius, priest, confessor [GTZ: Aix, Arles, Narbonne]Gerard,
bishop
> (of Toul) (Translation) [GTZ: Toul]
> Guardian Angels [MR]
> Leodegar (Léger), bishop (of Autun), martyr [common]
> Maximus, bishop (of Reji), confessor (Display of relics) [GTZ:
Thérouanne]
> Serenus, priest, confessor [GTZ: Paris, Sens; PCP (Paris)]
> Thomas (Cantelupe), bishop (of Hereford), confessor [BLS; GTZ:
> England; PRI: England]
>
> Here's the link:
>
> http://medievalist.net/calendar/oct.htm#2

Can I answer everyone together here?

First, regarding the feast day. Unfortunately later saints do appear
in this online list, and I find it useful to date documents dated by
feast day but it is dangerous to use the other way round. Just today
I hit and had to rule out St Laurence of Brindisi. My information on
the Feast of the Guardian Angels comes from the Catholic website
www.newdavent.org, which I find really useful. This is a cut & paste:-

"This feast, like many others, was local before it was placed in the
Roman calendar. It was not one of the feasts retained in the Pian
breviary, published in 1568; but among the earliest petitions from
particular churches to be allowed, as a supplement to this breviary,
the canonical celebration of local feasts, was a request from Cordova
in 1579 for permission to have a feast in honour of the guardian
angels. (Bäumer, "Histoire du Breviaire", II, 233.) Bäumer, who makes
this statement on the authority of original documents published by
Dr. Schmid (in the "Tübinger Quartalschrift", 1884), adds on the same
authority that "Toledo sent to Rome a rich proprium and received the
desired authorization for all the Offices contained in it, Valencia
also obtained the approbation in February, 1582, for special Offices
of the Blood of Christ and the Guardian Angels."

So far the feast of Guardian Angels remained local. Paul V placed it
(27 September, 1608) among the feasts of the general calendar as a
double "ad libitum" (Bäumer, op. cit., II, 277). Nilles gives us more
details about this step. "Paul V", he writes, "gave an impetus to the
veneration of Guardian Angels (long known in the East and West) by
the authorization of a feast and proper office in their honour. At
the request of Ferdinand of Austria, afterwards emperor, he made them
obligatory in all regions subject to the Imperial power; to all other
places he conceded them ad libitum, to be celebrated on the first
available day after the Feast of the Dedication of St. Michael the
Archangel. It is believed that the new feast was intended to be a
kind of supplement to the Feast of St. Michael, since the Church
honoured on that day (29 September) the memory of all the angels as
well as the memory of St. Michael (Nilles, "Kalendarium", II, 502).
Among the numerous changes made in the calendar by Clement X was the
elevation of the Feast of Guardian Angels to the rank of an
obligatory double for the whole Church to be kept on 2 October, this
being the first unoccupied day after the feast of St. Michael
(Nilles, op. cit., II, 503). Finally Leo XIII (5 April, 1883)
favoured this feast to the extent of raising it to the rank of a
double major."

Second, thanks to Roslyn for the link to Susan Higginbotham's article
on Anne Beauchamp. It is excellent, and I was unaware of the Smethon
letter, though there were no other surprises. That sounds like the
Countess, still up to tricks. But could I ask Roslyn who she thinks
the Countess would have asked for the murder weapon, and how she
would know who to ask? That is what puzzled me; I could quite see why
she would wish to procure it.

Thirdly, re Eileen's defence of the kitchenmaid story. The puzzle is
that in medieval England kitchens were staffed by males only, and the
words kitchenmaid and cookmaid didn't enter the English language
until the 17th century. I've not been able to find a Latin term for a
kitchenmaid either, and how a 15th century chronicler could have
written that is a puzzle. It may be significant that the text we have
is a 17th century copy - that part of the original chronicle was
destroyed by fire. My Latin is rudimentary - all right for formulaic
documents but not really up to taking on the problems of Crowland's
convoluted Latin - but it says he found her "in habitu coquinario",
if I remember rightly, which certainly has something to do with
clothing and something to do with cooking. But what exactly did the
chronicler write, and what exactly did he mean? And did he have the
story right anyway?

Marie



>
> Which says
>
> "Note: This document was produced as a research tool for Medieval
and
> Renaissance studies, so it focuses on people recognized as saints in
> the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The saints indexed here are those
you
> might find listed in the calendars of Medieval and Renaissance
> manuscripts. Occasionally, a later saint may appear, but no effort
has
> been made to include them. For information on saints from later
> periods (by which I mean c. 1500 to the present) you will have to
look
> elsewhere (try the Catholic Online Saints Pages). For Greek Saints
> Days, see the Orthodox Ministry Access Calendar."
>
> The source abbreviations are
>
> "The various abbreviations that appear in the entry above indicate
the
> sources from which the information was drawn. The sources consulted
> for this project were:
>
> * HBD: F.G. Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints
(St.
> Louis: B. Herder, 1924. Reprint. Detroit: Gale Research, 1969).
> * BLS: Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and
other
> Principal Saints (London: Virtue, [1936?]).
> * GTZ: Hermann Grotefend, Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung des
> Deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 10th edition (Hannover:
> Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1960). See online version.
> * MR: Missale Romanum (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana,
> 1975).
> * PCP: Paul Perdrizet, Le Calendrier Parisien à la fin du moyen
> âge, d'après le bréviaire et les livres d'heures (Paris: Les Belles
> Lettres, 1933).
> * WTS: Roger Wieck, Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in
Medieval
> Art and Life (New York: George Braziller, in association with the
> Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1988).
>
> Some entries still contain references to sources used in an
> experimental phase of this project. These are:
>
> * HCC: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, introduction and
commentaries
> by John Plummer (New York: George Braziller, n.d.).
> * PRI: The Primer, or Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in
Latin
> and English (Antwerp: Arnold Conings, 1599).
> * 6082: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 6082, a
> twelfth-century Benedictine manuscript from southern Italy."
>
>
> My guess would be that the one most likely to be recognized in
England
> for October 2 would be the Feast of the Guardian Angels.
>
> Katy
>

--- In , mariewalsh2003 <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> -
> >
> >
> >
> > Thirdly, re Eileen's defence of the kitchenmaid story. The puzzle is
> that in medieval England kitchens were staffed by males only, and the
> words kitchenmaid and cookmaid didn't enter the English language
> until the 17th century. I've not been able to find a Latin term for a
> kitchenmaid either, and how a 15th century chronicler could have
> written that is a puzzle. It may be significant that the text we have
> is a 17th century copy - that part of the original chronicle was
> destroyed by fire. My Latin is rudimentary - all right for formulaic
> documents but not really up to taking on the problems of Crowland's
> convoluted Latin - but it says he found her "in habitu coquinario",
> if I remember rightly, which certainly has something to do with
> clothing and something to do with cooking. But what exactly did the
> chronicler write, and what exactly did he mean? And did he have the
> story right anyway?
>
> Marie

Marie, I have just had an interesting conversation with my next door neighbour, who has a
degree in latin. She would be interested to see the whole sentence to get the context, I
wonder if I can find this on the internet. Coquinario is a rare word apparently. Habitus
could even mean, amongst other things *having the appearance of living in a kitchen* !

I need to find the latin version on line. How typical the original has been destroyed - how
are you to know you are reading exactly what was meant Doh
Eileen

>
>
>
> >
> > Which says
> >
> > "Note: This document was produced as a research tool for Medieval
> and
> > Renaissance studies, so it focuses on people recognized as saints in
> > the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The saints indexed here are those
> you
> > might find listed in the calendars of Medieval and Renaissance
> > manuscripts. Occasionally, a later saint may appear, but no effort
> has
> > been made to include them. For information on saints from later
> > periods (by which I mean c. 1500 to the present) you will have to
> look
> > elsewhere (try the Catholic Online Saints Pages). For Greek Saints
> > Days, see the Orthodox Ministry Access Calendar."
> >
> > The source abbreviations are
> >
> > "The various abbreviations that appear in the entry above indicate
> the
> > sources from which the information was drawn. The sources consulted
> > for this project were:
> >
> > * HBD: F.G. Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints
> (St.
> > Louis: B. Herder, 1924. Reprint. Detroit: Gale Research, 1969).
> > * BLS: Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and
> other
> > Principal Saints (London: Virtue, [1936?]).
> > * GTZ: Hermann Grotefend, Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung des
> > Deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 10th edition (Hannover:
> > Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1960). See online version.
> > * MR: Missale Romanum (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana,
> > 1975).
> > * PCP: Paul Perdrizet, Le Calendrier Parisien à la fin du moyen
> > âge, d'après le bréviaire et les livres d'heures (Paris: Les Belles
> > Lettres, 1933).
> > * WTS: Roger Wieck, Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in
> Medieval
> > Art and Life (New York: George Braziller, in association with the
> > Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1988).
> >
> > Some entries still contain references to sources used in an
> > experimental phase of this project. These are:
> >
> > * HCC: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, introduction and
> commentaries
> > by John Plummer (New York: George Braziller, n.d.).
> > * PRI: The Primer, or Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in
> Latin
> > and English (Antwerp: Arnold Conings, 1599).
> > * 6082: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 6082, a
> > twelfth-century Benedictine manuscript from southern Italy."
> >
> >
> > My guess would be that the one most likely to be recognized in
> England
> > for October 2 would be the Feast of the Guardian Angels.
> >
> > Katy
> >
>

--- In , "eileen"
<ebatesparrot@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , mariewalsh2003
<no_reply@> wrote:
> >
> > -
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Thirdly, re Eileen's defence of the kitchenmaid story. The
puzzle is
> > that in medieval England kitchens were staffed by males only, and
the
> > words kitchenmaid and cookmaid didn't enter the English language
> > until the 17th century. I've not been able to find a Latin term
for a
> > kitchenmaid either, and how a 15th century chronicler could have
> > written that is a puzzle. It may be significant that the text we
have
> > is a 17th century copy - that part of the original chronicle was
> > destroyed by fire. My Latin is rudimentary - all right for
formulaic
> > documents but not really up to taking on the problems of
Crowland's
> > convoluted Latin - but it says he found her "in habitu
coquinario",
> > if I remember rightly, which certainly has something to do with
> > clothing and something to do with cooking. But what exactly did
the
> > chronicler write, and what exactly did he mean? And did he have
the
> > story right anyway?
> >
> > Marie
>
> Marie, I have just had an interesting conversation with my next
door neighbour, who has a
> degree in latin. She would be interested to see the whole sentence
to get the context, I
> wonder if I can find this on the internet. Coquinario is a rare
word apparently. Habitus
> could even mean, amongst other things *having the appearance of
living in a kitchen* !
>
> I need to find the latin version on line. How typical the
original has been destroyed - how
> are you to know you are reading exactly what was meant Doh
> Eileen

Don't worry, Eileen. I have a copy (with parallel Latin & English
text) at my mother's house, and I shall be going down to visit in a
couple of days, so I'll look it up and post it on the forum.


>

--- In , mariewalsh2003 <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> -
>
> > >
>
>
> Don't worry, Eileen. I have a copy (with parallel Latin & English
> text) at my mother's house, and I shall be going down to visit in a
> couple of days, so I'll look it up and post it on the forum.
>

Marie - how kind of you -now just to clarify for this moment - what there is now is a *copy*
of the original? Hopefully, it was copied correctly!
Eileen
>
> >
>

--- In , "eileen"
<ebatesparrot@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , mariewalsh2003
<no_reply@> wrote:
> >
> > -
> >
> > > >
> >


No, Eileen, don't worry - it's a bought copy of a published version
(as in "my copy of Kendall's 'Richard III'"). It's the Pronay and Cox
edition.


> >
> > Don't worry, Eileen. I have a copy (with parallel Latin & English
> > text) at my mother's house, and I shall be going down to visit in
a
> > couple of days, so I'll look it up and post it on the forum.
> >
>
> Marie - how kind of you -now just to clarify for this moment -
what there is now is a *copy*
> of the original? Hopefully, it was copied correctly!
> Eileen
> >
> > >
> >
>