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King Richard III 1452-1485; reigned 1483-1485 "They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,
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Family Tree | Royal Window | Crown | Sword | Middleham | Boar | Tower of London | Guildhall |
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| Popular arch-villain of English history, Richard was only king for two years before he was overthrown by the Tudors. A loyal subject of his brother, Edward IV, Richard had accompanied the king into exile in 1470 and fought alongside him before his reaccession in 1471. Richard spent the last twelve years of Edward's reign amassing wealth and power in the North, where he was very popular for his justice and his military prowess against the Scots.
When Edward died unexpectedly in 1483, his brother's position was threatened. Rather than allow his 12-year-old nephew to become king and potentially shut him out of the sphere of power in favor of the boy's mother's relatives (with whom he was more familiar), Richard moved quickly to remove his enemies and his rival and install himself on the throne. This ruthlessness, especially regarding the children, did nothing for his popular reputation, and when Henry Tudor defeated him at Bosworth, most had no trouble switching allegiance to his conqueror. Shakespeare's Richard III begins in 1471 but skips quickly to the events of the summer of 1483. The play culminates at Bosworth, with Derby giving the slain Richard's bloody crown to Henry Tudor, who would become Henry VII and the grandfather of Elizabeth I, Shakespeare's queen.
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Plantagenet Family Tree, 1461
Throughout the 15th century, as members of competing branches (and sometimes the same branch) of the royal family battled over the succession of the throne, individuals found themselves needing to publicly defend their right to sit there. (The only 15th century king who did not deal with repeated challenges to his right to reign was Henry V.) A popular means of propagandizing a king's legitimacy was through drawings of complicated genealogical charts that began with Edward I or earlier and ended with the current king, whoever he was, showing his right to the English throne (and, if necessary, the French as well). Examples were circulated publicly as well as included in private manuscripts. This example of visualized genealogy is particularly lively, featuring cartoonish caricatures of kings and queens budding from the shoots of a twisting vine. At the center of this detail is Henry IV, who has just brought his sword down on the stalk that holds Richard II's bud. Richard falls, cut from the Plantagenet family tree. This picture, which appeared in a geneaological roll of Edward IV, depicts the Lancastrian Henry IV as an aggressor who unceremoniously cut off England's last legally anointed king, of whom the Yorkists were the closest living descendents. The Yorkist dynasty was short-lived. Edward IV reigned from 1461-1470 and again, after a brief interruption, from 1471 to 1483. His brother Richard lost the crown to the Tudors in 1485. Sources
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Canterbury Cathedral Canterbury, Kent, England Henry VI was not the only 15th century king to fail to make an advantageous marriage. In 1464, 22-year-old Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodeville, the widow of a wealthy merchant from a large family with several children of her own. A notorious womanizer, it is said that he married her because she refused to be his mistress. Regardless of the reason, he must have realized the match was inappropriate, because he kept it secret for almost six months. This marriage was one of the main reasons for the final rift between Edward and Warwick. Elizabeth's many brothers and sisters, the Woodevilles, immediately snatched up advantageous marriages within the nobility, ruining Warwick's plans for his own two daughters who, nevertheless, Edward refused to allow his brothers to marry (they eventually did: Warwick received papal permission for his older daughter, Isabel, to marry George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard himself married her younger sister Anne after Anne's betrothed, Henry VI's son Edward Prince of Wales, was killed at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471). Warwick was also trying to arrange a marriage between Edward and the sister of the King of France, a piece of diplomacy brought to an embarrassing end when it was learned that the English king was already married.
Edward and Elizabeth had seven children who survived to 1482, and a portrait of their large family can be found in the Royal Window at Canterbury Cathedral. The family kneels at prayer desks, first the royal couple on either side of a central panel depicting Edward the Confessor and St. George above the royal coat of arms. The two sons, Edward and Richard, kneel behind their father, while daughters Elizabeth, Cecily, Anne, Catherine and Bridget are shown behind their mother. Sources
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Crown of Margaret of York, ca. 1461-74
This little crown belonged to Margaret of York, Edward IV and Richard III's older sister, who married Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in 1468. This places her at the very center of the international tension affecting England's own internal conflict during the 1460s. France had been the scene of fractious infighting amongst its most powerful dukes, those of Burgundy and Brittany, and its king for decades by the 1460s. Henry V had played both sides before his Agincourt campaign in 1415; in the 1460s, Edward IV was negotiating for Burgundy's support while Warwick and Margaret of Anjou both lobbied Louis XI, the French king. At the same time, Louis was hoping to confront the dukes and unite the country; English support would be crucial to the outcome of such a conflict. In 1464, it looked as if there would be a three-way agreement between Burgundy and the French and English crowns, but after Edward's secret marriage, he and Warwick began to pursue opposing policies in France, and their inevitable rift had international repercussions. Warwick maintained his relationship with the French king, while Edward continued to pursue support from Burgundy; indeed, Margaret of York's marriage to Charles the Bold was an effort to cement a relationship between Burgundy and the English crown. Edward's alliance caused the French king to throw his support behind the Lancastrians in England's ongoing civil struggle. In a way, then, Margaret's marriage was directly connected to Henry VI's readeption in 1470. France played a huge role in the outcome of English domestic events in the 30 years after the end of the 100 Years War. Not only did France use English kings and magnates as pawns in its own internal struggles; France was a refuge for those who found themselves out of royal favor (first the Lancastrians then the Yorkists then the Tudors all used the continent as a place to regroup, recruit, and launch counter-attacks); and the potential of alliances with French rulers had a profound effect on the shifting power struggles that characterized the Yorkist period. This crown is only 4.9 inches in diameter and, though richly decorated with precious stones, enamel and pearls, is not solid gold, but only silver-gilt. It has both Margaret's and Charles's initials and the Burgundian coat of arms, so it was most likely made for or after the couple's wedding. Some have argued that the crown was never worn by Margaret, but was made as a votive offering for a statue of the Virgin Mary at Aachen Cathedral in Germany, whose shrine the Duchess visited in 1474 and whose head its tiny dimensions exactly fit. Sources
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Sword of State, 1473-83
Though the blade of this sword was made in Germany, its pommel and hilt are English. Its ornamentation indicate it was meant for the Prince of Wales: its engraved hilt shows the Royal arms of England being held aloft by two angels above the arms of Wales and Cornwall; the opposite has the arms of the Earldoms of March and Chester. This double edged sword was thus not meant for battle, but would have been carried before the Prince during ceremonial processions, such as when he was invested with his title. Two Princes also held the title of Earl of Chester in the late 15th century. Edward IV's oldest son, also named Edward, was born in late 1470, during Henry VI's brief readeption. He received both titles before his first birthday, but his accession to the throne after his father's death in 1483 was prevented by his uncle, Richard III. Edward and his younger brother Richard were both imprisoned in the Tower and were never seen again - most agree they were murdered that summer by their uncle's order, a story that has long taken on the romantic and tragic tones of a folktale and is told in IV.iii of Shakespeare's Richard III. The sword could also have been used when Richard III's own son Edward took his cousin's place as Prince later that year (he was around 9), but who died, to the devastation of his parents, in 1484. Sources
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North Yorkshire, England Middleham was established in 1069. Building began in stone on its present site in the late 12th century, and the property passed to the Nevilles around 1270. This family (who, with the Percies, were the most powerful in Northern England) rebuilt the castle's curtain wall in 1300 and, a century later, most of the buildings within it. Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, inherited the property when his father, a Yorkist supporter, lost his life after the Battle of Wakefield in 1460. Warwick was the Yorks' most powerful ally in their bid for the throne; after Richard, Duke of York was also killed at Wakefield, Warwick (called "the Kingmaker") helped bring Edward IV to the throne. He remained the most powerful member of that king's court for the first years of his reign, before the two began to clash due to Edward's impulsive marriage and their differing policies towards France. Warwick finally abandoned their alliance and was the chief instrument in Henry VI's brief return to power, but the northern lord was killed at the Battle of Barnet in 1471.
At this point, Middleham reverted to the crown, and Edward bestowed it on his youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Richard had been largely raised here, alongside his now wife, Warwick's youngest daughter Anne. The castle became his chief residence and the center of his power base in Northern England, and is still chiefly associated with him today. Sources
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Chiddingly Boar, 1483-5
Just as Richard II had his white hart, Richard III used the wild boar as his badge. It appeared on his seal, and he distributed thousands of boar pins upon his coronation in July 1483, most made from bronze or pewter. This silver pin, just over 1 inch long, found at Chiddingly in 1999, would have been given to a more important supporter. Sources
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London The Tower, a notorious prison, is also a royal London castle. In its present form it is an immense walled pile of buildings surrounded by the Thames. Its oldest part was built under William the Conqueror beginning in 1078: this is the massive four-turreted structure known as the White Tower, seen here from across the river. By the 14th century, this structure had been surrounded with two thick curtain walls that connected other towers raised at irregular intervals. The Tower always often appears in these plays. Richard II is ordered to the Tower after being deposed by Henry Bolingbroke (IV.i). The Tower appears in I.iii of Henry VI, part 1 and again in II.v - scenes that show the government's factionalism and Richard Duke of York's reasons for rebellion. Henry VI spent five years imprisoned in the Tower before his readeption, and he was also killed there in 1471. It is in Richard III, however, that the Tower figures most strongly. It is the site of two murders in that play, both of which Shakespeare has being plotted by Richard though he himself commits neither. The first is of his brother George, Duke of Clarence, said to have been drowned in a barrel of wine (his death occurred in 1477 probably by Edward IV's, not Richard's, order). The second is the murder of the two princes, Edward's sons, touchingly recounted in IV.iii. Sources
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London The Guildhall in London was the city's main meeting place for leaders in trade and commerce (controlled in the medieval period by the guilds - unions of craftsmen whose function was to support their members and control the quality of goods produced) as well as the mayor and aldermen. Much of the medieval city's wealth, pomp and splendor was governed at this institution. The present building was largely built in the first quarter of the 15th century, spanning the reigns of Henry IV, V and VI, and the gatehouse, which houses its historic main entrance, was completed around 1430. Richard's legal argument for his accession was that his brother had already been engaged when he married Elizabeth Woodeville, and thus their marriage was invalid, their children bastards, and neither son could become king. On June 24, 1483, two days after this idea was advanced in a sermon at St. Paul's, but before Richard presented it to a gathering of knights and lords, Richard's ally Buckingham made the case to the mayor and civic leaders of London at the Guildhall. In III.vii of Richard III, Buckingham recounts the experience and the idea's unpopular (though unopposed) reception. Sources
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