Serious Thoughts: You Can't Always Trust Shakespeare, My Changing Opinion of Richard III

"Now is the winter of our discontent/ made glorious summer by this son of York." 

So, lately I've thinking a lot about Richard III. Because, apparently, I have nothing more relevant to my own time period to be concerned about. As some of friends can attest to, I am legitimately upset about the malignant of Richard III. Ever since they found his skeleton, which you can read about here if you weren't aware of that, I've been reconsidering my view of the War of the Roses.

You see, I am the sort of person who takes Shakespeare quite literally. As an English major, I am not supposed to question Shakespeare; I mean, that's literary sacrilege! In fact, about a year ago, I wrote a blog about how Richard III is my favorite literary villain. While that is still true, the key word there is literary, not real life. What really struck me about 'the king in the parking lot', as they've been calling him, is that the skeleton of Richard III had no physical deformities. In Shakespeare's Richard III, he is supposed to have a crooked back and other physical imperfections. This is simply not true. Obviously, this is a literary device meant to reflect his mental or emotional 'crookedness'. But, I have to say, this really bothers me. I mean, I always assumed that, in his 'histories', Shakespeare was more or less truthful. The time of Richard III would be before Shakespeare's time, but it still would have existed within a fair degree of accuracy within England's collective history when he was a child. I mean, if he lied about this, what else could he have gotten wrong about Richard III?

Personally, I've never quite bought the theory that Richard III killed the princes in the tower. I mean, that's not only evil, it's stupid. Killing the princes in the tower would be complete political suicide; it's totally at odds with the cunning, intelligent Richard that Shakespeare presents us with. Besides, one did not live through the War of the Roses by being stupid. It seems to me that the person who would have the most to gain by the deaths of the princes in the tower was Henry VII. By killing them, he would remove two potential claimants to the throne, would force Elizabeth Woodville to back his claim to the throne, and make Elizabeth of York (who he was planning to marry) the Yorkist heir to the throne after her uncle, Richard.

Henry VII - that is one bad hat!

I've never liked Henry VII. I think it's the whole Star Chamber Inquisition thing; it's a little off putting. Not to mention that he has horrible taste in hats.

This is not to say that Richard III can be absolved of everything. The intelligent thing to do would have been to crown Edward V and name himself Lord Protector which, coincidentally, was what his brother, Edward IV, asked him to do! This is why you listen to the king! I don't buy that Richard was plotting against Edward throughout his entire reign either. Richard was one of the few people who was loyal to Edward throughout his reign. He had a lot of chances to betray him and he didn't, which is why I don't think he would have disobeyed him after his death. Why he crowned himself king, then, is not immediately clear.

Recently, I've been watching the TV show The White Queen, which is about all of this stuff, and the show puts forward the theory that Henry VII played Richard and Elizabeth Woodville off of each other to make each one think that the other was plotting against them and about to try to seize the regency. In this case, Richard would have felt that he had been backed into a corner and that his only logical recourse was to crown himself king. Clearly, this backfired. While this is only one person's theory, I think it makes a lot of sense and that something akin to this actually happened (the show also claims that Elizabeth Woodville was a witch, so you have to take these things with a grain of salt). What is made abundantly clear by history, however, is that Elizabeth Woodville was not liked or trusted by Edward IV's family and, apparently, the feeling was mutual. What I think precipitated this whole crisis was lack of trust and communication. This is why it helps to talk things out; clearly, medieval people did not listen to talk radio.

Speaking of The White Queen (which got bad reviews, but I think it's pretty decent), I really like the way they portray Richard in the show. I think the actor kind of looks like Edward Scissorhands (which is a good thing, in this case). He really comes across as a thoughtful, shy, sort of sweet guy. I really believe that TV show Richard III was trying to do the right thing by his brother. I also like how the show added a cute, little love story between him and Anne Neville. Again, there's no actual evidence of this, however, we do know that they knew each other for years before they were married and spent a lot of time together. So, presumably, there could have been some actual affection there. Also, according to Wikipedia, Richard cried at her funeral, so there you go.

All in all, I think the TV show did a good job of showing why Richard might have taken the throne (although, unfortunately, TV show Richard also has a penchant for ugly head wear - which seems to be a running theme in shows about English royalty). I just finished the episode where he crowns himself the king and, by the end of the episode, I was so upset that I couldn't do anything but play Angry Birds for the rest of the night (which, let's be honest, is probably what I would have done anyway). Obviously, now,  no one can ever know exactly what happened, but I think it's fair to say that he didn't intend to do it when he started out.

Richard III

If things had gone slightly differently or if Richard had had a better relationship with Elizabeth Woodville, Edward V may have been crowned king and lived to adulthood. That would have changed everything. Even if Edward V had died without heirs, presumably his brother (or even one of his sisters) would have had male offspring. There would have been no Tudor kings, no Queen Elizabeth, no Spanish Armada, no glorious revolution, no constitutional monarchy, England and Scotland might never have become Britain, and England might well have remained a Catholic country. Given the role that England has had in shaping world history, this planet might have been a very different place.

It's quite strange to think about. If you subscribe to the theory that there are infinite alternate universes, I think it's fair to say that, somewhere, there is a universe where Edward V became king, meaning that there would have been no Stuart kings of England, no glorious revolution, and, consequently, no constitutional monarchy. Which means that there might well have been an English revolution instead of a French revolution and there might not have been a queen in England today, which would be a great shame; she has very good taste in hats.

Just sayin'