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A discussion of all things Thursday !
Dicky the III
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: November 05, 2002 11:40PM
<HTML>Interesting argument carried over from 'another place' -
Was Dick the @!#$ really that evil, or was he as Bea maintains, a lovable, huggable halfwit - sort of like the Disney version of Quasimodo...
Personally I think the tendency for anybody who knew him or had a claim to the throne to die in mysterious circumstances and the fact that his name was mud even before the Tudors got to power all point to him being a bit of a bastard; even allowing for the sheer bloodthirst of the times he lived in... Plus he had the opportunity, motive and power to order or encourage most of the murders attributed to him.
Obviously Shakespeare was writing propaganda for the Tudor regime, who weren't exactly blameless either, but that doesn't mean that everything he wrote about Richard was untrue.
But then what do other people think?</HTML>
Was Dick the @!#$ really that evil, or was he as Bea maintains, a lovable, huggable halfwit - sort of like the Disney version of Quasimodo...
Personally I think the tendency for anybody who knew him or had a claim to the throne to die in mysterious circumstances and the fact that his name was mud even before the Tudors got to power all point to him being a bit of a bastard; even allowing for the sheer bloodthirst of the times he lived in... Plus he had the opportunity, motive and power to order or encourage most of the murders attributed to him.
Obviously Shakespeare was writing propaganda for the Tudor regime, who weren't exactly blameless either, but that doesn't mean that everything he wrote about Richard was untrue.
But then what do other people think?</HTML>
Re: Dicky the III
Posted by: ScarletBea (---.be.jnj.com)
Date: November 06, 2002 08:24AM
<HTML>Hmmm I'll just copy here the long explanation I started giving on the 'other place' lol, saves me from thinking it up again:
«poetscientistdrinker wrote:
Come off it! The princes in the tower, regardless of who 'actually' killed them, are historical fact. Something happened, and to suggest that Richard had nothing to do with it is madness.
He had not only the opportunity (he was their protector, remember), but also the motive - inheriting the throne. »
Yes, I know that, and now I'd have to go back to the book (as I've last read it some time ago) to give you the proper plot, or rather the name of the responsible Duke or Earl or something. In the end Richard was someone who didn't want to be king, who had lived entralled by his brother his whole life, who just wanted a calm life, and who was terribly naive in everything political. So he simply let all the 'bad issues' in the hands of his 'helpful' councellors...
In the end his biggest mistake was hiding the fact of the princes' disappearance as soon as he knew about it (ie just a couple of months or so after they went to the tower), done by Duke X (will check later), because he very naively (and also unfriendly advised) believed that either they'd show up or that nobody would remember.... Of course after some years everything blew up in his face and that was his end.</HTML>
«poetscientistdrinker wrote:
Come off it! The princes in the tower, regardless of who 'actually' killed them, are historical fact. Something happened, and to suggest that Richard had nothing to do with it is madness.
He had not only the opportunity (he was their protector, remember), but also the motive - inheriting the throne. »
Yes, I know that, and now I'd have to go back to the book (as I've last read it some time ago) to give you the proper plot, or rather the name of the responsible Duke or Earl or something. In the end Richard was someone who didn't want to be king, who had lived entralled by his brother his whole life, who just wanted a calm life, and who was terribly naive in everything political. So he simply let all the 'bad issues' in the hands of his 'helpful' councellors...
In the end his biggest mistake was hiding the fact of the princes' disappearance as soon as he knew about it (ie just a couple of months or so after they went to the tower), done by Duke X (will check later), because he very naively (and also unfriendly advised) believed that either they'd show up or that nobody would remember.... Of course after some years everything blew up in his face and that was his end.</HTML>
Re: Dicky the III
Posted by: Ooktavia (---.nv.iinet.net.au)
Date: November 06, 2002 12:11PM
<HTML>Personally, I advise reading "The Daughter of Time" by Josephine Tey as a very cleverly researched interesting take on old Richie and the Princes, whch is NOT Historical Fictional Novel and so avoids a lot of the pitfalls of same (dodgy dialogue, characterizastion etc)</HTML>
Re: Dicky the III
Posted by: charles ronayne (---.liv.ac.uk)
Date: November 06, 2002 06:53PM
<HTML>Hmm having to do a long 2.500 word essay on Richard and his pro's and cons for my history course, I have read a bit of stuff about him. Most of it appears to be rather flawed. The supposedly most influential account, Dominic Mancini, was influenced a lot by people who didn't like Richard, as they appear to be the only people who spoke very good Italian. Anything written after Richard's death is overly biased, Tudor propaganda was pretty effective. IMHO Richard is misunderstood and was not as bad as everybody made out. The only reason he lost power in the end was becuase France decided to send Henry Tudor over with some of their army, it was not actually the discontent of the English people that caused a revolt. I do believe he killed the princes, though, I thought their bodies turned up in the tower after he had been killed?</HTML>
Re: Dicky the III
Posted by: Anne (---.dc1-cache2.syd.dav.net.au)
Date: November 06, 2002 11:48PM
<HTML>Dicky III any relation to Dicky Knee?!! Sorry, Melbourne in joke!
It's OK folks I can here the "medication trolley" coming. :-))</HTML>
It's OK folks I can here the "medication trolley" coming. :-))</HTML>
Re: Dicky the III
Posted by: Anne (---.dc1-cache2.syd.dav.net.au)
Date: November 06, 2002 11:52PM
<HTML>OOOPS! The bookworms munched the hyphen! I meant in-joke!</HTML>
Re: Dicky the III
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: November 07, 2002 12:45AM
<HTML>Is Melbourne in any jokes?
And please - don't mention the Ashes!</HTML>
And please - don't mention the Ashes!</HTML>
Re: Dicky the III
Posted by: Ooktavia (---.nv.iinet.net.au)
Date: November 07, 2002 01:45PM
<HTML>Their bodies didn't turn up until-years later. Any way in um, maybe victorian times or something 2 corpses were discovered when they were digging near the Tower gardens for a new building or summat- they were of children roughly the right ages (bear in mind until puberty you can't easily tell the sex of a skeleton) and so were declared the Princes. Forensic archeology was in it's infancy- actually so was forensics.
Also bear in mind, that as far as I know,* when Henry the 7 took over the country more formally, in his speech where he declared his rights to the Throne, (firstly by de cause bello, ie he'd won the fights and only secondly by bloodright) he said a lot about the awfulness of the previous RIII but made absolutely no mention of the death of the princes...........
Since he'd revoked the Act that declared them all bastards so he could marry their sister to cement his claim to the English throne, you'd think establishing their deaths was something he needed to do on his own behalf even before he needed anything to smear Richard with (draws deep breath) yet he didn't say anything. Why?
Were they, in fact, provably not dead yet?
He needed everything he could to smear Richard with- at the time, our Dicky was quite popular, as the monks of the time record "this day was our King Richard slain, to the great pitieousness and heaviness of the city"* quote from the monastry near the last battle.
*that's what josephine tey's research says.......</HTML>
Also bear in mind, that as far as I know,* when Henry the 7 took over the country more formally, in his speech where he declared his rights to the Throne, (firstly by de cause bello, ie he'd won the fights and only secondly by bloodright) he said a lot about the awfulness of the previous RIII but made absolutely no mention of the death of the princes...........
Since he'd revoked the Act that declared them all bastards so he could marry their sister to cement his claim to the English throne, you'd think establishing their deaths was something he needed to do on his own behalf even before he needed anything to smear Richard with (draws deep breath) yet he didn't say anything. Why?
Were they, in fact, provably not dead yet?
He needed everything he could to smear Richard with- at the time, our Dicky was quite popular, as the monks of the time record "this day was our King Richard slain, to the great pitieousness and heaviness of the city"* quote from the monastry near the last battle.
*that's what josephine tey's research says.......</HTML>
Re: Dicky the III
Posted by: ScarletBea (---.be.jnj.com)
Date: November 07, 2002 05:53PM
<HTML>*claps Octavia*
that's my point too :)
(I'd read it somewhere)</HTML>
that's my point too :)
(I'd read it somewhere)</HTML>
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