By carefully picking over the evidence, Ross has pretty well
effaced both the monstrous Richard of Tudor legend (which
Shakespeare echoed) and the admirable, unjustly maligned Richard
put forth by his latter-day defenders ("nearly all women writers"
but also including Richard's "principal modern biographer," Paul
Murray Kendall). He has not, however, put anything tangible in
their place - neither a portrait of a man nor a consistent
alternative interpretation. The first failing is largely in the
nature of the book: all argument, no narrative. The crucial
interpretive falling is a matter of internal logic. Ross, a
specialist in English medieval history and the biographer of
Richard's older brother, Edward IV, makes a major, salutary point
that Richard should be judged in the context of his "violent times"
and, "more particularly, of the record of his own family": after
all, his brother, the Duke of Clarence, had himself conspired
against their brother, King Edward; in the course of that aborted
rebellion, Richard's cousin and guardian, the Earl of Warwick, had
"ruthlessly eliminated" his political rivals, the King's Woodville
relations; Edward had subsequently had his brother Clarence
murdered; and so on. In Ross' reading, there is a precedent for
everything - and no particular horror at (what he believes to have
been) Richard's murder of Edward's two young sons in the Tower to
solidify his hold on the throne. "He was a man of his times." So:
was the monstrous Richard a Tudor invention to depict his
victorious foe and fellow-usurper Henry Tudor as England's savior?
No - "We have strong contemporary evidence that Richard was
disliked and mistrusted in his own time." And this is where we are
left - with a Richard no worse than his kin who was nonetheless
seen in a poorer light. Perhaps Richard's northern connection, from
his upbringing and his accession to Warwick's domain (well and
interestingly developed here), is the out Ross doesn't quite seize;
perhaps hostility to Richard and his northern "invaders" in the
south and west of England accounts for that ill regard. The degree
of its validity, the nature of his character, we still don't know.
Anti- and pro-Ricardians will find many, many finer points to
ponder; some recent, reflexive exonerations will have to be
reconsidered. For a full-fleshed biography, however, readers will
still have to turn to the much-mocked (and sometimes effectively
discredited) Paul Murray Kendall. (Kirkus Reviews)
Richard III ruled England for a mere twenty-six months, yet few
English monarchs remain as compulsively fascinating, and none has
been more persistently vilified. In his absorbing and universally
praised account, Charles Ross assesses the king within the context
of his violent age and explores the critical questions of the
reign: why and how Richard Plantagenet usurped the throne; the
belief that he ordered the murder of "the Princes in the Tower";
the events leading to the battle of Bosworth in 1485; and the death
of the Yorkist dynasty with Richard himself. In a new foreword,
Professor Richard A. Griffiths identifies the attributes that have
made Ross's account the leading biography in the field, and
assesses the impact of the research published since the book first
appeared in 1981.
"A fascinating study on a perennially fascinating topic... the base
against which will be measured any future research."--"Times Higher
Education Supplement "
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