Thread: Man! Long Wait in the Drive-Through!

Medieval Historian Cangooner to the white courtesy phone, please!

Battle-Bruised Skeleton May Be King Richard III - Yahoo! News

That was interesting thanks for the post.

Pretty cool they may recover the body of a past king.

That's awesome! I had just read last week that they had discovered the church and were hoping that they would find the grave.

Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus

Medieval Historian Cangooner to the white courtesy phone, please!

Battle-Bruised Skeleton May Be King Richard III - Yahoo! News

Is he still dead yet?

Richard III is fascinating. Not only because of what he did (and didn't do) during his reign, but also because of the absolute wingnuts that adhere to absolutely to either side of the various historical debates. Amongst English historians, he is probably second only to the Templars on the wingnut count.

I liked this one too: I used to walk over these dudes on my way to the library

The Courier - Skeletons uncovered by St Andrews roadworks thought to be remains of 15th century monks

Originally Posted by Cangooner

I liked this one too: I used to walk over these dudes on my way to the library

The Courier - Skeletons uncovered by St Andrews roadworks thought to be remains of 15th century monks

Well, I guess the meek did inherit the earth...

Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus

Well, I guess the meek did inherit the earth...

That part of it, at least!

Cangooner --
Please elucidate on the "wingnut" angle. Are you referring to accusations of homosexuality? Something else?

Where to start...?

Shakespeare. He's as good a place as any. Shakespeare has had a tremendous impact on the way we see a great many historical figures: MacBeth, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Richard III to name but a few. The problem was that while he was amongst the best or most important literary figures in English history, he was clearly not a good historian. He got most of his 'history' from writers who were active under the Tudors. Therefore, his histories had a definite pro-Tudor slant. In the case of Richard III this is very important since his death and the ascension of Henry VII to the throne represented not only a change in ruler but a change in dynasty. And whenever there is a change in dynasty, one often finds desperate attempts to legitimize the new dynasty. This often leads to the writing of completely biased 'history' that is used by the new rulers to denegrate their predecessors, and elevate themselves.

Often this would lead writers to change their own version of history to suit whomever happened to be sitting on the throne. My favourite example is a fellow by the name of John Hardyng who wrote two VERY different versions of his chronicle: one under a Lancastrian king (Henry VI), the other was dedicated to Richard, duke of York who was none other than Richard III's father. Same author. Same material and sources. Two completely different stories.

So, the point is that Shakespeare based his version of Richard III on fiercely anti-Yorkist/pro-Tudor versions of history. Hence the evil, deformed, conniving version in his play.

Because of this, Richard III was - for centuries - accepted to have been this one-dimensional evil figure. And it has only been fairly recently that people have begun to challenge this version, resulting in three groups:

- the rabidly pro-Ricardian faction who won't hear a bad thing said about this paragon of virtue who has so wrongfully been branded an evil murderer and despot
- the rabidly anti-Ricardians who figure that Shakespeare was more or less right.
- the sensible middle of the road historians who fairly consider all available evidence and come to their own conclusions

Anyway, when I think of Richard III I usually end up watching this. It is Peter Sellers playing Laurence Olivier doing the Beatles. Genius. I'm sure I've heard somewhere another one where is is playing John Lennon playing Richard III, but I can't find that one.