Editing Richard III of England (section)

===Reputation===
[[File:Richiii.jpg|thumb|upright=1.03|left|16th-century portrait, (oil on panel, [[National Portrait Gallery, London]])]]

There are numerous contemporary, or near-contemporary, sources of information about the reign of Richard III.<ref>{{cite web |title=Back to Basics for Newcomers |url=http://www.r3.org/on-line-library-text-essays/back-to-basics-for-newcomers/ |publisher=Richard III Society, American Branch |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180408091044/http://www.r3.org/on-line-library-text-essays/back-to-basics-for-newcomers/ |archive-date=8 April 2018 |url-status=live |access-date=5 February 2013 }}</ref> These include the ''Croyland Chronicle'', Commines' ''Mémoires'', the report of [[Dominic Mancini]], the Paston Letters, the Chronicles of Robert Fabyan and numerous court and official records, including a few letters by Richard himself. However, the debate about Richard's true character and motives continues, both because of the subjectivity of many of the written sources, reflecting the generally partisan nature of writers of this period, and because none was written by men with an intimate knowledge of Richard.{{sfnp|Hanham|1975}}

During Richard's reign, the historian [[John Rous (historian)|John Rous]] praised him as a "good lord" who punished "oppressors of the commons", adding that he had "a great heart".<ref>John Rous in {{harvp|Hanham|1975|p=121}}.</ref>{{sfnp|Ross|1981|pp=xxii–xxiv}} In 1483, the Italian observer Mancini reported that Richard enjoyed a good reputation and that both "his private life and public activities powerfully attracted the esteem of strangers".{{sfnp|Langley|Jones|2013}}{{sfnp|Kendall|1956|pp=150–151|ps=, quoting from Mancini's ''De Occupatione Regni Anglie per Riccardum Tercium'': "After the death of Clarence, he [Richard] came very rarely to court. He kept himself within his own lands and set out to acquire the loyalty of his people through favours and justice. The good reputation of his private life and public activities powerfully attracted the esteem of strangers. Such was his renown in warfare, that whenever a difficult and dangerous policy had to be undertaken, it would be entrusted to his direction and his generalship. By these arts, Richard acquired the favour of the people and avoided the jealousy of the queen, from whom he lived far separated."}} His bond to the City of York, in particular, was such that on hearing of Richard's demise at the battle of Bosworth the City Council officially deplored the king's death, at the risk of facing the victor's wrath.{{sfnp|Kendall|1956|p=444|ps=. "The day after the battle, John Sponer galloped into York to bring news of King Richard's overthrow...to the Mayor and Aldermen hastily assembled in the council chamber", "it was showed by...John Spooner...that king Richard, late mercifully reigning upon us, was through great treason piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this City". York Records, p. 218.}}

During his lifetime he was the subject of some attacks. Even in the North in 1482, a man was prosecuted for offences against the Duke of Gloucester, saying he did "nothing but grin at" the city of York. In 1484, attempts to discredit him took the form of hostile placards, the only surviving one being [[William Collingbourne]]'s lampoon of July 1484 "The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell the Dog, all rule England under a Hog" which was pinned to the door of [[St. Paul's Cathedral]] and referred to Richard himself (the Hog) and his most trusted councillors [[William Catesby]], [[Richard Ratcliffe]] and Francis, Viscount Lovell.{{sfnp|Hicks|2009|pp=237–238}} On 30 March 1485 Richard felt forced to summon the Lords and London City Councillors to publicly deny the rumours that he had poisoned Queen Anne and that he had planned marriage to his niece Elizabeth,{{sfnp|Cheetham|Fraser|1972|pp=175–176}} at the same time ordering the Sheriff of London to imprison anyone spreading such slanders.{{sfnp|Kendall|1956|p=395|ps=, quoting from the court minutes of the Mercer's company, 31 March 1485.}} The same orders were issued throughout the realm, including York where the royal pronouncement recorded in the City Records dates 5 April 1485 and carries specific instructions to suppress seditious talk and remove and destroy evidently hostile placards unread.{{sfnp|Hicks|2009|pp=238–239}}{{sfnp|Kendall|1956|pp=395–396}}

As for Richard's physical appearance, most contemporary descriptions bear out the evidence that aside from having one shoulder higher than the other (with chronicler Rous not able to correctly remember which one, as slight as the difference was), Richard had no other noticeable bodily deformity. [[John Stow]] talked to old men who, remembering him, said "that he was of bodily shape comely enough, only of low stature"{{sfnp|Buck|1647|p=548}}{{incomplete short citation|date=February 2023}} and a German traveller, Nicolas von Poppelau, who spent ten days in Richard's household in May 1484, describes him as "three fingers taller than himself...much more lean, with delicate arms and legs and also a great heart."{{sfnp|Kendall|1956|p=537}} Six years after Richard's death, in 1491, a schoolmaster named William Burton, on hearing a defence of Richard, launched into a diatribe, accusing the dead king of being "a hypocrite and a crookback...who was deservedly buried in a ditch like a dog."{{sfnp|Pollard|1991|ps=, p. 200 quoting York records, pp. 220–222}}

Richard's death encouraged the furtherance of this later negative image by his Tudor successors due to the fact that it helped to legitimise Henry VII's seizure of the throne.{{sfnp|Hicks|2009|pp=247–249}} The [[Richard III Society]] contends that this means that "a lot of what people thought they knew about Richard III was pretty much propaganda and myth building."<ref name="mackintosh-20130204">{{cite news |last=Mackintosh |first=Eliza |date=4 February 2013 |title='Beyond reasonable doubt,' bones are the remains of England's King Richard III |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/remains-of-king-richard-iii-identified/2013/02/04/d79e87b2-6ebb-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |publisher=<!--Washington Post Company (omitted as substantially similar to newspaper name)--> |location=<!--Washington, DC (omitted as given by newspaper name)--> |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180829063405/http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/remains-of-king-richard-iii-identified/2013/02/04/d79e87b2-6ebb-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html |archive-date=29 August 2018 |url-status=live |access-date=4 February 2013}}</ref> The Tudor characterisation culminated in the famous fictional portrayal of him in Shakespeare's play ''[[Richard III (play)|Richard III]]'' as a physically deformed, [[Machiavellianism (politics)|Machiavellian]] villain, ruthlessly committing numerous murders in order to claw his way to power;<ref>{{Folger inline|Richard III}}</ref> Shakespeare's intention perhaps being to use Richard III as a vehicle for creating his own [[Christopher Marlowe|Marlowesque]] protagonist.{{sfnp|Kendall|1956|p=426|ps=. The comparison is with Barabas in Marlowe's ''Jew of Malta'' of a couple of years earlier.}} Rous himself in his ''History of the Kings of England'', written during Henry VII's reign, initiated the process. He reversed his earlier position,{{sfnp|Kendall|1956|p=419}} and now portrayed Richard as a freakish individual who was born with teeth and shoulder-length hair after having been in his mother's womb for two years. His body was stunted and distorted, with one shoulder higher than the other, and he was "slight in body and weak in strength".{{sfnp|Kendall|1956|p=420}} Rous also attributes the murder of Henry VI to Richard, and claims that he poisoned his own wife.<ref>{{cite web |last=Hammond |first=Peter |date=November 2003 |url=http://www.r3.org/rnt1991/supposedcrimes.html |title=These Supposed Crimes: Four Major Accusations (the Murders of Edward of Lancaster, Henry VI, Clarence and Queene Anne) Discussed and Illustrated |website=To Prove a Villain: The Real Richard III |medium=Exhibition at the Royal National Theatre, London, 27 March – 27 April 1991 |publisher=Richard III Society, American Branch |access-date=5 February 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060714133941/http://www.r3.org/rnt1991/supposedcrimes.html |archive-date=14 July 2006}}</ref> Jeremy Potter, a former Chair of the Richard III Society, claims that "At the bar of history Richard III continues to be guilty because it is impossible to prove him innocent. The Tudors ride high in popular esteem."{{sfnp|Potter|1994|p=4}}

Polydore Vergil and [[Thomas More]] expanded on this portrayal, emphasising Richard's outward physical deformities as a sign of his inwardly twisted mind. More describes him as "little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed&nbsp;... hard-favoured of visage".{{sfnp|Ross|1981|pp=xxii–xxiv}} Vergil also says he was "deformed of body&nbsp;... one shoulder higher than the right".{{sfnp|Ross|1981|pp=xxii–xxiv}} Both emphasise that Richard was devious and flattering, while planning the downfall of both his enemies and supposed friends. Richard's good qualities were his cleverness and bravery. All these characteristics are repeated by Shakespeare, who portrays him as having a hunch, a limp and a withered arm.<ref>{{Folger inline|Henry VI, Part 3|3|2|155–161}}</ref>{{sfnp|Clemen|1977|p=51}} With regard to the "hunch", the [[List of Shakespeare plays in quarto|second quarto]] edition of ''Richard III'' (1598) used the term "hunched-backed" but in the [[First Folio]] edition (1623) it became "bunch-backed".{{sfnp|Shipley|1984|p=127}}

[[File:Pomnik Ryszarda III przy Katedrze Św. Marcina w Leicesterze.jpg|left|thumb|upright|A statue of Richard III now outside [[Leicester Cathedral]]]]

Richard's reputation as a promoter of legal fairness persisted, however. [[William Camden]] in his ''Remains Concerning Britain'' (1605) states that Richard, "albeit he lived wickedly, yet made good laws".{{sfnp|Camden|1870|p=293}} [[Francis Bacon]] also states that he was "a good lawmaker for the ease and solace of the common people".{{sfnp|Bacon|Lumby|1885}} In 1525, Cardinal Wolsey upbraided the aldermen and Mayor of London for relying on a statute of Richard to avoid paying an extorted tax (benevolence) but received the reply "although he did evil, yet in his time were many good acts made."{{sfnp|Potter|1994|p=23}}{{sfnp|Baldwin|2013|p=217}}

Richard was a practising Catholic, as shown by his personal [[Book of Hours]], surviving in the [[Lambeth Palace]] library. As well as conventional aristocratic devotional texts, the book contains a Collect of [[Ninian|Saint Ninian]], referencing a saint popular in the Anglo-Scottish Borders.<ref>Sutton & Visser-Fuchs. ''The Hours of Richard III'' (1996) pp. 41–44 {{ISBN|0750911840}}</ref>

Despite this, the image of Richard as a ruthless tyrant remained dominant in the 18th and 19th centuries. The 18th-century philosopher and historian [[David Hume]] described him as a man who used dissimulation to conceal "his fierce and savage nature" and who had "abandoned all principles of honour and humanity".{{sfnp|Hume|1864|pp=345–346}} Hume acknowledged that some historians have argued "that he was well qualified for government, had he legally obtained it; and that he committed no crimes but such as were necessary to procure him possession of the crown", but he dismissed this view on the grounds that Richard's exercise of arbitrary power encouraged instability.{{sfnp|Hume|1864|p=365}} The most important late 19th century biographer of the king was [[James Gairdner]], who also wrote the entry on Richard in the ''[[Dictionary of National Biography]]''.{{sfnp|Gairdner|1896}} Gairdner stated that he had begun to study Richard with a neutral viewpoint, but became convinced that Shakespeare and More were essentially correct in their view of the king, despite some exaggerations.{{sfnp|Gairdner|1898|p=xi}}

Richard was not without his defenders, the first of whom was Sir [[George Buck]], a descendant of one of the king's supporters, who completed ''The history of King Richard the Third'' in 1619. The authoritative Buck text was published only in 1979, though a corrupted version was published by Buck's great-nephew in 1646.{{sfnp|Buck|1647}} Buck attacked the "improbable imputations and strange and spiteful scandals" related by Tudor writers, including Richard's alleged deformities and murders. He located lost archival material, including the [[Titulus Regius]], but also claimed to have seen a letter written by Elizabeth of York, according to which Elizabeth sought to marry the king.<ref>{{cite web |title=Elizabeth of York |url=http://www.r3.org/basics/basic8.html |publisher=Richard III Society, American Branch |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180408084900/http://www.r3.org/on-line-library-text-essays/back-to-basics-for-newcomers/elizabeth-of-york/ |archive-date=8 April 2018 |url-status=dead |access-date=6 December 2018 }}</ref> Elizabeth's supposed letter was never produced. Documents which later emerged from the Portuguese royal archives show that after Queen Anne's death, Richard's ambassadors were sent on a formal errand to negotiate a double marriage between Richard and the Portuguese king's sister Joanna,{{sfnp|Horrox|2013}} of Lancastrian descent,{{sfnp|Williams|1983|p=139}} and between Elizabeth of York and Joanna's cousin [[Manuel I of Portugal|Manuel, Duke of Viseu]] (later King of Portugal).{{sfnp|Ashdown-Hill|2013}}

Significant among Richard's defenders was [[Horace Walpole]]. In ''Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third'' (1768), Walpole disputed all the alleged murders and argued that Richard may have acted in good faith. He also argued that any physical abnormality was probably no more than a minor distortion of the shoulders.{{sfnp|Walpole|1798|loc=''Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third'', pp. 103–184}} However, he retracted his views in 1793 after [[the Terror]], stating he now believed that Richard could have committed the crimes he was charged with,{{sfnp|Walpole|1798|loc=''Postscript to my Historic Doubts, written in February 1793'', pp. 220–251}} although Pollard observes that this retraction is frequently overlooked by later admirers of Richard.{{sfnp|Pollard|1991|p=216}} Other defenders of Richard include the noted explorer [[Clements Markham]], whose ''Richard III: His Life and Character'' (1906) replied to the work of Gairdner. He argued that Henry VII killed the princes and that the bulk of evidence against Richard was nothing more than Tudor propaganda.{{sfnp|Myers|1968|pp=199–200}} An intermediate view was provided by Alfred Legge in ''The Unpopular King'' (1885). Legge argued that Richard's "greatness of soul" was eventually "warped and dwarfed" by the ingratitude of others.{{sfnp|Legge|1885|p=viii}}

Some 20th-century historians have been less inclined to moral judgement,{{sfnp|Myers|1968|pp=200–202}} seeing Richard's actions as a product of the unstable times. In the words of [[Charles Ross (historian)|Charles Ross]], "the later fifteenth century in England is now seen as a ruthless and violent age as concerns the upper ranks of society, full of private feuds, intimidation, land-hunger, and litigiousness, and consideration of Richard's life and career against this background has tended to remove him from the lonely pinnacle of Villainy Incarnate on which Shakespeare had placed him. Like most men, he was conditioned by the standards of his age."{{sfnp|Ross|1981|p=liii}} The Richard III Society, founded in 1924 as "The Fellowship of the White Boar", is the oldest of several [[Ricardian (Richard III)|Ricardian]] groups dedicated to improving his reputation. Other historians still describe him as a "power-hungry and ruthless politician" who was most probably "ultimately responsible for the murder of his nephews."<ref>{{cite web |last=Hebron |first=Michael |date=15 March 2016 |title=Richard III and the Will to Power |url=https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/richard-iii-and-the-will-to-power |website=Discovering Literature: Shakespeare & Renaissance |publisher=[[British Library]] |access-date=23 September 2017 |archive-date=15 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170315212407/http://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/richard-iii-and-the-will-to-power |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Hogenboom |first=Melissa |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19572103 |title=Richard III: The people who want everyone to like the infamous king |website=[[BBC News Magazine]] |location=London |date=15 September 2012 |access-date=23 September 2018}}</ref>