Josephine Tey convinced me (years ago) that Richard III was maligned and innocent. Since then I've discovered that not everyone agrees with her logic.
The Year of Three Kings, 1483 was published in 1983,and written by Giles St Aubyn, one of those who weren't as convinced. It is my last intensive teacher-read before the school year starts; I'm about halfway through, and I'm finding it good straightforward history--though not as easy to get through as Tey's fictional approach.
(Funny what things come back to you. As soon as I read the name Lovell, I remembered the rhyme from Daughter of Time about "The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell our dog," and I was pretty pleased with myself for getting that right when Catesby and Ratcliffe turned up a few pages later.)
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Was just discussing Richard this past week with my son who's been reading Tey's book. Shakespeare's Macbeth was another with conflicting views depending on who's wrote the story. Interesting stuff.
Meant to say 'on who wrote the story.'
It's one of those history mysteries that even historians and scholars can't agree. There is evidence to support both sides of the story.
Load of Tonypandy I say. Humph.
Jeanne, we've just gotten to Tonypandy in the book. I came up with a Canadian bit of possible Tonypandy: Louis Riel's execution of Thomas Scott in 1870. Newspapers in eastern Canada published an inflammatory drawing of the supposed scene, which stirred up a great deal of hatred for Riel and forced him into exile in the U.S. The Tonypandy part is that much of the emotion was caused by that drawing and by the way that the story was reported, and no matter how much of it was or wasn't true, it was unlikely that anybody was going out of their way to correct it. My take on Canadian history, anyway.
Interesting. It seems that a lot of the Scottish martyr Tonypandy was started by Charlotte's old friend Scott. So I learned while in Scotland. I'm keen to read Old Morality now. I'm scheduling it for AO8. (Along with some stuff that shows the 'correct' view. Ahem.)
Also, we heard a bit about the Richard controversy whilst visiting the Tower of London. They stop short of naming names, but lean toward Richard as perpetrator.
One last comment. We visited the graves of the two Margarets. Would Lydia like to see photos?
Sure!
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