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This document was formatted for on-line viewing by Nancy Haney, August, 2001.

A Meditation Upon the Life of Richard III

Delivered August 24, 1997
The Mariner's Church
Detroit, Michigan

Ronald R. Stockton

We pause today to reflect upon death and upon life, to think of the vagaries of human existence that propel us from the depths to the heights and back again, that thrust us into prominence or obscurity, grant us fame or infamy, that give us riches and power or leave us impoverished, wounded, and desperate.

So much of what comes to us is beyond our control. Wealth, physical beauty, strength, intelligence, or their opposites are so seldom ours to choose that even those who seem in control of their destinies are often the puppets of forces well beyond their ken. Seldom do any of us--wealthy or poor, powerful or insignifi­cant--even realize what propels us or impedes us.

It is customary that any address from a pulpit begin with a Biblical text and constitute a reflection upon that text. That is not the case today for we are not here to reflect upon a text but rather to reflect upon a human life. Moreover, we are reflecting upon a human life shrouded in confusion and mystery, not to say propaganda, intentional distortion, and obfuscation. To reflect upon something, we must know that upon which we reflect, and of Richard III, King of England from 1483 to 1485, we know little. Moreover, much that we know is not true.

Let us acknowledge before we go further that our gathering here is a solemn and sacred occasion. We are here in this church for a religious service. We are here to call upon God to grant to Richard III, King of England, to the great persons of note, and to the nameless soldiers who died in the Battle of Bosworth Field requiem eternum et lux perpetua, eternal rest and perpetual light. We invoke the name of Almighty God and ask His blessing on our endeavors today.

And yet to many, our presence here may seem a comic, light­hearted occasion, an opportunity to make jokes about hunchbacks and hogs, about casks of wine and wicked relatives. God forbid that we should be lured into that sacrilege.

On Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485 we know that a man died, a king died, and a lineage died. Now, 512 years later, we know that on that day there was also a birth, the birth of a myth that blotted out the real living man and substituted an impostor, a caricature of what was real. Richard III was deprived not only of his life and his kingdom but also of his humanity, of that body of deeds, good and bad, that made him a living person.

History tells us that Richard, Duke of Goucester, was born in 1452 just as England was losing its dominant position in France and just as that civil war known as the War of the Roses was escalating. For fifty-three years, powerful families, often backed by foreign powers, had struggled against each other with exceptional brutality. At the core of the dispute were legalistic and ill-determined definitions of who was and who was not a legitimate claimant to the throne. There was much manipulation of the rules by the various disputants, and ruthless factions strug­gled to gain advantage for their particular favorites. The issue was complicated by the influence of a corrupt clergy, willing to be used by the various partisan sides for their own benefit.

Richard's brother Edward, of the House of York, seized the throne from the declining Henry VI of Lancaster when Richard was 19 years of age. Richard proved himself a valuable ally in that struggle and was an able administrator when put in charge of governing the volatile and dangerous northern regions of England. When Edward died suddenly after eleven years on the throne he left behind two young sons. The twelve-year-old was slated to succeed his father but after two months was deposed by Richard who was his Regent. Richard ruled less than two years before a rebellion led to his death at Bosworth Field. Only later--often decades later--did allegations emerge of personal treachery, specifically that he had killed his nephews, his brother Clarence, and his wife. Today, those allegations are very much in doubt, or at least in serious dispute.

Graham Greene, the late British novelist, whose works emphasized the ambiguous nature of moral truth, once wrote a short, quirky, elegant novel about an humble parish priest called Monsignor Quixote. Father Quixote had an illustrious ancestry, being descended from the famous Don Quixote of centuries before. But the Monsignor himself was a simple man, literal and unso­phisticated. His Bishop viewed him with contempt and asked with rhetorical disparagement, "How can he be descended from a fictional character?" Only when Father Quixote encountered a kindly bishop from another land did he realize that his ancestry had a dignity to it: "Perhaps we are all fictions in the mind of God," the visiting Bishop observed.

For Richard III, the process has been the exact opposite of that experienced by Father Quixote. Don Quixote, the Monsignor’s illustrious ancestor, began as a fictional character who produced a lineage of real human beings. Richard III, in contrast, began as a flesh and blood person but over time, thanks to Shakespeare and a highly efficient Tudor propaganda campaign, turned into a fictional character who resembled only in the vaguest way the human being who was the source of the myth.

Let us think for a moment about the villainy attributed to Richard by his most famous detractor, William Shakespeare. Shakespeare describes Richard in the following way: unfinished, a lump of foul deformity, inhuman, unnatural, misshapen, with a dissembling nature, a rooting hog, the slander of his mother's womb, the loathed issue of his father's loins, a yonder dog, a hell hound, a carnal cur, a bloody dog, scum, and vomit.

Shakespeare says Richard incited the king against his conspiratorial brother Clarence, even though historians agree Richard was Clarence's chief defender; Shakespeare says Richard killed his own wife so he could make a more propitious marriage, although historians say he was distraught at her death; and Shakespeare says Richard had his trusting nephews killed to clear his way to power, although there is no firm evidence of this and much of the evidence that exists (all of it circumstantial) points to his enemies and accusers as the possible culprits.

Let us pause for a minute and think as Christians on these issues. The Christian concept of humanity has always recognized that in every human life there are ambiguities and complexities that are missed by other human beings. We can seldom say what is truly true about another person and hence our faith urges us to leave final judgment to that God who knows what we do not.

Let us then, for the sake of our faith, take Richard III out of the pages of fictional literature and restore him to his rightful place as a flesh and blood human being, subject to God's judgment and to the judgment of other humans. Let us perform miracles: let us straighten his back, unwither his hand, and restore him to his rightful place as a human being with that mix of good and bad traits so typical of the rest of us.

If Richard committed injustices or atrocities he must be judged for those acts, by God and by History. We will not make excuses for his sins. But if at other times he brought justice and prevented atrocities then those actions must, with equal fairness, be recorded to his credit.

Historically, one of the greatest enemies of Christianity was manichaean dualism. In ancient times, this took the form of a belief that there were two gods, a god of light and a god of darkness. There was a struggle between the two, with individuals choosing sides. In today's philosophical realm, dualism is more subtle and easily credible, positing as it does that evil and good are totally distinct and come from different sources.

But Christianity has always taught something different, something more complex, that all humans have inherent within them both the tendency to good and the tendency to evil. Each of us has within us the potential to be a Mother Theresa or an Adolph Hitler. The question is, what side will emerge?

The theologian Karl Barth once said that when God became human, everything changed. Now to understand God we must try to understand humans. Taken a step further, when God threw in His lot with humans, God's destiny became linked with human destiny. When we rise up, God rises up, and when humans fail or are humiliated, God fails and is humiliated along with us.

In our own time, we have seen our own Richard of Infamy. When Richard Nixon died, his eulogies were not what some expected. Robert Dole and Henry Kissinger became very emotional, speaking of the humanity of a man who had abused both of them. Bill Clinton called upon the American people to let the past slide into the past and to acknowledge the merits of a human being who had made a positive contribution to our country.

Many observers were skeptical about these observations. Were they the predictable laudatory comments we make when someone dies or the shallow banalities of politicians hoping to take advantage of an opportunity? Perhaps. But they were also profoundly Christian comments, acknowledging balance, complexity, and humanity. They were in a sense reassurance to the rest of us who struggle with our own failures and weaknesses and who hope that our short­comings will not be seen as the sum of our lives.

For a moment, let us assume the worst. What if all the bad things said about Richard III are true. Is there then anything we can praise? Indeed, there is. To historians, the evil deeds of Richard swirl in controversy and dispute but his achievements are not in doubt.

• He strengthened the jury system.
• He created a system of bail for those accused of crime.
• He strengthened the fiscal system.
• He strengthened freedom of religion.
• He pardoned his enemies and tried to reunite his wounded country.
• He was personally devout, honorable, and courageous.
• And he was devoted to his family and grievously mourned the wife and child who preceded him in death.

But there is another dimension to this story that we have not yet mentioned, a dimension that goes beyond the lives of the great men and women of the age. The common people also played a role. Henry Ford once said that as a child he hated history because it focused so much upon famous personalities: generals, kings, presidents. Ford said such teaching was bunk. Real history was not the lives of famous people but the lives of common people working at their jobs.

Let us take Henry Ford at his word and think again of the Battle of Bosworth Field, which changed the history of England. Let us leave those persons of note and think instead of those faceless soldiers, the canon fodder of every battle, whose names we do not know. A Caribbean poet, Aime Cesaire, once put their story into words:

Hurrah for those who never invented anything

Hurrah for those who never explored anything

Hurrah for those who never conquered anything

Hurrah for joy

Hurrah for love

Hurrah for the pain of incarnate tears.

Five hundred years after the Battle of Bosworth Field there are details of history lost to us but known as well as if they had happened yesterday.

Let us think of the young woman who went into her decline with a permanent emptiness in her heart over a youthful love taken from her and a life of shared happiness never known.

Let us think of the parents who spent years remembering a baby boy playing in the kitchen, and how he was sacrificed in a battle of which they knew nothing and cared less.

Let us think of the young men who were as quickly forgotten as they were killed.

And let us think of the soldiers who came home in pain or blindness or with missing limbs and who led lives of enduring loss and despair.

Someone once said that every reflection upon history is ultimately a reflection upon ourselves. As we think of this maligned king and of the personalities that swirled about him, and as we think of the forgotten and extinguished lives of this battle, we can reflect upon the transient nature of our own existence and upon the fragile basis of our reputations. We know nothing of these people of whom we speak today. They are for us names at best, cartoon characters at worst. Their humanity has been stripped from them and they have become characters in a drama that they would probably not recognize.

I began by saying that we could not base our thoughts today upon a Biblical passage, but what was true at the beginning of our reflections is not true at the end. Left with doubt and confusion about how to understand this man's life, we must turn to the Bible for wisdom and insight. The Second Book of Samuel tells a story about how King David offended God. God told him he had a choice of three punishments: three years of famine, three months fleeing before a pursuing enemy, or three days of unspecified pestilence. David's answer was revealing: "This is a hard choice. But let us rather fall into the power of Yahweh, since his mercy is great, and not into the power of men."

So we wish for Richard III, King of England.

And when God is finished punishing him for his sins, may God bless him for his achievements.

And may God's judgment be reflected "on earth as it is in heaven."

And may Richard III and those about him have requiem eternum et lux perpetua.

Amen

Note: Eileen Prinsen, a Society member who attended the service at which Dr. Stockton's eulogy was originally presented, contributed the following information about the Latin phrase concluding the eulogy.

... Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (publishers Harper and Row) [has] the following:

"Requiem (re'kwi em). The first word of the prayer: Requiem aeternam, dona eis, domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis (Eternal rest give them, O Lord, and let everlating light shine upon them) used as the introit of a MASS for the Dead; hence a Requiem Mass"

Eileen observed, "As all the English were Catholic at the time of Richard's death, I would assume that most people would have been familiar with the words (as I believe they are used at the time of committal.)