Ricardian Fiction

Ricardian Fiction: Trash and Treasures

Roxane C. Murph

Most Ricardians enjoy reading novels and plays about Richard III and the Wars of the Roses, and there are a great many of them. The subject has interested writers of fiction since before Shakespeare's Richard III, and there is hardly a time since then that hasn't seen the publication of several works about the period. In the years leading up to 1985, the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth, there was a veritable explosion of novels with a Ricardian theme, which has abated only slightly since then. Most works of fiction about our period are of indifferent quality, some are so badly written one can only wonder how any publisher could consider them, and a precious few are works of such quality that they are a joy to read.

Of course, the opinions I will express are my own, and many of you will disagree with them, and so I think it would be advisable to define my criteria. Some of my Ricardian friends think that any novel is good whose author rejects the so-called Tudor Myth and believes that Richard, if not actually a saint, was as near as makes no difference. Conversely, any book which portrays Richard as a villain, or even as a mere mortal with flaws, is bad. I don't subscribe to this philosophy, and some of my choices will annoy some of you, but although I approve, indeed cheer authors who write works sympathetic to Richard, that is only one of the criteria by which I judge a work. To be included in the treasure category a work must be well written by an author who has more than a nodding acquaintance with the rules of English grammar, the characters must have more depth than many of the cardboard creations too often found in popular historical fiction, and last, but certainly not least, the author has to know more about the period than the dates and names of some of the more important figures of the time. And now to my choices of some of the best and worst of the field.

I hope we can agree that Shakespeare's Richard III, although it was responsible in large measure for the unfortunate and inaccurate reputation that Richard has suffered over the centuries since his death, is a great work. We may cringe at the caricature that the Bard passes off as the real Richard, we may grind our teeth and boo and hiss, but we cannot argue about its merits as literature. It has everything a drama should have: sublime writing, an exciting plot, and gripping characters, and as long as one doesn't accept it as historical fact, we can enjoy it for what it is, the best, and unfortunately the most influential work of Ricardian fiction, and certainly in a class by itself.

Since, however, novels make up the majority of Ricardian and Wars of the Roses fiction, most of my examples will be chosen from this genre, although I will discuss some plays. The novel, as we know it, is a relatively new form, and although there are some works written as early as the late sixteenth century which qualify as novels, it was not until the eighteenth century and the rise of an educated middle class which had both the income to buy books, and the leisure to read them, that the novel came into its own. One of the earliest English novels, written in 1700, is the anonymous Amours of Edward IV, an Historical Novel, narrated, supposedly, by Elizabeth Woodville to pass the time in sanctuary. She tells how Warwick, after killing her husband in battle, falls madly in love with her. She spurns his love, and when he goes to France to negotiate a marriage for Edward IV, she goes to the king and begs him not to force her to marry Warwick. The two fall madly in love and marry, and Warwick is so enraged, that he rebels against the king. This plot, improbable as it is, was apparently the inspiration of two eighteenth-century plays. The earlier one, The Earl of Warwick written in 1764 by Paull Hiffernan, has Warwick, whom the author calls "the born enemy to oppression of every sort, and strenuous assertor of the Rights and Liberty of Man," and Elizabeth Woodville in love and planning to marry. When Warwick goes to France to arrange Edward's marriage, the king falls in love with Elizabeth. Warwick is infuriated by Edward's betrayal, and he agrees to help Margaret of Anjou put Henry VI back on the throne. The noble Elizabeth attempts to repair the quarrel, but to no avail. Warwick, however, thinks things over and then attempts to return to Edward, but the enraged Margaret stabs him. Elizabeth then stabs herself and throws herself on Warwick's body. This play is only slightly more ridiculous than another play inspired by the Amours of Edward IV. This is The Earl of Warwick, a Tragedy in Five Acts, published in 1766 by Thomas Francklin. In this play Margaret of Anjou attempts to prevent a marriage between Warwick and Elizabeth and to encourage one between Elizabeth and Edward IV. She hopes that when Warwick learns of his betrayal, his humiliation will force him to turn against Edward and restore Henry VI to the throne. Although Elizabeth tries to play the peacemaker, Margaret's plan works, but on the battlefield the two men patch up their quarrel. Warwick then pursues Margaret and her army, but when he reaches her, she stabs him. Before he dies Warwick asks Elizabeth to marry Edward to atone for his, Warwick's betrayal. Edward promises to pattern himself on Warwick and he and Elizabeth are married.

These are extreme examples of an author's distortion of historical truth, with bizarre results. Such blatant distortion was more common in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries than it is now, but unfortunately, because it is more subtle, and many authors pretend impartiality, the modern distortion is more insidious and can be more dangerous.

Very few authors of the period between 1600 and 1800 showed any sympathy for Richard, or indeed any of the Yorkists. By the nineteenth century, however, Henry Tudor, the darling of earlier writers, was undergoing a reassessment. He was no longer always the pure and virtuous hero who had saved England from the monstrous Richard III. In the 1812 play Henry the Seventh, an Historical Tragedy in Five Acts by Richard Chevenix, Henry is a veritable monster himself. He is portrayed as the mean, greedy usurper he undoubtedly was, who refuses to marry Elizabeth of York until parliament confirms his title in his own right, mistreats her when he does finally marry her, and after the Perkin Warbeck rebellion, schemes to involve the pretender and young Warwick in a plot so he can execute them.

Some of the worst Ricardian novels, as well as plays, were written in the nineteenth century, those in which Richard is portrayed by authors who apparently believed that Shakespeare had given us an accurate picture of a monster, deformed in both body and mind. He is the evil Duke of Gloucester in Mrs. Shore's Jane Shore, or the Goldsmith's Wife, A Thrilling Story of the Reign of King Edward IV. In this work the heroine, Jane, lectures Edward incessantly on the virtues of compassion and forgiveness, and pleads with him to spare the lives of the co-conspirators Clarence and Hastings, despite the machinations of the evil Gloucester. This brave little heroine works tirelessly to bring peace and understanding among the quarrelling factions of the court, and after Edward's death she repents of her sins and reconciles with her husband. Indeed, there are several works in which the unhappy Jane, who is so brutally mistreated by Richard, reconciles with her husband before her death. In Heywood's play Edward IV, Jane is surprised and hurt by Richard's later enmity, since she had interceded with Edward in his behalf, and helped him in other ways. At the end, she and her husband, with whom she has reconciled, die in each other's arms. In Nicholas Rowe's play, The Tragedy of Jane Shore, she and her husband have a dramatic deathbed reconciliation, and after her death he is taken off to be executed. In William Harrison Ainsworth's 19th century novel, The Goldsmith's Wife, another one in which history is distorted beyond recognition, Jane plays the diplomat and spy, negotiating treaties between England and France, and singlehandedly attempting to save Clarence's life.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Last of the Barons has Warwick as hero and Richard as villain, a 'crafty pygmy' and brave, if machiavellian warrior. After Warwick's death, as Edward and Elizabeth Woodville are reunited, she catches the 'glittering and fatal eye' of the Duke of Gloucester, and she holds her infant son close, as if she knows instinctively that one day he will be destroyed by his uncle's ruthless ambition.

One of the worst of the nineteenth century novels, in terms of writing, characterizations, and historical inaccuracy, is At Ye Grene Griffin, or, Mrs. Treadwell's Cook, by Emily Sarah Holt, who wrote several works about the period. Anne Neville is the put-upon heroine, who, after the death of her beloved husband Edward of Lancaster, hides in the home of a tailor and his wife, and works for them as a cook. Anne knows that Richard wants her inheritance, and will force her into marriage to get it, a fate she views as worse than death. He tracks her down, kidnaps her in the dead of night, and takes her to Westminster Abbey, where despite her desperate and continuous shrieks and screams for help, he forces her to marry him. This is, of course, pretty silly stuff, but Victorian readers probably ate it up.

Unfortunately, the nineteenth century did not have a monopoly on bad Ricardian books. There have been many egregious examples from the twentieth century as well, and not all of them are of the bodice-ripper-paperback-romance type. And some of them, for all their many flaws, are dear to the hearts of some Ricardians, because they are on the 'right' side of the controversy. I know that many of you enjoyed Marjorie Bowen's Dickon, since the author is firmly on the side of the angels, but in my opinion that is the only thing it has going for it. Bowen, unaccountably, ignores the question of the fate of the princes surely the central mystery of Richard's reign, and the one on which his reputation rests. Since she dispenses with that little problem, she has no problem portraying Richard as the perfect knight, whose actions are governed entirely by his desire to bring peace and prosperity to England.

Another of my least favorite Ricardian novels is The Ragged Staff by C. M. Edmonston and M. L. F. Hyde, published in 1932. Yes, it took two authors to produce this ridiculous travesty, in which Anne Neville's father promises her that she will not be forced to marry the evil hunchbacked Richard, who lusts after her and her fortune. She marries Edward of Lancaster, and after his death she is spirited away by the young hero of the novel to keep her out of the clutches of the wicked duke. There is no escape for poor Anne, however, for Richard finds her and forces her to marry him.

Many Ricardian novels were written for young people, and among them are some of the worst, both in terms of writing and history. Edward Putnam Gleason's The Mystery of Boshingham Castle: A Tale Concerning the Wicked King Richard III and the Princes in the Tower is one of these. It concerns the discovery, by two young students, of the diary of Elizabeth Brackenbury, the daughter of the Constable of the Tower, in an old crypt. The diary tells how Elizabeth overhears the murderers of the princes discussing their plan. She reveals the plot to a friend, Arthur Ardleigh, and with the help of other loyal Yorkists, they attempt to save the boys. They fail and are imprisoned by the evil Lord Boshingham, but escape. Arthur goes to France to join Henry Tudor, and after Bosworth he and Elizabeth marry, and are rewarded with the forfeited estates of the wicked Lord Boshingham. This author's research seems to have consisted solely in reading More's History, but More could write, and he couldn't.

Paula Simond's Daughter of Violence is another on my list of really bad Ricardian novels. The writing is abominable, and the plot ludicrous, although Richard is the good guy. Anne Neville is forced to marry Edward of Lancaster, although she and Richard are in love, and Margaret of Anjou, Edward's possessive mother, attempts to murder Anne. After Edward's death at Tewkesbury Clarence hides Anne to keep Richard from marrying her, but she is rescued by Thomas Malory, and she and Richard are reunited.

Alice Harwood, who wrote three novels about the period, never seemed to learn much about it in the process. Added to her ignorance of the period is her inability to create characters of any depth or to write convincing dialogue. The Merchant of the Ruby concerns Richard, the younger of the princes in the Tower, who persuades the murderers sent by his wicked uncle to spare him. He is taken to Flanders, where he grows up as Pierre Osbeck, later known as Perkin Warbeck. The Clandestine Queen is about Elizabeth Woodville, her marriage to Edward IV, and Warwick's rebellion, and the heroine of the last one, The Uncrowned Queen, is Margaret Beaufort.

Most of these bad novels are merely boring or irritating, but one goes far beyond these faults. You may have read Guy M. Townsend's To Prove a Villain, which should indeed have been called To Disprove The Daughter of Time. I was really infuriated by the book's snide, smug tone, the author's attempted put-down of Tey, and the truly loathsome hero. Toward the end of the novel, when he is in danger of being murdered himself, I was pulling for the murderer.

Philippa Wiat wrote several novels about the Wars of the Roses, and they are extremely amusing. Unfortunately this was not the author's intention. In The Master of Blandeston Hall Giles Athelstane, an agent of Richard III, wants to marry Elena, the sister of Henry Wyatt, a Yorkshire friend of Henry Tudor, and is furious when Wyatt refuses her permission. Giles then seduces Elena's friend Catherine into marriage, and forces her to reveal that Wyatt had sheltered Tudor. Catherine hangs herself, and Giles betrays Wyatt to Richard, who has him arrested and tortured. Tudor rescues Wyatt on his way to Bosworth, and after the battle he returns to Blandeston to discover that Giles has murdered his wife and son, raped Elena and taken possession of the estate. The kindly new king, Henry Tudor, punishes the evil Giles and restores Blandeston to Wyatt.

In Prince of the White Rose Richard of Gloucester imprisons his two nephews after Edward IV's death and spreads the rumor that they are illegitimate. He orders their murder, but Richard, the younger, is spared and sent to Tournai to live with Catherine Osbeck, who had borne Edward IV an illegitimate son, Perkin, now deceased. Richard becomes Perkin, and waits to claim the throne. After Bosworth Henry Tudor seduces Elizabeth of York, gets her pregnant, and marries her. When Perkin is captured after his ill-fated rebellion, Elizabeth, who thinks he is an imposter, refuses to see him, until persuaded to do so by Jane Shore, shopays for her interference with her life. Perkin's wife Katherine discovers that she is pregnant, and Henry Tudor, who lusts after her, rapes her so that he can claim the child as his own. Poor Elizabeth of York, by now convinced that Perkin was really her brother, is wracked with guilt because she allowed her fear of Henry and love for her children to make her deny him.

In The Kingmaker's Daughter Anne Neville and Edward of Lancaster are madly in love, but Richard kills both Edward and his father, Henry VI. When he rescues Anne from Clarence's clutches, she marries him, and learns to love him, despite the fact that he has added Clarence and the elder of the princes in the Tower to his list of victims.

Possibly the most bizarre plot is that of The Child Bride. In this novel the 8-year-old Anne Mowbray is married to 5-year-old Richard, the younger son of Edward IV. She returns to her parents' home, where her mother engages Joan Halidon as her companion. Joan is the illegitimate daughter of Anne's father, and her spitting image. When the girls are grown the family moves to Westminster, where they both fall in love with Edward, the king's older son. Edward loves Joan, and after Richard III seizes the throne and imprisons him and his brother, Joan sneaks into the Tower, where she and Edward consummate their love. When she returns for a second visit, she sees Edward's corpse and is killed by his murderers, who mistake her for Anne. Her body is buried as Anne's, and when the real Anne dies of the plague, her husband Richard, who has escaped from the murderers, watches as her body is secretly interred. Imagination is a necessary attribute of a novelist, but so is a plausible plot.

I know that some of you enjoy reading those paperback romances I mentioned earlier, but of the many I have been obliged to read I don't think I have ever read one that was not a painful experience. None of them has any value, historical or literary. Their settings are, as far as I can see, merely window-dressing for unimaginative tales of lust and intrigue, and since their plots have a dreary sameness, I won't bore you with any resumes.

But enough of the trash. Let's move on to some treasures. Of course the aforementioned Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time is probably the best-known, and one of the best, of all Ricardian novels, and has probably been responsible for bringing more people into the Richard III Society than any other. Tey's portrayal of Richard is completely sympathetic, and her goal was to counter, point by point, the calumnies spread by the Tudor apologists, especially Sir Thomas More. She was eminently successful, partly because she, like them, carefully omits any evidence which runs counter to her thesis. But it convinced me, and countless others.

Tyler Whittle's The Last Plantagenet is another well-written defense of Richard, and if he is not quite as pure as Tey's Richard, he is still portrayed as an honorable man who does his duty as well as he can.

Barbara Jefferis' Beloved Lady, based on the Paston Letters, takes place during the reign of Edward IV, and while it does not deal directly with Richard, is one of the most intelligently written about the times. The author is at home in the period, and her characters are well-developed and convincing.

Another of the more successful authors who wrote about our subject is Rosemary Hawley Jarman. Her first book, We Speak No Treason, is Richard's story, told by three people who loved him, and is perceptive and beautifully written. The King's Grey Mare, her second book, has Elizabeth Woodville as the not completely unsympathetic heroine, something some Ricardians may find hard to accept. Her third and fourth novels cover periods which bracket the Wars of the Roses. The Crown in Candlelight tells of Katherine of Valois' romance with Owen Tudor, and The Courts of Illusion is the story of Perkin Warbeck. I recommend both of them.

One of my favorites, which is really pre-Ricardian, taking place as it does during Jack Cade's Rebellion in 1450, is Brazenhead the Great by Maurice Hewlett. The book is very funny, the hero is an endearing rogue, and anyone with an interest in the early events of the Wars of the Roses should find it entertaining.

I'm sure that most of you have read Sharon Kay Penman's The Sunne in Splendour, one of the most historically accurate novels about the life and times of Richard III. Penman's research is astounding, and she gives a sympathetic, believable portrait of Richard, and his contemporaries.

Elizabeth Peters' The Murders of Richard III has been rather controversial. I enjoyed the book, and was surprised by the unfavorable reactions of some Ricardians. Peters pokes fun at some of the more uncritical defenders of the king, but there is no malice in her work. I suppose it just proves that some of us are over-sensitive on the subject, or perhaps we take ourselves too seriously at times.

Philip Lindsay, who wrote a sympathetic, almost hagiographic, biography of Richard called The Tragic King, also wrote several novels about the period. London Bridge is Falling takes place during Cade's rebellion, and They Have Their Dreams, also published as A Princely Knave, is about Perkin Warbeck, but Richard figures prominently in two of his novels, The Duke is Served and The Merry Mistress. Both portray Richard as a good and loyal man, who places duty about personal advantage. All of them are well-written, and historically accurate.

Richard is almost saintly in Dora Greenwell McChesney's Confession of Richard Plantagenet, a man who must paythe price for the sins of his family, as well as for a few minor ones of his own. These do not include the murders of his nephews, although he does kill, albeit reluctantly, Edward of Lancaster, Henry VI, and Clarence in order to protect both Edward IV and himself. After Richard seizes the throne, the princes are murdered by Catesby, acting on orders from Buckingham, who believes they are a danger to Richard. Although Richard was innocent of their murders, he feels responsible, and knowing that he will be blamed, decides to keep it secret.

In Marion Palmer's The White Boar Richard is a good man driven by necessity to take actions he deplores, although it is Buckingham, using Tyrell as his instrument, who murders the princes. As in McChesney's book, however, he accepts part of the blame, since he believes it was his seizure of the throne that lead to their deaths.

Probably the novel which has aroused the most controversy over our members is Patrick Carleton's Under the Hog, which I consider one of the very best written about the period. Several years ago, at the suggestion of one of the members of the committee of the parent Society, the American Branch published the book. We had, we believed, good reason to think that members who had looked in vain for a used copy of the original would welcome a new, inexpensive, but quality edition. The work received great critical acclaim when it was first published in 1938, and the only subsequent edition was a paperback published some time in the 1980s, which is also hard to find. We knew as well that it is one of the most frequently borrowed books in our fiction library. Therefore, after a copyright search had been made, we decided it was safe to go ahead with the project. It was then that we discovered that, while many Ricardians regard the book as a minor masterpiece, others, more vocal, think quite the opposite. Their objections stem from the fact that Carleton's Richard, while not exactly a sinner, is far from a saint; he is, in fact, a human being, with a human being's faults as well as virtues. Carleton's characterization of the events and characters of the Wars of the Roses period is vivid, convincing, and accurate. He accomplished what few novelists who combine fictional and historic characters manage to do, which is to write dialogue that sounds real, and characters who are not wooden metaphors for good and evil. He credits Richard with a rigid code of behavior, which he adheres to no matter what the cost. Unfortunately, according to this author, one of the costs of attempting to end the bloodshed of the civil wars was the death of the princes, but not of the others of which he has been accused. On balance, Richard is portrayed as the best and most honorable of the Yorkists, and I think it is a pity that Carleton's opinion that he was guilty, most reluctantly, of the most heinous crime of which his detractors have accused him, has made some of us unfairly criticize this excellent novel. If you haven't read it, I recommend that you do.

I'm sure that all of you have your most or least favorite Ricardian novels, which I may or may not have mentioned. I had, because of the limitations of space to omit many in both the trash and treasure categories, and I confined myself pretty much to those written about Richard III, rather than the period in general, but I hope you will be inspired to read the good novels written about the period, regardless of the author's view of our favorite, and much-maligned, monarch.

Roxane C. Murph is immediate past chair of the American Branch of the Richard III Society. The text of this article was given as a talk at the 1997 Annual General Meeting (Chicago, IL). She is the author of Richard III: The Making of a Legend (Scarecrow Press, 1977; reprinted 1984) and The Wars of the Roses in Fiction, An Annotated Bibliography, 1440-1994 (Greenwood, 1996) and is the editor of Maxwell Anderson, Richard and Anne: A Play in Two Acts ( MacFarland, 1995).

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