Book Review
Richard III, the Maligned King
Annette Carson, 2008, The History Press; ISBN 978-0-7509-4973-6; £20.00
Annette Carson offers a sympathetic reappraisal of Richard III in this attractive hardback plentifully illustrated with colour plates, line drawings and genealogical tables.
The early chapters present a measured and highly plausible account of events leading up to King Richard’s accession: a convincing explanation of why a man previously so loyal to his brother Edward IV would set aside his nephew in favour of pursuing the throne for himself (other than the hypocrisy and villainous, vaunting ambition so beloved of Tudor apologists).
Carson’s subsequent discussion of the Tower of London’s architectural history, and her demolition of the highly subjective examinations of the skeletal remains found (according to Thomas More)‘meetly deep under a stair-foot’, makes it seem highly unlikely that the bones inurned in Westminster Abbey are in fact those of Edward IV’s sons. Her detailed examination of that perennial mystery, the disappearance of Princes Edward and Richard, is based on a reasonable premise: their secret murder and disposal simply did not serve King Richard’s best interests. Instead Carson postulates that his failure to produce them dead or alive, or give any account of their fate, implies the King’s determination to remove his nephews from the political scene and allow them to be raised safely incognito. She also turns a trenchant eye on the actions and motivations of other key players of the time including Queen Elizabeth Woodville and her family, the Lords Hastings and Buckingham, and of course that undoubted usurper, Henry Tudor.
This book is sure to infuriate those traditionalists incapable of attributing a single positive characteristic to Richard III (reason enough to celebrate its publication!) as much as it will please the revisionist school. Though Carson is not a wholly uncritical admirer, and fully recognises faults such as King Richard’s consistent underestimation of his enemies, and his failure to grasp the priorities and feelings of southern gentry threatened and displaced by his northern adherents.
Allowing for the ruthless self-interest of medieval magnates and monarchs, Annette Carson’s Richard III emerges as a king no worse than most and a great deal better than some. Altogether, Richard III, the Maligned King is an extremely interesting demonstration of how essentially the same set of evidence can be re-interpreted to arrive at a very different set of conclusions. It is a well referenced work with a useful critical appendix of primary sources; and whether you believe Carson’s theories or not, the book is a refreshing antidote to the corpus of virulently anti-Ricardian histories, a highly readable narrative and a valuable addition to the bookshelf of any Wars of the Roses history fan.
Helen Cox, Towton Battlefield Society,
22nd August 2008