#always a ricardian

[ricardian-werewolf]

This is it, my big analysis of The Lost King's fashion.

It's mainly a carryover from my original reblog, but now with more pictures. Sources will be hyperlinked and once the main piece is done will receive a document of their own.

Comparison points are used as following. Richard III (1955), The Hollow Crown, 2014, and the White Queen, 2013. Richard iii 1995 was not chosen as a contender due to the fact it’s set in 1930s and is an outlier.

We're going from the top down.

(This is just a filler post)

[ricardian-werewolf]

OH god, I need to go cry into my books because this makes me sadddddddd.

loyaulte me lie

on a bit of a richard iii kick at the moment

[richarddukeofgloucester]

Well, I am finally reading The King's Mother, and by far the aspect I'm most enjoying is the portrayal of Richard as The Favourite Golden Child.

[heartofstanding]

I want to talk about anne neville and Elizabeth of York. I always thought they knew each other very well. They all have vague personalities in the eyes of passers-by, turbulent fates, tragic experiences caused by their father's death, good relations with husbands who have blood feuds indirectly through marriage, and unstable dynasty rule caused by death ... Because of their vague personalities, both women are easily used by historical authors to express their views, and they also have some connections (such as clothes that are often discussed, Elizabeth once had marriage rumors with Edward and Richard in Lancashire ... Their biographies were also criticized by readers as biased (I think this is because these two women are not extroverted, so the author can only imagine themselves ...)I am very frustrated that historical novels mostly use them to shape the men around them, and rarely pay attention to the inner thoughts of "silent" women. I can see some vivid characteristics of these two women in historical literature. One of my favorite facts about Elizabeth of York is that she arranged for her sister to marry her uncle's former supporters, and had a good relationship with the relatives of the Delapol family, which reminded me of her father's attempt to reconcile with Henry Beaufort. Unfortunately, the novels I read do not describe this at all. The marriage between Anne Neville and Richard III is originally described in the novel as Richard saving her, but from her escape from George's supervision, there is reason to believe that they are in a cooperative relationship, as well as Lancaster. Edward, in the novel, is always just an "evil ex husband..." But I think their brief marriage is not so shallow…

I think your frustration with the way Anne Neville and Elizabeth of York are written about is very justified. I'm not very knowledgable about their lives (honestly, I'm a little confused why you sent this to me) but even from a distance, I think they must have been a lot more complex that historians, commentators and novelists typically suppose they were. I think they largely serve as Ricardian mouthpieces now - Anne as Richard III's one true love, tragically lost and Elizabeth as his chief mourner and as another victim of Tudor rule - but it's also very easy to turn them to mouthpieces for Lancaster and Tudor, which was the image that dominated in Tudor times - Shakespeare's depiction of Anne as the chief mourner for Henry VI, the story Richard murdered Anne in order to forcibly marry Elizabeth, the depiction of Elizabeth as purely the idealised, virtuous and dutiful prop for her husband's rule). I think that, because there's a lack of information that lets us build up a more detailed idea of either women, they tend to be written in a way that expresses how the author really feels about the events and personalities of the Wars of the Roses. I can understand this impulse but I wish this impulse was focused more on them as individuals and less on being mouthpieces for the author's feelings about Richard III or Henry VII.

[wonder-worker]

What are your favorite Plantagenet-related novels, and why do you love them?

Hi! I'm so sorry, I don't read lots of medieval English historical fiction, and the ones I have read are pretty terrible (three guesses which).

Once again: sorry! If anyone else has any recommendations, feel free to share them!

[ricardian-werewolf]

Reblogging because I’m reading the EXCELLENT biography of Richard iii by Paul Murray Kendall, and as an official member of the Richard iii society, this cannot be put into plainer and more truthful words. Richard fought for the rights of a fairer society and his flame was sniffed out far, far too early.

“Richard only reigned for just over two years. If we look.. at the pieces of good governance that [Richard] achieved during his incredibly short reign, they were quite staggering.

His first act as king was to call his judges to him and to decree that they dispense justice without fear or without favour for all members of society… What you can see from Richard’s laws is that he was very clearly enacting against things like extortion and corruption and bribery, and he wanted to make it a much more fair society. His laws were bold and enlightened, and they were clearly focused on making life fairer and more bearable for the ordinary people.

“To give a sense of how Richard was regarded at the time, there’s a quote from the [contemporary] Bishop of St David’s, Thomas Langton, who wrote in a private letter… ‘He contents the people wherever he goes, for many a poor man hath been relieved and helped by him. I have never liked the condition of any prince as well as his. God hath sent him to us for the wellbeing of us all’.”

While the finger of suspicion had pointed at Richard for the past 500 years [for the murder of his nephews], “when you actually look into the evidence and the balance of probabilities – if [the princes] died, who killed them – you have to look at who had the most to gain. Now, for Henry Tudor, those two boys had to be dead for him to become king. But for Richard, to enact a murder like that when he was already the anointed king of England… Richard would be putting his crown in jeopardy. There’s this irony that a man who lived and fought for justice most of his life has suffered a particular great injustice.” [x]

[malkaleh]

WIP meme

tagged by friends @emilykaldwen @theladyelizabeth and I thought because I haven’t actually written anything in ages because uh Brain (is like ‘no actually [redacted] dolls aren’t allowed to write whatever they like’ among other things) that I’d write out what WIPs I have/am thinking about and people can ask me about them if they’d like and then if you want to do the same for yours I would be DELIGHTED.

tagging (if you want): @claudiajcregg @miabicicletta @shes-a-voodoo-child @nocompromise-noregrets @emilykaldwen @alintalzin @onekisstotakewithme @hondagirll @unseenacademic @ricardian-werewolf @corporalicent @librarianmouse @elysabeththequeene @sherwoodknights @shehungthemoon @the-ships-to-rule-them-all @gen-is-gone

Actual WIPs In Progress (With Words)

Rewrite The Stars

Crown Of Ashes

It’s Always Darkest/Golden World Rewrite(s) Eventually

Tavern Date

Grishaverse Hunger Games AU

Patch Up The Tapestries

Tortall Found Family

Some Ideas That Do Have Like Sentence(s) Maybe Or At Least A Scrivener Document

Sun Summoner Nikolai

Miss Fisher Girl Saves Boy

Jed/Abbey/Leo (TWW Poly)

CJ/Danny Girl Saves Boy

Courtesan Christian/Noble Satine Moulin Rouge AU

Miss Fisher Tudors OT3 Verse

Everything Is Trauma (Multifandom)

TWW Mandy POV

Scarlet Pimpernel Tudors OT3 Verse

Civil War Tudors OT3 Verse Explainer Post

Tudors OT3 Verse Multimedia Post Expansion???

Concepts Dot Gif

Good Duke OT3 (Moulin Rouge)

Smallest Maia Who Ever Lived (ROP)

Lionel Grey and John Norwich Introduction Posts With Graphics

[ricardian-werewolf]

I just sped-read this fanfic and it wrenched my heart in two, and now I am filled with absoleutely the most depressing of feels, since tomorrow is August 22nd, Richard's date of death at Bosworth, and how to God and all the saints I wish it were not so!

Anne Neville & Richard III by ruebella-b, for cosmonauthill / fullofstoryshapes

“There is a crown on his lovely dark head, heavy and golden, and it suits him better than it would ever have suited all-forsaken George.”

From “Where is the spring and the harvest?”, a multichapter War of the Roses AU, post-Bosworth Field, by SecondStarOnTheLeft

I commissioned this beautiful art from Ruby for @cosmonauthill‘s birthday! Happy birthday, Niamh!

[une-sanz-pluis]

It is possible, by implication, to detect some features of the religious practice of the two Bohun daughters: their mother, in contrast, remains opaque. Joan countess of Hereford probably commissioned and may always have owned the Copenhagen psalter-hours and its companion book of lives of the Virgin, St Margaret and Mary Magdalen. Her will is not extant, and we know nothing more of her books, except that she gave her grandson, later Henry V, a missal and breviary which he remembered in his will of 1415. She was a notable benefactor of Walden Abbey, the mausoleum of the earls of Essex where she was eventually buried next to her husband. It is enough to show that she shared in the devotions of her daughters, not enough to associate her with the more personal spirituality of the younger. Her forceful personality can be glimpsed in the story of her removal of Mary from Thomas of Woodstock’s custody and collusion in her marriage to Henry Bolingbroke in 1380; it is further attested in the colourful report in the Trahison et Mort de Richart II, doubtless biased and dependent on hearsay but credible by dint of its geographical particulars, of the death of John earl of Huntingdon in January 1400. According to this account she blamed the earl for the deaths of her brother and son-in-law in 1397, and when he fled down the Thames from the failure of the Ricardian lords’ conspiracy of December 1399 and happened to land at Prittlewell next to Rochford she had him apprehended and taken to Pleshey, where she caused him to be beheaded, threatening to wield the axe herself, in front of a mob violently hostile to him. She certainly retained the affection of her equally ruthless royal grandson, as his 1415 will attests, and she may have imparted to him his habit of intense prayer. It is difficult not to see her as a Fitzalan sibling as forceful as her two Arundel brothers, who must have been the model equally for her daughters’ fierce Bohun pride and for their practice of personal devotion.

Jeremy Catto, "The Prayers of the Bohuns", Soldiers, Nobles and Gentlemen: Essays in Honour of Maurice Keen (The Boydell Press 2009)

[rmelster]

BOOK ONE: ISABELLE DE BOURBON, THE COURTIER.

The first gleam of the dawn tore apart the veil of mist, whilst two riders neared the town in silence.

The first of them was a rudy and placid man, clad in red cloth, with the bearing of a noble and the form of a man who in younger years had been warlike and vigorous, and in the older, merry and restful; dark and thick had once been his curls, now stricken with the silver of maturity, but his eyes were the same since he was just the Count of Clermont, a young lad wagging wars in the darkest days of his time: Raven eyes, small, dark and penetrating. The eyes of Bourbon.

Closely, his child followed; a young lady of the age of eight, who did not resembled her noble sire, but whose spirit already showed the virtues present in all of her kin. Her hair, braided and modestly dressed with a velvet hood, was a dark auburn, and the dark green dress she wore underneath her gray riding cloak made her face look fairer.

The shadows vanished, and Château de Chinon, legendary dwelling of Bourbons, appeared before their eyes. The young lady would never forget how the fortress stood in the distance, nestled on the high ground like a dragon of stone and history, as if its walls emerged from the entrails of that blessed land, and as she stared in awe from the saddle of her white palfrey, she would have swore upon her very soul, that Chinon stared her back too. At its stony feet, the Vienne river ran through the village, whispering undying legends of chivalry and war to all who listened.

“This shall be thy domain, my dear daughter” the man told his daughter, and his voice carried that accent that lives only the speak of those who dwell in the lands of Auvergne, “Upon my death, this land, that once was mine, shall become thine, and only thine.”

A flock of birds crossed the sky, and the child gripped the reins of her palfrey.

“Father, this place as always belonged to the blood of Bourbon…” she humbly said, “If I am to marry a man who shares not our bloodline, this domains…”

“… This domains shall still belong to thee and, once Death brings thee to their realm, it shall belong to thy heir too. And fear not, my child: Thy husband, Bourbon of name or not, shall not take thy name from you, nor thy claim, nor thy spirit” the father replied, and let out one last statement: “The blood of Bourbon never dies, my child: Royalty shall end, nobility shall end, our times shall past, but our name… It shall last.”

The child raised her head, and a faint smile of pride curved her lips: She would dearly remember that day, and that promise, until the very day it torn all apart.

“I will honour our name” she swore too, and her father smiled.

“Yes, thou shall” the noble man affirmed, “Now, let us go back to our path; Burgundy awaits thee, Isabelle.”

@catherinemybeloved / @nealsneen / @ricardian-werewolf

[edwardseymour]

(from other blog!)

🔥 choose violence ask game 🔥

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

shan't be posting a screenshot, but the take that ‘defending katherine parr is defending thomas seymour’ is actually repugnant. her actions wrt elizabeth can and should be criticised — but within their proper context. katherine was a brilliant woman but she was also a woman, and legally, socially and culturally her husband overpowered her. she lived in a patriarchal society. she was negligent, at best, complicit, at worst — but she did warn ashley to keep an eye on thomas and elizabeth, did berate her husband for his ill-treatment, and did ultimately send elizabeth away. she was also pregnant with his child and the pregnancy seems to have been difficult. and elizabeth loved her; she was more her mother than anyone else. putting her on the same level as thomas seymour is just so gross to me.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

i PROMISE you anne boleyn does not receive the ‘worst’ historical abuse of the six wives/female historical figures. the idea of an evil, manipulative, promiscuous anne boleyn is nowhere near as culturally prevalent and pervasive as you insist it is. she very much does not have it anywhere near as bad as is claimed.

people simply do not care about anne boleyn, far more than they actively hate her — and where she does get treated with misogyny, it’s on a similar level to other female historical figures. it’s not distinct to her. moreover, what is unique to her is the level of revisionism and attention she gets. as another post has already put it: “anne's reinvention has been the most powerful and vocal in historical circles. anne is the center of almost all revisionist efforts in tudor historiography”. none of the six wives have been researched, revisited, reimagined and rehabilitated or simply discussed even a fraction as much.

we've already been over this. at this point i honestly believe insistence over this simply comes down to people looking for a thing to feel persecuted and exceptional over, while lacking the academic curiosity, talent and integrity to actually go and find something more tangible than the single most popular person in tudor history.

10. worst part of fanon

the hypocrisy/doublethink is truly something in this fandom sometimes. ‘monarchy was sacrosanct’ so therefore the commons unfailingly accepted the divine right of kings, except for all the times when they didn't and all the numerous recorded instances of royals being slandered/revolted against... but simultaneously, recognising the use of myth/prophecy and mysticism/faith in discourses of the time is ‘lionising’ historical figures, so we can't talk about henry vii and allusions to y daroganwr or king arthur but we can compare anne boleyn to classical mythology. sure!

13. worst blorboficiation

i recently saw that michael hick’s ‘the self-made king’ book about richard iii (which i haven’t read, so for all i know is very good but the title has always put me off) in a bookshop, and it reminded me how profoundly intellectually dishonest ricardians are. whether or not hicks’ book is sound, the popular/fandom approach to idealising richard iii is legitimately insane. truly i believe the only reason for mutilating the historical richard like this — to turn him into some fantasy merrie olde englande caricature of a medieval king — is to appropriate him into a racist, xenophobic, classist conservative ideal of monarchy. for as much as they might talk of him being ‘self-made’ or ‘socialist’ (as professional-at-failing-upwards matt lewis described him), they clearly do not care for such ideas, because they are centering them around (a fundamentally flawed understanding of) medieval monarchy. it's so ugly.

14. that one thing you see in fics all the time

i don’t read fanfic, but i see posts abt them and edit aus a lot and a consistent thing that i just cannot understand is the ‘fix-it’ narratives that have the women having numerous pregnancies. why? especially because the dates given essentially prove that in these aus, women never get to spend any time not pregnant or getting impregnated — including the historic protocols of lying in, churching etc., or religious conventions (sex was forbidden on certain days etc). it all basically creates an image of a husband who disrespects his wife by constantly trying to impregnate her, and a woman forced to endure the physical demands of constant pregnancy/labour with no regard for any other facet of her life/personhood. especially since these aus give these women a diabolical amount of children (including forcing twins/triplets on these women). it’s just so blatant that queenship/womanhood = being a broodmare. and, worse, these aus have the nerve to give these children horrific names.

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

not directly what was asked but it’s genuinely exhausting how predominantly complaints about katherine howard being called a stupid slut have become wrapped up in this idea that katherine can only be worthy of sympathy if she did not willingly have sex. so often people trying to defend her, and criticising misogyny directed at her, ultimately constrain her to a fundamentally sexist idea — that sex can only be something done to her, as an unwilling participant. otherwise the implication is that comments about her intelligence or promiscuity are justified. there is no benefit to whitewashing katherine’s sexuality, and the insistence on characterising her almost exclusively as a victim is distressing. and it’s tiring having to repeatedly point this out. it simply feels like katherine howard is talked a lot but rarely as a fully actualised person in her own right.

[ricardian-werewolf]

Indeed! Also if you love the fashion from the film, I have an extensive reblog in here about the fashion of the film where I break it down in terms of accuracy.

Harry Lloyd as King Richard III of England on the upcoming film "The Lost King".

[scribblesincrayon]

THE WHITE QUEEN 10-Year Anniversary Week -> Free Day

As always, I’m a bit late with this post, but I sort of deliberately saved it for today, August 22.

It is the 538th anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth. Richard III, the last Plantagenet king, was “piteously slain” in battle and Henry Tudor began a new era of English history, later reigning as Henry VII. To the victor go the spoils.

Richard III was king for only a brief time, but thanks in part to being Shakespeare’s most compelling character, and later to those historians who revised the public view of this 15th century monarch, Richard lives on, possibly the Plantagenet era’s only real modern celebrity.

The White Queen indirectly spawned Plantagenet Shade, a podcast co-hosted by @grand-duchessa and yours truly, @scribblesincrayon. Our very first episode was actually about Philippa Gregory’s Cousins War series. Unsurprisingly, however, our most popular episode was about Richard III and Ricardian fiction, featuring The Sunne in Splendor and The Seventh Son.

Check it out!

[blackboar]

I find arguments for Richard's innocence offensive on logical terms. They're using a lot of slippery rhetoric that sounds convincing until you think about it, and I'm annoyed they think so little of other people they expect us to believe it.

Afaik, everyone accepts Isabella had Edward II killed and replaced him with their son. Everyone accepts Henry IV had Richard II killed after replacing him. Everyone accepts Edward IV had Henry VI killed after replacing him. John is believed to have killed his nephew and taken the throne. Some even think Henry I had William II killed to replace him.

What I'm saying is, evidence or not, everyone just assumes any deposed king is automatically killed by the usurper, which is why they fought so hard to keep the throne in the first place. And if you're the usurper, it makes sense you "tie up the loose ends" by removing your predecessor in case they escape and do the same to you and your family.

But even with all those examples, Ricardians act like thinking Richard killed the boys he usurped is completely ridiculous and has no basis in reality, and you shouldn't think it unless you have camera film of him doing it personally! But if you did have a video, but it was a servant killing them, they'd say he was taking orders from Henry VII and everyone was just framing Richard!

They want to say the "usurper's usurper" (Henry VII) was the one who really killed them, but when in history has the 1st usurped king ever been alive to be killed by the replacement's replacement? It'd be like saying Richard II survived all that time and Edward IV really killed him.

I really don't like the way they start with a reasonable point (like we can never be 100% who actually did it, which is true) but if you agree there they act like you agreed your whole belief system is wrong! If you admit they got even one thing right they jump on it as weakness and proves the most crazy ideas are credible. So you can't even give them any credit there, but when you won't budge bc you know what they do, they pretend you're some hate filled lunatic which proves it's all been a conspiracy against Richard and you can't be trusted bc you're part of it.

If you don't have absolute documentary evidence, you're not allowed to believe Richard did it in all probability, and they won't accept a single point you have. But if they get one little thing right (like everyone's names) then you have to accept everything they say!

But look at it from Richard's point of view. He was a kid when he and George were hostages and if Edward IV hadn't become king both of them might have died to wipe out all the male Yorkists. Richard knew that because Edward wasn't killed by Lancaster he came back and got the throne. Then because Edward of Lancaster escaped to France he came back and Henry VI was reinstated. Then as Edward IV got away that time he came back too and killed both of them.

So in Richard's life he saw over and over again that if the rival claimant doesn't die they will come back and try to kill you and your children. So why wouldn't he kill the Princes to protect himself? I hope I don't sound like I'm excusing him, but I just think killing them is the most obvious thing to do.

If we believe this theory that Perkin and Lambert were who they claimed, that just proves deposed heirs will come and fight for their birthright. Like when have they not? When did any royalty/noble cheated out of what was his just shrugged and gone off to live quietly and bothered no one? It never happens! Which in itself proves Richard was "right" in a way to kill them.

Given everything that happened to Richard's own family in his lifetime, why would he let a rival stay alive and spend the rest of his life worrying they might get out and kill him one day like rivals always did, or reappear in his son's reign and kill him? Literally how does he benefit keeping them alive? How can he be the strong, capable ruler Ricardians say he was but leave a time bomb under his house?

I disagree that everybody thinks Edward II and Richard II were killed by their successor. While an overwhelming majority think that for Richard II, there is controversy around who killed Edward II and even if he was killed.

but when in history has the 1st usurped king ever been alive to be killed by the replacement's replacement?

It did happen. Justinian II killed not only Tiberius III but also the one he usurped the byzantine throne from, Leontius. Byzantines are special but it's not impossible to be killed by your usurper's usurper.

If we believe this theory that Perkin and Lambert were who they claimed, that just proves deposed heirs will come and fight for their birthright. Like when have they not? When did any royalty/noble cheated out of what was his just shrugged and gone off to live quietly and bothered no one? It never happens! Which in itself proves Richard was "right" in a way to kill them. Given everything that happened to Richard's own family in his lifetime, why would he let a rival stay alive and spend the rest of his life worrying they might get out and kill him one day like rivals always did, or reappear in his son's reign and kill him? Literally how does he benefit keeping them alive? How can he be the strong, capable ruler Ricardians say he was but leave a time bomb under his house?

Yeah, that's why most people connect the logical dots and think he killed them because otherwise, it doesn't make much sense. I think he probably took his ancestor John for example, because he survived killing his nephew Arthur.

What I hate is those saying, 'They weren't a threat because Parlement proclaimed them bastards, ' which is either an argument made in bad faith or a complete not getting it. In general, I think some of those discussing Richard's guilt do not consider the time's constraints and structures.

[themidnightcircusshow]

I'm sorry for inflicting Ian Mortimer on you but I found a thing from his introduction in his Henry IV bio that's like. deranged.

Nevermind the speculation about Richard setting the Lancastrian inheritance on Hal, Richard will be inevitably usurped!!!! And then we'd truly see what a failboat loser Henry V was and how Henry "David Beckham+Winston Churchill but better" IV is truly the great man in history!!!

Me reading this like

Breaking it down:

Just from the first line: why does he make Henry so petty oh my gosh.

Also no, just asking if things would have turned out differently if their roles were reversed does not automatically imply they were the same competency level.

Is it because I mostly look at 1413 through the lense of what was happening with Hal, or was the country really not that stable? A lot of the problems Henry V had in his early reign (i.e. the French, the Lollards, partially Southampton) were just carry overs from his father's reign. And a lot of the political factions that were dueling in Henry IV's reign either left or were fired at the start of Henry V's. That was either Hal cleaning house or Henry IV's supporters essentially leaving en masse, which doesn't suggest a whole lot of stability. And again, a lot of the credit for settling the Welsh rebellion is given to Hal, not Henry.

Why would Hal have usurped Richard though? Why is that inevitable? Richard could have adopted Hal instead, we don't know! And yeah, I was thinking that-- even if it wasn't the Duchy of Lancaster, Richard was trying to arrange Hal's marriage to a Valois, and I highly doubt the French would have allowed their princess to be married off to someone without a Duchy at minimum.

(The mental image of Richard taking the Duchy of Lancaster from Henry and giving it to Hal is hilarious though).

Also, as far as I can tell the Welsh rebellion had nothing to do with who was king (though it was probably taken as a good time to strike), so really wouldn't it have been Richard's problem? And the Scottish border was always an issue, even if it did get worse under Henry's reign. The French might not have been a problem at all for Hal if Richard had lived long enough to arrange Hal's marriage. Most of all, a lot of the Ricardians seem to have ended up on Hal's side, and he essentially had to deal with a repeat of the Epiphany plot with Southampton, so...

[richmond-rex]

I find baffling how ricardians always manage to detract from genuine criticism by conflating their opponent's arguments with something else entirely.

Their arguments always sound like: Oh you think Richard III killed his nephews, so you are a devotee of Thomas More! So you think Richard was born with long hair, a full set of teeth and a withered arm! And that's when they don't simply say: read the Daughter of Time! As if Josephine Tey was in any way a qualified historian.

and the other reason i have such beef with ricardians and why i think the richard iii society should not be platformed for it is promoted psuedo history is how they react to people who disagree with them

you can't just come to a different conclusion about richard, you have to only develop a negative opinion towards his actions only because of "propaganda" ricardians very often treat historians or anyone who don't like richard as if they have only read the play richard iii and treat it like it's a true account, they bring up that play constantly, it is incredibly bad faith

i frankly also am starting to see this in regards to mary i, and it is inherently anti-intellectual and conspiratorial thinking, it does not belong anywhere near scholarly spaces