Richard III & the Car Park

[jason_c]

I am fascinated by those things too, particularly by the idea that the man in the iron (actually, velvet) mask may have been a purposeful enigma set up by his jailer to make himself more important.

But just for the record, JFK was killed by Oswald, acting alone. I think if Ruby hadn't shot him, and he'd gotten a trial, we'd know that. I recommend Gerald Posner's Case Closed to you. The fact is, that the conspiracy theories started to come out when the US was losing faith in the office of president during the Watergate scandal, but the main force behind it was a crazy dude named Jim Garrison, who prosecuted a guy named Clay Shaw, who wasn't actually guilty of anything other than being gay in the 1960s, and trying to keep it a secret.

Then, Oliver Stone, a seriously angry man, with a lot of money from Platoon, took out his anger at the government by turning Garrison's book into movie magic. JFK is a brilliant movie, but very poor history. It did for JFK assassination nuts what Birth of a Nation did for the KKK.

Honestly, if the Lyndon Johnson administration had staged some kind of cover-up, why would it have been in the interests of later administrations to continue it? Maybe Nixon would have, if JFK really were killed to perpetuate the Vietnam war, because Nixon was all about the war, and Ford would not have admitted to being party to it, plus, he was busy trying to make people feel good about being Americans again, by pouring all kinds of money into the Bicentennial to-do. Carter, I don't know. Maybe he wouldn't have wanted to make his party look bad (he was a democrat, like Johnson, and unlike Nixon and Ford), but on the other hand, he was compulsively honest.

Then, there was Reagan. If any president would have liked to smear the democrats, it was Reagan. When he lost his republican congress, I thought he was going to plotz. During the campaign for that congressional election, if Reagan had had information about a Johnson administration cover-up of anything relating to the JFK assassination, he would have used it to show that you couldn't trust democrats.

But if Reagan hadn't, or didn't know, there was Clinton, who sure could have used a distraction during the Lewinsky scandal, and that would have been a great time to release information, if he had any. By that time, it had been so long, it had no bearing on him or his policies. He wasn't even old enough to vote when Kennedy ran for president.

"The US Government" isn't one thing. It's administrations, and each one likes to point out how it's a fresh start, even though it has a lot of baggage to deal with from the old one. I think a later administration would absolutely love to blow the whistle on the JFK conspiracy of the previous one, if there were a whistle to blow.

I think Clinton actually asked to see any internal evidence(secret FBI files etc) about the JFK assassination soon after he came into office. I remember reading that he privately commented on wanting to find any conclusive answers in the files. Though I dont know how serious or flippant he was being at the time.

Not to hijack the thread but if Nixon couldnt get away with a 2nd rate burglary I cant imagine Johnson(or others) getting away with Presidential assassination.

[jason_c]

A very perceptive and sympathetic post, Sally. Thank you.

I am fascinated by historical puzzles and enigmas - JFK shooting; Man in the iron mask, JtR(!!) and for many years the true nature of Richard III. I am quite open to him being a murderer, that was the nature of C15th politicians -and he lived through some testing times - but i don't think he was the monster so often depicted. Also, I think him judged by different standards to (say) Henry VII and VIII or his own brother, Edward IV. I'd like to see that reassessed.

Phil H

I wouldnt disagree with much of your comments above about Richard III. It was a savage period of history. But im not sure how many other Monarchs or Princes had child rivals murdered while supposedly under that persons care(assuming he did have them murdered). Under those circumstances the crime was worse than most almost any others of the time.

As for Henry VIII I think most see him as a successful king, but a bloody tyrant during most of his reign. Im not sure how much more reassessing can be done with him.

[RivkahChaya]

I think Clinton actually asked to see any internal evidence(secret FBI files etc) about the JFK assassination soon after he came into office. I remember reading that he privately commented on wanting to find any conclusive answers in the files. Though I dont know how serious or flippant he was being at the time.

I think sarcastic is a better word. It was like "If there are any files, I'd sure like to see them, and the Roswell alien, while you're at it. And call Scotland. Tell them if I can swim with the Loch Ness monster, I'll give them one of the 100 mpg carburetors that Chevy is keeping a secret."

[Cogidubnus]

I'm sorry but let's just say I previously had doubts, and was prepared to think either way...Now I'm beginning to think I might be a closet Ricardian and Josephine Tey was right all along....night all....

Regards

Dave

[Beowulf]

Well, whatever way the wind blows, innocent or guilty, as we cannot likely be ever certain, wouldn't it be wonderful to go to his state funeral?

"If this is Richard III, should we give him a state burial in London?"

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100180652/if-this-is-richard-iii-should-we-gave-him-a-state-burial-london/

[RivkahChaya]

I'm sorry but let's just say I previously had doubts, and was prepared to think either way...Now I'm beginning to think I might be a closet Ricardian and Josephine Tey was right all along....night all....

Regards

Dave

I've been a Ricardian for a long time, and that's a lot, for someone who thinks Oswald acted alone, those were weather balloons at Roswell (earth weather balloons), and there's not much but fish and otters in Loch Ness.

I really tried to be a hardcore skeptic, but I just couldn't get past the fact that Richard had nothing to gain from the boys being dead if no one knew they were dead. Especially when you remember that he did not know he would reign for only three years. As far as he knew, he could be on the throne for 30 years. Someone was bound to ask about the princes at some point.

I won't say he wasn't capable of murdering them, but I just think if he did, he would have made it clear to the populace that they were in fact, quite dead, and had them buried in a place where people could go to mourn them.

[Errata]

I've been a Ricardian for a long time, and that's a lot, for someone who thinks Oswald acted alone, those were weather balloons at Roswell (earth weather balloons), and there's not much but fish and otters in Loch Ness.

Oswald acted alone, Those were weather balloons at Roswell... Loch Ness has otters?

But we totally faked the moon landing nine times. That's my favorite. I know people who have said that the moon landing was fake, and I said "Charlie Duke said "Why would we fake it NINE times? Which I think is a fair question." and they said "We went to the moon nine times??!? The truly credulous are never dull, god bless em.

[Cogidubnus]

I'm sorry but let's just say I previously had doubts, and was prepared to think either way...Now I'm beginning to think I might be a closet Ricardian and Josephine Tey was right all along...

Slightly deceptive...but only slightly...having read Josephine Tey back in the 70s!!!!

All the best

Dave

[Phil H]

Sorry, RivkahChaya, maybe you need to open a new thread (or re-open an old one) but i disagree with you strongly in regard to Oswald.

if you really believe Gerald Posner's to be a great book, you just went down in my estimation. The man's a clown and his logic and use of facts about the level of a kindergarten child. I always thought he'd been paid to publish the book by the American establishment. I am inclined to believe Oswald one of the great unsung heroes, almost a martyr of our age. (That should get you going. )

But there you are.

Back to the subject in hand, I have had time to go through my source/books and have found a lot of interesting and relevant material about Richard's burial, tomb and epitaph. I'll try to summarise it all in some posts later.

On judging Richard, first anyone has to prove that he killed his nephews. It is clear that in the rebellions early in his reign, Henry VII was unsure as to their fate or whether they were indeed (at least one of them) alive.

I have already set out the prime flaw in the case against Richard - the continued survival and treatment of his third nephew, Edward of Warwick. If Edward IV's sons had a better claim to the throne than Richard III, then so did Warwick. Why was he not killed too?

Richard did act swiftly and fatally in responding to the attempted Wydville coup in 1483 - but those who were killed were executed openly. Thereafter, Richard, like Caesar, was more noted for his clemency - to Stanley, Morton etc - those who eventually pulled him down - than as a murderer.

As for killing children, Henry VIII killed old ladies (Warwick's sister Margaret de la Pole); two wives - one on the flimsiest of judicial grounds; decimated the north (Richard's country!) after the Pilgrimage of Grace; and executed his father's advisers Epsom and Dudley to make himself look good! Both tudor kings were responsible for far more bloodshed than Richard.

Richard's key failing, to my mind, was that he was a northener, and replaced his brother's southern adherents with his own men who were not known south of the Trent. He fell because of a schism within the Yorkist faction, aided by the self-serving Wydevilles and a few lancastrian die hards like Margaret Beaufort, Lord Stanley (her husband) and John Morton.

More later.

Phil H

[Sally]

What about the fact that, in the case of skeletons, bones leach minerals out of the soil? You can determine how long the skeletons have been in similar soil by analyzing samples with a mass spectrometer-- if they have similar spectrographs, then, similar time in the same ground, right?

I realize that it is possible for soil in an area to be very different from another area close by, but you'd know that by analyzing the soil by itself first, and know whether the test is worthwhile.

Hi Rivkah - yes, but radiocarbon dating would be easier and cheaper. That's probably what will happen. The best way would be to use several bone samples to obtain a number of dates. It should tell us at least whether both skeletons are contemporary with the church, and should narrow things down a bit more than that. It should be possible to tell, e.g. whether the lady was a direct contemporary of Richard or not. I doubt that there is any direct relation between them, personally - but it would be interesting to see.

[Sally]

Hi Errata

The thing about a Bronze age woman was because both the male and female skeleton were buried within the same building footprint. Which here would be pretty rare if they were not relatively contemporary. Were she some Bronze age woman who just so happened to have been buried within the building footprint before the building was constructed, she would be physically deeper.

That's the difference you see. Here, a building in an urban context - certainly an ancient urban context like Leicester - is likely to have been constructed over the top of several earlier occupation phases, including previous buildings. It is quite common for building footprints to be reused in part or whole. We have very complex buildings here. They are quite capable of having 10, 15 building phases. A medieval urban church, for example, might easily have acquired that many by the time it's 5 or 600 years old.

So, going back to the skeletons, the female probably isn't later than the church, because we know we don't have a context for her burial to postdate it - but it could be eariler, because we don't know what lies underneath the 13th century church. As for depth, there are many processes, natural and artificial, which can affect depth. At a very simple level, for example, it cannot be assumed that every burial was dug to the same depth within one building, contemporary or not. So depth doesn't really help us here.

[Sally]

As for killing children, Henry VIII killed old ladies (Warwick's sister Margaret de la Pole); two wives - one on the flimsiest of judicial grounds; decimated the north (Richard's country!) after the Pilgrimage of Grace; and executed his father's advisers Epsom and Dudley to make himself look good! Both tudor kings were responsible for far more bloodshed than Richard.

Yep Phil, it wasn't uncommon. History is littered with royal misdemeanours thoughout.

It would be a mistake to see Richard as unique, even if he did kill his nephews - and I make no judgement on that (she said, quickly )

[Phil H]

It would be a mistake to see Richard as unique, even if he did kill his nephews

My comment refers back to a previous post that you might have missed. I am certainly not seeking to exhonerate Richard in any way, Sally. I am certainly not some sentimental Ricardian who perceives him as whiter than white. Richard was a C15th politician, of the time of Cesare Borgia and Machiavelli - enough said.

What I would like to see is historians judging him, and the Tudors (for instance) by the same standards.

Phil H

[Sally]

Hi Phil

My comment refers back to a previous post that you might have missed. I am certainly not seeking to exhonerate Richard in any way, Sally. I am certainly not some sentimental Ricardian who perceives him as whiter than white. Richard was a C15th politician, of the time of Cesare Borgia and Machiavelli - enough said.

As I said, I make no judgement on Richard - I don't know very much about it; and I certainly wasn't judging you, or anyone, as a 'sentimental Ricardian'. I imagine one would have to be rather unrealistic to view him as whiter than white - was anybody ever that? People are complex, no doubt he had his complexities too.

What matters in his case is his post-mortem reputation. He's certainly not the only one to have been judged unfavourably after his death; but I think we must always treat character assassination with caution. It is easy to blame a dead man for current ills.

What I would like to see is historians judging him, and the Tudors (for instance) by the same standards.

Well, perhaps some historians do. Personally, I have no illusions regarding Henry VIII. He left a huge corpus of written material behind, some of which I've seen. I'm pretty sure my own view of him would be echoed by some historians, but if you're looking for a change in public perception, that's a very different thing. He'll always be the king who had six wives.

In much the same way as Alfred is the man who burned the cakes (a 12th century allegory, with no basis in fact whatever); Ethelred 'the Unready' is the weak and useless king who murdered his brother to become king (post-mortem rhetoric by the disenfranchised living under foreign occupation); William was a great conquerer who brought feudalism to England (dubious on both counts); and Elizabeth was a virgin - Richard is popularly judged by the popular account.

Everybody likes a story. Whether its true or not appears to have less relevance in popular perception.

[jason_c]

It would be a mistake to see Richard as unique, even if he did kill his nephews

My comment refers back to a previous post that you might have missed. I am certainly not seeking to exhonerate Richard in any way, Sally. I am certainly not some sentimental Ricardian who perceives him as whiter than white. Richard was a C15th politician, of the time of Cesare Borgia and Machiavelli - enough said.

What I would like to see is historians judging him, and the Tudors (for instance) by the same standards.

Phil H

I think the Tudors are judged by the same standard. However, as I said previously even the Tudors did not have two rival youngsters murdered without trial, youngsters under their protection(if it indeed happened this way).

Henry VII and Mary Tudor don't get a good press these days(in Marys case she never got a good press).

Elizabeth I glows under her Gloriana reputation. Yet even most of her admirers realize she was no saint when it came to killing or torture.

If there's one thing history demands of its Monarchs its success. As far as success goes the Tudors delivered. Installing their own church, introducing free Education and the beginnings of a naval Empire. They left the country probably for the better, though with many casualties on the way.