The New Murrey and Blue blog

Richard III really will have to try harder if he is going to live up to that interesting reputation of his. After all, what good is a serial incestor if all he does is simply marry his cousin (with a Papal dispensation) which occurs all the time nowadays anyway – without the Papal dispensation? And that was all perfectly boringly legal and appears to have been a successful union. But wait for it – she happens to be the sister of the girl already married to Richard’s brother. Well – excuse me – you say that constitutes no blood relationship so it was never forbidden by the church or anyone else? Hush! Never mind about that – we can call it a relationship if we want to. Especially if we don’t really understand about mortal sin and Papal dispensations and medieval relationships anyway.

And then Richard goes and spoils everything else by flatly denying he ever had the slightest intention of marrying his illegitimate niece. Well, his claim to the throne depended on his niece being illegitimate – but he wouldn’t have cared about that. Would he? And the fact that he was busy negotiating for a Portuguese princess to marry – and the Portuguese prince to marry that same niece – well, we won’t look too deeply at that either because it might mean he was telling the absolute truth when he denied ever having intended to marry his niece. And that’s no fun at all.

Never mind – if he wasn’t exactly a serial incestor after all (how many makes up a serial?) – he’s certainly a wicked serial murderer. I’ve lost track of how many but there were plenty – and some quite interestingly unexpected. For instance, on the battlefield when half the army was after the glory of killing Henry VI’s precious son and heir, it was Richard who somehow got there first and managed the relevant slaughter. Very quick of him. Especially with that limp! And everyone was trying to kill everyone anyway since it was a battle – but that’s beside the point.

And then fancy (with a withered arm not to mention a humpback) managing to creep into the Tower – I can just imagine him climbing through the relevant arrow-slit – to personally smother Henry VI with his own bare hands – clearly quite against King Edward IV’s wishes. As if the king would ever think of ordering an assassin to do any such thing!! It was clearly all down to little brother Richard.

And Richard was also exceptionally good at hiring very clever assassins too – those that can turn entirely invisible – and so can creep into the busiest and best guarded Royal Palace in all England, murder extremely prominent guests held there (in deep dungeons dripping with condensation down the stone walls of course – well, even the royal apartments were probably a bit damp considering it was a British autumn), make sure not a single servant, guard or anyone else could see them, do the deed and then start digging holes ten feet deep under solid stone staircases – and outside the only door to the Keep too, which was the best guarded of all those best guarded — well, that’s quite impressive. And oh yes, then they make it even cleverer by not announcing the deaths so that even bigger rebellions can take place anyway. What fun. Well, obviously Richard had a fondness for inciting and then quenching rebellions.

For a dissolute man who drank bottles and bottles of wine daily (especially clever in an era when bottles didn’t exist) Richard was also impressively talented at keeping his dissolution secret. He remained gracile in build and feigned abstinence in company so that foreign visitors remarked on how little he ate. Smart manipulator, this Richard.

But the most impressive strength of Richard III was his amazing ability to get a couple of hundred and more lords and bishops to do exactly what he wanted with barely a twitch of an eyebrow.

Along comes Stillington with an absurd made-up accusation of bigamy against Edward IV (obviously a lie – I mean, as if a king would get married in secret like that. Oh well, alright, he did with Elizabeth Woodville but we’ll forget that one – which is fair enough since he nearly forgot it himself) and instead of actually looking into the matter and making investigations and asking for witnesses during which they would surely have discovered it was all a lie, the whole Royal Council and later the entire Parliament simply looks at Richard. He twitches that dark eyebrow and they all cower back into their seats and stutter “Aye, aye my lord, whatever you say, your grace.”

Then along comes Lady Eleanor Talbot’s family to stick up for her and insist that she wasn’t a woman first ravished and then scorned – but Richard sees them first. He holds up his withered arm and frowns (deeply) and that’s that. Everyone backs off – sends their armies home for breakfast – and quickly elects Richard king before he can frown and twitch that sinister eyebrow yet again. Well – it’s obvious isn’t it? What else could have happened?

And of course Stillington was bribed by Richard. What do you mean – there’s no evidence of this? There is – and the evidence is clear. He claimed that Edward IV committed bigamy. So that’s the evidence he was lying. And we know the bigamy wasn’t true because it would have been too much of a coincidence if it was. Coincidence with what, you ask? Well, with the fact that we already know Richard was manipulating and conniving for the throne of course. Isn’t that how evidence works?

Besides, everyone was completely stupid in those days. We know that too. Otherwise they would have investigated everything at the time. Well, all right they said they did and they drew up documentation – but we know that was just a ruse inspired by Richard’s eyebrow.

And that’s that of course. Now we know. What a clever villain.

Certainly someone I could do with when I receive my next tax demand. I must practise an eyebrow twitch.