The New Murrey and Blue blog

As supporters of Richard III, we find it only too easy to dislike Henry VII. Not only did the churl defeat and kill Richard (not even through his own martial endeavours but through treachery!) but his looks mean we wouldn’t trust him an inch. He looks cold, calculating, shifty and downright untrustworthy, nor did he even have an acceptable right to challenge for the throne. He was crowned because he managed to emerge the victor on 22 August 1485. And the real man was exactly what he appeared to be in his portraits, including the one top right above!

Richard on the other hand we now know to have been handsome, and we’ve always known he was sensible, just, determined to rule wisely, and wrongly accused (by Tudor’s PR team) of some foul deeds, especially the deaths of the boys in the Tower.

My favouring of Richard began when I was about 9. I think I may have written before about the poster of all our monarchs that used to be on my bedroom wall. I was always drawn to Richard because he seemed so different….and I certainly liked his looks. Yes, I knew he was supposed to have done monstrous things, but I still liked him. It was to be years before I became his confirmed champion!

We who support Richard know he didn’t do those things, but Henry Tudor certainly did….maybe including the boys in the Tower. He had the motive and opportunity, as did several others. So let’s consider a different scenario, one in which Henry is handsome, just, dashing and charismatic. Let’s rewrite history….

Bosworth is now a conflict between a rightful king and an honourable challenger who wouldn’t dream of resorting to treachery on the field. I have no doubt that without the Stanleys’ dark arts Richard would have won, but our opinion of Henry might not be as vitriolic as the actual Henry ensured for Richard.

I’d like to think Richard would execute his defeated foe, but with Richard it’s hard to know. For all his traditional reputation, he wasn’t very bloodthirsty at all. He may have been decisive about lopping Buckingham’s Judas head, but there were others whose execution he certainly omitted whose removal would have been of immense benefit to him! All he wanted was a quiet life and time to rule the whole of England as well as he’d ruled the north.

Instead we got the first Tudor. Bloodthirsty is a word written through his entire line as surely as through a stick of seaside rock. God help us all!

It has become quite popular recently to “recreate” the faces of these long-gone people. And the Tudors are well presented at this site. Some are glamourised, in order to suit certain modern tastes, but there they all are. The men’s beards aren’t in the least appropriate for this period in history.

But glamourised or not, even with a smile, Henry VII isn’t handsome (see above left). His large nose rather gets in the way and we know that one of his eyes was disconcertingly slow to move with the other. Even with modern prettifying he looks as if he knows something we don’t…and when we do we’re not going to like it one little bit! His face has “You suckers!” daubed all over it!

Richard III on the other hand….

Biased? Moi? Never.