The New Murrey and Blue blog

The author of the Edward article (Tom Garner) also did one on Richard III at war, recently, i’s shown along side in a column of additional articles with academia – I’ve also seen the Richard one – probably History mag? Rather lurid or leering cover illustration of Richard, and too big to miss so it was likely the main article.

(I do not know the author otherwise, ‘academia’ does feature both popular and established historians, and many who would probably never be read outside their course syllabi or they are published in compilations of work- for example, Helen Fulton’s chapter in D.F. Evan’s “Gwalch Cywyddau Gwyr, essays on Gutor Glyn” is fascinating in that Fulton posits that the Welsh have long maintained Tudor won the crown because of their ‘policking’ – their advocacy – Gutor was a contemporary poet/bard of the period and she explains very neatly that Edward IV was beloved in Wales for his Welsh blood and championing the Herberts BUT Richard lost that love when he was believed to have killed the sons of Edward, and she cites the work from one of Gutor’s fellow bards, Dafydd Llwyd, referring to Richard as a “Jew, a hang-lipped Saracen,” (Fulton’s translations)

Just goes to show that both the Welsh at the time, and Fulton herself, were seriously uninformed about Richard, not just about the princes but about Richard’s relations with the Welsh and the Herberts! Edward had utterly cast the Herbert family aside after the execution of William and his younger brother Richard in 1469, the Herbert estates and power base was turned over to the Wydevilles and the prince, the heir (2nd earl of Pembroke) demoted to earl of Huntingdon and reduced to about 400-600 p.a. (if that) – and the heir was married to the Queen’s sister! Richard was in the process of rehabilitating the Herberts, and not just by the marriage with his illegitimate daughter (that was to reinvigorate William II’s paltry finances, essentially doubling them) but also brought the earl with him on the entire the Royal Progress and there is reason to believe that William II was made chamberlain to the (new) prince of Wales, Edward of Middleham. William II did not partake of the so-called Buckingham rebellion and did nothing to help Henry of Richmond in 1483 or 1485.

But referring to Richard as a “Jew and a Saracen” who got what he was due? that was a new slander I did not expect, I wonder now how much of the Tudor propaganda was provided by Guto’s helpful bards?

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