Shakespeare
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Originally posted on Giaconda's Blog: Following on from my recent post about the reception of the Agincourt campaign by later generations and the associated ‘myth-making’ which has informed our view of those events, I wanted to look at the character of the central figure in Shakespeare’s play and compare and contrast it with the ‘real’ Henry…
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This new book looks at the characters, motivations, events and nomenclature of the Wars of the Roses, as we now know them. It confronts the great cliche that the series of battles began in 1455 and ended in 1485, demonstrating convincingly that it was still in progress decades later. Despite the fame of the Henry…
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JANE SHORE—TART WITH A HEART?
“withered arm”, adultery, Alice Perrers, Arthur “Tudor”, Catherine de Roet, Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville, Hastings, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Jane Shore, Ludgate, Ludlow, mistresses, More, Ralph Holinshed, Richard III, Rosamund Clifford, Shakespeare, sorcery, Thomas Grey Marquess of Dorset, Thomas LynomMedieval mistresses seem to get a raw deal from most contemporary and near-contemporary chroniclers, being seen as falling ‘outside the accepted norm’ in regards to sexual mores. Prim Victorian authors also enjoyed making moral judgments on them, and even modern historians, while less interested in the prurient details, often paint them as scheming she-wolves or…
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Revisiting Azincourt – 600 years of myth making.
1475 invasion of France, Azincourt, Catherine de Valois, Crecy, Edward III, Edward IV, Edward of Norwich, Edward the Black Prince, France, Harfleur, Henry V, Laurence Olivier, Louis XI, Margaret of Anjou, Myths, Poitiers, propaganda, Richard III, Shakespeare, Spain, St. crispin, St. George, St. george’s Chapel, Tewkesbury, Tower of LondonOriginally posted on Giaconda's Blog: King Henry Vth ‘O for pity!–we shall much disgrace With four or five most vile and ragged foils, Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous, The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see, Minding true things by what their mockeries be.’ I have always been fascinated by the battle of Azincourt…
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A member of the Richard III Society, Ian Dixon Potter who is a playwright has written a new theatre play about Richard III which opens in London on December the 8th. <<‘Good King Richard’ is the culmination of many months of research going back to contemporary sources and presents a revised view of Richard III,…
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STILL LOOKING FOR RICHARD
“Tudor” propaganda, “Tudors”, Battle of Bosworth, Charles Ross, Clements Markham, dictionaries, Edward V, Henry VII, illegitimacy, Josephine Tey, Leicester cathedral, London, NPG, Olivier, Paul Murray Kendall, PreContract, reinterment, Richard III, Shakespeare, Stanley Baker, Thomas More, Titulus RegiusIntroduction According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, the noun Ricardianism means ‘support for or advocacy of Richard III’. Even though I have been a supporter of king Richard III for almost six decades, I am reluctant to describe myself as a Ricardian since it implies a narrow interest in one man. I prefer to…
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Another version of Shakespeare’s Richard…which means the same old, same old, of course. This one is slightly different in that the lead is played by a woman, Emily Carding. She may be truly excellent, I don’t know, but the usual humpy back, evil psychopath, crawling around the stage and so on is much in evidence. If you’re a…
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Oh, dear, yet another actor well in his fifties, playing Richard, who was just in his thirties! I suppose they have to do this, so that Shakespeare’s daftness about Richard fighting in the 1st Battle of St Albans (when he was still only two) can appear more likely to the gullible! What do I think…
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The link below will take you to a lesson in what happens when someone has no knowledge or understanding of the real man around whom a work of fiction is woven. This reviewer clearly believes William Shakespeare’s description of Richard III, and the result is so full of historical inaccuracies, claptrap and misjudgement that it…
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