As winners write history

I finally finished my second read of Sharon Kay Pennman's The Sunne in Splendor. My foray into Plantagenet history is fairly recent, compared to my studies of the Tudors, Romanovs and Stewarts. My fascination with Plantagenets began in the summer of 1999, when I was living in Bloomington and I went to see the community theater's dramatization of Shakespeare's "Richard III." I was fascinated. Geneology dictated that the Tudors and Plantagenets were intricately interwoven with each other and since then, I've been trying to track down the 'real' Richard III.

I've had some help from the Richard III Society, a UK-based organization bent on redeeming Richard Plantagenet (aka Gloucester) for the various crimes attributed to him. For a bit of background, Richard III was only king for just over two years. I found this to be a very readable biography of Richard III.

I haven't yet had the opportunity to read the original source material from that time period yet. That's a project for this summer. Right now, I'm depending on various source materials - from my own collection of history books - to try to figure out what the truth about Richard III really is. Most of my background material for this time period comes from acclaimed biographer Alison Weir's The War of the Roses (aka known as The Hundred Years War) and her Princes in the Tower. The latter biography I do not recommend as Weir has a tendency to be biased, regardless of her subject and "The Princes in the Tower" is possibly the most flagrant abuse of that bias. (Alison Weir has a way of inserting her own theories, not necessarily based on any historical evidence, into her biographies. She advanced some theories about Anne Boleyn's health in The Six Wives of Henry VIII that has never before appeared in any other text. That being said, I do consider Weir's "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" to be one of the best book on the subject).

Anyway, back to Richard III. I'm a shameless apologist for the man. Evidence before his reign as king does not show any noticeable desire for power. Rather, it shows him as a highly loyal subject to his brother, Edward VI, and a good, competent governor for the North of England. In addition, unlike many men of the time, there is evidence that Richard III was faithful to his wife (his two illegitimate children were born prior to his marriage to Anne Neville, aka Anne of Warwick. There is little information based on Anne, but Jean Plaidy's The Reluctant Queen is a good Anne-centric novel). Based on the first 30 years of his life, it's so hard to think that Richard would step completely out of character and become the tyrant that Tudor historians portrayed him.

It could be my own tendencies to redeem Richard III based on his character that I enjoy "The Sunne in Splendor" so much that I decided I needed to purchase my own copy of it. It is a highly accurate novel - possibly the most accurate portrayal of the time and attitudes out there. Frankly, the late 1400s were little documented at the time or rather, there is not that much documentation extant today. So a lot of what has survived to this day has been the work of latter-day historians, such as Sir Thomas More, Croyland and de Commynes. Here is a reading list of some of the sources and evaluations from that time period.

Sir Thomas More is possibly the best known 'biographer.' I use the term loosely as much as of what More has written regarding the character of Richard III, both in terms of physical and mental description, does not match up with contemporary chronicles. Note that Sir Thomas More was around 7 years old when Richard III reigned; More's history was written well after Richard's death. In addition, this history was never formally published during the reign of Henry VII - the man who defeated Richard at Redmore Plain (aka Bosworth Field) - as some of the allegations made were damning to members of Henry VII's court. More was the one who advanced the idea of Richard's deformaties - possibly helped out by Edward Rous (who contended that Richard was in the womb for 2 years!). Shakespeare based his Richard III on much of what Rous and More put forth as an accurate history.

Pennman manages to deflect all allegations regarding Richard's later life and activities skillfully. She doesn't completely absolve him from guilt, but she also makes it clear that he wasn't a tyrant. He was a man in love with his wife, deeply devoted to his brother, and wanted only what was best for England. I'm a hopeless romantic so I prefer this version of history than the one that became prevalent during the reign of Henry VII.

The explanations Pennman offers - for the death of Richard III's nephews, the reason why Richard took the crown, where Anne Neville disappeared to, why Richard and Anne no longer seemed to be together towards the end of Anne's life, Richard's attraction to his niece Bess (Elizabeth of York, later on Queen of England, as she married Henry VII and was the mother of Henry VIII). All of this is explained - but without a subversion of contemporary history. Consider this a solid recommendation for a well-written historical fiction that can also be taken as a history lesson - but one that goes down a heck of lot easier than most texts.