Well, of course, as you all know, 22 December is the 473rd anniversary of the death of Richard Plantagenet, alleged illegitimate son of Richard III, and… er, bricklayer, who nonetheless, for a few hundred years, got a better class of resting place than his famous ‘father’.
Unless, of course, the whole story’s balls. The evidence for is it “scanty”, according to “leading authority on the reign of Richard III” Peter Hammond, in an article published in The Ricardian, the historical journal of the Richard III Society.
Now, you may remember from the time of the discovery of Richard III’s remains in a Leicester car park that people with an interest in the subject can be quite… passionate* in their views, so, as you might imagine, this has been exhaustively investigated — saving me quite a job.
(*No, I do not in any way mean to imply ‘unhinged’ here, and you are very wrong to think it. But I digress.)
The “foundation of all the stories” about Richard is “an entry in the Parish Register of Eastwell, a hamlet three miles north of Ashford in Kent”. It reads:
Rychard Plantagenet was buried the xxij daye of December, Anno ut supra
(Anno ut supra means ‘Year as above’, referring to the date 1550, which appears further up that page of the register.)
There’s no reason to suspect it’s fake, but it does raise questions: Was he a Plantagenet? Did he think he was? Or did his employer, Sir Thomas Moyle, owner of the Eastwell estate think he was? We do know that a Dr Brett wrote a letter about it in 1735 — which, yes, was indeed quite some time later. This was then quoted in antiquarian Francis Peck’s miscellany Desiderata Curiosa, and then retold in Robert Chambers’ Book of Days of 1869. Basically, it might have been… enhanced in the retelling.
Sir Thomas Moyle having, about 1545, purchased the estate of Eastwell, began to build the mansion alluded to. He was surprised to observe that one of the bricklayers, a man well advanced in years, was accustomed, on leaving off work, to take out a book and begin to read. Sir Thomas’s curiosity was excited to know what book occupied the man’s attention; but the extreme shyness of the student for some time baffled his desires. At length, taking him by surprise, he found, to his increased astonishment, that the man perused a Latin book. He then inquired how he came to be able to read a book in that language, and after some conversation, obtained from him a series of particulars which he said had hitherto been told to none.
Sometimes, when I read Chambers, I wonder if he was paid by the word. Anyway, as a boy, apparently, the bricklayer had been “boarded with a schoolmaster” and “occasionally visited by a gentleman, who paid … for his … education, but who did not let him know his parentage”.
Then, when he was around 16, he was
conducted into Leicestershire, and brought before the king in his tent, in the midst of an army… Richard embraced him, acknowledged him as his son
…and said he’d be provided for as long as they won the day. This being Leicestershire, this was, of course, the Battle of Bosworth Field, which did not go quite as swimmingly as Tricky Dicky hoped. And WOULDN’T YOU KNOW IT…?
Which, yes, was awfully bad luck, wasn’t it? Anyway, young Richard later
saw a dead man brought in naked, laid across a horse, and learned that it was the monarch
and nipped off sharpish (I paraphrase slightly).
Chambers does have the decency to add: “This story is of so romantic a nature, that it might well be doubted”, and then says that historian John Heneage Jesse “expresses a general faith in it, and shews several reasons for thinking it true”, including…
At which point, in comes modern expert Peter Hammond, at a gallop, with:
It has been said that the register entry has a mark against it which only appears against the names of those of noble blood. This story was started in 1767 by Philip Parsons, the then Vicar of Eastwell. It is true that there is a mark of sorts against the name Richard Plantagenet, and that there are other (different) marks against other names (not all noble), but the explanation of these seems to be that they were made by a member of the Finch family, later owners of Eastwell, to mark off entries interesting to himself, which he then copied out.
He also reckons the tomb is one of the Moyle family’s rather than Richard’s, and the Friends of Friendless Churches, who now look after St Mary’s, Eastwell, refer to it as Victorian, which suggests at the very least, some doubt as to authenticity.
One theory is that Richard III — who had two illegitimate children whom he publicly acknowledged — didn’t need to keep this one a secret, so maybe Richard Plantagenet was actually one of the Princes in the Tower, and Old Crookback didn’t do them in.
Basically, we haven’t a bloody clue, but — now that the University of Leicester has some of the last Plantagenet king’s DNA — it may (theoretically) be possible to find answers to some or all of these questions. It just hasn’t happened yet.
(No, I’ve no idea why that preview image for the BBC story is so odd and irrelevant. Solid reporting if you click the link, though.)
