Richard The Chird (68 page)

Though the Memoires of Philippe de Commynes (1447-1511) were not published until 1524, the passages relating to England were written, as appears from internal evidence, between 1486 and 1489. Commynes contributed to the Tudor tradition through his influence on the very important work of Edward HalL His evidence is of widely varying worth. Having been a councilor first of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, and then of King Louis XI, he speaks with great authority on Edward IV's flight to Burgundy and the invasion of 1475; but for events happening in England he had to depend on hearsay. His view of Richard's reign appears to have been largely determined by what Henry Tudor and Henry Tudor's followers told him while they were at the French court. Commynes was so impressed by Henry that he pictures him as raised up by God to overthrow King Richard. When Commynes wrote, Henry VII had not yet gone to war with France or secured the Spanish alliance.

The Tudor tradition proper begins with The History of

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King Richard HI by Sir Thomas More. Written about 1513, when More was undersheriff of London, it first appeared, in a corrupt copy, in Grafton's Continuation of Hardyng's "Chronicle," 1543, then in Edward Hall's The Union . . . of Lancaster and York, 1548, and finally in an authentic edition published by More's nephew William Rastell in 1557. Rastell added certain passages translated from the Latin version of the work, which was not printed until 1566. Because of the obvious animus which pervades this history, and because of a conjecture put forward in the later years of Queen Elizabeth's reign, it has often been maintained, particularly by those attacking the Tudor tradition, that the Latin version of Richard III, from which the English seems to be derived, was written by Cardinal Morton himself, in whose household Thomas More had been put to service as a boy. In the latest edition of More's work, however, R. W. Chambers has convincingly demonstrated that More wrote the history, deriving the greater part of his information from John Morton. 2

The History of King Richard HI created the portrait of Richard presented by the Tudor tradition. It can perhaps be called the first piece of modern English prose; in the vividness of its detail and the exuberance of its style it rivals anything in the Elizabethan age itself. The History covers a period of less than four months, beginning with the death of Edward IV and breaking off in mid-flight with Morton's ensnaring the Duke of Buckingham at Brecknock. Why More failed to finish it is a mystery.

The opening description of Richard sets the tone of the work: he was

little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard favoured of visage . . . ; he was malicious, wrathful, envious, and from afore his birth, ever froward. It is for truth reported, that the Duchess his mother had so much ado in her travail, that she could not be delivered of him uncut: and that he came into the world with the feet forward . . . and (as the fame runneth) also not untoothed. . . . He was close and secret, a deep dissimuler, lowly of countenance, arrogant of heart, outwardly companionable where he inwardly hated, not letting to kiss whom he

thought to kill: dispiteous and cruel, not for evil will alway, but after for ambition, and either for the surety or increase of his estate.

It is from this work of More's that many of the leading elements in the Tudor tradition spring—Richard's repulsive appearance, his responsibility for the deaths of Clarence and King Henry, his plotting for the crown long before King Edward died, the invariable infamy of his motives, his stirring up hatred against the innocent Woodvilles in order to secure the protectorship, and, most of all, his glittering diabolism. All these elements are projected with rich and rhythmic phrases building into wonderfully dramatic scenes—the entrapping of Hastings at the Tower being the most famous—and also with a marvelous wit and an irony which, if obvious, is nonetheless pungent. The dramatic power of the work is developed by extensive use of dialogue. Having quaffed the heady draughts of classical historians, More, in true Renaissance style, delivers more than one third of his History in the form of speeches by the chief characters.

The gross inaccuracies of this work, its apparently willful distortions of fact and its urgent bias, are not nearly so surprising as the positive virulence which informs it Richard is entirely removed from the sphere of human life; he is evil incarnate, sheer monster, and as such he is reviled. Part of the explanation obviously lies in More's sources of information. Much of what he reports is derived from John Morton, a bitter enemy of Richard's; other passages reflect the gaudy gossip of the Tudor court. But a good deal of More's heat is kindled by his motive for writing the History. It is, as The Earlier Tu-dors points out, "an attack upon the Redpolitik practiced by the princes of his day.' 13 Like his friend Erasmus, and many other men of the New Learning, More was much concerned with the education of "the Prince/' that all-powerful head of the nationalist states then springing into bloom. Doubtless More and Erasmus had often discussed the matter, and probably More was aware, in 1513, of Erasmus' plan to produce a book of precepts for the Christian Prince, which he did publish a few years kter. To complement Erasmus' picture of the Good

Prince, More saw in the horrible figure of the last Yorkist king which Morton and others had sketched for him the opportunity of creating the Bad Prince as an example and warning to the kings of his generation. More's History is, in essence, a humanist tract. Ironically enough, it was perhaps Sir Thomas' intense dislike of Henry VIFs dissimulation and dark dealings—openly attacked in his Latin verse celebrating the accession of Henry VIII—that led him so to emphasize these qualities in the Bad Prince as represented by Richard III! The animus of the work comes, then, not only from its sources but also from its purpose and is heightened by the stunning vitality of More's literary talent. His objective is not primarily to blacken Richard's character for the gratification of the Tudors but to exaggerate the already malign figure of his source materials in the good cause of humanist education.

More supplied the portrait of Richard III for the Tudors; Polydore Vergil created the ideological frame of the portrait. Vergil carne to England in 1501 as the subcollector of Peter's pence for Pope Alexander VI; he already enjoyed a reputation as a humanist; he was a friend of Erasmus'; he arrived with recommendations to Henry VII. About 1507 the King asked him to undertake a history of England. By 1517-18 he had completed the work down to the end of Richard's reign, and in this form his Latin history was first published in 1534; the second edition, of 1546, carried the history down to the death of Henry VII in 1509; and the third edition, of 1555, the year of Vergil's death, brought it to 1538. Most of this time Vergil spent in England, for though he incurred the enmity of Wolsey, he enjoyed the favor of the Tudors and received many ecclesiastical offices.

In his authoritative work upon Vergil, Denys Hay points out that "Henry VII had more reasons than many other sovereigns for welcoming a defence of his dynasty which would circulate among the courts of Europe. The Italian historiographer was already at work in many trans-Alpine countries where no revolutionary change of rulers had occurred. . . « Henry VII had every reason to encourage Vergil to undertake a history

of England which would justify the Tudors to the scholars of Europe. Vergil likewise could expect royal favours in return for the work." Elsewhere Hay notes that Vergil "thoroughly accomplished his task of interpreting English history in favour of the Tudors." *

In"his Anglica Historia, Vergil shows himself to be a thorough humanist, not only in his use of the stylistic mannerisms of the classical historians, but in the critical spirit with which he scrutinizes and employs his sources. He makes an attempt at characterization; he probes for motives; he establishes relationships of cause and effect. In all these respects he marks the change from medieval to modern historiography. He stirred up many enemies because he denied the cherished tale of England's being founded by the Trojan Brutus and was skeptical about other myths. He was called a liar; he was accused of burning wagonloads of source material. Though these charges probably represent no more than the outraged pride of his opponents, it is possible that when he came to deal with the reign of Richard the Third, he did destroy evidence that showed Richard in too complimentary a light. 5 *

To the sixteenth century the really important part of the Anglica Historia lay in its picture of England from the usurpation of Henry IV to the reign of Henry VII; of which the portion dealing with the period from Henry VI to Richard III was soon translated into English. It is Polydore Vergil who creates for this piece of history the pattern which becomes the framework of the Tudor tradition. The pattern is both moral and theological, with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is Henry IV's usurpation of the throne and his taking the life of the luckless Richard II. By this act the divine concord of society is broken and England is eventually plunged into the horror of civil strife. This, in turn, is brought to its monstrous climax in the bloody career of King Richard, and the end of the drama is provided by Henry Tudor, God's Jus-ticer and Vengeancer, who overthrows Richard to re-establish peace, concord, and prosperity by uniting the Red Rose and the White. Heavenly retribution appears not only in the outline but

in the details of the drama. Henry VI perishes because of the sin committed by his grandfather Henry IV; Margaret of Anjou pays the penalty for the murder of Duke Humphrey; the sons of Edward are the innocent victims of Edward's perjury in swearing to the men of York in 1471 that he has come only to claim his dukedom. The period of history from 1399 to 1485 is conceived as a separate and special entity; it is, essentially, a morality play. Richard, symbol of evil and discord, is eradicated by Henry Tudor, God's final agent of retribution and England's savior.

Except for the information he supplies about Henry's plans and movements, Vergil has little to offer concerning the history of Richard's reign. Even though he is writing for Henry VII, he is too conscientious a historian to suppress all evidences of good rule on Richard's part; but he attempts to reconcile them to his audience and to his pattern by tortuous passages arguing that even Richard's worthy acts were performed from the basest motives. Vergil's great importance to the sixteenth century lay in the pattern that he created, a pattern into which later Tudor writers would snugly fit More's vivid portrait of Richard.

In fact, it can be said that subsequent Tudor historians simply reproduce, and sometimes embellish, Vergil and More, copying in varying degrees one from another. The following are the most important links in the chain:

The Continuation of Hardyng's "Chronicle," published in 1543 by Richard Grafton. Hardyng's verse history, which ended with the beginning of Edward IV's reign, is continued in prose to the year of publication. The Continuation leans heavily upon More and Vergil. The Union of the Two Noble and lllustre Families of Lancaster and York, by Edward Hall, published in 1548. This pictures the reigns of the eight kings who ruled after 1399, ending with "The Triumphant Reign of Henry the Eighth."

The Chronicle of Richard Grafton, published in 2 vols. in 1568. This follows More and Vergil, making use of Hall's additions. The Chronicles of Raphael Holinshed, published in 1578. Shakespeare used the new edition of 1587. Holinshed follows Hall closely, though

sometimes blurring his narrative, and makes some additions of his

own.

The three parts of King Henry the Sixth, by William Shakespeare, or

perhaps a reworking by Shakespeare of earlier plays, and Shakespeare's

Richard the Third.

Of these historical works, by far the most important is Edward Hall's, both because it is his history which Shakespeare used, probably directly as well as through Holinshed, and because it is his history which finally welds together More and Vergil and permanently "sets" the Tudor tradition.

Hall is himself an interesting character because he is so representative of his times. To the very depth of his being he believed in Protestantism and the new autocracy of the Tudors. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, he became a judge and a Member of Parliament during Henry VIIFs reign, and Henry had no more loyal or passionate partisan than he.

Hall deepens and develops what he finds in More and Vergil. He actually succeeds in darkening the lines of More's portrait of Richard, and he makes Henry Tudor nothing less than an angelic deliverer. As E. M. W. Tillyard points out, "for Hall these two are not so much historical personages as Good King and Bad King respectively." e Similarly, the pattern sketched by Vergil is boldly developed—"as King Henry IV was the beginning and root of the great discord and division, so was the godly matrimony [of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York] the final end of all dissensions titles and debates." The vehemence of Hall's viewpoint may be gathered from the fact that this wedding is compared to the union of godhead and manhood in Christ and no lesser power than the Holy Ghost informs the Duke of Buckingham that Henry Tudor is the lawful claimant of the throne. More's portrait and Vergil's pattern are not only merged but exaggerated and hallowed by Hall.

It is the substance and spirit of Hall that William Shakespeare worked to a still higher pitch of dramatic sensation to create Richard the Third. Written about 1593, this juicy melodramatic tragedy throbs with the youthful vitality of Shakespeare's genius; it also endorses the political attitude of the day which enjoyed

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contrasting the blessings of Tudor despotism with the preceding horrors of civil discord, and it reveals Shakespeare's indebtedness to the works of Christopher Marlowe. Marlowe had created the play of the superman, a monolithic structure built about a colossal protagonist. In Hall's account of Richard, Shakespeare saw his opportunity of fashioning history into such a structure, As Barabas in Marlowe's Je