Annette Carson > Quotes

“a protectorate was a collaborative administration invoked when the king was unable to undertake personal rule, e.g. during a child’s minority. In a protectorate the king’s person was placed in the care of a group of guardians and educators during his minority, while the governance of the realm lay in the hands of the King’s Council under Parliament. The role of the Protector was spelt out explicitly by Parliament as primarily concerned with the security of the kingdom; his full title was Protector and Defender of the Church and Realm in England and Principal Councillor of the King. As the nation’s foremost military commander Richard was the obvious person to fulfil these security responsibilities; and with his mastery of administration, justice and international affairs he was well qualified to be a senior adviser during the inexperienced young king’s minority. In Henry VI’s reign the precise responsibilities of the office had been set out by Parliament, including his duty to deal with rebels (Rot. Parl. iv, 326); it was also decreed that the Protector was entitled to the obedience of all the king’s subjects (Rot. Parl. v, 242).”
― Annette Carson, RICHARD III UNSPUN: The Mysterious Affair at Stony Stratford and The Trouble with Hastings

“What stirred the southern gentry in October 1483 was not an outburst of moral outrage but the justified belief that they were losing power and influence to intruding northerners.”
― Annette Carson, Richard III: The Maligned King

“I invite readers to join me in substituting the name of Richard for that of Hastings. What if we had Richard in Council at Westminster openly threatening to take arms to defend his personal interests by raising the Calais garrison against a too-large Woodville army escorting the king? Wouldn’t traditional historians leap to characterize this as a display of unwarranted aggression by a man who would not scruple to resort to arms, perhaps stoking civil conflict in the process, in pursuit of a personal feud? Would they not take this as an ominous signal that such hatred of the Woodvilles would never tolerate a Woodville child on the throne? Wouldn’t he be classed as a dangerous man all too ready to resort to the sword? Yet Hastings’s character has never been seen in this light,”
― Annette Carson, RICHARD III UNSPUN: The Mysterious Affair at Stony Stratford and The Trouble with Hastings

“such as the degree to which his remains would be protected from public view and media photography, and how long they would be available to ULAS”
― Annette Carson, Finding Richard III: The Official Account of Research by the Retrieval and Reburial Project

“There has long been a school of thought that most of More’s ‘Richard III’ story was derived from Henry VII’s crafty ally Archbishop John Morton, in whose household More spent some of his formative years. Dr Kincaid’s research has gone deeper into this and revealed a clear basis for it in a manuscript by Morton. This was known and recorded by some of the antiquarians and scholars around the 1590s, who wrote of having seen Morton’s original anti-Richard pamphlet in the library of More’s heir and devoted daughter, Margaret, and son-in-law William Roper.”
― Annette Carson, RICHARD III UNSPUN: The Mysterious Affair at Stony Stratford and The Trouble with Hastings

“I do not apologize for making a case that challenges tradition, especially where tradition is based less on fact than on prejudice. Nor do I feel compelled to be even-handed in the face of unproven condemnation, a condemnation that has prevailed for 500 years without itself seeing fit to proffer an even hand to dissenting opinion. As a Fellow of the Richard III Society, I feel justified in subscribing to its belief that many features of the traditional accounts of Richard III are neither supported”
― Annette Carson, RICHARD III UNSPUN: The Mysterious Affair at Stony Stratford and The Trouble with Hastings

“On the strict understanding that any filming would be for the historical record and not for wider dissemination, and would be kept securely by ULAS, Langley agreed to the amendment.115 No other changes to the WSI were authorized.”
― Annette Carson, Finding Richard III: The Official Account of Research by the Retrieval and Reburial Project

“N.B. After the church was found, after LFR funding was used up, and after LCC offered a £5,000 contingency, only then did the University inject new funds and take over the project.”
― Annette Carson, Finding Richard III: The Official Account of Research by the Retrieval and Reburial Project

“This is a remarkable assertion by Mancini, putting the Hastings vs Grey feud at the heart of the confrontation that brought about the downfall of the Woodvilles and the rise of Gloucester. By dividing all these individuals into two opposing camps, for and against the Woodvilles, the thrust of Mancini’s narrative gives a principal role to what he imagined (or was told) was Hastings’s friendship with and influence over Richard”
― Annette Carson, RICHARD III UNSPUN: The Mysterious Affair at Stony Stratford and The Trouble with Hastings

“It is crucial to understand, therefore, that the Law of Arms was an internationally recognized system of legal jurisdiction which proceeded in accordance with the forms of civil law, and required neither indictments nor juries.”
― Annette Carson, Richard Duke of Gloucester as Lord Protector and High Constable of England

“The purpose and indeed the strength of the Richard III Society derives from the belief that the truth is more powerful than lies – a faith that even after all these centuries the truth is important. It is proof of our sense of civilised values that something as esoteric and as fragile as a reputation is worth campaigning for.’ HRH The Duke of Gloucester, KG, GCVO, Patron”
― Annette Carson, Richard III: The Maligned King

“The story of Henry Tudor’s invasion, his landing in Wales, his march to Bosworth Field, and the betrayal of Richard III by a small group of faithless nobles, is recorded to England’s shame in the annals of history. Doubtless Richard contributed to his own defeat by engaging the enemy before his army was at full strength. Even so, his attempt to settle the matter in ancient chivalric style, hand to hand with the pretender, was close to success until forces at his flank cut him down within sight of his objective – and within sight of winning the day, for there is no question as to who would have emerged the victor had it come to mortal combat.”
― Annette Carson, Richard III: The Maligned King

“Certain it is that the boys disappeared. Whatever happened to them, Richard’s fatal mistake lay in failing to realize that their disappearance would be used by the Morton-Beaufort-Tudor axis as an opportunity to manoeuvre the unlikely Henry Tudor to centre stage as a challenger for the throne. Regrettably, Richard appears not to have taken sufficient regard of this threat. Thus he would not have foreseen that removing them from view, even if done for the most benign of reasons, would play right into the hands of his opponents.”
― Annette Carson, Richard III: The Maligned King

“Indeed, these rebels knew exactly what they were doing by timing their uprising so as to prevent the upcoming sitting of Parliament scheduled for November 1483. They knew the grounds for Edward V’s disinheritance had been examined and accepted by an overwhelming majority of parliamentary representatives the previous June, and they could expect a formal Parliament to endorse that decision: their overriding concern was to set aside not just Richard III, but the constitutional framework that had set him on the throne.”
― Annette Carson, Richard III: The Maligned King

“If we are to approach these sources – and Richard III – with an open mind, we need to take into account (a) the Tudor regime’s need to justify its seizure of the throne, (b) the decades that elapsed after Richard’s lifetime before these myriad narratives appeared in print,124 and (c) the scant opportunity available, at that time or since, to verify any of these tales, which historians today would consider it rash to accept were it not that they have become woven into the fabric of our national identity.”
― Annette Carson, Richard Duke of Gloucester as Lord Protector and High Constable of England

“In dealing with treason the court superseded the right of the nobility to trial by their assembled peers, and it also extended to encompass not only the ranks of miles but all levels of society.”
― Annette Carson, Richard Duke of Gloucester as Lord Protector and High Constable of England

“Richard’s Parliament, which concluded on 20 February, is remembered for introducing a catalogue of citizens’ rights and protections which was unparalleled in living memory. Jeremy Potter summarizes thus: There was a programme of law reform which included measures to correct injustice in the ownership and transfer of land, measures to safeguard the individual against abuses of the law in matters affecting juries and bail, measures to prevent the seizure of goods of those arrested but not yet found guilty, and the abolition of a much resented form of taxation known euphemistically as benevolences.”
― Annette Carson, Richard III: The Maligned King