What Lies Beneath
Wonderful, the discovery and then authentication of the bones of the last Plantagenet under the paving of a parking lot, or car park as the British say. To be interred (one hopes) with his ancestors and rivals in the appropriate tomb. The last English king to lead forces into battle. Paul Murray Kendall (whose biographies of Richard, King Louis XI, and Richard Beauchamp, the "Kingmaker" Earl of Warwick I read and re-read in high school) believed it likely that Richard did have the princes in the Tower done in: he supposes that Richard feared that another minor king would simply result in the same chaos as the minority of Henry VI had led to. Of course Dorothy Sayers in "Daughter of Time" and others too make a good case for Henry VII having eliminated two very dangerous rivals (who did in fact threaten him, in the form of the fake aspirants, or pretend pretenders, who popped up regularly). Kendall's Richard is basically a good man, a worrier, somewhat gloomy and private (compared to his six-foot golden-boy brother Edward) and haunted by his deed -- a character for a later Shakespeare to handle.
Published on February 05, 2013 04:16
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