SWMNBN had the credentials to call herself a historian, certainly, but I think it’s a hysterical fantasical historian. No I’m being unfair think is the wrong word, she is a hysterical fantastical historian.
I still haven’t got over her certainly/maybe guilty but I like her really I do verdict yet..Don’t know why but whenever I think of that, my brain (wherever it is, doing the time warp again I expect) conjures up an image of Dick Emery’s Mandi as in “Ooh you are awful, but I like you” before pushing the person over or into a hedge or something and walking off.

Ha! Ha! You are just pushing that envelope, Olga! Don’t get me started on Mantel.
Shakespeare did research his kings. Much of what he wrote about them came directly from the history books. Except Richard’s shape. That was purely Shakespeare. I figure people of that time really disliked Richard and found it amusing that Shakespeare would deal with Richard as he did. And if he did base the character on Cecil, I think that audience would get it.

if anyone is interested, the BBC have said that they will be filming Hollow Crown II, the sequel to the 2012 series of Shakespeares Richard II, Henry IV pt 1&2, and Henry V – HCII is due out (ish) in 2016 and it will be the three parts of Henry VI, and Richard III.

Benedict Cumberbatch is to play bad Dick III – honestly, playing Smaug, Sauron and now Richard III, that boy will get typecast…

if you’ve not seen Hollow Crown i really recommend it – i thought the Richard II and Henry IV films were brilliant, though i’ll admit to being underwhelmed by the Henry V film, i like Tom Hiddleston, but the film didn’t have the energy of the Ken Branagh’s 1989 film, and it looked a bit threadbare in places. battles with perhaps 30,000 participants take lots of extras to do convincingly, and its clear the budget had been spent by that point.

looking forward to HCII though, its not history, but its very entertaining.

Olga said …although I agree perhaps they thought it was just a good joke.

i think one of the reasons Richard III was so demonised by later historians and playrights was because he, unlike the others, was a safe target – you could pour all your disatisfaction about whichever monarch happened to be on the throne onto Richards head and while the audience might get the references with a nod and a wink, you could happily stand in from of the judge and say ‘oh no, its all about that devil Richard III’.

in the Tudor period it would be difficult to be overly rude about Edward IV because he’s Henry VIII’s Grandfather, and Elizabeth I’s great-Grandfather, and Henry VII’s (dead) father in law, and by the time of the Stuarts living memory is long gone, and all thats left is what was written by people who weren’t stupid enough to say what a nice bloke RIII was..

It is interesting that the first real defence of Richard III came just a few years after the Tudors had given way to the Stuarts.

The one written by Sir George Buck (1560-1622) I’m not sure when he wrote it but it was not published until 1646, some years after his death –

I would like to get the annotated copy of Buck that Arthur Kincaid produced, but I see it is one of the out-of-print Ricardian books now changing hands for megabucks. I have the free Kindle version, but that’s the one his nephew ‘edited’.

I would love to know what happened to John of Gloucester – another young man who vanishes completely from history…….

No, Boleyn – I was talking about Richard III’s illegitimate son, John of Gloucester.

With regard to Prince John, the youngest son of George V and Queen Mary, the Lost Prince was a fictional account of his life. If you research him, you will find that he suffered from illnesses which meant he needed a settled, quiet environment and not the busy Buckingham Palace as a home. So it was decided to have him live at Sandringham. After The Lost Prince was broadcast, an elderly woman wrote to the papers saying she was the daughter of one of the estate workers and played with Prince John as a child. She said he was not forgotten – his parents and brothers and sisters visited him frequently and he was a very happy child. I have a book of early royal family photographs and there are quite a few of Prince John with his siblings.

This is a quote from Wiki, but is sourced:

“As John’s seizures intensified (Bill later wrote) “we [dared] not let him be with his brothers and sister, because it upsets them so much, with the attacks getting so bad and coming so often.”[11] Biographer Denis Judd believes that “[John]’s seclusion and ‘abnormality’ must have been disturbing to his brothers and sister”, as he had been “a friendly, outgoing little boy, much loved by his brothers and sister, a sort of mascot for the family”.[18] He spent Christmas Day 1918 with his family at Sandring­ham House but was driven back to Wood Farm at night.

On 18 January 1919, after a severe seizure, John died in his sleep at Wood Farm at 5:30 p.m.[21] Queen Mary wrote in her diary that the news was “a great shock, tho’ for the poor little boy’s restless soul, death came as a great relief. [She] broke the news to George and [they] motored down to Wood Farm. Found poor Lala very resigned but heartbroken. Little Johnnie looked very peaceful lying there.”[18]

Mary later wrote to Emily Alcock, an old friend, that “for [John] it is a great relief, as his malady was becoming worse as he grew older, & he has thus been spared much suffering. I cannot say how grateful we feel to God for having taken him in such a peaceful way, he just slept quietly into his heavenly home, no pain no struggle, just peace for the poor little troubled spirit which had been a great anxiety to us for many years, ever since he was four years old.” She went on to add that “the first break in the family circle is hard to bear, but people have been so kind & sympathetic & this has helped us much.”[22][23] George described his son’s death simply as “the greatest mercy possible”.[11]”

So you see – he was not abandoned by his family – they cared for him very much and tried to find the best living emvironment for him.

I think that film (The Lost Prince) has done a great disservice to historical truth – but we are used to that, aren’t we?

Yes, the Wiki stuff is broadly accurate. The identities of the mother(s) of Richard’s illegitimate children is unknown. The idea that one of them was Alice Burgh is based on the fact that Richard paid her an annuity. Yet it is more than possible that she was his legitimate son’s nurse, rather than his mistress.

All the stuff about the pension is correct, but then John just vanishes. If he had been involved in the PW affair, then one might expect a record of his trial, conviction and execution – but there is nothing. It is as if he just fell off the edge of the world.