It is well-known that the history you find in books is not necessarily what actually happened.  It is also no secret that authors often change the story even further if they think it makes better entertainment – Shakespeare’s treatment of Richard III is a point in case.  This example also shows the danger of willfully changing facts -  the made up story becomes the new truth.

We recently heard from John Ashdown-Hill about the latest in rewriting history.  Last Sunday, 11 July, villagers of Grafton Regis, Elizabeth Woodville’s birthplace,  planned to re-enact the 15th century kidnapping of the uncrowned King Edward V in Stony Stratford High Street.  The word “kidnapping” set alarm bells ringing, but it got even more fanciful.  Straight from Shakespeare’s rewriting of history, we then get the usual stuff about Edward and his younger brother Richard being murdered in the Tower on the orders of Richard III.  And then we are informed that later during the re-enactment Elizabeth Woodville would arrive on horseback to search in vain for her son.

As John pointed out, how does one re-enact something that never happened?  Elizabeth Woodville was during the whole episode in London, too far away to just pop over to look for her son.  And as the whole meeting of Edward’s party and that of his uncle Richard of Gloucester had been arranged well in advance this was hardly a “kidnapping”.

In the meantime we received an eye witness account from Iris of what actually took place that day at Stony Stratford (I mean 11 July 2010).  Not only did Elizabeth Woodville get on her  motorbike (the equivalent to arriving on horseback) to chase up the A5, she took her younger son Richard and daughter Elizabeth along as well.  Contrary to the announcement, their search was successful and all returned happily to London in the evening.  The evil kidnapper was not even present, but just sent a letter to Elizabeth (how he knew that she would be in Stony Stratford is anyone’s guess).

The purpose of this strange re-making of history was to advertise a two-day History Fayre which will take place in Grafton Regis on Saturday 31 July and Sunday 1 August.  There episode two of this comedy of errors will be told:  the organisers promise us the re-enactment of a battle to attempt to rescue the kidnapped heir to the throne.  Their aim, raising funds for repairs to the village Church windows and a new kitchen for the Village Hall, is undoubtedly very worthwhile. But does the end justify any means, even making up battles which never took place?

Our branch committee discussed this event at our meeting last Saturday and we were unsure whether to laugh or cry.  We are pleased to hear that the Richard III Society, in the person of the chairman Dr Phil Stone, has written to the local press commenting upon the inaccuracies of the scenario.  In the meantime we continue to do our best here to pick up on inaccuracies in the press and it has fortunately been some time since we have had to reprove crossword compilers for “Usurping king (7)”.  However, it remains a long way to establish that “Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority” (Sir Francis Bacon), the  quote which is the basis of the title of  Josephine Tey’s classic.  Although today it would be appropriate to say “Truth is the daughter of time, not of entertainment”.

Julia Redlich and Dorothea Preis