The NSW Branch of the Richard III Society wishes all its readers, friends and members a very happy new year.

Like with Christmas before, I was wondering what Richard III and his family would have done on New Year’s Eve.  Fireworks, champagne and ‘Auld Lang Syne’?  Well, not quite.  For starters ‘Auld Lang Syne’ was only written by Robert Burns in 1788 (1).  At that time fireworks were well established in England as Georg Friedrich Händel’s ‘Music for the Royal Fireworks’, composed in 1749 (2), shows, though they do go back to 12th century China and have been recorded in Europe since 1258 (3).  Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Christmas, Medieval Life, Richard III

Don’t forget that this coming Saturday, 12 December 2009, we will have our last meeting for this year.  Judith will reveal to us the  hidden meanings behind all the gifts “my true love sent to me” in the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” – what an interesting talk this promises to be!   Afterwards small groups will  compete in a game of Scattergories.  The afternoon will conclude with our  Christmas celebration.

As usual the meetings will be held at The Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney at 2pm.  Please remember to bring your own mug for afternoon tea.

And if you would like to find out more about us, remember visitors are always most welcome!

Tags: Medieval Life, NSW Branch, Richard III

We recently noticed an article in The Stranger, a Seattle newspaper, about a new play about William Shakespeare (1).  Equivocation by the Jesuit Father Bill Cain premiered this year at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  The description sounds fascinating, let’s hope it comes to a stage in Sydney, too!  Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Richard III, Theatre

As Ricardians we have known for a long time that Henry Tudor was bad news, but how bad I only recently found out.

Just a few days after Henry’s landing at Milford Haven on 7 August 1485 a never before seen disease broke out, which followed him from there via Bosworth Field to London, where by the end of October 1485 several thousand citizens had been killed by it.  It is assumed that it was brought to England by Henry’s French mercenaries, who were apparently immune to it.  There is clear evidence that it was spoken about before the Battle of Bosworth. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Disease, Henry Tudor, Richard III

At our recent AGM, our attention was drawn to some new Ricardian books, which might be of interest to our readers.  These are:

1)   The Kingmaker’s Sisters by David Baldwin

This book details the lives Warwick’s sisters and their roles as wives, mothers and deputies for their husbands, and the effect on them and  their families during the Wars of the Roses.

(The History Press 2009 – 9780750950763 Hb)

Some of those present had already read this book and said that they had found it most interesting.

2)   Richard III and the Death of Chivalry by David Hipshon

The author examines how politics of  the quarrel between the Stanleys and the Harringtons, and Richard’s support of the latter, cost him support at the Battle of Bosworth.

(The History Press 2009 – 9780750950749 Hb)

3)   Richard III and the Murder in the Tower by Peter A. Hancock

This book asserts that William, Lord Hastings, was dragged out of a meeting of the Royal Council and summarily executed on 13 June 1483.  This book offers a solution to this precipitate act and the the role played by William Catesby.  It also offers a solution the fate of the princes in the tower.

(The History Press 2009 – 9780752451480 Hb)

All three books sound like must-reads for Ricardians.  In this context Dorothea mentioned the Book Depository in the UK with free delivery world-wide and thanked our member Jackie from the ACt for this tip.  You can find their details on our Links page.

Tags: Books, Richard III

Here are further news on the research carried out to establish where exactly the Battle of Bosworth was fought (for our previous article please click here).  

Ben Hoyle of the British Times reports that Glenn Foard, a battlefield archaeologist who has led the investigation into the whereabouts of the fighting, is convinced that he has unearthed the proof.  The interesting bit about this proof is that  Mr Foard’s team has discovered more lead artillery shot at Bosworth than has so far been recovered from all the other 15th-century and 16th-century battlefields in Europe put together.  Abandoned cannonballs and bullets are of special interest to battlefield archaeologists because they are made of lead like the ones at Bosworth and decay far less quickly than iron and steel handweapons.  According to Steve Walton, a specialist in medieval artillery at Pennsylvania State University, the use at Bosworth predates by ten years the earliest hard evidence for cannon used as mobile battlefield weapons, as opposed to on board ships, in garrisons or for long-term sieges. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Artillery, Bosworth, Richard III

We just heard that Loyalty Binds Me announce the new double feature DVD Sandal Castle:  The Battle of Wakefield 1460 & Building Sandal’s Castle.

Loyalty Binds Me is a small, independent film production company based in the North-West of England.  They specialise in a unique style of DVD feature where by computer reconstruction they take us on a guided tour of both an existing castle site and  the castle as it may have been in its glory days.  You may have seen their previous DVD, the fascinating Middleham Castle: A Royal Residence.  This new DVD promises to be equally stunning.  It contains two parts:

The Battle of Wakefield 1460
A 30 minute feature exploring the castle’s place in history.
When Richard Duke of York perished at Sandal Castle, the House of York faced extinction. Did the Duke’s folly bring this disaster on their heads? What really happened at Wakefield?

Building Sandal’s Castles
A 45 minute feature exploring the history of the castle.
Take a journey through time, as we track Sandal Castle’s development from the Aisled Hall of the 12th century to the stone fortress of the 15th. See why King Richard III chose it as the headquarters for his government of the North.

Additional features include full chapter selections, English subtitles and a Slideshow Gallery of castle images.  Written and presented by John L Fox, featuring the voice talents of Robert Hardy and Richard Dodd, the Sandal Castle DVD is the second instalment in The Richard III Collection.

For more information and to order have a look at the website of Loyalty Binds Me.

Tags: Castles, Middleham, Richard III, Sandal, Wakefield

Earlier this month the Los Angeles Times published an interview with Philippa Gregory about her recent novel The White Queen under the promising title “Philippa Gregory on a Tudor Smear Campaign”.   

In this interview Philippa explains “why  she sides with those who see [Richard III] as the victim of an extraordinary propaganda machine”.  The novel is told from the view point of Elizabeth Woodville.  For Philippa it simply does not make sense  that Elizabeth would have let her daughters stay at Richard’s court, if she thought that he had already killed her two sons by Edward.  On the other hand there is good reason to suspect others like the Duke of Buckingham or Henry Tudor.  However, all these possibilities got swept under the carpet by “the absolute triumph of Tudor propaganda”. 

The interview concludes with stating that “Each time a production [of Shakespeare’s Richard III] gets staged, we’re repeating the lesson that Richard was nothing but a hunchback villain. That’s the tragedy”. 

 Thank you, Philippa, for bringing our view across so clearly! 

Read the full interview here.

Tags: Elizabeth Woodville, Richard III

On 22 August 1485 King Richard III was killed in the Battle of Bosworth, incidentally the last British king to die in battle.   The controversy over the exact site of the battle has been going on for quite some time.

Traditionally the battle was thought to have taken place at Ambion Hill near Market Bosworth in Leicestershire.  This is where the recently upgraded visitors’ centre stands.

However, as the British Daily Telegraph reported recently it now seems certain that this was not the case.  Tests have ruled out that the battle had taken place on Ambion Hill itself, and also that the stone memorial erected to Richard III half a mile away, on the spot he supposedly fell, is situated on the wrong spot.

Latest research points to a site on low-lying ground between the villages of Shenton, Stoke Golding and Dadlington, as the most likely site.  This was first proposed by the historian Peter Foss in 1990. Another theory puts the battle around eight miles away in Atherstone, where documents show Henry’s army might have camped prior to battle.

Leicestershire County Council was awarded a £1 million Lottery Heritage grant to carry out a survey, the most comprehensive ever carried out on a British battlefield.  The official results will be announced early next year.

Read the full article from the Daily Telegraph here.

In this context the London and Home Counties Branch of the Richard III Society is hosting an open [i.e. open to all Society members able to attend], lecture, by Dr Glenn Foard FSA MISA, University of Leeds and the Battlefield Trust, entitled: ‘Finding Bosworth battlefield – archaeology and the future of battlefield studies’, on Saturday, 24th April, 2010, in the Wolfson and Pollard Rooms, at the IHR, Senate House, Malet Street, London, at 2.00 p.m.

Tags: Bosworth, Richard III