The Annual General Meeting of the NSW Branch of the Richard III Society was held on Saturday, 10 October 2015, at the Sydney Mechanics’ Institute. Chair Judith welcomed all members and visitors. Concern was expressed for members who have been facing illness and injury recently, with the sincere hope for their successful treatment, full recovery, and swift return to our meetings. Kevin was back after a year’s absence, and it was wonderful to see him looking well.
Judith gave a summary of our busy Ricardian year with the excitement of the reinterment ceremonies for Richard III in Leicester, the lineup of excellent speakers we were privileged to hear, the annual service, at St James Anglican Church to commemorate the Battle of Bosworth and remember Richard’s life and reign. Thanks were expressed on behalf of the branch members, for the hard work by the committee members throughout the year; the committee members then officially stepped down. Special thanks and a round of applause went to Dorothea for her 8 years’ service as a very active and dedicated webmaster and publications officer who attracted many international readers to our website.
Carole then facilitated the annual elections for the 2015-2016 committee positions. A number of officers returned unopposed to their roles, including Judith as Chair, Rachel as Secretary, Lynne as Sales Officer, Leslie as Affinity Newsletter Editor, and Joan as the afternoon tea lady. Newly elected committee members included Tim and Lawrence as webmasters, and Christine as Treasurer, with Joan expanding her duties to include Deputy Chair.
Our featured speaker was Mr Christopher Puplick AM, a long-time member of the NSW branch and a keen medievalist. His topic was “The Garter Knights of Richard III”, these being the various men that Richard selected for the honour of being made knights of the garter, that ancient order of chivalry. Hopefully a transcript of this interesting presentation will be posted on the website soon.
After the raffle was drawn, members enjoyed a lovely afternoon tea provided by Joan. The next meeting will be on Saturday, 12 December 2015. Our guest speaker will be Judith Mee, speaking on the topic of “Spoken and written English in Richard III’s time”. There will also be a Bring & Buy table, with proceeds going to the branch. It will be a good opportunity to recycle books and other items of interest. Please be prepared to take home anything that does not sell, however, as there is no provision for storage on site.
Tags: NSW Branch, Order of the Garter, Richard III
A friend of mine shared a link to a video clip about the making of the tomb of King Richard III on Facebook. I’d like to share the link here with you as I know that some of our readers are not on Facebook, but would also be interested.
Having seen the tomb face to face, I have to admit I never realised how much detailed and fine craftmanship was involved in bringing out the beauty of the stone so impressively.
Tags: Church, Leicester, Richard III
The NSW Branch Annual General Meeting will be held on Saturday, 10 October 2015, at the Sydney Mechanics Institute. Please plan to attend this meeting, to help elect the new committee for 2015. If you have any items for the agenda or wish to stand for the committee, please contact branch secretary Rachel.
Chris Puplick speaking at the 2013 Australasian Convention of the Richard III Society
Our featured speaker will be Mr Christopher Puplick AM, a long-time member of the NSW branch. Chris served as the Liberal Senator for New South Wales in the Commonwealth Parliament from 1978-1981 and 19841990, and was Shadow Minister for the Environment, Arts and Heritage from 1987 to 1990. He also served as the President of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board and was the State’s first Privacy Commissioner. In 2001, he was appointed a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia, for contributions to Australian politics and public policy, particularly in relation to human rights and social justice. He is the author of five books and over ninety other publications and broadcasts. His topic will be “The Garter Knights of Richard III”.
Membership renewals are due. If renewing by post please ensure that they are received no later than Friday 9 October, 2015, or made in person at the AGM on Saturday, 10 October, 2015.
Even if you are not renewing your membership for 2016, it is requested that you inform the Secretary or Treasurer in writing, as a courtesy.
Tags: NSW Branch, Order of the Garter, Richard III
Thanks to Philippa Langley and John Ashdown-Hill the phrase “Looking for Richard” became part of our lives and enthralled us through the search, discovery and final result. Then came the pride and emotion as we witnessed the re-interment – and acknowledgement of King Richard’s life in Leicester.
But what happens if you aren’t looking for Richard and he – and some historical connections – suddenly turn up when you least expect them, usually through a brief reference is a totally unexpected book.
I changed my mind about Richard’s character at the ripe old age of ten. I’d read the junior history books, seen the Millais’ portrait of those innocent little boys and even accepted the fact that in a pantomime The Babes in the Wood (at the Bournemouth Pavilion for the Dorset Group’s info) the wicked uncle wore black and had a hunchback. Hmm.
Then my sister and I saw a production of The Black Arrow at London’s Old Vic theatre and this was the cue for a major switch. This novel is subtitled A Tale of Two Roses and is set during the Cousin’s War. The young hero, Richard Shelton fighting for the Yorkists, becomes aware of a fierce encounter taking place. One of a small group of fighters is “so active and dexterous … so desperately did he charge and scatter his opponents … but so icy was the ground, one slip and his life would be forfeit.”
Young Richard of course comes to this man’s aid, the fight is won and he is “surprised to find in one who had displayed such strength skill and energy [was] a lad no older than himself – slightly deformed, with one shoulder higher than the other … The eyes, however, were very clear and bold.”
This is his first meeting with the young Duke of Gloucester, and after more fighting, Richard is knighted by the Duke for his valour, and finally, with the Duke’s royal consent, marries his love Joanna. RLS may well have been an early Ricardian …
A few years later, when reading one of English author Angela Thirkell’s delightful novels in which she picks up the descendants and places of Anthony Trollope’s Barchester novels, and sets them in the mid-1900s, I rejoiced to find Mrs Morland praising The Black Arrow.
“Why Stevenson thought so poorly of that book I shall never understand. All my boys loved it … And it was the only thing that made me really interested in Richard Crookback, until I read that book by that clever woman with three names, who proved that Richard didn’t murder the little Princes in the Tower and was a hero all the time and not a villain.”
Well, we all know the name of that book, don’t we? It’s probably on everyone’s bookshelves even after all the years since it was published in 1951.
Another book I loved at about the same age was Maddy Alone, by Pamela Brown. Twelve-year-old Maddy, an aspiring actress, learns about a film being made about a castle near her home. The kindly Bishop who is a family friend, takes her for lunch (with meringues) to soothe her misery at being left behind while her sister and older friends start at drama academy. Afterwards they go for a walk near the castle and he tells her that the film is about the daughter of Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Catherine of Aragon. He has just found some old papers that reveal that “at twelve years old away she fledde, forsook her crown but saved her hedde”. Apparently there was a plan to put her on the throne after Henry VII died, but naturally Henry VIII would have none of it.
There are some pretty valid comments about the undesirability of this particular Tudor and his propensity for an axe and a block to dispense with those he no longer needed in his life!
Richard isn’t mentioned, but I liked the Tudor reference. And, of course, our 12-year-old finds out that the daughter of Arthur is being played by a well-known and glamorous actress and chaos inevitably ensues. Now guess who plays the role at the right age …
Ricardians who are also die-hard fans of detective novels will be familiar with the Inspector Lynley novels, by the American author Elizabeth George, a self-confessed supporter of the last Plantagenet king. Her references to him in many of her books give us enormous pleasure – as does the investigation through to pages to find his name! These are some of my favourites.
This is a collection of three novellas, in one of which – I Richard – an interesting theory as to what happened to the Princes and, indeed, whodunit, is presented. With Philippa Langley’s new quest to discover an answer to the age-old mystery, you could appreciate the idea.
Sergeant Barbara Havers asks Lynley why the statue of Henry VII outside a school faces north, not south, towards the school entry.
“He wants us to remember his moment of glory. So he’s looking to the north, in the direction of Bosworth Field.”
“‘Ah. Death and treachery. The end of Richard III. Why does it always slip my mind that you’re a Yorkist… Do you spit on Henry’s tomb whenever you get the chance to slip down to the Abbey?”
He smiled. “Religiously. It’s one of my rare pleasures.”
Lynley speaks to Deborah and Simon St James about the power of tourism: “Don’t people pay to see the Queen of Scots death mask?”
“Not to mention some of the grimmer spots of the Tower London,” St James said. “The Chapel Royal, Wakefield Tower.”
“Why bother with the Crown Jewels when you can see a chopping block?” Lynley added. “Crime doesn’t pay, but death brings them running with a few quid.”
“Is this irony from the man who’s made at least five personal pilgrimages to Bosworth Field on the twenty-second of August?” Deborah asked blithely. “… where you drink from the well and swear to Richard’s ghost that you would have fought for the Yorks?”
“That’s not death,” Lynley said with some dignity, lifting his glass to salute her. “That’s history, my girl. Someone’s got to be willing to set the record straight.”
The Girl in the Photograph, by Kate Riordan, is a recent publication I enjoyed. Set in an old, crumbling English manor, the heroine, living a lonely life there, is convinced that one night the resident ghost is around. The sound of footsteps, drifts of perfume and so on. According to local legend this is none other than Margaret of Anjou who stayed there on her way to join young Edouard, Lancaster Prince of Wales, at Tewkesbury, unaware that his death is imminent. It seems that the author assumed her readers would know exactly who Margaret was as there is no further reference to her back story, the Cousins’ War, or the fact that her companion would have been Anne Neville , the future queen and wife of Richard III.
The uncertainly and mystery about Richard has obviously struck a chord with many authors. One of those in the Golden Age of English Crime Writing was Dorothy L. Sayers who, in Have His Carcase has her noble detective Lord Peter Wimsey on the hunt for the killer of a young man whose body was found stranded on a rock off the Cornish coast. His quest takes him to the offices of theatrical agents where the photograph of the victim reminds one agent of someone who would have made “a good Judas”. “Or a Richard III,” says the other.
Then follows an interesting discussion of the guises Richard portrays in Shakespeare’s tragedy. The man who plots, the man who flies into tempers that, according these two, are as artificial as his love-making to Anne. As he leaves, Wimsey asks the Inspector who is with him what made them think of Richard III.
“Wasn’t he the fellow who made up his mind to be a villain?” to which Lord Peter confesses that he has “something on his mind and can’t seem get it out”. A nice cue to let you read on!
A further visit to a theatrical connection occurs in one of the other-authored sequels to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. In Sally Beauman’s Rebecca’s Tale we meet one of those seeking to find the secrets of Rebecca’s life, and an obscure reference leads him to the memoirs of legendary actor manager Sir Frank McKendrick, who recalls the charming young actress Isabel Devlin who had died shortly after leaving his company.
“I grieved for her. I should add that Miss Devlin’s daughter was also at this time a member of our little “band of brothers” … she was a most unusual and wicked Puck at a very early age and was of great use to us in boys’ roles. I remember her as a swaggering but subtle young Princeling to my Richard III … but we heard no more of her after her mother died.”
Unusual, wicked, swaggering and subtle could all apply to the later mistress of Manderley.
And Shakespeare’s Edward V recalls another childhood book, Noel Streatfield’s Ballet Shoes in which young Pauline’s portrayal of the role leads her on to the fortune that helps her family.
How many other books are there to prove that their authors found him just as significant as Ricardians? Information welcome!
The Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson, published 1888.
Three Score and Ten, by Angela Thirkell, Hamish Hamilton, 1961
Maddy Alone, by Pamela Brown, Nelson, 1945
The Evidence Exposed, by Elizabeth George, Hodder & Stoughton 1999. ISBN 0 34 075 063 0
Well-Schooled in Murder, by Elizabeth George Bantam, 1990. ISBN 0 553 401 167
Missing Joseph, by Elizabeth George, Bantam, 1993. ISBN 0 553 402 382
The Girl in the Photograph, by Kate Riordan, Michael Joseph, 2014. ISBN 978-0-718-17928-1
Have His Carcase, by Dorothy L. Sayers, Gollancz 1932.
Rebecca’s Tale, by Sally Beaumont, Little Brown, 2001. ISBN 0 316 858 137
Ballet Shoes, by Noel Streatfield, Dent 1936.
Tags: Books, Bosworth, Margaret of Anjou, Princes, Richard III, Wars of the Roses, Yorkists
Mike Pitts, Digging for Richard III: How Archaeology Found the King. Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2014
This review of the first edition of Digging for Richard III was originally posted in August 2014. I have reposted it now, as a new paperback edition of this excellent book has just been published. For this new edition, the text has been revised and it has been extended, too. More about the paperback edition on Mike Pitts’ blog. Highly recommended!
Please note this book had come out before the results of further research were published, and therefore does not contain any information on these issues.
Unlike many other recent books about the Greyfriars Dig, which led to the discovery of Richard III’s remains, Digging for Richard III was written by someone who was not himself involved in the project, which gives it a certain amount of impartiality.
Like a play the book is organised in five acts, the narrative building up to the dramatic climax in Act V. The first act sets the scene for Richard’s death in battle and burial at the Grey Friars in Leicester with a short review of the Wars of the Roses. Act II ‘Looking for Richard III’ tells the story of what led to the archaeological dig and giving background information on the key players like Philippa Langley and the research staff from ULAS. While some details of Philippa Langley’s pre-dig life have been circulated widely, the information about the archaeologists was new to me. It confirmed them to be an experienced team, who knew what they were doing.
Act III looks at the actual excavation resulting in exhuming the skeleton, which was found on the first day and would be shown to be that of Richard. It ends with the van carrying the remains leaving the car park.
Up to that point this was a co-project of the Richard III Society/Looking for Richard Project and the University of Leicester. Act IV marks the beginning of a new research project, one that will be exclusively carried out by scientist. The results of this research are then represented in Act V.
Mike Pitts also includes an analysis of the costs and who paid what. Considering how much misinformation is circulating on this issue, this is highly welcome. The original budget had been £33,000, of which the Richard III Society and its members had contributed a little more than half. However, once remains had been found that warranted further examination –examination, which was necessary to prove that the remains were those of Richard III – the budget had risen (by 31 December 2012) to £142,000. The additional funding came from the University of Leicester, which means that they paid for about 80% of the entire project.
The book closes with an Epilogue, which covers the actual site of the Battle of Bosworth and some of the other battles, which have since been fought over Richard. He also differentiates between history and archaeology, with archaeology making “the concept of history tangible and present, part of our lives.” [p.189] To be honest, I don’t see how any serious history is possible without evidence, be it archaeological or from old records.
This brings me to the one criticism that I have with this book. The author seems to have a rather undifferentiated view of the membership of the Richard III Society. For him, they are bunch of sentimental loonies, who won’t let any facts stand in the way of their pre-conceived idea of perfect Richard. While I can’t deny that some members do think like that, and possibly they are even the most vocal, they do not represent the membership as a whole, which is – like any group of people – very varied.
However, apart from this little niggle, I found Digging for Richard III a highly enjoyable and an informative summary of the facts of the project, without the speculation and assumptions, which some of the other books on the topic cannot leave behind. It tells the whole incredible story in a lively manner, without sacrificing the facts in the quest for readability. Sir Tony Robinson’s quote on the cover sums it up nicely: “An entertaining, knowledgeable and forensic examination of one of the most extraordinary archaeological digs ever!”
Listen to an interview with Mike Pitts about Digging for Richard here.
Tags: Books, Leicester Greyfriars Dig, Richard III
Tomb of Richard III, Leicester Cathedral (D Preis)
Thank you to our friends of the Canadian Branch of the Richard III Society!
They alerted me to an article in our paper, the Sydney Morning Herald, that SBS is showing ‘Richard III: The Burial of the King’ on Friday.
This documentary, hosted by Jon Snow, shows the Reburial Service, in which Richard III was laid to rest in Leicester Cathedral on 26 March this year. I was lucky enough to watch the service live on TV in the UK, in the company of other members of the NSW branch.
This is a programme not to be missed by anyone interested in this king. And a ‘Thank you’ too to Ben Pobjie of the Sydney Morning Herald, for giving Richard III a more balanced write-up than what is frequently found in the media.
Tags: Leicester, Leicester Cathedral, Richard III, Richard III Reinterment
Members of the New South Wales Branch of the Richard III Society ad their friends are invited to share in remembering Richard’s life and to commemorate the Battle of Bosworth
Refreshments will follow the service
Tags: Bosworth, NSW Branch, Richard III
The Richard III Society has published a 72- page record of the reinterment week of Richard III. This Souvenir Booklet is being dispatched to all Society members this week and should reach us soon. This will be invaluable to everyone.
Tomb of Richard III, Leicester Cathedral (D Preis)
The September Ricardian Bulletin, with the Society annual report, is due to be dispatched in the first week of September.
Tags: Leicester, Richard III, Richard III Society
The June branch meeting of the NSW Richard III Society was held on Saturday, 13 June 2015, at the Sydney Mechanics’ Institute. Chair Judith welcomed all members and visitors; several new members were introduced. The meeting was cut short to make time for the presentations, but one important piece of business was a letter read aloud thanking the branch for our donation to the Leicester Cathedral Richard III fund. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Leicester, NSW Branch, Richard III
There has been a change in the scheduled speakers for the June General Meeting, with Chris Puplick now to be featured in October.
The speakers for June will be three of our branch members, Dorothea, Judy and David, who were fortunate enough to be able to attend the many ceremonies and commemorations in Leicester with the reinterment of Richard III in March this year. Each has a lot to share and will be able to show images and tell about their moving experiences.
It will be wonderful to hear their stories.
Tags: Leicester, NSW Branch, Richard III
