Ricardian (Richard III)

2025-10-27T13:20:30Z

104.195.200.92: /* Beliefs */

{{short description|Person interested in rehabilitating the reputation of Richard III of England}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Other uses of|Ricardian}}
[[File:Rous Roll - Richard and family.jpg|thumb|300px|Richard, his wife [[Anne Neville]], and their son [[Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales]] standing on [[white boar]]s in a contemporary heraldic roll by [[John Rous (historian)|John Rous]].]]
'''Ricardians''' are people who dispute the negative posthumous [[reputation]] of King [[Richard III of England]] (reigned 1483–1485). Richard III has long been portrayed unfavourably, most notably in [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]'s [[Play (theatre)|play]] ''[[Richard III (play)|Richard III]]'', in which he is portrayed as murdering his 12-year-old nephew [[Edward V]] to secure the English throne for himself. Ricardians believe these portrayals are false and politically motivated by [[Tudor myth|Tudor propaganda]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ashdown-Hill |first1=John |title=The Mythology of Richard III |date=15 April 2015 |publisher=Amberley Publishing Limited |isbn=978-1-4456-4473-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wVVpCAAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref>

==Beliefs==
Ricardians accept as facts: that first the young king [[Edward V]] was placed under the protection of his uncle Richard III; that Richard III himself was then crowned as the new king instead of young Edward V; and finally that the young king disappeared at some point over the coming years, never to be seen again. However, they dispute the initial common assumption by many, that Richard III was personally responsible for the disappearance (or perhaps murder) of Edward V.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Langley |first1=Philippa |title=The Princes in the Tower: Solving History's Greatest Cold Case |date=19 November 2023 |publisher=History Press |isbn=978-1-80399-542-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OlPVEAAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Ashdown-Hill |first1=John |title=The Mythology of the 'Princes in the Tower' |date=15 July 2018 |publisher=Amberley Publishing Limited |isbn=978-1-4456-7942-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mq6IDwAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref>

Richard III's reign lasted for only two years, and his short reign came to a violent end on 22 August 1485 at the [[Battle of Bosworth]]; the last battle of the [[War of the Roses]]. In the aftermath of the battle, Richard III's body was not given a proper state funeral, and the location of his remains was soon forgotten; there was even a belief, now proved false, that they had been thrown into the [[River Soar]] in [[Leicester]] following the [[Dissolution of the Monasteries]]. Ricardians assert that many of the original assumptions about Richard III's motives and likely responsibility relating to these events were not supported by the facts of the day, that these assumptions were most probably instead the result of the political claims of his successors, and that they were most probably mistaken assumptions.

The two most notable societies of Ricardians are the [[Richard III Society]], and the Richard III Foundation, Inc. A third much smaller Ricardian organisation, composed of "collateral descendants" of Richard III, was the [[Plantagenet Alliance]]. In 2012, the Richard III Society was instrumental in leading an archaeological effort to positively locate and identify the long-lost remains of Richard III, which resulted in the discovery and retrieval of the remains from beneath a Leicester car park.<ref>{{cite web|title=Search for Richard III confirms that remains are the long-lost Church of the Grey Friars|url=http://www2.le.ac.uk/news/blog/2012/september/search-for-richard-iii-confirms-they-have-located-the-long-lost-church-of-the-grey-friars/|publisher=University of Leicester|date=5 September 2012|accessdate=4 February 2013|archive-date=24 November 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121124031216/http://www2.le.ac.uk/news/blog/2012/september/search-for-richard-iii-confirms-they-have-located-the-long-lost-church-of-the-grey-friars|url-status=dead}}</ref> Subsequently, much popular historical interest was generated in this historical period. Such historical interest resulted in the review and publication of many articles and documents regarding Richard's reign, which have contributed to the scholarship of latter 15th-century [[England]]. After their discovery, Richard III's remains were first scientifically evaluated, then formally re-interred within the interior of [[Leicester Cathedral]] on 26 March 2015. Their re-interment occurred amidst days of solemn ceremonies and pageantry.<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/archaeology/11489187/Richard-III-burial-five-centuries-on-the-last-medieval-king-finally-gains-honour-in-death.html Richard III burial: five centuries on, the last medieval king finally gains honour in death] The Telegraph. By Tom Rowley. 23 Mar 2015. Downloaded 24 Sep, 2017.</ref>

===Notable Ricardians===

Ricardian [[historiography]] includes works by [[Horace Walpole]] and by Sir [[George Buck]], who was the king's first defender, after the Tudor period.

Ricardian fiction includes [[Josephine Tey]]'s ''[[The Daughter of Time]]'' and [[Sharon Kay Penman]]'s ''The Sunne in Splendour''. [[Elizabeth George]] writes of the fictional discovery of an exonerating document in her short story "I Richard". [[Science fiction]] writer [[Andre Norton]], in the 1965 novel ''[[Quest Crosstime]]'', depicted an [[alternate history]] in which Richard III won at Bosworth and turned out to be one of England's greatest kings, "achieving the brilliance of the [[Elizabethan era]] two generations earlier".

Other notable Ricardians include:
* [[Laurence Olivier]], actor<ref name=wapo>{{cite news |last1=Venant |first1=Elizabeth |title=REHAB FOR RICHARD: CLEARING A KING'S NAME |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1991/07/22/rehab-for-richard/69ddc86b-63f6-4ea7-9ee1-925f16b2f51e/ |work=[[The Washington Post]] |date=July 22, 1991}}</ref>
* [[Tallulah Bankhead]], actress<ref name=wapo/>
* [[Jose Ferrer|José Ferrer]], actor<ref name=wapo/>
* [[T. S. Eliot]], author<ref name=wapo/>
* [[Philippa Gregory]], author<ref>{{cite news |last1=Thorpe |first1=Vanessa |title=‘His story just continues to grip people’: Philippa Gregory revisits the history of Richard III for stage |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/30/richard-iii-philippa-gregory-hopes-to-overturn-panto-villain-reputation |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=30 July 2023}}</ref>

==Richard III Society==
{{Main|Richard III Society}}
[[File:Richard III Society Escutcheon.png|thumb|The arms of the society, granted in 1989<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.richardiii.net/8_6_badges.php|title = Richard III Society | SOCIETY BADGES and DEVICES}}</ref>]]
'''The Richard III Society''' was founded in 1924 by [[Liverpool]] surgeon Samuel Saxon Barton (1892-1957) as The Fellowship of the White Boar, Richard's [[Heraldic badge|badge]] and a symbol of the Yorkist army in the [[Wars of the Roses]]. Its membership was originally a small group of interested amateur historians whose aim was to bring about a re-assessment of the reputation of Richard III.

The society became moribund during the [[World War II|Second World War]].{{cn|date=September 2023}} In 1951, [[Josephine Tey]] published her detective novel ''[[The Daughter of Time]]'', in which Richard's guilt is examined and doubted. In 1955, [[Laurence Olivier]] released his film of Shakespeare's ''[[Richard III (1955 film)|Richard III]]'', which at the beginning admitted that the play was based on legend, and a sympathetic, detailed biography of Richard was published by [[Paul Murray Kendall]], all of which went some way towards re-invigorating the society.{{cn|date=September 2023}}

The Fellowship of the White Boar was renamed The Richard III Society in 1959.

In 2012, the society, working in partnership with the [[University of Leicester]] and [[Leicester City Council]], [[Exhumation of Richard III of England|exhumed]] a skeleton at the site of the former [[Greyfriars, Leicester|Greyfriars Church]] that was later confirmed to be that of the King.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/LIVE-UPDATES-Richard-III-DNA-results-announced/story-18041484-detail/story.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130421124125/http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/LIVE-UPDATES-Richard-III-DNA-results-announced/story-18041484-detail/story.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2013-04-21 |title=LIVE UPDATES: Richard III DNA results announced - Leicester University reveals identity of human remains found in car park |publisher=This is Leicestershire |accessdate=2013-02-07 }}</ref>

[[Philippa Langley]], the secretary of the Scottish Branch of the Richard III Society, inaugurated the quest for King Richard's lost grave as part of her ongoing research into the controversial monarch. Her project marked the first-ever search for the grave of an anointed King of England. For their role in the exhumation, Langley and [[John Ashdown-Hill]] were awarded the [[Order of the British Empire|MBE]]s in recognition of their services to "the Exhumation and Identification of Richard III" (''London Gazette'') in the [[2015 Birthday Honours|2015 Queen's Birthday Honours]].

==The Richard III Foundation, Inc.==
The Foundation is a US educational organization. The aims of the Foundation are to study, share and stimulate interest in the life and times of King Richard III and the Wars of the Roses.

Its website states, "The Foundation seeks to challenge the popular view of King Richard III by demonstrating through rigorous scholarship that the facts of Richard’s life and reign are in stark contrast to the Shakespearian caricature."<ref name="found">[http://richard111.com/ Richard III Foundation] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130704183715/http://www.richard111.com/ |date=2013-07-04 }}.</ref>

Their aim is to identify and translate documents and texts that shed new insight into this important period of history.<ref name = "found"/>

==Plantagenet Alliance==
{{Main|Plantagenet Alliance}}

The Plantagenet Alliance was a grouping of 15 individuals who claimed to be "collateral [non-direct] descendants" of Richard III,<ref name= Watson>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-23929989 |title=The Plantagenet Alliance: Who do they think they are? |first=Greig |last= Watson |date=13 September 2013 |publisher=[[BBC]] |accessdate=26 March 2015}}</ref> and have been described as a "Ricardian fan club".<ref name=Kennedy>{{cite news| last = Kennedy| first = Maev| title =Richard III's distant relatives threaten legal challenge over burial | newspaper = [[The Guardian]]| date =26 March 2013| url =https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/mar/26/richard-iii-relatives-legal-challenge | accessdate =26 March 2015}}</ref> The group, formed for the purpose, unsuccessfully campaigned during 2013 and 2014 to have Richard re-interred at [[York Minster]] rather than [[Leicester Cathedral]], believing that that was his wish.<ref name= Watson/><ref>{{cite news|title=Richard III reburial court bid fails|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27537836|accessdate=26 March 2015|publisher=BBC News|date=23 May 2014}}</ref> During the campaign, the group failed to attract enough support to petition parliament.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-24230823|title = Richard III parliamentary petition misses target|work = BBC News|date = 24 September 2013}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.richardiii.net Richard III Society]
* [http://www.silverboar.org Society of Friends of King Richard III]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/19961114021649/http://richard111.com/ Richard III Foundation]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20171016015135/http://www.ricardianfriends.org.uk/ Ricardian Friends]
* [http://www.richardiiiandyht.org.uk/ Richard III & Yorkist History Trust website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150413190526/http://www.richardiiiandyht.org.uk/ |date=13 April 2015 }}

{{Richard III}}
{{Historiography}}

[[Category:Richard III of England]]
[[Category:Wars of the Roses]]
[[Category:Historiography of the United Kingdom]]

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Ricardian (Richard III)